Ten minutes later, I had my shirt off and Miki was sitting behind me with her hand on my back. I felt somewhat uncomfortable with my bare chest exposed, especially because I had a pair of breasts. They were roughly about the same size as Miki’s. Terra was looking at them with an expression that was a tad unhappy. I felt the urge to cover my chest with so many girls looking and seemingly comparing sizes.
“Ah… I see… so it works like that.” Miki said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s mostly what we thought. It’s a miasmic infection.”
“I’m in a safe room now, shouldn’t the miasmic infection be forced out?” I asked. “On that note, why was it able to affect me at all? I have a blessing that’s supposed to negate miasmic affects.”
“It isn’t like Miasma can’t be brought into a safe room. If that was the case, then…” She coughed, her eyes flickering to Salicia. “Certain people would just disperse the second they entered the room. Rather, it is more like oil and water. Safe rooms repel miasma, so the trapped miasma in your body bubbles up together. In this state, it’s no longer able to affect you as long as you remain in the room. However, once you leave…”
Her eyes flickered to Salicia again, and I got the message she was trying to tell me. Although Salicia was in control of herself in this room, once she left, the miasmic control would no longer be suppressed. I didn’t know how long it would take for Calypso’s control to return. It might have been seconds, or maybe days. Either way, neither of us were cured of our inflictions at the moment.
“As for why you were infected, I can’t say for certain, but I believe your affinity protects you from passive miasma. If you were immune to miasmic attacks, then you’d be immune to most spells from dungeon monsters, which often cast from a source of miasma. You could say the blessing worked well. You didn’t face any of the negative effects of the miasma itself. Fear, paranoia, lack of energy… another person would have been a wreck. You were just dealing with the physical damage it was doing to your soul.”
“Like how a cough medicine might cure the symptoms, but doesn’t mean you’re any less sick.” I sighed.
“Can you cure it now?”
“Mm…” She nodded. “I can flood your body with mana, and then extract the miasma from your body. Since you’re a mana creature, it’s quite easy. If you were a miasmic creature, however, then I wouldn’t be able to do this.”
Naturally, the last sentence was once again aimed at Salicia. With her miasmic body, the difference between the control Salicia was exuding and her own base were too similar. Attempt to flush one would end up flushing the other.
She nodded, and then began to use her spiritual techniques. It didn’t take long before I felt something leaving me. I let out a breath, a black gaseous mass left from my mouth. It tasted oily and wrong. The mass quickly rose up and then disappeared through the roof, presumably reentering the dungeon.
“Is that it?” I asked, almost feeling like it was too easy.
I didn’t wait for Miki’s conformation though. I immediately casted a healing spell on myself. As soon as I did, I felt the aching wound on my back that was still healing and slightly infected quickly cool and then fade away. Letting out a long breath of relief, I realized I was safe again.
“Then, should we go?” Terra asked.
“Master has been healed. You can use magic once again. You have the ability to make Portals from inside a dungeon, something none of us can do. Isn’t that why we did this, so we could escape?”
Apparently, the girls had thought that this was a rescue mission. While they could cast Portals, they didn’t have my affinities from my blessings, so they couldn’t Portal out of the dungeon like I could. Now that I healed myself, there was no reason we had to stay. We could leave and return to my army in Deeksville. As for Calypso, she’d be none the wiser. It might be days before she realized we left.
“No…” I shook my head. “We’re going to beat this thing.”