Test Subject

Did… did she just say test subject???

“Okie dokie, hold still for me will yah?” the unknown girl says, “now let’s see… which potion was it again?”

The sound of rummaging follows and a few seconds pass before she says, “ah hah! This one!”

She roughly grabs my face and pours some elixir down my throat. Immediately, my vision began to clear and I was able to make out her appearance.

She had short, olive-green hair that fell just above her shoulders, and her eyes were a deep purple color, similar to those seen at the edges of a sunset. Above her head were two branches that sprouted out in opposite directions. Olive branches perhaps, but I wasn’t enough of a botanist to know.

A dryad? I wondered, unable to move due to the persisting pain in my head, is she also a Dreamweaver?

Her attire was noticeably different from the traditional trench coats that other Dreamweavers wore. At first glance, it looked like she was wearing a large cape, but upon closer inspection, it was actually just a massively oversized trench coat that loosely hung over her body. The sleeves were way too long and the entire thing seemed to only be secured at the collar. Her hands pop in and out from underneath her coat, a flash of purple light coming from behind it as she rummages for something else.

“No, that wasn’t it,” she mumbled, “that’s the one that temporarily restores vision… at this rate he’s actually going to die…”

Oh please don’t let me die, Mrs. Random Savior!

Suddenly she pulls out two potions, and mixes them together.

“Drink this!” she shouts, shoving the mixture down my throat.

Upon swallowing it, I feel an initial super sharp pain in my head—one that was worse than all the pain before it combined—but seconds later it rapidly begins to subside, replaced by a soothing, ice-cold feeling.

Is… my head regenerating? I wondered, feeling the cells around the wound repair and begin to stitch itself back up.

“Mwahahaha it seems I was right,” the girl said with a smug grin as she pulled out a notebook from underneath her cape.

How much stuff can she fit in there??? I wondered as I also began to feel the dizziness start to subside. The blood I lost was coming back.

“You melt one cup of snow from the Lumifall Hearth to use as the base, and combine it with one Hemoshroom to stimulate the bone marrow activity to recover blood, and two drops of Hemostatic Pollen to reduce the blood loss, plus a Stitchleaf to close up the wound…”

She mumbled random stuff I didn’t necessarily understand before standing up and proudly declaring, “I am a genius!”

She then paused for a moment before jotting something down in her notebook.

“Note to self: only works on humans so far. Might not work on other races due to anatomical differences,” she mumbled again.

Placing her notebook back into her coat, she then turned to the giant fox sitting next to me, tilting her head in surprise as if noticing Aoki was there for the first time.

“Oh my god aren’t you just the most adorable thing!” she shouts, rushing over to pet her, “who’s a good boy? You are! You are!”

But Aoki’s a girl… I tried to say, well, whatever…

She continued roughly scratching and petting her until Aoki suddenly dissipated into golden particles.

“Aww man,” she said, disappointed.

Seeing that she was no longer distracted, I decided now was the right time to thank my savior.

“Umm…” I weakly said, “thanks for saving me… whoever you are.”

“Sylvia’s the name!” she announces without missing a beat, “the greatest alchemist in all of Aurum Reve!”

I gave her a weird look.

Was she actually some kind of merchant? A con artist trying to scam me for healing potions?

“You are a Dreamweaver right?” I asked, suddenly doubting her intentions.

“Yup! Dreamweaver, alchemist, dryad, ‘that one weird girl’, blah blah blah—I have many titles.”

“A dryad… then you must know some sort of healing magic right? Why didn’t—”

“No! No healing magic!” she suddenly shouts, her voice becoming a lot sterner in an instant, “the only power I concern myself with is the power of science! Besides, my healing potion worked right? There’s no need for any magic.”

“Well… it did sound like you were unsure of whether or not it would work… I could’ve died.”

She frowned.

“You know, you’re complaining a lot for someone who just got lucky like, three consecutive times in a row. Seems to me like this is your first time encountering a Nightmare alone.”

“...Is it really that obvious?”

“Getting beaten by a simple rat Nightmare would be a pretty good indicator of that. You’re lucky that that power of yours even activated in the first place to be honest. Most people who get caught alone for the first time usually don’t make it. You’re also lucky that your power seems to be combat oriented and was able to save you. If you had, say, gotten a power like mine, you probably wouldn’t have made it.”

Her arms rummage through the insides of her coat, causing a flash of purple light, and seconds later, a few empty bottles and random ingredients drop from underneath her.

“Infinite pocket dimension,” she proudly said, “helpful, but it wouldn’t have saved you if you had it.”

I solemnly looked at the snow covered ground. She was right. I was being ungrateful. I survived in the end and that’s what should’ve mattered. I didn’t know why she refused to use her healing magic, nor why I even assumed she was capable of it anyway, but it wasn’t my place to question her reservations.

“Sorry,” I apologized, “and thanks again for helping me. I guess I was just overwhelmed by everything that happened.”

“Hehe, you’re lucky that I don’t have any teammates to work with. Otherwise I wouldn’t be going around testing my potions on random incapacitated people like this.”

Random incapacitated people?

I shuddered at the thought of how many people might’ve been a victim of a failed potion.

But more importantly, what did she just say?

“You… have no teammates?” I asked.

“Yeah? So? What about it? Thought you might’ve connected the pieces together already but no one really wants a dryad who can’t heal. Or well, refuses to use her healing magic to be exact. No one wants to gamble on the potions I come up with, and no one wants to work with anyone stubborn. Thus I’m alone, but jokes on them—I don’t want to be reduced to the role of a healer anyway! Limiting my potions to healing ones is just not very scientific of them.”

“So you have potions for fighting?”

Her eyes lit up.

“You bet I do! I have one that sets things on fire. One that goes kaboom! Another that goes kaboosh! And another that goes bammm!” she waves her hands around dramatically with each explosion sound, “but well, that’s because it’s easier to figure out potion combinations that result in an explosion rather than a helpful side effect…”

Someone who can fight, heal, and store things infinitely?

I didn’t care that she was a little weird. In terms of the straws I was grasping out, she was like a rare golden one.

“Then, what about me?” I worked up the courage to ask, “would you want to team up with me?”

She pauses, gives me a weird look, and then bursts into laughter.

“You? My teammate? And what can you provide Mr. Rookie Dreamweaver?”

My mind races with different ideas. I needed something, anything to convince her that I was worth keeping around. I didn’t want to continue getting rejected like this—I had enough of that in my past life already, and more than enough of it in this one.

“I… I’ll be your test subject!” I blurted out.

She paused for a moment as if not expecting that sort of answer.

“Oya oya, really now~?” she asks smugly, “now that does sound interesting indeed. But how can I trust that you won’t chicken out after I’ve helped you and need you to test a potion?”

“You can give me one of your test potions right now, and I’ll drink it without question!” I declared.

“Oho? Then let's put that conviction to the test shall we?”

She pulls out a potion filled with a clear liquid and hands it over to me.

“This is a shrink potion,” she says, “it’ll shrink you down for about twenty minutes and then revert you back to normal afterwards. Or at least it should. I’ve been developing it because it’s easier to kill a Nightmare when it gets shrunk down, but I’ve never risked testing it on one.”

Nervously, I took the bottle from her hands. I had been rejected too many times to give up now. If she was really going to give me a chance to be her teammate, I had to take it no matter what.

Closing my eyes, I drank the potion, waiting for its effects to take place but… after a few seconds nothing happened.

Sylvia bursts out laughing.

“Bahaha! That was just a dud,” she laughed, “but I do admire your resolve. It seems you are willing to be my test subject after all. But don’t worry, I won’t give you anything too dangerous to drink. Don’t want you dying on me after all.”

She extends out her hand for a handshake, and as I hold onto it, she pulls me up off the ground.

“So,” she asks, “what’s your name?”

“Shidou,” I reply, “Shidou Hirawa.”