Episode 108
"Please line up in order."
To prevent confusion, Karen had the people form a line.
But the elderly wore dark expressions, as if something were weighing on their minds.
"Is something the matter?"
"There are people more severely injured than us. Could you not see them first?"
"Don't worry. We will treat them too."
The number of people gathered here amounted to barely over thirty.
Since simply holding the Starlight Clam against them could heal them, the time required was roughly ten minutes.
There was no reason to change the treatment order.
However, there was a reason I had to treat the people gathered here first.
"You could use healing magic?"
Diana asked in surprise.
"It's not magic, but I have an artifact with healing power."
"An artifact with healing power?"
"Yeah. It won't take long."
Stia cautiously offered an opinion.
"Even so, shouldn't we see the critically injured first?"
"There's something I want to check for myself. We still don't know anything about this village."
I spoke in a low voice so the villagers wouldn't hear.
"I'm going to check if there are any suspicious individuals. Please cooperate."
"...!"
Stia nodded as if she had realized something.
"If there's a group cooperating with the bandits in the village, or a contact for the bandits,
they'll take an interest and approach when strangers appear.
Ava, keep watch nearby while I treat them and see if any suspicious people show up."
"So that's what you meant. Got it."
I now spoke so that everyone could hear.
"Stia, go to where the critically injured are first and check their condition.
If there's someone who needs immediate treatment, call me."
"Okay."
"Someone please guide Stia to where the injured are."
"I shall guide her."
"I will begin treatment. Please come forward one at a time."
"Wait, what about me?"
Diana grabbed me and asked.
Is the haughty young lady of a noble house asking my intentions? That's a good attitude.
But I had no intention of interfering with Diana.
It was a judgment based on Diana's personality.
It was better to let Diana do as she pleased. That was when she could fully display her abilities.
"I'm not going to give you any orders. Do what you think is most right.
It'll be closest to the correct answer."
"You can say some decent things too, can't you?"
"Good enough to take as a partner?"
"..."
It was a joke, but Diana looked up at me with serious eyes.
"Not yet. But I understand now. You weren't trash. Just as my sister said, I was the one lacking discernment."
...No, I think my sister was wrong about that.
But it didn't feel right to insist I was trash either, so I kept silent.
I felt as if Diana was seeing me as an equal for the first time.
"I'll follow Stia. I shouldn't leave her alone at a time like this."
"Sure."
Diana left, following Stia.
"Karen. Will you help me?"
"Yeah! I'll be your nurse."
"There's a reason I kept you here."
From now on, the method I would use couldn't be shown to others.
The treatment was simple. Simply hold the Starlight Clam against the affected area.
But in that simple treatment process, I decided to incorporate "interrogation through hypnosis."
Choosing Karen as my collaborator had been essential.
"Please ensure that everyone receives treatment without exception, and that no one leaves."
"...Got it!"
I spoke to the people.
"I will begin treatment.
Even those who aren't injured, please undergo an examination just in case."
"Thank you, Hero Candidate...!"
"Please show me your wounds."
They all had severe wounds on their backs.
Taking the village maidens, stealing alcohol and food, even beating the helpless elderly left in the village.
My brows furrowed involuntarily at the bandits' atrocities.
I was glad there was something I could do.
The Starlight Clam even healed wounds that had begun to fester from missing the proper treatment window.
It was truly a divine miracle.
"How is it?"
"It doesn't hurt! Good heavens...! Thank you."
"Please look at this."
I snapped my fingers, applying hypnosis.
There were two keywords.
「Answer my questions truthfully.」
「Cooperate with the Hero Candidate.」
"Are there any in this village connected to the bandits, or anyone doing as they say because they were threatened?
Please tell me everything you know."
"...I'm not sure."
Pass.
I checked how Karen was doing.
"Hey there! Get examined before you go."
"I'm fine. I wasn't injured."
"You never know! It's just that, I'm worried about you, sir..."
"...Ahem. Then I suppose I shall."
While orderly managing the line, Karen effectively controlled the situation so that no one slipped away claiming they were unharmed.
Doing that with a smile, without making the other party feel bad, was quite difficult.
At least, it was something I couldn't do without using hypnosis.
But Karen's charm worked on men and women of all ages.
Thanks to that, I could focus on treating and interrogating the person before me.
Interrogation through hypnosis had extremely high reliability.
Even without deliberately implanting keywords, most people in a trance state had their unconscious minds laid bare defenselessly,
so they tended to follow my words obediently.
If kingdom soldiers had ever come to liberate this village, the bandits would be on guard.
They might have planted spies in the village, or coerced villagers into becoming collaborators.
Or both.
That is precisely what it means to deal with 「humans」.
If this were simply a matter of fighting monsters, there would be little opportunity to utilize my specialty.
However, hypnosis was extremely effective when dealing with humans who used their heads.
Of course, since the opponents were worthless bandits, and some of them might have even been demonized, fighting would ultimately be unavoidable.
Hypnosis demonstrated tremendous destructive power the smarter the opponent, the more meticulously they prepared, and the more elaborate their schemes and conspiracies.
Those things worked because they hid their true intentions and engaged in psychological warfare.
Since they promised something of value—whether money or power—and manipulated many people as underlings, hypnosis—which could uproot everything from the root in one go—had the worst compatibility with such methods.
The eternal weakness of hypnosis had always been humanity's sudden, protruding madness.
Or a bomb falling from above without warning.
Phenomena that had already occurred.
Those things could not be undone.
No, could being stabbed by a knife be undone now?
Bella's gift—or rather, what I took from her—was insurance that could even bring the dead back to life, though only once.
Just possessing it normally healed wounds.
It even healed other people's wounds.
Still, I memorized the faces of each person I treated and interrogated them thoroughly.
I couldn't afford to be careless this time, so I was paying more attention than usual.
Because there were three women of mine in the party.
One was planned, but anyway.
This time, without making excuses about it being troublesome.
My resolve was to hypnotize every single human in the village if necessary, and get through safely.
"Thank you!"
"My wound healed as if washed away!"
When all treatments were finished, the elderly clasped my hands and shed tears of gratitude.
Perhaps because they had been liberated from pain. The previously dark expressions on the people seemed to have brightened somewhat.
"Where are the other injured?"
"In that building over there!"
"Ava! Let's go."
I called Ava over, who was looking around from afar.
"How was it?"
"There was no one acting suspicious."
"Is that so?"
Perhaps I had overestimated the bandits.
They might be passed out drunk by now, embracing the village maidens.
But I didn't let my guard down.
Because there was a possibility Ava hadn't noticed.
Inside the building.
Injured people with limited mobility lay groaning.
Most were people who had fought to protect the village and suffered serious wounds.
There was also a young child suffering from a high fever.
I treated the child first.
The fever had subsided, but perhaps from being afflicted for so long, the child lay limply without even the strength to open their mouth.
"Karen. Please look after the children."
"Yeah, got it."
Stia approached me.
"Decal. Is there anything I can help with?"
"Try unwrapping the patients' bandages."
"The bandages? Okay."
Everyone was delirious.
It wasn't a situation where I could conduct interrogation through hypnosis.
Stia and I divided the roles and treated the patients quickly.
There was also a patient whose leg had begun to rot from being left unattended for so long.
I felt nauseated.
I was newly struck with admiration for surgeons.
Even though all I had to do was hold the clam against them, it was hard to endure.
Stia's hands were trembling as she unwrapped the bandages.
"It's okay. They'll get better soon."
I reassured Stia.
"...Yeah."
Only after treating the last person was I finally able to catch my breath.
"The treatment is finished."
"Thank you! We don’t know how we could ever repay you for this..."
The old people shed tears.
Some even prayed toward me outright.
There were no more patients in this village now. But everyone’s strength had been drained, so even though their wounds had healed, they did not immediately regain consciousness or get up.
It would be hard to receive any practical help from them.
However, their wounds had healed, and there were no more infected people, so recovering their vitality was only a matter of time.
"Do you have enough drinking water?"
"We draw water from the well. We should be able to draw some ourselves as soon as today."
"You don’t need to. Instead, please bring me a container that can be filled with water. A clean one."
"Understood!"
Soon, the people worked together and brought over a large wooden tub.
I took out the Goddess’s Water Bottle and poured water over it.
Everyone watched in puzzlement.
But when water continued to flow from the bottle even after some time had passed, they all began to exclaim in amazement.
"Wh-what on earth is that?"
Aba asked in surprise.
"This is an artifact too."
"It’s surprising enough that you have an artifact capable of healing so many people, but I’ve never seen a bottle that produces water before.
Where on earth did you get such rare things?"
Even Diana showed curiosity.
"I collected them back when I was an adventurer."
As I filled the tub with water, I gave a suitable excuse.
"Use this water only for drinking, and take only as much as you need."
"Understood!"
"We will keep that in mind."
"May we ask your name?"
"I’m Dekal."
"Lord Dekal! Thank you for saving our village."
"I can’t say I’ve saved it yet. Please gather everyone who knows anything about the bandits. If they witnessed anything at all, even a child will do."
"Understood!"
The middle-aged villagers bowed politely to me, despite me being much younger, then hurried off in a fluster.
There’s no need to rush like that.
In any case, the villagers left, and naturally, only our group remained.
With the bottle tilted so the tub would fill to the brim, I spoke to everyone.
"I investigated in my own way to see whether anyone was lying.
Everything the people we met at the village entrance said was true."
While looking for anyone connected to the bandits, I also confirmed whether what the village chief had said about the bandits’ actions was true.
The information they gave us can be trusted.
At the very least, they were not telling any cunning lies.
Stia clenched her fists and trembled with rage.
"I didn’t know anything.
To think something this terrible was happening in a nearby village..."
"You were in Melbrit, so there was no way you could have known."
It wasn’t strange.
There was a limit to what one person could be aware of.
Even a hero was no exception to that. Though they carried out the noble task of protecting people, somewhere out there, just like this, there were still people whose very livelihoods were being threatened.
"I can’t forgive myself. That’s how I feel."
"Think of it as having come here to do a job. Bandits are to be annihilated as a matter of course, aren’t they?"
Aba, who had been silent, spoke quietly.
"Um, that means...
In the end, you’re going to kill people, right?"
"..."
"Sorry. I just couldn’t keep from saying it..."
"That’s right. It means killing people."
Was it because I had done it once before?
I could speak of murder without the slightest hesitation.
"But I don’t think I’d feel guilty even if I killed them."
"Of course not. The world is better off without trash like that."
Diana also spoke bluntly.
"We’ll make them pay, no matter what."
"..."
The tub was nearly full.
I stored the bottle away in my storage.
"Let’s go hear what they have to say."
We knew what had happened in the village.
Now it was time to find out who the enemy we were facing was.