A while later, Melly finally showed some movement. “Ah, she’s waking up!” I shouted.

“I see. Once she’s up, I’ll need to question her about what happened.”

“I understand.” I sighed. Sorry Melly, I’ve caused us several problems.

“Ah, where? Eli!” Melly says as she wakes up.

“Hello Melly, how are you feeling?” I ask nervously, a strained smile on my face.

“Um, fine? What about you? I saw you collapse!” She asks in worry. Haa, even now, she’s more worried about me. I can just feel my guilt growing.

“I’m fine, I was just tired. I did release a whole bunch of energy after all.” I pacified.

“Haa, that’s good.” She then tried to get up, but was stopped by chains before I could stop her. “What?” We both asked.

“We chained her up just in case she was still berserk.” Cardinal Caitlyn explained. Ah, I guess that’s fair.

“Oh, yeah, that happened. I’m sorry for that.” Melly apologized.

“No, It was my fault. I was the one-”

“Enough!” Cardinal Caitlyn interrupts. “I’ll ask Melly for her side before passing judgment. I will release you first.” She says as she releases some mana. Huh, the chains were a magic tool, that’s actually pretty rare. Is that why she was here then, to power it? Magic crystals are fairly rare after all.

“Thank yo-” Melly pauses as she starts to get up. Ah, she’s noticed. Maybe I should have just healed her, but…

“Are, are you, well?” I dumbly asked. Of course she’s not. Her hands are a mangled mess, barely even recognizable as human hands. She has a few other drastic injuries, but her hands are the worst. Haa, she even lost some chunks of bone somehow. It is gruesome. I guess that’s what happens when you keep punching well after your bones have broken.

Melly didn’t answer. She just blankly stared at her mangled arms. Oh, even the little healing I did messed up, her radius and ulna are bent.

I just bowed. “I’m sorry! I’ll fix it, I promise.” I all but beg. I’m trying not to cry. There’s no time for crying. I can cry after I properly heal her. Sadly, despite my desperate attempts, I still ended up crying.

I’m so sorry! I caused this, it’s all my fault! Why’d she end up paying the price! Why couldn’t it have been me! I’ll do anything!

I soon feel some pressure throughout my body, twisting and turning. It hurts. It’s my fault. I deserve this.

As I start drowning in my thoughts, Melly calls out. “It, haa, it is… fine. You can fix it, right? You’re the saintess.” Melly strains to say, struggling to stay calm as she asks with a plastic smile.

I nod, but as I try to speak, no words come out. I can’t say anything? I can’t! I really can’t. I’m scared, my chest hurts. What’s happening? I don’t have time for this, I need to assure Melly that everything will be fine!

“Breathe! Elizabeth, Breathe.” Cardinal Caitlyn shouts in panic.

I quickly gasp for air. “Haa, what?” I mutter as I desperately breathe.

“You stopped breathing and then started to panic.” She answers.

I, stopped breathing? What? Is, is that what was causing the, apparently physical, pain in my chest? Did, did I really get so emotional that I literally forgot to breathe? Haa, at least the shock of that realization ended my spiral.

“Okay. Melly, I can heal you.”

“That can wait! Are you okay?” Melly asks in worry.

“I’m fine. So, I healed most of you, but the rest will be difficult.” I start explaining.

“Eli! Calm down!”

“I am calm. So, major injuries can sometimes heal improperly, even when healing magic is used.” I continue to explain.

“Just leave her be. She’s escaping her problems.” Cardinal Caitlyn sighs.

“Maybe. So the best way to deal with that is to have you be awake, usually thinking about how your body was previously. If I was more familiar with your body, I might have been able to do that on my own, but I’m sorry that I can’t.”

“You can’t? After everything?” Melly says in shock. She looks hurt. Oh no, I’m going to cry again.

“You are drastically underestimating how difficult such a thing actually is.” Cardinal Caitlyn cuts in. “It is far more than just some intimate understanding. It requires a focused study of your body and how it works. Such things are usually only done for royalty or the lovers of high-leveled healers. Besides, without permission, doing that is actually illegal. So, I ask that you don’t blame Elizabeth.”

“That’s right!” I hurriedly agreed.

“Oh, okay…” Melly accepts. “But, why?”

“Well, it’s a massive invasion of privacy so-” I start.

“No, why is it so difficult to heal properly?”

“Oh, that’s because, other than a select few, usually outlawed, spells, all healing spells at least somewhat use the body’s natural healing process as a guide. Sadly, while people’s innate healing is pretty good, it’s not perfect. Without proper care or guidance, many wounds end up healing improperly. So, to work around that, we use the patient’s perception of their body to fix most of the issues.”

“I see, so that’s why you didn’t fully heal me.”

“Yes! I’m sorry, but healing just works better that way. I try to only heal unconscious people in emergencies. Even then I usually only do the minimum then as well. And, while I don’t want to bring attention to it.” I hesitate.

“Haa, just say it.”

“Even some of the healing I did do messed up. Hence your, um, crooked arm.” I squeezed my eyes shut. I hope she’s fine.

“Haa, I see. Do I have to rebreak it or something?” She asked calmly.

“No, no. We have spells that can fix that, they are just slow, taking several times longer than normal, because of how delicate such operations are.”

“Oh, that sounds annoying.”

“Don’t worry! I won’t rest until you are fully healed!” I promised.

“It’s fine, don’t push yourself.” Melly comforts.

“Now that that’s settled, I have some questions for you.” Cardinal Caitlyn says. I pout, but don’t say anything as I start healing properly.

“Okay, what do you need to know?”

“Why did you attack everyone? Did you know Elizabeth couldn’t cast spells, and did you plan on using that trio of buffs?”

Melly glances at me. I nod. For what? I don’t know. I’ll let Melly decide, I’m just a healer. I’m going to focus on healing Melly.

“Okay, so first, I had forgotten that Eli wouldn’t be able to cast spells, though she worked that out.” Melly starts.

“Yes, it’s a remarkable ability. I’m looking forward to its development.”

“Yes… Next, I did plan on using them, but with how Eli was at the time, I’d given up on that thought. I was quite surprised when it happened.”

Cardinal Caitlyn gives me a look. I ignore her. I’m just a healer, don’t mind me. “Okay, and the reason you went berserk?”

“Well, initially all that happened was an attack and me getting back onto my feet. Then, for some reason Elise’s strength became less controlling, and the rage from skeletal refinement increased. Since Eli collapsed, I guess her anger towards Pallet and her inability to assist left the task entrusted to me?” Melly guessed.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You don’t know?”

“Well, at the time, all I could think about was destroying Pallet.” Melly apologized.

“Haa, I guess I can’t entirely blame you, you were under the influence of a quite dangerous spell.” She gives me another look as I gulp. “So, Elizabeth Michael, why did you enrage Melly?”

Oh, that’s not good. “Um, it was an accident?” I stutter.

“Really? How?” She says coldly, disbelieving me.

“It was an accident.” Melly defends.

“I’m asking the Saintess.” The Cardinal shuts Melly up. “So?”

“Well, I didn’t know I could do that in the first place, so…”

“If you didn’t know, how did you do it?” She continues.

“I don’t know! All I remember was being really mad at Pallet for really hurting Melly, so I wanted to stop him!”

“Is that all?”

“Well, maybe I wanted to get back at him. But! I didn’t think we could. I thought I could maybe get one good hit in, but that’s all! Besides, I was forcibly ejected from patient analysis just before losing consciousness, I wasn’t even properly aware of the situation!” I argued.

“Haa, I figured.” She sighs. When she notices my confused look, she continues. “As far as I can tell from how you react towards others disliking you, you aren’t the sort of person who would try to kill someone without a valid reason.”

“Well, yeah?” Isn’t that normal.

“Okay, maybe not kill, but you don’t just lash out in anger over ‘mild’ things. If you do, it would either be at least somewhat justified, or an accident. Both of which happen to apply here.”

“Then, why were you so aggressive?” Melly asks. I nod.

“Because regardless, Saintess Elizabeth needs to be punished, I just needed to know how harshly.”

I sighed in relief, but Melly complained. “She didn’t do anything wrong! If you are going to punish someone, punish me. Or Pallet! We were the ones that started it, and he went way too far!” Melly shouts.

“Melly! It’s fine. It’s my fault.”

Before we could get too engrossed in arguing, Cardinal Caitlyn stopped us. “I know! Quiet! Her punishment is partially for dealing with dangerous spells.” Well, we can’t argue with that.

“Am, am I going to have to stop using them?” I almost started crying. You can’t! We worked so hard on those.

“That depends. Melly, I’d like to talk to you.” She turns towards me. “In private.”

“Haa, okay.” It hurts that she doesn’t seem to trust me, but if Melly is the one that wants to stop, I will. As I go to leave, Melly grabs me. Huh, I didn’t think she could use her hands.

“No.”

“You refuse to talk about this?” Cardinal Caitlyn asks angrily.

“No, I’ll talk with Eli here.” Melly declares.

Cardinal Caitlyn gives a very stern look at me. I know what she’s thinking, but that’s not it! “It’s fine, Melly. You can say whatever you want to the Cardinal. I’ll follow whatever you decide.”

“No. I have nothing to hide from Eli! Either you talk with her here, or we don’t talk at all!” Melly declared. While I am thankful for your support, you’re just making things worse for me.

“While I highly doubt the Saintess is coercing you, I do have to ask. So, don’t worry, she currently lacks any power, so we can protect you.” Cardinal Caitlyn promises. Haa, I’ve become a villain!!! I want to cry, again. I didn’t even realize that I was sitting on the ground now.

“Haa, I know. But, Eli isn’t doing anything bad.”

“Then why?” Cardinal Caitlyn asks, confused.

“I want her to hear whatever is being asked. And, my answers.” She declares, giving me a determined look.

“Understood. So, the main thing is, how do you feel about those spells being used on you? Truly.”

“Haa, first, I want to talk about the troll fight.”

“Okay. Take your time, my work can wait until tomorrow.”

“So, when we were fighting the troll, I started to lose. At the time, one burst of bad luck, and even Eli wouldn’t be able to save me. Then, Eli suddenly cast more buffs on me. I asked what she was doing, but was ignored. Rapunzel said that she drank a mana potion though, so wherever was going on, was serious.” Melly starts.

“Sorry about that. I’d entered patient analysis.”

“Yeah, I know that now, but at the time I was worried. Anyway, suddenly my buffs started acting up, causing me to become even more worried, doubly so when I ended up being knocked down. The only things stopping me from panicking was my buffs slowly getting stronger, and Eli making sure to heal me. So I didn’t complain all that much.” She describes. “Though that would have just landed on deaf ears.” She adds

Haa, yeah. I avoid her gaze.

“So, after a bit of trial and error, her buffs finally got a noticeable improvement. While not enough to change the tides, it was enough to continue our stalemate. Then, after feeling some weird things throughout my body, I suddenly lost control over my body. I could no longer control my own strength. It was, at the time, the most frightened I’ve ever been. Only facing a literal dragon has surpassed that.”

“Once again, I am so sorry.” I bowed. It’s being compared to a dragon now!

“Haa, I didn’t mention that to get an apology.” She corrected. “So, at first, I was very angry, but as we were currently occupied, I didn’t start a fight. It wasn’t worth dying over, though I’d planned on beating Eli up afterwards.” Melly admitted. Phew, I’m glad we were able to get along.

“You were going to beat up your healer, who was going to be suffering from mana poisoning. That’s, not very smart.” Cardinal Caitlyn points out.

“Yeah. I probably wasn’t actually going to, at least, once I realized that she wouldn’t be able to heal herself afterwards.” She argued. “Anyway, then she described what the effects of her new buff were, and I couldn’t help but forgive her. While I was quite nervous, my desire for the new buff’s power easily overwhelmed my fear and anger. And when it was fully working, ah, it was magnificent.” Melly smiled, seemingly with stars in her eyes.

“I’ve heard. It’s impressive how drastically she was able to improve. Mid fight even. This saintess is quite talented.” Cardinal Caitlyn complimented.

“Yeah. I’d heard about how it is relatively easy to raise the power of your buffs to the point of doubling the target’s strength and the like, but any further progress slows to a crawl. Suddenly doubling that increase, that’s almost unheard of. I think.”

“No, you are right. Increasing one’s ability to fully cast the buff to completion, where it properly affects one hundred percent of the target, is fairly standard. Normally, the only ways to acquire a noticeable increase in buffing power like that are when you become a saintess, as all magical capabilities are increased to a set standard, or, specifically during preMilo days, when you learn a new, powerful spell. But, even then you rarely ever see such a grand increase.”

“Really, shouldn’t other people be able to just copy me?” I questioned.

“Did you really think that was the case? Ah, you did, didn’t you. Haa, while anyone theoretically could think of that, very few could actually just do it. Even now, I’m not completely certain how you did it. I do believe it has something to do with the strangeness of your mana though, but I’m not certain. Either way, what you did isn’t just replicable. You don’t just change a buff spell.” Cardinal Caitlyn complained.

“I, see. I did not know that. That at least explains why I’d never heard of something so obvious. Speaking of, why did I not hear of that?”

“Because it is far more efficient, in the mid to long term, to learn how to max out the buff’s fullness first, as modern buffs are specifically designed to spread themselves evenly. Something that it rarely does properly when randomly modified. So, to help promote that, it is standard practice to not even mention adjustments until the student is nearing basic mastery. Speaking of, how did you do that optimization? Moving and condensing the mana of an active spell is extremely difficult.”

“I don’t know, I just did.” She just sighed at my response.

“Continuing.” Melly interrupted. “So, after experiencing the power of that buff, I decided that I should fully support any such experiments, no matter how reluctant I might be about them.”

“Melly, Please don't force yourself. I’d feel really bad if you were.” I beg.

“Well, I kinda am, but that’s mainly because of my greed though. I want you to succeed. I want to use your powerful spells. Yeah, it was extremely uncomfortable, but so was my training.” She laughed. “I want to get stronger, Eli, that’s the reason why I joined the Hero’s party in the first place.” Melly admits.

That’s, not very noble. Though, that brings up a good point. Why did everyone join the party? I mean, I didn’t really have a choice, and I’m pretty sure Rapunzel was effectively just ordered to join. Hmm, thinking about it now though, there is likely much more to her story. Haa, I’m surprised that I’ve never even thought to ask.

As I was lost in thought, Melly continued. “So, as I saw a new opportunity to grow in power, I had to take the chance. That’s why I pushed so much when you corrupted the, preMilo?” I nodded. “Spells. Their power was too much to pass up, even if we could barely use them.”

“Even if you were going to be controlled?” Cardinal Caitlyn asked oddly.

“Well, I didn’t think that would truly be the case at first. I just thought I’d have to figure out how to properly use it, since Eli refused to find my mana veins.” She pouted.

Before I could answer, Cardinal Caitlyn shouted. “Of course not! Do you know how dangerous that is!? You could be crippled. Completely, with zero, okay, ZERO ways to recover. If Elizabeth had even considered that an option, I’d be angry at her.”

“I, see.” Melly responded in shock. “Sorry Eli. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.” Melly quickly apologized.

“Yeah, though that’s partly my fault. You’ve gotten used to the idea that I could fix anything. Sadly, while I can effectively do that for myself, we, as healers, are far from being able to do that for others.” I also apologize.

“Wait, does Melly know?” Cardinal Caitlyn asks.

“Yeah, I showed her all my mana vein books and spells.” I admit.

“Why? That’s fairly classified information.” She questions, not angrily or anything, just genuinely curious.

“Well, I thought it would be helpful. And, we did learn a bit more about them because of it. Now, I can actually heal Hansen’s spirits.”

“Well, as long as that info isn’t spread, there shouldn’t be any problems. Just be careful, you do only have so much leeway, after all.” She cautioned.

“Thank you, I’ll be careful.” I promised.