100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 501 - Smile

The scenes kept unfolding.

Following the thrashing, the young girl endured endless, solitary days.

Now, she stopped begging for acceptance.

She quit dreaming that sheer goodness would suffice if she demonstrated it plainly enough.

She immersed herself in studies.

Over and over, relentlessly.

She ventured from the hut solely when hunger drove her to forage for roots, herbs, small game, or whatever might sustain her body until her intellect fully matured.

Her smile faded away first.

Next went her tenderness.

Finally, the aspect of her that still tilted toward the world in hopes of justice vanished.

More than once, the child huddled alone by lamplight, questioning if the villagers had been correct from the start.

Maybe something was truly defective in her. Maybe nobody grasped her because she had unwittingly strayed beyond the bounds of normal folk.

If ears turned away from her, the fault might lie with her alone.

If none could tolerate her deeds, the beast they labeled her could have lurked within since birth.

Such notions brought no solace.

They merely fortified the barriers encircling her heart.

She constructed those barriers with precision.

They consisted of quietude, habit, watchfulness, and learning. She ceased anticipating benevolence. She halted preemptively sharing fragments of herself. She quit extending her hand.

Just one force propelled her onward.

The tome of cures bequeathed by her father.

Even when usefulness lost its appeal, her passion for wisdom endured. That quest stayed the sole truth in her life.

Herbs never feigned. Flesh never feigned. Fever never feigned. The body, with all its raw grotesqueness and weakness, proved truthful in ways humans failed to be.

Thus, she persisted in her reading.

That alone prevented her total shattering.

…

Such years dragged on.

The little girl blossomed prematurely into a youthful woman. Her features grew angular. Her poise intensified. Her isolation shifted from seeming like tragedy to resembling intent.

She never returned to the village.

She yearned for the cadavers.

Not out of joy in demise.

But because vivisection had unlocked a gateway in her thoughts that refused to shut. She craved total mastery of the human form. Bone, sinew, blood vessel, organ, tissue, affliction. She sought the full blueprint of mortal existence amid its frameworks and breakdowns.

The deceased offered no opposition to scrutiny. The deceased spun no falsehoods for grandeur. The deceased revealed reality to those bold enough to peer.

Then, at age fifteen, the village chief arrived at her dwelling.

Yet another pestilence had ravaged them.

This outbreak proved more vicious in novel ways. Initial signs stayed vague. Its propagation proved erratic.

Nobody grasped its origin, and the bewilderment amplified its brutality. Even the village leader appeared sickly. Gray tinged the skin near his lips. His hands shook as he rapped on the door.

He had delayed this visit.

That much was clear.

He wouldn’t have appeared on her threshold unless desperation gripped the entire settlement. Without uncovering the source, the whole community faced obliteration eventually.

And nobody else possessed the required insight.

When Seraphine swung open the door and met his eyes, barely any emotion stirred within her.

Just a chill, unwavering void.

The village leader pleaded for her aid.

He chose his words with caution, as though each one navigated hurdles of arrogance and humiliation before emerging.

Seraphine heard him out wordlessly.

Memories flooded back of the day she endured the flogging.

She recalled the blows. The saliva. The powerlessness. The faith that crumbled when she grasped that even rescue couldn’t shield her from loathing.

And now, ultimately, they had turned to her once more.

For ages, she uttered nothing.

Her stare fixed upon the village leader with such utter calm that sweat beaded more profusely on his brow.

For the first time, truly, he perceived her not as a doomed offspring or odd youth, but as the arbiter of his people’s survival or doom.

A refusal from her would doom the village on his watch.

Seraphine understood this well.

She also recognized her thirst for deeper wisdom.

And this, harshly, presented the ideal chance to quench it.

Finally, she broke the silence.

"Bring me the dead bodies."

Nothing more.

No salutation. No comforts. No show of mercy.

The village leader blanched instantly.

He had anticipated remedies.

He had hoped for botanicals, maybe rituals, supplications to the heavens, or some sanitized form of cure that preserved both his folk and his ease.

Instead, she thrust raw honesty upon him again.

His lips parted, then sealed shut.

Seraphine observed him in absolute immobility.

"If you do not bring me the fresh dead," she said, "then I will not know the cause."

Her voice stayed level. That intensified the dread.

The village leader lingered there through several breaths, torn between terror of the epidemic and dread of her demand. Ultimately, dread of the quick overpowered dread of the departed.

He dipped his head low.

And gave his consent.

Thus, it commenced once more.

This round, Seraphine wasn't some kid fumbling in dim candle glow with shaky fingers and frantic wishes. She felt keener. More icy as well.

Her incisions proved neater. Her records sharper. Her analyses more methodical. She squandered zilch.

And as she labored, a hint of frenzy crept into her gaze.

The frenzy born of utter immersion.

That identical chilling sharpness surged back the instant skin parted and internals bared themselves. Her thoughts stabilized. Her breaths grew steady. Uncertainty vanished. Each corpse turned into proof. Each vital became a word. Each anomaly funneled options straight to the root.

She probed deeper than last time.

She examined bloating formations, liquid shifts, flesh rot, blood vessel reactions, and advance speed. She delved beyond mere killers into their paths, initial lodgings, and alterations too belated to count.

It didn't drag on for her.

She pinpointed the origin.

Next, she uncovered the remedy.

Yet again, the hamlet survived thanks to her.

Yet now, the villagers' emotions didn't flow in neat rows.

They struggled to name her anymore.

The kid they'd banished had rescued them once more.

The being they'd labeled fiend had achieved what none among them, their seniors, or their customs could manage.

That truth both tainted and subdued them simultaneously.

A few approached her dwelling later, bearing offerings.

Some offered regrets.

A handful even forced grins at her doorway, hoping a smile might ease absolution.

Seraphine swung the door wide, eyed them, and uttered not a word.

She rejected the provisions.

She spurned the offerings.

She dismissed the regrets.

She merely fixed them with a gaze so devoid of the girl they remembered that a number bowed their heads, words they'd rehearsed dying unspoken.

Then she pivoted and retreated within.

The Seraphine they'd wounded was no more.

She'd perished the day she grasped that utility meant squat if the recipient's soul had already pinned the fiend label on your visage.

The locals departed tasting a sourness without clear aim.

The sourness of realizing far too late that certain fractures defy mending.

…

Eventually, the hamlet chief visited anew.

This visit, he declared her welcome to roam the village at will.

As though entry rights were a privilege he could reinstate.

As if granting passage over the boundary would revive what they'd shattered.

Seraphine merely regarded him.

And for a fleeting, perilous instant, she pondered the true appearance of human hearts within.

She yearned to slice one apart and check if remorse scarred visibly, if terror bore a feel, if thanks and revulsion knotted in meat like they did in deeds.

That notion chilled the chief.

Or maybe just her glare did.

Regardless, he fled swiftly.

From then on, folks started dropping by her place more frequently.

Some sought cures. Some mending for injuries. Some counsel murmured too soft for village homes. Some arrived because dread bows when illness rages fierce enough.

Seraphine spoke only what's essential.

One phrase. Two tops.

She never bared her soul to them.

If illness struck a visitor, she healed it. If queries arose, she answered. After handing over tonic or wisdom, she ordered them gone.

Deep down, she still cherished wielding her father's legacy. She valued that insight held weight. Valued healing's solid truth.

But the lass once craving recognition via it was lost forever.

Now, emptiness alone lingered within her.

…

Then, at sixteen, all shifted.

One dawn, a rap echoed at her entrance.

Initially, she brushed it off.

Her sleep had been fitful yet profound, and she craved no dealings till awareness fully woke.

The rapping persisted.

More insistent now.

Annoyance yanked her to her feet.

She approached the portal with drowsy lids and a scowl primed to scorn the intruder.

Then she flung it open.

And the figure there sent grown Seraphine's pulse thundering wildly.

He mirrored Lucien perfectly.

Seraphine, frozen in the hut's sunlit reminiscence, turned rigid.

The youth outside bore the matching features and latent perilous kindness under poise. He appeared slightly maturer than the initial Big World Lucien, but barely.

The youth spotted that era's Seraphine and widened his eyes in shock.

Then his face warmed into a gentle grin.

"I heard there was an eccentric girl living out here who was good at medicine," he said. "Would that happen to be you, miss beautiful?"

Within the memory, Seraphine gazed at him with a blank expression.

Straightaway, she closed the door right in his face.

The youth stood motionless outside.

The grown Seraphine chuckled. "Serves you right. Who told you to say something cringe?"

Just moments later, the knocking sounded once more.

His voice now penetrated the door with heightened urgency.

"All right, fair enough. I really do need your help."

Seraphine swung the door open again, her annoyance now edged with a sharp warning.

Then the young man raised an item.

A hand.

He clutched his own severed hand.

Seraphine from the memory showed no immediate reaction. She merely dropped her eyes to examine the cut's angle, the blood left in the tissues, the fingers' state, and the wrapping on his wrist stump.

Then she noticed the full extent.

One hand was missing. The stump was bound firmly. Blood continued to ooze through.

He extended the separated hand toward her like a normal offering.

"Can you stitch this back on?"

It was the most bizarre request she'd ever heard.

And right away, her pulse started racing.

Because she spotted the potential.

The slice was precise. The hand was kept in good condition. From the tissue color and lingering warmth, it had probably been cut off under an hour ago.

This could truly succeed.

No time could be lost.

"Come inside," she instructed.

The young man gave a gentle laugh, pleased not just by her response but by her manner too.

Then he stepped in.

Seraphine got to work immediately.

She cleansed the injury, inspected the damaged parts, positioned the limb, controlled the bleeding as well as possible, and focused so deeply that the hut faded from view.

Needles darted. Thread wove through. Herbs were crushed and spread in layers. Pressure bindings were tweaked often. She realigned tendons as best she could. Circulation spots were verified. Rebound reactions checked. Nerve links tested. Structural matching confirmed.

The precise cut aided greatly.

Still, success should have been almost unattainable.

Yet the patient assisted flawlessly.

That factor outweighed what most realized.

He never winced. Never withdrew. Never griped. Never disrupted her careful adjustments.

Rather, he just observed her.

With kindness.

With that peculiar smile that still made the adult Seraphine catch her breath while viewing it.

As if he knew her already.

Hours slipped by.

Finally, Seraphine completed the task.

She had succeeded.

For the first time ever, she had reattached a cut-off hand.

And it functioned.

Not flawlessly yet, not in every detail she aimed to perfect later, but sufficiently to qualify as victory.

The man's perfect cooperation had been key. Timing too. The clean cut as well. But her own expertise made it happen.

It marked a bold new boundary.

And she had conquered it.

For the first time in ages, a genuine smile lit up young Seraphine's lips.

Radiant with triumph.

The young man noticed and appeared to glow, as though her smile meant more to him than regaining his hand.