It still burnt so much as Hannah was wrapping bandage after bandage around my foot while trying to hide the real damage from the nervous and incredibly sorry mage. At least I didn´t turn into a monster yet … even though everyone else already saw me as one.

“Are you sure it was just a drop?” The mage asked nervously.

“Yeah, just a tiny little droplet.” I said while smiling as Hannah wrapped the bandage around my foot for the fifth time. After Hannah completed her task, I stood up slowly and nearly blacked out from the pain, making me giggle involuntarily.

“Ehh~ Professor Apfelsaft, you may need a sign with the days since the last incident.” I said, trying to mask my completely messed up reaction.

“Oh, I already have … had one.” Yeah … at least he didn´t think too much about my giggling, which was definitely a plus point.

“Anyway …” I started, steadying myself by grabbing Hannah´s arm. “why did you show us that?”

“Mr Schlaumeier was praising a lot lately, so we thought …” It would certainly be better if they stopped thinking altogether.

“You guessed I would have a brilliant idea or so?” I asked while testing my ability to walk slowly. Yeah, no. My foot was probably half eaten away and was still stinging with pain constantly.

“Yes … so?” He asked, even though I didn´t know more than what they had already figured out.

“We need to watch out for that. The mana sickness is quite rare and we don’t know the effect on every animal or even intelligent creatures yet. It is already proven that at least one human transformed into something else though … we need to monitor these incidents closely.” I concluded.

“Hmm … that’s what we thought as well.” Well, that’s because it is the most sensible thing to do. We wouldn’t be able to stop the illness from happening in the first place.

“Anyway, I really need to rest right now … would you be so kind to retrieve Hannah´s dagger?” I asked, not willing to risk Hannah´s life inside that room at all. And I wouldn’t go either. Heck, I couldn’t go alone.

“The magical one? Yeah, I can go looking, but I doubt there is anything left of it.” But I didn´t. It broke through several of my own sturdier daggers, without leaving a single scratch on the blade. True, it looked a bit worn out in the beginning, but we managed to whip the weapon into perfect shape again. But after that? I could throw that thing into a volcano and it would survive.

“Please do so.” I said and smiled wryly as the fucker finally left us.

“I could see your bone …” Hannah said the moment he was out of sight.

“That is not very surprising considering my bone is directly underneath my skin … whatever, I only thought it was able to harm evil races, but electricity? And now I need to find a way to train you with that thing as well.” I said, already trying to figure out where I should hire a mage.

“Can´t you just show me? I mean, you did it with the sword of magnetism as well.” She said, clearly forgetting that thing burned me near death.

“Yeah …” I said while shaking my head. My relation to these types of magical artefacts was quite strange indeed. There was a soul in them … and I only needed to threaten them once I could feel this weird connection. In any case, my way of using these weapons is probably not applicable for anyone else. “let´s not. You said it was from your grandmother?”

“Yeah, at least that’s what my parents told me.” She enthused, clearly looking at that part of her past better than it actually was.

“I really want to know that person now … ” I said slowly.

“I was told she could win against heavily armed men with a normal dagger.” She said, deadly serious.

“I highly doubt that.” I said while chuckling quietly.

“Why?” She asked while frowning quite badly.

“… hey, I don’t want to belittle your ancestry or so, but only an insane person would do what you claimed.” I answered. Nobody would try to fight against an armoured man with a dagger and even I liked to avoid that scenario as it made things quite complicated … at least when I didn’t want to challenge myself.

“Eh? Why are you training me to fight with a dagger then?” She asked, a bit surprised.

“Because you wanted to and I really, really doubt you will find yourself in the position of fighting against someone with a sword.” I answered, knowing if she would ever face against an armoured guy, I would have fucked up somewhere before … and that obviously doesn’t happen, does it?

“But there is still a way to fight back then, isn´t there?” She asked, probably slightly worried about her death.

“… we will talk about that later. Professor Apfelsaft, I assume you have great news?” I asked the professor who was slowly walking back towards us through the long tunnel we were in.

“Certainly. Your dagger survived without a scratch. If I may ask, where did you this weapon from? It is indeed quite well made, if you could introduce me to the crafter …” Was he thinking about some strange experiment, resulting in an even bigger mess? Well, whatever it was, the crafter probably had been dead for centuries.

“You may not ask, but you may guide us out of the palace. I fear we are quite helpless without you.” I said while smiling wryly. He was a bit dispirited by my answer, but nonetheless nodded quite quickly afterwards.

“… as you wish.” He said, and wanted to hand me the dagger until I stepped to the side and nodded towards Hannah. As if I would touch that cursed thing with my bare hands. Luckily, he didn´t seem to mind and handed it over to Hannah swiftly afterwards.

Together, we left the underground area of the palace, while explaining what happened to a few people. Well, most of them had quite a bit of pity with me as I limped through the hallways with Hannah as my sole help.