“What on earth… happened to her?”
A low, calm voice sounded.
The healer standing beside Bido had already peeled back part of the bandages and was examining the wound.
The sword wound revealed beneath the lamplight was so deep that, even after time had passed, it was difficult to look at directly.
The medical officer standing nearby answered.
“It’s on the right side of the chest. It missed the heart, but it was nearly a penetrating wound.”
“It’s been… about four days.”
The healer’s hand paused for a moment.
He checked Bido’s complexion, her breathing, and the condition of the wound’s edges in turn.
Then, ever so slightly, the look in his eyes changed.
“For a child like this…”
The healer looked down at Bido as if he could hardly believe it.
“She has extraordinary vitality. Even a Haraya would have difficulty enduring a wound like this for so long.”
The medical officer gave a small nod as well.
“She’s a strong child.”
The healer stared at the wound in silence for a while.
Then he spoke in a low voice.
“In fact, it may be fortunate that you arrived now.”
The medical officer’s brows moved slightly.
“…What do you mean by that?”
The healer slowly drew back his hand and stood.
“Within this border garrison, there is someone with a Mirkin that heightens regeneration.”
He looked down at Bido for a moment and continued.
“And today is Muwol.”
The medical officer could not answer right away.
All the more so after he understood what the healer meant.
“That’s…”
As if he had expected that reaction, the healer replied calmly.
“I understand. It is not merely assisting natural healing.”
“It is closer to forcibly pushing the recovery itself upward.”
“If the body cannot withstand it, the inside may collapse before the wound does.”
The medical officer closed his mouth for a moment and looked at Bido.
A pale face, shallow breaths, and yet a vitality that had not gone out.
This was not something he had the authority to decide.
In the end, the medical officer let out a short breath and said,
“…I don’t think this is mine to decide. One moment.”
He rose from his seat and walked toward the door.
When he opened it,
Miryeong and Aila were standing in front of it.
The medical officer flinched at the sight of the two of them.
“Ah… you haven’t left yet…”
Miryeong cut him off briefly.
“We heard.”
Aila, standing beside her, furrowed her brows.
“Heard what?”
Without looking away, Miryeong said,
“Hey. There was someone among your companions who used a regeneration Mirkin too, right?”
Aila’s expression crumpled for a moment.
“Yeah… Liber did. Why?”
“They say there’s a regeneration Mirkin here in the garrison. And today is Muwol.”
Miryeong added in a low voice.
“What do you think?”
Aila was silent for a moment.
In that brief gap, her gaze went toward Bido, then returned.
“Liber did use it a few times on our wounded.”
“But it looked far more burdensome than using it on himself.”
She continued slowly.
“Still, it’s not something to decide lightly.”
“It doesn’t heal the wound. It forcibly raises the speed at which the body recovers.”
A brief silence flowed.
Then, soon after, Aila pointed at Bido with her chin.
“More importantly, Mirkin doesn’t work on that little one, does it?”
Miryeong also looked at Bido.
A pale face, shallow breaths, and an upper body bound tightly with bandages.
After looking down at her for a moment, Miryeong spoke in a low voice.
“That’s why it might actually be all right.”
Aila immediately turned her head.
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
Only then did Miryeong take a step into the room.
“If Mirkin is something that forcibly twists the rules,”
“then Bido might not be destroyed by taking that power as it is.”
She paused briefly, choosing her words, then added,
“That one’s body doesn’t move like ordinary Mirkin.”
“The twisted rules will return to normal at once.”
Aila still looked displeased.
“A possibility. That’s too big a gamble to take on just that.”
“If we don’t, she’ll have to lie here unable to move for several more days.”
After replying shortly, Miryeong turned her gaze toward the healer.
“So.”
Her voice lowered a little more.
“Where is that Mirkin?”
Every gaze in the room gathered on the healer at once.
—
“Healer, you called for me?”
The door opened, and a soldier hurried inside.
As soon as the healer saw him, he immediately pointed toward Bido.
“Ah. This is the child.”
The soldier approached the bed, then froze for a moment when he saw the exposed wound.
The bandages had already been undone,
and the deep sword wound slanting across her right chest was laid bare beneath the lamplight.
Even after four days, it still did not look like a light injury.
“…Will it be all right?”
The soldier asked in a low voice.
“If regeneration is forced onto a wound like this…”
Miryeong spoke at once.
“It’ll be fine. Begin.”
The soldier could not easily reach out his hand.
Miryeong stepped closer and added quietly,
“If it seems wrong, I’ll make you stop.”
Whether that was truly possible, no one knew.
But in that place, those words sounded like the firmest certainty.
The soldier hesitated for a moment and once rubbed the back of his own neck.
Even so, when the healer quietly nodded,
he slowly approached Bido as if he could no longer step back.
Then, carefully, he placed his hand on Bido’s shoulder.
In that instant, the soldier’s expression changed.
Tonight was the night of Muwol.
Normally, the burden that surged in first when he drew up his Mirkin should have been far lighter,
and the power should have responded more directly.
In fact, it had been like that until just a moment ago.
But the instant his hand touched this girl’s body, the sensation changed.
The flow that had grown lighter suddenly reversed.
A familiar but by no means comfortable pressure,
as if the power were being suppressed and twisted, pushed back through his fingertips and into his body.
The soldier frowned unconsciously.
Miryeong did not miss that look.
“Bido.”
Bido lifted her eyes with difficulty.
“For a moment, can you try to suppress your power as much as you can?”
“Yes…?”
For an instant, Bido looked bewildered.
Until now, what Bido had done had always been the opposite.
Drawing up the power rising within her body more strongly, enduring it, holding on to it.
She had never thought of reducing it and calming it down.
After a moment,
Bido said in a very small voice,
“…I’ll try.”
Bido slowly closed her eyes.
After regulating her shallow breaths, she groped for the familiar sensation.
The power she would normally have grasped and drawn upward,
this time she tried to press down in the opposite direction.
As if slowly sinking down something that had always, naturally, held firm somewhere inside her body.
At first, it did not go well.
Perhaps because it was the night of Muwol, the traces of pressure were instead faint and could not be grasped.
But Bido gritted her teeth and focused harder.
Do not push it away, do not raise it up, just make it sleep for a moment.
The change was minute, but clear.
The soldier with his hand on Bido’s shoulder slowly lifted his eyes.
The pressure that had been scraping against his fingertips until a moment ago was loosening ever so slightly.
He took a breath for a moment, as if confirming that sensation.
And soon,
the edges of his pupils gradually began to turn red.
“…I will begin.”
His voice had sunk low.
The room had grown so quiet that even breathing seemed cautious.
The healer, the medical officer, Aila, and Miryeong all watched in silence.
With reddened eyes, the soldier looked down at Bido.
At his fingertips, the presence of Mirkin began to awaken very slowly.
At first, Bido thought the area around the wound was itching for a moment.
But that lasted only an instant.
“Uuuugh…!”
The next moment,
pain far beyond imagination violently shook Bido’s entire body.
Miryeong and Aila grabbed Bido’s body at the same time.
“Just endure it a little, Bido!”
Miryeong’s voice sounded.
But Bido had no room to answer.
Chijijik—
From the wound came an unpleasant sound, as if wet flesh had been placed over fire.
At the edges of the red, gaping sword wound,
new flesh could be seen pushing up, little by little.
It was closer to violence than healing.
The torn flesh forcibly fused back together piece by piece,
and the gaping inside was dragged inward by force.
Bido gritted her teeth, but in the end, she could not swallow her groan.
Every time she inhaled, it felt as if the inside of her chest was burning away,
and her vision flashed white again and again.
“Ah— ngh…!”
Before long, the room was filled with Bido’s groans and brief, bursting screams.
Bido nearly lost consciousness several times.
Her awareness wavered, sounds grew distant, and the light before her eyes blurred.
Just as the thought passed through her mind that it might be easier to simply let go like this—
Slip.
The soldier’s hand lost strength first.
The hand that had rested on Bido’s shoulder slid off,
and the soldier collapsed onto the floor.
The healer immediately rushed over to him.
The soldier’s face was drenched in cold sweat, and he was barely letting out shallow breaths.
Looking down at him, Aila said quietly,
“He can’t do any more than this.”
Miryeong immediately turned her gaze to Bido.
Bido was soaked in sweat from head to toe, breathing harshly.
Her face was deathly pale, and even her lips had almost no color.
But the wound that had been deeply gaping until just a moment ago had clearly changed.
It was not completely healed.
A red, ugly split still remained,
and it looked precarious, as if it might tear open again with the slightest wrong movement.
Still, it was different from before.
At the very least, now,
the flesh had been forced together.
After confirming that sight, the medical officer let out a very careful breath.
“At this point… at least the concern of renewed bleeding has greatly lessened.”
After the healer checked the condition of the soldier collapsed on the floor for a little longer,
he turned his gaze back toward Bido.
“It looks as though her recovery has been advanced by nearly ten days.”
He paused for a moment, then added quietly,
“But that does not mean the inside has caught up as well.”
“A deep wound has been forcibly closed. It is not healed.”
The medical officer looked at Bido with a hardened face.
The healer continued.
“Still, things are different now.”
“She is no longer in a state where she can only lie here and endure carefully.”
“For a very brief moment, if someone supports her, she may even be able to stand.”
Miryeong’s eyes trembled ever so slightly.
The healer immediately drew the line.
“But walking is still impossible.”
Around the time those words ended,
Bido’s body trembled once, violently.
The consciousness she had been holding on to had finally snapped.
Bido’s eyes slowly closed, and the strength drained from her entire body.
Startled, Miryeong caught her, but the healer immediately waved his hand.
“Leave her be. She has fainted. In fact, that is better for now.”
The medical officer asked quietly,
“Is it dangerous?”
“No. Her body endured pain and recovery all at once until it could withstand no more.”
“It would not be strange if she did not regain consciousness for about a day.”
A brief silence settled over the room.
Bido said nothing,
only continuing to breathe shallowly while soaked in cold sweat.
But it was different from before.
Ragged as it seemed, it was unmistakably the breath of recovery.