I reincarnated as a losing heroine, the hero’s childhood friend who lost to the main heroine, so I switched jobs to alchemist

Chapter 26: Autonucleosis

Upon arriving at the royal capital, I immediately began to research the auto catalytic disease.
After the training was over, I went to the library and rifled through the few books I could find about it.
In the process of gathering information, a question began to rear my head.

To answer that question - I am now waiting in front of Arnold's dorm room.
Apparently it was the right thing to do, as I came running right after the training was over.
Immediately, Arnold came to the front of the room.

"Mr. Arnold."

It's like an ambushed, but Arnold very calmly just said, "What?"
He probably has already guessed why I'm here.

"Can I ask you something?"

Perhaps because that it wasn't a good time to talk in the middle of the crowded hallway, Arnold invited me into the room, and I silently accepted.

To my surprise, Arnold's room was the exact same type that mine and Chelsea's.
However, we share room while Arnold has all the room only for himself.

With my back resting on the door, I finally asked Arnold, who was standing by the window.

"Mr. Arnold, do you suffer the auto catalytic disease too?"

Arnold turned his gaze to me but it was a moment only and answered clearly.

"No... As a side note, Elvira was three years old when she developed the auto catalytic disease's symptoms. I already had strong magic power by that age, however she was weaker than me."

He probably sees through my doubts.
Arnold normally responds with only a few words, but this time, he deliberately added that he is more powerful than Elvira.
Well ...

"If that is so, why isn't Mr. Arnold ill?"

"I don't know."

Even though I was aware that it was rude, I posed the question straight away.
Arnold is telling me the true, he shakes his head firmly.
The black eyes that stare at me have a strong light that makes me think I'm being observed.
From the look on his face, I feel a little relief that the conclusion I reached, was not wrong.
Taking a deep breath, I continued.

"I read all the books about the disease that I could find, just in case. Every piece of information I've read, without exception, has only one possible conclusion."

--It is a tragic disease caused by an organism self-defense system, a result of too much magic contained in a small weak body--

"Suppose a young child has more magic power in his body than he can handle. Then, the body can no longer withstand it and reaches its limit. In order to avoid this, the body tries to let the magic escapes out little by little, regardless of the owner's intention. However, if the owner of the body is not aware of the correct form to release magic, it cannot escape from the body without causing damage. "

It is true, if you look at the past data, all the patients recorded diagnosed with this sickness had above-average strong magical powers.
The "cause" of Autonucleosis is quite plausible that, since most cases it was developed in childhood, by the age of five or so.

That is why a doubt appeared on my mind, the youngest royal alchemist master and the sorcerer of the Order is bearing a lot of magic too.
Then why isn't Arnold affected?

"Is Elvira's constitution a little weak? Does she have special allergies?"

"No, before the autonucleosis disease appeared, Elvira was a hyperactive girl that was all the time running from here to there. In fact, my body is weaker than hers, at least at the age of 5."

Arnold's words made my doubts grow deeper.
Why did Elvira develop the disease and Arnold did not?
Was it because Elvira was a girl and had a smaller body than Arnold, who was a boy? Maybe Arnold is special and developed a resistance to the disease?

No, it's not just between the two Rocco siblings.

It's true that the disease appeared only in children with strong magical powers.
Despite that, there are many powerful children that didn't develop any kind of sickness, the Order for example, there are many young man with a lot of magical power that entered the Order at a very young age because their tremendous power.
And they didn't develop autonucleosis.

... Here's why! I can only think that there is a factor other than magic involved.

"... looking at past cases of autonucleosis, the only thing safe to assume is that those who don't have above-average magical powers won't develop it."

Arnold's words sank me deeper into a sea of ​​thoughts.

"Sixty percent of the patients are female and 40 percent are male. We can't take it as a reference because the documented cases is too little. The onset of the disease: 90% is in childhood, around the five years old. The period of life differs greatly depending on the person, the youngest patient to die by this disease was a child of nine years, and the oldest, 42 years. The range is too wide. "

Arnold crossed his arms and the furrow between his brows deepened.
His gaze finally focused on the floor, as if he was trying to sort out his tangled thoughts.

Guided by Arnold's voice, I think again about autonucleosis.

"And... well, it's not likely to be a virus or anything like that."

The places of residence of the victims of the disease were scattered all over the world.
So far, there is no environmental commonality, such as one case found in a snowy country and the next in a desert area.
And above all, there are no cases where the parents, etc., who took care of the patient with great effort until the end, were infected.

Also, about the treatment.
In addition to healing with recovery potion, there were also experimental treatments such as teaching the patients to use magic in order to consume the excess of power, but none of them seemed to have any effect.
Our predecessors tried every conceivable cure and faltered.

--that's all we know from the previous cases.

A silence falls between us, until I said everything that is on my mind.

"I think it's definitely due to the strong magic. But why didn't you, who have stronger magic power than her, get sick while Elvira did? Was it because you're a boy and your body was bigger than the one of a 5 years old girl? Because it was stronger? Is it a physical condition involved? Looking at historical data, it doesn't look like that's the cause. What the patients have in common? The number of patients seems to be very low... There would be many sorcerers with stronger magic power than the victims of the disease, that's exactly why the Order would recruit them. So why don't those people develop it? Is it the kind of body's constitution? A weaker body that is prone to get sick??"

Questions popping up one after the other.
It would be best if we could clarify one question at the time.
However, I am not confident that I can do it now that I have few materials and only a little time left.
Also, something that I can't tell him but is bothering me greatly, this disease is related to the characters great fate? No, that would be too strange.

And above all, there is a puzzling point about the onset of the disease.
The only thing we know right now is that it is caused by the person's own magic, so it would be good if we could do something about that magic.

Many people tried it in the past but didn't work.

"It's true that the magic flowing through the body, is hurting it. Then, if we somehow suppress that magic, or temporarily remove it... As for a more long term solution, I think the cure would be to take away the capacity of produce magic from the person... Of course, nobody is capable of doing such a thing yet."

Before I tell him about my idea, Arnold told me the same, he probably thought about it since long ago.
After all, he has been researching about this for a lot longer than I have.
We're either very similar on our way of thinking ... or very much at the same standstill.

However, I can't help but think that the most fundamental solution is what Arnold just proposed: To take away the magical power from the body of the person.
If the body is trying to get rid of the magic and that is what causes the disease, then extracting it without hurting the holder would be the solution.

It's a very quick and simple way to do it. But-- I'm stuck in the procedure to do so.

First of all, there's no method to do that discovered yet, and second, Elvira has to accompany Lucas as a sorcerer.
How will she do if we remove the capability of producing magic from her body?

However, this method is still the most suitable and secure to safeguard Elvira.
If we just suppress, drain or temporarily remove the magic from her body, as long as it has the capability of producing more, the disease will re-appear and depending on the body capability of production, it'll take a shorter or longer time.

But above all, we have to save her life, everything else can be sorted out somehow but letting her die isn't an option.
We can't keep hesitating.

I still think the cure of draining the magic of her body and suppressing the capability of producing more, is the more realistic solution.

--However what keeps bothering in my head, is what is the other variable, the reason why Elvira suffers this disease but Arnold doesn't! No, even if they were able to figure it out today, if the cause is ultimately due to her own too strong magic, we've to solve that first.

Nevertheless, I wonder if in the field of magic or alchemy, someone has created a method to do it. Maybe I should study in other direction as well.

You'll see, there are different approaches that serves a same purpose, for example poisonous herbs may be more useful than medicinal herbs in the hands of a herbalist, while an alchemist will always prefer the second ones.

The alchemist works hard in creating recovery potions that recover the physical body, and temporarily increase the magic power.
But the opposite does not exist, at least in this field.

"Well...well, thank you for your time. I'll look into it a bit more."

--To suppress or take away the magic.

A new direction, it seems I will have to read the books again and start looking for new ones.
Anyway, it's a possibility, if I look carefully maybe there's something that will get me closer to that solution.

"Ampere!"

As I was going to open the door, a powerful but somehow begging voice made me turn around immediately.

"Please."

His voice was full of worries and gratefulness at the same time, like the begging of a mother in despair.
I nodded but couldn't support it, as a heavy object pressing my chest, I turned around and went out, to later start running through the corridor.

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