(Th-this is bad…!! This person is going to die!)
I immediately crouch down beside the human. It looks like he was attacked by a monster and is already at death’s door, but if my curse delivers the finishing blow then that’s on me. I really don’t want to kill a human.
I undo the buttons of the blood-soaked shirt to check — it’s red and sodden, but there’s no black stain. Either the voice didn’t reach him, or there’s another reason. I can’t say, but it doesn’t look like he’ll be dying because of me. That said, there’s a large wound on his chest and blood is pouring out without stopping.
At that moment, the man barely opens his eyes and looks up at me. His left eye is red as blood, his right a rich gold. An instantly striking pair of mismatched eyes meet mine for just a moment.
“Wh… wha… t a… pointless… li… fe it… was…”
Right, this is no time to feel relieved that he’s alive. Heavy blood loss, shallow breathing. His consciousness looks like it’s fading in and out. If things stay as they are, he’s going to die for certain. He’s already muttering the kind of line that means he’s made peace with the end.
(He reminds me of my past self… I want to help him if I can.)
My past self had no one to expect help from, and died alone and miserably on a pile of garbage. Even now when I think back on it, it really was a wretched way to go. But this person, who was about to die alone, was found by me.
What I can do is about as much as producing a medicine and giving it to him — but that’s better than nothing. Thanks to the Diversification skill, I can produce any plant I’ve absorbed before. The place I was born was extraordinarily lush and I was able to absorb all manner of plants, so I should be able to produce something even more effective than that first remedy I made.
(Let’s see… the best combination for medicine… something that heals wounds and restores vitality…)
Compounding medicine is more intuition than anything else, so it’s hard to explain. I blend several plants together inside myself and arrive at something I couldn’t possibly improve on. Checking its status: “Full-Recovery Potion” — and reading the description, it’s the absolute highest quality remedy there is. If this doesn’t save him, nothing will.
To make it easier to administer, I sit down and rest his head on what would be my thighs — essentially a lap pillow situation. I’ve grown flowers there, so it should have some cushioning. Then I just need to let it out through the opening, so I go to part my “mouth” —
(Wait, no…! Dribbling liquid out of my mouth in front of a person is a terrible idea!)
I clench my lips shut and just barely hold back the medicine before it spills out. That was close — a moment later and I’d have been some unhinged woman about to drip saliva onto a dying man.
The thing is, in combat these past weeks I’ve been spitting poison full-force out of my mouth, so I nearly did the same thing out of habit.
Lately the kinds of monsters appearing have changed, and voice attacks stopped working as well. I kept getting attacked by zombie-type monsters, and the only way to deal with them was dissolving poison. It became habit — I almost let it ooze out of my mouth like I always do, but humans don’t do that.
(Hmm… where do I get it out from… it’s building up in my mouth and becoming a problem… oh, right.)
I was about to realize it was going to start coming out of whatever holes I’ve shaped as ears and nose, when it occurred to me to use my eyes instead. Discharge from the nose or ears is clearly out of the question visually, but tears — at least there’s somewhat less resistance to putting those in your mouth. …Well, whether he can see clearly enough to evaluate any of this in his current state is debatable, but if he survives, a bad impression of me now could affect my daily life going forward.
I can’t be leaving behind the kind of legend where some woman in the mountains dripped liquid from every hole in her face and a dying man drank it and was healed — that’s not a mysterious witch, that’s a yokai.
(Carefully out through the eyes…)
My eyes aren’t haniwa-face eyes anymore. Originally they were nothing but pitch-black hollows, and when I cried and screamed, something like tears would come out. How those hollows function as vision is a mystery I’ve never been able to solve — but this is a monster’s body, so thinking too hard about it is probably a waste of effort.
My current eyes are modeled after human eyeballs, but in plant terms they’re more like fruit. They grow — or rather, ripen — in the hollow of the eye socket. I imagine if someone extracted them they’d make extraordinarily fine medicine ingredients. Being inhuman, I can regenerate them, so they’d be harvestable any number of times. …Not that I’m planning to do that.
I lean over the man’s face and try to carefully drip drops onto his lips. …Incredibly difficult. I feel like drinking it would work better, but maybe at this point I should just pour it directly onto the wound.
“…Mm…”
(Oh — it went in. …Good, the wound is starting to close.)
It earns the “Full-Recovery Potion” label on the status display, that’s for sure. The bloodstains remain, but the wound is visibly closing. His breathing is settling too. He seems to have fallen asleep — recovering his strength, perhaps — so I decide to leave him here.
I could have stayed until he woke up, but apparently even just speaking might kill people. Being asked how I helped him, why I’m out here, all sorts of things — that I can do without.
(Wait — could this be one of the people I saw before? I think one of them had hair like this…?)
Looking again at the person sleeping peacefully, I have a vague sense of recognition. Probably one of the two knights I spotted coming into the forest. There’s no sign of my voice having any effect on him, but in the underbrush, the horned rabbit is definitely dead.
(The rabbit died, so speaking really is dangerous. Why didn’t it affect him… is it because he’s human? Maybe he has some kind of Mandrake countermeasure?)
I take one more look at the sleeping human. Platinum hair, and up close, a remarkably fine-featured face. I’d like to have made my own face this well-balanced, but I built it while checking a water-mirror, so who knows how it actually turned out.
(Is it really alright to leave this person here alone… right — at least I can make a monster-repelling potion and spread it around. …Or actually, maybe apply it to his clothes… that way it should stay effective for the trip back too.)
Producing the monster-repelling potion internally, I find it a bit tedious to extract it through the eyes — the opening is small and it takes time — but since dribbling it from nose or mouth or ears is clearly not presentable for a human to see, I slowly collect the tears into a cup I’ve shaped with both hands, then apply it evenly across the man’s body.
Being a plant-type monster, I’m unaffected, but carnivorous monsters hate this smell. They shouldn’t come close for a while.
(Well then — please make it home safely. I may never see you again, but.)
With that thought, I leave the spot. Following the river south for several more days —
I finally find a human settlement.