Chapter 35: Chapter 35 – Purification
When Matthew returned to class, Erin almost bombarded him with questions, but was soon silenced by Faralynn. The professor was in the middle of a history lesson and the elf didn’t want to disrupt class.
The lecture was nothing new to Matthew. It was about the early 2000s gate appearances and the Ice Troll invasion of Canada. More than half of the country was taken by the trolls and now Canada was divided into three countries: Quebec, or East Canada, West Canada and the Kingdom of Ice controlled by the Ice Trolls.
The difference for Matthew to the history he knew was the amount of details the professor was going into, from naming local leaders to analyzing battle strategies of important skirmishes that happened between the Canadian Army and the invading Ice Trolls.
It was only after lecture that Erin turned around and asked:
"So... What did the Dean want of you?"
Matthew took a deep breath thinking about what he could say to them. He looked at Faralynn who was pretending not to care, but was secretly glancing towards him waiting for him to answer.
He decided to just tell the truth:
"Yesterday, when I was going home, I got jumped by two men. They tried to rob me and I fought back."
"Were you all right?" Mia asked holding his arm lightly.
"Yeah. They didn’t take anything and I was not hurt. But I did hurt them." Matthew answered with a half smile.
"So what did the Dean want with you?" Tina asked raising an eyebrow.
"Just checking in. The police was here to talk to him about it." He said hiding about the demonic mana.
"Glad you’re ok. Didn’t think anyone was brave enough to try to rob an adventurer with our uniform." Erin commented.
Matthew thought about saying that the robbers were also adventurers, but he kept it to himself.
The second period was another lecture with Professor Lydia, Introduction to Law. The book Matthew got ruined. Tina offered to share her book with him getting really close so they both could read it. She laughed to herself every time she caught Faralynn looking at them with a hint of jealousy in her eye.
At noon Matthew went to the teacher’s office to talk with Professor Claude.
Claude was a priest of the church of the Guiding Goddess. A religion that came from the same world as Farzan did. Even tough he was human, he followed the faith most elves did. He was blond, but his hair had a few white hairs, showing signs of his age, and wore round glasses. He dressed in the robes of his church, all black with the symbol of a blue flame on the center.
Claude received him with a smile. He talked softly, almost like a prayer, which made people around him relax easily. It was almost hypnotic listening to him. Matthew soon felt at ease to rely on him to purify the demonic mana out of him.
"Demonic Mana is quite the problem." he said rubbing his hands and sitting in front of Matthew in a private room. Similar to the room Matthew spoke to Orpheu when he came to check on Faralynn and Erin when Faralynn was hurt.
"It tends to hide when it’s purified deep withing the person. The secret is not to use Purification at full strength. You let the purifying mana inside the body and feel the course it takes and little by little you feel where the demonic mana is and purify it." Claude said taking Matthew’s hands on his.
He was teaching Matthew even there. Laufgraan really had incredible professors, Matthew thought.
"Let me show you." He said using the Purification skill on Matthew.
Matthew could feel the warmth of the purifying mana, the same as when he used on himself, but this time much weaker than he did. It was flowing through his body not all at once, but slowly and steady.
"Can you feel how I’m doing it?" Claude asked with his smooth voice.
"Yes." Matthew responded with his eyes closed paying attention to the sensations he was having.
And then, when he felt the purifying mana reach his heart he felt pain. Like a needle was being pushed inside his heart. Matthew moaned and ground his teeth.
"Are you in pain?" Claude asked stopping his healing.
"Yeah. A pain in my chest." Matthew said pointing to the position he was feeling the pain.
"And did it stop when I did?"
"Yes. Is that normal?" Matthew asked looking at him.
"No. This process should not hurt at all." Claude said checking Matthews pulsation with his fingers. "Purification only harms demons and undead."
"What does that mean?" Matthew questioned the professor with a concerned look.
"Let me try again." Claude said applying Purification again.
This time Matthew felt a strong pain. Like he was just stabbed with a knife on his chest. He screamed and pushed Claude away taking his hand to his heart. He breathed hurriedly, like he just ran a marathon. His eye was wide open, scared of that feeling.
When Claude stepped forward asking if he was alright, Matthew took a step back and cowered. Clause could see the demonic mana starting to circle around Matthew’s hands. Faintly, but trying to protect himself.
It was the first time Claude encountered such a reaction from a human to Purification. He did see it before on people who were possessed, but that was clearly not Matthew’s case.
"What happened to you kid?" He asked concerned.
Matthew started to sweat and felt his body feverish. His vision blurred. He soon fell unconscious.
When Matthew didn’t show up to gym, Faralynn got concerned. His call to her father’s office was already odd, but Matthew skipping class on the same day made her suspicious something was wrong.
She went to the teacher’s office and heard that Matthew was taken by Claude to the infirmary. She found him there sleeping on a bed being monitored by the resident doctor.
"What happened to him?" Faralynn asked the doctor. "Is he alright?"
"He’s fine. Just unconscious and running a low fever. But everything else seems normal." The doctor said. "And I’m not sure what happened, Professor Claude brought him and didn’t give much details. He went to the Dean in quite a hurry."
Faralynn was torn between staying with Matthew or going to ask her father what was going on.
"I’ll take care of him, Faralynn." The doctor said noticing her indecision. "You can go if you want to."
She accepted his proposal and ran to her father’s office.
"Faynn, is my Claude with my father?" She asked the receptionist with a stern voice as soon as she entered the room. A sign she was not there as a student, but as the heir of the Laufgraan family.
"He is. But, milady, he asked not to be disturbed." Faynn said in a low tone scared to antagonize the lady when she was in that tone.
"I don’t care." Faralynn said without halting her step and opening the door.
She found her father and Professor Claude talking in low tones as if sharing a secret.
"What’s going on with Matthew?" Faralynn asked without waiting for permission to be there.
"Lynn. You should be training." Farzan admonished his daughter.
"Why is Matthew in the infirmary?" Faralynn ignored her father.
Claude looked at Farzan waiting for his permission to speak about what happened.
Farzan just sighed and shook his head.
"Close the door, dear. We will explain."
Faralynn sat down and Farzan explained that Matthew still had demonic mana inside of him. But somehow, when Claude tried to purify it, he got hurt and fainted.
"I’ve never seen such a reaction to Purification." Claude explained. "It looked like he was possessed, but there was no foreign entity in his body."
"What does that mean?" Faralynn asked worried.
"We don’t know." Claude said shaking his head.
"It might mean he’s a demon or half-demon." Farzan was more incisive.
"Matthew is no demon, father!" Faralynn protested.
"You can’t know that, dear." Farzan dismissed her protest. "You barely know the boy."
"He’s a good person." She said defying her father. "I know he is."
"It’s very unlikely he’s a demon, sir." Claude agreed with Faralynn. "I don’t believe he would had behaved the way he did in Violentia if he were one." He reasoned referring to the hell Faralynn and Matthew were sent to.
"So he might have a distant lineage. Otherwise it makes no sense he go hurt being purified!" Farzan slammed the desk. He was mostly angry out of concern about his daughter being so close to Matthew.
"Ufa." Faralynn called her father in elvish calling his attention. "Instead of jumping to conclusions, you should investigate what is happening with him." She said with anger in her eyes.
Farzan stood still for a few seconds seeing his daughter behave like that towards him for the first time. He then laughed shaking his head.
"You look so much like your mother that it’s scary." He said rubbing his temples with his fingers. "You are right. I’m getting ahead of myself. I should ask Roland to investigate this." He concluded speaking about his Seer friend. The same that recommended giving Matthew a scholarship in the first place.
Faralynn smiled and hugged him. "Thanks dad."
After she left to be with Matthew in the infirmary, Farzan turned to Claude:
"I hope you’re right about this. I don’t want to put her in danger."
"I trust the Lady in Darkness." The professor replied citing his goddess.