Help, I'm in Another World and All the Men Are So Hot! [BL]-Chapter 103: A Costly Sacrifice

Sebas still holding Damien effortlessly, he stepped into the room and closed the door behind them.

"Um, I’m calm now, so could you please put me down?" Damien asked hesitantly.

"Just a moment longer, please," Sebas replied.

Sebas moved forward, still carrying Damien, and pulled back the canopy around Theo’s bed.

"Theo!"

Seeing Theo lying in bed, hooked up to numerous tubes and wires, Damien instinctively tried to rush to him—only to find that he still couldn’t move a finger.

Sebas had been right to restrain him.

"Let me assure you right now," Sebas said, his tone firm, "as long as Theo remains in this state, there is no risk of his condition worsening."

"Understood?" Sebas asked.

"Yes," Damien replied.

The phrase ’this condition won’t worsen’ lingered in his mind, but knowing Theo wouldn’t die was enough to make him feel a rush of relief.

Thank goodness... truly, thank goodness.

Theo’s face looked deathly pale, almost ashen. Damien had feared the worst.

"Please remember," Sebas continued, "that any disturbance to this state, this configuration of life-supporting magical apparatus, would put him in severe danger."

Damien glanced again at Theo, realizing now that most of the lines extending from his body weren’t tubes, but rather long, softly glowing threads made of metal or cloth. These threads coiled around Theo, cascading down his body in silvery strands. Alongside them were small, faintly luminous accessories he didn’t recognize, each carefully placed over Theo.

So, these were all magic devices that keeping Theo alive.

Now Damien noticed several medical professionals in the room, including his own doctor, all poised and ready. They’d taken every possible precaution.

"I understand. I’ll be very careful not to touch anything accidentally."

Hearing this, Sebas finally set him down. But Damien felt hesitant to even move closer, wary of disrupting any of the magic devices.

"...What happened to Theo?" he asked.

He remembered the experiment had gone awry, leading to a sudden flood of water, but that alone didn’t explain Theo’s critical condition. It was clearly more than just drowning.

"The trouble began during the final experiment of the day," Sebas explained. "Young master’s calculations misfired, resulting in an instantaneous surge of water far beyond anticipated levels."

"Yes, I remember that part," Damien said.

Sebas paused, as though gathering his thoughts, before he continued.

"Thanks to Marston’s quick thinking and his wind magic, he managed to create a barrier, sparing us from immediate danger."

Marston... that would be Lucian.

So that’s what had happened. The column of bubbles Damien had glimpsed before losing consciousness—must have been Lucian’s doing.

Lucian, you are really a hero! Damien resolved to shower him with praise later.

"However," Sebas continued, "though we were safe, neither you nor Whitlock could be found. And since the water depth showed no sign of decreasing, young master Theo became anxious. Overextending his magic, he finally succeeded in vanishing all the water at the cost of his own collapse."

So that’s what had happened after he’d passed out.

"Is Leonide safe?"

Lucian had been with Theo, but Damien hadn’t seen Leonide. Since Leonide had been nearby when he’d blacked out, Damien hoped he was okay too.

"Whitlock and Marston are resting in another room," Sebas assured him. "Whitlock had ingested some water, but fortunately, he will recover without issue and should awaken within a few hours. Marston, having depleted his magic, remains unconscious and should regain consciousness around dawn. Both of them are in stable condition."

At least everyone was safe for now.

Although it was troubling that neither Lucian nor Leonide had regained consciousness, Damien trusted Sebas’s assurance that their lives weren’t in danger.

Lucian had pushed himself to the point of magical exhaustion... Damien would have to do more than just praise him for that—he’d have to spoil him a bit, too.

"It’s a relief that everyone’s safe," Damien said. "By the way, how much time has passed since then?"

"About an hour," Sebas replied.

Really? Only an hour?

Damien must’ve woken up much sooner than expected, likely thanks to Theo risking his life to dispel the water.

"So, Theo probably won’t wake up until much later, right? Maybe around dawn, like Lucian? Or, wait—Theo has more magic power than him, so will it take even longer?"

Sebas remained silent, not answering Damien’s question.

"Sebas?" Damien asked, his anxiety returning as he noticed Sebas’s unusual silence.

"Sir Damien, young master condition is not just a case of magical exhaustion." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Not just magical exhaustion?

"What... what do you mean?"

"To make the immense quantity of water disappear, not by evaporation but by erasing it in a way that would keep you, who had been engulfed, safe... young master didn’t have enough magic power left. So, he converted part of his life force into magic power."

Converting life force into magic power...

It was something Damien had only ever heard of in stories. And in those stories, those who did it...

"Wait, Theo’s going to be okay, right? He’s going to wake up, isn’t he?" Damien asked, clinging to that hope.

Maintaining his usual, expressionless demeanor, Sebas responded, "His life isn’t in immediate danger. But... it’s uncertain when he’ll wake up."

"Uncertain... as in, you don’t know if it’ll be tomorrow or the day after?"

"...In simplest terms, master Theo is in a state of extreme depletion. Think of it like a severe dehydration, but instead of losing water, he’s lost all his life force."

That made sense to Damien, as someone who’d nearly died from drowning himself.

"Having exhausted his life force, he is technically on the brink of death. However, because those with magic can convert their magic power back into life force, he’s barely holding on to life by relying on that transformation."

"Can’t you replenish his life force directly...?"

"It’s impossible," Sebas said. "He hasn’t sustained an injury or fallen ill; he’s lost his life force, and there’s no magic that can restore it directly. To repeat, under normal circumstances, the young master would already be deceased. In a healthy body, life force could be replenished through sufficient nutrition and rest, but in his near-death state, his life force cannot be restored at all. Right now, he’s surviving solely on life force converted from his remaining magic power."