When a Lion and an Eagle Love Each Other Very Much – Part 2

The image was horrifying.

The fox girl was on the floor, covered by that black mist. Apparently, all of it had ignored Chloe and I and pooled around her instead, so much so that we could barely even see her.

“Sorry. I could only protect you.”

I wanted to complain, but suddenly, the ship began listing to the side.

“The ship is…!”

Because Tanney had suddenly been yanked from the controls, the Airdrake was veering way off course and losing altitude—fast.

“Oh hells no.”

Any inhibition I had before vanished. There was only one thing I could do. My hand found its way into my Hero’s Bag before I even consciously decided what to do.

I glanced at Chloe for her approval. I half expected her to tell me off, but instead, she nodded.

“Do it! We’ll deal with the consequences later!”

“Okay! Take this!”

No prizes for guessing what I did. I fired the Debuggun roughly in the direction of the griffin, through the black mist remaining in the cockpit. Like it was anti-venom, the creature was reset back to its spawn state. The black mist, too, instantly evaporated and disappeared.

Because I reset the griffin, the creature’s aggro was also gone. For a moment, it seemed dazed, as if having just woken up from a nap. It lost its target, too, so it looked at us like it really didn’t want to be in this situation, either. It used its powerful claws to force itself out of the airship, pushing it away.

“Woah!”

The entire thing shook like an earthquake had just hit it. Both Chloe and I lost our footing and collapsed to the ground into each other. Before we had a chance to figure out what to do, someone finally showed up in the corridor.

He didn’t even hesitate one second.

“Luminous Arrow!”

A light bright enough to blind us shot out from his bow, hitting the griffin flying away squarely in the head. This shot itself hadn’t been enough to deal the final blow, but the staggered monster crashed to the ground. It stayed there as our airship, no longer weighted by its massive body, continued to climbing up and away from it.

Phew, that was intense.

“Are you two okay?” Keil asked.

“We’re fine, but—”

Another voice interrupted me.

“Tanney!” Fianna screamed as soon as she entered the cockpit.

We followed the boss’ lead to the fox girl’s side. She was collapsed next to the helm, with her eyes closed, unmoving. Fianna knelt next to her, supporting her head with her arm.

“What happened to her?!”

“A Black Mist Explosion,” Chloe said with a low, matter-of-fact voice.

“Wait, don’t tell me—”

Fianna forced Tanney’s eyes open, and immediately gasped in horror.

Her previously green eyes had turned completely white and vacant.

“Damn it! She’s infected!”

“No… This can’t be happening! Tanney!!”

Keil began screaming his heart out, but the boss’ level-headedness prevailed.

“Keil, keep it together! I need to you to steer the ship for me, or we’ll crash!”

“…Okay. Boss! I’ll do my best!”

We gave way for the man to handle the Airdrake. At the same time, Fianna grabbed Tanney’s light body without reservation. Hanging around here would do us no good, so we followed her to the nearest cabin.

“What can we do, Fianna?”

“Nothing. There’s… nothing we can do. The moment the infection takes hold, it can’t be cured,” Fianna said, clutching Tanney’s hand.

The girl seemed to just be sleeping peacefully, but if what the elf was saying was true, then she was already far gone.

Will they need to… ditch her? Or worse…?

Then, my chest felt like someone had grabbed my heart from the inside and squeezed as tight as they could. Tanney was the first person I actually had fun hanging out with in this world. Yzara was out to kill me, and Fianna was always taciturn—but Tanney was different. She was just pure innocence. A ray of hope in this shitty world.

She didn’t deserve this.

I had to do something—anything to help her.

“Chloe.” I said, my voice low. “I’m gonna use the Debuggun on her.”

I expected her to rebuke me from revealing the existence of the gun, but her concerns were elsewhere.

“Takashi, what do you mean?” She asked, thoroughly confused. “You can’t use Restoration on people.”

She was right, of course. So far, I had been shooting the Resetting Beam indiscriminately, which reset mobs back to their spawn state. That was functionally equivalent to using <Restoration>.

However, NPCs worked completely differently from mobs. What was “the way they were meant to be”? This question plagued the devs, and all ideas they tried led to serious problems or unwanted behavior. In the end, they never finished implementing this feature on <Restoration> before the beta launched.

However, the Debuggun had actually been used to test out this feature; it still had an unimplemented, beta mode meant to test out the implementation of <Restoration> on NPCs.

“This gun works a bit differently from Restoration. It does work on people. I just… didn’t want you to know before.”

Chloe did not respond. During her silence, I pulled out the item that would save Tanney’s life from my Hero’s Bag.

“Takashi, what’s that?” Fianna asked.

“It’s a special item I brought over from my previous time in this world. I think it can save Tanney. But I’m not sure if it’ll work, or if there will be any unintended consequences. You’ll just have to trust me.”

Fianna took an excruciatingly long time digesting my words.

“Fine. Do it. There’s no other option. If we don’t do something, we’ll have to…” She paused. “I’m sure Tanney would also prefer you doing it to her, if it meant saving her life.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

I brandished the Debuggun. Here’s what it said.

<NPC: Tanney

Class: Grand Alchemist

Unlocked Classes: Fire Mage III, Water Mage III, Earth Mage III, Air Mage III, Lightning Mage III, Dark Mage III, Alchemist

EXP: 47,700 (Lv. 36)

Fire: 97,517 Water: 90,179 Earth: 103,086 Air: 95,015 Lightning: 86,431 Profane: 365,829

HP: 4111/5678

MP: 167

Skills: Shadow Strike, Curse, Darkness, Mind Break, Flame, Dust, Earth Shape, Water Bubble, Gust, Shock, Discharge, Flamethrower, Torrent, Gale, Firebolt, Magma, Scalding Bubble, Metal Transmutation, Organic Transmutation, Soil Transmutation, Profane Storage

Status conditions: Infected (%‡¤⁂‼&◊§)

Titles: Transmuter, Profane Magic Apprentice, Profane Magic Initiate, Fire Magic Apprentice, Earth Magic Apprentice, Water Magic Apprentice, Lightning Magic, Apprentice, Golden Child>

There were two implementations of <Restoration> on the Debuggun. The <spawn_state> mode was essentially the same as with mobs; you could reset NPCs back to their spawn state, so it should work with every single one. That’s what I expected it to show with Tanney, but my expectations were dashed.

That option wasn’t even there.

Wait, I can’t reset her to her spawn state…?

Until I figured it out.

Of course. Tanney didn’t “spawn” with the world!

She didn’t have a “spawn state”—she had real parents, after all. But I wasn’t going to use that mode, even if I could. The other mode was <last_saved_state>. Since I didn’t work on this, I had no idea what it actually did, but there was no time left to ask any questions.

I fired my shot, the energy bullet hitting the fox girl squarely in the chest. Apparently, nothing about her changed. But when Fianna checked her eyes—

“They’re green!”

“Oh, wow! It worked!” Chloe said, with unabashed relief in her voice.

Of course it did, I almost said, but my thought was interrupted by a sudden shift in the beastgirl.

“Hhgn… Fianna? What… where am I…?”

“Tanney! You’re okay! I was so worried!” The elf said, hugging her subordinate.

“W-Woah. W-Why are you—”

“You were infected by the White Death, but Takashi saved you!”

“I was infected?! But how—” Then she stopped to take a look around. Her eyes revealed her confusion at the situation, but when they finally stopped at Chloe and me, her ears twitched.

“Argh!”

She tried to hide, covering herself with the thin blanket.

Then the words that pierced my soul were uttered.

“Who are you?!”

That’s when I realized the power of this innocuous debug item.