Several dozen kilometers away from Zans.

By the time Sherry arrived with reinforcements, Yuho was already barely breathing.

It was clear that even though Chinba and Yuho were constantly bickering with one another, they shared a strong relationship, as evidenced by the concern that Chinba was displaying for Yuho in his dire state.

"Take him to my residence as quickly as possible, but make sure the journey is a smooth one so he doesn't get jostled to death on the way there," Erwin instructed with a serious expression.

Sherry immediately did as he was told, carrying Yuho onto a horse-drawn carriage with the help of some other men.

As for Erwin and Onean, they rushed back to Zans on horseback to prepare the required magic potions.

By the time Sherry arrived in Zans with Yuho, Onean had already prepared the magic potions and stored them in vials.

After that, Erwin dismissed everyone else, allowing only Sherry and Chinba to stay behind.

At this point, Yuho's condition was already extremely terrible. The poison in his body had already entered all of his organs through his bloodstream, and if Onean couldn't contain this poison in a short time, then Yuho would be as good as dead.

"Don't hold back, use the most potent medicine we have," Erwin said. "I know he may not be able to handle a potent medicine in his current condition, but he's going to die anyway, so we can't afford to take things slowly."

Erwin was telling Onean to essentially treat Yuho as someone who was already dead. Administering potent medicines into his body in his current condition could result in severe after-effects, but the top priority right now was to save his life.

Onean nodded in response.

She then opened a vial of brown magic potion, then poured all of it onto Yuho's wound without any hesitation. As soon as the vial was opened, a foul odor immediately wafted throughout the entire room, striking one with a nauseous response.

Erwin and Sherry were already accustomed to this, but Chinba was struggling immensely, and he had already almost thrown up on several occasions. However, he didn't dare to be so rude in Erwin and Onean's presence, so he could only forcibly suppress his own nausea, shuffling over to the window to breathe in some fresh air from the gap in the window.

At this moment, the attention of everyone in the room was focused on the gruesome wound on Yuho's waist. After the brown magic potion had been poured onto the wound, a string of sizzling could be coming from the mangled flesh around the wound. Even though Yuho was in an unconscious state, he was in so much agony that his brows began to furrow tightly.

A short while later, purple smoke began to rise up from the wound, and upon seeing this, Onean immediately opened a vial of amber-colored magic potion. She then tipped the vial over upside-down before forcefully knocking on the bottom of the vial, trying to tip out the amber-colored liquid as quickly as she could, as if she were afraid that the purple smoke would escape. However, this amber-colored magic potion was extremely viscous, much like honey, and it was very slow to drip out of the vial. In addition to that, the vial had a very thin opening, and it was truly a grueling ordeal, watching such a viscous liquid flowing out of such a tight bottleneck.

Magic couldn't be used to assist this process. If the magic potion were to come into contact with any magic, its properties would completely change. Not only would it lose its original effect, it could even become an entirely different type of magic potion that could send Yuho directly to his grave.

The purple smoke was about to dissipate, and Erwin could see that Onean was becoming more and more frantic. With that in mind, he immediately approached her to help her tip the amber-colored magic potion out of the vial at a faster rate.

However, it was clear that they weren't going to make it in time if they didn't take any drastic measures. Her brows furrowed tightly as a decisive look appeared on her face, and she plunged the neck of the vial straight into Yuho's wound, upon which the amber-colored liquid quickly filled the entire wound.

"ARGH!" Somehow, Yuho was able to let loose a thunderous howl of agony even in his unconscious state. In fact, the entirety of his upper body had reared up, and he was like a zombie rising up from the dead.

Chills ran down Sherry and Chinba's spines upon seeing this, particularly when they caught sight of how Yuho's completely ashen face was twisted in agony.

All of a sudden, Yuho slumped back down onto the bed, and Erwin turned to Onean before asking in a quiet voice, "What happened? Is he... dead?"

Onean was as calm as ever, and she cast a glance toward Yuho's wide-open eyes before shaking her head.

Erwin was rather perplexed about what her head-shake entailed, and he was wondering whether she was trying to express that Yuho was beyond saving, or if he was still alive.

Onean didn't have the time to answer Erwin's questions. After removing the magic potion vial, she immediately picked up a pile of thick bandages that she had prepared in advance, then pressed it firmly against the wound on Yuho's stomach. At the same time, she gently flipped Yuho over with her other hand before also applying some bandages to his back. Only after doing all of that did she turn to Erwin before declaring, "The poison in his body has been completely stabilized. As for whether he'll survive, that'll be up to him."

"What do you mean by that?" Erwin asked with a puzzled expression.

After sealing the second vial of magic potion, she shook it in front of Erwin. At this point, most of the vial's contents had already been applied to Yuho's wound, and there was barely any magic potion left in it. "This is the juice of riverbank sea asparagus, a magic potion that will keep him alive for three days, but after three days, it'll flow through his wound all the way into his brain."

"Then what was the first magic potion that you used?" Erwin asked with a curious expression.

"Why are you asking so many questions?" Onean asked with an amused expression. "Are you planning to study magic potions again?"

The reason why she had said "again" was because Erwin had studied magic potions at a previous point in time, namely on the way to Windmetal Fort from Sarus, where Onean had still been recovering from the injuries inflicted upon her by Jeff.

"I was just curious," Erwin said in a resigned manner.

"That magic potion is an antidote potion made from powdered golden clam shells," Onean explained.

"So the smoke rising up from his wound was the poison from the arrowhead?" Erwin asked.

"I know what you're curious about," Onean said as she took a glance at Erwin. "The magic potion acted as an antidote to the poison still lingering in his wound, but it can't cure the poison that's already entered his organs."

"Then why didn't you wait until the poison dissipated before using the juice of riverbank sea asparagus?"

"You're not thinking that the juice of riverbank sea asparagus is some kind of life-saving medicine, are you?" Onean asked as she stared at Erwin, looking as if she were staring at an idiot.

Chinba was very much taken aback by this conversation. On the way here, he had already discovered that it seemed like despite how brilliant a man Erwin was, he was always coming off second best against his own wife. On this occasion, he was just blatantly being insulted!

Sherry had already seen this on many occasions in the past, and he was aware of Onean's true identity, so he wasn't all that surprised.

"Oh, so you're saying that the juice of the riverbank sea asparagus is also extremely poisonous, and you're using poison to counteract poison, so if you had used it after all of the poison in his wound had been cleared out, it would've killed Yuho, right?" Erwin asked.

"It looks like you're not a complete idiot, after all," Onean said as she rolled her eyes at Erwin. "If there isn't some poison remaining to counteract the juice of the riverbank sea asparagus, all of it would flow into his body at once. The poison in his body would be cured, but he'd most likely be killed by the very thing that we're trying to use to save him."

"If you had known that it was so sticky and viscous, couldn't you have scooped some of it out of the vial in advance instead of panicking at the last minute?" Erwin jibed. "You almost missed the opportunity to apply the magic potion because it was too viscous."

Instead of becoming enraged to hear this, Onean nodded in response as if she were agreeing with Erwin. "What a brilliant idea! What could possibly be wrong with it? Let me think... Oh, maybe it's because if even a drop of the magic potion the size of a fingernail were to evaporate, this entire room of people would be dead! I still have a few drops left in the bottom of the vial. Would you like to give it a taste?"

"Forgive me for my idiocy," Erwin sighed as he turned his gaze elsewhere.

Only now did he realize what Onean was in such a hurry to cover Yuho's wound with bandages. It wasn't because she was afraid of the wound becoming infected. Instead, it was because evaporation of the magic potion that had been applied would kill everyone in the room.

After administering the treatment, Onean returned to her room to read.

As for Erwin, he approached Sherry to ask him some questions, and they made no effort to avoid Chinba, so it was clear that Erwin wanted Chinba to also hear what he had to say.

"Has there been any unusual activity in the barracks during my absence?"

"No. Everything has been normal."

Erwin was silent for a moment before asking, "What about the Universal Church? Has Lia done anything worthy of note?"

"The archbishop hasn't done anything different from normal." Sherry didn't know who Chinba was, so while he was in Chinba's presence, he chose to refer to Lia as "the archbishop".

Erwin nodded in response. "I see."

However, he then asked again, "Has there really been no unusual activity in the city at all?"

"No," Sherry replied in a confident manner.

"Alright, you can go back to the barracks," Erwin instructed. "By the way, arrange around 10 of the best martial artists from our original mercenary legion to act as personal bodyguards for myself and Onean."

"I was just about to say, we should really assign you a squad of personal guards," Sherry said with a smile.

"Hurry up and get it arranged! I'm scared to death of dying," Erwin jibed.

Following Sherry's departure, Erwin turned to Chinba with a smile before suddenly asking, "If Yuho dies, Shane isn't going to hold a grudge against me, is he?"

Chinba was distracted with some other thoughts, and only after faltering momentarily did he reply, "Of course not. We are all following you of our own accord, and we're fully aware of and prepared to face the risks."

"Even if it means giving up your life?" Erwin asked with a serious expression.

"Yes," Chinba replied without any hesitation.

"If you stay by my side for any length of time, I'm sure you'll quickly realize what it means to be willing to give up your life," Erwin mused.

Chinba thought of what Erwin had said after Yuho had taken that arrow for him, and he asked, "Are you saying we should be prepared for death at any moment?"

Erwin shook his head with a smile, refusing to elaborate.

...

Meanwhile, a master and disciple duo was entering Zans alongside a group of merchants.

The master was a man who appeared to be in his forties and was rather thin with an unremarkable physical appearance.

Trailing along behind him was a little girl who had a giant wooden box on her back that was even taller than she was, presenting a rather comical and bizarre sight to behold.

"Can you hurry up, Stinkbag?" The middle-aged man was clearly of the opinion that the little girl was walking too slowly, and he turned around to look at her with a disdainful expression.

"Shut the fuck up, you old fart! How about you carry this damn thing yourself?" Given the size of the wooden box and the fact that the leather straps attached to the box were digging into her chest, she should've been completely out of breath, but that was not the case at all, and she was able to speak very coherently without any labored breathing.

The middle-aged man reacted in a very brisk fashion, backhanding the little girl across the face as he said, "No food for you today."

The slap was extremely fast, so much so that the surrounding bystanders didn't even manage to see it before the little girl's cheek began to swell up.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she glowered at the middle-aged man, and she dropped her hands from the leather straps attached to the wooden box before placing them on her hips.

"You'd better think carefully before you decide whether to fight me or not," the middle-aged man said with a completely unfazed expression, even as the little girl grabbed onto the hilts of the two blades strapped to her waist. "If you're not careful, you could end up without food for the next 10 days."

The little girl was clearly furious, but in the end, she still took a deep breath and refrained from lashing out.