"H-hi, I'm Park Woo-Young. Nice to meet you, Apostle Ning," the prime minister gave a shaking hand for him to shake.
Ning shook it firmly and asked, "Where's the patient?"
"Right here, with the doctors," the prime minister gestured towards the room next to him and Ning walked in.
As soon as he was in, he was very much surprised to see the lack of… anything in this room. A room with a patient should have been clean and with open ventilation for fresh air. However, the room was full of unnecessary bookshelves and tables that had gathered dust, and there weren't even any open windows in the room.
The windows that were there were behind bookshelves and were completely closed.
There was at least an AC, but that alone wouldn't be able to prove a lot of natural light and fresh air both the room and patient would need.
"Why are you keeping the patient in such a terrible room?" Ning asked with an angry tone in his voice. "Someone who is in constant pain from the mana poisoning should be kept in a proper room with good airflow and light. If you can't even do that, at least send her to a hospital where she can be taken care of."
The prime minister and the various doctors there were flinching at his voice. The doctors said nothing, but the prime minister spoke.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know that was what you had to do. I will immediately have another room ready."
Ning nodded. "She must've been in pain for so many days, even months. At least give her some relaxation in the place you keep her," he said.
The prime minister who was about to give orders to his men suddenly paused. "Eh? No, my wife wasn't ill for months or even days. She fell ill today, or yesterday rather at night."
Ning looked around with a confused look of his own. "What do you mean she fell ill last night?" he asked. "She has Mana poisoning, right? That means she became ill months ago."
"No, she just fell ill last night," the prime minister said. "It's been, maybe 8 hours since she fell ill. Definitely not months."
Ning frowned. "So, how do you know it is mana poisoning?" he asked.
The prime minister gave a blank look for a second and pointed toward the doctors. The doctors who were trying to keep their heads away from Ning's anger suddenly came face to face with it.
"T-t-the machine says there's mana clumped up in her body. That's why we said she has mana poisoning," one of them said.
Ning walked over. "But Mana poisoning doesn't happen overnight. It takes time, the patient grows weak and finally falls into a coma after months," he said as he checked the prime minister's wife.
"Y-yes, but what else would this be, sir?" one of them asked. "These are clear signs of mana poisoning."
Ning frowned. "That it is," he said. "But only the signs are that of mana poisoning. The illness itself isn't."
The doctors stepped aside as Ning did a thorough test of her illness. A few moments later, he found the problem.
Somehow, she had a bit too much mana in her body that was trapped inside her mana circuits, not moving even a single inch. What surprised him the most was the fact that her mana circuits were fully formed, not half formed like the people that were normally a victim of mana poisoning.
"Hmm?" Ning frowned. 'Can't I just take away this mana then?'
He reached up to her stomach and placed his hands there as he started absorbing the mana. The mana threatened to not leave at all, but Ning's pull was too strong for it to not move despite how badly it was dislodged in there.
After a few seconds, it came out of her body, entering into him, empowering him by quite a lot. It was akin to taking in 3 SS-ranked mana cores at once.
Once he was done, he moved away. "Test her again," Ning said.
The doctors nodded and got to work. Ning waited for a bit for them to give out their surprised exclamations and notify the prime minister that she was fine. After a bit of rest, she would come out of her coma.
"I see," the prime minister took a deep breath. "Thank you, Apostle Ning."
"It's alright," Ning said. "Now that she is fine, I will be taking my leave."
"Wait, don't you want anything in return?" the prime minister asked.
Ning shook his head as he walked away. "I didn't help to expect something else in return," he said as he waved them goodbye.
He returned back to his house and called the director.
"Ning? What's up? Did you go to the prime minister's house?" the director asked quickly.
"Yes, I did. She wasn't mana-poisoned like you said. Something else was the problem," Ning said. "I healed her regardless so she will be fine."
"Oh thank god," the director said. "Now that she is fine, he will at least be able to attend tomorrow's meeting. Due to your performance, he should easily accept your proposal to distribute the knowledge of Magic circles."
"Oh, is he the one you must get permission from?" Ning asked.
"Yes," the director said.
"Then it's a good thing I got on his good side. If he had remained helpless with his wife in… coma..." Ning's voice trailed off as something struck him. "I'll call you later."
He ended the call without hearing anything in return and put on a frowning face. "Was that intentional?" he asked his system. "Did someone put mana into her body to make her sick so the prime minister wouldn't attend tomorrow's meeting?"
"You're smart," a voice spoke suddenly into Ning's ear from far away. "I thought my plan was watertight, but I didn't expect you to be capable of healing her so easily. I underestimated a weak human's reliance on others."
Ning looked in the direction of where the voice was coming from far, far away. "And which Constellation might I be speaking to?" he asked.
"I am called Briss."
