NOVEL NEXT Chapter 239: [Extra] Cassiopeia
Cassiopeia started her third year at the Imperial Magical Academy in good spirits. Her research was going well and her healing skills had grown in leaps and bounds. With good friends and a loving family, she enjoyed her life very much.
According to the novel, the plague-curse outbreak was supposed to begin at this time, but she had confidence in Prince Rian and Ayden.
Unexpectedly, a few weeks after the autumn harvest festivals, the number of ill people, as recorded by the Royal Healers’ Association at certain fiefs, was higher than normal.
Furthermore, although healing magic could treat the symptoms, known anti-cold and anti-flu spells and potions couldn’t clear the infection.
When Cassiopeia eventually heard about this, her heart thumped. She messaged Ayden right away and found out that Prince Rian had already left the Capital while Ayden was mobilising resources, including potions, germ-killing gels, spelled face masks, gloves and clothing, and magic-isolation shields.
Ayden agreed to meet her that evening.
After dinner, Cassiopeia went over to the Rosewood house.
“Can I help? Can I go? I’m familiar with a lot of diseases and I could help isolate it…and maybe I could develop an anti-viral,” Cassiopeia said.
“How certain do you feel?”
“Certain,” Cassiopeia said, pretending to be more confident than her nervous stomach suggested.
“Okay. I’m preparing to leave in three days. You can take my carriage or organise your own.”
Ayden told Cassiopeia a few things to take note of. When she exited the Rosewood house, her father was outside.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
Duke Schauss frowned. “Why are you here?” he said.
“I want to assist the outbreak response.”
“No.”
“Why not? I’m a good healer.”
“We won’t discuss this outside Marquis Rosewood’s house,” Duke Schauss said. “Cassiopeia, go home and wait for me.”
Cassiopeia’s lips thinned. “Yes, father.”
While Duke Schauss went to meet with Ayden, Cassiopeia rushed back to the Imperial Academy and requested leave, while her personal maid packed up her key belongings.
Then, she went to the Schauss house, surprising her mother and brothers.
As it turned out, they too were going to support the outbreak response efforts.
“Cassiopeia, you’re still in school,” her mother said. “You don’t need to worry about this.”
“I want to help,” Cassiopeia said. “And if you don’t allow me to take the Schauss carriage, then I’ll take the Rosewood carriage.”
Not long later, Duke Schauss returned carrying a folder of papers.
“Cassiopeia—” Cassiopeia’s mother started.
Duke Schauss sighed. “I know. She can come.”
Cassiopeia grinned. “Thank you, father!” She gave him a big hug, and then rushed off to continue preparations.
“Marquis Rosewood has promised that she would be safe,” Duke Schauss said to his wife, and left it at that. He had a lot of things to do, all detailed in the papers Marquis Rosewood had given him.
What Duke Schauss didn’t tell his wife or sons was that Marquis Rosewood had told him—
“—I don’t believe in Saintesses sent by a goddess. But I do believe in talented, hardworking healers who have the ability to play a crucial role in ending an epidemic.”
“—However, I believe Cassiopeia has both the talent and diligence of a healer who could be a Saintess. When it comes to novel treatments, Cassiopeia is the best healer I know. Even better than you. You’re too rigid in your thinking.”
Duke Schauss was proud of his daughter, but there was no need to proverbially stab him like that at the end!
A few days later, a large convoy left the Capital and headed south to the outbreak epicentre. Spare moments during travel was spent resting and learning how to use the protective gear.
Healers casting spells could be the most at risk, since they would need to temporarily disable the magic-isolation shields before casting.
Cassiopeia’s first task upon arrival wasn’t to start healing, but to isolate the pathogen.
Her research into developing antivirals and her experience in isolating viruses in the blood helped her now. She collected the blood from sick patients, recovered patients, and uninfected persons and begun combing it for the cause of disease.
In the end, it wasn’t a virus at all—it was a bacterium, which spread via touch of infected fluids and through the air. This explained why antiviral spells didn’t work.
Thankfully, it wasn’t magical in nature, which meant magic-isolation shields wouldn’t be necessary.
Now, they had some proper treatment options. Healing spells for bacterial infections had a greater efficacy, even if they didn’t always work. Some of the healer researchers cloned the white blood cells in the recovered patients and injected those into sick patients to boost their immune system.
Cassiopeia joined the healers healing sick patients. Her magic entered the sick patients and killed the bacteria directly.
But this was slow and tedious and magically intensive. And there were many patients. Cassiopeia had to stop herself from completely clearing the bacteria, instead only clearing it to a level that the patient should recover easily by themselves.
Several days turned into several weeks.
Cassiopeia continued healing patients. She was gaining proficiency, but she still couldn’t figure out a new spell that would solve the problem. She taught the other healers the method of targeting the bacteria, but aside from healers who were already very good with the reference healing method, the process wasn’t useful for them.
The bacterial infection had also spread spatially into neighbouring fiefs. Ayden suspected it was by the waterways. This meant they kept finding more and more patients outside the original outbreak area.
Winter arrived.
“My lady, please, you need to leave quickly!”
Cassiopeia was in the middle of healing a patient when someone came over to her. She finished healing her current patient before attending to the newcomer.
“What’s wrong?”
“His Highness and Marquis Rosewood are ill!”
Cassiopeia felt like she had been struck by lightning. Sick? How was that even possible???
The messenger couldn’t answer her questions. Cassiopeia packed some things and took a floating carriage to where Prince Rian and Ayden currently were, in the next fief over.
They were placed in beds next to each other in one of the houses of the local lord.
“Cassiopeia, I’m afraid I can’t give you a better welcome,” Prince Rian said.
“It’s good to see that you can still talk,” Cassiopeia said.
Crown Prince Rian and Marquis Rosewood had been working day and night, healing and coordinating the response. While they could both heal and use the reference healing method, they weren’t as efficient as Cassiopeia. The constant use of magic drained their reserves and the lack of sleep weakened their immune systems. While they could both recover magic energy fast, especially Marquis Rosewood, the cold, cloudy days made that replenishment slower. They didn’t have enough magical crystals to keep up with their magical expenditure.
Accidents happened and people weren’t perfect. Unknowingly, Prince Rian became sick and infected Marquis Rosewood.
And for both to be bedridden, their illness had to be unusually severe.
Ayden had his eyes closed when Cassiopeia came in. He was absorbing the weak sunlight coming through the window. “You don’t need to use your magic, there are more patients in the hospital…” he murmured.
“I’ve been more unwell before,” Prince Rian said, sounding like he was in agreement with Ayden.
“You’re important. You both need to recover as soon as possible,” Cassiopeia said. “Let me heal you.”
Prince Rian frowned. “Heal me. I’ll heal Ayden.”
Cassiopeia and Ayden: “…”
There was a chair by Prince Rian’s bedside. Cassiopeia sat down and extended out her magic.
Soon, Cassiopeia spotted something. This bacteria was different—it had mutated!
Cassiopeia boosted Prince Rian’s immune system and improved some of his symptoms. Then, she focused on clearing the infection.
At first, finding the mutated bacteria was difficult, as it was different from the original version. But then, Cassiopeia had a realisation.
It wasn’t entirely different—there were some parts that were the same!
And, with her wealth of knowledge of the human body, she also realised that some of these parts were not found in the good bacteria elsewhere in the human body.
This was it! With that rush of inspiration, Cassiopeia’s magic swept through Prince Rian’s body and killed the invading bacteria in one fell swoop. Not only was the eradication clean, but Cassiopeia used much less magic than previously, as she innately combined perception magic and healing magic. The perception magic had several layers that efficiently ignored things that weren’t bacteria-sized, and used a quick process-of-elimination to determine what was the foreign bacteria. Then, healing magic was used to kill the bacteria!!
As she pulled her magic back, she realised she could also sense small amounts of bacteria in the air and surfaces, so she killed them too.
“Your Highness, I’m done. Shall I heal Ayden next?”
“Thank you,” Ayden said, before Prince Rian could say anything.
Prince Rian sat up from bed. “Ayden—”
“She’s better than you at healing,” Ayden said ruthlessly. “And she’s more magically efficient too.”
Cassiopeia cautiously walked around Prince Rian’s bed and sat by Ayden’s bed.
A few minutes later, she had healed Ayden.
“Thank you,” Ayden said.
Cassiopeia nodded. “You’re welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Cassiopeia rushed back to where she was before. During the carriage ride, she jotted down her thoughts.
She had the idea for a hybrid spell that encapsulated the spirit of the reference healing method.
When she returned, she first drew fresh blood from some infected patients. Then, she isolated the bacteria, froze it, and cut out the part that was unique to this bacteria yet common across the two versions.
Then, she made a spell that used the vial containing the bacteria fragment as a reference. Using perception magic, the spell would scan the spell-cast area for bacteria-sized things with the same bacteria fragment pattern; healing magic then killed the target bacteria.
After working day and night, the final spell was written on the page in front of her.
Everything that she had experienced, everything that she had learned, everything that she had researched was coming together, slotting neatly in her mind. Not only could she innately heal the bacterial infection, but she now had a spell that other people could use too!
The moment Cassiopeia completed the new spell, the course of the outbreak changed. With an effective spell, many mages—healers, and importantly also non-healer mages—could learn this spell and be mobilised to eradicate the bacteria in patients and non-patients (who could have been unknowingly infected).
(Ayden called this strategy “mass drug administration”.)
They also cast the spell in various human-occupied areas. Due to lack of magical power, and potential environmental concerns, they didn’t use the spell in natural environments.
They then searched the area around the original outbreak source, looking for any more sign of infection among the people.
Crown Prince Rian and Marquis Rosewood also swiftly developed a clean water program, which they hoped would reduce the likelihood of another outbreak occurring.
And so, through the tirelessly work of many people, spring arrived and no new detections had been made for over two weeks.
The response was downgraded from active management to vigilance, and Cassiopeia returned to the Capital.
When Cassiopeia returned to the academy, it took her a day to re-adjust back to school life.
To her surprise, Prince Alexius came up to her to thank her for healing Prince Rian and Ayden.
“I commend you,” Prince Alexius grinned. “You can do something that my big brother can’t! The spell you made was amazing!”
“It was my duty,” Cassiopeia said. “I’m a healer, and I spend much more time healing than Crown Prince Rian.”
“Yes, and that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a better healer than Rian!” Prince Alexius said.
Cassiopeia couldn’t help but smile back. She was happy to receive this recognition. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Have you ever thought about using your healing magic as part of a duel?” Prince Alexius asked.
Cassiopeia blinked. “No…I prefer watching duels to competing in them.”
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Prince Alexius said. After a few more words, he walked off, presumably to practice duelling.
Cassiopeia had to catch up on the classes that she missed, meaning that her last few months as the academy were full.
As for her research project, she talked with her supervisor and ended up presenting the spell she had developed as her research project outcome.
After a lot of studying, she passed her exams and smoothly finished her last year at the Imperial Magical Academy.
There was no grand epidemic. People didn’t call her the Saintess. But, she was proud of being able to help, proud of being able to develop that spell with her own ability. She didn’t save a lot of people, because she helped ensure that people wouldn’t need to be saved at all.
With her father’s help, Cassiopeia devised a joint study-research-training program, split between the University, the Capital Hospital, and the Schauss healers’ training academy.
But in the summer, before study started again, she wanted to relax.
She spent a fun day with Alexandra and Ethel. They visited the cat lounge in the morning, had lunch at a restaurant, walked through the Palace gardens in the afternoon, and had afternoon tea at the Schauss house.
“Now that we’ve finished at the academy, you know what we need to consider next,” Alexandra said in a conspiratorial tone.
“Oh, should we visit the beach again?” Cassiopeia asked.
“We should—no, that wasn’t what I wanted to say. Who do you want to marry?”
Ethel giggled. “Oh, do you have someone else you like now? First it was Beaufort, and then—”
“That just shows that I’m romantic and outgoing!” Alexandra said. She turned to Cassiopeia. “I saw Prince Alexius speaking to you recently.”
Cassiopeia felt flustered. “He was just being friendly. I don’t think we…”
“Uh-huh,” Alexandra said, sounding quite unconvinced.
“Why don’t we make a list of the eligible men?” Ethel suggested.
Alexandra looked a little conflicted. “I’m loyal to Maël…but I’ll do it to help you two.”
“Thank you,” Ethel said drily.
Cassiopeia was hesitant, but admittedly, she was also interested. The future was still long, but there was no harm in thinking about it now, was there?
Duke Schauss: Marriage candidates for Cassiopeia? Sigh, Marquis Rosewood would have been a great son-in-law! Such regret!
Rian: *smiling* Do you want to die early?
Cassiopeia: *super embarrassed* Father!!
Question: Who do you think Cassiopeia should be paired with? 😉
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