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“—Okay, you can relax now. How do you feel? I manipulated the blood flow and bodily fluids and used non-elemental magic to transplant a vein from your thigh into the narrowed part of your heart to reinforce it. I think it should feel easier than before, right?”

When I lifted my hand from her chest—thin and frail from the illness—little Angie, who had been lying in bed with her whole body tense, and her father Dan, who had been watching anxiously from the corner of the room, both let out a breath of relief and relaxed their shoulders.

It was my first time meeting Angie, but whether it was due to her fragile health or her natural temperament, she had a quiet and composed air that felt unusually mature for a girl of five or six.

Even now, after a total stranger (me) had entered her room, undressed her while she slept, and spent two hours performing treatment without asking, she hadn’t uttered a single complaint or tearful word. She really is admirable.

“Alright, alright. Good job, sweetie. It’s chilly to stay bare-chested like that, so let’s put your shirt back on.”

Coppelia, who had picked up the cotton shirt folded at the head of the bed for examination and treatment, gently supported Angie’s relaxed back with practiced, attentive hands and helped her get dressed without straining her.

Even during the non-invasive procedure earlier, she’d provided accurate assistance and advice based on the alchemical knowledge of Dr. Victor, the leading expert in bioengineering. Coppelia truly becomes the perfect assistant when it comes to this kind of practical work.

How should I put it… she knows exactly when to be serious and tightens things up where it counts. So, setting aside her personality, Coppelia’s functionality is genuinely excellent.

Yes, truly, I can’t help but be impressed—but at the same time, it’s terribly unfortunate how she completely neglects anything that doesn’t need tightening. Her disregard for unimportant matters is disappointingly extreme.

In fact, just as the surgery was about to end successfully, she got carried away and said, “Lady Clara, just healing her is kind of boring, don’t you think? How about adding an auxiliary brain while we’re at it, or maybe horns, or wings, or turning her into a six-armed being? A new dawn for humankind!”—giving me advice I absolutely didn’t need.

It was probably for the best that we were out in the field like this—had we been somewhere with facilities like the secret underwater lab at Lake Quartz, I might’ve ended up unknowingly following her suggestions and creating the first modified human being.

Just then, having finished getting dressed, little Angie timidly bowed her head toward Coppelia, who was spreading out the folded sheet at her feet and laying it over her.

“Um… thank you very much.”

“Oh, don’t mention it! But if you’re going to thank someone, it should be the Alps Mou— I mean, Lady Clara, not me.”

Coppelia responded with a cheerful smile and natural modesty. Why is it that she can be so thoughtful and considerate like this, yet in everyday life, she does nothing but grate on people’s nerves? Could it be that she provokes others on purpose? Truly a mystery.

That said, even if we had used the latest medical technology from Earth, a heart surgery like this would likely have required a team of people and several hours. The fact that we pulled it off in about two hours through a kind of magical trial-and-error approach was undeniably thanks to Coppelia’s assistance by my side.

So I decided to offer her a word of appreciation.

“Thank you for your help, Coppelia. Your efficiency surprised me. You were also very thoughtful toward Angie—if you treated everyone like that, don’t you think there’d be less friction with Cestlavie and the others around you?”

That last part slipped out unintentionally, but Coppelia, who had just finished helping Angie settle back into bed, turned around and replied with a bright, refreshing smile:

“Oh, this is business mode. When I genuinely don’t care about someone, I only offer them superficial treatment. When it comes to the plebian, my attitude is a form of education—to teach them their place in regard to Lady Clara. You could say it’s the whip of love, just minus the love.”

I had been hoping for a sweet and heartwarming twist, like “deep down she’s actually a kind person” or “she’s just too shy to be honest”—but Coppelia snapped all those flags right off at the root. In a way, her unwavering consistency is almost refreshing.

Then, having finished changing, little Angie, prompted by Coppelia, gave me a shy gesture and expression as she silently bowed her head.

Perhaps it was at that moment that the tension truly melted away and she finally felt at ease—she let out a deep breath of relief, then blinked repeatedly in surprise. Propping herself up slightly on the bed, she began to move her body side to side, raised both hands to chest height, and started opening and closing her palms.

“H-Hey! Angie, don’t overdo it!”

Startled by his beloved daughter’s sudden and strange behavior, Dan rushed over from the corner of the room, placing his rough hands on her shoulders to stop her.

At the sound of his voice, the door opened and peeking in from outside—where, according to Coppelia, “the walls are as flimsy as a brothel’s, breakable with a single kick”—were Martha, Cestlavie, and the young demon boy, all watching anxiously.

Incidentally, this place was something like a dormitory attached to a brothel for the dancers, and to ensure that sickly Angie had female caretakers nearby, Dan had pleaded with the entertainment manager to let her stay here. (In truth, it seems he used the name of the “Cervantes Trading Company” to silence any objections.)

Naturally, aside from the hired guards, the building was occupied entirely by women, and this was proven by the five or six young women who also poked their heads out beside Cestlavie and the boy.

They looked to be around sixteen to twenty-two years old, of various races and appearances, wearing minimal makeup and plain everyday clothes. Still, each had the same distinct aura that Martha carried—it was clear they were fellow dancers affiliated with the “Luminous Butterflies.”

The girls, strangely familiar with Cestlavie and the boy, leaned toward them with practiced ease, as if half-flirting.

In other words… While Coppelia and I were desperately carrying out a life-saving procedure on the other side of the wall, these boys were hitting on girls. Honestly. The nerve of them. Must be nice to live so freely.

Meanwhile, little Angie, her face glowing with excitement, looked up at Dan and burst out breathlessly:

“Daddy! It doesn’t hurt anymore! It’s amazing! I feel so good—I feel like I could run outside right now!”

Seeing his lively daughter and the color restored to her cheeks, Dan looked toward me with a face still full of disbelief as I stepped back to give them space beside the bed.

He glanced back and forth between Angie’s radiant figure and me several times. And then, realizing that her condition truly had improved, he let out a long, deep sigh—a sigh that must have been building up over years of silent endurance—before wrapping his arms tightly around Angie, holding her close.

“D-Daddy, you’re squishing me… and you smell like tobacco…”

Little Angie puffed out her cheeks innocently as Dan hugged her in silence, rubbing his cheek against hers. His back was trembling ever so slightly.

“Angie’s all better now!”
“Thank goodness!”
“The Shrine Maiden Princess herself healed her!”
“She’s nothing like those other church priests!”
“Dan must be so happy… I’m tearing up just watching this.”
“Oh ho, look at Dan being all emotional for once. Guess we’ll have to celebrate tonight—with a long-overdue tumble in bed.”

The onlookers—those dancer girls—beamed with delight at the scene, each voicing her joy. They even grabbed each other’s hands and started dancing in the hallway like a substitute for cheering—very fitting behavior for dancers. As for the one cracking a remark as inappropriate as something Coppelia might say, that would of course be Martha.

“—?!”

Caught up in the flood of their blessings, the beautiful demon boy was being smothered in hugs and showered with kisses until his eyes went wide in voiceless protest. It was a rather heartwarming sight. Cestlavie, who received a few casual kisses on the cheek himself, looked enviously at the popular boy—which, admittedly, was mildly satisfying to witness.

Eventually, as if finally able to collect himself, Dan gently pulled away from Angie as though handling something fragile. Then he turned toward me, dropped to both knees, and bowed his head deeply.

“Is this… a miracle? To see Angie so full of life again… I’m so sorry. And I thank you, Shrine Maiden Princess, from the bottom of my heart.”

The look on his face, like something had been exorcised from within him, no longer carried the sharp menace or beast-like hostility it had earlier.

Speaking of wounds, Dan’s cheek injury from Sechs had only been loosely wrapped with a towel at his request, with barely any real treatment. If left as it was, it might leave a scar over time.

“Please, think nothing of it. I figured there must have been a reason for your actions. And now that I’ve heard your story, I understand—it was something that couldn’t be helped.”

At my reply, Cestlavie made a face like he wanted to say, “You’re too naive”.

Coppelia, meanwhile, subtly stepped between Dan and Angie as if to shield the daughter from seeing her father’s vulnerability, while taking on the role of managing the moment.

“Alright. It’s great that you’re feeling better, but we still need to monitor your recovery, and the first step in regaining strength is sleep. Proper rest and proper meals—that’s the key! Do that, and one day you’ll grow up to have an irresistibly dynamite body just like Lady Clara and me!”

She spoke to little Angie with a gently teasing tone.