Ignorance is a bliss

"As you were informed, your defense stat dropped to 0… but did you know that your HP is being constantly drained?"

Lady Seth said with a concerned expression.

"Umm… sorry, I can't really…"

"Hmm? Oh! Please excuse me. Here."

Melinda tilted her head and looked at her with confusion before pointing out at her ear and shaking her head, making the woman let out a troubled gasp and hurriedly conjure the floating words with her magic.

"I feel that it does, but it also appears that some of it retruns during night. When I was going to sleep yesterday it felt like I had half of my HP but now it's as you can see."

Seeing the question Melinda took a deep breath and lied, poitning at the bar within the window created by Seth.

"Purify. Dispel. Full heal. Improved regeneration."

In response, the silver-haired woman cast a few spells, keenly observing any changes in the gold-haired girl's status.

"None of that works, but a good night's sleep does…? What a particular effect…"

She frowned and clicked her tongue at the result.

Seth then took back her right hand and waved it around, creating another pale-blue window but this time instead of letting it float on its own, she moved it, phasing it through Melinda's torso…

…and as the window got to the other side, it now displayed an image akin to a real-time x-ray image of the gold-haired girl's insides with the beating heart and the lungs expanding and shrinking to the rhythm of her breathing.

"!!!"

What was also displayed was the dark object lodged firmly though one side - the thing was Melinda didn't know how it looked inside of her, making the first time quite shocking.

"My goodness… The way it's shaped, it is definitely a claw… With no defense, there is no wonder that your HP is dropping and scraping against your heart and lungs!"

The silver-haired woman exclaimed with a worried look on her face.

"Just look at it! If you had intact defense stat we could try to take that claw out but with the way it is stuck there… but now, any attempt would shred your heart and lungs dealing you a killing blow before we could pull it and stop its effects. Truly a terrifying object… Most likely from a champion or maybe some other mutation… Eh…?

Seth leaned back, wiping her forehead with one hand and making a bitter expression about to cast another spell, but then flinched, noticing another bar suddenly flashing green.

"Your strength stat…"

"What about it…?"

The silver-haired woman rubbed her eyes as if not believing what she saw and conjured the words that made made Melinda ask hesitantly.

"It… it flashed green just as if it increased on its own, you saw that too, didn't you?"

"Eh? I didn't see it. Maybe it was something from outside? There might be someone using magic outside."

Seth wondered with a troubled expression, but Melinda shrugged her shoulders and gave the first excuse that came to her mind.

"Oh, actually, they do appear to be some students trying out some spells outside. forgive me for saying something silly."

The silver-haired woman flinched and blushed slightly upon noticing movement outside, which luckily ended up giving validity to Melinda's excuse.

"Analyze object."

After shaking her head to get rid of unnecessary thoughts, Seth cast a spell and a third pale-blue window appeared, this time displaying the information about the claw.

[?????ed ???????? Hydra claw]

Or rather, just a single line of text that wasn't even completely legible.

"...is that how it's supposed to look…?"

"Of course not… It's only the second time I've seen an item description like this…"

Melinda raised her brows as this sort of thing never happened in the game even as a glitch, and Seth's response didn't shed much light on it either.

"What it was the first time?"

"..."

The gold-haired girl asked and the silver-haired woman didn't answer her straight up, looking at her with a girm expression first.

"Poison. And it does change things up. At least it gives me an idea why your HP loss progress at such low pace."

"Could you be more clear about it?"

Seth finally revealed but was so vague that Melinda couldn't help herslef and asked after reading the floating words.

"Not at the moment. It appears that my teaching duties will have to wait as your health takes precedent over it, young lady. I will take my leave to consult it with my peers, but I will arrive tomorrow morning to make sure that it wasn't a one-time thing and your HP is recovering after a night's rest."

The silver-haired woman stood up, dispelling all the windows and announcing with a stern expression.

"Oh… okay. Thank you for your time."

Melinda gulped down her saliva, raising her brows relieved that Seth is leaving but also quite shaken after seeing how grave her injury looks like from the inside.

"I hope you do understand that you should be very careful and try to move around as little as possible… ah, right, please allow me to help you with the bandages…"

The silver-haired woman stood up and was about to leave before realizing and coming back to the gold-haired girl.

"Please, take it easy."

"I promise I will do my best to do just that."

After Melinda was dressed back up and ready, Seth reminded her, walking to the door only after getting her word on it.

The silver-haired woman reached out for the door handle but didn't open the door immediately.

"...the first time I saw the item description like that was when I examined the posion that was killing your mother. I beleive that both the posion from back then and the claw inside of you came from the same monster… You were born prematurely because of the same poison, but there's a chance that you gained some form of resistance to it, which might be working in your favor now… the problem is that the ones directly responsible for poisoning your mother back then are dead and there is no track to follow besides their involvement with demon kind…"

The woman let out a long and bitter sigh but did not use magic to communicate with the gold-haired girl.

"Lady Seth, is there something else…?"

Confused about the odd pause, Melinda tilted her head and asked.

"Sorry, it's just that my age is getting to me. I swear that you will be fine, young lady."

The elderly silver-haired woman straightened her back and glanced back, smiling, creating the words of farewell as she walked out of the room.

"...I felt much better when I didn't know how bad it looks, though…"

After waiting an appropriate amount of time for Seth to be out of the hearing range, Melinda pouted and grumbled, staring at her chest with a very upset expression.