Kian stood on the floor and wiped the sticky purple juice off his fingers onto his trousers.
The elf girl was sobbing loudly over the child, and the other members of the party were staring at him with shocked eyes, but he felt nothing but a wave of deep annoyance at the entire situation.
Kian genuinely believed that the black-haired kid had simply skipped her breakfast that morning.
Children do that all the time when they want to be stubborn or lazy, or maybe she is just trying to get out of her daily chores because she doesn't want to cast the floating spell anymore. I guess my plan is working.
He had shoved those berries down her throat because they were the only soft, edible things left in his small leather pouch, and he certainly did not want to carry an unconscious nine-year-old girl all the way back to the surface.
It was a long, exhausting walk up the dungeon stairs. His expensive shoes already hurt from the uneven rocks, so solving the sudden medical emergency with a handful of common fruit seemed like the easiest way to clear the mess and go home.
Kian did not know a single thing about the internal structure of the fruit. To him, a Glisberry was just a cheap, sweet snack that grew in the wild bushes outside the city gates, though the local hunters sometimes said it gave a tiny bit of warmth to the chest on freezing winter nights.
He did not care about the tiny traces of natural energy hidden inside the sapphire-blue skin. It was just food.
But to Lumina's cracked and empty internal container, that raw, unrefined energy was exactly what her body needed to bridge the broken pieces before her heart stopped completely. The natural energy coated her throat and stomach, and it flowed directly into the fissures of her shattering core without needing any alchemical conversion.
At this time, the Magic Research community remains unaware of this minor effect of the fruit.
"Is she... is she okay?" Red muttered.
Celia kept her palms pressed against Lumina's small chest, and she felt the slow, erratic throb of life returning to the girl's body. The terrifying void in the air began to fade away, and a normal warmth crept back into the child's pale skin.
"We need to get her back to the inn right now," Celia said, and her voice shook violently while she lifted the small girl into her arms.
Kian turned around and started walking toward the dungeon exit without waiting for the others. "Fine. Let's go home. Today is a complete waste of time anyway."
He was secretly pleased in his mind. If the kid was sick or weak, she would probably stay in bed for weeks, and that meant the party would have to stop their dungeon runs entirely, or she might even decide to quit the Feeble Soul out of sheer embarrassment. His ultimate goal of dissolving the party was still on track, so he did not mind the sudden interruption at all.
---
The oil lamp flickered on the small wooden table. It cast long, irregular shadows across the cramped room. Lumina lay flat on her back under the blankets, and her entire body throbbed with a deep, agonizing ache that felt like her bones were filled with heavy stones.
Every single muscle refused to move, and even breathing deeply made her chest hurt, yet her dark eyes remained wide open as she stared at the cracked plaster on the ceiling.
Celia sat on a wooden stool right next to the bed. She held a cloth in her hands and used it to gently wipe the dried purple stains from the corners of Lumina's mouth. The room was completely quiet for a long time, but the heavy weight of the silence was too much for the Healer to bear.
"You almost died today, Lumi," Celia whispered, and her voice sounded completely drained of strength.
Lumina did not look away from the ceiling. "But I didn't."
"The researcher at the Institute said it was a one-in-ten-thousand chance," Celia said as she gripped the cloth so tightly that her fingers turned white. "The rats died. Every single one of them died in agony because their containers shattered into pieces. Your heart completely stopped beating, so do you have any idea how terrified I was?"
Lumina shifted her head slightly on the pillow, though the tiny movement made a sharp pain shoot through her neck. "Kian told me I had to die many times over before I could make it. He knew exactly what would happen, Celia. He didn't even look surprised when I fell."
"Please, listen to me. I am the Healer of this party, and my job is to stop people from dying, so I am strictly prohibiting you from ever doing this again. It's insane."
A small, stubborn smile appeared on Lumina's pale lips, but her eyes held a cold resolve that did not belong to a nine-year-old child.
"If I can stand up again, I will do it again," Lumina said.
Celia gasped as she leaned forward to grab the girl's small shoulder. "Are you crazy? You were just lucky this time! But next time you won't survive. Your Mana Core will just break completely. Lumi... you... will leave me behind!"
"Then I die," Lumina replied flatly. "If I am too weak, or if I am just a useless burden to the party, then dying doesn't matter to me. I want to be strong enough to stand beside everyone, and I am going to expand my container until I can hold enough power, or I will die trying."
Celia stared at her friend in horror as she realized that no amount of logic or begging would change the girl's mind, so a deep worry took root in her chest.
---
A full month passed before Lumina was allowed to leave her bed. She spent those four long weeks drinking bitter herbal broths and resting her aching limbs, while Kian spent his days lounging around or complaining about the rainy weather.
The rest of the party went into the dungeon without her, but their progress was slow because they lacked a proper offensive mage to clear the smaller swarms of monsters.
Lumina used that time to quietly observe her own energy flow, and she could feel that the internal glass bottle inside her chest had changed. It felt rough and uneven around the edges, but it was slightly wider than before, and the total amount of energy she could hold had grown by a tiny fraction.
On the first day she finally rejoined the party, the air inside the stone dungeon was cold and damp. They walked down the grey corridors, and Lumina immediately raised her wooden staff to cast the floating spell on Kian.
Celia walked right behind her, but she did not look at the monsters or the stone walls. Her eyes were glued to the back of Lumina's head, and her right hand was buried deep inside her cloak, where she tightly gripped three fresh Glisberries she had purchased from the market that morning. She had spent the entire month preparing for this exact moment, because she knew Lumina's stubborn nature too well.
Three hours into the exploration, the light around Kian's body suddenly flickered out.
Lumina did not say a word, but her knees buckled instantly and she crashed forward onto the floor.
"Lumi!" Celia screamed before the child even hit the ground.
The elf Healer rushed forward with a desperate speed as she dropped to her knees beside the fallen girl while Brown and Red were still turning their heads around in confusion. Lumina's face was completely pale, and her breathing had stopped entirely, so the terrifying void had returned to the air.
Celia did not waste a single second on CPR this time. She pulled the blue fruit from her cloak and used her left hand to pry Lumina's small jaw open with a frantic force. She jammed the berries into the girl's mouth and crushed them against her teeth until the sweet, natural juice poured down the child's throat.
"Breathe, please breathe!" Celia sobbed, and she pressed her glowing green palms against Lumina's chest to force the muscles to move.
A long, agonizing silence filled the tunnel, and then Lumina suddenly gasped for air, while her body shook violently from the sudden influx of energy. She coughed up a bit of the purple juice, but her dark eyes slowly opened and she looked up at the stone ceiling with a dull, exhausted expression.
Kian walked over and sighed heavily. "Again?"
---
That night, the room inside the inn was filled with the sound of Celia's angry, heartbroken weeping. She stood over Lumina's bed, and her body trembled with raw fury and terror while she pointed her finger at the young mage.
"You promised me nothing, but you still did it!" Celia cried, and the tears ran down her face in thick streams. Do you have any idea what that does to me? I am terrified that one day my fingers will slip, or the juice won't reach your throat in time, and I will be forced to bury you.