I Opened an Illegal Animal Hospital in Another World - Chapter 66
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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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66
Chapter 15. Why Are You Coming Out of There (1)
I turned 18.
When I first opened my eyes in the snow plain, I could barely support my own body, but now I was already similar in height to Mother. I felt a sense of pride as if I had raised myself.
If you exercise, feed, and put someone to sleep, isn’t that basically raising them? Of course, with my parents’ money…
‘Could thinking I raised myself well be called self-esteem?’
It seemed a bit different. …Aren’t I being narcissistic?
Of course, I didn’t hate myself, but it wasn’t like I found myself so adorable I couldn’t stand it, or that I was the prettiest and felt proud, or felt wronged that others didn’t recognize me.
It was just the kind of affection that builds up from raising something for a long time. I had gone through hardships too.
‘Even now, I keep getting sick at the drop of a hat, so I can’t let my guard down…’
Maybe it’s because I was raised too preciously.
The ‘me’ in the mirror sometimes resembled Mother to a startling degree.
Bright blonde hair flowed down in waves, and my green eyes were vivid and clear in color. My features were packed tightly into an oval face, and my neck was long and slender.
It was almost identical to when I first saw Mother. I felt a bit awkward, but I had come to accept that this appearance was me.
Even until I was 5, every time I looked in the mirror, I felt the urge to speak to it in English. Probably because it felt unfamiliar.
Objectively, I felt I was pretty, but subjectively, I wasn’t inclined to describe myself with all sorts of flowery language. Well, it was my face after all.
“What are you sighing about while looking in the mirror?”
“Oh, Renate.”
Renate and Ron came in as if it were their own home.
This was a clinic inside the hospital, and I spent most of my time here. Lately, I had been watching over the clinic in Ella’s place.
Though I had to wear spinning glasses with facial recognition reduction magic.
Thanks to that, unless someone already knew me, they couldn’t distinguish between Ella and me. I was a bit anxious at first, but now I was getting reckless. Since my parents, who were overly sensitive about my safety, allowed it, the glasses’ function was trustworthy.
“Do you think you’re too pretty even to yourself?”
“…You know that sounds really weird when you say it, Renate.”
Among the people I knew, he was one of the most beautiful, so for him to say that… I grinned when I saw Ron’s face behind Renate become subtle.
“Renate is prettier than me. Right, Ron?”
“What what what? I I I didn’t say anything!”
Ron was… really… quite skilled at shooting himself in the foot. Renate glared fiercely at Ron, and I held my stomach and laughed.
Ron and Renate were an excellent comedy duo and brothers. Mainly Ron provided the laughs and Renate just got angry, but they were incredibly funny.
Renate found Ron tiresome yet took care of him meticulously, and didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving or becoming independent, unlike Ron’s worries.
Seeing how he kept saying he lost motivation because I rejected him, he was definitely using it as an excuse because being alone was comfortable.
On the other hand, Ron, true to his appearance, was emotionally soft and very tender-hearted. He cried easily when he saw pitiful things and couldn’t leave them alone.
Thanks to that, the Gray Wolf Pack now had such a variety of species gathered that it was ambiguous to call them gray wolves anymore. From what I could see, gray wolves now made up only a third of the whole.
Renate gave Ron’s abdomen a decidedly not-light punch and came over to my side. He ruffled my hair somewhat roughly with his large hand and said.
“Don’t tease adults.”
“I’m not teasing. I’m saying it because you’re really pretty.”
“…That’s what teasing is.”
Renate scrunched up his face as if he’d chewed on a bug.
“I said something pretty was pretty, but if you tell me not to say pretty things are pretty, then how should I convey that something is pretty…”
“I told you not to do it, how many times do I have to say it.”
I’d get in trouble if I teased him more. I decided to back down at this point.
“Where did you go? You two don’t usually come out during the day. You agreed to pick up potions at night.”
“Look at her changing the subject.”
Ron tactlessly added fuel to the fire.
“Does Ron, who thinks Renate is prettier than me, find my intention suspicious when I ask where you’ve been? I was just curious about where you two went, but I guess someone who’s not as pretty as Renate, like me, shouldn’t be curious about such things?”
“…I was wrong…”
That’s what you get for picking a fight. I snorted.
“We heard something from the children, so we went on reconnaissance.”
Renate seemed to have decided to generously let it slide for his poor alpha.
I ignored Ron, who was desperately making excuses like “I’m just being objective, and I’ve known Renate longer than you so I’ve grown more attached, and most importantly, I’m a wolf tribe so I’ve seen Renate in wolf form too…” and focused my attention on Renate.
Why doesn’t Ron realize that the more he makes excuses, the more suspicious he looks?
“Was it worth scouting? The slave market locations are all the same anyway. Such professionals they are.”
A few months ago, I learned that my friends and nanny had been habitually raiding slave markets.
It wasn’t that this was bad.
The slave system was one of the many bad aspects of this country.
There were many laws I couldn’t understand having lived a previous life, but among them, the slave system was truly the most barbaric and despicable.
How can a person own another person?
Who, and by what right, can stand above others and control everything?
However, the class system itself was a law that divided human dignity by birth, and people judged and divided human worth by birth, race, appearance, and such.
So they fell into the delusion that they could do whatever they wanted with those they deemed inferior.
Moreover, beastmen weren’t even treated as people. Their treatment among slaves was particularly bad. Since they were strong and had high magic resistance, they were often handled more harshly.
Humans at least received human treatment, but beastmen were treated almost like animals.
The Academy scholar also said that the Bayard Empire values the most conservative and traditional values among all nations on the continent. While there might be positive aspects, discriminatory elements that don’t treat dwarves, elves, and beastmen as people also exist strongly.
Ron and Renate were occasionally raiding slave markets and sweeping away captured beastmen slaves.
“You know these places like regular restaurants.”
“Are you still sulking?”
“Who’s sulking?”
I wasn’t pouting just because they didn’t tell me.
“I was just surprised that Renate was so close with the twins. You wouldn’t tell me anything and insisted it was a secret, but who would have known you’d already spilled everything to the twins and even gotten their help?”
“Shana.”
“You seemed to be bickering with Ella too, but you were enjoying secret meetings…”
“I told you it’s not like that.”
“Getting serious makes you more suspicious, you know? And what’s wrong with our Ella? She’s pretty and cool and deadly and scary…”
Oops. That wasn’t a compliment, was it?
Renate chuckled and said.
“She hates me too.”
“Ah right, Ella said she hates pretty men. Well, Renate is too handsome and pretty.”
“…”
“I’m kidding.”
I shrugged my shoulders. Renate looked a bit deflated.
“I was just teasing because it was funny how both the twins and Ella looked troubled when they pretended to be upset. I don’t actually care.”
“When you say it like that, it doesn’t sound like teasing.”
“What about me?”
Where else could you find someone as mature as me? Renate seemed to have a lot to say but didn’t utter a single word.
“I only brought the twins along because they seemed restless after graduation. Needless to say about Ella.”
“I can understand that. That’s why I keep telling you to join a knight’s order instead of being stuck here, but you won’t listen.”
Renate didn’t answer.
Unlike Raven who hadn’t returned even after 11 years, let alone 6, the twins who used to come and go between the capital and Academy like it was their own home graduated in no time and returned. I barely even noticed their absence.
And I actually thought the twins would leave the hospital after graduating from the Academy.
Though they were called paramedics, our hospital functioned more like a neighborhood clinic, so there wasn’t much room for them to be active.
Moreover, according to an excited Lloyd, they graduated from the Academy’s knight department with first and second place grades.
They could have joined the Royal Guard, considered one of the strongest knight orders in the Empire, but they refused everything and ended up unemployed.
They did receive appointments after their page service in the Wentworth Knight Order was recognized…
But was that really enough?
Having such amazing abilities to graduate as valedictorian, yet just doing security work for a neighborhood clinic – how could that be acceptable… Lloyd should have encouraged the kids more and sent them out instead of just leaving them be, which I couldn’t understand.
Isn’t this a waste of talent?
“Don’t talk about this in front of the twins.”
“Why?”
“The kids will cry.”
Renate said with a smirk.
“Those kids still only care about you.”
“That’s disgusting…?”
“They’re admirable kids who think nothing else matters as long as they can protect their younger sister.”
Renate spoke well despite not thinking they were admirable either. I couldn’t understand where I went wrong in building my relationship with the twins.
Just what went wrong from where, that the twins ended up treating me like a younger sister?
I wasn’t some bomb that might explode if you took your eyes off me.
“Anyway, I left the potions in the preparation room, so feel free to take them. Pay for the medicine yourself.”
I was this neighborhood’s pushover for 11 years. Ben, the Angel of Rierem, certified it.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it, between us.”
Renate made a subtle expression at these words too. Still, he no longer said things like asking me to join his pack.
Ron asked.
“Shana, you’re a noble, right?”
“Ron.”
Renate tried to stop me, but I gladly responded.
“For now, at least. If you feel suspicious or can’t remember old memories, I can take you to our house right away. How about having an all-night date with your parents after so long? Just like old times!”
“…You don’t like me.”
“No, I like you. After Renate, after my parents, after Bailey, after Ella, after Maria, after the twins, after Raven….”
“That’s enough.”
“I really do like you, you know? It’s just that there are a ton of conditions attached.”
You’re the best for teasing. Ron let out a short sigh at my teasing and asked.
“If you’re nobility, could you possibly get an invitation to a private auction?”
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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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