The Schnellia I met in the original work was, how to put it.
The sort where the impression that came out was: if you took hell and shaped it well, it might look like this.
That she was strong does not even need mentioning.
The problem was that you could not evade her attacks.
Hide anywhere, pull any trick, and she would follow without fail and finish you.
How many times did my heart nearly drop at the way she shoved her face in without warning, like a jump scare.
Those red eyes left such a strong impression that they would not leave my mind.
'There was no way to know when Schnellia was eroded and destroyed the Empire.'
The traces of history were shredded far too fine.
I had thought Schnellia was still all right.
Because I had already seen how getting eroded turns you into a zombie with your mind gone.
All this time she had spoken normally and fought normally.
Who would have suspected?
But she had been eroded long ago?
The Empire's future is certainly bright.
If things flow along the original history, there is no future for me either.
In an age where people scrape by day to day not knowing whether they will live or die, are they going to come to a hospital at their leisure?
I would be lucky not to be devoured by an Outer God the day after opening.
"Your Highness is already eroded...... is what you are saying."
"Yes."
"The Erosion being the same Erosion I am thinking of, correct? Not just some dirty mark appearing."
"I was eroded by an Outer God."
This world is finished. Thank you for telling me so clearly.
"But it is strange. Does everyone eroded not degrade into a minion without exception? Your Highness shows no sign of it at all."
"I do not know the reason either. I only conjecture it may be thanks to the aura."
"Have you been examined by a Physician?"
Schnellia shook her head.
"No one but me knows. Dunker, if this fact became known it would be the end."
"It would be. The imperial court is sparing no military support for Your Highness. If it got out that the Empire's Greatest Sword was in fact a minion, the country would be turned upside down."
"......You do not intend to speak of it outside?"
"A doctor never exposes a patient's medical records. You may trust me."
Schnellia relaxed the tension around her eyes as though reassured.
Right. We have already made a contract, so there is no running away anyway.
And if the original history flows on as it is, there will be nowhere for me to run in the first place.
'Let us start with an examination.'
For some reason Schnellia cannot be checked with Diagnose.
I took a notebook out of my bag and began the interview.
"What symptoms do you have?"
"......Sometimes during combat my body does not move as I intend. It is an eerie feeling, as though someone were controlling me."
"Is it only a feeling, or do you actually feel impairment in your movements?"
"Impairment...... is not quite the word. If anything it becomes too skilled, which is strange."
"Too skilled?"
"I should perhaps say time slows. It does not actually slow, but something about my senses heightens. My body is reacting before I even think."
"Intermittent excessive autonomic movement present. Suspected adrenaline hypersecretion......"
I recorded in the notebook and continued the questions.
"So if anything, more strength wells up?"
"Yes."
"And no ataxia or loss of muscle strength."
Even with a sense of being controlled from outside, she retains her self.
It is hard to see it as delusion or a psychotic symptom.
"Does this not happen in daily life?"
Schnellia nodded.
"Consulting what I have observed of completely eroded minions and Apostles so far."
Having finished my assessment, I ventured a guess at the cause.
"Erosion is highly likely to be an infectious disease that affects the nervous system. Grand Physician Archibald's paper was along similar lines."
"What is the nervous system?"
"Here, the brain and the spinal cord."
I reached out and pressed the back of Schnellia's neck. She shivered slightly.
"When our brain gives a command to the body, it must go through the nervous system. The same when perceiving sensation."
"So that is the principle."
"A patient with a neck injury sometimes complains of numbness or pain in an arm or leg that is perfectly fine. Since the limbs themselves are fine, it does not heal until the neck is fixed."
"Erosion is a disease that ruins the head rather than the body. Is that what you mean?"
"You catch on quickly."
What mechanism the curse Erosion actually works by is something I will have to research myself.
They said that at the Medical Institute they dissect corpses countless times a day for exactly this sort of research.
I ought to be able to get more clues there.
"Unlike a fracture or a laceration, which show on the outside and are easy to identify, a nervous system infection differs in degree and symptom from individual to individual. Because it is a complex organ."
"Which means treatment would be correspondingly difficult."
"Difficult and impossible are different."
At my words Schnellia's eyes went wide.
"Humanity has overcome countless diseases, and we will manage it this time too."
"......"
Schnellia clenched her right hand tightly.
She wore the expression of someone who had found a single ray of light in the dark.
Well, I spoke confidently, but.
This dark-fantasy medieval world is itself plainly bad conditions, so I have no sense of how it will go.
"Since when have you had symptoms?"
"That I do not know either. I became aware of it about ten years ago. There was a time I went on a support expedition, in the period when the Kingdoms were collapsing under a general offensive."
"Still, it is fortunate you have not degraded in ten years."
"Is there a possibility that I might not lose my self going forward either?"
Schnellia's hope was not an outlandish wish.
In reality a brain tumor sounds like an extremely dangerous disease, but there are many patients whose tumor does not grow further and who live perfectly well their whole lives without any surgery.
The problem is that I know her ending very well.
"The possibility exists, but in Your Highness's case it may be difficult."
"You mean this one will one day degrade into a minion."
I nodded.
"When?"
"That is what I have to find out from here."
Flip. I turned the notebook page and continued recording.
"Whether by drug prescription or surgical prescription. I will mobilize every method available to me and treat Your Highness."
"......I leave it to you."
Schnellia seemed to have steeled her resolve.
The basic interview finished, it was time to advise on countermeasures.
"You said the Erosion symptoms worsen during combat. Did that happen earlier as well, when you released the sword?"
"I felt it."
"It may have a relation to the amount of aura used."
Schnellia's aura is on another level from an ordinary person's.
Perhaps the aura in her body is suppressing the Erosion, and when it is used and runs empty the symptoms recur.
"I would like to ask you to refrain from using aura as much as possible, but......"
Schnellia snorted.
I knew she would react that way.
"If a chance to cut down an Outer God comes, this one will not hesitate."
"I imagine not."
"And even without your concern, I do regulate my output. Using the Covenant was also to conserve aura."
"Pardon? Then the Release you used earlier — you could have used it without the Covenant to begin with?"
Schnellia nodded.
She uses her finishing move without even paying the cost?
She really is a monster.
"Is there a technique stronger than that?"
"Whether it should be called a technique...... I am not sure."
Schnellia stroked her chin.
"I can use a True Form."
"The knight's secret art that manifests the nature of aura in reality and draws out the sword's latent capability, correct?"
"Yes."
If the Release in the original work is a character's finishing move, the True Form has the feel of a super-finisher you can only use once you have completed dupes and levelling.
Setting aside my past life's memories, in the twenty years I have lived there was not a single knight in the Empire, at least, said to wield a True Form.
I had heard rumors as a child that there were users in the Kingdoms. The Dawn or whatever it was.
"If you used that, then subjugating the Outer God too......"
"I believe it possible. However."
Schnellia spoke with concern.
"When I used the True Form in the last Outer God subjugation, this one lost consciousness. I thought I would never come back."
"I see. You restrained yourself well."
"......You do not think me a coward?"
"Not doing a thing that will kill you is not called cowardice. A wise young person, perhaps."
"Heh. You use amusing expressions."
The tension eased out of Schnellia's face.
"Then let us get up soon. I will return to the main body."
"Rest another half day. Moving in this state is difficult. Setting aside the worsening of the injury, you cannot use one leg."
"There is no telling when the thing will crawl up again. Without you, I as the greatest force and the commander cannot win."
"That is true enough, but."
I lifted the bandage and checked Schnellia's wound.
It had been only a few hours and the sutured site had already almost entirely closed.
For an ordinary person it was the state of about a month's rest.
"Hup."
Schnellia braced both arms against the wall and stood.
It seemed I had no right of refusal.
Schnellia tried to move, dragging her immobilized left leg.
"I will lend you my shoulder."
"What? Wait."
Her body jolted hard.
All I had done was support her.
"Leave it. I can move on my own."
"As Your Highness said, there is nothing to be gained by dragging this out. Do not put your weight on the left foot for no reason. The wound will burst."
"Ngh......"
Schnellia deliberated.
Only after a long staring contest with me did she finally let the strength out of her body.
"......I ask it of you."
"Yes."
We began walking toward the crack where light was leaking through.
***
"Is there still no word on the search for Her Highness the Third Princess and Commander Grimwald?"
"We have searched as far as the seventh-floor entrance, but it appears they fell to the lower levels together with the Outer God. Descending further would amount to telling the Outer God our position......"
"Mm."
Grand Physician Archibald swept back his hair.
Having received the report on the commotion on the sixth floor, treating the returned Lionheart and letting them rest was the best he could do at present.
'Without those two.'
The dungeon assault was effectively a failure.
Should he take the survivors and retreat even now? He was sunk in deliberation when it happened.
"Grand Physician! Reporting. Her Highness the Princess and the Commander have returned!"
Archibald ran out without even time to put down the potion he was holding.
"Your Highness!"
"You are safe!"
Relief spread among the knights. Archibald ran to them at once as well.
"Your Highness. Commander."
"Her Highness needs rest. To a sickbed."
"Understood."
It had been ten hours since they went missing.
The Physicians attended Princess Schnellia and guided her to the temporary encampment's infirmary.
"A femoral rupture, was it."
The bandage was stained red. Judging by the state of it, it was easy to guess the injury had been enormous.
'Doctor Dunker. You performed a surgery of this caliber in those wretched conditions, isolated with Her Highness?'
The sutured site was clean, and pus flowed from the small hole he had deliberately left unclosed.
A good sign. It meant the interior was recovering.
If it rotted after surgery the leg would have to be amputated. With the current state of surgical technique, that was the best available.
'Dunker, as expected.'
Archibald marveled. If the Third Princess were to drop out of the fighting strength now, the odds would fall through the floor.
Leaving the management to the Physicians, Archibald went looking for Dunker.
"Young Master, do not give me a heart attack like that! I thought you had died and was writing the eulogy for your funeral!"
"Stop saying ominous things. The least you could do is play a sick highlight reel of the deceased. I might just confiscate that hammer."
Dunker scolded her while washing his face with water a Healing Knight had brought.
Archibald approached as he dried his face with a towel.
"Dunker, I am glad you are safe."
"Ah, Grand Physician. How is the encampment?"
"We were treating twenty-two wounded from the engagement with the Outer God. It seems some went missing, but there are no critical cases, so they can return to duty within half a day."
"That is a relief. There is no time. Let us begin organizing at once."
To come back alive from that extreme situation and immediately prepare to fight again.
'Remarkable fortitude.'
Archibald looked at him, impressed.
'I heard a report that he took a head-on attack from the Outer God at first contact and was not eroded.'
Could it be true?
There is no human who is not eroded.
The knights had surely been mistaken in an extreme situation.
He wanted to hear the details of that moment accurately, but in work there is an order of priority.
"Dunker, leave the organization to me and rest a while. It is about time you needed rest as well. You are injured here too, are you not."
Blood was flowing from the back of his shoulder. Archibald wiped it for him.
"Ah, thank you. I had not noticed."
Dunker took the towel and wiped the rest of the blood from his shoulder.
And then.
"Dunker? Are you all right?"
Seeing Dunker suddenly stop moving as he looked at his own blood on the towel, Archibald asked out of concern.
"Ah, I am fine."
The corner of Dunker's mouth rose.
Before his eyes.
[You have obtained the blood of ■■■.]
[A Boon is opened.]
[The formula for an Erosion Activity Suppressant comes to mind.]
Because strange letters had appeared.