08. The way sisters should be

Outline of the previous story:
Gerbera remembered turning over the table in a fit of anger.

8
Gerbera promptly carried me under her arms and headed straight for her nest.

All the way my consciousness was faint.
Perhaps due to my burns I didn’t feel much pain.

Without meeting any monsters on the way, the white arachne returned me to the nest at full speed.

“Master!?”
“S.. senpai!”

Rose turned around and screamed in a particularly unladylike manner, while Kato’s face turned pale.

“Master!”

Lily jumped up and s.n.a.t.c.hed me away.

I was laid to rest face up on a bed.
They tore off my armor and removed my bloodstained clothes.

Lily took a moment to catch her breath.
Or possibly, she swallowed a scream welling up inside of her.

Right after, a white light came from her hand.
It was healing magic.
The flow of blood hemorrhaging from the bullet wounds slowed down.
As expected of magic. I calmed down and surrendered myself to the warm light.

….or that’s what I would’ve done if I could.

“aAaA,AAh, GAAaAA!?”

As the medical treatment was progressing, the nerves that were previously stunned now came alive again.
Despite this, my wounds were still far from fully healed.
Although basic healing magic includes an a.n.a.lgesic effect to some extent, my current situation is far beyond what it can cover up.
Obviously, since advanced sedatives don’t exist here I have no choice but to clench my teeth and bare with it.

Kato was shouting something.
Lilly inserted her finger into my mouth. So that I wouldn’t bite my tongue she pressed it down locking it to my jaw.

Now it was Lily who shouted.
My body was being pinned down by hard slippery legs. While my body was writhing in pain Rose must be suppressing me.

Only Gerbera’s voice could not be heard.
I wonder where she went off to.
A part of my mind that was desperately trying to escape the pain was constantly thinking such things.

“Healing magic can somehow deal with the burns, but the pellets that were shot inside…”

I heard Lilly’s heartbreaking voice.
For some reason they were arguing back and forth.
Because I mostly regressed into an animal-like state I had lost the ability to understand their words.
Right now I have nothing left. Nothing but pain.

“…Rose, give me a knife.”

My ears were picking up sounds.
But I understood no meaning from them.

I didn’t want to understand.

“I’m sorry, Master”.

Foreign matter… body… inside…

“UgoOh, UuOGAh, AaA!!”

It hurts… it hurts, ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithuuuurts!

Waves of pain were slamming into my brain.
If this can still be called pain then what the h.e.l.l did I feel up till now?
At this point I can’t believe this is anything other than something created to destroy my very being.

With my impaired body in excruciating agony all I could do was writhe around.

My restrained teeth were biting into Lilly’s skin which mimics that of a young girl. It looked like they were almost torn off entirely.
Her finger melted into the flexible body tissue of a slime and kept my teeth from breaking.

Every time the pain wrecked through my body like an electric shock, my body moved around unnaturally.
A pair of puppet arms were creaking while trying to restrain my own arms, which were flailing around by reflex.
Although my flesh was getting covered in bruises my body was jumping around by itself.

Stomach, shoulder, clavicle, flanks, thighs.
One after another pellets were getting scattered around the bed with damp sounds.

My time in h.e.l.l went on.
This is the price I pay for my foolishness.
I’d nearly rather lose consciousness, but I understood how bad that would be.

It’s like sailors caught in a storm. The moment their hands let go it’s all over. Sinking in the darkness, never to come up again.

I could do nothing but earnestly hold on.

I wonder how much time has pa.s.sed by now.

By the time I couldn’t recognize pain anymore as being pain the operation smelling of blood came to an end.
I received healing magic again.
Magic is the greatest. Without this I’ve no idea how many times I would’ve died.

“Why did this…!?”

It took a long time for me to recover from being reduced to a state similar to an animal.

“All the pellets were removed. The wounds all healed up, and even the burns…”

I could sense the white light of healing magic through my closed eyelids.
The pain from my wounds has gone away.

However, my body felt bizarrely languid.
It’s obvious that the body will be sore after strenuous activity. My body felt the danger of coming so close to death, although I don’t remember it well.
Feeling exhausted is obviously to be expected. However… I get the feeling this dull feeling isn’t just caused by fatigue.

Fundamentally speaking, it feels like something came out of my body and went missing.
It feels like there’s still something coming out.

To give an example, I feel like a container with a hole in the bottom.

Because of this I can’t put strength into any part of my body.
I can’t even make the tip of my finger twitch.
On top of that a white mist was approaching me on the edge of my consciousness.

If I were to pa.s.s out now, I would never wake up again. Such a feeling hadn’t left me even now.
I wonder if this means that the wounds I received were just that severe.

I understand that healing magic is by no means omnipotent.
Even Lilly had to recover for days. Moreover, there’s no treatment possible if you die.

Perhaps my body exceeded this limit.
If that’s so, will I die like this after all?

… I don’t want to die.
I can’t allow myself to die here.
After all, I still haven’t…

“…’tis mine fault”

Only now did I hear Gerbera’s voice

I felt like it had been quite a while since I heard her.
I slowly opened my eyes.
Even just that took a lot of effort for me now.

Only a narrow field of view opens up to me.
Lilly and Rose were beside me.
Lilly’s hand had reformed and she thrust it into my mouth again. Her other hand was glowing with healing magic and placed near my chest.
Rose should have been straddling my waist earlier but now she’s sitting at my right hand side. She looks ready to restrain me the moment I go wild again.
I also saw Kato who had a stiff expression on her face and her hand on Rose’s shoulder.

…Gerbera, where is she?

While only being able to move my eyes I looked for her.
I found her right away.
She sat on a different bed about 3 meters away, with her 8 legs folded and overall looking very dejected.

“’Tis all… mine fault.”
Her drooping shoulders made her look crestfallen
Her face is normally white as it is, but now it looked like bleached paper.

“… Could you explain the circ.u.mstances?”, Lily asked.
There was no way to tell what she was thinking from her tightly controlled voice or the expression on her face. Right now, even I don’t have the composure to face her head on.

“We…”

Gerbera obediently began to talk about what had happened.
About how we started an investigation together. What we were trying to do, the discussion between us. How we weren’t able to find any family members, looking for different measures, thinking there has to be a water source because of the many monsters. Taking on the herd, thinking it would go well but having it turn into a disaster…

In summary, her recollection was the same as mine.
Except for one thing which was decisively different.

“…everything was my fault”
She was crouching down while holding her white head in her hands.

“I couldn’t change after all. I can’t change mine inborn nature. In the end I brought calamity upon our lord.”

She feels obligated to take responsibility.
Having me get injured is now part of history which she can’t wipe away.
Because of that she’s now tormented by some form of trauma.

“How foolish. I shouldst hast known! If I am together with all of thou ’tis certain thou will all come to regret it sooner ‘r later. . . !”

I made a lot of plans for her sake. If I didn’t have her battle power on my side there’s no way I would have challenged the herd of monsters.
With this way of looking at it it’s possible to say it was Gerbera’s fault.

But even with this viewpoint the one who failed was ultimately myself.

Gerbera really did very well.
The fact that I can still draw breath even now is without a doubt a result of her efforts.
There isn’t even a fragment of a reason for her to feel responsible for what happened. I got hurt because of what I did by myself, so she’s absolutely wrong about this.

However, at least within her heart that was the truth.

“I shouldst hast nev’r been beside him in the first place.”

Gerbera sank into depression, and with that my scheme collapsed as well.
I intended for her to make up for her earlier mistakes so that Rose would acknowledge her.

Instead, rather than making any sort of recovery we got ourselves in this mess.
Whatever the reason may be, it’s a fact that she couldn’t protect me.
Because of me her list of mistakes has only piled up further.

Although she’s depressed like that I can’t even call out to her with my body in this state.
I can’t even make any excuses for her sake like this.

Even when I’m about to lose something important to me, I can’t do anything but witness it.

… ah, s.h.i.+t.
Why did it have to end up like this.

It’s not like I made a move without thinking it through.
I didn’t go in optimistically with a half-playful mindset.

I thought it would be okay if I first thought about what I would do and then worried about it for a while.
But I ended up overlooking everything important, I did my best but in the end everything turned into a ma.s.sive failure.
I went through such pain, almost died and it still seems like I might die anyway.

And finally I’m about to lose something so important.

Really, I wonder why.

If I could have gotten along well with everyone I would’ve been satisfied with just that.

“Gerbera”

At that point, a calm voice called out her name.
It was Lily’s, though I didn’t realize it at first.

She had calmed down to that extent. Although I was in this state before her, she’s fully composed.
Her pretty teeth lightly chewed her glossy lips, but she maintained a calm face.

Maybe she’s deliberately smoothed out her composure. It could be pure mimicry. After all, she’s that sort of being and she excels at showing others what she wants.

However, if that’s true she’s surely bottling up her feelings inside herself.

“You said it was your fault Master got injured?”

Lily’s tone of voice was a bit lower than usual.

“And that because of this you shouldn’t be beside him?”

The feeling she tried to repress leaked out a little at the end of that sentence.

That was definitely anger.
Lily was silently angry.
However, it didn’t seem that anger was directed at my getting hurt.

“Do you think that’s what Master wishes for? What do you think Master went to such lengths for? Do you mean to throw out his feeling just like that?”

Lily got angry at Gerbera for taking the blame upon herself.

“But, I…”
“’But’ nothing. You don’t understand anything. Really, you don’t get it at all. Masters feelings or our feelings…!”

Lily shook her head and directed a withering glare at Gerbera.

“Listen Gerbera. Before you became one of our comrades you, the white arachne, taught me something.
“I did?”
“Yeah. That was that I lacked strength. Both Mentally and physically and I also lacked experience. I understood very well then that I couldn’t help Master by myself. To the point of really hating it, you know.”

Rather than saying she was ‘taught’ it’s probably more appropriate to say she had the facts thrown in her face.
Her voice sounded bitter, but she bravely faced her own shortcoming.

“but, at that point we realized we had to join forces. Probably, all of us in this household lack in some parts and that’s just the sort of beings we are. That’s why, if we don’t work together as sisters and complement one another it’ll surely be hopeless.”

Lily’s voice seemed to have recovered.
Probably, her answer to the problem already came out from within her.

“I’m Master’s first family member. Therefore you could say I’m something like Master’s eldest daughter. Because of that I’ve decided to become someone worthy of that role.

Seeing her make such a proud statement with her chest held high, She seemed quite a bit more impressive than how I remember her.

“Even if I’m not a reliable older sister, I would certainly never reject or abandon my younger sister.”
“Lily-dono…”
“No matter how you feel about yourself, I don’t care about that at all.”

So it turns out that Lily had already fully accepted Gerbera from the beginning, even though she had gotten me injured.
I found myself wondering about how that ever happened.

“I want you to support Master as well. I thought that way before and still do so even now.”
“Nevertheless”

Although she had held her tongue and listened intently, she now began speaking.

“Yea together with Lily-dono, what a.s.sistance doth thou believe I couldst provide f’r my lord in this state?”

Unlike Lilly who can use healing magic, Gerbera has no skills to heal wounds sustained in battle.

“There is not a thing I can do. If there wast I would ha’ made sure things went differently. What art thou saying to someone who couldst not protect him”

“No, there is something you can do”.

With slightly downcast eyes Lily denied her words.
Despite looking so resolute before, now she almost had an apologetic look on her face.

“In fact, it might be something that only you can do.”
“A thing only I can do? Doth such a thing exist?”

With a nod Lilly looked in my direction.

“As you can see Master has lost his energy. Do you have any idea why that is, Gerbera?”
“I would presume ’tis because he sustain’d great injury. I heard humans to be weak beings.”
“Yeah, that’s normally correct. But, in this case it’s not like that.”

Gerbera had a puzzled frown on the face.

“What doth thou mean?”

“Within me lie the memories of a human called Miho Mizus.h.i.+ma. I also have the memories of my life as a monster up till now. Because of this I can say that Master’s condition isn’t normal.”
“Not normal? What dost thou mean specifically?”
“Master’s wounds have long since been healed. My healing magic was certainly effective. Since he made it this far he should be fine already.”

Gerbera’s expression turned increasingly baffled.

“But, My lords countenance hast become paler by the moment, hath it not?”
“Yeah. That’s why there has to be a different reason for his weakening. I also know what this reason is, but I don’t know ‘why’ this has happened.”
“Ay?”
“Master’s body no longer has sufficient magical energy.”

As Lily frankly stated thus, I stared at Gerbera.

“Gerbera, don’t divert your eyes and look carefully. You should surely understand.”

Gerbera gave a start as Lilly pointed it out to her. Up till now she had been trying to look away.
Urged on by Lily, she now timidly turned her eyes straight at me.

“…Certainly, it doth seem My lord’s magical energy is running out.”

Gerbera narrowed her red eyes and muttered while looking at me.
Earlier Gerbera was able to see the increase in my magical power and also the cause of this, and Lily investigated it herself as well. I’m sure that the fact I’m losing my magic power is guaranteed.

Lily nodded and opened her mouth.

“All living beings in this word possess magical power to some extent. Monsters have a particularly large amount of magic power, but any creature is endowed with magic. Although I’m not sure why but people from a different world like Master also seem to have magical power, but that doesn’t mean they have a cheat-like ability for it, right? If anyone can use magic then everyone has magic power after all.”

Lily cut her words short and paused for a moment.

“Well, those things don’t matter much now. The problem at hand is that the lack of magical energy is causing abnormal effects. It probably is obvious that it would. For example, in my case I would lose control of my form and Rose would stop being able to move. I don’t know the effect it would have on any or all living beings, but it does look like even people from a different world are affected in a bad way.”

“…I have understood what thou meanst to say”

Gerbera had a difficult expression after coming to understand the circ.u.mstances.

“But, what wouldst thou suggest I do? As the cause remainst unknown no cure is possible.”
“True, a real cure is impossible. Without knowing the cause investigating a cure would be hard. However, we may be able to try symptomatic therapy.”
“Symptomatic therapy?”
“Yeah. I want you to share some of your magic power with Master”

Gerbera opened her red eyes wide upon hearing Lilly’s request.

“My magic power, thou sayeth”?
“If I were to say to imagine a blood transfusion… you probably wouldn’t get it. Ehm, basically, Magic has a path through which magic power flows, right? Through it magic power was channeled so it could be increased. Therefore, should it not be possible to share magic power deliberately this way?
“Lily, if I may.”

Kato interjected.

“To me the example of a blood transfusion is easy to understand. Because of this I have to ask whether or not we have to worry about something like an incompatibly in blood type?”

Kato had a poor complexion, but she remained calm enough to point out the risks in the treatment.

“I understand what you mean, but it will be all right.”

Lily’s eyes glimpsed towards Kato.

“… I think. Master has already accepted Gerbera’s magic before so I would estimate the chances of complications to be low.”
“And what shall we do once problems do showeth themselves!”

Gerbera almost screamed.
No wonder. Lily’s thinking is merely conjecture. A poorly executed transfusion can result in death too.

“I understand where you’re coming from. I’m scared of what could go wrong as well. However, I don’t need to say what would happen if we do nothing, right?”

I would surely die in that case.
In this situation I’ve no choice but to take the gamble.

“No matter why, currently Master’s magic is draining steadily. However, if he could be supplied with magic at the same rate…”
“Even were it possible in theory, there is way of knowing I can perform it properly! For example, what wouldst happen were I to exceed the maximum amount of power? If I… I could possibly kill him in such a way…”
“There’s no choice but to believe in you.”

Lily said so with a very light voice.
She was pretending to be calm on the surface.
Only the finger that still remained in my mouth trembled lightly.

“At the very least I think you’re the one most suited for this. Besides, with the amount of magical energy you possess you should be able to keep it up continuously I think.”

Controlling 2 attributes of magic in addition to healing magic, Lily is certainly very skilled at controlling magic, but she can’t keep casting her healing magic on me continuously. Moreover, she doesn’t have the large amount of magic that Gerbera has. Although Rose can create a lot of magic power she’s not as good at controlling it and Kato is completely out of the question.
Like Lily has been saying since the beginning, Gerbera is probably the only one who can pull it off.

However.
Hypothetically speaking, How many people would cut into the belly of a wounded person even if they know not doing anything would spell death?

Let alone if this person is an important companion.

If you the person is important to you it’d be very hard to keep calm and collected. It’s obvious that mistakes are made when you’re not calm. It’s the same reasoning that cause physicians to hesitate to operate on relatives.

“Fo, for one such as I to…”

possibly get me killed…
Obviously when thinking of something like that one would lose the will to move.

Yeah, it’s obvious.
Then why didn’t Lily expect it to end up this way?

…There’s no way she didn’t plan for this.

“Please, Gerbera.”

Lily, who was looking straight at Gerbera, slowly lowered her head deeply.

“I’m aware you’re afraid of hurting Master. I understand this act may take Master’s life. I’m well aware how cruel then this request is. Nonetheless, I want to entrust this task to you.”

Although she fully understood the circ.u.mstances, Lily lowered her head anyway.
What could compel her to do such a thing has already left her mouth.

“Please Gerbera. Help our Master.”
“Lily-dono…”

Gerbera stared intently at Lily.

The fear of hurting me was evident within her eyes, but when the flaxen hair on Lilly’s lowered head got reflected in her pupils the fear gradually melts away.

Gerbera was fearful of solitude by nature and her feelings of ‘wanting to become a comrade’ are unusually strong.
Lily’s sincere words had a large effect on her because of that.

Finally, the weakness left Gerbera’s n.o.ble features and were replaced by a strong will.
Slowly, her long white hair swung up and down.

“…Understood.”
“Gerbera!”

Lily raised her head with a joyful voice.
Gerbera replied with a clumsy smile on her gentle face.

“Leave it to me.”

The crouching spider unfolded her legs.
Gerbera got up and started moving towards me on 8 legs.
3 meters. 2 meters.
The distance between us had disappeared.

“…”

However, what was supposed to be a resolute gait suddenly turned a little clumsy.
The cause of this was obvious.

“…Rose-dono”

Although she should have calmed down now, Gerbera’s fear suddenly rose up again.

Since Rose is so devoted to me it’s only natural that she would object.
What would she think at this important point, what would she say. Gerbera probably can’t help but think about such things.

As expected.

“…What are you doing?”

Rose asked with featureless face.

“Please share your magic with Master quickly.”
“Eh?”

Gerbera let out a foolish voice.
Without understanding what was just said she blinked a few times.
She must feel anti-climactic after putting her guard up.

I felt the same way.

“Wouldst that be all right?”
“Would what be?”
“Doth thee not distrust me?”
“…”

Rose kept silent at this question.
She didn’t seem to be displeased but rather looked like she was thinking about what to say.

But Rose wasn’t silent for very long.
Perhaps she had been thinking about her relations.h.i.+p with Gerbera all the time up till now.

“Lily-anesama said the same thing earlier, so I’m just repeating it. Or rather, I’ll go back to something we discussed before that.”

Rose prefaced her argument like that.

“Earlier, you said that Master got hurt because of you. Isn’t that right?”
“a, aye…”
“My apologies to Lily-anesama for saying so, but I agree.”

Gerbera looked like she was about to cry from Rose’s gaze.
It seemed like she thought Rose would never accept her.

But, she was jumping to a conclusion.

“However, the same could be said about me.”

Like this, Rose continued.

“No. In fact my own responsibility weighs far more heavily. I couldn’t approve of you. I couldn’t accept you. My frank honesty and my obstinacy has led to these circ.u.mstances.”
“N,No. Even my lord believed thou wouldst not approve of me.”
“Be that as it may, This is the result and I can’t make excuses for that. At the very least, condemning you would be barking up the wrong tree. Stubbornly causing another mistake despite all this would be mere foolishness.”

after saying this much, Rose shook her head.

“No, that’s still somewhat deceptive. I need to convey it without killing my heart.”

Rose looked like she convinced herself. She turned her face to Kato who still had her hand on her shoulder and then looked back at Gerbera again.

“Gerbera. I won’t be able to come to like you. Due to a ‘certain event’ I’ve somehow come to understand what you were trying to accomplish a little. Because I too have something I must accomplish, now I can appreciate where you’re coming from. That doesn’t change that I have poor compatibility with you though. That Master got injured because of such reasons, even now I remember the anger I have for you. However…”

It seemed like Rose took a brief moment to turn her attention to the feelings inside her, and told Gerbera how she really felt.

“Nevertheless, you are my little sister.”
“Rose-dono…”

Gerbera’s red eyes went wide.

“In the same way I’m also the sister of Lily-anesama. It’s not like I feel I need to accept you just because Master accepted you, but rather that the feelings of wanting to accept you as a sister aren’t entirely absent within me.”

Rose, who usually kills off her own emotions, is now dealing with her complicated feelings towards Gerbera… when I think about it this might be the first time for that to happen.

Coincidentally, there existed an easy to understand phrase with which a compromise between the two could be expressed.

“Regarding Master, please let’s get along well”

Lowering her head, Rose withdrew her body as though yielding the way to Gerbera.

Maybe a chance for the two of them to compromise like this was necessary. That this chance had to take this form can only be called particularly rotten luck.

There is no doubt however that the two were able to resolve some of the ill feelings between them. I should consider that a blessing at least.

“My lord”

Like that Gerbera came up to my bedside.
There was no weakness apparent on her face.
I understood that Lily’s and Rose’s words supported her back.

“Please, entrust thine body to me.”

White threads were hanging from all five of her fingers on both hands.
Various places all over my body were connected with her fingers.

“I shall begin.”

Saying so, Gerbera began flowing magic energy through the spider threads.
From her sleek fingers a white radiance appeared, which flowed down the threads and circulated throughout my body.
The thing that previously felt lacking, as if flowing out of me now felt like it was being compensated for.
My whole body trembled. It was the first time I’ve ever really experienced the true feeling of magical energy.

Gerbera was immersed in her work with the expression of sincerity itself.
Lily and Rose watched over her in response to the hope they put into their gamble.

…I’m sure it’ll be fine, now.

Just as I thought that, I lost the tension in my body.
Drowsiness closed in on my consciousness like surging waves.
Without being able to see it through till the end, I finally lost my awareness.