Shout-out and thanks to Leo_Micado for beta-reading this chapter.
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Jean's perception of time reached a complete standstill. A single second extended to encompass a lifetime, as her brain struggled to process what had just occurred. With every plan, there is the worst-case scenario that everyone seeks to avoid, and the catastrophic case that everyone fails to predict. This was a disaster packaged inside a catastrophe served in a platter of misfortune.
This was not supposed to happen!
Jean's vision started to warp. The visage of the girl drenched in blood started to undulate and shift grotesquely. It bubbled for a while before settling into the image of herself when she was younger. The girl's face grew sinister as a ghastly smile split the crimson-soaked face in half.
#Another one dead by your own incompetence,# the girl said in a raspy voice.
#How many more need to die before you realise that it was you all along?# Her voice grew with a brain-splitting crescendo.
#You're the problem!# The girl reached forward, her petite hands curled slightly as they approached Jean's neck.
#The solution is obvious, if you think about it,# her hands grasped Jean's neck and started to tighten.
#You. Must. Die!# Jean's breath grew more difficult.
#Die!# Suffocation.
#DIE!#
#DIE!#
Jean's sight grew darker, as her consciousness started to waver. Her body refused to respond to the girl's death grip, or maybe her mind refused to act against it. Maybe this was meant to be. The girl was right; she was the problem. Maybe-
"Hello?" A gentle shake broke through the defeatist din pervading Jean's mind.
"Hello?" It repeated. The voice was dainty and mellow. It cut past all the negativity and brought Jean's vision back online. Jean realised that she was sweating excessively, something which hadn't happened for a very long time (even less so after advancing in her cultivation).
"Helloooo?" Jean followed the call and was jolted once again by the garish image of a girl caked in blood. Now that her mind was clearer, Jean went to action immediately. She had to first separate the man exhibiting symptoms from this tent, she also had to do the same with the drenched girl (after running some tests with her first). So, she recruited the girl's help to move the man using a stretcher. Thankfully, everyone else in the tent kept a respectable distance from them, since they were now educated about the disease's mode of transmission. Once the man was settled, she administered a dosage of painkiller to assuage him for a while, since that was all she could do for now.
After that quick detour, Jean dragged the girl into the research tent and proceeded to clean her thoroughly with soap and disinfectant. When Jean scrubbed the area under the girl's shoulders, the girl released an elated giggle that finally brought some brightness into the girl's dull and morose face.
"Hold still," Jean said while she dabbed the girl's hair. The girl listened, but then Jean could suddenly hear whimpers and moans escaping from under the rag.
"Hey? Are you okay?" Jean removed the towel and saw the girl crying terribly. "Hey! It's okay... It's okay..."
Jean pulled the girl into a tight embrace and let her release all the pent-up sorrow.
"I-I killed her.... I k-killed her," the girl muttered between fitful breaths. "I s-shouldn't have played in the woods as my mother warned me to."
"And now... now... she's gone!" The girl's voice grew louder, and her cries grew more primal.
"It's not your fault," Jean said in a hushed tone. "It's not your fault Kili."
"I k-killed her-"
"Look at me!" Jean pulled the girl away and shook her jerkily. The girl's cries halted due to the sudden shock. With a serious frown, Jean repeated, "It is not your fault! Do you hear me?"
The girl nodded hastily, half in fear and half in agreement. At that moment, Jean realised that she'd outwardly exhibited irritation, anger, and frustration - another peculiarity.
Rather than wasting any more time, Jean quickly conjured a spell circle that produced a continuous gust of warm wind to blow dry the girl's hair.
"Dress up and meet me in the lab. I have to perform my rounds through the tents once again and distribute rations," she said before leaving the girl by herself.
____
Jean wasn't ready to let the girl die just yet. Kili had been exposed to the bodily fluids of an infected person, but Jean's gut was telling her that the girl would be safe. What gave her this misguided confidence? The girl was exposed to the pus fluid, which was shown to carry a more concentrated cluster of the virus particulates, and still failed to contract the disease.
Then again, this was only a hope-filled hypothesis, and it was often the hope that killed you.
Jean took the girl into the lab garbed in personal protective equipment. Not only was it useful to protect oneself from getting infected, but it was also workable to stop the person from spreading it. The lab was a sensitive area where a lot of Jean's field research was taking place, so she could not afford cross-contamination of any sort.
Using a disinfected needle, Jean punctured the girl's skin over a vein passing through the back of her wrist and utilised artificial stimulation to extract a thimble of blood. She then extracted a drop and sandwiched it between two finger-length, transparent crystal slats. Once the blood spread out into a thin film, she activated her mana sense and observed it microscopically. Tuning her senses took a few seconds as she had yet to master the process, but eventually, her sight displayed the cellular interaction.
After having seen it many times already, Jean was quick to discern the virus particles suspended in the blood almost immediately. They moved haphazardly yet with purpose. Their behaviour was predictable, as they weren't technically alive. One of the particles attacked a red blood cell in plain sight, co-opting its natural ability to divide and proliferate. But then suddenly, something interesting and shocking occurred. The white blood cells attacked the infected red-blood cell by surrounding it, then, they started to vibrate and emanate a faint mana pulse causing the red blood cell to grow luminescent. After a few seconds, they retreated. Jean waited for the cell to divide, and it did, but no new virus particles were released.
"What in the world?!" She could not contain her bewilderment. This was nothing like a normal immune system response. This was totally, "-magical..."
Jean's eyes locked on the girl.
"I-Is something wrong?" Kili asked anxiously. The sudden and intense attention unnerved her slightly.
"You're immune," Jean answered. "It doesn't affect you at all."
That begged the question, "But how?"
____
Immunity is innate and adaptive in any living creature. The lymphatic cells are capable of warding off most infections and diseases innately, while they can also learn to ward off newer ones through adaptation. In adaptive immunity, there are natural and artificial means. The process may vary, but it can be boiled down to a single concept of "teaching" the host immune system to react to "invasions". Jean had learned of these methods in great detail through her mother's notes and Mister Larks' teaching (though the former was more experiential while the latter was structured.)
But Jean saw none of those in Kili's blood. The girl's lymphatic cells were actively neutralising any threat through means that the scientific process could not define. Luckily, she didn't have to remain in suspense for long, as Josie arrived within minutes of the test.
"Unbelievable!" Josie exclaimed as she examined the blood slide according to Jean's instructions. "Wait a minute-"
Josie pulled out two identical phials from her storage disks and approached Kili.
"This here is a potion that turns your tongue green," Josie explained while raising the phial on her left hand, "and this here is a potion that causes your nails to grow longer by a quarter of its current length," she continued while raising the one on her right. She handed the two phials to the girl and instructed her to drink them together.
The girl took a whiff of the liquids and scrunched her nose in disgust. Then, with a single gulp, she downed the two liquids.
"Say 'AAA'," Josie demanded while holding the girl's open palms in her hands. The girl extended her tongue, which had turned green as expected, and her nails grew longer and longer until they were exactly a quarter-length longer.
"As I thought," Josie murmured.
"What is it?" Jean probed. "They did what they were supposed to?"
"They worked the way I told her they would work," Josie corrected. She then tossed the phials to Jean and gestured for the girl to inspect them.
Jean brought the phials towards her nose and took a deep breath.
"Is that-" Jean's lips twitched slightly as she struggled to complete her sentence.
"Vinegar," Josie obliged in her stead. "The girl's body responded to a placebo."
"But how?" Jean found herself asking this exact question a lot nowadays.
"This girl is special. One amongst a trillion special. Born once in a millennium special," Josie exulted.
"Has the Young Miss ever heard of the Universal Panacea Physique?" Josie inquired. "One could say that either this girl is gifted, or cursed to have been born with this physique."
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