Chapter 16

Lucas watched Elma with a serious expression as she solemnly proceeded with the 'sterilization” in front of him.

The other group members, who had not been able to comprehend the situation, looked at him inquiringly, but he blocked them with his gaze.

So much so that the scene was filled with an unusual sense of urgency.

No, speaking of bizarre, the first thing to mention would be Elma’s outfit.

She ran out of the chapel with Lucas, and he thought she was going to head straight for the pavilion. Still, she stopped at the maidservant’s quarters, and when she next caught up with him afterward, she was in that uniform.

It was a long-sleeved apron covering the whole body, a soft cloth on her head instead of a blimp, and a mouth cloth.

Aside from the arms with their sleeves rolled up, one can only see her glasses as far as her face is concerned.

In other words, one cannot see even an ounce of her face.

Her entire body was covered with a whitish cloth, but for some reason, it was also like a sturdy armor.

She arranged some unfamiliar equipment in a row on a copper tray and laid a more clean cloth on the floor.

Then she stared at the commanding officer of the knights, Lucas, and told him.

“We will now begin surgery for Theo Förster’s tibial metaphysis fracture. As you can see, it is an open fracture, which will be realigned by open osteopathic surgery, followed by intramuscular debridement and ligamentous suture. Antibiotics will be administered immediately after surgery to prevent infection.”

“……What?”

“Therefore, it is with great sadness that…”

She tried to repeat it, but after a moment’s consideration.

“In other words, we’ll disinfect and open the wound, remove pieces of spell gear, stitch the wound, and prescribe medicine.”

She changed her tune.

That’s a very rough and ready informed consent.

But so unassuming and confident, everyone was speechless and naturally began to give up their place beside the patient.

Even the deputy company commander, who had his hand on his sword, watched Elma’s movements in confusion.

As if to exploit the gap, she knelt beside Theo in a smooth motion and spoke softly to him as he grunted.

“Dear Mr. Förster. We’re now going to put your entire right leg under anesthesia. I’ll count to ten, so let me know if you feel nauseated.”

“Uh-oh. Demon water?”

Theo let out a bewildered murmur at the unfamiliar word.

Elma took that as approval for now and quickly injected the anesthetic into his right leg.

The changes were dramatic.

“No more pain!”

“Don’t move. We’re going to have to blindfold you for the rest of the day. — Deputy Company Commander, if you would be so kind …”

“Oh, yeah,”

Elma wanted to keep her hands as sterile as possible.

In addition to having the deputy company commander blindfold and immobilize Theo’s body, she had the rest of the knights disinfect their hands with alcohol, and one by one, they grabbed a medical instrument.

“Then you, when I say ‘meth,’ give me meth.”

“Oh, oh!”

The members of the group obeyed obediently.

It was then that Dennis, who had been stunned, came to himself.

“You! What the hell are you doing just now!”

“Sir, this is an operation.”

“You’re not 'something”! The act of healing is the domain of the doctor or the holy priest. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, maid…”

He was useless, but that is not a reason to allow the maid to cross over.

Dennis sucked in his breath to denounce her violently, but.

“It stinks!”

Words struck him off with more offensive power than his fists.!

It was not a physical attack, but it’s a shock that feels like a gouged out heart and head.

When Dennis cringed, Elma, who was still on her knees, glared up at him. No, it was the glasses that were glaring at him.

“I’m afraid the smell is powerful; it’s a disinfectant. And do you have a thumb-nibbling habit? You seem to have a partially deformed nail. It’s outrageous to try to touch the patient and the wound with it. Literally, please wash your face, cut your nails, and cleanse your hands.”

“What, how rude!”

He paled at the rhetoric too much.

But as Dennis was flipping out, Elma, who seemed to have gotten into the business, barked this time.

“You’re not going to touch a human body; you’re not going to the point that at me with your perfume on, are you? If you’re a medical guru, come back to me! Back off!”

“Huh!”

He let out an involuntary scream, even more so than the knights.

No, there may have been multiple overlapping voices of the knights.

It was so silent you could hear the sound of a falling needle.

In the silence, Dennis compared Theo and Elma for a while. Still, eventually, he clenched his fists and ran off at a brisk pace – in the direction of the water fountain.

“Excuse me. I’m distraught. –glasses.”

“Yes!”

Then, as if her earlier angry voice was a lie, Elma asked the knight quietly.

The knight in charge of the glasses responded with a reply of a child answering their parent and gently lifted the bridge of her glasses, which had been lowered slightly, from the side.

And so the surgery was almost reaching its climax when Dennis washed off the perfume, cleaned his hands, and rushed in again.

“Meth.”

“Yes!”

“Sweat.”

“Yes!”

“Glasses.”

“Yes!”

Each time Elma tells them. Briefly, each knight in charge responds obediently and fulfills the request.

It was a strange sight to see these men obeying the little maid, but Elma, with her back to him, just continued to crouch down beside Theo.

‘I’m a holy medical guru myself.’

The treatment must be adequately monitored.

Dennis clenched his fists in readiness and fearfully approached the scene of the operation.

“What is this?”

Then he gasped.

Out of the corner of his eye, the maid was piecing together pieces of bone with terrifying speed.

The bones that should have been cruelly crushed are now cracked, but they were straight and aligned as they should be, and the flesh that should have been badly torn is now shaped along the fibers and only needs to be sewn together.

No, what’s more, bizarre is the movement of the maid’s arms.

‘Hey! You’re too quick to see anything but afterimages?’

The skill with which she manipulated the tweezers, scalpel, and forceps was so quick that it looked as if she had four or five hands.

Dennis rubbed his eyes repeatedly, stunned.

This is not some kind of “woman’s treatment” that is just a hair’s breadth away from a spell.

It’s beyond the realm of therapy.

This is no longer–it’s an art.

Dennis was speechless.

He had only thought of such a procedure without holy power as an extension of a child’s treatment.

But now, he found himself just overwhelmed and in awe of the miraculous healing techniques that are being unleashed by her hands.

He noticed that the people around him’s complexion as they watched the treatment improved markedly, and some of them were even moistening their eyes with excitement.

“Spell gear removed. Holy water.”

“Yes! I’ll pour holy water on it!”

A piece of the spell gear picked up with tweezers is placed on the cloth held by the knight in charge, and immediately the others sprinkled holy water on it.

There was a small chirping sound, and Dennis knew that the fragments had lost their effectiveness.

“Please match the fragments to the horseshoe and make sure it’s a perfect match.”

“It’s a perfect match. That seems to be all the pieces.”

“Okay.”

While preparing the bones and flesh, she also plucked out all the spell gear fragments.

The maidservant nodded quietly as she heard Prince Lucas, who inspected the horseshoe, tell her.

“Then I’ll suture you.”

“Stitches? Are you sewing them up with thread? I don’t see any needles.”

“Ah. I had left them in the vines of my glasses because the wind was about to blow them away. Could you please take them off? Please disinfect it with some alcohol.”

A dubious Lucas asks, and Elma replies with a motion of her hand.

“You have medical stitches in the vines of your glasses?”

“What? We all carry anesthesia and needles around with us as etiquette, don’t we?”

‘–I’m not carrying it around with me!’

Elma asked back curiously, and Dennis almost shouted out to her.

And I wanted to shake her by the shoulders.

He didn’t want to give off a vibe like, “You’re not going to carry it around with you, this guy.”

It’s not the same as taking a handkerchief to the bathroom.

And it seems that this thought was indeed common to all the knights on the spot.

Lucas and everyone else’s faces were twitching at the subtle expressions on their faces.

“So, let me ask you where in the world have you hidden all this medical equipment?”

“In my bag, of course.”

When I heard that, I couldn’t help but look at her, and sure enough, there was a small cloth bag beside her.

They brought it with them from the maid’s dormitory.

But it was so big that it defied the law of conservation of mass that Lucas wrinkled his brow.

How does all this stuff fit in such a small bag?

‘We were brought up that women should be good at storage, but if that’s not the norm?’

There’s a saying in Walzer Prison: “Marie’s valley or Elma’s bag.”

Both of them are connected to a fourth dimension and will pull out the most outlandish items, meaning that you should be careful when the girls stick their hands in there.

But Lucas, who couldn’t possibly know that, seemed to give up the pursuit, nodding vaguely at the unanswered question.

It’s not something he would question by interrupting the “operation,” which was going well.

“All right. I’ll get the needle. Which side of the vine?”

“Right. There’s a small protrusion on the connection to the lens that—“

“Wait, wait!”

Dennis waited in a hurry as it looked like he was going to move straight into stitches.

Elma slowly turns around.

Dennis struggled to speak to the eyes behind the glasses, which were blind to the truth.

“Wait. You know, I’ll take it from here.”

“No, it’s not about fiefdoms or qualifications,……joining bones and closing flesh, as long as there are no spells, healing is faster than sewing them together with thread.”

‘Will I get yelled at again?’

Will they ridicule me for being utterly useless up to this point?

But Dennis had the pride of being the youngest recognized Holy Medical Guru.

He knew that if he ran away, it would be the end of him, and he didn’t want to be the same as he was, unable to do anything about his suffering patients.

As Dennis stuttered, choosing his words

“……Yes.”

The maid gave a surprising response.

“That’s what I was going to do.”

“What?”

“We’re ready. Holy medical guru. I beg of you for your help.”

With that, she stood up and gave up her position next to Theo.

Dennis was pouting, but when Elma called out to him again, he hurriedly knelt where she was sitting.

When he held up his hands to recite the prayer, a slender arm reached out from next to him and took his hand.

Elma carefully cleansed Denise’s fingers with a cloth soaked in the alcohol.

“It may not be necessary for the healing process, but just in case. –Your nails look very neatly trimmed.”

“Oh. Well, you, I mean, you’re right, I needed to be clean to touch my patients.”

Wiping off each one, Elma’s fingers are delicate and white.

Even though this was not the case, and even though she was dressed oddly with her entire body covered in cloth, Dennis was jittery as she crawled on his slender fingers.

He coughed in a hurry.

“So, say your prayers.”

So he partitioned and looked directly at the affected area again.

The flesh was split open there, but Elma was so beautifully treated that he didn’t think it was grotesque anymore.

‘It’s such a complex structure.’

He thought about that as he gently brought his hands closer.

I thought of the part of the body as just a “wound to be healed” that had bones, muscles, and nerves, and blood vessels that were stretched across it.

All of them have functions and roles, and the way they are intricately intertwined to form a part called the “foot” is rich and even beautiful.

Dennis quietly closed his eyes and began to chant the scripture.

“The light from the heavens, the light from the heavens is supreme.”

He imagines the light falling on the wound and exorcising the defilement.

“Answer my prayers and extend to me the lamp of your noble mercy.”

The damaged muscle fibers and bones are gently warmed up and loosely melted back into their original shape.

“Bless the poor earthly child, embrace him, heal him, and grant him your blessing.”

Robust muscles wrap around the bones, and nerves, blood vessels, and skin delicately surrounded it.

“Oh!” It was at the same time that a murmur of admiration leaked out.

When Dennis felt an unprecedented heat in his hands, he opened his eyes in surprise – and there appeared a foot that had been completely restored to its original state.

“God!”

Theo’s legs were back!

One by one, the knights cheered.

Surrounded by them, Dennis also stared at Theo’s feet in disbelief.

Not a single scar remained a “full recovery.”

‘I’ve never been able to perform such a perfect healing technique.’

“Mr. Theo. Can you bend your ankle? Right, left. Up, down. Right.” “Thank you.”

Beside him, Elma is calmly checking on Theo’s recovery.

She let out a sigh of admiration when she saw that her entire foot was entirely back to normal, with no pain or discomfort.

“…wonderful.”

Then she bowed deeply to Dennis.

“You are outstanding. Holy Medical Guru.”

That gesture, as if she was sincerely impressed, made Denis panicked.

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re the one who fixed him, you know, and you’re the one who did it!”

“What do you mean? I was simply helping to remove a foreign object. It was you who saved his life by an act of God – a complete recovery of function without rehabilitation.”

“You’re scared of death?”

The unfamiliar words make my eyes glaze over, but Elma is not concerned.

Seeing her begin to put away her tools in a calm manner, Dennis made up his mind and opened his mouth.

“Oh, um, Elma. Elma, Miss.”

Power, status, and beautiful collectibles.

Dennis has such a disposition to flatten out on all the obvious things.

But that also means that he tends to wag his tail at things he perceives to be “amazing” or 'stronger than he is.”

Dennis had now come to have genuine respect for Elma, who had demonstrated a skill that easily exceeded the best of medical science, and who, in the end, had handed over the honor and praise to her.

“The only reason my healing technique turned out so well is that you showed me the structure of his body. In the first place, healing was useless with the spell gear embedded in him. It was you who saved him.”

“No. I’m not. It was just that ‘with your help’ and ‘as a slightly dexterous maid, within the normal range,’ I was only helping out.”

But Elma blurts back, with an odd emphasis here and there.

In her way, she had gone into this surgery armed with theories like, “If it’s abnormal for one person to complete the surgery, then it’s probably normal for everyone to do it together,” or “Removing a spell gear would be like, well, removing an eyelash from your eye.” She didn’t want to be denied that.

Dennis was fired up, who stepped on it as a loser and gave him the finishing touches.

She said she was only “helping” as a maid.

But that kind of logic couldn’t possibly work for Dennis.

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m sure you’re not a little handy.”

“No. That’s about normal.”

“I don’t know how a normal person can open up flesh and join bones so smoothly! You were even trying to get stitches. I’ve never seen anything like that before, even for me.”

When a peeved Dennis piled on the words, Elma said, “Oh no,” with a slightly disgusted and puzzled air.

“It’s normal, right? Because it’s part of the building blocks and needlework.”

That wholeheartedly “I don’t know why you say that” kind of thing made Lucas, who had been listening beside him, think, “Oh. This is coming”, he said.

“Aren’t girls usually given needles for their third birthday to train their hands and fingers with skeletal building blocks in the hope that they will become better at needlework?”

“What?”

“My first operation was when I was five years old, and I think anyone with a little skill could perform that kind of surgery.”

Everyone present thought they heard a sound like a popping twig snapping.

It was probably the sound of Dennis, whose head and heart had been gouged out of his head and spirit by the tirade, now having his pride broken for the last time.

Dennis clenched his fists with tears in his eyes.

Lucas blurted out in a whisper as he gently put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t tell him that much,” he said.

However, no one could have imagined at the time that this young medical guru, who was inspired by this, would go on to treat the commoners and deepen his understanding of the human body, and eventually become a Great Holy Medical Guru.