Syllis went to retrieve the elderly with the help of the other people, and thankfully, they were just as light-weighted as the young ones, so they were able to bring each one in their arms with ease.
After they all got through the invisible barrier, I was finally able to help, so I expanded my shadows and let them all come inside. In there, they were able to rest at long last. Of course, I created a shadow wall blocking them from seeing the army of spiders with me.
“Here’s the last one….” Sighed Syllis, as an elderly woman who was very weakened, was brought by him.
“Hahh… My head hurts….” She cried.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you some help. For now, rest, alright?” I said.
“Oh my… Such a pretty lady….” She sighed as she was brought inside my shadows.
With that, we had everyone from the village, it was a complete success, and there were no pesky spiders annoying us during the entire journey. I guess this place has a strong aura, so they won’t really get near it.
I had considered taking the stones from here and using them in something eventually… but I decided to just leave them as this might be the last sanctuary for other people that might one day get lost in this forest. I don’t want to take away this spot, especially because there’s a spring in the middle where fish and other animals gather as well.
It is as if it were a beautiful and holy sanctuary in the middle of this dark, mist-filled forest. I wonder if this forest was always this eerie, though.
We began to move back home over the back of Pyro.
“Alright, hop in. I won’t carry you in my arms in front of your sister,” I said.
“Gryshi!” Pyro cried out.
He seemed excited to be mounted by someone, and he was a very good boy for a zombie spider.
However, Syllis didn’t want to climb over him.
“Th-That’s a giant spider… Wouldn’t it be dangerous to be on it?! Also, it’s on fire! How can I even get over it?! I know you’re a ghost, and it might not affect you, but for me, this is a bit…!” Syllis’ words trailed off.
“Big brother! That’s a spider?! It’s gonna eat us!” Cried the little Bellerine.
“No! Don’t worry, it is very docile, and it has already died. The fire is also not harmful. Touch it,” I said.
“No way I am touching fire!” Shouted Bellerine.
“Agh… Come here!” I said as I grabbed the two with shadow tentacles and forcefully put them over Pyro’s comfortable back.
“Nooooo! Aaaaaagghhhh…!”
“Heeeeeelp! I don’t want to die!”
The two cried a lot but ultimately realized the fire was not burning them. In fact, it was just warm enough to be comfortable, like being near a warm stove.
“W-What? Nothing happened? I thought we were going to be burned alive!” Said Syllis.
“Why would I even let you be burned alive?! You really should believe me a bit more! Sheesh…” I sighed.
“W-Wow… It is warm… I was so cold, but my hands are slowly warming up… Spider is not bad?” Asked Bellerine.
The little Pyro seemed to want to make friends, and he acted friendly and cute, and the two rabbit-kin quickly realized he was not a dangerous beast.
“Well, let’s go back to the camp then… C-Can you really treat this many people, though? I still don’t know how you healed me from the disease….” Said Syllis.
“Me neither, but I believe we can make something up. I’ve preserved a lot of corpses from the spiders, so we have specimens to check out which disease is the one affecting you… Syllis was able to heal through magic and drinking a variety of herbs… but I think there might be another way out of this….” I said.
“But do you have the herbs? Maybe they’re rare….” Said Syllis.
“Yeah, we don’t have as many, and I would like to preserve them if possible… but there is another idea and that is to use Alchemy to make a potion using the internal organs of the spiders!” I said.
“W-What? But wouldn’t that make us even sicker?!” Asked Bellerine.
“Hehe, non~ non~! Usually, animals that carry diseases are inherently immune to them or have developed a wide variety of antibodies. Just like we discover ways to fight against poisons by making up antidotes using other monsters’ poisons, we can do the same in this case! I do remember a few cases where diseases were cured when doctors used the livers of the animals that often carried them to make concoctions using their antibodies… they didn’t work all the time, but they seemed to lessen the symptoms by quite a lot,” I explained.
“What? I don’t understand half of what you’re talking about….” Said Bellerine.
“I don’t understand a thing….” Muttered Syllis.
“Ah… Well, just trust me.” I said
Ah, well, I guess they had never lived in a world with advanced medicine. Well, I am no doctor or anything. I just like to read books. Even biology history and medicine history books were fun to read as long as I could escape reality when I was back in school.
*Sigh*… Remembering those times is quite sad. I never liked school or high school. You could say I was a complete loser, one of the ugly girls that was also too timid to make too many friends. The only friends I made were guys whole were into games and anime or manga, but because I had confessed to one of them some time ago, they distanced from me, thinking I would begin falling for each one until one could reciprocate my love… ugh, it’s not like all of you were so handsome anyways… idiots.
Like that, I began to have no friends at all, and even some girls ridiculed me as well when I made myself a fool after confessing my love to someone in the backyard… since then, I just escaped reality and just read books, even schoolbooks were okay, anything that could distract my mind from the laughter and jokes thrown at me all the time was good enough…