Chapter 406: Beta Tester

Runa scratched her soot-stained cheek and let out a sudden breath.

"You see, brat... The thing is that right now, to finish the test, we will need a volunteer to take the book, read those lines, and use the grimoire," the dwarf explained with her usual frankness, although lowering her voice a bit when she reached the delicate part. "The problem is that never in history has something like this been done with the mana of someone like you. And according to our calculations... there is a small possibility that all that compressed energy will suffer a side effect upon entering another body and, instead of receiving your healing power... well... the person might simply burst and die on the spot."

The cold wind swept through the courtyard, but none of the five people moved a muscle.

"What?" Ryan blurted out dryly, looking at her as if he had just heard something crazy.

Seeing her lord’s face, Runa immediately crossed her arms over her leather apron, getting defensive to justify her words with artisan logic.

"Hey, don’t look at me like that, it’s completely normal!" the dwarf defended herself, waving a hand at him to point out the aura that still floated around him after the three buffs. "You are a powerful being, extremely powerful! Trying to manipulate your personal energy inside an object and transmit it directly into the veins of someone weaker is a brutal process that could go very wrong. That is exactly why those words are written on the grimoire’s page! It’s a binding consent clause with the artifact’s system: this way, if the volunteer dies upon reading it, their soul accepted the risk of its own free will and won’t do so holding a grudge..."

Ryan brought two fingers to the bridge of his nose, feeling a slight headache at the twisted solution his two specialists had designed to wash their hands of it.

’That’s nonsense, for a moment I thought it was related to the debt system, although I haven’t spoken to anyone about that. They know very well I have a strange, special, and unique skill; although they don’t know the details, I don’t doubt they form their own theories. Even so...’

"This must be a bad joke..." Ryan muttered under his breath.

However, Mika closed the grimoire carefully over her chest and slowly shook her head, keeping a completely serious face.

"But I assure you it is no joke, Your Majesty; the channel needs that mental link to open the seal of the small gem," the alchemist explained in a grave tone, before looking around at those present in the courtyard. "So, if there is a real possibility of failure on the first use... then the question now is: who should we choose to test it?"

Faced with that question, the silence became sepulchral, and they all looked at each other, evaluating the options.

Giving the book to a lowly guard or a weak servant almost guaranteed a fatal accident if the SSS-rank mana turned out to be too heavy to digest, but risking a key member for a simple laboratory test didn’t sound sensible either.

There was always the possibility of testing it with an enemy, but right now they didn’t have any prisoners, and with Ryan truly knowing how his debt system worked, the best thing would really be to have a volunteer.

Alicia was the first to break the tension. She took a half step forward with a serene face and raised her hand slightly.

"Perhaps I should do it myself, Your Majesty," Alicia commented without an ounce of doubt in her voice, willing to take the risk as his right hand.

Ryan immediately shot down that idea.

"No, forget about it completely," Ryan said in a sharp tone, looking directly into her eyes. "You are too valuable to me to risk yourself on this."

Alicia had not expected such a direct refusal, especially one carrying such personal weight. She took those words abruptly and, for an instant, her strict administrator mask fell apart; her cheeks were tinged with a visible blush and she lowered her gaze a bit while squeezing her fingers against her skirt in silence.

Ryan looked back at the book in Mika’s hands, maintaining his calm expression as he did the math in his head.

’Risking losing my main assistant, who is also by far the most competent and organized girl of this entire problematic group, would be foolish,’ Ryan thought with total pragmatism. ’To be honest, dealing with a healing skill like Recovery, I really don’t think anything of such magnitude will happen, nor will anyone die from reading the page; but I have to admit that Runa and Mika’s words really made me doubt a little.’

Looking to lighten the funereal atmosphere the two creators had left, Ryan gave a lopsided smile and locked his eyes on the dwarven blacksmith.

"Now that I think about it, maybe Runa should do it," Ryan joked in a casual tone. "After all, she herself said a while ago that she is very tough and almost unflappable, right?"

The dwarf’s pride disappeared at lightning speed. Runa took a small jump back and waved both gloved hands in front of her face.

"Hey, hey, brat, don’t be playing around with those things!" Runa protested, eyes wide open. "I’m a blacksmith, not a magic training dummy! If I die right here because of your damn book, who the hell is going to make all the crazy and impossible projects you’re always asking for?"

Beside her, Mika brought a finger to her chin, looking for a safer alternative out of pure physical statistics.

"If the problem is the resistance of the receiving body, maybe we should wait a while for Miss Helen and Miss Mirian to return from changing," Mika suggested reasonably. "With their SS-rank stats, neither of them would be in any real danger."

It made sense, but before Ryan could give the go-ahead to postpone the test for a few minutes, a firm voice stepped forward from his left.

"Please, Your Majesty... let me do it."

Everyone turned their heads toward Iris, who had taken a resolute step toward Mika with her hands clenched into fists at her sides and her eyes fixed on the grimoire’s cover.

Alicia immediately frowned upon hearing her and turned toward her with severity.

"What are you saying, Iris?" Alicia questioned aloud. "Do you have any idea what you’re saying after hearing Runa’s warning?"

Iris pressed her lips together, but she didn’t retreat a single millimeter under Alicia’s gaze. Inside, her mind had already made the decision from the instant she understood what they had created that text on the first page for.

"Yes, I know perfectly well... but I am the last one to join all of you and I still haven’t done anything of merit," Iris murmured, feeling the weight of her own position within the castle in the face of legendary warriors and unique artisans. "If by bad luck something bad happened to me in this test, the truth is that no one would miss my death too much nor would the kingdom’s plans be halted. I’m not someone of vital importance here yet, but I really want to help. If I can at least do something like this that the others cannot risk touching, then I will feel that I am finally truly collaborating with those who gave me a place to be."

Ryan silently observed the somewhat grim determination reflected in the young woman’s pupils for a couple of seconds. He didn’t need to read her mind to realize that she was volunteering out of a mixture of loyalty and an inferiority complex as the newest member.

With total calm, Ryan exhaled through his nose and summarized the situation with the first term from his old world that came to his head:

"Basically, you want to be a beta tester," Ryan said.

Silence fell over the snowy courtyard once more. Mika, Runa, Alicia, and even Iris herself blinked at the same time, looking at him without understanding absolutely anything of that unknown language.

"Beta tester...?" Iris repeated in a low voice, while the words sounded completely alien to everyone present.