Chapter 16 - Health (1)

There were countless things money could buy, but plenty it could not.

Health, affection, time, and so on. Most were intangible, yet they accounted for a great deal of a person's life.

Health, in particular, was essential because it was usually tied directly to life itself. High birth, great wealth, and fame were all meaningless without it.

People often went through life unaware of the importance of their health, only to realize it too late. By the time they tried to cling to it, their chance had passed.

Even an emperor reigning in all his majesty was no different from any other human where health was concerned.

And once lost, good health was difficult to recover. As the ages passed and medicine and technology advanced, new ways to preserve it emerged, but even those were few and far between.

Often, discomfort in one part of the body stemmed from a problem somewhere else entirely. Others were born with their ailments.

Humans were made to deteriorate slowly from the moment they were born. To be granted life was also to be promised death.

Cruelly, however, that interval was terribly short for some.

Some were even sentenced to death the moment they were born.

"Cough! Cough!"

A woman lying in bed coughed violently, hurriedly pressing a handkerchief to her mouth.

Hair and eyes as white as snow, and pale skin. Her appearance called to mind pure white snow, lending her an air of mystery.

"Haah..."

After the harsh coughing fit, she slowly lowered the handkerchief from her mouth. Dark red blood stained the white cloth.

It looked serious, but she seemed untroubled as she held it out to her side, where a young brown-haired maid stood.

"Mary. Take care of this for me."

"My lady."

The brown-haired girl glanced worriedly between the handkerchief and the woman, her eyes as gentle as a deer's.

Reading the emotion in those innocent eyes, the snow-white woman gave a faint smile.

Or rather, she tried to. No smile appeared. Her expression remained stiff and cold, as though frozen in place.

"Wouldn't it be best to speak to His Grace again...?"

"This happens all the time. Don't make a fuss."

"But lately you've been coughing so much..."

"I said I'm fine. Just give me another one."

Her voice was cold and curt. The maid, Mary, hesitated, then took the handkerchief and placed it in a basket on the chest of drawers.

The basket was full of bloodstained handkerchiefs—a testament to how much blood the woman had coughed up.

"... We're running short of handkerchiefs. I'll fetch some fresh ones."

"All right. Bring tissues if there aren't any."

"Yes, my lady."

Mary continued casting worried looks at her even as she left. The white-haired woman's face remained impassive.

Once Mary was gone, she turned to face forward again. The atmosphere was as chilly as her expression.

"Haah..."

The woman, Selena, let out a long sigh and leaned back against the bed. Her expression was still stiff, but gloom had crept into it.

She raised an arm and examined her wrist. Her arm was more than slender; it was so thin it looked as though the slightest knock would snap it. Her skin was unnaturally white, as if coated in powder.

As the blood on her handkerchief made clear, Selena's health was very poor.

In truth, even that was an understatement.

'I don't have much time left.'

Her expression did not change as the thought crossed her mind.

She had been born with an intractable illness. It did not merely shorten her lifespan; it fixed its end outright. Anyone afflicted was certain to die around twenty, at the threshold of adulthood.

According to a physician from the Central Plains, it was called Nine Yin Blocked Meridians—the worst of all possible illnesses.

An excess of yin energy destroyed the body's balance and slowly ruined it. Its defining symptom was the blockage of the meridians, or mana circuits, one after another.

Mana circuits were essential to human life. They were particularly closely linked to the good health Selena longed for so desperately.

People sometimes collapsed from cardiac arrest. That happened when illness or failing health blocked the mana circuits near the heart.

In the past, there had been nothing anyone could do, but recently, CPR had at least made emergency treatment possible.

'How could God be so cruel?'

Nine Yin Blocked Meridians was a different matter. A blockage in a specific area, as with cardiac arrest, was one thing. This was effectively the blockage of every mana circuit in the body.

A vessel could hold only so much; force too much into it, and the vessel itself would shatter.

In exchange, it granted power beyond that of ordinary people.

Back when Selena could still move about, people had called her a genius. Her talent for magic, in particular, was said to be unrivaled. Her mind was so brilliant that even her father, Theodore, sought her advice.

'None of it matters.'

As time passed, it all felt increasingly pointless. Born into the most prestigious ducal house in the Messiah Empire and blessed with extraordinary talent, she was still dying helplessly like this.

Everything else paled beside good health.

The longer it went on, the more she wished for just one thing: to leave her bed and run freely on her own two feet.

Selena knew perfectly well that it was impossible. Despite every form of support she had received, her health showed no sign of improving.

There were three ways to treat Nine Yin Blocked Meridians: consume spiritual treasures brimming with yang energy, have a physician treat it directly, or, lastly, receive yang energy directly into the body.

The first was effectively impossible even with her house's power, wealth, and intelligence network. Constant scrutiny of the black market yielded nothing but drugs, human trafficking, and similar filth. No spiritual treasures.

As for the second, every physician had given up. The operation was fiendishly difficult, and none felt capable of bearing the consequences.

And the third... She would rather die.

She would sooner bite off her tongue than sleep with a complete stranger. She did not want to prolong her life at the cost of her chastity.

'There are hardly any men who qualify in the first place.'

To be certain of success, she would need a man worthy of being called the strongest. Yet most of those frequently debated as the strongest alive were women.

There was Kadir, known as the King of Magic, but he was old. Rumors that he was an eccentric made her all the more uneasy.

'I don't want to die like this, but... '

Death frightened her. That was why she had gathered every scrap of knowledge she could find, teaching herself alchemy and medicine to extend her life even a little.

But the more she learned, the more firmly she arrived at the conclusion that a cure would be difficult.

Could anything be more despairing? Once, she had wept at the top of her lungs.

Her parents, too, felt their helplessness keenly, their expressions growing grimmer with each passing day. Gradually, emotion vanished from Selena's face as well.

She had reached the point of slowly accepting despair rather than hope. She could no longer even remember the last time she had laughed freely.

'It's better than doing nothing.'

Still, she did not want to simply give up and wait for death. Selena raised her head and looked into empty space.

A window appeared before her eyes: the forum she had only begun visiting after accepting her impending death.

'I used to hate even looking at it.'

Anyone who met the requirements could access the forum, regardless of age or sex. That very fact made plenty of people reluctant to log on. Some disliked a place so thickly coated in human desire.

Selena had been one of them, but her thoughts had changed as her health worsened.

'Has it been that long already?'

She had become absorbed in the forum around the time her health took a sharp turn for the worse. Unable to leave her bed, she spent all day browsing it.

At first, she had merely lurked with nothing else to do. Then she began posting a count of the days, thinking she might at least leave a record.

It had already been five months. In other words, her health had been deteriorating for five months.

'And not everyone there is awful.'

When people insulted and mocked her, she had felt disappointed, thinking it was just as she had expected. But as the days passed, more people began cheering her on, apparently realizing she was sincere rather than playing a character.

The admin was odd, but just, and immediately banned anyone whose abuse crossed the line. That let Selena visit the forum with greater peace of mind.

The moment people accepted death, they became boundlessly free. Selena, too, gradually grew accustomed to that pit of desire and evolved into a perfectly capable forum user.

Even her dried-up emotions returned a little. Amusingly, most of them were envy or jealousy.

'Even bastards like those get to live with perfectly healthy bodies. Why am I... '

It was truly ironic. Even so, she could not quit the forum. An unusual registered user had appeared recently, making it all the harder to look away.

'Wild Grylls... How did he end up in the Forest of Four Seasons?'

Browse the forum long enough, and you were bound to witness things that defied common sense.

Recently, someone had appeared who was stranded in the Forest of Four Seasons, a place where space shifted constantly and accessing the forum was impossible.

Yet he could access it without issue and had posted proof several times, drawing more attention than anyone else.

Anyone want to bet on how long Grylls lasts?

I give him about two weeks lol

└Even two weeks is generous lol

└He could drop dead tomorrow lmao

└A life as fleeting as a fly's

└Pretty sure God hates Grylls

└Wild Grylls: Hey, you evil bastards. I'm surviving to the end.

└So what did you eat today?

└Wild Grylls: Three fasting pills...

└Had any meat yet? lol

└Wild Grylls: No...

└Want some?

└Wild Grylls: Register an account first lol

└lol

She had initially thought of him as nothing more than a poor, unfortunate man, but their trade had changed her mind. It would not have mattered if he had simply kept the compass, yet he had insisted on returning it.

At the very least, that meant he wasn't completely ill-mannered.

'And his precarious life gives me a strange sense of kinship.'

If Selena was terminally ill, Grylls's life hung by a thread. That subtle parallel was gradually taking root on the forum.

Occasionally, debates broke out about who would die first, but they quickly vanished. Presumably, the admin decided they were out of line and issued bans.

They were weighing people's lives against each other. They deserved it.

'If only the first herb he found had been something else... '

The thought came to her whenever she read Grylls's posts. The precious herb he had stumbled across was New Moon Spirit Grass.

Unfortunately, it specialized in stabilization rather than any particular kind of energy. She could not begin to describe her disappointment. Had it been an herb brimming with yang energy, she would have stopped at nothing to obtain it.

'Would Heavenly Demon have been in trouble then?'

She could infer as much simply from the behavior of Heavenly Demon, the presumed recipient of the New Moon Spirit Grass. Heavenly Demon was one of the forum's better-known registered users, so Selena had a reasonable grasp of her behavioral patterns.

'For someone with such strong self-esteem to treat him like that, she must have received the New Moon Spirit Grass.'

Heavenly Demon was famous for constantly churning out shitposts. No matter what anyone said, she kept posting without a care.

That allowed Selena to infer her personality: someone with tremendous self-esteem and confidence. Her self-esteem, in particular, was strikingly strong.

The way she went her own way, spewing out all manner of shitposts, more or less made that clear.

'Wasn't “Impudent!” an expression of rebuke in the language of the Central Plains?'

Yet even someone like that had shown urgency during the New Moon Spirit Grass incident. After receiving it, she had begun treating Grylls with the utmost respect.

It was clear that Heavenly Demon really had been unwell and that Grylls had helped her.

'This Grylls fellow... seems like a bit of a pushover.'

With her usual impassive expression, Selena analyzed him. His personality could be summed up in a single saying: kind words beget kind words. It applied to his actions, too.

Even stranded in the Forest of Four Seasons, where accepting help was vital, he went to great lengths to repay it.

'There are all sorts of fascinating animals out there.'

Selena checked his posts often. Their precarious lives gave her a curious sense of kinship, but more than anything, she was worried.

If he stopped posting, it would effectively mean he was dead.

'That makes me even more curious.'

It did make her more curious. What animal would he encounter next, and how would he overcome the hardship?

Thanks to him, she began leaving comments—something she seldom did—and enjoyed her days in her own way. The faintest ripples were beginning to stir in her heart.

"Cough! Cough!"

SPLAT!

If only her body weren't deteriorating by the day.

Caught by a sudden coughing fit, Selena hurriedly clapped a hand over her mouth. Mary was still fetching handkerchiefs, leaving her no other choice.

"..."

Fighting off dizziness, she looked down at her hand. Seeing blood pooling in her palm rather than staining a handkerchief made death feel all the more vivid.

It was a sign that she was nearing her limit.

CLACK!

"My lady, I've brought the handkerchiefs... My lady?!"

Mary returned at just that moment. Startled by the sight of Selena, she rushed over.

"... Mary."

"I'll call your physician right away. There's so much blood today..."

"No. It's all right. Enough now."

"My lady?"

At being told not to call the physician, Mary looked at her with dawning disbelief. Selena read her expression and nodded.

"I really don't think I have much time left."

"M-my lady. You mustn't give up so soon..."

"I know a fair amount about medicine myself. No one knows my condition better than I do."

Once, desperate to live, Selena had absorbed every bit of medical knowledge she could find. But she had gained nothing from it except certainty that her days were numbered.

Mary gazed at her with wavering eyes, but Selena remained firm.

"Thank you for the handkerchiefs. Go and rest. I'll ring if I need you."

"... My lady."

"I want to be alone. Go on."

Faced with Selena's chilly dismissal, Mary reluctantly left. Even then, she did not stop looking back in concern.

The girl's kindness warmed Selena's heart, though her expression remained as bitingly cold as ever.

'I should ask them to adopt Mary.'

It would be her final wish, and a way to repay the girl who had stayed by her side to the end.

With that thought, Selena leaned back against the bed. The dizziness had subsided a little, but her body was growing heavier.

Even taking a single step out of bed was difficult.

'I wonder... is Grylls all right?'

As she drew closer to death, someone came to mind. If she could be described as approaching death without end, he could be said to linger constantly right under its nose.

She barely managed to open her bleary eyes and accessed the forum.

'A mature... mandrake? What's this now?'

Just like Grylls. He had found something strange again. This time it was a plant rather than an animal, which only made it more interesting.

'I thought mandrakes contained yang energy... '

Might this improve her condition even a little? With that hope, she left a few comments—and learned something astonishing.

'Mature mandrakes might be able to cure me?'

But there was a condition, an almost impossible one: she needed at least six mature mandrakes.

Most people would struggle to see even one in their lifetime, and she needed six? It was nothing but false hope.

Just as she was about to give up completely, a comment appeared that she could not ignore.

└Wild Grylls: There's a shitload of them here, though?

└Starlight Lady: Whuh?

Startled, she posted a garbled response. She could hardly believe it.

Even in the Forest of Four Seasons, surely that was a bit much? That was her first thought. But the post and pictures Grylls uploaded shortly afterward changed her mind.

'Could it be?'

With his help, might she finally escape this hellish illness?

Selena had made Elixir before. She had devoted her entire life to healing her body, after all.

As luck would have it, Grylls wanted Elixir rather than money. If she recovered fully, she could supply him with it whenever he needed.

'Is this how Heavenly Demon received his help, too?'

Did she suspect he was a scammer? Not at all. Heavenly Demon was living proof, openly treating him as her benefactor.

Of course, Selena did not know whether mature mandrakes would actually work on Nine Yin Blocked Meridians. Clutching at straws—that described her perfectly.

'Can Grylls catch them all in time?'

She could not count on having another day or two; she might die as soon as tomorrow. Had he found them a little earlier, she would have had some breathing room.

'Harvesting mandrakes takes a long time... Will it be all right?'

As anxiety enveloped her, a trade request arrived.

Wild Grylls has requested a trade. Would you like to accept?

It was Grylls. Selena blinked at the trade request window.

Had he gathered them all in such a short time? Hope stirred, but she quickly shook her head.

'He's probably sending the one he already caught.'

That was the reasonable explanation. No point getting her hopes up. She tempered her expectations and accepted.

Hello, Starlight Lady.

I've gathered seven mature mandrakes.

Starlight Lady

Whuh?

The words Grylls sent the instant she accepted left Selena flustered. All she did was blink expressionlessly, but she was flustered nonetheless.

'Wait. He's gathered them all already? How?'

She had expected it to take at least a day. This was completely beyond her expectations.

Starlight Lady

You've already gathered them all? Is that even possible?

They quiet down if you punch them before they scream.

I stuffed dirt into their mouths too, so they should be safe.

Starlight Lady

;;;

Selena blinked a couple of times, nonplussed. Was that really how one harvested mandrakes?

Normally, silence or sleep magic was the best approach.

'Is this what the forum calls “magic (physical)”?'

Well, he said he had gathered them all, so she only had to accept them.

Selena swallowed and continued the conversation. Unlike her rigid expression, her writing displayed a wide range of reactions.

Starlight Lady

Are you really sure about this?

Giving me all these precious things...

You seem really ill.

Starlight Lady

What if I'm lying?

Then I'll just stop trading with you.

That really was a pushover's way of thinking. If it didn't work out, he'd simply leave it at that.

Selena let out a breath of disbelief before returning to her impassive expression. Yet the corners of her lips had lifted ever so slightly.

So this was why Heavenly Demon had been courting(?) him so ardently. He might do odd things from time to time, but he was fundamentally kind.

Starlight Lady

Thank you so much.

But this is so sudden, I don't think I can give you the Elixir right away. Is that all right?

Just send me a trade request later. That'll do.

Starlight Lady

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

It felt as though the dying embers of hope were slowly growing into a flame again.

As hope filled her heart, a question suddenly occurred to Selena. Like her, Grylls was someone living right next to death. It would be no surprise if he died tomorrow.

Starlight Lady

Grylls, may I ask you something?

What is it?

Starlight Lady

What would you do if you were going to die tomorrow?

There was a saying: even if the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree.

It was such a predictable answer that it had grown tiresome. Selena expected Grylls to give her something similar, but his response defied her expectations.

Why think about dying tomorrow?

Starlight Lady

What should I think about, then?

Think about staying alive today.

"..."

Think about staying alive today. Those words sank deep into Selena's heart.

She, too, had once wanted to live. But this accursed body had shattered that desire. Ever since, she had merely spent each day waiting to die.

'But now... '

She stared blankly down at her lap. The trade had just finished, leaving several bright red mandrakes resting there.

'I want to live.'

DING!

Without hesitation, Selena pressed the call bell. The instant she did, Mary, who had been waiting outside, hurried into the room.

"Is there something you need, my lady?"

"Mary. Take me to the laboratory."

"The laboratory?"

"Yes."

Selena added another request for the bewildered maid.

"And bring these along."

She pointed to the mature mandrakes. Mary tilted her head at the sight.

"What are those ugly plants? Where did they come from?"

"Hmm..."

Selena considered how to explain, then spoke quietly.

"Oh, just something."

For now, she could only be evasive.