Chapter 139
***
Life at the Academy's Meyer Clinic was generally peaceful.
Every so often, wounded students from the Hero Department would pour in like a flood, but that was usually limited to sparring days.
Since sparring was held once every two weeks, and there were four school years,
only four days out of fourteen were busy, so the other ten were relatively free.
Life was much better than at Limbus Pit.
When I was running the clinic alone, I had to handle everything myself, from surgery to outpatient care,
and after I hired healers, the number of patients I saw in a day would easily climb into the triple digits.
Compared to those days when patients kept flooding in without a break, life at the academy clinic was incredibly relaxed.
But it seemed I was the only one who thought that way here.
"Saint. Didn’t you see fifty people this morning alone?"
"And how are you still looking so fine?"
"According to the teachers who came from Limbus Pit, there were twice as many patients there as there are here, right?"
"So that’s why you must be the Saint, right?"
This world really had inherited the generosity of British healthcare, where seeing more than ten patients in the morning was enough to bring strike action onto the agenda.
Among healers who started sounding like they were dying once the number went past twenty, doing only half of what they used to do at Limbus Pit was enough to earn me the title of Saint.
For me, it wasn’t a particularly bad misunderstanding.
'Feel free to praise me even more.'
It was an embarrassing misunderstanding, but I was a materialistic person, so I didn’t turn away the attention that came my way.
If anything, I was the type who liked to puff myself up when people praised me.
So I was savoring the afternoon peace, using the healers’ whispered chatter as white noise, when—
"Saint. These days it’s nice that there aren’t as many sick people around."
Gwen, Ayla's pet Boche (?), who was sipping the coffee I had made, said with a bright grin.
At those words, I quietly looked at Gwen and said,
"Student Gwen."
"Yes, Saint?"
"How long have you been working in the emergency ward?"
"About two months!"
I said to the energetic newbie on emergency ward duty,
"There is one taboo in the emergency ward."
"What?!"
The girl’s face went pale the instant she heard the word taboo.
In a world where magic existed and all sorts of unscientific miracles were real, the weight of the word taboo was no ordinary thing.
Gwen swallowed hard.
"C-could I have said something wrong?"
"Yes."
I nodded and pointed toward the entrance.
"Mentioning the number of patients in the emergency ward is taboo."
People think that saying there are few patients is the taboo.
But strictly speaking, that’s wrong.
If you say there are many patients, the emergency room’s jinx is that even more will come flooding in.
"Keep that in mind, Student Gwen."
No sooner had the words left my mouth than I saw the entrance door open.
"If you mention the number of patients in the emergency ward, a serious patient will show up."
With those words, Erica and Freya walked in through the entrance.
Just as I was about to worry about why they were coming to the emergency ward again when there wasn’t even any sparring, I spotted someone on a stretcher behind them.
The man, carried on a stretcher by soldiers in military uniforms, was clutching his right side and groaning.
"Ugh..."
Before I could ask any more about the man,
Jenny squeezed out from between the two of them and said to me,
"Reporting a patient. Male, estimated to be in his twenties. During combat, he was struck in the right upper abdomen by the shaft of an axe. It is blunt trauma, with no penetration from the blade."
"Student Jenny. Who is this patient?"
"A dark mage who was hiding in the Academy."
"......"
"Can you... treat him?"
***
A little while earlier.
The Hero Sisters faced the dark mages in the underground ossuary.
After discovering the dark mages, they immediately entered battle.
"Sister! There are three rank-ones and one rank-zero. Should we retreat?"
"No."
Freya, who had quickly gauged the dark mages' strength, said, breaking out in a cold sweat.
But Erica shook her head firmly.
"We can win."
It wasn’t unfounded confidence.
The most important things in a mage’s battle are symbols, catalysts, and the environment.
Take Erica’s magic teacher, Assistant Director Shen, for example. On a rainy day, he becomes more helpless than anyone else.
Of course, there are the rare mages who can overcome their environment.
But that isn't even worth discussing before rank three.
At the very least, beings below rank two were not ones that could ignore their environment.
"I didn’t rush in without thinking, Freya."
In that sense, all the conditions were in the sisters’ favor.
The Curse of Plague, the signature spell of dark magic, had already been neutralized for the most part in this era.
Not only did vaccines render almost all of it useless,
but even if it did work, penicillin handled most cases.
Erica had also taken penicillin in advance, taking that into account before going in.
Their countermeasures against the necromancy lineage and mental magic were also perfect.
"Why else would I have brought Senior Jenny?"
Old-style holy magic is extremely, extremely strong against dark magic other than the plague branch.
Spells that used impurity and wickedness as their symbols tended to be helpless before old-style holy magic.
In particular, old-style holy priests who lived and breathed holiness were practically the natural enemies of dark mages.
"Just having Senior Jenny breathe will make subduing the dark mages far more comfortable than before."
As she said that, Erica looked at Jenny with an expectant face.
Under her junior's bright-eyed gaze, Jenny scratched her cheek awkwardly and said,
"Uh... I think I get what you’re expecting from me, junior, but lately my life has been pretty far from clean..."
"Huh? Senior?"
"Ah, don’t worry. I can just forcibly squeeze out holy power."
Not having enough symbols does not mean holy magic can’t be used.
It just means the energy cost becomes much higher.
In other words, if you have overwhelming holy power, you can make it work somehow.
"Still, I’m not great at prolonged battles like you’re imagining, so finish it quickly."
"If that’s all, then no problem, Senior."
Erica tightened her grip on her hand axe and glared at the dark mages.
"I’ll make short work of them in five minutes."
"Short work? Why are you suddenly talking about short work?"
"Sister, your word choice could use some..."
Before Freya could even say anything,
Erica immediately charged toward the dark mages.
This was to force a close-quarters brawl, Erica’s specialty.
"Block her, mongrel!"
"Tch."
At Belgian's command, the wolfman with bear-like arms immediately stepped forward.
As he unleashed the chimera tattoo carved into his left arm, the flesh of his arms and legs began to wriggle.
'Red hair and red eyes. So this is that Red Demon who’s been hunting my kin.'
The wolfman Baltazan recalled the information he had gathered on Erica.
A Hero known for hunting only the chimera faction among the dark mages trapped in the Academy.
Baltazan had also memorized her combat style.
Her main weapons were a hand axe and a dagger.
Rather than fighting stubbornly like a knight or swordsman, she was said to fight with quick footwork and explosive speed.
'Fighting a Hero wasn’t in the plan, but...'
The wolfman Baltazan is a chimera user.
And the strategy of chimera users is simple.
Rock, paper, scissors.
If the opponent throws scissors, he transforms into a chimera that corresponds to rock.
'I should go with skin that the axe blade won’t cut through easily.'
As a rank-one, Baltazan had three kinds of chimeras to choose from.
For a rank-one, that was quite a lot, and at the very least enough for rock-paper-scissors to work.
Just before Erica’s axe dug into his flesh, he changed his body into clay-like skin.
The skin of a mud slime that lived in swamps.
Against sharp bladed weapons, he could expect near-invulnerability...
Bang—
"Huh?"
Baltazan’s thoughts could not continue.
Because at the same time a single gunshot rang out from his waist, he felt his side grow warm.
It wasn’t just any ordinary bullet.
The same dreadful round that had crippled rank-two Belgian.
That bullet was tearing through Baltazan’s insides.
"Uh... why is this... happening... to me...?"
Erica didn’t answer, and instead crossed over Baltazan and plunged into the middle of the dark mages.
First, a kick packed with battle aura to the face of the dark mage with dark circles, who was flustered because the Curse of Plague had misfired.
"Kuhk...!"
Then an axe strike to the shoulder of the female dark mage who had tried to interfere with Erica’s blood.
"Kyaaah!!!"
And finally, to the dark mage who was striking a pose in the very back...
"Hiiik! Don’t shoot! I surrender! I surrender!"
"......?"
"Just not that bullet! Please, just not that bullet!"
There was one dark mage who was practically having a seizure, foaming at the mouth.
It was none other than Belgian.
At that reaction, Erica tilted her head and pointed the muzzle at Belgian.
"Eek!"
With his face drained of color, Belgian fled from the muzzle.
The sight gave Erica the impression of a cockroach running away from a person.
Then, as Erica looked at Belgian, his eyes widened.
"You... don’t tell me...?"
"You know me?"
"Of course I do! I apologize! For everything, including what happened that day!"
Belgian, with Erica's muzzle trained on him, prostrated himself on the ground and begged.
"I was wrong! So please!"
If they’d been other Hero candidates, they might even have tried to resist.
But Erica was not.
That day—the day she had been brought down from her life as a genius dark mage.
It was exactly the same as that day.
The blessed bullet that had been lodged in her leg, the one that had turned her into a cripple.
To Belgian, Erica—holding that blessed bullet and standing before him, now far stronger than she had been that day—was a living nightmare.
'As if I could possibly run away!'
The plague curse?
Because of the vaccine, it would just burn through mana and fizzle out like it had that day.
Even summoning a ghoul would be useless.
Just from the look of that hand axe, it was obvious the undead he controlled would be easy to wipe out.
More than anything, it was the aura emanating from Erica.
That aura, the same one he had felt from the Blood Mage elder, had Belgian’s instincts whispering surrender.
"I’ll apologize for all the vile insults I hurled at you in the past as well!"
"Bitch?"
Clack.
At the sound of the revolver cylinder spinning, Belgian lowered his head even further and shouted,
"I’m sorry! I’ll do whatever I’m told! So please, have mercy!!"
Belgian was begging as if he were about to burrow into the ground.
Watching that, Freya tilted her head and whispered to Erica.
"Do you know him?"
"No."
"Then why is he acting like this?"
"Who knows? For now, isn’t it good that he’s not fighting?"
Unfortunately, there was no one named Belgian in Erica’s memory.
Strictly speaking, she might have been able to remember if she tried, but it was too much trouble to bother.
Maybe it was because she’d burned through so much battle aura when she charged in just now.
She was in the middle of taking Belgian’s surrender when that happened.
"Um... Erica, junior."
Jenny cautiously spoke to her.
"Do you perhaps plan to kill the dark mages?"
"No. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t really matter, but... why do you ask?"
At Erica’s question, Jenny pointed at the wolfman lying on the floor and said,
"...Could we move that person to the infirmary?"
"What? Why? He’s a dark mage."
"But..."
Jenny continued with her head bowed deeply.
"But... if we can save even a criminal, I want to save him."
"......"
"I know someone like me would probably be hard to understand. But this isn’t just simple pity..."
"I think I understand what you mean."
"Huh?"
Erica looked at Jenny for a while.
The fact that, for a brief moment, her figure seemed to overlap with a crow mask was surely no coincidence.
Limbus Pit is full of irredeemable trash.
And yet Director Shun did not refuse the patients who came.
Even now, Erica still couldn’t understand that logic,
but it didn’t change the fact that those actions had saved countless people.
That was why Erica let out a long sigh and said,
"If that’s the priest’s conviction, then it can’t be helped."
Tap tap.
She muttered while prodding the fallen wolfman.
"I don’t exactly have a hobby of finishing off opponents who are already neutralized."
After saying that, Erica immediately spoke to Freya.
"Could you call some people nearby, Freya? Let’s move the patient quickly."
*
"...This is how it happened."
After hearing Jenny’s explanation, I nodded.
In short, it was a request to treat the dark mage whose side Erica had put a hole in, so she could earn some pocket money and credits.
"Could... you not do it?"
Jenny looked up at me with anxious eyes.
I suppressed the laugh that nearly escaped, and answered without hesitation.
"If you came into the infirmary through the entrance, then from that point on you’re a patient. Have you ever seen me pick and choose my patients, Student Jenny?"
Jenny’s face visibly brightened.
I immediately sent the gunshot patient to the operating room and said,
"Rather, that’s a good mindset, Student Jenny. Be sure to keep it in mind from now on."
"Thank you... Saint."
Turning my back on Jenny, who was fidgeting as she accepted the praise,
I headed to the operating room with Ayla.