Side Episode — Niku and the Isekai Cavity

Niku was in a state of pure panic.

“My head hurts? This is...”

When Niku woke up, she found her head hurting as if she had been struck with swords. Or rather, she had been feeling off for days, but this was bad.

It had all started when she drank some cold juice and felt a sharp pain that sent sparks in her eyes. At first she thought the juice had been poisoned, but a quick sniff test confirmed it wasn’t. More sips didn’t hurt, either.

From there the pain started to remain after she drank the juice. The pain was so sharp it sent her brain rattling. Eating sweets Master gave her didn’t make it better, and in fact just made the pain worse. She experimentally tried giving some of the sweets to Ichika, but she didn’t seem bothered. Of course not. Master would never make her eat anything poisonous, and even if he did, she would gladly eat poison for his sake.

With that conclusion, Niku drank some water... and dropped the cup, breaking it. The pain shot through her even when the water wasn’t even cold.

Fast forward to the present. Niku was at a loss. Her head hurt—unbearably so. The pain was chronic and hurt worse than being cut with a sword. Niku’s focus diminished, and it got to the point that it was affecting her work.

She finally had to accept she was diseased. Only a terrible sickness could be so painful. At this rate, the pain would grow so great she wouldn’t even be capable of being useful to Master... The very thought of that sent her tail trembling with fear. The fate of a useless slave was expulsion. She didn’t want to be expelled. She didn’t want to stop being useful to Master.

Niku steeled her resolve. She surrendered herself to losing her seat as head slave and, enduring the enormous pain, went to Master.

“Master...”

“Hm? What’s up, Niku? You seem sick.”

Her tail flopped down sadly. As expected, she couldn’t hide her suffering from him. She collected herself and told him that she was diseased, that the pain was too great to work, and that she should be expelled before anyone else got her sickness. But naturally, her kind Master did no such thing and called over Ichika to check on her.

Niku didn’t think Ichika knew much about medicine, but it would make sense for someone with as much experience as her to know about whatever was making her sick. She was worthy of being Master’s next head slave, and so Niku opened her mouth obediently, ready to be examined.

“Aaah. Yep, this is a cavity.”

“Figures. Thanks, Ichika.”

Niku tilted her head in confusion, tears in the corner of her eyes.

“A... cavity?”

“Yup. Your back molar’s pitch black. Girl, have you not been brushing your teeth? That’s no good. You gotta brush after you eat. Geez, even {Purification} would be good enough.”

Niku fell silent.

Thinking back, she had often fallen asleep from exhaustion after eating a small dinner following training. She thought it would be fine if she just used {Purification} after she woke up. Now that she focused on it, the pain in her head was centered around her teeth.

“A cavity... So that’s what this is?”

“Yuppers. The symptoms are what’s giving you hell right now. It’s a disease that bungles up your teeth... Or, well, it’s not a legit disease, but y’know. It’s not deadly, most of the time. And curing it’s simple too. You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Really, it was more common for someone to die in an accident due to being distracted by their cavities than anything. Hearing that, tears streamed down Niku’s cheeks, although her expression remained unchanged.

“Whoa, holy crackers! Does the cavity hurt that bad?”

“No, I’m just... I’m just happy I can still be useful to Master.”

“Good grief, girl, talk about overkill for a little cavity...” Ichika sighed and gently patted Niku’s head. Carefully, so it didn’t hurt her cavity.

“By the way, Ichika. How do you cure cavities here anyway?” Niku’s kind Master asked, curiously. Niku perked up her ears; she wanted to hear this too.

“If it were a small one that didn’t hurt, enough casts of {Purification} to peel off the black junk and a couple of potions or Restoration spells would fix it. But {Purification} won’t do much when drinking water starts to hurt. The cavity’s gotta be cleaned, filled with putty made from, like, wolf teeth, and then healed.”

A small enough cavity would be like healing a cut, but as it got bigger it started to be treated like a lost body part, and to be healed you needed something to fill in the space.

“Now, when it hurts all the time, that’s when shit gets real. You gotta just pull the whole tooth right out. A noble could hire some mage who knows strong enough Restoration magic to restore lost body parts, but that runs some serious gold... Well, I guess that doesn’t mean much with Master around.”

Apparently casting {Purification} on cavities bad enough to hurt all the time was so painful that many would choose death over it. Niku felt herself tear up at the thought.

“So yeah, best just pull out your tooth and get some Restoration on! Maaan, if only you brought this up sooner. It could’ve been fixed with just a bit of {Purification}!”

“Ngh...”

Niku stiffened with a jerk. Her tooth would be pulled out. Just thinking about it made the blood drain from her face.

“Ichika. I think I’m feeling better now. Enduring the cavity’s pain will make me stronger.”

“Idiot. Master’ll be pissed if you don’t cure it. Right, Master?”

“Yeah. I’ve heard of people getting blood disease from cavities and just dying from it, since bloody gums lead right to the heart. Get cured, Niku.”

“Aww... Okay...” Niku had no choice but to nod with Master ordering her like that.

“You sure don’t look happy, Niku. What happens if you cast Restoration magic without using {Purification} on the rotting tooth first?”

“I mean, what’s the point of fixing your teeth with the cavity still hanging around? You gotta clean it.”

Fair point. Niku had no choice but to face the full extent of the healing process.

“How do we get the tooth out?”

“Nothin’ fancy,” Ichika replied, busting out pliers. They were large pliers, normally used to pull fangs and such out of monsters to use as proof of having killed them. S-Surely she didn’t intend to stick that into someone’s mouth, right? She wasn’t going to wedge the cavity between the prongs and squeeze, was she? Niku unconsciously tucked her tail between her legs.

“What else? Is there any anesthesia or, like, something to make it not hurt?”

“Weeell, I have heard about anesthesia being used, but you gotta be a pro. Even with a {Detox} skill, your heart or lungs going numb would just flat-out kill you, so yeah. Gotta get your license.”

“This world has licenses and stuff...?” Master thought back and recalled how even fried food had required a license exam, or whatever.

“Remember the Azure Fishery I took you to that one time? The chef of that place has a license. Turns out he’s actually a doctor.”

“Oh right, the place with tasty urchin pasta.”

Niku hadn’t liked the pasta. It had a thick, poison-like flavor, which made sense given that it was literally poison. According to Master, it was a flavor that needed mature tastebuds to appreciate.

“Alright, so we just need to get her to that chef guy, right?”

Niku’s tail perked up at the prospect of it not hurting. She would even suffer bitter medicine if it helped.

“Buddy, you knocking out the Bloody Kraken with Aidy yesterday got him caught by the authorities. He’s sitting in a jail cell right now and probably will be for years. Too bad, he was a good chef and dentist.”

“Seriously? And what, that place actually was illegal?”

“Pretty good though, right?”

Niku was struck by despair as her own hope for a painless recovery was dashed.

“Weeell, I’d rather her not feel pain when we do this, but...”

“Don’t sweat it! I’ve hunted tons of Wolf-type monsters; I’m basically a pro at ripping teeth out! All you gotta do is cast Restoration magic and we’re done!” Ichika snapped the air with the pliers. Niku swung her head side to side fearfully, her legs trembling. The last time she had been this terrified was when she had faced off with Core 50.

“Niku. Seems like you’ve just gotta steel your resolve here.”

“Ngh... This is the worst thing...”

“C’mon, girl, I can’t pull it out with your mouth shut,” Ichika said.

“C-Could we at least have Rei do this...?”

“Hm? Rei can’t pull teeth out. Her attack power’s zero.”

Oh, right. She probably couldn’t pull the teeth out even if she pulled as hard as she could. Niku despaired once again.

“I-I’m still, um, those big pliers still are kind of, um, scary,” Niku stammered.

“True. They’re pretty big, since they’re meant for animals and all.”

It would be quite uncomfortable for Niku to have these big pliers stuffed into her small mouth. Especially since her tooth was getting pulled. It might rip her lips.

“Maybe we could have Rei set the pliers on her tooth so it won’t hurt her mouth,” Master suggested. “Then you can break the tooth off, Ichika, and Rei can pull it out.”

“Pretty sure it’d be easier for you to just make a smaller pair of pliers, dude.”

“Good point. Oh! Wait a second. That gives me an idea.”

＊ ＊ ＊

“Okaaaay, open your mooouth. {Purification}, {Purification}, {Purification}, {Purification}...”

Rei the High Priestess was curing someone’s cavity. The patient in question had cavities severe enough that they hurt without him doing anything. The amount of {Purifications} it took to clean out the tooth and remove all the cavities was far more than most things took, but it didn’t hurt at all. Such was a miracle granted by the High Priestess of Beddhism’s endless compassion. Thus the patient’s cavities were cleansed, and his teeth ended up pearly white again.

“And now they’re clean. All that must be done now is filling the hole and healing the shape.”

Rei kind of just slapped fillings into the guy’s teeth. She touched the sensitive areas carelessly and smacked the filling in, which normally would have made the man experience such excruciating pain that he might have passed out. However, due to the miracle of her saintliness, it didn’t hurt in the least. In fact, it was so pleasant that it was almost addicting.

“You holiness, he is ready.”

“You got it. ■■■■, ■■■■■—{Healing}. Okay. And now one {Purification} to finish him off.”

With one last spell, it was done. The final stage was done by the pope since it didn’t need the High Priestess’s miracles, but in any case once he was done nothing remained but perfectly clean teeth free of cavities.

“Incredible! This is a miracle! Aaah, I feel so relieved! Oyasuminasai!”

“Yeah, yeah, oyasuminasai. The donation box is over there.”

“May you learn well from this experience and keep your teeth clean. Next, please.”

“Th-Thank you...”

Healing Niku’s cavity led to a new job being established for Rei the High Priestess (and the pope, incidentally). That job being the curing of cavities. Most of their patients were those who felt pain just from drinking water. Some, like their last one, had more severe cases. So far, they had a satisfaction rate of one hundred percent.

They had jacked their prices up when Bonodore sent a letter begging them to do so, since the churches and doctors who had previously dealt with cavities were going broke, but even so the stream of customers didn’t stop.

“I never thought we’d get so famous just from word of mouth,” Master mused.

“It makes sense. Most people only notice they have cavities when it’s too late.”

Most people in Tsia only ever drank cold water in the winter, by which time their cavities tended to be severe. Master was already regretting ever starting this, but Rei was full of life now that she had a lot of work to do.

“Master. That’s everyone for today,” Niku said, feeling bad that she was the cause of Master having so much extra work.

“Niku, did you brush your teeth?”

“Yes. They’re all clean.”

Even if there now existed a way to get cured painlessly, Niku had started brushing her teeth every day so that she wouldn’t get cavities again. Master praised her and patted her head.