I made up magic and taught a world-destroying witch?

Evelyn led Joseph through the side hall and toward the lounges at the back of the church.

"Although the six people who were rescued are all still here," Evelyn said softly.

"However, the coughs of the others were relatively mild, and the nuns and their families who had been taking care of them these days did not show similar symptoms, so we did not require everyone to stay in the church indefinitely."

After all, everyone needs to make a living.

Dockworkers lose wages for every day they miss a day, and apprentices in blacksmith shops and workshops might lose their positions if they don't show up for a few days.

The White Dove Church can provide them with temporary shelter and food, but it cannot allow them to live there permanently.

Evelyn said with a hint of helplessness:

"Especially Mr. Buck from the Dwarf Merchant Guild, he promised last night that he would get a good rest, but he disappeared this morning."

Joseph: "..."

Given how Buck was coughing and trying to salvage the recorder this morning, it would be a miracle if he stayed in bed and rested.

"Is Mr. Buck's condition serious?" Joseph asked.

"He's a bit less severe than the worst dockworkers," Evelyn said, "but he's still coughing quite a bit. I was going to let him stay today, but he said he was just going out for a bit and would be back soon."

The two went to the small room next door where they kept their things.

The coats, shoes, and tools worn by the rescued individuals, along with the few tools they brought back, were all stored separately in wooden crates. The association members have inspected them, and the church has purified and blessed them. Most of the clothes have now been washed, and each person's name is labeled on the outside of the crates.

Joseph glanced at it and was somewhat surprised; it was done much more carefully than he had imagined.

"These are the things they changed out of after they came out of the well," Evelyn said. "The people from the association looked at them and said they didn't find any obvious magical residue, but I still had them sorted out and stored away."

Evelyn then brought out the records she had written over the past few days. Joseph flipped through a few pages of the records, which contained extremely detailed information such as everyone's name, approximate time they were trapped, their condition when they were rescued, when they started coughing, whether they had a fever, whether they had chest pain, and even their approximate location underground.

Joseph glanced through it, and the more he looked, the less he felt there was anything particularly unusual about it.

Those who have been trapped for a longer time will have more severe symptoms. The combination of dust, germs, and other contaminants is enough to make someone cough for days after they come out, even without magic.

Moreover, the doctor and the association have both examined the patient, and the church's purification and blessing have had no effect, so it seems that it is indeed appropriate to treat it as a common cough for now.

It seems Sister Evelyn might just be overly worried, which is understandable, since she personally went down into the well to see the strange black line and had been taking care of these people. Seeing them coughing one after another, it's easy for her to feel that things down in the well aren't over yet.

He was just about to close the notebook when a violent coughing sound came from not far away.

Evelyn's expression changed, and she immediately pushed open the door and went inside. Inside the room lay a man in his thirties, leaning against the headboard, coughing until his face was red.

The nun who was taking care of him was handing him water.

  

"Don't rush to speak."

Evelyn hurried to the bedside, gently placing her hand on the man's shoulder. A soft white light emanated from her hand, likely the soothing blessing she had given Joseph earlier.

The man's cough subsided, and Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief, but before long, the man started coughing even more violently than before.

"Cough cough cough!"

"How could this be..." Evelyn instinctively tried to cast a blessing again, and this time the cough subsided again. Another nun quickly came over to help support the patient and handed her a clean cloth.

Was that just a coincidence? Joseph frowned.

When a person is coughing, their cough may suddenly worsen. Just because you used a blessing doesn't mean you should blame the blessing for the problem.

But is it possible that... the more magic is used, the worse the symptoms become?

The moment the idea popped into his head, Joseph remembered someone. He recalled that someone had actually researched something similar: Academician Wade, who would risk his entire reputation on any worthless project he saw.

Joseph once came across a study that Academician Wade had conducted when he was young in the old project catalog. The gist of it was that magic is not always better the more it is used. Some illnesses, residues, or physical conditions affected by old magical environments may actually cause more serious reactions when magic is continued to be stimulated.

Of course, Academician Wade gave this project a particularly long name back then, something like "A Preliminary Study on the Relationship between Atypical Residual Reactions and Abnormal Somatosensory Experiences under Low-Intensity Magic Stimulation".

Unfortunately, this project didn't sound like it could make money, and it didn't align with the Royal Academy's prevailing ideology that more magic meant greater nobility, so it was successfully rejected by the Academy's project committee.

Academician Wade lost a sum of money and was laughed at by several old professors for a long time, who said that after studying magic, he actually came to the conclusion that "it might be better to use less magic."

When Joseph saw this record, he thought that Academician Wade must have some ability to have managed to become an Academician of the Royal Academy without being killed.

Faced with this situation, he was somewhat unsure whether Academician Wade's move was based on genuine skill or pure luck.

Joseph looked around the room. If that was really the case, he thought he might as well try removing the magical items.

"Take that lamp out and try it first," Joseph said.

"A lamp?" Evelyn looked up at him.

"Yes." Joseph pointed to the magic lamp by the wall. "Replace it with a regular oil lamp first."

The nun beside her didn't understand why, but seeing Evelyn nod, she immediately did as she was told. She moved a small stool, carefully took the magic lamp down, and carried it to the other end of the corridor. The light in the room dimmed slightly, and another nun quickly lit a regular oil lamp.

The male worker on the bed coughed a few more times, but he didn't suddenly become breathless like before. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but at least this direction was worth trying.

"The same goes for the other rooms," Joseph said. "Remove all the magic lamps and magical devices. Replace them with regular oil lamps, and use regular water for now. Don't add anything that requires magical treatment."

Evelyn looked at him: "Shall we pause the blessings for now?"

Joseph nodded and said, "Let's stop here until we figure it out."

Evelyn seemed to instinctively want to say something, but in the end she didn't.

Joseph saw the expression on her face and knew that these words must have been very painful for her. After all, blessings were something the church used to save and comfort people. Now, suddenly telling her to stop was like saying that what she had been doing all along was wrong.

Joseph thought for a moment and then added:

"I'm not saying there's a problem with the blessings; those blessings kept them alive, didn't they? The problem now is that I suspect there might be something left in their bodies that reacts to magic. Until we figure that out, it's best to try a few different methods to see what happens."

Evelyn looked at him with some confusion.