An Elder died. Elder Ruskinnia, the highest-ranking noble of the Mist Duchy, whose power rivaled that of an entire city. I don't know how, but even such a powerful Qigong Master was said to have been annihilated without even a moment to regenerate...
But what does that have to do with me?
Humans die anyway. The Elder was human too, so he could die at any time. Since he was Tyr's subordinate, I made a show of mourning out of courtesy, but I wouldn't feel much even if someone I hadn't even seen in over 10 years died.
Rather, my stomach is a bigger problem right now. Ugh. It seems like it will take a while to heal naturally. What should I do...
"Knock knock, Father. Is the stabbed area alright!"
Hilde happened to visit. Carrying a bunch of food in her arms, Hilde set it down on the table. I raised my hand to greet her while lying on the sofa.
"Where have you been until now?"
"Don't even mention it. Unlike Father who came with the Progenitor, 'I' was treated completely poorly! They just gave me a room barely big enough and told me to stay quiet! The difference is too big!"
"It can't be helped that the treatment is different. I am a guest brought directly by Tyr."
If you didn't like it, you should have stood in the right line from the start. When I said that, Hilde narrowed her eyes and asked back.
"Are you really a guest? Not a favored concubine?"
Ugh. If you put it that way, I have no way to refute it.
Even vampires, whose hearts are stopped and emotions are faint, have preferences. I'm not a vampire, so I don't know well, but it seems there are humans whose blood is particularly delicious or attractive. Even vampires who see humans as less than livestock take such humans as concubines and dote on them.
It was publicly declared that my blood tastes bad, but... That doesn't mean I deny that I am Tyr's attachment doll. I wonder if I'll end up getting turned into an Elder at this rate.
I subtly changed the subject.
"Rather than me, shouldn't you worry about yourself, Hilde? No matter how you say you've abandoned your faith, the moment it's revealed that you're a Holy Sword Knight, the whole country will become your enemy."
"Right. I came to talk about that! Father, quickly bare your stomach!"
"Why my stomach that already hurts... Wait. Why are you holding a knife?"
A sharp dagger was aimed at my abdomen. Horrified at the thought of being vivisected alive, I blocked it with my arm. Hilde glared at my barely healed abdomen and said.
"We have to cut your stomach open again! So that the traces of the Healing Arts don't remain!"
"What are you talking about! No! I'm not a piggy bank, my stomach isn't something to be cut open and stuck back together!"
"Since 'I' fixed your stomach, 'I' can cut it open!"
"With that logic, does a child owe their life to their parents?! Once given, it's done!"
"If we don't erase the traces of the Healing Arts on Father's stomach, 'my' blood might all be sucked dry!"
"Stop just calling me Father with your words and show some filial piety! So what if they suck a little blood!"
"It's seniority, the older generation should pass on first!"
"You're older than me! You keep calling me Father, so it causes cognitive dissonance, do I really look like your dad!"
While we were grappling with each other's lives on the line, the door burst open. Sensing a presence, Hilde and I froze, still holding the dagger.
The uninvited guest who visited without knocking was snow-white. With black hair, as if soaked in ink, twisted up and wrapped in a headdress, and a short garter skirt slightly covered by a white apron. The blue-white eyes standing out on the bloodless, pale skin were freezing cold.
The snow-white uninvited guest stood in front of us expressionlessly and said.
"I came because I heard there is a patient. Where is the patient?"
Even without using Mind Reading, that pale skin showed that she was a vampire. And using Mind Reading, I could find out that the uninvited guest was the physician Valdamir had put a request out for.
Great job, Red Duke! I didn't know you would find and send a physician so quickly! Thanks to you, I survived!
"Just in time! Here! This person is attacking me!"
The physician quietly watched my desperately outstretched hand... and shook her head.
"You are not a patient yet. Then it is not under my jurisdiction."
Huh? What is she talking about. While I was stunned and staying still, the physician rather looked at Hilde and said.
"What are you doing with the knife? Quickly slash the stomach. So that I can treat it."
So, she's demanding to injure me so she can treat me? That's putting the cart before the horse!
I was dumbfounded and shouted.
"No, what are you talking about! Don't urge her, you should stop her before she slashes my stomach!"
"I am a physician, not a mediator. And a physician can only exist when there is a patient."
"Even so, are you going to just let a patient be created?!"
"The occurrence of a patient is unrelated to me. I have no interest in such causality. Nor the ability to stop it."
True! If you ask a normal doctor to stop a knife-wielding robber, they would definitely express difficulty! But that's for a normal doctor!
"You're an Elder! You have the ability to stop it! If you can, then stop it!"
The physician, who was indifferently wearing white gloves, showed a slight reaction to my words. But only for a moment. The physician pulled the gloves all the way to her wrists and said.
"I have not yet been acknowledged by the Progenitor. Right now, I am neither an Elder nor a Yeling... just a physician who came running upon being called."
The physician calmly asked back.
"More importantly, I am waiting, but when will you perform the laparotomy?"
Urged, Hilde relaxed her hand holding the dagger and shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh my. Did you take it seriously? This was just a bluff~?"
"Bluff? You mean it was an act?"
"Yees~. 'I' wouldn't recklessly slash Father's stomach, right? Father also played along~."
I read her mind. But if I read it too much in advance, my Mind Reading will be found out, so I have to at least pretend to resist. Besides, the pranks of a Yukjangseong are threatening in themselves, so if I don't resist with all my might, I might actually get stabbed.
"...Is that so. What a pity."
"A pity? About what?"
"I'll tell you, so please give me that dagger."
Hilde obediently put down the dagger. The physician received the dagger. As if having deep insight in knife skills, the physician moved the dagger as if dancing.
Towards my stomach, no less.
Uh, wait a minute.
Before I could react, the sharp dagger sliced my stomach like paper.
My reaction was slow because I couldn't read the killing intent. No, that doesn't explain it. Even before the dagger slashed my abdomen. Even after it slashed my stomach, I couldn't feel even a speck of hostility.
No, rather... even now that the dagger was stuck in my stomach. The physician was trying to save me.
"Oh my? What is this?"
While Hilde also lost her words at the sudden event, the physician literally 'pried open' my stomach and said.
"From now on, you are the patient of I, Lir Nightingale, and are placed under my strict management. Follow my instructions faithfully. In case of disobedience."
The yet-to-be-acknowledged Elder that Tyr mentioned. The vampire who inherited the True Blood of Ruskinnia.
...And probably, this is my guess, but. The one called the Divine Physician in the regressor's future.
The rumored figure surrounding the Mist Duchy spoke coldly and rationally, yet with a compulsive goodwill.
"Since I cannot guarantee your safety, I will make you follow me by force."
Wait, isn't she? She doesn't seem like a Divine Physician! Where does this crazy psycho look like a Divine Physician? A serial killer suits her better!
I also have a strong stomach. Even if I see intestines squirming right in front of my eyes, I just lose my appetite a little and can pass it over. But if it's my stomach, it's a different story! Fear and pain surge in, mixed with disgust!
"Uwaaa! My stomach! My stomachhhhh!"
"Patient, please relax. Your muscles are stiffening."
"Would you be able to relax if your stomach was split open!"
"Even a frail woman like me can do it, but the patient can't even do that much?"
"Frail woman my ass, you're an Elder! Of course you can!"
"Tch. Your head is still working well. The anesthetic must not have spread yet."
"What anesthetic! You haven't even applied it yet! Aaaargh!"
Speaking with my stomach split open, I feel a sharp pain! She really sliced my stomach! My skin is splitting and the inside is being exposed!
Lir, looking back and forth between my stomach and her hand, let out a gasp, "Ah."
"Oops."
"Oo...ps... my ass...! Quickly do something...!"
Lir reached out her hand to her thigh. Taking one out from a holster with several ampoules stuck in it, Lir broke the ampoule with two fingers. A bright red liquid floats around her fingers. Lir manipulated the blood-red medication and poured it into my stomach.
A cold aura flows along my blood vessels. Every time the medication from the outside passes through, something seems to settle down. The pain wasn't that big to begin with, but now my body feels distant as if it's not mine.
Lir suddenly asked.
"How is it?"
"Yes? About what?"
"I was pinching your stomach. Seeing that you didn't notice, the anesthetic has spread well."
I could see her pinching my split stomach skin. Now I'm so dumbfounded that words won't come out. I want to punch her and run away right now, but where can I go with my stomach skin cut open and my intestines exposed.
Completely incapacitated, I looked at Lir rummaging through my stomach and muttered stupidly.
"Uh, yeah."
"A penetrating wound caused by a sharp blade. There are burn marks on the wound, and blood flowing from the unhealed internal organs is pooling in the stomach. This bleeding... if you hadn't learned Qigong, it would have been dangerous."
It's dangerous now too! My stomach is open! Wide open!
Now I can't even speak. If I use the wrong force, it feels like my intestines will all spill out. I may be sensitive to killing intent and dull to goodwill, but no matter how good the intentions, I don't want to follow someone who cuts my stomach skin. Groaning under the anesthetic effect, I looked at Hilde with eyes asking for help.
But Hilde wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were on Lir's hands recklessly rummaging through my wound.
Hilde watched the 'treatment' with an interested face and opened her mouth.
"You made such a big wound... but there's no bleeding?"
I looked at my stomach with a hazy mind.
It was as Hilde said.
My stomach was sliced, but no blood flows from it. To be exact, the blood that tried to scatter gathered and floated in the air. The clumped blood droplets then seeped back into somewhere in my body. Just like I usually do.
A vampire with excellent Blood Manipulation, and furthermore, who has reached the realm of fully dominating their own flesh, can regenerate even a broken body. Even Valdamir disassembled and reconstructed his own body.
But that is, strictly for their own flesh.
Even for a vampire who is already dead and has a blurry boundary between the outside and the inside, they have a flesh. Their own flesh that they remember is an anchor that fixes their existence in the vast ocean. So that I can stay as 'me', and so that I don't deviate too much and morph into another existence, I set the form to return to.
Therefore, even while reconstructing the body, they maintain that form. Because it is the image of 'me' that they themselves drew.
But... this Elder right before my eyes is constructing my body.
She slices the stomach and draws blood. The inside and outside of my body become one. At the borderline that has momentarily become blurry, she forcibly grabs my blood that is trying to scatter into the world and sends it back.
It's my body, but she seems to know it better than I do. She looks with her eyes, feels with Blood Manipulation, reads the flow, identifies the problem, and fixes it. After trimming the wound with Blood Manipulation, she draws out the dead blood. My blood moved in an orderly manner following Lir's guidance.
Before I knew it, the treatment was over. Lir gathered the stomach skin and reached out to pull out a strand of my hair. Ignoring my belatedly streaming scream. She imbued the hair with Blood Qi and drew a zigzag with her fingers. I feel a pain as if a needle is pricking my stomach. When I came to my senses, only a thin stitched mark was left on my stomach. Unbelievable, considering it was a body wide open just a moment ago.
"The treatment is over."
Even after finishing the surgery, not a single drop of blood was smeared on Lir's gloves. The peak Blood Manipulation didn't even allow another person's blood to seep in.
"Take absolute rest. You will be short on blood for the time being, so don't provide blood to vampires, and I recommend you focus on consuming meat."
From Blood Manipulation to hand skills, it evolved in a completely different direction from vampires. I read Lir's skills, knowledge, and belief bordering on dogma with Mind Reading and was convinced.
"And don't use Healing Arts if possible. That is a power that reverts. It could revert some of the treatment I've done."
The 'Divine Physician' I glimpsed in the regressor's recollection was exactly this person.
Hilde, whose secret was seen through by Lir, said awkwardly.
"Oh my~. I wanted to hide it, but I got found out~."
"The flow of blood is clearly unnatural, and the only way for there to be no wounds on the body is Healing Arts. Anyone other than me would have noticed."
"Now that there's a scar again, they wouldn't know, right? Excluding you who treated me, that is~."
Is she planning to kill people and exterminate their families, no, kill vampires and exterminate their clans? But killing vampires in the first place is already an error. She is a great person who can grab the back of the neck of a dead person knocking on the gates of hell and drag them back up.
She could snort and fight here, but Lir shook her head and packed her things.
"I have no intention of telling."
"I don't believe you."
Hilde flatly denied it.
"You know the long-standing conflict between vampires and the Holy Imperial Court, right? If you're also a vampire, you should kill 'me', the Holy Sword Knight, the moment you notice. That should be the duty of an Elder who received True Blood from the Progenitor, right?"
It's a natural reaction. The Progenitor and the Holy Imperial Court have fought for so long. Now, it was becoming common sense, almost like a truth, that the two would hate each other and fight to the death the moment they met.
But there are no absolutes in human affairs. Just as there is a Holy Sword Knight who came to the Mist Duchy on her own feet, there was also an Elder in the Mist Duchy who showed goodwill to the Holy Sword Knight.
"I am a physician. As I said earlier, the occurrence of a patient has nothing to do with me. Only the extinction of a patient is my jurisdiction."
Is it because she's a vampire, or was she that kind of person from the start? Lir showed a cold yet compulsive goodwill toward Hilde and said.
"Above all, Healing Arts too is just one method towards the goal of a patient's extinction."
It was a remark that made it hard to believe she was an Elder. If anyone else in the Mist Duchy had heard it, they would have led her execution for blasphemy. And Hilde next to her as a bonus.
While Hilde naturally paid attention to the outside due to the bombshell remark, Lir, who had packed her bags, asked one last thing.
"More importantly, I have one question for you from the various nations."
I, who had regained my senses a little, asked back.
"...What is it?"
"Are there patients there?"
Seeing those sky-blue eyes, filled with such resolve that she would run there immediately if there were, I let out a hollow laugh.
There are many crazy people in the world. But the person in front of me right now had a different directionality. To think she's trying to control not others' lives, but their deaths.
It's been a while since I read such an interesting person. I groaned and answered.
"More than enough."
"Good."
With this, Lir's destination was decided. I don't know if the regressor read this far, but she will probably face the Divine Physician she had been waiting for in Claudia.
"Since the treatment is over, I will be going now. Don't die arbitrarily without my permission. You are my patient."
"Whether you permit it or not, I won't die. I can't permit my own death either. Life is too precious."
Is she some kind of Death Controller or what. Thanks to her, my body got much better, so I'm thankful, but.
Lir, who observed my condition for a moment, strode out without a single inch of hesitation once she was convinced I was okay.
It's a bit regrettable. Reading the mind of a crazy person is quite fun in its own way.
'Wait. Where did the knife used to cut the stomach earlier go? It disappeared at some point.'
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Naturally, I don't know either. Mind Reading is the power to read what humans know, so I don't know what they don't know. No one ate the knife, so it must be somewhere, right?
Lir's thoughts, as she briefly looked around for the knife, continued shortly after.
'...Could it be, in there earlier. No, it must be my imagination. It's definitely not. Probably.'
Huh? What? What imagination. Why is she thinking of my stomach when she says "in there earlier"? Don't tell me?
"Hey! You crazy woman! Come back right now! Is that something to end with 'probably'!"