The Quack Lady - Chapter 30

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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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Episode 30

 

* * *

 

After comforting the child for quite a while, I laid him down.

 

The child received my gentle stroking with a much more relaxed attitude and fell fast asleep shortly after.

 

“What more can I do for him?”

 

As a doctor standing before patients, I always felt small and helpless in the face of vague illnesses.

 

And when a child responded to my treatment like this, that sense of responsibility became unbearably heavy beyond words.

 

“Sigh…”

 

I was about to go to sleep quickly, feeling like I had many thoughts today.

 

Knock knock.

 

A very careful yet neat knocking sound came from the terrace outside the window.

 

‘What is it?’

 

When I turned my head, I noticed the door was slightly open.

 

‘Ah, I had opened it earlier for ventilation.’

 

I shuffled over and was reaching out to close the window when—

 

“Mia. Are you okay?”

 

It was Eruten who peeked through the window gap.

 

He was smiling faintly with his nose slightly reddened.

 

Startled, I looked around, then carefully closed the door and went out to the terrace.

 

“My goodness! What brings you here! Have you been waiting for me this whole time?”

 

At those words, Eruten showed a neat smile.

 

“I heard that you entered the Count’s Manor to treat the young count.”

 

“Ah.”

 

Come to think of it, Eruten would think that Mr. Pairon had gone.

 

“It just happened that way. But things are going well…”

 

“Mia. Do you want to run away?”

 

“Huh?”

 

I widened my eyes at the sudden words.

 

Eruten seemed to hesitate a bit, then spoke carefully, word by word, as if he had been agonizing over it.

 

“It seems dangerous for you to be here. If you can’t treat him or…”

 

I stared intently at Eruten’s face as he spoke those words.

 

A face afraid of losing something.

 

His trembling eyes and the breath he exhaled in frustration were all colored with worry for me.

 

“Are you afraid I might even lose my life if I can’t treat him?”

 

“Mia!”

 

Toward him with his desperate expression, I smiled triumphantly.

 

“Eruten, I won’t leave. Just as before, and just as now.”

 

I was always grateful to Eruten.

 

A child who would always come running whenever there were difficult times, telling me to leave together.

 

Just his existence alone made me feel reassured.

 

However.

 

“As long as there’s a patient looking at me, my place is by the patient’s side, Eruten.”

 

“…”

 

“So…”

 

“Is there anything I can help with?”

 

That’s when it happened.

 

Eruten asked me as if he had made some kind of decision.

 

“Something to help with…”

 

Actually, I did have a major concern.

 

“Then would you take a look at this?”

 

I told him to wait a moment, then brought out several drawings that Demian had made and spread them on the terrace.

 

“This is… supposed to be a drawing?”

 

Eruten frowned deeply.

 

“Yes. It’s a drawing. It’s expressing something.”

 

“Expression…”

 

He looked at the drawings for a moment. His reddish eyes reflected in the moonlight gave off a profound feeling.

 

After examining the drawings for a long while, Eruten asked.

 

“Is this one thing? Or two things?”

 

It was something I had never thought about even once.

 

Since it expressed feelings, would it be one thing?

 

“Hmm… If I had to say, wouldn’t it be one thing?”

 

“Then wouldn’t he have expressed what he most wanted to express?”

 

“What he most wanted to express?”

 

“Yes. That’s what I would have done.”

 

Eruten added calmly.

 

The one thing he wanted to express.

 

Those words strangely stuck in my heart.

 

“Mia.”

 

That’s when it happened. While I was pondering over the drawings as usual, Eruten called my name affectionately.

 

“When things get too difficult, just look at one thing and go. Like I do.”

 

Saying such words, he gently stroked my head as if to encourage me.

 

Then, when the voices of knights standing guard outside could be heard, Eruten used his long legs to leap up onto the railing.

 

“Eruten! That’s dangerous!”

 

He smiled faintly, then disappeared into the darkness, leaving only words that he would come again.

 

Soon, hearing the rustling sound of grass, I could tell he had landed safely.

 

‘Really, always doing as he pleases.’

 

Eruten came to me just like that day when he was crying after being bullied by the maids.

 

And he would calm my complicated heart like this.

 

As if such things were nothing at all.

 

“Alright! Then shall I take another look?”

 

I gathered the fluttering parchments in my arms and went back into the room.

 

* * *

 

A cold silence lingered in the Count’s Manor office. He shouted at the man bowing his head before him.

 

“How dare you tamper with the Bernov Domain registry and think you wouldn’t get caught!”

 

“Oh no! Count! I have committed a mortal sin!”

 

The man in shabby clothes kept wiping away sweat, not knowing what to do.

 

“Falsely recording the domain residents’ registry is an act that will comprehensively ruin the lives of the domain residents, including future taxes!”

 

“I truly did wrong! Count!”

 

“Take this man immediately and lock him in the underground prison, and don’t give him even a sip of water!”

 

At his words, the knights standing near the door began to move.

 

As the clanking sounds and the knights’ footsteps approached, Lots, the low-level administrator who managed the domain residents’ registry, desperately bowed his head and shouted.

 

“I truly committed a mortal sin, Count! However, I could not refuse the request of Mr. Barten who treated me! He is a benefactor who saved me and my family, so how could I refuse!”

 

Soon, the Count’s brow furrowed deeply at the man’s words.

 

“Did you just say Barten?”

 

When the Count wavered, the man stepped forward as if he had been waiting and prostrated himself flat at his feet.

 

“Yes! He is the one who treated my family when a plague struck the village four years ago! And since he himself also caught that disease, my family owes an unpayable debt to Mr. Barten!”

 

After that, unbelievable words poured from the man’s mouth.

 

Barten had entrusted Rtemeia to him before his death.

 

“Barten’s child.”

 

When Clint, who had pieced together the situation, spoke quietly, the attendant shook his head low and added more words.

 

“No, Count. He was unmarried and left this world leaving no children or property, returning everything to the domain.”

 

The attendant then held out a piece of paper to the Count. The man hastily added more words.

 

“I won’t deny that I committed a mortal sin. However, even if I could go back, I could never refuse Lord Barten’s command. He saved my entire family and then passed away. How could I dare to disobey such a person…”

 

“…”

 

“To me, he is greater than God himself. Isn’t he the one who made it possible for me to see my child’s face again?”

 

“…”

 

“So I will gladly accept all punishment! I humbly beg of you like this!”

 

The man looked up at the Count with eyes now covered in tears, continuing to plead desperately.

 

‘Even at this very moment, he would follow Barten’s command.’

 

The fate of those expelled from the domain was obvious.

 

They would wander the borders like vagrants and die in foreign lands, or else stay illegally in other domains.

 

Whether the former or latter, the end was miserable.

 

“Did it truly seem like there was no relationship between Barten and the child called Rtemeia?”

 

The man nodded repeatedly and bowed his head to the ground.

 

And right at that moment, the man suddenly raised his head as if something had occurred to him and spoke to the Count.

 

“Come to think of it, before he passed away, he said something like this. That he was grateful for helping to lessen his past transgressions.”

 

“Transgressions?”

 

“Yes. And he made one more request. He asked that we not say anything to the child. He asked us to just watch over the child from afar so she could live at the infirmary.”

 

After that, he repeatedly emphasized with oaths that he had absolutely no relationship with the child.

 

However, throughout hearing those words, countless question marks floated in the Count’s mind.

 

‘What reason could there possibly be to protect a child he had no acquaintance with, even making it his dying wish?’

 

The circumstances were pitiful, but his thought that she was a foreign element remained unchanged.

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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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