Shoutout to Bruh_Vista for beta-reading and providing extensive feedback for this chapter!
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Like a mother cat inspecting every nook and cranny of her kittens, Jean perused Kili with extreme thoroughness for any signs of damage caused by the Plague. After separating her from the plagued lands, Jean washed the girl thoroughly and placed the now pristine girl with glowing skin inside the research tent.
"I'm really okay," Kili said for the nth time. "In fact, I feel better than ever!"
"That's exactly why I need to make sure nothing is wrong," Jean declared. "If people feel different from how they usually do, and they can't explain the cause, then something is probably wrong with their body."
"How does that make any sense?" Kili said with a wry scoff.
"Good things never come for free," Jean stated. "Usually..."
"So what's happening with me?" Kili probed.
"The Plague of Dark Cleansing is lauded to be the worst disease ever to have graced Gaea. It is incurable and with assured demise upon contraction. It is the disease to kill all diseases," Jean narrated. "What would you call a vaccine that can eradicate a disease to kill all diseases?"
Kili hummed as she thought over the riddle before shaking her head in defeat.
"To be honest, I don't know what to call this bug either. I barely know what it is until I can retrieve it back into my body," Jean admitted while scratching her head.
"Why don't you do it?" Kili offered as she extended her hand towards Jean.
"I don't need to draw your blood," Jean responded. "It's just... You know what? If I keep questioning if I'm entitled to this achievement, there won't ever be an end to it. They say that a mage's success is 1% effort and 99% luck. To be honest, luck should be a skill too, right?"
Kili didn't know what Jean was talking about. In fact, another thought had just popped into her head.
"The bug that I have inside me, is it stronger than the bug Dora is friends with?" Kili asked with excitement beaming in her eyes.
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean if I was to pit my bugs against Fancy, who would win? What is my bug's secondary type? I know that Fancy is half Bug and half Fairy. Is my half Poison?" Kili rattled on. "No, that can't be true! If the Plague of Dark Cleansing is like Poison, and my bug can beat that, then it's either Ground or Psychic..."
"Hold up! Hold up!" Jean quickly cut Kili off. "What are you talking about?"
"Huh?" Kili blurted out, as she was immediately brought out of her trance. "Oh, umm... Nothing."
Jean's eyes narrowed, and her lips puckered in confusion. An awkward silence ensued as Kili, unaware of Jean's honed-in focus, continued to roam around in her imaginary world.
After releasing a relenting snort, Jean extended her hands forward and massaged under Kili's neck, slowly allowing her mana to permeate through the girl's body and guiding her microbes back.
Like moths to a flame, the microbes all started to careen towards her palms with renewed purpose. Through Kili's pores, Jean pulled out her reinforced microbes and held them in her open palms, gently caressing amidst her inviting mana. Then, after pausing to take a long breath, Jean let the microbes in through her mana channels and circulated them towards her core.
A second was all it took, and her evolved microbes became one with her again. The moment they entered her core, an explosion of knowledge resonated from her core and gushed rapidly into her brain. Kili's physique had perfectly directed Jean's half-complete hunter-killers to the desired destination, and the blanks that Jean couldn't fill in with her lacking cultivation were being filled in as her core deconstructed the microbes.
The more Jean learned about her hunter-killers, the more revulsion she started to feel towards the nature of the Plague of Dark Cleansing and the crooked mind that birthed it. The Plague was a creation of a man who had lost all semblance of his humanity. Jean thought that, although the Plague Emperor was a man who had committed many evils, he could be taught to correct his ways and eventually assimilate with the world after he'd paid proper reparations to the parties he'd harmed.
An artist best understands another artist's work, as they speak the same language. Although Jean wasn't a "Disease Expert" or endocrinologist as Mister Larks called them, her cultivation was related to the concept in some ways, similar to the Plague Emperor. In fact, she was certain they were related in more ways than just conceptually. Because of that, she understood the man's mindset.
"That man- no monster is beyond saving! He cannot be redeemed no matter how much time or money he spends in reparation!" Jean declared. "For people like him... Even the death penalty is like a light slap on the wrist."
But Jean did grasp something interesting from the Plague Emperor's "brush strokes". The Plague was borne of deep-seated pain. Something deep inside the man was broken, and the Plague was just a way to vent out this anger against those he felt had wronged him. Unfortunately, to him, the world was the one at fault, and it was the world that had to pay.
"An eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind," Jean muttered while shaking her head. "I am sorry for what you have lost. But that doesn't justify what you've done."
Just then, Jean started to feel the mana inside her core bubbling erratically. Jean quickly sat down in a meditative state and guided her mana through paths that felt natural, ensuring that the movement was at her pace. A large whirlpool of mana started to form above the tent and pierced through the tarpaulin as it gushed towards Jean. In turn, Jean started to feel her bones moaning as they were pushed to their limits. A few broke in the process, but they were regrown as the ambient mana fueled the regeneration. The same could be said for her internal organs, of which some were healed as they were being ruptured.
Yet Jean didn't feel any pain as her internal organs underwent such gruesome changes. This was, after all, the world preparing her body's foundation for the actual change that was to come later on.
Little by little, the surging ambient mana and the circulating mana inside her channels came to a tranquil halt. As she opened her eyes, she noticed an increasingly greater amount of waste expelled from her body. This had vaporized and taken with it all of Jean's clothes (even the reinforced underwear). Luckily she was only in the company of a distracted Kili. Jean quickly deduced the cause of this irregularity to be the result of the hunter-killers running an immediate scan and expelling all the harmful agents infecting her body that her post-mortal form failed to treat.
After hurriedly clothing herself, Jean flexed her muscles and cycled through her personal Yoga sequence (allowing her newly reformed bones to loosen up).
"Woah! Big Sis! You look so beautiful!" Kili exclaimed, nearly causing Jean's focus to dissipate.ραпdαs `n?ν?| сom
"Have you looked yourself in the mirror, Kili?" Jean asked back with a bright smile. "I'm afraid you have me beat in both beauty and cuteness."
In disbelief, Kili quickly fumbled through Jean's table and retrieved a handheld mirror.
"WOW! My face is so smooth and shiny!" Kili shrieked while gently caressing her face. "Did my bugs do this? Oh man, Dora is going to be so jealous!"
Jean chuckled while ruffling Kili's hair. "Alright!" She said while clapping.
"The actual job starts now!" She declared with a firm yet maniacal glint in her eyes.
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The plagued lands were vast, and the area of effect wasn't just expansive in length and breadth, but in-depth as well. Starting from the epicentre, Jean couldn't reach the deepest parts affected by the Plague. So she would be forced to move the earth there, which would be an extremely burdensome task.
Jean started from the periphery and worked her way inwards in a spiralling motion. Every day, she would let her hunter-killers permeate the surrounding lands to excise the Plague. The extermination wasn't immediate, but it was effective. Jean would have loved to spend more time optimizing her microbes, but she also recognized that it would be an improvement in the fraction of a percentage at best.
Within months, the plagued lands shrank. With the help of Kili, Jean managed to graft in the grass from beyond the ravine, and greenery was slowly returning to the lands. She even noticed some birds and insects returning and finally breaking through the silence.
A little over six months had passed since Jean left the Sect, and she had finally cleared the area of the Plague where there wasn't a need to move the earth. She had now reached the epicentre, which was also the area most concentrated and devastated by both the Plague and other magical attacks.
On this particular day, right as Jean exhaled, raised her wand, and prepared to cast her first spell to move the earth, something familiar intruded into her mana senses. Actually, the "something" was two people, and they were both hurtling towards her at inhuman speeds.
"JEAN!" A rumbling voice filled with heartache and distress echoed, silencing the fauna.
As she turned around, Jean revealed a bright and welcoming smile to the people approaching her.
"Father! Uncle Jeeves!" Jean greeted loudly while waving her hand.
"Look!" She added as she spread her hands wide, letting them absorb the changes around her. "I did it!"
Teacher Jeeves and Goran Rasmus skid to a halt in front of her. As her father reached over to grab her, Teacher Jeeves immediately grabbed him and pulled him back.
"Stop! You will die if you take another step forward!" Teacher Jeeves said through gritted teeth as he struggled to hold back the struggling father.
"ME? What about my daughter?!" Goran bellowed.
"You fool! Stop for a second and look at her!" Teacher Jeeves shot back. "She's standing at the epicentre of the Plague, yet she is perfectly fine!"
"W-What in the-" At that moment, Goran finally realized that he was among the first few people to approach the epicentre of lands deemed inhospitable by experts all over the Empire and possibly the whole world.
"H-How?" Goran mumbled as his eyes scanned the environment undergoing a renaissance.
"Don't ask me!" Teacher Jeeves said wryly. He then laughed uproariously as tears of relief and joy started to flow out of his eyes.
"You really did it!" Teacher Jeeves said affirmatively as he looked at Jean with pride. "You really, truly did it!"
"I did it!" Jean exclaimed as she flung her arms around Teacher Jeeves, ignoring his odd laugh.
"I did it!" she repeated while her voice started to break.
"I did it..." she said one more time before her voice faded into barely audible whispers.
Goran stood there, frozen. His daughter was standing in front of him, victorious, and the plagued lands were coming back to life. He couldn't help but feel a swelling warmth in his chest, and he finally let his tears flow freely.
After what felt like an eternity, Teacher Jeeves finally let go of Goran and turned his attention to the jubilant girl still clinging to his arm.
"Congratulations, my dear student," Teacher Jeeves said, his voice filled with warmth. "You have not only saved countless lives but brought hope back to this desolate land. Your accomplishments will be celebrated, and your name will be sung throughout history."
Jean smiled, her heart brimming with happiness and satisfaction. She had done it. She had overcome the Plague of Dark Cleansing, saved Kili, and redeemed herself in her father's eyes. The journey had been long and arduous, but the rewards were immeasurable.
As the three of them stood there, gazing at the slowly recovering lands, Jean couldn't help but feel a sense of fulfilment wash over her. The darkness had been pushed back, and the light was beginning to shine through once again. And with that light, a new chapter would begin for Jean and those whose lives she had touched.
The Plague of Dark Cleansing may have been a catastrophe, but it had also become the catalyst for Jean's transformation, both as a mage and as a person. And she was ready to embrace the new possibilities that awaited her on the other side.
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