Chapter 89

The next day, when Ricardo went to the Magic Guild, the Refinement Bureau was bustling. Wondering what was going on, he looked for Tania to ask for the reason.

"Isarco is recruiting people to go to the town of Kilmon for support," Tania said.

"I heard the pirates have retreated. Why are they going?" Ricardo asked.

"It seems there are many injured survivors. They need help with treatment," Tania replied.

In this country, medical care is provided by magicians who specialize in pharmaceutical medicine and the magic of [Life]. However, there are few of them, and it seems the Magic Guild wants to send their magicians to Kilmon.

Isarco gathered the researchers of the Refinement Bureau and called out to those who had mastered the magic of [Life], asking them to go to Kilmon with him to help treat the injured.

Few researchers responded to Isarco's call. Isarco then approached Ricardo and Tania.

"Ricardo and Tania, you have mastered the magic of [Life], haven't you?" Isarco asked.

"Yes," they both replied.

"I need your help. Can you go to Kilmon to assist with the treatment?" Isarco pleaded.

"Are there that many injured people?" Ricardo asked.

"Yes, it seems there is a shortage of magical doctors," Isarco replied with a grim face. The town of Kilmon must be in a terrible state.

The Enforcement Bureau and the General Affairs Bureau had received orders from the king to participate in the security of the coastal towns. It seemed only the people of the Refinement Bureau were left.

"Understood. If my magic can be of use, I will go," Ricardo said.

"I will go too," Tania added.

Ricardo and Tania decided to go to Kilmon. They returned home to prepare, packing clothes and other necessities. When they told their families they were going to Kilmon, they were worried, but Ricardo reassured them that the pirates were gone.

They decided to entrust the care of the children at the breeding facility to a nearby housewife. Education would be on hold, but there was no other choice.

On the way to the meeting place, they bought a large amount of flour, potatoes, carrots, onions, and meat from the long-horned cattle, storing them in their storage crystals in case there was a food shortage in Kilmon.

They gathered in front of the north gate of the Magic Guild and set out from the capital, led by Isarco. The team consisted of Isarco, Ricardo, Tania, Raymond, and Mauri. Mauri was a young female researcher who was good friends with Tania and was researching the magic of [Life].

Ricardo and the others headed to Kilmon in a carriage prepared by Isarco.

To get to Kilmon, one could either go through Rurices in the east of the capital or through the port town of Jibuka. Since the distance was shorter via Rurices, they chose that route.

Ricardo, hearing that the orders given to the Enforcement Bureau and the General Affairs Bureau were from the king, wondered about the relationship between the royal family and the Magic Guild and asked Isarco.

"The Magic Guild and the royal family have a certain contract," Isarco said.

"A contract?"

"Yes. In exchange for allowing us to operate freely within the country, we have a contract to assist the royal family and the country in times of crisis."

"This is considered a crisis, then?"

"Yes, I've heard that two out of ten people in the town were killed. It's an emergency."

The people who were killed had chosen to hide inside their homes rather than flee the town.

After being shaken and attacked in the carriage for a while, they finally arrived at Rurices when their buttocks were sore.

"We'll stay here for the night and head to Kilmon early the next morning," Isarco told everyone. Ricardo and the others booked a room and went to bed early.

The next morning, they set out for Kilmon.

"I should have brought a cushion," Ricardo said.

Isarco looked at Ricardo and smiled.

"You don't seem used to riding in carriages."

"If it was this bumpy, we should have gone by ship to Kilmon."

"By ship, it would be a detour, and we would arrive later."

"With the small boat from the breeding facility, we would arrive faster than by carriage. But there's a risk of encountering pirates."

"No, I don't think you need to worry about pirates. They don't attack small boats."

Hearing this, Ricardo started to think that he should have gone by ship.

When they arrived in Kilmon, what Ricardo and the others saw were the remains of the town burned by magic.

Isarco, with a voice squeezed from the depths of his stomach, said,

"Pirates..."

The fire had been extinguished, but the smell of burning still lingered in the air.

"Councilor Isarco, the injured who need treatment come first," Ricardo reminded him.

Ricardo and the others headed to the temple of the Earth Mother Goddess Valur, where the injured were gathered. The temple was made of stone and had survived the fire.

Inside the temple, dozens of people were waiting for treatment, groaning in pain.

Isarco caught a priest and told him that they were from the Magic Guild and could use the magic of [Life].

"You're a lifesaver. Those who could use the magic of [Life] were killed, and we were running out of medicine," the priest said.

The priests who worked in the temple's infirmary had been killed by the pirates.

The magicians scattered and began treating the injured. Ricardo took up a position in the northeast corner of the temple and started treating the injured.

The first patient had a sword wound on his back. The priests had applied medicine and bandaged the wound, but it was still open and bleeding.

Ricardo removed the bandage and examined the wound. The condition was not good, and it was clear that someone without medical knowledge had treated it.

Seeing the wound did not make Ricardo feel sick. He was used to blood from dissecting magical beasts.

Ricardo's medical knowledge was limited, but he knew this wound needed to be stitched. He had brought a needle and thread just in case. The needle was a simple one, bent into a semicircle. He had made it as a precaution but had never used it before, so it was stored in his storage crystal.

Ricardo used the magic of [Paralysis] to block the patient's pain, then washed the wound with water from a cup, carefully wiping it clean with a clean cloth to avoid damaging the blood vessels.

The patient, who would normally be in pain, was quiet due to the magic of [Paralysis]. A priest watching asked,

"Why isn't he in pain?"

"Because I used the magic of [Paralysis]."

"Is that so? I've never seen it before."

After cleaning the wound, Ricardo began stitching it with the needle and thread. His first stitch was hesitant, and his hand trembled. Determined, he inserted the needle near the wound and began stitching.

The stitches were clumsy due to his lack of practice, but the wound was closed.

A priest who had been watching with wide eyes was amazed.

After applying the magic of [Healing], the wound began to heal at the cellular level.

"Treatment complete."

Meanwhile, Tania was treating a similar sword wound by cleaning the wound and immediately applying the magic of [Healing]. The wound, which was wide open, began to close, but the patient felt a pulling sensation and some pain, causing him to cry out and try to move.

"Don't move," Tania said, desperately holding the patient down. The priests also helped. In the end, they had to apply the magic of [Healing] two or three times.

By the time Ricardo finished, priests and patients had gathered around him, watching in amazement. The technique of stitching wounds was rare in this world, where the magic of [Healing] existed, and medical techniques for treating the injured had not developed much.

Seeing this, Isarco directed the more seriously injured patients who needed stitching to Ricardo and instructed the others to treat burns and bruises.

The next patient brought to Ricardo was a small boy with a cut on his left shoulder. Ricardo clenched his lips, suppressing his anger.

"To think they would attack a child... I can't forgive that."

"It hurts..." the boy said, tears streaming down his face.

"Don't worry, I'll heal you," Ricardo said, continuing the treatment while feeling anger building up inside him.

About two hours into the treatment, some of the magicians began to run out of magic power, reducing the number of those who could treat the injured. Tania also ran out of magic power and began helping Ricardo.

"Tania, please clean the wounds," Ricardo said.

"Got it."

When only Ricardo and Isarco were left to treat the injured, it took about an hour to finish treating everyone. However, not everyone could be saved. Some died before treatment was completed, and the room in the temple where they were treated had a heavy atmosphere.

But the people who were saved expressed their gratitude to the magicians. Their words were the only support for the magicians who were feeling down.

After finishing the treatment, Tania, relieved, asked,

"Where did you learn such a treatment method?"

Ricardo knew how to treat injuries because he had been injured and treated before. He had learned about wound care during a week-long hospital stay.

"I learned a little from a magical doctor I met while in the Fabius territory," Ricardo said.

"Envious. Ricardo has been blessed with good teachers," Tania said.

Ricardo made a subtle face. He had only truly become a disciple of the magician Alessandro in the Fabius territory.

Outside the temple, it was dark. The magicians were to stay in the temple, and Ricardo was given a small room to rest in. For dinner, they were given preserved food.

It wasn't very appetizing, but considering it was provided from limited supplies, they couldn't afford to waste it.

Exhausted from the unfamiliar treatment, Ricardo fell asleep as soon as he lay down on the bed.

The next day, they continued the treatment. New patients with less severe injuries came for treatment. After a break, Ricardo and Tania walked around the town.

"What are they doing over there?" Tania asked, seeing soldiers digging holes.

Ricardo looked and his face stiffened. He knew what they were doing.

"Probably digging graves."

"Graves? ...Yes, but so many..."

There were more dead than Ricardo and Tania had imagined.

Tania, still looking at the grave holes, asked,

"Why did the pirates kill so many?"

"I don't understand... No, I don't want to understand!"

Tania was surprised by Ricardo's unusually angry tone.

"You're rarely angry, Ricardo."

"Seeing people killed unjustly reminds me of the past."

Tania remembered that Ricardo's father had been killed by the orc tribe. But what Ricardo was remembering was his wife and daughter who had been hit and run.

With hearts heavy with sadness and anger, they walked around the town and returned to the temple.

Ricardo had given the food he brought to the people in the temple and asked them to use it for a communal meal. The temple was serving a meal made from the meat of the long-horned cattle, similar to a dumpling soup.

Tired-looking people were receiving the food from the priests. The priests had made a soup with the meat of the long-horned cattle.

Ricardo and the others also received the soup and ate to fill their stomachs.

The next day, they removed the stitches from the patients they had treated the first day and treated those with minor burns. After treating all the injured, the group of magicians left Kilmon and headed back to the capital.

Back in the capital, Ricardo seriously considered building the small armored high-speed ship he had proposed to General Samuele. The scenes he had seen in Kilmon were still in his mind, and he felt he needed to do something about the pirates.

He completed the magic furnace by integrating a magic circuit into the stove-type combustion chamber that had arrived from the Galofaro workshop. He lit a fire in the combustion chamber with firewood. As the firewood burned and the temperature of the combustion chamber rose, the magic circuit engraved on the white dragonstone converted the thermal energy into magic power, which began to flow through the wires connected to the magic furnace.

The wires were connected to a magic-driven flywheel, which began to rotate.

"Good, it's a success for now."

Ricardo smiled and nodded in satisfaction.

"With this, we can connect it to an outboard motor and develop a full-fledged powered boat. The remaining tasks are the weapons and armor."

For the weapons, he planned to use the magic cannon staff with the [Thunder Vortex Steel Bullet]. He had solved the problem of the composite attribute color rod by finding a research result in the Magic Guild's library that showed that the black dragonstone, when crushed into powder and dissolved in water, could be used to coat parts of the rod that should not be magic-coated.

The black dragonstone only accepted magic power of the [Air] attribute or colorless magic power and repelled magic power of other attribute colors. Using this property, he created a composite attribute color rod and completed a low-cost magic cannon staff.

After several test firings to ensure there were no malfunctions, he produced ten of the same type and sent them to Prince Gaius via General Samuele.

Upon receiving a notification from the shipyard that the small boat was complete, Ricardo brought the outboard motor and magic furnace to the shipyard.

The shipwright, Master Carbon, was surprised when he saw the outboard motor and magic furnace.

"What are these?"

Ricardo explained the outboard motor and magic furnace.

"Wow, you've made such things."

Master Carbon took the lead in installing the outboard motor and magic furnace, learning their functions as he helped.

"We need to test it. Let me ride with you."

"Sure."

The two small boats were transformed into small powered boats.

The small powered boats had a small cockpit and an engine room, with a shelf for the magic furnace and firewood in the engine room. The engine room was created to prevent the firewood from getting wet from the waves. Additionally, the magic furnace would cool down and lose power if it got wet, so the engine room was necessary.

To test the boats, they pushed the small powered boats into the sea, and Ricardo, Master Carbon, and three young shipwrights boarded.

One of the young shipwrights threw firewood into the magic furnace and lit it. As the magic furnace heated up, magic power began to flow to the outboard motor.

Ricardo and Master Carbon entered the cockpit and turned on the outboard motor. The propeller of the outboard motor began to rotate.

The previous outboard motor attached to the small boat required sitting at the stern to operate. However, this time, the outboard motor was upgraded to a triple magic-driven flywheel, making it more powerful and operable from the cockpit.

The small powered boat cut through the blue sea, traveling at about 10 kilometers per hour. The average speed of the sailboats built in this country was about 5 kilometers per hour, so this was twice as fast.

However, sailboats could sometimes travel at over 20 kilometers per hour depending on the wind direction and strength.

"Is this the boat's top speed?"

Master Carbon asked.

"No, the speed is adjusted by moving three output levers."

These output levers were connected to the triple magic-driven flywheel of the outboard motor, and the output increased as the levers were raised.

Ricardo raised the three output levers simultaneously. After a short delay, the speed increased to about 40 kilometers per hour.

"Without sails, how fast is this!"

Master Carbon was amazed.

At this speed, they could compete with pirate ships.