Web of light. Part 1-7. part 27

"The doctors won't have time, you know," Without stopping the measured pumping of air, the snake spoke, and I decided. He closed his eyes, touching the younger Shimomuro's skin, forcing his consciousness into a trance. It's quite simple. Does the body want to live? Find his desire, find all the reasons...

...When I finished, I felt myself falling sideways. I couldn't feel my legs at all-they were numb, but Sato was breathing normally, and even there was a meaningful expression in his eyes. I looked with my "ferry" vision and almost fell down again — a pattern resembling a three-dimensional visualization of the circulatory system appeared in the body, almost all tissues and organs were entangled with the smallest threads of light. I saw them with difficulty, at the limit of the detail of my ability. I was sure that even if I wanted to, I would not be able to add anything to this pattern. If only it would work, if only I wouldn't screw up anywhere!

...The boy finished feeling his chest in surprise, and, amusingly surprised, said:

"And now it's not hard at all. And your hands were glowing when you held me. What was that? How's the magic? But Dad says there's no such thing as magic..."

"Dad's right," I rested my head on the edge of the bed, "Magic wouldn't have helped you... If only because I don't know her."

Chapter 129.

I ruined my shirt again. Ferry materials are, of course, convenient and cool, but it's worth using my ability with full concentration... In the end, a solution was found — in the form of a "dimensionless" sweater ... light pink and with a red heart in the whole chest! And how naturally the girls laughed at me like that! At least it's of some use...

...I put Sato to bed, and without listening to timid objections, I made his take his temperature. Anaphylaxis is a generalized immune inflammation, and all the signs of inflammation are present: swelling, redness, fever. They hammered something into my head at the university, but there were no symptoms. Driving Yu back and forth, I made them bring me a phonendoscope and listened to the lungs in half with grief. I didn't find any wheezing, and in terms of the presence of foreign fluid, I trusted Mizuchi's diagnosis more than my own percussion abilities. It's been a long time, ten years have passed... but the hands remember, if necessary. And not just the hands.

What bothered me the most was the fact that I roughly understood what I had done. And I did nothing less than adjust the power of the immune response. Judging by the fact that the changes affected almost all tissues except the brain, the Farry additionally distorted the receptors of already proliferated cells right in place... Ha, and I thought I'd definitely forgotten about immunology... and I would prefer not to remember her like THAT.

A lovely, wonderful sweater! Instead of sitting there looking lost, the "board of directors" is trying not to laugh at me. Sato wanted to sit with us, but now he's going to have a "pleasant" time, divided between juice bags and a toilet: the body abruptly sheds immune proteins. And I can just watch, hoping only that the Farry has affected them enough to have his own immune cells... So, I'm done with the terms. And I'll try to tell Yu.

"Yu, now listen to me very carefully. What I had to apply to Sato is not a treatment per se, the removal of an acute reaction is only a consequence, one of the side effects. Do you know what happened?"

Shimomuro frowned, clutching the cup, not noticing that it was quite hot.

"Asthma attack with suffocation... Mom said it could happen... And without you, I wouldn't even have thought to carry the medicine, I'd just stand there and watch..." Yu's eyes shone treacherously again.

"Don't blame yourself... in this. And it wasn't asthma... not exactly asthma, or rather, not only asthma. It was an ultra-fast allergic reaction to the very lime pollen that he turned over in his hands and inhaled. I don't know how you got so much of it, but I want to warn you, there are large amounts of pollen on the mucous membranes (that is, in the nose, for example) they will cause dangerous allergies even in a healthy person. Allergy sufferers are generally at risk: it is always possible that the body will react to more than just that antigen... An antigen is something that causes an allergy, whether it's wool or chocolate... but also on some other one. The probability is low, but it is there. And there is always a chance that the reaction will be like this... scary. Yu's parents will probably take Sato to the clinic when they find out about the attack... but they won't find anything there. It's just that his body stopped reacting to itself as to an antigen — this is the essence of the asthma process (I'm simplifying it, of course, to make it easier to understand). Sometimes it happens for no reason, like the carrier of the "Ferry of Light". So I'm putting the responsibility for your brother on you."

"Responsibility?"

"Yes. I was acting on almost nothing but instincts, according to my feelings. Do you really think that I know what to do by Ferry in case of such a disease, if no one taught me at all? But I know a little bit about medicine... When modifying something, Ferry changes one of the parameters of the modifiable object within its capabilities... in this case, the Ferry reduced the immune system's response. I do not know how much. Yu, you have to watch your brother! If he gets even a little sick, make sure he takes his medications, especially antibiotics. I... I do not know how much the reaction has changed... The immune system is a complex thing, it protects our body from infections, and asthma — when this watchman is too timid, he starts "shooting at the bushes" without figuring out whether his own or someone else's are coming... and be sure to take away, right now, all the old medicines from your brother. Let the doctors reassign... Damn. I'm sorry, Yu, I am... I'm really afraid that I didn't do my job well enough... and you can check it just by watching..."

"But you can help if something goes wrong, right?" Shimomuro asked hopefully.

"No... The ferry is a one-time thing. There may be repeated modifications if they do not affect the previous ones... and the attempt to change by "force" — did you see what happened to my shirt?"

Yu quickly turned white, remembering the lump of white mass, or jelly, into which the threads of the upper part of my school uniform were spreading.

"So that's what you meant when you said that "The ferry is not magic."" Mizuchi nodded to herself, "and I must admit, I thought it was such a figure of speech... Even when I didn't feel like you were making amulets... You know. Impressive... You know."

"Received "The introduction of Changing Light" materials, in addition to new properties, receive new features... Just try to keep it a secret... a large deformation of an object, or if it is broken, the whole object collapses.: the same effect as when trying to change the "Ferry". I'm sorry again, Yu... I do not know what will happen if Sato has to undergo significant surgery... and it's better for him to try not to break his limbs... The Ferry was applied to the entire body at the same time, and I do not know which deformity will be critical for it..." "The loss of a limb is for sure," I thought, but I didn't say anything. Yu's face is already chalky in color.

Suddenly Rinko also turned pale:

"There, in the mountains... When we got into a fight, you were there too... That's it... I... me..."

"No, that's where the methodology was worked out... You remember asking why hamsters changed so fast... I wouldn't dare here either, if I had a chance..." We sat in silence. The cups were cooling on the table, no one else touched them. The silence thickened in the house, kind of sticky and nasty, as it always does with such conversations. For two minutes we just stared at nothing... and then Shizuka silently stood up and silently approached me. She hugged her head, hugging it to her chest.

"Yuto... You don't have to take everything on yourself... We followed you, and that means we're all responsible... And we're going to follow you anyway. Lead on and don't hesitate, leader-san!"

Ha, and Mizuchi was lying about not being a magician! When needed, she found the only true "magic words". The tension suddenly subsided, leaving only fatigue and a slight headache.

...When Yu and Sato's parents returned, we had already come to our senses. Of course, we didn't do any work anymore, but we helped Shimomuro make dinner (a normal dinner, not "warm up semi-finished products from the refrigerator"). They told them a slightly edited version of their youngest son's seizure (I just held him, Shizuka did artificial respiration while Yu ran to get medicine). Yu's mother was pretty worried, but since everything was already fine, she didn't call an ambulance, since we didn't call her, promising to make an appointment at work tomorrow and take her son for an examination. Then she hesitated for a long time, finally whispered something in the ear of the father of the family, who asked with a laugh why I was walking around in Yu sweater.

"This is payback," the Goddess of Rivers beat me to it, "one guy for four beauties like us. Let him suffer!" Yes, and I also have to amuse the neighbors with my appearance. Should I call a taxi? But I puffed out my chest and walked home: I had to maintain my reputation, even so.

Damn, the hamsters seem to have hit again. And the worst part. I haven't told anyone this yet, but a year ago I figured that Steam could be used to affect the reproduction of cells in one organ. The thymus. The key to a long active life. Experiments on rats gave them a "second youth" after the transplantation of this thymus gland. I was almost sure that I could handle the Ferry, but I postponed the experiments as they were not the most important. Life extension is a great bonus to attract allies and followers. And just today I killed the very opportunity to prolong the life of one of the family of "my" people with my own hands. Just because he didn't ask Yu to bolt the door to the room. Just because he treated serious work as "mystical stuff." And I got paid immediately. What if one of the stupid flasks detonated in response to mana? Or would it turn into a volatile poison? Damn, anything could have happened! I've been exploring unknown subjects... in the girls' room, sitting on the floor! Well, I have to admit, we all got off easy for my sloppiness. We need to turn on our heads and fix the situation before it's too late. You can't do stupid things anymore. Moreover, I am now responsible not only for myself.

Chapter 130.

That's right, they say: if it doesn't go over your head, it goes through your ass. Tested, it gets there perfectly. The story of the younger brother influenced Yu herself the most. The girl abruptly began to behave much more seriously and judiciously. It was especially funny to watch how, in her class, Shimomuro began to mildly "build" particularly wild and carefree boys and girls, surprisingly forcing the latter to behave less erratically. Anyone who tried to perform such an operation on a crowd of eleven-year-olds will understand the epic nature of this event. Now Yu looked much more like the girl from the manga I remembered: cautious, but able to arrange an adventure, reasonable... but not the "gray mouse" who is not particularly interested in anything and is not friends with anyone.

Our friendship, on the contrary, has grown stronger. Ours is in the sense of between all of us: experiencing this together is like going into battle together. And I'm so glad that everything ended without losses... while. What is happening has perfectly cleared the brains of all the "directors" of our "corporation" — each in his own way. Mizuchi found a detailed first aid manual on the Internet, studied it and asked for help to complete the courses: modern medicines should be familiarized at least in conditions "close to combat." I doubt it will help for yokai either, but the snake has set out to protect the human part of our team at least that way. Shimomuro, on the other hand, had delved into the safety regulations she had found to compile the requirements for the magic laboratory, and now she was just clutching her head at how many necessary rules we had managed to break. Just the fact that a magical object could potentially not only catch fire and shock, but also explode, give off poisonous gas, and even cause a small spatial anomaly (theoretically) required special conditions for conducting experiments. Or, better, a training ground, where these conditions could be created under the open sky and using the terrain. The idea is smart and timely: after all, even my modest magical powers are enough to create four discharges of electricity (through the amulet), piercing half a meter of air. I estimated that this is about 0.1 gigajoules of energy at least. For comparison, the muzzle energy of a revolver is only about 200-500 joules. It's okay, right? If it explodes or bursts into flames, everyone who will be around will at least not laugh: it's not funny to live with fractures and burns.

The funny thing is that the "learning" fever mysteriously struck our "artel": the younger members of the "group" persuaded Kashi... Buy an excavator! Well, not right now, but in a month, and during that time someone will take courses... For example, the Hawk-Nosed one is Shinji. Tom Sawyer sailed too shallow with his fence: it was necessary to lay down a steamship yard right away — this is at least. The enthusiasm of the Amakawa Group was overwhelming: it was enough for me to sit with the guys in the dorm and listen to their rave reviews. Well, yes. Don't forget to ask the Polytechnic students about the university courses the next time, I go to a public lecture with Taizo (we go once a week on Fridays). The university should teach all kinds of "secondary special" certifications in separate shortened courses, such as foreman or lower-level manager. We'll need it soon, I think. Because, looking at the Yokai who had won the unspoken title of "I'll solve everything" in a month, the rest of the normal hard workers from the surrounding dormitories began to intensively approach them on the subject of "working on the object together." Of course: the two-armed and smartly working spirits (who had nothing interesting waiting for them at home) could pull off almost any hopeless task on time. Especially if it's "hopeless" because of the sloppiness of previous employees. I wonder if my vassals will soon get tired of this occupation, or have they found their recognition? On the other hand, Rinko and Mizuchi will soon start chasing them in their free time — the concept of patrolling the territory was under active refinement.

Patrolling... Well, if someone had told me that the proposed scheme was developed by two girls (and even if one was under three hundred years old), I would not have believed it, to put it mildly. They decided to include three yokai in the patrol group, and they had to act like this: according to the serif from the surveillance system (oh, I feel like I have to finish it in an emergency!), the group moved out of the "office" (places should still be selected) so as to intercept the intruder. Two of them stopped him in the middle of the street (or somewhere else), and the third, using aura invisibility, had to take up a position... with a sniper rifle. Makes sense, right? In principle, the group should have had means of fighting that enhanced their not-too-good defensive abilities: remote stunners were just asking for, especially if they had at least three charges, an elephant could definitely be fried. But without the option to "eliminate quickly and quietly", the situation did not "roll" at all — if only because a potential opponent could simply run better than fight — and chase him around the city. A linear accelerator as a weapon of destruction from a long distance was just asking for it (although I can't say that it will be so silent — no one canceled the air resistance), but I have what they call "no horse lying around" in this direction. Damn, it's tin! By the way, I carefully asked if Rinko understood (I had no doubt about the snake) that the patrols would have to kill? To which he ran into a harsh and adult answer: "it's better to kill someone who came to kill everyone himself than to cry over the murdered relatives." Yes, our first encounter with the caterpillar spirit in the park is clearly not forgotten. However, why am I surprised? Children can be much more violent than untrained adults... And we already had the experience of fighting with murders.