Chapter 62
Rumors were truly frightening.
By the time I had treated almost all the injured homeless people around the river, a bustling crowd of all kinds of sick people and patients had formed around me.
"Saint!! Please, please treat me!!"
"I can't see!"
"Please help me!!"
Now I had done this so much that I had a sense of how to handle it.
"Those who have been treated, please help me! Make lines! Bring critically ill patients and children to me first! If it's chaotic, more people will only get hurt!!"
"Yes! We'll do that!!"
"Peter!! Anna!!"
As I shouted while frantically treating people, the family I first treated approached me.
I pat Jim and Amy's heads, then give orders to the couple.
"You know my house, right? Here's the key, go in and bring the pouch I put under the bed. There's gold inside."
"G-gold?"
"Buy food with it and distribute it to people."
I could always ask for more gold later.
I had already done the deed.
It probably wouldn't take long for the imperial family and the Pantheon to hear about me and fly over.
I planned to generously distribute the gold I had received, thinking I could ask for more gold then and run away.
"Understood."
I smiled at the couple who blankly received the key from me.
"And use that gold to have a good meal with your family and put Amy and Jim to bed. You've been through a lot, so you need to eat well and sleep well. Okay?"
At my words, the couple seemed to choke up, clenching their fists and trembling.
Don't tremble like that.
If anything, I'm the one who's sorry.
I could have saved you earlier, but I couldn't because of my circumstances.
"W-we'll do that."
"For now, you two go get some sleep, too. Don't overdo it when you've just recovered. Okay?"
"Thank you, Saint. We'll never forget this."
Even after Peter's family disappeared with my key, I continued to focus on treating people.
"Those who have been treated, please sort the incoming patients and bring me urgent cases and children first!!"
"Order! Form lines! We can treat more efficiently if you form lines!!"
One week.
I'll do this for just one week and then leave.
I absolutely won't treat anyone more than that.
The power in my soul mustn't grow any larger by consuming more faith.
So I had to treat as many people as possible in a short time.
I treated people day and night.
When my body became terribly tired, I used Body Modification on myself to remove the fatigue, and when it was my mind rather than my body that became too tired, I would lie down for a short nap.
But no matter how I did that, for some reason I was feeling more and more devastated.
"Saint! Please treat my daughter!!"
"My son is sick!!"
"My 7-year-old daughter is sick! Saint! Saint!!"
Children.
I didn't know why there were so many children.
Children with severed legs.
Children with burst eyes.
Children without arms.
Children whose muscles have melted so they couldn't even walk properly.
The reasons the parents told me while sobbing were all appalling.
"While working 16-hour shifts, she was so tired she got pulled into the machine..."
"While cleaning chimneys, he inhaled toxic gas and lost his sight."
"Even though the child was injured, the factory didn't pay a single penny in compensation, Saint."
I frantically treated and treated children.
An era where even 3-year-olds were made to work.
And an era where those children worked 16 hours a day and got injured because they couldn't endure the fatigue and got pulled into machines.
Cases where just an arm or leg was lost were rather fortunate.
I heard it was common for children to be completely pulled into machines and disappear without a trace because they were so small.
Children who worked in textile factories sometimes grew deformed with twisted bones from excessive labor and walked with a limp, and there were children who became blind from exposure to chemicals while working without proper sleep.
As I treated more and more, sadness and anger slowly began to grow in my heart.
Making money?
It was important.
I knew that well.
But no matter what, there was a line that existed.
This was clearly a situation that had crossed that line, and far beyond it.
Moreover, what made me even sadder was the attitude of the workers who couldn't fully rejoice even after being treated.
"Will you be staying here long, Saint?"
"Now that my body is healed, I have to go back to the factory to work, but I might lose my hand or go blind again."
"It seems I'll have to come for treatment again. Can you stay here for a long time? I really don't have any money no matter what, but I'll work like today to help you, Saint."
It was disgusting.
It was so disgusting it made me want to vomit.
The greed of humans who produced injured and suffering humans on a city-wide scale, not just one or two, was disgusting.
The attitude of putting young children who should be playing and growing up well into heavy labor that even Korean loading/unloading part-time jobs probably wouldn't do, and exploiting them without even paying proper wages is so disgusting.
I understood why people carrying red books kept appearing endlessly.
I understood why the police tried to beat them down.
It was a crazy era.
And the upper class of this city, more greedy than anyone else.
The people called factory owners.
I did my best.
I desperately treated and treated people injured by their greed, even reducing my eating and sleeping time.
But no matter how much I struggled, there was a limit.
"Saint!! My daughter!! My daughter!!"
A mother ran to me holding her young daughter.
"She's been feverish since getting injured at the factory!! Please save her!!"
A young child with one arm crushed was held out in front of me.
I hurriedly place my hand on her, but.
[Skills including Body Modification can only be used on living creatures!!]
[Can only be used on living creatures!!]
She was dead.
Another life had slipped away that I couldn't save.
I couldn't bear to see the mother's devastated face and turned my head away.
"It's already too late."
"Ah...! Aaah!!"
"Please bury her well. She has passed away."
"P-please!! Please perform a miracle! She was alive just this morning!! Saint! Please, a miracle!!"
There was no way to resurrect an already dead corpse.
Seeing the desperate face of the mother who couldn't give up hope until the end, holding out her child's corpse to me and sobbing, made me feel like I was about to collapse, too.
"I'm sorry."
When I declared with a trembling voice that there was nothing more I could do, a beastly wail erupted.
They called it the grief of losing a child.
The heartbroken cry of a parent who had lost their child was so painful it was hard to listen to.
"If only… if only you had come a little earlier. Why…?"
At the mother's words, spoken in a trembling voice between sobs, something inside me felt like it was about to burst.
Even after the mother who fainted from crying disappeared, supported by people around, I stared at the spot where she had been standing for a long time.
"Why... aren't there any hospitals in this city?"
At my words, the people I had treated burst into bitter laughter.
"There are. Probably the best doctors in the empire are here. Because there are many people who inherently dislike religion in this neighborhood, medicine has developed a lot."
"Then why…?"
"It's expensive. The medicine is expensive, and the doctors are even more expensive. It's not a place that workers like us can possibly visit."
Right.
Of course.
Why wouldn't it be like that?
No, if one tormented and mistreated people to this extent, wasn't it natural that people changed strangely and looked at red books?
I knew all too well how this flow ended.
I knew all too well how a society that rejected magic, faith, and religion ended up when it rotted due to endless greed.
They'd split into red and blue factions and fight to the death, and as a result, both the red faction and the blue faction would become places where the socially weak found it difficult to live.
In the end, the blue faction would win, but thinking about the enormous amount of blood that would be spilled in the process made me dizzy for a moment.
What on earth am I saving people for?
There needed to be a solution at a more fundamental level.
Without that, my treatment would be nothing more than meaningless flailing.
These people would get hurt again, and eventually the festering social conflicts would explode, and they'd struggle for paradise, but in the end only a hell-like ending awaited them.
What should I do?
What can I, who only has adult game skills, do to make these people's lives a little better?
The thought of treating for just one week and then running away had half disappeared from my mind.
The sadness and anger of these people that I had seen in a short time was too enormous and terrible to just treat them briefly without responsibility and then run away.
I had to do something.
While I was caught up in such thoughts.
More precisely, exactly two days after I started treating people.
"Move aside!! Move aside, you vermin!"
The city police arrived in front of me, pushing away the patients.
After roughly pushing away the young girl I was treating, police armed with guns and clubs surrounded me.
"Are you Jericho Amael, known as the Saint of Healing in the capital?"
With my hair disheveled from not sleeping or eating properly for two days, I slowly looked up at the police.
"Yes, that's me."
"Let me ask you one thing. Do you have a medical license?"
"No, I don't."
"Then you're performing illegal free medical treatments, aren't you? This is clearly illegal, Mr. Amael. And more than that, your actions are infringing on the interests of the city's pharmaceutical companies and the doctors' union."
"..."
"This is a serious violation of imperial law. It's stated in imperial law that if you cause serious damage to businesses through unauthorized activities, you can be punished by imperial law, and the level of punishment is delegated to the head of the relevant region."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Please leave the city. If not, we'll have no choice but to interrogate you for causing serious damage to businesses. You're currently suspected of being a laborist. I don't want to interrogate you, who is favored by the Pantheon and the imperial family, as a laborist either."
A bitter laugh escaped me.
A laborist?
Are the ones who produced these numerous sick and injured people trying to drive me out using me as an excuse?
"Will you be interrogated? Or will you quietly leave the city?"
At the police officer's words, the patients around started to murmur.
"Ah, my daughter hasn't been treated yet!!"
"Please heal me!! I can't see because I'm blind! Saint!!"
"Please heal my son!! Don't leave!!"
At the voices of the patients, the corners of the police officer's eyes turned up sharply.
"Do you all want to be arrested on suspicion of being laborists and dragged away? Do you want to live in a camp?"
At the fierce roar, the ingrained fear seemed to resurface, and the patients started to flinch and step back.
"Free medical treatment and welfare guaranteed by society!! Aren't those all things laborists go around shouting about!! The mental state of you lot trying to get free treatment is seriously suspicious. Step back if you don't want to all live in camps!!"
After suppressing the patients so easily, the police turned their gaze towards me.
"Please leave quietly, Mr. Amael. Don't incite these trash of the city and cause disadvantages to businesses and factories. This is a strict violation of imperial law."
At the irritated expression telling me to hurry up and disappear, I burst into laughter.
My anger had crossed the critical point.
These pharmaceutical companies and doctors' unions that had produced so many sick people by not providing proper treatment until now were trying to drive me out because they lost a tiny bit of profit?
That could happen.
That condescending tone towards me?
That could happen, too.
That attitude of not forgiving even an ant's tear worth of loss for the haves while not caring at all whether the have-nots live or die?
That could happen, too.
But you know what.
"Trash?"
Calling those desperate people over there trash.
"Don't incite the trash of the city and cause chaos?"
That, I could not tolerate.
That, I really could not tolerate at all.
I applied Time Stop around the neck of the one who seemed to be the police leader who had been shouting until now.
And as I slowly started to lift the stopped space upwards, the guy started to float up into the air as if caught by telekinesis.
"Gack!! W-what are you doing…!!"
Towards the guy flailing in the air, I exploded with the anger I had been holding back all this time.
Trash?
No.
"These are people I've treated. These are people I will treat and have decided to take care of!"
You lot are the trash.
"Don't call those I have compassion for dirty!!"
The anger that had been building up inside me for two days burst out in a tremendous roar.