NOVEL NEXT Chapter 66: Finding a medic
"Dear God, what happened?!"
Appearing way faster than I actually expected him to do, Pavlo instantly grabbed me under my shoulder, taking over a huge part of my own weight from me.
"A failed attempt at something. I would love to tell you to not pay any mind to it…But the truth is, I would use some medicinal help right now."
I didn't call for Pavlo in order to bullshit him. Tending to my wound took the priority right now given how I couldn't appear like that before any form of the crowd, no matter as small. With how volatile the relations of my faction were with both the local government and Sarate family, escalating the tension would only be counterproductive for me.
Right now, the best way to guarantee the safety and stability of my religion was to use the tools from apocalypse to insanely escalate the rate of development of my faction. Form rewarding the talented and loyal people with simple tools, through trying to back-develop them locally all the way to grooming people capable of making full use of them, the time was working in my favour.
Ultimately, the political struggle that I created didn't require me to match the level of others. All I had to do was putting the rate at which my personal and political strength grew way above their own, securing the sympathy of the wide array of social groups. And for that, escalating tensions was the last thing that I was willing to do!
"I can see that myself. Come, we have some paramedic nearby. While he was supposed to deal with any construction-related injuries… I don't think any other way to explain your wound than by some unfortunate event. Do you want me to set up the location for it?"
Noticing how this daring young man managed to fit both the proposition of faking the reason of my own injury and his intention to craft the evidence for an event that didn't happen, I felt my lips curving upwards. As strange as it could sound to praise a former mobster, there was no denying that in terms of organisation, he was truly a genius of his kind.
With those thoughts in my mind, I followed Pavlo through the complicated mess of corridors. On the plan, the mansion was supposed to be pretty easy to move around, but with all the construction materials quite often blocking the natural path, the distance that should take us at most two minutes to cover actually ended up as a half-an-hour long journey.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
Smashing his fist against the door that I didn't even know existed already, Pavlo didn't bother waiting or any response from inside. Pushing the handle of the door, the young master of Baskar family simply waltzed right into the room, instantly stirring up some attention.
"Can't you wait for a single god-damned second? You scared me so much I nearly cut this man another smile on his belly!"
Still holding a bloodied scalpel in his hand, the man returned to his workstation right after commenting on our rude behaviour. With how the medic's attention instantly focused all on the patient lying on his table I quickly realised that there was no point in trying to talk to him now.
Only after a long while did the medic appeared to be finished with his previous case. Finally reaching the point where I could experience the honours of the man carefully watching my wound at any moment I didn't dare to keep pretending I wasn't asleep.
"Come on in now."
After splashing a bucket-worth of freshwater at the special seat that the medic was used to operate on, the man finally pointed his finger at me before moving it above the long chair. Faced with no other choice I could only follow his commands while hoping that my rather extensive blood loss wouldn't affect my health too rigidly.
Sitting on the chair definitely felt weird, especially with Pavlo sending me worried looks from the side. But the true horror started when the medic actually took a look at my wound before speaking out.
"I can clean and disinfect it… But there is something etched in the flesh itself. I can't tell what it is... "
At this point, it was pretty easy to understand what actually happened. The look of disbelief on Pavlo's face mixed with the sight of the powerlessness on the medic's expression was far more than enough for me to understand what was going on.
There was only one thing that could make humans from the earth make such a puzzled expression. And it was magic. From that point, the conclusion was pretty simple to uncover.
Somehow the sword that cut my flesh apart was enhanced with some kind of spell, putting a wizard-based course on the wound and preventing it from healing properly!
But just as ingenious this kind of weapon enchantment would be, it also meant that only my own lack of determination was stopping me from solving my own problem. Someone once said that the first step of dealing with a problem is recognising that there is one. And in my case, that step was more than enough.
"Give me a moment…"
Throwing this short sentence to the medic, I scanned the area around me. Amidst the medic's tools, one object brought my attention. Using a gentle repulsion to pull it towards my hand, I made sure the blade of the small knife was empty before raising it towards my forehead.
And then, I cut my entire wound away.
At first, it was painful as heck. It was so bad that for a moment I even though about swaling my own tongue just to make this pain go away. Thankfully, whenever that kind of dark thoughts would appear in my mind, they would do so in presence of the smiling Ayda.
And just like that, the perspective of returning to her warm and loving embrace was just enough to let me suffer through the worst part of the pain related to my wound.
"That can work as well. I'm sorry for doubting your determination, sir."
Instantly jumping to pull out some more tools and even some potions, the local medicine then followed with cleaning my wound and applying some kind of ointment to it before wrapping the whole thing with a simple bandage. Only then did the pain of my cut away flesh managed to disappear, replaced by a soothing sensation of delicate warmth from the medicine.
From then on, the rest was pretty simple. With my wound now treated I only learned how it would most likely leave a quite distributing scar on my face. As bad as it felt at first, it took me only a while to notice one thing.
The potions of earth seemed to be actually far greater than the ones produced locally in the foreign worlds. Compared to herbs that Ayda's student was using to tend the girl's wounds, the crystalline flask seems to be a better choice.
Sadly, just like medic suggested, even the potions were unable to stop an ugly scar from reappearing.