When Raina’s eyes opened, red light from a darkening sky was the first thing to greet her. It entered through a bedroom window overlooking the castle district’s center from the second floor of Vogel’s Enchantments.

Breathing was difficult.

Blood clogged the back of her nose, and a metallic taste filled her mouth. Did Raina have another nosebleed while she slept? With how frequent they’ve become, growing in frequency and intensity by the day, it wouldn’t have surprised her.

But it wasn’t all bad. The throbbing headache Raina fell asleep with no longer pounded against her skull. Instead, it only pressed down on her forehead. Did her midday nap, interrupted by gasps for air, make her feel better, or was it that—

Wait.

The kids!

Did they eat? Was Leona managing the store properly? Although she was a clever girl, her enchantment skills weren’t quite there yet. How about Emilia? Were her seal inscribing studies going well? And Angelika. Raina hoped she wasn’t fighting with her grandfather again. Was she starving after work?

Raina didn’t have time to waste in bed. She shot up, curling her body into a seated position. Thankfully, the swift movement didn’t make her dizzy or nauseous, and her body wasn’t fatigued either. Her stomach hurt, though.

Something threw itself at Raina, wrapping their arms around her neck, snuggling close with a soft and warm cheek. She didn’t have to look to know who it was. Although Angelika was crude with words and quickly became heated during an argument, she was also the most affectionate out of all of her children.

“Did you eat? How was work? Did Dimitry let you out early? Are you hungry?”

“I’m fine,” Angelika said. “Everyone’s fine. How are you?”

Her daughter was safe.

A wave of relief washed over Raina, sending cooling ripples throughout her body. She already lost one beloved combat mage to war—another would be too much to bear. “Did Mira or her majesty give us any new jobs while I slept?”

“Who gives a shit?” Angelika hugged tighter.

Raina felt warmth and joy and intense guilt. No proper mother would make their children worry as much as she did. She couldn’t let the plague take her yet. Ever since Adal passed away in the Einheart Wars and Ignacius vanished, Angelika had clung to Raina as if every moment they spent together would be their last.

A day she thought would come soon.

However, the deep-seated sense of impending doom in the pit of Raina’s stomach vanished. She was ready to work. To manage the store, to cook, to mentor Leona. Although she wasn’t as healthy as she was a week ago, she felt well enough to take care of the kids.

“How are you?” Angelika muttered.

Raina smiled as wide as she could. “I’m much stronger and healthier!” She threw out an arm and flexed it to display her newfound vigor.

Angelika pulled back, her eyes half-open and red with dark bags beneath them. “Really? You’re not saying that just to make me feel better?”

“I’m telling the truth! As healthy as a—” Raina froze at a sudden realization. “Could it actually…”

Lifting the corner of the enchanted blanket she slept on—the one that Leona brought over that afternoon—Raina examined its glow.

It was darker and pinker and more intimidating than the one she made for Dimitry yesterday. She saw nothing like it. Did its magic cure her plague?

Denial and curiosity bubbled up within Raina. How did a mere surgeon cast spells that neither she nor anyone else in the Sorceresses Guild could? Invisall, violet-colored illumina, and now this? And it wasn’t at its full power, either.

Leona said she weaved a medium-strength enchantment, so why was the aura denser than last time? Even the Church couldn’t make that. Just how much was Raina ignorant about?

She couldn’t die yet.

If her children weren’t reason enough, studying this magic was!

“Mom, why are you staring? Do you feel dizzy again?”

“Angelika, sweetie… did that surgeon friend of yours really make this?”

She nodded. “He told us to tell him right away if it starts to work. What should we do?”

Raina jumped out of bed with sprightly energy. “Leona!” she shouted loud enough that her daughter downstairs could hear. “Close the store and get ready to go out!”

“Is everything okay?!” Leona yelled in response.

“Mom?”

“Sweetie, can you go to the chest and bring me a vol ingot?” Raina rushed over to her wardrobe and dug through it, looking for something cute to wear. “Then go get some sleep. You’ll get wrinkles if you keep staying up all night.”

Light snowfall and freezing winds drifted through a crowded market square filled with merchants, passersby, and panhandling refugees. Their layered voices were loud but stood no match for the town crier’s. His piercing announcements were the fruit of decades of work experience. In all that time, however, no one paid him to deliver a message as stupid as the one he was about to.

The town crier took off his hat, then swiped a purple hand across its surface to remove a thin layer of snow. After fitting it back atop his head, he cleared his throat, rung his bell, and opened his mouth to convey the same message he yelled for the past three days.

“Hear ye, hear ye, good people of Malten! The east market hospital is offering free cures for the plague and curse! Look for a church brandishing Celeste’s statue! Residents, nobles, and even refugees are welcome!”

Although the announcement came out of his own mouth, the town crier didn’t believe a single word of it. Why would anyone give away a cure for free? The people of this city were too idiotic to ask themselves that same question. They flocked like sheep to an obvious scam.

Not his problem.

The job paid well, and the market guards didn’t tell him to stop.

“Come on,” a man in ragged clothing said to his unfortunate female companion. “Let’s get in line before it grows any larger.”

“But what about those rumors? Isn’t the pale-eyed surgeon a sham?”

“My buddy said he made his nosebleeds stop! We were neighbors back in Volmer. We can trust him!”

The muddy-haired woman held out a darkening arm. “… Which way is it?”

Foolish refugees.

They believed every lie the town crier fed them. Not only because of his impeccable delivery and flawless annunciation, but because desperate people acted like idiots. The surgeon who hired the town crier knew that. It was all part of his grand scheme.

The town crier snorted the blood pooling in the back of his nose before bellowing the second part of his message. “For those who can’t wait and have coin to spare, an expedient cure is available for twenty-five gold marks! Skip the line and receive better treatment than the rest!”

A basic trick. The ‘free cure’ was only there to create competition to make dying nobles more willing to pay for something that didn’t exist. If he was rich, the town crier would have spent his final moments enjoying his luxuries instead of giving them away to a scammer.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He had to make what little money he could so that his family could survive when the plague finally took his life. With an ailing grandmother and two hungry kids at home, the town crier had no choice but to work until he died.

It was a better use of his little time than standing in line outside some shady hospital.

A merchant with a fyrhound fur coat stood at a nearby market stall, speaking too enthusiastically. “And when I finally got inside, the Jade Surgeon told me to lie down on enchanted bedclothes glowing a really dark color. Never seen anything like it.”

“What happened?” His gullible companion asked.

“I spent half of my morning there. When I left, I thought it was a waste of time ‘cause I still felt like shit. But look!” The merchant pinched the skin on the back of his hand. “The Jade Surgeon’s methods work!”

“Think we can buy those bedclothes from him?”

“Damn, I should have asked. With the plague spreading, we could make a killing in Feyt!”

A faint glimmer of hope lit up within the town crier’s abdomen, filling him with hesitant warmth. He pinched the stiff and purple skin on the back of his hand.

Unlike that merchant’s, it wasn’t getting any better.

He stuffed his bell into his coat pocket and stepped off the podium. Even though he figured out Dimitry’s scam days ago, he would stand in the hospital’s line to confirm his suspicions.

“I need cutters, forceps, and my number ten scalpel.” Dimitry’s command echoed past the chatter of nurses, patients, and the shouting of watchmen outside, who have been chasing away thugs ever since the rumors of a cure have begun to spread.

“Yes, Mr. Dimitry!” Lili ran on her tiptoes, careful to avoid stepping on ailing people. They lay on tightly packed floor-level mattresses dressed in glowing, dark pink bedclothes. Initially, she thought it strange that Dimitry had most bed frames thrown out, but now it made sense—the furniture took up too much space. Without them, the hospital could fit twice as many patients.

Lili reached the room’s corner, where a small table held up an assortment of bottles and bowls. A vase among them contained the curious iron tools that a sooty giant wearing only an apron over his bare chest brought over just yesterday.

Cutters were easy to remember. They resembled the nail clippers Lili had back in her father’s manor. The surgical forceps were unique—blunt blades with looping handles. She plucked both instruments out from their container, then turned her attention to what always gave her trouble. Scalpels. There were too many, and they all looked so similar.

“Mr. Dimitry, which—”

“The one with a fat and curved blade.”

“Got it!” Hoping it was the correct one, Lili grabbed a scalpel and dumped all three tools into an alcohol bath. Apparently, it was for ‘sterilization’. She didn’t understand what it meant yet, but she was learning. Every day brought new challenges she never faced whilst living in Einheart.

Back then, all she did was read poetry, meet with suitors, and care for the stable’s horses. Although it was only a month ago, it felt like an eternity. Lili often wondered how her parents fared against the growing heathen threat, if her family’s estate and its people were safe, but she had other things keeping her occupied now.

Lili’s job as a nurse demanded her full attention. When Her Royal Majesty’s stewardess assigned it to her upon her arrival in Malten, she scoffed at the notion. She believed it below her station to assist common folk. However, the satisfaction she received from helping patients, accepting their gratitude, was worth more to her than any gold armlet a noble chump could offer her.

For once in her life, people needed her.

Relied on her.

No longer was Lili a pretty ornament for men to joust over with increasingly expensive yet meaningless gifts.

She found her calling.

Recently, her feelings towards her occupation only grew stronger. Unlike when she worked for Josef, whispering encouraging words into the ears of patients who wouldn’t survive by week’s end, Lili now took pride in her work.

They saved lives in this hospital.

With those heartening thoughts in mind, Lili wiped the surgical tools held in her hand with a warm, wet rag, then sprang forth to her mentor’s side. “I’ve retrieved them, Mr. Dimitry.”

“Did you sterilize the blades?”

“In the manner that you’ve shown me.”

“Good job.” Dimitry lifted a patient’s purple hand that had three fingers missing. In their place was a big hole filled with milky yellow pus, pink water, and an odor so rancid that it made Lili wriggle her nose. It happened often. The terrible plague, which was not a curse, often caused permanent damage if it festered too long.

“Anything else, Mr. Dimitry?”

“Stay here.” He took the clippers from her cupped hands. “I want you to watch carefully because I expect you to be able to do this someday.”

Her? Do that? A jolt of anxiety shot down Lili’s spine. “I don’t know if I can, I’m just a—”

“You’re a smart girl. Out of every nurse here, you learn the fastest. Believe in yourself like I believe in you.”

Although it was strange for a man the same age as Lili to call her a girl, she took his compliment graciously. No one relied on her being smart before. Perhaps all that time she spent studying under the manor tutors had paid off. She took a deep breath and focused on the surgery.

Dimitry clipped away skin—tough and dry like jerky—from the patient’s hand, small fragments flying off with each metallic click.

“Isn’t that painful for the patient, Mr. Dimitry?”

“No. The tissue is dead.”

Lili glanced down at the middle-aged woman, who watched Dimitry slice away her purple skin without a single groan or wince. Although hard to believe, his words must have been true. “How did you know?”

He held up the wound so that Lili could look into its gruesome and murky interior. “See how there’s no blood coming out?”

She nodded.

“That means the skin isn’t healthy, and the nerves inside don’t work anymore. If we don’t get rid of it, it’ll only get worse, and if we do, new and healthy skin will grow in its place. That’s the purpose of debridement.”

Strange words like ‘nerves’ and ‘debridement’ had become increasingly familiar to Lili despite their exact meanings remaining unclear. Hopefully, with time and experience, she would grow to understand them. Could she really learn to do what Dimitry did?

She hoped so.

The prospect excited Lili.