The next day, noon.
Seeing Naoki lying in bed with an abnormally red face, Merlin and Waver exchanged glances, then sighed in resignation.
"He caught a fever from staying up late doing experiments..."
"I don't even know what to say anymore, Naoki. Did you deliberately get a fever because today is Professor Kayneth's martial arts class?"
"Cough Cough..... Do you think I wanted to... Cough..."
While coughing, Naoki glared sharply at Merlin.
If it weren't for this trash human who sent Gray to his room last night, he wouldn't have had to sleep on the experiment table because there was no bed. Although there was the option to sleep with Gray, but how to put it... impolitely, he felt uncomfortable.
Of course, Naoki wouldn't do anything inappropriate to Gray, who is only six years old, but his intuition told him that if he slept on the bed, Merlin, that trash human, would definitely not miss the chance to trip him up. Maybe he was overthinking, but after being tricked too many times, Naoki would rather believe than not believe, he didn't dare to gamble on the possibility that Merlin wouldn't cause trouble.
And the result was that he immediately caught a fever.
Merlin measured Naoki's temperature with a thermometer: "Hmm... 39 degrees, a bit high, it's better to rest at home for the next few days. Waver, please request leave for Naoki at the Clock Tower."
"How many days?"
"Just two days, I'll brew a potion, a trivial fever will be cured with one bottle of potion."
Her potion?
Naoki immediately frowned: "May I ask, is the potion... Cough Cough... supposed to be a normal one, right?"
"Yes, very normal, except that the medicine is poisonous, so there might be some insignificant side effects, no big deal."
"More specific?"
"Increased appetite, mental disturbance, cognitive impairment... Oh yes, there seems to be a male hormone stimulation effect, back when experimenting on animals, it accidentally produced more than ten small animals."
Okay, just as Naoki imagined.
"I won't drink your potion even if I die."
"Eh~ Why not?"
"Why don't you know yourself... Cough!"
Seeing Naoki's vigilance, Merlin pouted in dissatisfaction, but she had expected this reaction, at the very least she would mix the potion into his food or drink.
At that moment, Waver spoke up: "No need for a potion, for a fever just buy medicine from the pharmacy, right?"
"Huh?"
"Both of you have been Magus for too long, have you forgotten what the modern era is like? Deadly diseases aside, a fever can be cured with medicine, right? I don't have class today, later I'll go out to buy medicine, and also request leave for you at the Clock Tower, a week is more than enough. During that time, you should stay in bed."
After finishing speaking, Waver immediately turned and left the bedroom.
Seeing this, Merlin couldn't help but laugh: "Ara~, turns out he's quite reliable. What a pity, I have a lot of new medicine in my room that hasn't been tried yet."
"So you were planning to do that?"
"Ahem~"
Naoki was really too lazy to curse at this old woman, he pulled the blanket over himself and turned around: "If there's nothing else, I'm going to sleep."
"How could there be nothing? Neither Waver nor you seem to realize the real cause of this fever."
"Eh?"
The real cause of the fever?
Naoki looked back at Merlin: "Isn't it because of the cold?"
"You are now a superhuman merged with a Servant base, just a cold couldn't possibly make you this weak. It's been over a year, and you still don't understand your own body's abilities?"
As she spoke, Merlin tapped Naoki's forehead.
"The real cause of your fever is a problem with your magic circuits. However, this doesn't mean you've been cursed or poisoned, it's purely because a foreign object entered, like food poisoning."
"So... Cough... I'm not actually sick?"
"It's just that the symptoms resemble a fever. Your magic circuits are rejecting the foreign object that entered your body and are expelling it on their own, once the foreign object is digested, the fever will subside, about three or four days."
At this point, Merlin frowned slightly: "I'm just curious, why your magic circuits could be invaded by a foreign object. Do you have any clues?"
"No."
"Hmm... Alright, rest well. This time I won't disturb you."
"Thank you."
Naoki looked at her weakly.
At the same time, Gray's voice came from the door: "Brother, I've made porridge—ah, Sister Mary, good afternoon."
"Good afternoon to you too, little Gray, you made lunch for Naoki, so thoughtful, I think you'll definitely make a good wife in the future!"
"Wife?!"
Gray's face immediately turned red, and Add, hanging from her robe, jumped out: "Ehehehehe! A wife, I can't imagine who would want this fool, how about the guy over there considering it?"
"Add... Cough... Besides, I'm now a disabled person, don't make trouble for me..." As he spoke, Naoki looked at Gray, "Gray, put the porridge on the nightstand, I'll sleep first, I'll drink it when I wake up."
"O-okay!"
◆━⊰✧⊱━◆
Clock Tower, Kayneth's office.
"Okay, I understand, then there's no other way, let him rest for a few days."
As he said this, Kayneth hung up the phone.
Sitting on the sofa not far in front of him, Sola turned and asked: "Who was on the phone?"
"Waver Velvet, requesting leave for Naoki, said he's not feeling well. Really, being a Magus and not being able to manage his own condition, so immature."
"Besides, last night he and Velvet experienced that incident, coming home in a storm like that, must have caught a cold." Sola was quite understanding, "By the way, about last night's incident, is there any result? I remember you went to the scene with the Policy Department."
When discussing this, Kayneth rarely frowned: "The result is unexpected, there was only a slight anomaly in the leyline, and it was resolved on the spot. But..."
"Is there a problem?"
"Yes."
Sola immediately fell silent—Kayneth saying there's a problem, this is the first time since they've known each other, with Kayneth's abilities, no matter what problem arises, he would easily solve it, so usually problems aren't problems.
But this time...
"Waver Velvet and Naoki's report mentioned a Black Dog. That's an almost certain result if combining many elements like crossroads, thunder, storm, night, and so on, it can be said to be a directed summoning, nothing strange, in fact, across Britain, similar cases often occur whenever the weather is similar."
"However, the result of the summoning is problematic."
"Their report said that what appeared was a human-sized Black Dog. Normal Black Dogs are almost the same size as regular dogs, human-sized... this size has never been recorded before in the Clock Tower's records."
"Could it be the influence of summoning factors?" Sola asked.
Kayneth nodded: "Possibly. After that, I conducted several summoning simulations based on the situation at the time, what appeared were normal Black Dogs."
Not out of arrogance, Kayneth was confident that his summoning art couldn't be wrong, this means that there was indeed an unknown factor interfering with the summoning art at that time, causing the summoned Black Dog to become larger.
Propping his chin and thinking for a moment, Kayneth stood up: "Sola, I'm going out for a bit. You handle things here, if there's any business, postpone it first, wait for me to return."
"I understand. Are you going to that crossroads?"
"Yes."
"Rare for you to be so concerned about something other than yourself. Are you worried about those two?"
Hearing this, Kayneth couldn't help but laugh: "How could that be, I just feel that if I can investigate that uncertain factor, my research on summoning art might advance further, if I can write a good paper, my achievements will also increase. Besides, those two aren't weak enough for me to worry about them."