William didn’t have any problem with blood, but he still found the whole scene rather disturbing. He’d been on battlefields, and there had almost been less blood there. It was rather frightening looking for just one person. As it turned out, it was very helpful to have William assisting Lorelei. They didn’t have all of the proper materials they needed, including an anesthetic. Thus, that was William’s job. He was the anesthetic… which was not a trivial task. Though they had some mild painkillers, William was given the task of preventing as much of the pain as he could from reaching her brain- and waking her up.

If it wasn’t for Lorelei’s description on how to do it, he would have had an even harder time. He could have blocked all of the electrical signals going back to the brain, which wouldn’t have been easy, but straightforward. However, that could convince the brain there was something very wrong with the body as well, which could have other issues. As it was, even with her unconscious and Chris directly touching the back of her neck, it was hard.

Lorelei seemed to have it even harder than him. Somehow, she managed to keep the blood from flowing out excessively as she did what needed to be done. Having no proper tools, she used ki to cut. Though she said she wasn’t talented in that area, over time she had built up enough power to be useful. After that, there was a lot of blood… and then finally, inside everything, a little baby. They couldn’t stop there, however, as Anselma still needed to be stitched up. They didn’t have any fancy medical stitches, but they did what they could.

Finally, Lorelei collapsed into a sitting position on the floor. “Done. You can let them come in now. Though they might not like the idea, your family seems rational enough to accept that my methods were successful. Though, we don’t have to talk about that right now.” Then, she passed out, sitting leaning up against the wall.

William only felt a bit less exhausted than her, but still went to the door and let his father and brother in. “It’s alright to come in now. It’s… a bit messy, but everything went well.”

Barend couldn’t help but running over looking rather panicked, though he calmed down somewhat when he saw Anselma’s easy breathing. Stefan, meanwhile, couldn’t help but look at the smaller figure nearby- his new sibling, a little sister.

-----

About an hour later Dechen showed up, with a doctor in tow. William hadn’t realized, but Lorelei must have sent him to town at the first signs. Even so, it was still a journey of most of a day there and back, and the carriage wasn’t much faster than a wagon.

Though the services of the doctor weren’t needed anymore, they did have some much needed supplies- including stronger painkillers. William knew that the painkillers they had wouldn’t last long, and were only enough for his mother to partially function.

While almost everyone was crowding around looking at the new baby, William saw Lorelei sitting in a room alone. “Don’t want to see the baby you helped deliver?”

Unlike her normal self, Lorelei only gave a halfhearted response. “Mmmn.” William wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but fortunately she continued to speak after a few moments. “I did, but what if I messed up? It had been so long since I did anything like that. I’m not sure if I did it properly…”

“Don’t worry, you did great. You’re good at everything you try.”

“Sure. I’m good. Even so, I still mess up. If I botch an experiment, I might ruin a batch of materials or destroy a room. That’s frustrating, but not really important. But what if I made a mistake here? What if she died? Either one of them. You can’t just buy more…”

“Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and you didn’t even mess up this time. You did great.” William wasn’t sure what to say, but reassurance shouldn’t hurt.

“Archmages can’t make mistakes. They’re too important.”

“That’s ridiculous. I bet the various demon lords make mistakes all the time, and I know for sure the Demon King did.”

“It’s not the same. They usually have strong backings and powerful allies… or reincarnate.”

“Hey now, I know I’m still working on getting back up to par, but Lila’s pretty strong isn’t she? And there’s also your brother I guess.”

Lorelei blinked. “Marek hardly counts.” Then she shrugged, “Lila probably counts, but we really need the support of more people. As for you… well, unfortunately it’s hard to use the threat of you reincarnating as you are now.” Then she smiled and grinned, “Unless we could convince them you’re the Demon King? You have Chris after all, we could convince them you finally tamed him.” Then she shook her head, “Nah, that wouldn’t work. You’re not stupid enough.”

“Plus I don’t have many memories which would help there. There’s very little about the demon lords… Do you think any fragments of the Demon King are complete enough to do a good job?”

“Alone? Probably not. I would rather not give them a chance to work together, or try to combine though. That could be a real pain.”

“Could they actually combine?”

Lorelei shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe? What do you think?”

William frowned. “If any of them remember how to use the magical method to destroy souls… they could do that and absorb the others. They’d probably lose a bunch of memories that way, but it might work. After all, the souls were once one…”

“I doubt any of the fragments would be willing to be the one destroyed, but I suppose the stronger ones wouldn’t care. What do you think the chances that they know are?”

“Umm, probably unfortunately high. He used it over the course of many wars, right? There should be many parts of memory that are good enough to use it. I don’t know how many fragments there really are though, so maybe they won’t have enough.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.” Lorelei shook her head, “If nothing else, the Demon King is resilient. Even if there is just one that can, we’ll have a big problem on our hands. We just need to come up with a better method to find the fragments…”

William nodded. Although thinking about the troubles the Demon King would cause wasn’t particularly soothing, Lorelei actually looked more like her normal self now. That was good… right?