Chapter Twenty-seven: Magic Intoxication
After ensuring Sieg finished his curry without any issues, Karen returned to the kitchen in the east wing. The knights had secured the area.
There was a pool of blood at the end of the hallway. Karen almost screamed when she saw a man lying in the sea of blood. Even from a distance, she could tell it was a gruesome sight. The excessive amount of blood, limbs twisted in unnatural directions, writhing things protruding from the mutilated body—Karen averted her eyes and looked up at the knight.
“Um, is Master Julius alright?”
“Please don’t worry, Lady Alchemist. He is safe.”
Karen felt somewhat relieved by the knight’s calm expression.
“Where is he now?”
“He went behind the kitchen to wash himself. Since he couldn’t go to the bathroom in that state, he said he would clean up directly at the well.”
“May I enter the kitchen?”
“Of course. No one here suspects you, Lady Alchemist. We’ve already checked and removed any poison that man might have planted.”
Karen was grateful he said this despite the circumstances warranting suspicion of her, and she entered the kitchen.
Looking into the water jug, she found it empty. She wondered if poison had been planted there, or if Julius had used the water. Karen pulled out a pot from the back of the cupboard, threw in some herbs that hadn’t yet been infused with magical power, and started walking while channeling her magical power into them.
Julius wasn’t at the well right outside the kitchen’s back door.
After confirming that the well was safe to use with the knight stationed there, Karen filled the pot with water and continued searching for Julius while channeling magical power. The knights were helpful in giving directions when she asked.
Julius was washing himself at a well behind the garden, in a secluded spot, as if hiding.
Most of the blood appeared to have been washed away already. But Julius kept drawing water and pouring it over himself, again and again and again. There was something frighteningly intense about his possessed-like movements.
“Master Julius.”
“Stay back, Karen. I’m on edge right now.”
“It’s because you absorbed magical power, isn’t it?”
The higher the magical power density, the more aggressive people become. That was why even those who fear monsters could manage as adventurers once they entered dungeons with high magical power density.
The human body contained a magic core—an organ absent in her previous world, designed to generate and store magical power. When the magical power density in the core became too high, it led to magic intoxication. Magic intoxication temporarily enhanced physical abilities but had side effects like numbed pain sensation and unusual excitement.
That man earlier had probably broken some magical power-storing device deliberately to induce magic intoxication and numb his pain. Julius must have been affected by that magical power too.
“If you understand that, then you should know it’s dangerous to—”
As Julius stopped pouring water and glared at Karen with his golden eyes, she splashed the entire pot of potion she was holding over him. Herb flowers were now stuck to Julius’s face.
“Karen, you know it’s dangerous to do such things to someone agitated?”
“It’s fine. This should be a calming potion. How do you feel?”
“Now that you mention it… I do feel calmer.”
“That’s good!”
Karen puffed out her chest proudly.
Julius blinked in surprise.
“What is this…? The same flowers used in sleeping potions?”
“It uses the same ingredients, but the effect is a bit different.”
“Are you not afraid of me?”
“I grew up in an adventurer’s town, so I’m used to seeing adventurers get like this right before they ascend a rank.”
When one ascends a rank, the amount of their magical power increases. In other words, the capacity of their magic core, which stores magical power, expands. Right before the capacity increases is when magic density peaks, causing an excited state where they become desperately eager to kill monsters and advance quickly—a very dangerous condition. It was customary for others to splash water on such people to bring them back to their senses, and Karen had always thrown water infused with calming herbs in these situations.
The reason many people came to their senses when Karen splashed them with water was probably because it had been a potion all along. It might not have been because young Karen was everyone’s bellowed mascot in the adventurers’ town. Karen pressed her fingers to her eyes as she realized this truth years later.
Incidentally, people with the Bloodline Blessing like Sieg were born with a high-capacity magic core, and they often end up hurting themselves because they couldn’t properly handle the magical power generated from it.
“…I didn’t know such potion existed.”
“Was it helpful?”
“Yes, very much so. Please don’t tell my elder brother about this unseemly display.”
Of course.”
While adventurers and their families are used to it, it’s understandable that those with few fighters in their families would find that excited state embarrassing. To others, it looks completely unhinged. In her previous life, it would have warranted calling the authorities.
“…Are you really not afraid of me? I should have kept that man alive to learn the mastermind’s name, but I ended up killing him.”
“I know that blood excites you. But I also know you can still distinguish between friend and foe.”
So that was why he had said it would be trouble if the knights didn’t arrive soon. Because he would kill—Karen gave a wry smile as she understood why the corpse had been in such a horrible state.
“Both my father and brother are adventurers, you know? I’m used to this!”
Julius gave Karen a skeptical look as she thumped her chest.
“Even so, you look pale, Karen.”
“Eh? Well…”
Julius caught Karen by the chin as she tried to turn her face away.
“You were nearly killed, so it’s understandable. But I wonder if there might be another reason?”
Julius peered into Karen’s face with his golden eyes. Before she could let out a startled yelp at his approaching face, Karen noticed Julius’s oddly suspicious expression and wondered what he might be doubting. Though she had intended to stay quiet about something that couldn’t be helped, Karen reluctantly spoke.
“That person… he wasn’t someone you knew?”
“Hmm?”
There was no doubt that man was the one who poisoned the curry. He had probably come to Karen’s kitchen to plant poison and pin the blame on her. He had been wearing the clothes of this house’s cook.
“He snuck in wearing stolen cook’s clothes, right? He wasn’t someone Master Sieg knew, right?”
Since it didn’t directly affect his health, Sieg had told her about this only after he had recovered. When Sieg saw the pained expressions of the servants, it caused him distress, so he made an effort to distance himself from them—it was something Sieg himself had orchestrated. It was so that when Sieg was no longer around, those who cared for him and served by his side wouldn’t suffer any more than necessary. Sieg had laughed, saying that Sara was the only one he couldn’t make excuses to keep away.
Karen desperately hoped the man wasn’t one of the servants Sieg had tried so hard to protect. Julius’s sorrowful expression in response to Karen’s hopeful question told her everything.
“I see…”
“…He was a cook from the main building. He probably hadn’t met Sieg many times.”
Julius said that consolingly to Karen as her shoulders slumped. Perhaps she should be glad it wasn’t someone from the east wing.
“You’re a kind person, Karen. I didn’t expect you to be worried about Sieg when you must have been terrified yourself… Some would only think of themselves in such a situation.”
“It’s nothing special. Even though my life was in danger, you protected me, Master Julius.”
Julius gave a faint smile at Karen’s modest response.
She thought she caught a hint of bitterness in that smile, but in the same instant she assumed it must have been her imagination.
At least her chin had been released, so Karen modestly averted her eyes from Julius’s figure, his shirt clinging to his body from the water.
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