Chapter 4 An Otherworlder Too Busy for the Dungeon

“Oh, Souya. Mooorning.”

“Hey, Tutu. Morning.”

Tutu, the owner of the devastated bar, curved her back in a refreshing stretch and greeted me.

“Sorry for all this mess.”

“Don’t worry; that’s what big feasts are like. It happens all the time. Okay, Souya, I’ve gotta go to work meow, so I’ll leave the cleaning up to you.” She waved her hand and her tail and went off to work.

“……” I have to clean it up? All of this? I have no words.

[14TH DAY]

The past few days had been so busy that I hadn’t even had time to think about the dungeon. But they’d been fun. I could look back and smile on those days forever, even if I found myself in the lowest rings of hell.

“Was it fun? C’mon, was it fun?”

“Yeah, sorta.” If I told Éa how crazy it’d actually gotten, I could see her grumble and pout about it. My bride, by the way, was currently suffering from a hangover. She was out like a light in my tent.

“Aargh, I can’t believe I couldn’t go to my own sister’s wedding.”

I’d come to play doctor in Éa’s tent. Her pulse had weakened since the day before, and her once feverish body felt icy cold.

“You’ll just have to look forward to your own wedding,” I told her.

“As if I could last that long.”

I glanced over at Éa’s ryvius lying next to her bow. No more red remained in the vial. The ryvius didn’t normally work outside of town, but it did around our tents. According to Lana, it had something to do with the abandoned dungeon not too far away from here. This campsite sat perfectly on the border. The kitchen marked the cut-off point, and the sisters’ tent lay just outside the ryvius’s reach. I tried to move Éa somewhere where it would work, but she refused, claiming it would only prolong her suffering.

The ryvius couldn’t remove foreign objects from the body or purge it of poison. It healed the damage caused by the toxicity, but as long as the object responsible for the contamination remained inside, it could really only buy you some time.

Machina had scanned Éa and found that the bullet had entered through her stomach and lodged itself in her hip bone. We would need to cut her open, push her organs out of the way, and remove the bullet if we wanted to treat her. This world had greatly advanced magical treatment capabilities, but as a result, its traditional internal medical technologies remained underdeveloped. To make matters worse, it only had a short history with guns, so of course, no one knew much of anything about treating bullet wounds. Every medical advancement required a vast number of sacrificial patients. It would surely still take a long time to reach casualties on that scale here.

On the other hand, we did have some knowledge on the matter. However, the medical program had only recovered 16 percent of its full functionality. Isolla suggested we give her an IV with chelating agents to extract the lead in her blood, but Machina vetoed the plan, pointing out that it would only help temporarily and might cause her wound to inflame.

Only the ryvius and Lana’s magic had kept Éa alive since the moment she had gotten shot. That, and her strong desire to not leave her sister alone. Ironically, my appearance had softened that resolve.

“Looks like I finally can’t move anymore,” she noticed, touching her own legs.

“Hey, maybe it’ll help if you put this on again,” I offered and showed her the gauntlet. A curse with the will to protect these two dwelled within it. I still hadn’t been able to take it off, but maybe I could find a way.

“As much as I hate to admit it, Heuress’s grace belongs to you. It didn’t choose me. Plus, I don’t want anything a heim has put his dirty hands all over.” Her insult held no power. She slumped over onto me. “If you ever get tired of that, feel free to hawk it. Also, researchers pay good money for elf corpses, so go ahead and sell my body while you’re at it. I don’t need a funeral. Just send a lock of my hair back to the forest. If my father or elder brother give you any trouble, tell them I said, ‘Go to hell.’ I guess that’s about all.”

“……” I couldn’t say anything. There’s nothing to say to someone who has accepted their fate.

“So please look after my sister, Brother.” She took my hand. I placed both of mine over hers.

“You got it.”

“Okay, now I’ve got no regrets left,” she said, smiling peacefully. I leaned in close.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

That made up my mind, too. “Then give your life to me.”

“Huh?”

“I came to this world to save my younger sister,” I said, then left the tent to get ready. I stepped up to Machina and gave her an order, even though I knew she’d probably been listening in the whole time. “Machina, cancel all current operations and deconstruct the medical program. Extract the information and consolidate it. Prepare to commence the laparotomy.”

“Understood. I expected this might happen and have already begun preparations. I will finish them in five minutes. Time is of the essence, so I have planned the surgery to begin in one hour.”

“That’s too soon.”

“Mr. Souya, you did not make any specific demands for resource allotment, so I will use the surplus as I see fit.” My rough, amateur commands paid off. But I needed to know one more thing.

“Tell me, what’s our chance of success with this surgery?”

“You have ordered me to do it, and I have said I will. So we have a one hundred percent chance of success.” Very encouraging to hear.

“I also have a proposal,” added Isolla as she rolled over. I picked her up. “I followed Machina’s example and searched through the records of my previous generations. The emergency medical treatment data I found comes from a surgery performed forty years ago, but I would like you to let me use it to help. With this, I expect our success rate should increase by twenty percent.”

The new 120 percent rate began to feel like a measure of how we believed we could make it, as long as we had the will. My partners had spoken. I placed all my trust in them.

“Save my little sister. She’s in your hands.”

“Please rest assured. We will live up to your expectations; I guarantee it.”