There were five partitions in the blood draw room.
A clinical pathologist was setting up in each partition. The scene freaked out when I saw it as I entered the room with Freyr. Unconsciously chewing on my lip, I stood in line.
Noticing that I was shaking, Freyr spoke as she snickered.
“You’re afraid of needles, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.”
“What do you an you’re not! You’re shaking like crazy.”
Yeah, I couldn’t deny that.
Gaze trembling, I looked around the inside of the examination room. Blac, yellow, red, white.... The hair color of the students who were here to get checked was more diverse than I’d thought. This really was a fantasy, after all.
“Who’re you looking for?”
“Ultramarine.”
I didn’t need to search for long. A girl with hair the color of blueberries strode this way.
“Sis!”
It was Rosemary.
“Did the earlier exams go well?”
“Sohow.”
“May I line up here?”
“If you want.”
“Then excuse ~”
Rosemary giggled and made the move to butt in line.
“Hey, why are you butting!”
“Because my turn is faster.”
I could hear the two bickering but what they were saying wasn’t registering. Right now, my mind was a ss from worry.
“Wow, we can finally sit.”
When I ca to my senses, we were already in the innermost section of the waiting room.
We sat in a row in the empty chairs. My shoulders were stiff and my back was straight, probably due to nerves. Even my legs felt like they were hovering in the air like I was on a ski lift.
Poke poke.
“What.”
When I turned my head slightly, Rosemary was sitting with her back straight like a miracle.
“What.”
“Look down.”
I turned my gaze below as she said. Her small, child-like1 hand was holding sothing– a queue ticket.
“Take it.”
I quietly took what she gave . The number that I’d first had was folded up and tucked into my pocket like sothing precious.
[Wait number : 492]“Hm.”
Number 492, was it.
Five partitions, so the number of clinical pathologists who were doing the bloodwork was six.
And 492 could divide exactly by 6.
I see. I got it.
I turned my head to where table six was and found a man I’d never seen before.
The man suddenly locked eye with and blinked several tis like he was trying to send a morse code. The hell, was he trying to flirt?
I briefly had the thought that maybe he was just so crazy guy, but soon shook my head. Instead, I checked what number Rosemary had. Rosemary’s number was 486, just 6 less than mine.
Then that person must be soone paid off by Rosemary. I felt a bit relieved.
Rosemary was planning to get her blood drawn first to reassure . If there wasn’t anything wrong, then I’d get examined by that person and just move on.
Still, it was scary nonetheless, just as being the top student in the school didn’t an you weren’t nervous at an exam.
“Number 450, please co in.”
“Number 460, over here, please.”
“Number 470!”
“Student number 480, this way!”
Our turn was gradually getting closer.
“Huuu.”
My heart was pounding.
I took out the handkerchief I had with and dabbed at the sweat on my forehead. I was so nervous that my arm was tense without knowing.
As I kept sighing, Freyr patted on the back and spoke.
“It’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about.”
She spoke rather maturely unlike her, and the incongruity of it had smiling.
“Needles aren’t as painful as you think. You’ll just feel a pinch and then it’ll be over.”
“Freyr.”
“What?”
“I hope our friendship never changes.”
“...All of a sudden?”
Yeah, it was going to be fine, for sure.
“Number 486, please co this way.”
As soon as her number was called, Rosemary walked over to partition six, her expression confident and calm as if there was nothing wrong. Rosemary pulled up her sleeve and had her arm tied with the tourniquet.
“.......”
The two seed to be talking about sothing.
I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying as there were a lot of people in the exam room.
Afterwards, I tried my best to see the blood drawing process but I couldn’t check how they did it. I couldn’t even see what the color of the blood that they drew was.
Trying to swallow down the bitter taste in my mouth, I got up from my seat.
“Next, number 492 this way.”
It was finally ti.
“Good luck!”
Freyr patted my back once more like she was cheering for . I felt like I was going to be sick in the stomach even though I hadn’t eaten anything this morning.
I barely managed to calm my nerves and sat down. As soon as I did, the man started to say a bunch of things.
“My na’s Weible, a clinical pathologist. You haven’t eaten anything since last evening, right?”
“No.”
“That isn’t a problem. We’ll proceed with the blood draw now.”
The hell was this guy?
“Let’s see, where did I put the syringe....”
Hey, you damn quack.
Was it really okay to trust him with this?
I hesitated for a mont, then held out my arm. Still, he was bought off by Rosemary so he should be able to do a good job in covering up the evidence.
“Please roll up your sleeve.
When I pulled up my sleeve, it revealed smooth, flawless skin. It was certainly too clean to be human.
He tied the rubber a little higher than my elbow. The tightness didn’t feel normal. Uh, didn’t they normally leave a finger’s width of space when tying it...?
He didn’t even say to make a tight fist. After taking a look around, the man took out sothing from below.
It was a tube filled with red blood.
“I’ll be drawing your blood now. Please relax.”
Weible pretended to stick the needle in. I didn’t feel a poking sensation, but there was a strange piercing sound. Before I knew it, there was sothing like a patch of skin stuck on my right arm.
What was it again, artificial skin?
“All done.”
In the blink of an eye, the man untied the tourniquet. He tossed a cotton ball and told to hold it for five minutes. Hah.
So in the end, I didn’t get my blood drawn. It was only that they would do the test with soone else’s blood instead of mine.
I let out a sigh and returned to my spot. Freyr tilted her head and asked.
“Did it hurt?”
“No.”
“I told you.”
“Anyway, what’s left?”
“After this, don’t we just need to get our blood pressure asured?”
My god, there was still one more?
Grooowl.
I was hungry. I was so hungry I could die.
No other day could compare to how taxing today was. If I had to rank it, yeah. It was comparable to the day I was betrayed by Hasfeldt. That was how ntally draining it was.
Anyway, as I was thinking about what to eat once this was over–
“You must be hungry. Just be a little patient.”
An elf in a doctor’s gown spoke as she approached us.
Perd hair flowing like waves. A subtle citrus scent.
I could guess who was talking to and Freyr from those two characteristics alone.
“Doctor Glyston.”
It was Tilette Academy’s infirmary teacher, Sephia Glyston.
She was soone who couldn’t be forgotten even if I tried; she was an elf, after all.
And a healer who was difficult to find even if you searched the whole continent at that. She was considered first-rate even at Tilette where all sorts of geniuses were the professors.
“I heard that you were sick last ti. Was the dicine I gave you effective?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You’re a strange one. You can’t be vulnerable to a seasonal cold when you were fine during the plague.”
I responded to her joke with an artificial ‘ahaha’ and laughed off the situation.
It was going to be another thirty minutes. Just kill .
I’d been losing a lot of ti lately, too. Just as pro gym rat experienced muscle loss, I experienced physical loss, too. It was tiring to be without a pen all day.
“Augh.”
Both my body and mind were starved.
I was in the midst of swallowing saliva to try and settle my hunger a bit. A few of my classmates who’d finish with the blood draw sat in the seats next to .
It was in order of Lotte, Mayreel the class pres, and....
“They’re terrible with the needle.”
The Crown Prince who stopped being considered as a classmate at so point.
Prince Klion clucked his tongue like an old man and complained about the clinical pathologist. The female student in a different class next to him looked around uneasily and then left. As such, five girls from our class ended up sitting in a row beside him.
It really wasn’t the best seating arrangent.
“Whew, ladies. How did your turn go?”
“Please don’t talk to .”
Mayreel, our class president, got up and left.
“...What an impudent bitch. Still, Saliere. You’re the daughter of a Count so I believe we can have a more civilized conversation.”
“I’m thirsty, Lotte.”
“Do you want to go get water?”
“Yeah!”
Lotte and Freyr left, too.
And so the triple guard that had been standing between and Prince had broken.
“.......”
“.......”
A mont of silence.
“Please continue, Your Highness. I won’t leave.”
“Ahem, hm.”
The Prince ran away with the excuse of going to the restroom.
[Wow.]
My stomach completely collapsed along with the hardcover’s exclamation. Maybe I was going to faint from low blood sugar.
With the sight of the Prince running away like no tomorrow being the last thing, I closed my eyes. Then I began thinking about the promise I’d made with Duke Blanton, that is the Septimus Orléans.
─ It is a simple contract. We will get you through this situation safely, and in return, we ask that you spend winter vacation at the Demon Castle. Even if you decide to return to school afterwards, we will not stop you.
Give-and-take.
If you gave sothing, you had to get sothing in return, and it was the sa for the opposite.
If I got through this safely, then I would be indebted to Rosemary. So as per her request, I had to spend two months at the Demon Castle whether I liked it or not. It was going to be a big loss in terms of ti.
I would have to think about this later. Plans like this needed to take ti.
As for now, the priority was to finish the research in front of .
Because the imdiate backed up assignnts I had....
[1. Decipher White Night with Lotte.]
[2. Build a fake nuke with Freyr for the art contest.]
[3. Build a miniature weapon that will replace Flare using the deciphered White Night scroll from 1.]
[4. Refine the pitchblende stone and make an ergency-use fission weapon.]
...were these four. At least each assignnt wasn’t so separate like their own islands.
But even if that was the case, I still didn’t have enough ti. Because once midterms were over, Lotte would be going to elf nation as an exchange student.
Of course, Lotte was an exchange student at my request. It sucked that I was sending her off without attending the festival together, but I had to. I was evacuating her in case sothing happened.
So I had to use this limited ti wisely. I needed to have so idea for numbers one and three by this week at the earliest, or next week at the latest.
“Those who’ve finished with the blood draw, please follow .”
This ti, Doctor Sephia personally took us up to the third floor.
It was a room with several blood pressure monitors. When I counted how many, it looked like we were going to be done soon.
I smiled automatically at the thought that I’d be able to have dinner once the blood pressure asurent was finished. Feeling buoyed like a balloon full of helium, I waited my turn.
“Okay, I’ll asure yours myself, Aether. You don’t have a problem with that, right?”
“Of course not.”
What could happen? Mind at peace, I decided to think about what to eat for dinner.
But then.
“...Oh?”
It seed as if sothing went wrong with the asurent, Doctor Sephia’s complexion turning cloudy like the sky during the rainy season.
“Sorry, I’m going to do it once more.”
After that, Doctor Sephia kept repeating the procedure like she was an amateur. In that ti, Rosemary finished getting asured and was waiting for .
Rosemary quirked her head and looked back and forth between and Doctor Sephia.
“Sis, is sothing wrong?”
“Not sure.”
The asurent was done eight tis while changing the position of the cuff. With each attempt, the doctor’s face turned pale like flour.
“H-how strange. The numbers shouldn’t co out like this.......”
“Why?”
“Your blood pressure is highly irregular.”
My complexion beca like the doctor’s.
Footnotes
1. Originally 'like bracken'. A plant pften use to describe a baby's hand because it looks small and curled up like a baby's fist
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