Tell Me (3)
“Atya?”
A name I had never so much as half-heard before had just seeped into my ears.
At the same moment, pain began to assail me. Not a pain that showed on the surface, but one that scraped me raw from within, like phantom agony.
“Ah… that can’t be.”
Even so, it was not as tormenting as it had been in that ruined cabin. Or perhaps, because I was enduring it a second time, I could bear it better. Or else the certainty this pain had just given me was… was…
I clenched my teeth hard so that I might endure more easily. The clue that had strode right up to me seemed to act like adrenaline; that alone was enough to straighten my spine.
I can hold on. That conviction settled over me.
“Tisha, but this man…”
“H-he’s an outsider who lost his way while heading for Munmunt and ended up here… More importantly, who are all these people?”
“Soldiers of Munmunt. So they need treatment, but…”
Bolstered by that same certainty, I hurriedly examined the man who had just muttered the name.
A Cueoty with gray hair and triangular ears. His right shoulder had been half-severed; black veins stood out lividly across the flesh, eroded by demon energy.
I remembered.
“Tisha, how much medicinal herb do you still have at home?”
“I’ve gathered quite a bit lately, so there’s a fair amount. But I’m not sure if it’s all dried yet…!”
“Blast…!”
At the same time I eavesdropped on the others’ conversation. Half of it was forced upon me. “Without herbs, treatment will be difficult.” How could I let such words slip past when the slender clue I had just seized might vanish?
“Forgive the interruption.”
I thrust a hand that trembled with pain into my bag. If I let that man die, everything I might still hear from him would be lost. So offering something—anything—was the right choice. That was the calculation.
Of course, if herbs that had not been there when the bag was searched suddenly appeared, Tisha would grow suspicious. The “young master” treatment might intensify, or I might be taken for a mage; worst of all, he might suspect I was still hiding more.
“If it’s medicinal herbs you need, I have a few.”
But the information that man might hold mattered more than whatever suspicions one person named Tisha could harbor.
I despised myself for weighing reasons before saving a life, and felt only revulsion at the reality that had forced me to this; still I looked at them. Both Tisha and the village head were staring at me in open confusion.
“May I offer them?”
“What?”
“You mean that truly?”
“I do not joke when a life is at stake. What do you need?”
“First tell us what you have.”
What did I have again?
I considered calling up the list, then simply began yanking herbs out of the bag—straight from the inventory. Sangun had taught me the names, but those were the names used only in the Great Forest; there was no helping it. I had never memorized every herb name in the first place.
“You…”
At my movements Tisha’s eyes went a little vacant. If he blurted something like “Where did you pull those from?!” it would become awkward.
I shifted the hand that had been extracting herbs and pressed an index finger to my lips. The gesture seemed universal; Tisha’s body gave a sharp little jolt.
His murmuring mouth and the deep dimples that carved into his cheeks laid his fluster bare.
“…We don’t need this one. Do you have more of these instead?”
Fortunately the delicate freeze did not last long. Rather than pry for the truth, he began helping me sort the herbs.
I was a little grateful for that.
“Can you treat people as well?”
“Not… skillfully.”
“Wow. Total young master.”
“……”
I had already displayed the miracle of producing items that had not been there; denying it any further would be pointless.
I smiled bitterly and laid out every herb that was required. Those who knew how to treat wounds hurried to take them.
“I’ll help.”
“You just said you can’t.”
“I’m not proficient in the methods of treatment, but I can hold a person down.”
“Oh… that’s definitely useful help. Then grab this one for me!”
“Yes.”
I seized the laceration patient who was thrashing against the pain and held him firmly. It was pure physical restraint; the arms and legs that shook as if I had palsy made no difference at all.
“Bite down on this stick—I’m putting it in!”
Meanwhile Tisha forced a wooden stick between the patient’s teeth and prepared to pack herbs into the wound. His hands were rather filthy.
“Come to think of it, did you wash your hands?”
“Hands? Why hands?”
“…Wash them first. He’ll die of infection otherwise.”
“Infection…?”
Right. Hygiene concepts were still underdeveloped here.
I hastily rolled up my sleeves and stripped off my gloves—unnecessarily releasing the Disguise Skill; I had not expected to need it again so soon—and took out drinking water.
“Just a moment.”
Splash.
Water drawn from a river where mountain trout lived cascaded over Tisha’s hands and mine alike. The patient’s wound received the same treatment.
“There. That should do.”
Whether dousing a wound with water was correct I could not say… but it was better than leaving dirt and grit in it. While the patient gave a feeble scream and writhed, I gripped his limbs and held him still.
Treatment resumed.
“…You are a learned man. Even in the cities, people who understand the concept of infection are rare.”
Once one man was finished, it became the turn of the one who had called me “Atya.” They had managed to stop the bleeding, yet so much blood had already been lost that his face was deathly pale—the black veins standing out all the more starkly against that pallor.
“I will not deny that my learning runs somewhat deep.”
Was it wise for an injured man to keep talking? Still, endless speech might be better than letting him faint or drift into sleep.
I vowed that if I ever returned home I would look into certifications for emergency medical technician or first-aid responder, and poured water over his shoulder. Half the drinking water I carried vanished that way.
“Don’t close your eyes. Keep talking with me.”
“…Yes.”
But one patient was already finished, and someone else was holding the remaining one; there would be no special further need for water.
With that thought I tossed the empty leather waterskin aside. Then, while Tisha treated the man, I drew his attention.
“…Who is Atya?”
In the process I also asked the question I had been dying to ask. Outwardly it was a question meant to keep his mind anchored; inwardly it was something I simply wanted to hear too badly to resist.
“My… nephew. He looks quite a bit like you…”
“He must resemble me a great deal, if the sight of me brought him to mind at once.”
“Yes… very much. Your hair is a little lighter and paler, but… under sunlight his would sometimes shine too…”
Lucky or unlucky—facing death, the man’s barriers had dropped far. Without even knowing who I was, he poured out information freely.
His left hand clutched the small charm pouch hanging at his throat.
A pain like hundreds of needles stabbed through one side of my chest. Whether it was guilt or actual physical agony, I could not tell.
“Still… the eyes are a bit different… his were a mysterious greenish-brown…”
“…Is that so?”
If only blood would rise and dull the pain. I forced a smile onto a body that would not stop trembling.
“If you want to see a nephew like that, you’ll have to hold on. If you die here, you can’t go home to where he is.”
Was that really my own voice? If Atya was the person I hoped he was, he was already dead—was it right to say such things while knowing that?
“…Just a little longer. Hang on.”
But I want to go home.
“…Strange.”
“What is?”
“The more I look, the more you resemble Atya… yet the way you speak is completely different…”
“…Is that so?”
So Atya—his nephew—must have had a more solid personality. I smiled as though I might cry and waited patiently for him to continue. The information I wanted had not yet emerged, and I did not want to cut him off.
Whoosh. Heat like a brand seared into my entire body pressed down on me without pause. Swallowing the groans was growing difficult.
“What… kind of person… was he?”
“An incredibly… clever and ingenious boy. A bit… unsuited to the military, really… He hated the strict rules and the atmosphere… nothing like his parents at all…”
Meanwhile the man’s speech was stretching, slowing. In an instant the pain in my body fled and impatience took its place. Reflexively my hand tightened on his shoulder.
“Still, he was a good child…”
Hic. Suddenly the sound of someone weeping through clenched teeth rang in my ears. Not a single person here was crying in sorrow—only screaming from pain—yet the sound came anyway.
“You mustn’t sleep. It isn’t finished yet.”
“I’m sorry… I’m just so sleepy…”
“I know you’re sleepy, but hold on.”
“Yes… yes…”
But it had to be my imagination. It had to be.
Otherwise the thought that I—who could not even see my own family—was thinking such things in front of a dying man was too wretched to bear.
“Emergency treatment is finished. We need to move him inside now.”
“Ah, yes.”
Dully I followed Tisha’s words and lifted the patient. The unfinished searing pain made my legs buckle, but the others simply assumed the man I was carrying was heavy.
“Shall we carry him together?”
“I… I’m fine.”
I took a step with a smile hanging by a thread. Cold sweat poured down me, yet the situation was so urgent that no one noticed anything amiss. Sweat sprang of its own accord from the palms I had stripped of gloves.
“Thank you…”
Then, for a moment, the man in my arms whispered.
His voice was so faint that if my hearing had been even a little worse I would have missed it. The strength drained from his body and he grew heavier.
“Ah.”
As before, urgency bleached the pain white for an instant; I hurriedly increased my pace. With a soft rustle I laid him on the prepared cot; his chest rose and fell shallowly.
Still not dead.
He still isn’t dead.
“…Will he live? This man?”
“I don’t know. He lost too much blood…”
I averted my eyes from the question of whether the relief I felt now came from human empathy or from my own selfish feelings, and thought blankly.
I wanted to cry. Or laugh.
No—what I wanted most of all was…
“…He has to live.”
In my stifling frustration I undid an upper button with one hand and rubbed my face with the other. Only half a beat later did I realize my hands were still covered in blood from treating people.
Dampness touched my cheek. It should have been hot; now it was only cold and wet.
“From here on it’s in the gods’ hands. Go wash up.”
“…Yes.”
I hated that with every fiber of my being. My whole body throbbed as though I had been beaten even though nothing was injured, and that only sharpened the feeling.
I accepted Tisha’s suggestion.
“As if things weren’t busy enough to kill us already—why are the beasts going crazy too?”
Meanwhile, in a village along the highway that fronted the city of Schuburken, a place that sat astride the fork leading either to Brisden or Hirsenchih, Deathbringer grumbled.
The beasts in question had delayed them by half a day; that was the present situation.
“At least we won’t have to camp out, so that’s something…”
Of course, if they had passed this village they would have spent the night on the road. Looked at that way, the beast incident was not entirely a bad thing. Sleeping in a village was far more comfortable than sleeping on the road, after all.
“Mmm…”
Still. Having even minor nonsense like this trip them up when they were already in a hurry left a foul taste. It was the same psychology as kicking a pebble for no good reason when you saw it on the path.
“Maybe they got orders from the demons.”
“…Please don’t say things like that even as a joke.”
In the meantime Meister tossed out a joke with his usual unpleasant expression. Daniel’s face went pale with shock.
Apparently he was picturing every animal in the world moving at the demons’ command.
“Why the big reaction?”
“…Well. Now that I think about it, that really is a pretty gruesome thing to say.”
Deathbringer, too, found himself feeling queasy. The fact that it was mealtime and that what he was eating was a dish made from the very beasts they had killed only made it worse.
“You people have weak stomachs.”
“No, you’re just insanely fine with it…”
“Look at the Hero. Perfectly fine.”
“No, that one is…”
Deathbringer worked his lips while watching the Inquisitor, who was silently shoveling food into her mouth.
The kid isn’t so much strong- or weak-stomached as she simply isn’t listening to this conversation at all… The words he could not quite bring himself to say circled inside his throat.
“Are all mages like that?”
In the end Deathbringer chose to change the subject.
“Not all of us.”
Matching the shift, the Archmage, who had been eating in silence, spoke up.
The single clean cut that left no room for further talk made plain his determination to keep Meister’s bizarre nature from spreading into a prejudice against mages as a whole.
“Of course… compared to ordinary people, our thresholds do tend to be higher. The variance is large depending on the field of research, but generally speaking that is true.”
Yet even the Archmage seemed to feel a twinge of conscience about burying the matter completely; he added an unasked-for explanation.
“But not to that extent.”
He still did not deny Meister’s outstanding uniqueness. “What’s wrong with me?” Meister’s face turned sulky.