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Chapter 24
“You said you’ve been dating for three months, but it hasn’t even been a full month since you possessed him.”
“Ah!”
“Before I even asked how long you’d been dating, I was confused about whether it was real or not. So, you don’t need to worry about your acting skills.”
I felt sorry for Anna, who had been honest with me, but a small doubt bloomed in my mind.
She had even noticed the lie, so why was Anna accommodating me and Isis?
Anna, as the second-in-command of this survival camp, seemed to take her role very seriously. She seemed quite thorough in managing the camp’s rules.
Accepting Isis and me, outsiders full of lies, was a risk she took to some extent.
Was it truly Anna’s pure goodwill?
Or did she want something specific from me and Isis?
My mind became complicated, so I decided to ask the thing that was bothering me the most first.
“Anna, what’s your skill?”
“Huh?”
“I just realized I still don’t know what your skill is.”
“Ah, that.”
According to Marina, it was an attack-type skill. A very powerful one at that.
She said with just a few hand gestures, the creatures started convulsing and collapsed instantly.
“Sorry. It’s a bit difficult for me to explain my skill to people here, so I either just said it was an attack-type or didn’t mention it at all, and it became a habit.”
“Difficult to explain? Is it a complex ability?”
“No. It’s not that, I literally mean it’s hard to explain.”
Anna gave a wry smile.
“My skill is ‘Electricity’.”
Electricity.
It was a concept not yet generalized in this world, which basically had a medieval setting.
“So that’s why you said it was hard to explain.”
Anna let out a long complaint.
“Yes. There are no electrically operated objects here, so I don’t usually have a reason to use it. I mainly use it against creatures.”
“By electrocuting them?”
“Correct.”
If the setting were modern, it would have been a much more useful skill in various aspects. It was regrettable.
“Many people often mistake it for a mental-type skill.”
“Ah, from the outside, it must look like they’re fainting on their own.”
“At first, I tried to explain it wasn’t, but later I just let them misunderstand. It turned out to be better that way.”
It probably was easier to maintain the position of second-in-command if people thought it was a mental-type skill. To keep a high position, sometimes you need the fear of those below you.
After hearing all this, I hesitated.
Should I dig deeper? Or should I be satisfied with knowing about her skill for now and wait for another opportunity?
After pondering for a bit, I thought that agonizing over it like this wouldn’t yield an answer, and carefully broached the subject.
“Anna, can I ask you a slightly sensitive question?”
“A sensitive question?”
I had opened up about my family situation, and Anna had shared her painful experiences. Even though the atmosphere was such that I could ask almost anything, her expression showed she was curious why I was being so cautious.
“Do you think this survival camp is okay as it is?”
“……What do you mean?”
Anna’s eyes sharpened in an instant. Having only received her kind gaze until now, it made me hesitate for a moment.
A sigh escaped me, but I couldn’t turn back now.
“You know what I’m trying to say.”
“……”
“……”
A heavy silence flowed between us. Anna was the first to break away from the spot.
“I already bathed yesterday, so I’ll head out first. Enjoy your bath slowly.”
“……Okay.”
She had completely abandoned the conversation. It was a clear evasion.
We didn’t exchange any words until Anna hurriedly put on her clothes and left the bathroom.
Left alone, I tried to sort out my now even more tangled thoughts, but I failed.
I hadn’t known Anna for long, but I could tell she was fundamentally a good person.
At the very least, it was certain she had a normal sense of morality.
So why wasn’t Anna imposing any sanctions on this camp’s management style? On the contrary, she just followed it thoroughly.
‘The fact that she didn’t answer when I asked probably means she isn’t exactly proud of it either, right?’
Frustrated, I thumped my head with my fist.
Luka was right.
Dealing with people was several times harder than dealing with creatures.
***
* * *
***
“Isis!”
Isis and I were able to reunite right after our baths. We were both still damp, having not dried our hair yet.
“Nothing happened, right?”
“No, nothing besides getting closer to Anna. What about you, Isis?”
“Same here.”
Just in case, I checked if any of my belongings were missing after getting dressed, but everything was in its place. There were no signs of anyone having searched through them either.
Shortly after, Anna reappeared. Fortunately, she acted as if she hadn’t heard my earlier question.
“Ria, starting today, please look after the sick. Isis, you stay by Ria’s side.”
She used formal speech. She was undoubtedly being considerate of Isis, who was beside me.
“Is there a separate infirmary?”
“There’s a place where people who are injured too severely to move are gathered. It’s almost embarrassing to call it an infirmary, as there’s practically nothing there.”
We entered the space covered by a large cloth that we had noticed while touring the camp in the morning. The moment I stepped inside, I gasped and choked back my breath.
People were sprawled out on the ground with nothing but a single white cloth beneath them.
Their limbs were covered in bruises of various colors, and wounds from being cut or torn by something were simply wrapped in cloth without any proper treatment.
Some had wounds so infected that the nearby skin was swollen taut.
If left like that, they would suffer from infection and eventually die.
“……It seems like even basic treatment hasn’t been provided, is that right?”
“…….”
In response to my cold question, Anna remained silent, unable to say anything.
“It looks like we have a lot of work to do.”
I let out a deep sigh and rolled up my sleeves. The situation looked more serious than I thought, so I needed to start acting immediately.
I went to the patient who looked the most critical first. I carefully unwrapped the cloth haphazardly wrapped around the wound and examined the condition in detail.
The severe inflammation suggested a high probability of infection.
If they had at least disinfected it, a minor wound wouldn’t have gotten this bad.
“Anna, is there no disinfectant or anything?”
“No. All the medical supplies we had were broken during the creature wave.”
Damn.
“Then, please get me some clean water, at least.”
At my words, Anna quickly brought water from somewhere.
In the meantime, I placed my hand on the patient’s arm and began using my skill. A soft light enveloped the patient’s arm, and the wound slowly began to heal.
Once the symptoms caused by the infection were treated, I stopped using the skill. The wound didn’t disappear completely, but from this point on, natural healing would be better for the patient.
“Ugh!”
As the pain in his arm vanished, the lying man startled, sat up, and soon bowed his head to me.
“Thank you, thank you so much.”
“Not at all. I’ve only treated the serious-looking wounds for now; are you okay elsewhere? I can’t see fractures or areas covered by clothes with my own eyes.”
“No, there aren’t any. Thank you so much.”
I washed the wounded area with clean water, wrapped it with cloth again, and tied it neatly.
Leaving the repeatedly thanking patient behind, I moved to the next one.
There were a great many patients to see.
***
* * *
***
The patient treatment only wrapped up to a reasonable extent after a considerable amount of time.
In the process, I gained an unexpected benefit.
[Your unique personal skill <Healing> has leveled up!]
[<Healing> Lv. 2]
[You can now treat critical injuries!]
[The efficiency of the Healing skill has increased!]
It seemed that healing so many people had properly trained my skill.
I felt drained, as if my body had gone limp from using the skill so much. Thanks to Isis’s consideration, I leaned against him to rest.
“To think I’d get my lacking skill training done like this……”
“You worked hard.”
“There were more patients than I thought.”
Even though I only selected and treated wounds that looked like they would lead to death if not treated immediately, it still took a long time.
The entire time I was treating them, I was cursing internally.
Because most of the wounds weren’t from battles or accidents, but from one-sided violence.
