Strongest Noble's Daughter Uses Water Magic

The Mistress of Poison

After getting information as to where Lilith and Felix were in this library, I walked up the long flight of stairs to get to the former of the pair. According to Dora, Lilith should be in the plant section, most likely researching the various poison she will be able to cast with her magic. Frightening as Lilith sounded from what my librarian classmate told me, I steeled myself and trudged on. For all I know, the rumors could just be nothing but exaggerations, as rumors tend to be, especially amongst nobles. Then again, as far as I can tell, Dora was not that type of noble, though it was possible that she heard the rumors as such. 

I arrived at the third floor, where the section of plant books was to be. Upon arriving at the very section, I saw a girl there with shoulder-length dark violet hair and cold red eyes standing there, reading one of the many books off the shelves. From the scary design of skull and crossbones mark on it, there was no doubt that the person reading it was Lilith. 

I took in a deep breath, pushing the fear forming in my head from the rumors Dora spoke of out of me, and stepped forward.

“E-excuse me,” I called in a stutter, getting her attention. 

One look at me, and she narrowed her eyes. “You’re that fifth place commoner,” she said. 

I slightly grimaced at the apparent title give to me before clearing my throat. “My name is Levi Caribbean. I wish to speak to you about the upcoming mock exam. All the commoners are getting together to train for it. But since this will be a team exercise, and we will be targeted by all the class in our year, we would like all of our classmates to join on our training. If we want to at least avoid getting last place, we need the cooperation of all our classmates. Won’t you join us on our training?” 

It was silent right then, as Lilith continued to stare at me, as though she was trying to look into my soul. As the seconds passed, I was getting more and more nervous if Lilith would either refuse or try something funny. What that ‘something funny’ is, I don’t ever want to know, but I really hoped it would not come to it. 

“… okay,” she simply said, catching me off guard. 

“Huh? Just like that?” I asked. 

“Of course. After all, if we get even a bit of income, I will be able to do more of my research.” 

Frightened as I was for her reason, I was still glad that she decided to join. 

“On one condition.” Until that. “I need volunteers to be my assistants for my magic. As you may have heard, my affinity is poison. I wanted to test out all its possibilities, and thanks to my father’s former position as duke, I was able to test out all the wonders of poison. However, because my research got out, and because I had used my magic on people, my family got demoted to the lowest rank, and my research became very limited. Though I was still able to test my work on rodents, unfortunately, they don’t give much reaction, and they don’t ever tell me what they experience from my poison.” 

The fact she said such a thing so came only made me more frightened of her. Only an evil sadist would want to know what their victims are going through in details! Still, if Class F was to get any chance in at least avoiding last place in that mock exam, we need the cooperation of every student. Though I highly doubt any of my fellow commoners is willing to be used as test subjects… 

“If no one is willing to be my assistant, I can always find-“ 

“I’ll do it,” I said, interrupting her. “I’ll… be that assistant.” 

Lilith seemed very surprised at the words that came out of my mouth. Not that I blame her… Already I am having many second thoughts about this idea, and want to run away from her. But… for the sake of the class, I stood my ground, shakily so. 

The surprised expression on her face left, replaced back with her neutral one once more. “Okay then. Let’s start now. Giardia Claw.” Before I got the chance to even process what she said, a dark purple magic circle appeared briefly on her hand, and she thrusted her arm forward, right into my gut. The moment she did that, I felt unbearable pain in my stomach and fell to the floor. 

“Gh! What... did you do...?" I weakly asked, enduring the pain my stomach was suddenly in. 

"I just inserted one of the many poison I had made into you. From what I saw from the rats I used this on, they were squirming in pain and simply flailed about, but I never knew exactly what sort of pain they were in, no matter how long or how many times I watched them. This is a good chance. Do tell me every experience you're in right now. Leave out no detail."

Just as she said that, my stomach started gurgling badly, and gave me more pain. "It's... kind of hard to do that... when I'm in real pain...!" I managed to say, clutching my stomach.

One look at my action, and Lilith took out a notepad and a pen. "So stomach pains. And bad ones at that. I see, I see. What else do you feel?"

"Stop it, Lilith!" came a familiar voice.

I looked up, and saw Dora in the hall, with her legs trembling.

"You're another one of my classmates," Lilith noticed. "Are you here to be my assistant as well?"

While Dora had flinched and trembled at the question, she still stood her ground. "I-I'm here to stop you!" she shakily exclaimed. "You've already poisoned more than enough people as a child, Lilith! I won't let you continue to do as you please! Your family may formerly be of duke rank, but you're now a baron's daughter! Don't you see it has been your father's accomplishments that is preventing you from taking any worse fates?! Stop, right now!"

"Why?" Lilith asked, in a scarily calm tone. "Other than the fact that this one volunteered to be my assistant, it is not as though she will die."

"Torturing someone does not justify your bad deeds at all! Besides, unlike outside the academy, the infirmary does not have anyone who uses Holy Magic, and any noble who does have that affinity will never lend aid to a commoner! Just stop it now!"

From what I could see from my excruciating pain, Lilith only continued to stare at Dora ever so blankly. "... When did I ever say I have trust in someone who uses such magic?"

Those words confused us both, when another dark purple magic circle appeared on her other arm. "Metronize Claw." Her nails turned green then, and she struck me in the stomach again.

"Levi!" Dora called.

I widened my eyes in fright, quite expecting to feel even more pain, only to instead feel relief, as my stomach started to ease up all of a sudden. More than just ease up, as I suddenly feel better than before, and slowly got up.

"I'm fine," I said in disbelief, much to Dora's surprise.

"Huh? You are?"

"I'm serious! My stomach pain is gone. But... I thought you use Poison Magic," I said to Lilith.

"I do," she confirmed, writing down more of her notes. "However, that does not mean I plan to kill or t*****e people with it. I only want to use my magic to help heal others of whatever it is that ails them, be it sickness or otherwise. Of course, since my magic is poison, no one understood my intention, even though I had told them many times that I was not going to kill them. Instead, whenever I infected them badly with my magic, they over exaggerate on the effect, and thus caused a huge commotion, as well as worsened their own condition before I even got the chance to properly study the poison I caused in full, and come up with an antidote using my own magic. I wouldn't say animals are more cooperative, but at the very least I got to properly study up on the effects, however vague it was these past years."

'I am very much so sure it is because of how neutral you are when you do this!' I thought, wanting to say that very badly, but also did not want to hurt her feelings. Not when she actually had such good intentions in using her magic like so. ... Even if it was twisted.

"So that's what it was..." Dora said. 

"In any case, I'm ready to start the next test. Shall we, dear assistant?" Lilith then asked me.

I slightly panicked at that, knowing that it will leave me in more pain even if she does plan on healing me up. "H-How about later? I still need to get all our other classmates to join, after all. How about we meet up at the commoners' dormitory? You can meet the others there," I asked.

Lilith placed a finger on her chin in thought at that, causing me to mentally pray that she would accept the delay on her research. If she wanted to test out a cure for stomach pains, I did not want to know what other sort of poison she wanted to test out a cure for.

"... Very well," she replied at last. "This will be a good chance to find some more assistants for my research. I suppose I will go on ahead."

Now that caused me to worry about my friends and peers just as much as my own life, as I had watched Lilith take her leave.