The Doctor Cured The Villainess And Ran Away-Chapter 19: Personal Physician Examination (5)

I continued using Enhancement, and in the process, I came to understand its skill mechanism to a certain degree.

Originally, enhancing a substance through alchemy boosts one specific property by a single tier.

For example, iron is hard. Once enhanced, it becomes harder. Enhance it a second time, and it becomes truly sturdy.

But here's the catch—if the first enhancement took an hour to cast, the second might take ten.

Higher-tier enhancement inherently required significantly more casting time.

Another thing: it depends on the material.

The rose medicine, which carried the trait of stamina recovery, couldn't even be enhanced to the second tier.

It seemed to be a limit imposed by the properties of the ingredient itself.

Willow bark, on the other hand, appeared to have more potential as a medicinal component, allowing for a second-tier enhancement.

However, it required an absurdly long casting time.

What I’d produced by cutting back on sleep just to experiment—was this pain-nullifying medicine.

Medicines meant to relieve a patient’s pain could be categorized by potency: from mild painkillers to analgesics, then to pain-nullifiers, and finally anesthetics.

The pain-nullifier didn’t go as far as anesthesia, but its effects were considerable.

To create an actual anesthetic, I’d likely need entirely different ingredients—or a higher alchemy skill rank.

Among the medicines I could currently make, this was the highest level.

I gripped the pain-nullifier in my right hand and used my left to open Boris’s mouth.

“Boris, this stuff’s valuable. Don’t spill a drop—swallow it down.”

“Guh... huff, yes...!”

Boris’s fractured leg looked grotesque even at a glance. The pain had to be excruciating.

Especially after Gis had torn through it once already with healing magic, probably making it worse.

I poured the pain-nullifier into Boris’s mouth and followed it up with water. He managed to gulp it down, though with difficulty.

“Huff... huff...”

Boris barely managed to steady his breathing.

Before I knew it, the other healers, knights, and even my father had gathered around us.

It was only natural. Boris was the one most severely injured in this battle.

“Huuh, huuh... Ugh, Young Master?”

“Yeah, Boris. You coming to your senses a little?”

“Yes... I feel kind of dazed, though.”

“Your leg? Still hurting badly?”

“Well... strangely enough, the pain’s mostly gone. Actually, I can’t feel much of anything down there...”

“The medicine’s working, then. I’m going to touch it.”

I lifted Boris’s leg and checked the angle of the fracture.

The healers murmured nervously at the sight of my unflinching grip. But Boris didn’t scream again.

“What on earth is going on?”

“What did the Young Master give the knight just now?”

The middle of Boris’s shinbone had snapped, and the lower part of the leg was twisted completely in the wrong direction.

“Hang on a second.”

“Y-yes...”

Boris responded vaguely, still out of it.

I positioned myself so that he wouldn’t be able to see the wound and hooked his thigh beneath my armpit to brace it for better leverage.

If the leg stays misaligned too long, it’ll form blood clots.

A knight who’s supposed to be running around every day can’t afford muscle necrosis. First, get it back in place—even if it’s rough.

I pushed the lower half of his shinbone with all my strength in one go.

—Crack!

It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

Still, visually, the bone was back where it belonged.

“A splint. Someone bring me two clubs.”

“M-me? What do you need clubs for...?”

One of the healers tilted his head in confusion, clueless.

Tch, no one here’s remotely useful.

Just as I felt the pressing need for a properly trained nurse, Tanya came over holding a staff and club she’d taken from the goblin shaman.

“Will these do?”

“Perfect size.”

Even though there were no obvious external wounds, just to be safe, I disinfected the area with red antiseptic.

[Emergency First Aid is now activated.]

I placed the staff and club on either side of Boris’s leg and tightly wrapped them with linen bandages I’d brought.

My hands moved instinctively, driven by first aid experience.

Once the treatment was complete, a faint white light shimmered over the area I’d treated.

It was a sign that Emergency First Aid had successfully taken effect, steadily restoring stamina.

“That’s my part done. The bone’s set, and I’ve prevented secondary infection. The rest is up to the other healers—use healing spells to finish the job.”

“Then I’ll take over the rest of the healing.”

Gis stepped in and began casting again.

Unlike before, Boris’s leg now started to recover naturally under his healing magic.

“Haaah...”

I finally straightened my back and rose to my feet.

“His leg returned to normal in an instant... Under normal procedures, we’d need an hour of spellcasting just to reconstruct it. Remarkable.”

The senior healers looked intently at Boris’s leg, clearly impressed.

Boris, now beyond dazed, was blinking slowly, as though sleep was about to overtake him.

“Young Master... thank you.”

“If you’re thankful, bring me a gift.”

“Haha... I do have a secret stash of liquor—”

“Something tasty. Not alcohol. A doctor with a drinking problem ends up with trembling hands, and that’s a death sentence.”

Absolutely not.

A trembling doctor is the worst-case scenario.

“With that, I declare the goblin subjugation and the royal physician’s practical exam complete.”

Father made the announcement in a low voice. The knights and healers erupted into applause and cheers.

“Well done, all of you. Stay alert on the way back so no one ends up injured.”

With the exam over, Father returned to his usual gentle demeanor, patting ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ knights and healers alike on the back.

The unit slowly began moving out.

As I prepared to follow them, Tanya came to stand beside me.

“Young Master, you did well today.”

“Oh, you’re the one who did the hard work, Captain.”

“What you did for Boris...”

“That wasn’t healing. It was treatment. Explaining the difference gets complicated, but they’re not the same.”

“Right. Understood.”

Tanya nodded.

“What you did for Boris was truly impressive. Healers are indispensable to us knights on the battlefield—but they also bring just as much pain.”

“Because the healing process itself can hurt, depending on the severity of the wound.”

Take, for example, someone who’s been impaled in the stomach by a demon’s ice spear.

Say part of their internal organs gets blown away.

What happens when you try to heal that kind of wound with powerful healing magic?

The answer: the original, damaged organ is discarded and replaced with a newly generated one.

The divine power that regenerates a body part is miraculous in itself—but that process doesn’t take the pain into account.

In those cases, people can die of shock just from the pain during the healing.

And even if the healing spell is continuously maintained, there’s no guarantee that recovery will happen in a safe sequence.

You might rebuild an organ, only for the patient to die due to sudden blood loss when the spell shifts focus to healing intact limbs.

“If it had been regular healing magic, Boris’s leg would’ve needed long, grueling retraining before he could even return to duty. Your treatment truly was different.”

“You’ve got a good eye, Captain Tanya.”

“Of course. I didn’t reach this position with half-baked skills.”

Tanya took pride in her competence—and rightfully so.

***

Outside the cave, I could finally breathe in the fresh air.

The knights opened their canteens and splashed water over their heads.

“Collapse the goblin nest. Senior healers, bring me the score sheets.”

Father quickly organized the situation, then gathered the reports. After checking the scores, he made a formal announcement to the healers.

“The results are in. I’ll now announce the final candidates for Imperial Physician.”

The healers visibly tensed. Most had been so focused on survival that few had likely given any thought to their performance.

“There are three finalists. The day after tomorrow, a Grade-2 Imperial Physician will visit from the palace. That physician will make the final selection from the three of you. The candidates were chosen based on the scores given by myself and five senior healers from the training center, excluding the highest and lowest marks.”

Finally, Father began to call out names.

“The finalists are—Sebram, Gis, and Las. That is all.”

Sighs and groans spread among the healers. Most had been eliminated, so the disappointment was understandable.

Father turned to Gis and asked,

“Gis, you were in the same group as Las. Do you have any complaints about the outcome?”

Gis flinched slightly and glanced my way. Then he slowly answered.

“...None, sir.”

As he should.

He’d just witnessed a completely different treatment mechanism that could only be described as a cultural shock.

“Everyone, well done. Return and rest.”

And just like that, the practical exam ended without incident.

***

“...Mmm.”

Asella, who had tossed and turned all night from the pain in her abdomen, finally woke up late that day.

Even the head maid had gone to supervise the physician exam, leaving no one to wake her.

“Disgraceful.”

This wasn’t the Imperial Palace—it was a betrothal manor.

No, even at the palace this would’ve been unacceptable.

Asella immediately summoned her maids to help her dress properly.

That alone took over an hour.

She left her bedchamber and stepped into the March estate’s garden, calling her knights to assemble.

“Where shall we escort you, Princess?”

“To the annex.”

“By your command.”

Asella had already brought her entire knight order firmly under her command.

Her knights no longer served the Empress—but Asella herself.

Even the Empress’s knights and maids were beginning to sense, almost instinctively, where the tide of power within the Third Consort’s faction was flowing.

Asella’s innate aura and immense mana.

Anyone who had seen her cast high-grade spells even once couldn’t help but be captivated.

Everyone serving here had realized where the real authority was shifting.

There was only one lingering point of unease—

The fact that Asella was still a young girl.

But those who served her believed without question:

My liege will grow into someone truly great.

Not a single one of them, however, had any idea what was truly going through that young girl’s mind.

***

“I’ll go up alone.”

Upon reaching the annex, Asella headed straight for Las’s room.

She was curious about the outcome of the practical exam and wanted to hear it from his own lips.

As she was climbing the stairs, she spotted a maid carrying luggage.

The maid noticed Asella and froze, quickly bowing low.

Asella’s eyes drifted to the large item in the maid’s arms.

“What are you carrying?”

“P-pardon? Oh, um...”

The maid stammered, clearly flustered at being addressed directly by the princess.

“It’s the young master’s blanket. I was taking it out to be laundered...”

Snatch!

Asella grabbed the blanket and unfolded it.

Against the white, high-quality cotton, faint dark red stains were scattered.

Bloodstains.

“What are these marks?”

“I-I don’t know, Your Highness. The young master’s bedding is always like that when we clean it...”

“Always? Since when?”

“Well, not always, just... I’d say for the past week or so?”

Asella narrowed her eyes and stared at the blanket in suspicion. Then she abruptly turned and strode toward Las’s room.

Her footsteps now echoed with a complete lack of grace.

“Young Master.”

She knocked on the door roughly.

The exam should be over by now. He ought to have returned.

...No response. ƒгeewёbnovel.com

“Young Master Las?”

Without thinking, Asella turned the doorknob.

The door opened without resistance.

Her curious golden eyes peered through the crack—

And on the floor—

“......!”

Las was collapsed in a pool of blood, having vomited it all out.