Kindly's tentacles were coiling up, startled. Though, it didn't seem like the mimic was actually in pain; it was more the sort of response you got when you expected pain but none actually came, or some kind of immediate stimulus that was surprising but not actively painful.

  Ryan immediately looked down at the copper flowers. The corruption wasn't able to invade it.

  "Why would..." he muttered, thinking about Gaia. He found the first fragment of her core in a dungeon. The monsters in there were made of stone; they were golems. And probably due to Gaia's nature, she took the wild plants that were growing in the area and made them a central part of the dungeon as well, so that part made sense.

  But why would the seeds dropped by those golem monsters grow into flowers that could fight off corruption? Unless...

  "Gaia's dungeon was supposed to be corrupted," Ryan whispered, tapping his foot on the ground as he walked himself through it all, "They didn't just try to make a dungeon using a spirit core, but they were trying to make a corrupted dungeon... One like that would draw a ton of attention and maybe make people investigate it more. But Gaia was stronger. She managed to push back against the corruption, and now..."

  Ryan approached the copper flowers, a grin slowly but surely forming on his face. He picked the flower crown up from the ground, looking it over. It seemed to be perfectly fine, though maybe a little more rusted.

  "Kindly, I'll be back soon, okay?" he said, smiling broadly as he rushed back out the door. Ryan almost stumbled down the stairs while pulling out his phone. Once he was at the bottom of the steps, Penny quickly came up to Ryan again, sitting down on his shoulder as before.

  He quickly typed in his uncle's phone number and immediately called it. With those special plates that Runar made for the trio's phones, they could luckily call people from down here.

  "Come on, man, I know you don't know how to use your phone, but-"

  Runar finally picked up, whispering on the other side of the call, "Is everything okay? Do you need my-"

  "We can cure corruption!"

  "What?"

  "We can. Cure. Corruption. The copper flowers fight off corruption. I gave Kindly that metal flower crown, and part of his tentacle was healed," Ryan explained immediately, rushing through the village to get back to the entrance. In the process, he walked past a woman in a hazmat suit, hauling around feed for the animals.

  "Sorry, what do you mean?" Runar's voice became a bit clearer, but he seemed to have moved to a different place where he didn't have to worry about Ryan's mother overhearing.

  "Oh gods- It's not that complicated. The flowers from Gaia's dungeon fight off corruption. We need to put this into some kind of cure or potion or whatever, so-"

  "Find Rose, right now. She has been making medicine for the animals for a while now, so she knows how to extract magical qualities from plants," Runar explained, and Ryan immediately dug his feet into the ground, changing the direction he was running. Instead of to the cave's entrance, he was trying to make his way to animal pens where Rose should be around this time.

  "Got it! I'll let you know if she can do it," Ryan replied.

  "Do that. I can't just disappear as well with your mom here, so just-"

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. Talk to you later," Ryan hung up the call so that he could focus on making his way through the village while not hurting anyone. Penny was holding on tightly to his hair so that she wouldn't be thrown off.

  The animal pens came into view, and Ryan could also see the bright yellow hazmat suit moving around between them, carrying some large bags of animal feed.

  "Oh, Ryan!" Rose exclaimed, "Perfect timing, could you help me out?"

  Ryan immediately walked up to her and took the bag of feed out of her hands, instead giving her the metal flower crown, "I'll take over your work, but while I'm doing that, take the magical qualities out of those flowers. They can cure corruption."

  Rose stood there silently for a few moments. Ryan was prepared to explain it all again, but that wasn't necessary this time.

  "Got it. Do you know the schedule?"

  "Uh, yeah, basically. It's hanging in the shed, right?" he replied, and Rose nodded.

  "Yes. I'll let you know when it's done, it shouldn't take too long. I hope," Rose responded, turning around without hesitation to get to work. And so, meanwhile, Ryan got started feeding the animals. He needed some protective gear for most of them, like the sunglasses for the cockatrices, but that was fine. He still got around to most of the animal pens pretty quickly, and just had Penny wait outside when it was too dangerous for her to join him.

  It took Ryan about an hour to finish up the work that Rose hadn't gotten to yet. The people in the village were in the middle of their Regir-day celebrations, playing music that Ryan hadn't heard before, eating food that actually smelled quite heavenly from over here, and just having a good time. But Ryan couldn't join them, he had to hurry up. If the flowers could cure corruption, then that wouldn't just be useful for Kindly. There were a few more individuals or animals here that were affected by some form of corruption. Kindly's was unique in that it jumped over to any sort of mana that it could latch onto, but there were those that had similar cases of corruption to what Ryan experienced before bonding with Tiar.

  People that were brought to the symbiote nest and couldn't bond with one, which would have been the simplest way to get rid of it. Otherwise, their corrupted flesh would need to be cut out, something that many people not only down here, but spread all across New Riverside, were waiting for and going through right now.

  When he brought everything back to the shed, Ryan quickly made his way to where Rose was creating the 'cure' using the flowers. He pushed open the door and stepped through toward the second room. But as he was about to push down the handle, he noticed a certain scent. It was almost sickly sweet, and just a single moment made Ryan's heart race. Pushing the door open, the smell only became stronger. The hazmat suit laid on the ground, and on the other side of the room stood Rose. He had been working with her for a while now, but Ryan hadn't even seen her face or heard her voice without the muffling of the suit before.

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  Her skin was a light pink, and a thin tail came out from the bottom of her back, peaking out through her trousers. Right above the base of the tail were two small wings, that were definitely too weak to carry her. Hearing the door open, Rose turned around, and the two small curled up horns at the top of her head peaked out of her hair. Ryan recognized what Rose was. He wasn't sure why he had never put it together before; he just thought that Rose had some kind of curse or corruption on herself that she didn't want others to be affected by. But no; Rose was a succubus.

  "What are you doing in here? Get out, right now!" Rose yelled out, though she wasn't angry by any means. She was scared, seeing right stand there, in range of the succubus' scent; the reason why succubi were a protected species in the first place.

  They were similar to vampires in the way that they absorbed others' mana to survive. But while a vampire did so by digesting the mana in a person's blood, a succubus did so by simply absorbing the mana that someone was giving off through skin contact. To make either of these things happen, both vampires and succubi were incredibly beautiful, making up for their lower physical strength. Succubi evolved in a way that they started giving off a magical scent that was practically a strong aphrodisiac, luring people into sexual acts so that they could have the skin contact that was needed for them to feed.

  But since that was an ability that couldn't be just toggled off at will, that caused problems. Anyone that wasn't a succubus themself would be affected by this scent, though it luckily didn't affect animals the same way that it did most other species of people. To protect succubi from sexual exploitation, which was sadly already the case, where many succubi were forced into sex work against their will, the Aglecard family was working on a way to suppress this special scent. But since that wasn't already a thing, Rose opted for a more extreme option. Wearing a hazmat suit whenever she was around people that could be affected.

  Ryan immediately pulled his shirt over his face. He had only gotten a few moments of it, so it shouldn't be too bad yet, "Sorry, I didn't know. Do you have any masks or something?"

  Rose glanced over to the wall, where she had what were basically small gas masks, though they were probably meant for when she was making medicine in here. Ryan quickly went over to them and put one of them on, already feeling himself calm down a bit. Tiar seemed to be in overdrive as well, trying to force out all the 'bad stuff' that was entering the body that the two shared.

  "... Are you...? Are you okay?" Rose asked hesitantly, and Ryan slowly nodded.

  "Yeah, I'm alright, just a little... warm," he explained, "Tiar is helping me out a little I think."

  Letting out a sigh of relief, Rose nodded her head, "Alright, great... still, don't... don't just come rushing in here okay?"

  "Sorry, I didn't really think, I was just in a hurry and wanted to see how things were going," Ryan explained, glancing over at his shoulder where Penny was still seated. Pixies were amongst the species of people that weren't affected by the scent of the succubi due to their unique relationship with mana and magic in general, so that was also rather calming.

  Rose smiled lightly and looked over at the table where she had been working. On it was a small mound of rust and a bottle with copper-coloured liquid inside of it. The copper flowers were completely rusted through, so it seemed like Rose managed to pull everything she needed out of it.

  "Is it done already? Can I take this?"

  Rose quickly nodded, "Yes! I don't know how much you really need, but this is basically the most concentrated version that I could extract from the flowers. Maybe water it down a bit first?"

  Ryan immediately nodded, grinning under his mask, as he turned back around, "Great, I'll test it out right away!"

  Without hesitation, Ryan turned around and left the small building, rushing back toward the edge of the cave. On the way, he grabbed the biggest bucket he could find and brought it with him. Once he was there, just in case, he had Penny wait downstairs again, though she seemed a bit annoyed about having to sit out here alone all the time, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to hurt you in case something goes wrong, alright?"

  Penny grumbled lightly and nodded as Ryan took the bucket and brought it upstairs. There was a hose upstairs so that they could clean Kindly, so he could fill it up there, so he could fill the bucket up with that. Once upstairs, Kindly seemed startled. The part that was 'healed' from the corruption earlier was slowly growing over again, but there were still parts that were fine. So it should be easy enough to properly clean the mimic without letting the corruption take him over again.

  Ryan filled up the bucket and then poured in a splash of the concentrate. He wanted to start with as little of it as he could to see how much was needed to get rid of the corruption. After mixing it together, Ryan grabbed a bowl that was generally used to feed Kindly medicine and scooped up some of the water.

  "Alright, stretch out one of your tentacles," Ryan said, trying to instruct Kindly by stretching his own hand forward. The mimic slowly did as asked, and Ryan poured some of the water over the corrupted spots. The corruption was being cleaned off with ease, crumbling away immediately. Just a fraction of the bottle's contents in that massive bucket was enough. A broad smile formed on Ryan's face as he refilled the bowl, splashing more onto Kindly's tentacle. Bit by bit, he started cleaning up the mimic, and the corruption was fading more and more, until all his exposed areas were rid of it.

  "Okay, Kindly, open up fully now," Ryan said with a smile on his face, patting the ground in front of him though the mimic seemed a little hesitant about that. But Ryan just sat there, patiently waiting, and Kindly carefully opened the wardrobe. Ryan had already seen part of the mimic like this when Modak was treating him, but it was a little different now. Ryan couldn't open the wardrobe himself like Modak could, and just had to wait for Kindly to come out on his own.

  But still, the mimic came out, revealing the entire mass of corruption that was covering him. It was bulging and pulsating, as if it were alive.

  Ryan quickly continued scooping up bowls of water and poured them over Kindly's body, trying to get rid of any corruption that he could find. The more he did, the more the mimic seemed to be calming down, as if the pain that he was feeling every day was being cured more and more. But the skin that was revealed underneath the corrupted gunk wasn't healthy in any sense of the word. It was sore and Kindly was starting to bleed quite a lot. Old wounds were opening up. But with the corruption gone, Rose would be able to properly treat the mimic, and proper healing products could be used to help him out.

  Soon, the corruption was gone almost completely. The only part that was persisting was a large lump at the side of Kindly's body. It was like the corruption's heart, trying to spread out rapidly before it died again. The water wouldn't be enough to get rid of this. Though, at the very least, it seemed to be making it harder for that lump to truly hold onto Kindly's skin.

  "... Okay, this might be stupid, but..." Ryan filled another bowl and took a deep breath. And then, he pushed forward his hand and grabbed the lump. It was hard, like some kind of stone, so Ryan could hold onto it well enough. But the moment he did, the corruption tried to infect Ryan's right hand, so he had to hurry. He pulled on the lump and poured the water onto the gap between the lump and Kindly's body, trying to get rid of the part that connected them. A few moments later, the lump was pulled off Kindly, and Ryan quickly hurried over to the bucket.

  The lump was digging into his skin like it was searing hot, but the moment Ryan submerged it in the water, he was able to pull it off properly.

  His hand was covered in deep sores and felt incredibly numb, but otherwise, he was fine. Looking into the bucket, the water was blackening more and more as the lump, the 'heart' of the corruption, was being killed off.

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