I Opened an Illegal Animal Hospital in Another World - Chapter 42
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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42
Chapter 11. First Customer (1)
Was it my fault for only explaining to bring a patient?
I thought about it for a moment, but still came to the conclusion that the twins were wrong. I mean, you don’t usually tie up and kidnap sick people, right? You handle them more carefully!
Contrary to my desire to scold them, seeing the twins full of expectation for praise left me speechless. Maria spoke up.
“How about we treat her first?”
“Yeah… We should.”
This isn’t the time for this.
When I stepped closer, the girl twisted her body fiercely. I couldn’t tell where such strength came from in that obviously emaciated body.
“Mmph, mm! Mmmph!”
The metal bed shook with clanking sounds.
With the girl lying there with her limbs bound and mouth gagged, the metal bed looked like a torture device. Oh no, how terrible.
This wheeled metal bed was something I had ordered while thinking of my past life. Honestly, after finishing classes and coming back, I had briefly thought about playing on this bed in the hallway. I had even wondered whether to ask Leon or Ian to push me around. There’d be no point asking Raven.
My excitement about opening a hospital at age 7 being so awesome, and using an entire 3-story building for my first hospital being so amazing, completely deflated.
“Um, don’t be too scared…”
“Hyaaaaaaak!”
I withdrew my hand as soon as I reached out. When I looked back at the twins, they had expressions saying “We were right, weren’t we? Kidnapping was the best option, right?”
“Don’t be proud. It’s all because of you two!”
“What did we do?”
Leon shamelessly feigned innocence.
“You kidnapped a kid who was already anxious!”
“If we had left her alone until she gave up her stubbornness, she would have died, right?”
“You should have persuaded her!”
Ian and Leon stared at me blankly. Their faces were written with the question “Why bother? Why?” Ian looked at my dissatisfied face and kindly added:
“Got it. Next time I’ll try saying a word or two.”
“…”
He called that a compromise. Maria whispered:
“To the twins, everyone except you is the same, Shana. Please understand.”
“What’s to understand…”
I’m already getting tired. It was already a day when I heard strange things from the Academy.
‘I need to treat her quickly and let her rest.’
I decided to put out the urgent fire first. I carefully gathered clay through my energy and let it seep into the small girl’s body. Her condition must have been quite severe, as light bloomed above her skin.
“Huh?”
The speed at which the clay was being absorbed into her body wasn’t slowing down. What, what’s this.
“Shana, what’s wrong?”
“This is strange. It doesn’t seem like just an infectious disease?”
The small girl didn’t even seem to be getting any more comfortable. Huh. Eyes that glared at me with hatred shone above her flushed, gaunt cheeks and cheekbones. She seemed to have regained some energy though.
The clay that had initially seeped into her chest and head was now only heading toward her left leg.
‘There it is!’
I jumped onto the bed and grabbed the girl’s ankle. Although both feet were tied, they weren’t fixed in place, so when the girl shook her feet, I was holding onto her thin ankle when, whoa!
“You need to be careful, Shana.”
“Evelyn, thanks.”
When did you get here? Evelyn was supporting my back as I almost got kicked by the girl, holding the ankle with one hand. Where can I find a male lead like this? Though she’s a woman.
“Leon, Ian, hold her down.”
“We were going to anyway.”
“We were about to?”
When Evelyn commanded like a queen, Leon and Ian eagerly grabbed the girl’s shoulders, ack!
“Don’t press down! Be gentle!”
“Our master is quite demanding.”
Leon said playfully. However, upon hearing those words, the girl began struggling even more as if a button had been pressed. She chewed on the cloth blocking her mouth and acted as if she would bite me to pieces. While glaring fiercely with bloodshot eyes.
Honestly, it was eerie. I had never experienced someone hating me so intensely, not even in my past life. Though I had received plenty of pity…
“Evelyn, hold the ankle tight.”
“Just trust me.”
The ankle caught in Evelyn’s grip was less than a handful. I rolled up the girl’s sackcloth-like pants to check the part that was devouring clay with frightening intensity.
“What is this…”
“It’s a slave’s brand.”
Maria glanced at it and said. Evelyn seemed to know what it was too.
“A brand? You mean a burn?”
“It’s proof of a magical contract. Usually they wear necklaces, but for rebellious slaves, they sometimes use brands.”
Maria added, “I didn’t want to tell you about this.”
If I had really been 7 years old, I might have been shocked, but I was older. I had learned many things about this world from the Academy, including about the unreasonable class system, racial discrimination, and slavery.
I asked calmly. Even during this, the brand was absorbing the clay like gulping down water.
“Does this slave’s brand include restrictions for runaways too?”
“It would differ by slave trader. Should I call Lady Anais?”
Mother is a 7th class mage, so she would know something about curses. But I shook my head.
“The slave’s brand is being erased.”
“Oh my, it really is!”
Maria said cheerfully. Yes, I like Maria like this… So what if she’s a bit oblivious to the mood.
“Our Lady Shana is so capable!”
“Read the room, Maria.”
If she had stopped at the first verse, I would have let it slide.
“Lady Shana, there’s something left.”
Evelyn said. Unshaken by Maria’s flattery (which was rare. Usually she joins Maria in embarrassing me), she stared at the ankle she was holding with cold eyes.
‘She looks upset.’
Since Evelyn only smiled happily in front of me, sometimes looking completely carefree, that cold expression was unfamiliar to me.
“What is this?”
“Let go, mmph, mmph!”
“Why is she so strong?!”
Leon grumbled. Restraining someone carefully to avoid hurting them wouldn’t be easy. Ian’s expression was also troubled. I decided to put the girl to sleep first.
I turned the clay into mist and wrapped it around the girl’s entire body. While I was at it, I helped Leon and Ian recover from fatigue too.
Fortunately, the girl who had been struggling wildly was also tired and fell asleep quickly.
Thanks to that, I could examine the mark left on her ankle. It was a pattern with a small flame-like drawing inside a circle about the size of a thumbnail. What is this…
“What could this be?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before…”
Without thinking, I reached out to touch it, but felt something being pulled out and quickly withdrew my hand.
Wow, it felt like someone was grabbing and pulling my hair.
“What’s wrong?”
Ian and Leon looked at me. Maria and Evelyn were also looking at me.
I decided to hide what I had just felt. I didn’t want to cause unnecessary worry, and I felt like if I said something, I’d just hear them tell me to give up on this child.
“Shana?”
“Static shock.”
Ian looked at me suspiciously, as if my silly answer wasn’t convincing. I pretended not to notice.
“Maria, call Mother.”
I felt like I could probably erase this mark too if I kept applying clay, but it would be better to know what it was first.
“I can’t leave Lady Shana behind. Did you forget? The condition was that I stay with you.”
“It’s an emergency, so it can’t be helped, understand?”
“When Ian said that, you looked at him pathetically, but now you’re copying him?”
“It’s more convincing when I do it, right?”
Ian, Leon, and Maria all looked at me with the same expression. I was shameless and confident.
“Fine. But you absolutely cannot leave the hospital.”
“Of course. My safety comes first, you know?”
I lifted my chin and imitated Raven’s expression. When I do this, Raven really wants to punch me. I was worried that when I grow up a bit more, he might actually hit me.
However, it didn’t seem to work on Maria. Maria spoke with a benevolent smile like a grandmother watching her grandchild’s antics.
“Evelyn, don’t leave Lady Shana’s side.”
“Yes.”
“Stick to her even in death, understand?”
“Leave it to me!”
Stop talking about such scary things…
“Lady Anais said she would install a teleport circle in the director’s office once construction is complete anyway, so I’ll call her quickly.”
Leaving those words, Maria jumped out the window. I’m no longer surprised by people jumping from three stories high. Haha. Leon, Ian, and Evelyn also jumped out whenever they felt like it. Only I can’t do it.
“Oh, right. Leon, Ian. You two go next door and call Ron.”
“Leon, you go.”
“Ian, you go.”
As expected of twins, they were perfectly in sync. I was a fair person. Rather than choose one side, I’d abandon both.
“Both of you go together.”
They used to call me master and lord, but now they glared at me with dissatisfaction.
“Are you going to make Lady Shana say it twice?”
When Evelyn spoke coldly, he finally gave up and started walking.
‘Evelyn seems more like a lord…?’
What’s become of my position…
But I had long ago acknowledged and given up on the fact that I had no charisma to begin with. Both my parents overflowed with charisma, yet I couldn’t understand why their daughter couldn’t even find the ‘C’ in charisma. Sob sob.
“Lady Shana, shall I help you down?”
“I can do it myself.”
But Evelyn didn’t listen to me and slipped her hands under my armpits to lift me down from the bed.
Let’s stay close friends in the future too…
“She seems to be sleeping soundly. Then Lady Shana, I’ll bring you some tea, so please wait a moment.”
“She seems to be sleeping soundly. Well then, Ms. Shana, I’ll bring you some tea, so please wait just a moment.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Evelyn brought a chair over to the bedside. She sat down quickly, then stood up again. It was to untie the girl’s hands and feet.
‘She’s asleep, so it should be fine.’
The feet came loose easily, but the hands had been tied so tightly that they wouldn’t come undone.
I stepped on the chair to climb onto the bed and strained with all my might. Perhaps because I’d developed my fine motor skills by working with clay since childhood, I had pretty good grip strength for my size. Haha.
Leon and Ian probably wouldn’t have tied her up this tightly. The girl must have struggled so much that the bindings only got tighter from her thrashing… After I treated her, there were no wounds or even red marks on her wrists, but I found myself absently stroking her bony, skeletal wrists.
He removed the saliva-soaked gag and tidied up her disheveled hair.
She hadn’t eaten for so long that the girl’s torso was barely a handful. Her neck bones were as thin as thread.
“I think my wrist is going to break….”
How hard must it have been to get to this point? I was touching my wrist, which wasn’t even red, when suddenly the girl grabbed my hand. It must have been because she was half-asleep, but this girl had quite a grip, just like me. Ow, that hurts a bit. She’s really something, ow…
“She must be having a nightmare…”
She wasn’t gripping on purpose, but trembling, which naturally made her grip tighter. This happens sometimes. I know because I was once tormented by nightmares for a while. Mina also frequently had nightmares right after her parents passed away.
“Shh, don’t worry. It’s safe here…”
I left my hand in hers and sat in the chair, resting my chin on my hand. Evelyn returned with a teacup, but it didn’t seem like I’d be in any position to drink tea. Can’t help it.
“Shh.”
Even though it hurt, it was bearable.
The pain was bearable.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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