The Shadows (6) - 42

Unlike the other lessons, the one for the Empress was in the morning, because it was a Saturday, and student's had Saturday off, meaning there were no classes.

Arriving in the training room at 8 in my Ashen appearance, I just sat there and waited.

'Aren't empresses supposed to be timely and stuff, I mean, it's already been 10 minutes past the appointed time and she still isn't here yet. Well, her attitude will change once I "teach" her a few things.'

...

Finally, after waiting for a whole 30 minutes, the Empress arrived.

"You know you're 30 minutes late, right?"

"Shut it, it's not like you're the one handling state matters of utmost importance. You're literally just a student who does nothing but fuck around all day!"

"Chill, chill, what's got you so pissed off this morning?"

"Like I would tell you!"

"C'mon, sometimes it's better to tell someone to get your struggles off your mind."

"Ugh, whatever, you m-might be able to help."

Crossing my legs and resting my chin into my hands, I listened.

"So, a week and a few days ago, one of my top officials was murdered, and now I have nobody managing the capitol."

"Oh, so the administrator was killed?"

"Yeah, and now I have to do all of his paperwork, until I can find a suitable replacement."

Little did she know, I was the one who ordered Indira to kill him.

"Has the killer been caught?"

"No!" She shouted, standing up, and then sitting back down, gritting her teeth whilst chewing on her thumb.

"The killer, whoever it is, left absolutely no traces! I mean, how do you do that?! The house was protected by 6-star magic circles and there were 7-star bodyguards standing outside the doors! We just can't figure out how the perpetrator got in and out without alerting any of the security measures!"

'Cause she used a totally different dimension.'

"She" stopped ranting for a second, frozen, looking at me and seemingly studying something on my face.

'Shit, did I get found out?'

"Do you... perhaps know anything about this incident?"

'What do I do? What do I do? Oh, I can use that excuse.'

"Well, from my knowledge of Raikato, I know that they have access to another dimension, maybe a spy did it whilst utilizing the other dimension?"

"Wait... WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? They have access to another dimension?!"

"Yah, you honestly didn't know this?"

"No! Do you realize how many mysterious murders have just been solved?!!!"

'You know you can't just blame all of them on spies that use the darkness dimension?'

After thinking about it carefully, I stated my thoughts out loud.

"Even if I can't use it to explain every mysterious murder, it still explains the ones for the assassinations of the important figures in the state."

"Yeah, I guess."

'She'll learn later that that's because they were assassinated by her own Head of Information Affairs, or the IA, the spy network working under the Empress.'

"So, enough of that, let's get to today's lesson, which, mind you, I've had to shorten by 30 minutes already."

"Okay! Such an impudent brat! I'll make sure to come early next week."

"No can do, we have the surprise test for the remainder of the month, remember?"

"Yeah, you guys do, I forgot about that... wait, how in the world did you learn about that!"

"Just my connections, I mean, from the earlier conversation, you can guess that I either have a powerful person backing me, or I'm somehow in touch with, or a part of a very good information network."

"Can't you just tell me which one it is?" She asked with a cute, childish, cat-like face, almost completely ruining my image of her.

"A-ahem, no can do Ms. Empress."

"I'm married!" She pouted, continuing that cute facade of hers.

"Alright, Mrs. Empress, now can we please get to the lesson?"

She returned back to her regal personality.

"So what will you be teaching me that'll completely blow my mind?" She asked, now with a slight tint of sarcasm in her tone.

"Oh no, I just realized that I've misspoken, I actually won't be teaching you anything at all during the lessons, instead, let's start your treatment!"

As I reached out my hands towards her, she subconsciously reeled back.

"What the heck do you want to do to me?"

"Simple, I'll be treating you, and by my calculations, I'll be able to expand your lifespan by about 150 years. Obviously, because you won't be sickly anymore, you'll then have enough power to break through to (SS) rank."

"So come here to daddy!" I said, reaching out my arms again.

"You better not mess up my body."

"But it's already so messed up." I muttered under my breath.

"What did you say?!"

"Nothing, nothing."

Finally, after all that time, we only had 15 minutes left, so I quickly proceeded with the treatment.

Asking her to lay down on a hospital bed that I had set up, I quickly hooked her up to a futuristic version of a hospital monitor.

"You'll need to forcefully lower you rank, or you won't fall asleep with the anesthesia."

"Remember, don't, do, anything, weird!"

'I already got the memo ages ago.'

I injected her with the drugs, and she fell out of consciousness.

Now that she was asleep, I removed the clothing around her body, leaving only the undergarments.

And no, I did not have any weird thoughts directed towards my patient, because right now, I was a respectable doctor.

Putting my hands on her head, I slowly injected my antimagic into her cerebrum.

Working my hands down her body, I slowly cleansed each cell by 0.005% of their overloaded impure mana.

Before going on, let me explain.

You see, the reason that each Empress dies at age 30 was because of the amount of impure mana in their cells, causing them to age quicker (not in appearance) and die an untimely death.

Of course, this impure mana was from the artifact that made them, and was its only backlash, a deadly one.

Now, the reason I was the only one capable of treating her was due to my antimagic.

I had actually created this treatment method myself, using the knowledge from my previous life to formulate it.

The antimagic would slowly cleanse her body, but it had to go through each and every cell evenly to do that, because if there was one imbalance, the whole body would develop into a deathly cancerous state.

So, I had to be as slow and careful as possible.

In the end, due to the short time, I was only able to cure 0.005% of her illness.

Realizing that time was up, I unhooked her.

Slowly waking up, I watched to see her reaction.

"H-huh, w-where am I? I-in a hospital bed..."

"S-stronger?"

She suddenly fully woke up.

"I'M STRONGER?!!!!"

I smiled.

Even though I had only cleansed 0.005% of her illness, the effects were already showing due to her already immense power. (A/N: 0.005% of something really big is really big.)

"Well, job's done, I'm leaving."

Waving to nobody in particular, I left the Empress who was still in her excited daze.

'That was a surprisingly satisfying reaction.'

I spent some time walking around before proceeding to head up to the library.

'The preparations for the test start now.'

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Found an image perfectly representing his Ashen appearance, so I'll post it in the paragraph comment.