The Knight Plots His Growth (1)

Crack. Crack-crack.

"Ghk—!"

"I could lose my mind. Why did you come back with your body turned into a rag again?"

Crack-crack!!

"Nn— y-you're not putting your feelings into this, are you?"

"How could I not?"

"Is a cleric even allowed to do that?"

"A cleric is a person too."

"...Fair. I was wrong."

"So long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as you know."

Crunch!

"!?!!"

This one actually hurt. They say that when pain goes far enough, you cannot even groan. No sound came out of him at all. It simply hurt badly enough to drag the tears free.

"Ugh...!"

He heard bone breaking, and the ache bit so sharply he wondered whether muscle was bursting. Then the real thing crashed over him—the pain of bone snapping, the agony of muscle tearing—and Lee Han wanted nothing more than to pass out.

The cleric, Sister Jessie, wiped the sweat beading at her brow and caught her breath.

"Whew. It's been a while since I cast a healing this large for days on end. Use a major healing art and even a decent knight usually faints, but Brother Lee Han doesn't pass out at all. A knight after all? Your will is strong."

"...You give me every last bit of pain you've got, and now you praise me?"

"I'm stating a fact. Lie still a moment. I'll brew you some medicinal tea."

"During the treatment you were terrifying enough to send ghosts running, and now look at you... this is why you still seem like a cleric."

"I told you. Cleric or whatever else, we're people too."

The nun smiled and left him there to steep the tea. Lee Han lay where he was, every scrap of strength drained out of him.

Been a while since I felt like this.

Drained by sheer agony, that is. Aside from the human experiments of his childhood, pain had never left him this spent.

I thought I'd built an immunity to ordinary pain. Guess that was a delusion.

He had not expected to learn humility in the middle of a treatment.

The Academy recovery room. Even within the Royal Academy, it was the place that kept the most ruinously expensive personnel—and the only place where one could receive Holy Law healing, something even most nobles could not obtain.

As a rule Lee Han settled every injury by natural recovery alone and did not lean on Holy Law, but the last fight had clearly been too much. So here he was, using the recovery room. This was already the seventh treatment, and his body still had not been restored. He must have run himself into the ground that thoroughly.

I did thrash myself pretty hard...

Looking back now, he was freshly aware of how carelessly he had treated his body. The two weeks of the term evaluation he had burned entirely on training, and he had pushed himself all the way to the limit besides.

And that was not all. After granting himself a single day's rest, without properly shaking off the fatigue, he had fought a brutal battle against monsters and, in the end, downed five potions at once—well past the safe limit.

Even a high-ranking warrior would have died long ago, treating a body like that. He had endured only because he was himself.

But the price of enduring was no small thing. He could still see, clear as day, the female priest's face going pale the first time she checked his condition in order to treat him.

She had stated flatly that the treatment would be hard. He had thought, how bad could hard be? Then he actually received it.

...She lied. It wasn't "quite a lot." It was the pain of having living flesh torn off.

He was not joking. It was agony enough to snap a mind.

He had always thought Holy Power was simply a flash of light that healed a body. Receiving it, he learned it was nothing of the sort. It was closer to physical therapy, or to traditional medicine. Those healed a person with instruments and needles; healing priests wrapped Holy Law around their hands. That was the difference.

The cool relief when Holy Law brushed his body was pleasant enough. The itch and the burn that followed were not the sort of thing a person could endure. As if muscle and bone were smashed like a puzzle and then put back together.

Hm? What does that mean?

...He didn't know either. He didn't understand the words even as he said them. There was simply no other way to describe that agony.

"Hoo..."

"Oh my, you're already up?"

"I can live now."

"Your recovery really is remarkable. Five times an ordinary person's? No—about seven. It's like looking at our brothers."

"Brothers?"

"The Monk brothers. They cultivate Holy Law only to temper the body and raise their recovery. Their regeneration rivals a troll's. And Brother Lee Han matches them. ...Did you train under the Monks as a child?"

"I've never even met them."

"...Is that so? They'd be very fond of a man like you. Hmm... If you're interested, go see the Monks. I'll write you a letter of introduction."

"A letter of introduction?"

What kind of introduction was this, out of nowhere? Lee Han blinked, and the priestess wore a fresh smile and winked.

"Someone like Brother Lee Han—they'd welcome you!"

"Ha. Are you telling me to convert? No, before that—do priests scout people now?"

"There's a shortage of talent everywhere. A hero who has saved countless people is the finest talent, welcomed anywhere."

"For crying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out loud..."

A shameless offer he could not bring himself to hate. If some potbellied noble had made it, a fist would already have flown. But she happened to be the one treating him, and more than that—

...I'll let it go because she's cute.

She resembled an idol he had liked in his previous life, so he would give her a pass this once.

Even so.

Didn't think I'd hear this line here, too.

Plenty of people had tried to recruit him lately, but he had not expected to hear the offer from the temple as well. The title of hero really did make for impressive propaganda.

Still, the harsh words he could not say to the priestess circled at the back of his throat.

Do I look crazy enough to pay a tithe and go to temple?

He could not spit something ugly into the face of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠person healing him, and so Lee Han barely managed to swallow the words.

"Nngh—!"

Once he was outside, Lee Han stretched as if simply loosening up. The agony during treatment had been the worst of it, but the more he walked, the more strength welled up.

Vitality. That was what seemed to have settled through his whole body.

I don't much trust the temple itself, but the convenience is unbeatable.

The kingdom had physicians and other healers, of course. Priests who used Holy Law were precious manpower, so it was only natural to seek some other means of healing first. But medicine was still a slow-developing discipline, and there was no help for that. Hadn't even the doctors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries been better at killing people than saving them? They bled patients to lower their blood pressure, fed them mercury instead of medicine, and kept a hygiene that was a complete mess...

Pendragon's medicine was still that wretched, and for now the temple's healing held the firmer place. Lee Han, feeling that stature in his own body, could not stop marveling.

Injuries that should have needed half a year of convalescence seemed entirely gone.

"Three more sessions would be even better."

Then his vitality ought to return properly as well. Not only his vitality—he even hoped the internal injuries and small wounds that had piled up in his body without his noticing would heal.

I'm already light on my feet. Finish the treatment and I might start flying.

Tap.

"Ah. Right. I should deal with this, too."

What snapped him out of the idle thought was a stone the size of a fist in his pocket. He carried it roughly in the pack at his waist. Seeing him tote it so casually, someone might have mistaken it for a viewing stone gathered as a hobby. It was a treasure of astronomical value, beyond any viewing stone or jewel.

To carry a treasure like this so carelessly—if someone called him insane, he would have nothing to say. But Lee Han was not the sort to be led around by treasure.

In his past life he had only saved money and prepared for old age, then died without ever properly spending what he had gathered.

Maybe that was why. In this life Lee Han gathered wealth, then spent it freely in whatever direction satisfied him. Thanks to the curse—his impotence—he did not even dream of marriage, so he kept only the minimum for living and spent the rest.

What was the point of saving, once you were dead?

...Of course his pauper's nature had not gone anywhere, so he did set a little aside. Still, he did not attach any great meaning to treasure.

And if someone stole it from him or robbed him of it, that would only mean his skill amounted to that much.

They say if someone without the qualification takes a fortuitous encounter, only misfortune remains.

Wasn't that how it went in the martial novels? The first finder of a heaven-sent opportunity was fated to be caught by some orthodox or unorthodox martial artist and slaughtered to the last of their house. So a fortuitous encounter was better carried in the open than hidden. If you lost it, you lost it, and lived with an easy gut.

A positive mindset. One of the postures, he rather thought, for a healthy life without stress.

...Well.

I mean I'll live positively. Not that I'll live by getting robbed.

If the other party was a thief, that thief had better be prepared to be plundered in turn. That was one of the rules Lee Han had set for this life.

He would not live only by being done to, and no one would casually steer his life. If anyone touched that rule, he would never let them be.

Renewing that rather bloodthirsty resolve as he stroked the heart, Lee Han fell again to wondering what to do with it.

Make it into equipment, or just eat it?

He had no mind to sell it. As he had decided the day before, he would use it as a foothold for growth. But finding someone skilled enough to work a material this rare was about as hard as finding a lost lens in the middle of a beach.

Among my connections, the only one who could work this is that sister of mine...

He figured she had the manpower to produce a legendary panacea on the order of Ambrosia. Unfortunately, he did not think he could ask her.

That sister would swallow the whole thing in one gulp.

If Isis heard him, she would have flown into a rage.

"You take me for a shameless sovereign who covets what is not mine?!"

So she would have thundered. Regrettably, Lee Han knew better.

She'll demand a price for anything.

It was precisely because he trusted her that he would not ask. One of the principles of her life was none other than Equivalent Exchange. Ask a favor, and she would certainly take or demand a price equal to it. She would probably demand half the Ghost King's heart—or, failing that, something even more vicious.

So the option of asking her was best folded neatly away.

Then the next candidate is the spell-slinger... ugh. They're both about the same.

The enslaved spellcaster was groaning in a sickbed after the battle, so that one was out, and Chick No. 2 did not look as if she had the technique to handle a thing like this either.

She's not the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠scholar type. Like me, she's just the instinct type.

Lee Han, who prided himself on an eye for people, knew Irene Windler was a girl who did not much resemble a proper mage. Hand this to her and he could already see her pouring cold sweat.

Realizing that none of his nearby connections could handle monster materials, his thoughts were deepening when—

Tap.

"...There might be someone who could."

His index finger, which had been tapping his brow, stopped cold, and a face surfaced in his mind. The one he had gone to such pains, this time, to transfer in and bring along...

"Assistant Instructor No. 2. Go on—tell me what it is I want."

"...Couldn't you just call me Timid instead?"

Taechang—no, Derek—refused him outright for the first time. Assistant Instructor, he insisted, was a step too far.