I am relieved to hear that none of the people I treated in the seriously injured room have died since I left.
However, not everyone has recovered enough to be at ease, so I disinfect their injuries and cast magic to stop the bleeding on those whose wounds have reopened. However, magic can only stop the bleeding temporarily, so I will have to cast the magic again unless the wound heals naturally, and my magic can’t do anything about bacterial infections.
Those showing obvious symptoms of fever and worsening wounds will be sent to the village today.
“We’re going to have to do something about the bloody sheets and stuff.”
“But we don’t have any more new sheets or cloths.”
After examining the patients and giving my instructions, I check the state of the room again. I really want to get everyone changed into clean clothes, not just the sheets, and change the bandages. If they get injured, their immune system will weaken and they will be more susceptible to other illnesses.
But with supplies in short supply, there is only so much that can be done.
“If there is someone who can use magic, the best thing to do is wash the bloody things, but that’s difficult, isn’t it? I can at least get cold or hot water…”
Considering the other things I still have to do, I’m finding it difficult to do it all by myself, and I’d be in trouble if I didn’t have anything to use while I was doing the washing.
“Amelia, I’ll just prepare water, and ask the priests and those with minor injuries to wipe the bodies. We’ve gathered clothes from empty houses and shops, so let’s cremate the dirtiest ones together with the bodies.”
As I was wondering how much I should ask and how, my father, who had just finished what he needed to do, spoke up.
“I also think it’s best to burn anything that’s badly stained with blood, but will there be enough clothes and sheets?”
If I use my magic I can clean it up fairly quickly. But I’m worried that if they continue to live in an unsanitary state, they’ll get sick and die before they turn into monsters.
“If there aren’t enough, they will bring more as many as they like. Judging from yesterday, there are a lot of vacant houses. Just ask them to keep it clean. The priests who can use water magic only have enough magical power to prepare drinking water, so it would be better to prepare clean water to wipe their bodies.”
Even when it comes to drinking water, we need more than we normally use in our daily lives. Bringing clean water may be harder than collecting clothes.
“Excuse me. Have you finished your work yet?”
“Yes. Is everything okay?”
“We received a lot of new sheets, so we’ll all share the work of changing them.”
It seemed that the people who had gathered all the food, clothing, and cloth had returned. Without any particular instructions, people with minor injuries came swarming into our room and started changing the sheets, etc., and I was shocked.
“Everyone was dying to do something. It was suffocating to just sit there and do nothing, and it seemed everyone had something on their mind when they saw Lady Amelia treating them.”
As I froze in shock, the priest gave me an explanation with a wry smile.
Yesterday, I was so busy examining and treating patients that I didn’t have time to check on what was going on around me, so I didn’t even notice that someone with minor injuries was watching the treatment.
The priest looks on as if this scene is nothing strange.
If the injured are unable to move due to their injuries, the men will lend a hand and the women will quickly change the sheets. Children will bring cloths to wipe up any bloodstains on the floor.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to properly thank you yesterday. Everyone here is grateful. Thank you so much for coming.”
“……no”
I don’t know what to say, but I can’t help but feel like I’m going to cry.
“I will definitely return the favor.”
I was powerless.
I didn’t make it in time for some people.
But when I receive direct thanks from people I realize that I was indeed able to help them.
“Now, Amelia. We’ll leave this to them and we’ll investigate the maga, get a grasp on the situation in the town, and carry out rescue operations. Ah, we should prepare some water first though.”
My father tapped me on the back, and I moved over feeling a little lightheaded, then used magic to pour water into the water bottle. It was a relatively simple spell, but small children came over and looked at it with interest, their eyes sparkling.
“Magic is amazing.”
“Thank you, big sis.”
The pure compliments tickle and make me feel a little uncomfortable.
With the water bottle full, I went outside with my father. Once outside, I felt like the cries of the monsters sounded louder than before, and my relaxed mood tightened up.
“The corpses at the south gate should be all consumed soon, and the monsters’ range of movement should be expanding. Let’s be careful.”
“We don’t know where the maga occurred, but the things we saw around the north gate were rats and insects, right? The bigger the creature, the longer it takes to turn into a monster, so maybe that’s why there are so many rats?”
All I’ve seen so far are mice, insects, and the bird I saw yesterday on my way home. There are pets in this town, but overall it seems like they’re all small.
“That’s true, but considering that there were also insects at the houses that hadn’t turned into monsters, it’s better to think that they turned into monsters at the place where the maga is and then made their way to the houses.”
“But even though they’ve moved, it doesn’t seem like they’re outside anymore.”
There are no signs of rats wandering around outside, so how on earth could they have made the journey here from where the maga occurred?
“These walled towns have really good sewage systems to stop the spread of disease, so maybe it’s getting into the houses through there.”
“I’m sure rats live in the sewers.”
All the monster rats are noticeable, but if you consider that normal rats were eaten, it’s not surprising that there are only monster rats. Even pets were eaten.
Conversely, the insects at the north gate may be so small that they are currently being overlooked.
Any living creatures that are attacked by the rats and survive will gradually turn into monsters.
“There are so many rats, perhaps the maga occurred in a sewer somewhere?”
“Looking at the large number of rat monsters, that’s a possibility. However, this is a walled town, so there are no wild animals to begin with. So it’s possible that there are just not many monsters that are descended from wild animals and eat rat monsters.”
In the world of monsters, the strong eat the weak. So even though the mouse monster has become a monster, it is still originally a monster that is preyed upon by other monsters.
“That’s right. Today I brought the glasses that Alfie sent me on short notice.”
I took out a pair of glasses from my bag that would allow me to see mana. I have to be careful because if I look through them for too long my eyes and head would hurt and I’d feel sick, but I want to know what the town looks like now.
I immediately took off my goggles, put on my glasses and looked around.
“Trees really do produce mana.”
Red was coming out of the trees and plants planted in the city, but I couldn’t see anything like that anywhere else. When I looked in the wooded mountains, the whole place was red, so I guess that was only possible because of the trees.
And although I hadn’t noticed it up in the mountains, the ground in this town looked faintly red, probably because up in the mountains everything was so red.
“Those lines on the ground…are they where the sewers run through the ground?”
It’s generally red, but there are some darker spots here and there, but because they’re covered by the ground, you can only see a small difference.
“Can I borrow them too?”
“Okay.”
My father asks me to hand him the glasses.
To the naked eye, it looked like a perfectly normal town, except for the fact that there were no people around.
“This could be a sewer, but it could also be a ‘ground vein’, so we can’t really say for sure until we see where the sewer actually runs through.”
“Ground vein?”
I tilt my head at the unfamiliar words.
“In addition to being a passageway for underground water, the word ‘ground vein’ also means a line through which energy flows. This line through which energy flows is a foreign concept. It is said that this energy may refer to mana.”
“You mean mana flows through the ground?”
I have the image that mana is everywhere, so of course I think it’s in the ground too. But that’s just a vague feeling.
“That’s right. There are ground veins beneath the surface of the earth, running throughout it like blood vessels. You can think of mana as constantly moving through them. However, this hasn’t been properly proven yet, it’s merely a philosophical theory.”
Mana is constantly in motion.
Listening to my father’s words, I felt as if the world was a single living thing.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter and thank you for reading!
