IUFSUS 02

Chapter 2

Have You Ever Seen a Saint Who Is Ugly?

Just because a man is an adult doesn’t mean he feels less pain than an old or weak person. If you get stabbed or cut, it hurts the same.

A curse is no different. Judging from the diagnosis, the patient must currently feel as if his whole body is being crushed.

A curse normally clings to a person secretly, slowly draining their strength bit by bit. And if a priest notices it, it just hides away like a rat.

But the black curse on this patient was openly showing off its presence.

It was as if it was saying it would never be broken by any healer.

From the patient’s mouth, instead of groans, screams, or cries, there was only the sound of teeth grinding so hard they might break. He was a tough person.

That was probably why he was able to endure even such a cruel curse.

It was tiring, boring, and unpaid work, but seeing the patient stubbornly enduring against such an arrogant curse gave me a little motivation.

“Please stay quiet for 30 seconds.”

“……”

The patient clenched his teeth and went silent, as if he could still hear my voice.

The attendant was already close to tears, unable to hold back his anxiety, but at least he kept his mouth shut.

Good. Let’s focus.

I closed my eyes to recover even a little of my healing uses. To others, it probably just looked like I was dozing off.

Trying to heal with zero remaining uses was pointless. I wanted to recover even one spare use before trying.

Just a little… a few more seconds…

Just as the tent became quiet for once, the noise outside grew louder.

“Hey, is the situation okay? It’s been a while. Is the healer inside doing a good job?”

“Hey, you idiot! Don’t go in! It’s a treatment in progress!”

“A trainee won’t be enough anyway! Is Lieutenant Oliver coming soon?”

Voices circled around the tent but no one came in. There was still no sign of a replacement healer.

It would be hard to find a healer with spare healing uses in the middle of the night.

If anything, only a night guard duty healer would be available.

And that duty… was me.

Judging from the knights outside, the patient seemed to be someone important. Not royalty, but definitely a noble.

“Yaaawn…”

My concentration broke completely. I yawned right in front of the patient struggling with severe pain.

The attendant now looked like he was deciding whether to strangle me with his hands or with a rope.

To be fair, today I had spent the whole day healing trainee knights, doing marching practice, making bandages, and standing night guard.

In short, I was exhausted.

As my focus dropped, my motivation scattered too.

“Let’s just start treatment.”

I had planned to follow the textbook, but I needed to use an emergency method I normally avoided.

I tapped the patient’s left arm and brushed away some of the black curse burning on it. Get out of the way, curse.

All healers keep a small amount of healing reserved for themselves. I decided to use a bit of that. Not all of it. Just a little.

It was truly an “emergency method,” not something to use often. There were also some side effects.

But right now, I was too tired to care.

As I pushed the curse away, the bare skin finally appeared. I grabbed the patient’s left arm tightly with my left hand and started healing.

“……”

I could feel the muscles twitching in pain through my palm.

I suddenly snapped awake.

I had almost fallen asleep.

Despite my will, my brain was already half asleep. Strange words came out of my mouth.

“Good night…”

Did I even say the healing spell correctly just now?

Probably… I must have.

My eyelids were too heavy to open properly, and my vision dimmed. My head kept nodding like I was bowing.

Let’s finish quickly and go sleep.

I gathered my strength into my palm and poured it into the patient’s body.

My power drove out the curse that had been controlling the patient’s body and took its place.

Hey, curse bastards. This arm is mine now.

Got a problem with that?

Get lost.

Get out!

I “fixed” the patient’s left arm. Something I had done countless times. It was also the job everyone expected from a healer.

After finishing what felt like the final task of the day, my strength completely drained.

Now I can go sleep.

I’m going to sleep!

I left the tent without even looking back, reporting to everyone in my vision that I had done enough healing.

I staggered like a zombie into the trainee dorm, still wearing my robe and hood. I collapsed without washing and fell asleep like I was knocked out. About three hours later, I was shaken awake.

That was normal.

The training camp always woke healers up for everything—training, patients, night shifts, everything.

So I didn’t immediately understand what was happening after I woke up.

Well, isn’t that obvious? People can’t think properly while sleeping.

My sleep deprivation was so bad that I was half out of my mind before falling asleep.

So I couldn’t blame my judgment from last night.

When I woke up, the camp was already turned upside down looking for the anonymous “left-arm specialist.”

“Cookie.”

I said it without thinking. I was holding something I had just received with both hands, still confused.

It was a beautifully colored pastry with sweet jam on top.

From ancient times, honey, cream, and sugar were things that had nothing to do with a rural training camp.

I stood there blankly and felt an obligation to comment on this unfamiliar pastry.

“It’s a cookie.”

“It’s a madeleine.”

Why does a cookie have a more elegant name than me?

The light brown baked pastry smelled so sweet it felt like it would melt on my tongue.

But I couldn’t just eat it.

This was clearly a trap.

I couldn’t eat it due to a strong sense of suspicion that I shouldn’t fall for it easily.

The healer training camp had been noisy since early morning. Only in the afternoon did it finally calm down.

I had been quietly doing my duties without making a sound.

Then I was personally called by Lieutenant Oliver.

Inside the office, surprisingly, there was only Lieutenant Oliver.

I had expected a group of knights causing chaos, but there was no one else.

As soon as I entered, he silently handed me the pastry on his desk and sat down.

He took a sip of tea and spoke in a relaxed tone.

“Shu, go on a deployment. One month.”

“…Lieutenant. I have one main question and a few follow-up questions.”

“Listen to the mission first.”

The assignment was for one month. The client was the noble patient from yesterday and his attendant.

The mission was to accompany the patient on his way home because his condition was worrying.

However, since the military forces serving the king could not be freely borrowed without royal permission, they requested that only one trainee be assigned as a special favor.

“So basically. No one else. Not another healer. Just me. That’s it?”

The lieutenant nodded.

After thinking, I came to a conclusion.

It seemed I really had made a huge mistake while treating that noble patient yesterday.

I should’ve prepared to desert earlier.

Since this morning, I had felt an uneasy sensation at the back of my neck. I instinctively thought something had gone wrong and blamed the knight from last night, the source of everything.

I tried to hide among other soldiers, acting like I didn’t exist.

But unfortunately, the patient’s attendant remembered my body shape, speech, specialty, and voice perfectly.

There were two likely reasons they identified me: either I caused a side effect, or I healed too well.

…Judging from the situation, it didn’t seem like a treatment accident.

It was probably that the left arm had been healed too well in a strange way. So the lieutenant calmly called me in and explained the deployment request.

This madeleine or whatever was probably a warning: “Why did you hide until the afternoon and let the unit turn upside down?”

I tried my best to think of a way to protect myself.

“You’re not seriously sending me alone, right? There’s a rule that healer deployments must have at least two escorts!”

Healer kidnappings are a common crime. I need at least two knights to protect me!

That’s an old military law, but it clearly says “healer escort duty.”

These days, trainee healers are treated like medicine boxes in storage, but the law is still the law.

I pointed out the biggest problem in the deployment. Logic always works.

But Lieutenant Oliver responded with logic as well.

“They are not official soldiers, but a noble knight and his attendant. They are sufficient as escort personnel.”

“Why does that count as two?! That’s basically zero combined!”

“Even if the patient is still recovering, his left arm seems mostly healed.”

“Th-that’s just temporary—”

“They were quite impressed by the unusually effective temporary healing.”

I was so frustrated I couldn’t even speak properly.

So I really did heal it… while half asleep…

But even if all the blame was on me for showing too much skill—

A patient, a healer, and an attendant. Just three people traveling the Lykan Road to the capital?

And I have to come back on my own?

This is the result of all my hard work?

I admit I’ve been lazy and unmotivated during training lately, but still!

I crushed the cookie in my hand in anger.

They were basically telling me to go out and get stabbed for the price of this useless cookie!

“Deployment reward is one thousand gold coins.”

“…!”