Chapter 3
[Didn't the priest notice?]
ㄴ[It seems he didn't notice anything. He didn't realize it even though I used it right in front of him.]
ㄴ[You'd better practice holding your breath for a long time in advance..]
ㄴ[Why?]
ㄴ[(Notice.. con)]
ㄴ[Splaaash!!!]
‘I don't know what they're talking about.’
There were also comments I couldn't understand.
I figured it was probably some kind of meme unique to this Gallery.
[Is working at a clinic manageable?]
ㄴ[Yes, it's very easy. I'm quite satisfied.]
ㄴ[The priest I know sweats after casting Heal once, and you call it easy?]
ㄴ[Why is this difficult?]
Some people even asked how difficult the work was.
And to be honest, there was nothing difficult about it, so the previous comment was hard to understand for an entirely different reason.
‘What could possibly be difficult about working this leisurely?’
Compared to when I was climbing the Tower or running my private clinic, the patient I'd just treated was an incredibly easy case.
‘It wasn't carrying a curse, nor did it have any missing body parts.’
Besides, it wasn't difficult to treat compared to high-floor climbers.
It was a game-like analogy, but healing an ordinary person with 100 HP couldn't help but be easier than healing an Awakened with 10,000 HP.
There truly was nothing difficult about the work.
If anything, I wondered whether I was even allowed to slack off this much.
I even went so far as to look for work myself, glancing around nervously.
“If it's all right, I'll treat the remaining patients as well.”
“Huh, you don't even get tired?”
“I'm still relatively young.”
The old man was old, after all, so it made sense that he would tire early.
“..Age and the number of times one can use miracles have nothing to do with each other.”
But perhaps he didn't want to believe that, because all he did was frown deeply.
“In any case, if you have energy to spare, you're more than welcome. We're always overflowing with patients.”
After getting permission, I returned to the waiting room.
A few more patients had joined the old man and young man I'd seen earlier.
A middle-aged man with a chronic cough.
A woman who had cut her hand while cooking.
Even a child clutching his stomach, apparently suffering from an upset stomach.
None of them were urgent cases, but a patient was still a patient.
‘A healer uses Heal even for a cold if they pay.’
However, I didn't treat just anyone.
Seeing this, the old priest who had been watching asked in puzzlement,
“By what criteria are you deciding whom to treat?”
“That young man just now would have had to worry about his livelihood if his wrist wasn't treated immediately. So I treated him.”
“What about that child?”
“The young woman who injured her hand smelled of flour. When I asked, she said she ran a bakery. Wouldn't it be bad to make bread with an injured hand?”
I didn't bother mentioning that I simply didn't want to eat bread made with an injured hand.
“Then why didn't you treat the previous patients?”
“They didn't have any particular livelihood problems, so why treat them needlessly? It's not as though I have energy to spare.”
Energy to spare.
“And relying too heavily on Heal—..I mean, healing miracles—isn't good either. If you heal people without giving them a chance to overcome things on their own, who will build up their immunity?”
“Immunity?”
Perhaps the word was unfamiliar, because he asked again with a puzzled look.
“The strength to overcome illness. Just as someone who has experienced something handles it better than someone who hasn't, the same applies to illness.”
The old priest thought for a moment before nodding.
“That makes sense.”
He was quick to understand.
Though he looked fussy, apparently he was open-minded when it came to treatment.
Patients visited regardless of the time of day.
The next patient I saw was a chubby-cheeked little girl who clung tightly to her mother's skirt, apparently frightened.
“Aww, do I have to take medicine?”
“Do you dislike medicine?”
“Uh-huh..”
“Let's take a look and see whether you need medicine or can do without it.”
I projected energy into the child to diagnose her.
‘Enteritis.’
She had come down with enteritis, probably after eating something she shouldn't have.
“You snuck a snack without telling your mother, didn't you? Don't do that again.”
Fwoosh-
The light that blossomed from my palm seeped into the girl's stomach.
The girl's tightly scrunched expression quickly relaxed.
“It doesn't hurt anymore!”
The girl hopped twice in place as if delighted, then stopped and turned around as though she had just realized something.
Her mother, having realized that the snacks had given her daughter an upset stomach, wore a terrifying expression.
“Gasp!”
Still, she wouldn't resent me since I had kept her from having to take medicine.
Probably.
Seeing this, the old priest looked at me as though he couldn't believe it.
“Didn't you say you needed to build up immunity?”
“She's cute, so it's fine, isn't it?”
…
I was about 90 percent sincere.
“Why don't you take a break soon? At this rate you'll collapse from exhaustion.”
Perhaps he thought my treatment was getting excessive, because the old priest stopped me from treating any more patients.
Honestly, I still had plenty of stamina left, but I didn't want to stand out too much, so I nodded as though I were exhausted.
“Unless you're a saint, anything more really would be too much. What you've done is already remarkable, so get some rest.”
‘The healers here are rather low-level.’
I swallowed the words I couldn't bring myself to say aloud.
The sky visible through the window had begun to turn red.
I must really have been working hard enough to cause concern.
“Since it's getting late and I've run out of stamina, I'll be going now.”
The old priest raised his eyebrows.
“You're not going to leave like this and then not come tomorrow, are you?”
“Surely I wouldn't run away after showing up for just one day.”
In any case, I had nowhere else to go right now.
Well, even if there was, there couldn't be a more comfortable workplace than this.
There was no reason to go looking for another workplace.
“By the way, where are you staying? I haven't heard that a priest of the Goddess of Flowers is staying at the church. Though I was too busy to leave work yesterday.”
He asked whether I had perhaps arrived yesterday, but I shook my head.
It was true that I'd entered the city yesterday, but I hadn't gone to the church in the first place, so there was nothing to confirm.
“I'm staying at an inn for now.”
The old priest's eyebrow twitched.
“An inn?”
“Yes.”
“If you asked the church for an empty room, we'd gladly provide one. Why pay to stay at an inn? Just come stay at the church.”
Free lodging.
Honestly, it wasn't a bad offer.
But entering the church in my current state, when I hadn't properly memorized the doctrines and scriptures, would be risky.
At the very least, going to the church would have to wait until after I had memorized the doctrines and scriptures by heart.
“There are flowers that wish to remain wildflowers.”
But I couldn't give that as my answer, so I offered an appropriate excuse instead.
After doing this a few times, priestly excuses came smoothly now.
The old priest's eyes widened slightly.
“Then are you saying the people of the church are flowers in a flowerbed? Stop talking nonsense and just come in.”
It didn't seem to work.
“I'll think about it.”
“Good grief, you're stubborn.”
The old priest grumbled, but he didn't ask any more questions about my lodging.
“Come right after sunrise tomorrow. If you run away, I'll send soldiers to track you down, so keep that in mind.”
“Understood.”
“I'm telling you again, don't run away.”
“I won't.”
Could his telling me to stay at the church have been a way to legally keep me there?
That's what occurred to me.
When I left the clinic, the street had grown fairly dark.
I almost took a wrong turn several times along the complicated route, but fortunately, I had already passed this way once, so I didn't get lost.
When I entered the inn, the smell of warm food reached me first.
Fortunately, I hadn't arrived too late; it seemed to be dinnertime.
“Priest!”
The innkeeper's daughter approached me carrying a plate in both hands that was larger than my head.
As soon as I sat at the table, she brought food over as though she'd been waiting for me.
“Careful.”
“Yes!”
I took the plate from her and sat down.
But the plate delivery continued afterward.
She carried over dishes one by one with her tiny body, and the pile eventually grew to more than three plates.
‘Roast chicken, cream stew, and is this bread?’
No matter how I looked at it, this wasn't a standard meal for an ordinary guest.
‘This is too much.’
Just then, the innkeeper came out of the kitchen and said,
“I don't know if it'll suit your taste.”
“Is this in return for treating your daughter?”
The innkeeper smiled awkwardly, as though he'd been found out.
“I thought I'd feel better if I did at least this much.”
Since refusing food that had already been prepared would be impolite, I thanked him and picked up my spoon.
“I'll gladly enjoy it. But you don't have to do this from now on.”
“Even so..”
“I told you this morning, I didn't do it expecting anything in return.”
In fact, I had been hoping for something in return.
I even wished—please bring another lavish meal next time, too.
But I hid those true thoughts and faithfully played the part of a priest.
“And if I grow attached to material things, the goddess will be disappointed in me. For my sake, please refrain from excessive repayment.”
As I said this, I had the innkeeper's daughter sit beside me and put a chicken leg in her hand.
“Sean, you should eat too.”
“Gasp! I'm fine, Priest! Gulp!”
As I said that, I put a chicken leg into Sean's mouth as he swallowed hard.
Contrary to my inner desire for a lavish meal, I was giving it up because I couldn't eat much meat.
“My digestion's been declining lately.”
“Aren't you young, Priest? You look like you're in your early twenties.”
“I'm in my thirties.”
And in this medieval setting, being in your thirties was an age at which it wouldn't be strange to have grown children.
“Gasp!”
I filled my stomach with stew and soft bread before going up to my room.
After locking the door and sitting on the bed, the first thing I did, naturally, was open the Gallery.
The posts that came up were mostly the so-called shitposts.
There were also occasional posts mentioning me.
Title : The guy with a bleaker future than yesterday's newbie gets an upvote lol
Author : Serf
Me first.
[Upvote]
[Upvote lol]
Title : What kind of worldbuilding does the newbie's Earth have..
Author :ㅇㅇ(171.02)
I've seen people from all kinds of Earths while browsing this Gallery, but I still can't even begin to imagine what a nationally certified Level 1 Healer's License is supposed to be.
[Isn't he talking about a doctor? The title is kind of weird, though.]
ㄴ[You idiot, he said he can use Heal.]
[I'm from a Normal Earth, and it kind of sounds like that Awakened-person genre in novels. They have healers in those, too.]
ㄴ[This bastard's hometown has everything you can think of whenever you mention it—quit bullshitting already.]
ㄴ[ㅠ..I swear it's true]
There were also posts asking about me.
I left brief comments on such posts.
[Put metaphorically, I'm a superpowered individual. The Tower appeared 20 years ago, and a small number of people awakened abilities. In my case, I awakened a healing ability.]
A detailed explanation would have been long, but this much was enough as a rough overview.
ㄴ[What's a Tower?]
I found and opened a post I'd saved earlier.
ㄴ[What do you mean, what's a Tower??]
It was a post compiling and organizing the doctrines and scriptures of each religion.
[Doctrines of the 12 Religions]
[I transcribed the scriptures of the Goddess of Flowers.]
‘Now that I'm working in a priest's den of all places, I'd better memorize them quickly.’
Fortunately, the Gallery screen was clear regardless of the surrounding brightness, so reading was no trouble.
The fact that I didn't have to waste the evening was more than enough to please the heart of an impoverished fake priest.
While reading the doctrines, scriptures, and prayers, a brief piece of trivia caught my eye.
※Priests of each denomination wear a unique symbol proving their religion. Since the symbol represents that religion, desecrating it is treated the same as desecrating the religion, so take care.
※..The Goddess of Flowers religion uses a wooden brooch with a dandelion engraved on it.
An actual photo of the brooch was attached below the post.
‘It would've been troublesome if I'd remained unaware.’
I enlarged the photo and examined it closely.
The symbol consisted of a dandelion engraved on a round wooden plaque.
Compared to the symbols of other religions, it was crude, and its structure wasn't complicated at all.
‘At this level, I think I could make one myself.’
The problem was that I couldn't judge it from visual materials alone.
But if I didn't know, I could simply ask.
Though it was late, from what I'd observed, the people active on the Gallery didn't distinguish between day and night.
‘Maybe they're in distant regions, so there could be time differences.’
Title : Is it all right to make religious symbols myself?
Author : ㅇㅇ(123.123)
The comments came just as quickly.
[Asked what a Tower was for the 50th time]
I ignored the unnecessary comment.
[You usually get symbols reissued at the church of that religion, dude..]
ㄴ[But doesn't the Goddess of Flowers have very few churches? I make my living as a mercenary, and I could count the number of priests I've seen on one hand, let alone the churches.]
ㄴ[There are definitely fewer than other religions. Outside the capital and the Goddess of Flowers' holy site, you can pretty much assume there aren't any.]
[Even if a symbol doesn't look like much, it's not called a symbol for nothing. It's basically a holy relic, so just carving the same shape doesn't make it a symbol.]
ㄴ[You can't tell from the picture, but when you touch the real thing, it has that distinct miracle-like sensation.]
ㄴ[How do you know what a symbol feels like? Are you a priest?]
ㄴ[I've killed a priest and looted him before.]
ㄴ[(Not human con)]
After reading the comments to the end, I closed the Gallery.
I was convinced right away.
‘At that level, it should be fine to make one myself.’