Rumors are truly terrifying.
By the time I had treated nearly all the injured homeless people near the river, a chaotic crowd of sick and injured people had gathered around me.
"Saint!! Please, please treat me!!"
"I can't see!!"
"Please help me!!"
Now, after doing this so many times, I have a pretty good sense of how to handle things.
"People who've already been treated, help me out! Form a line! Bring the critical patients and children to me first! If things get chaotic, only more people will get hurt!!"
"Yes! We will do that!!"
"Peter!! Anna!!"
While treating people frantically, I yelled out. The family I had treated for the first time came towards me.
I patted Jim and Amy’s heads before giving orders to the couple.
"You know where my house is, right? Here’s the key. Go inside and grab the pouch I’ve hidden under the bed. There’s gold inside it."
"Gold?"
"With that, buy food and share it with everyone."
Gold, if needed, I could always ask for more.
I’ve already crossed the line.
It wouldn't take long for the palace and the temple to hear about me and come flying here.
When that happens, I’ll just ask for gold again and then escape. The gold I’ve already collected will be shared without hesitation.
"Understood."
I smiled at the couple, who were blankly taking the key from me.
"And with that gold, have a good meal with your family and let Amy and Jim rest. They’ve been through a lot, so they need to eat well and sleep properly. Got it?"
At my words, the couple trembled, clenching their fists as tears welled up in their eyes.
Don’t tremble like that.
I should be the one apologizing.
I could’ve gotten them help earlier, but due to my circumstances, I couldn’t do it sooner.
"We will do that."
"First, both of you should go and rest. It hasn't been long since you recovered, so don’t overdo it. Understand?"
"Thank you, Saint. We will never forget this."
After Peter’s family left with the key, I continued to treat people.
"People who’ve been treated, sort through the incoming patients and bring the critical ones and children to me!!"
"Order! Form a line! Only by standing in line can we treat people more efficiently!!"
A week.
Just a week, and then I’ll leave.
I won’t treat anyone more than that.
My power shouldn’t grow any further by feeding on faith.
So, I needed to treat as many people as possible in the shortest time.
I treated without stopping day and night.
When my body became painfully tired, I used body modification skills to eliminate the fatigue. When my mind became too exhausted, I would lie down and take a short nap.
But no matter how much I did that, for some reason, I felt more and more depleted.
"Saint!! Please treat my daughter!!"
"My son is sick!!"
"My seven-year-old daughter is sick! Saint! Saint!!"
Children.
I don’t know why there are so many children like this.
Children with severed legs.
Children with burst eyes.
Children with no arms.
Children whose muscles have melted, unable to even walk properly.
The reasons their parents give for bringing them to me were all heartbreaking.
"I worked 16 hours a day and, exhausted, got sucked into a machine..."
"I inhaled toxic gas while cleaning chimneys and lost my sight."
"My child got injured, but the factory didn’t give a single penny as compensation. Saint."
I treated children like crazy, non-stop.
It was an era where children as young as three were forced to work.
And those children, after working 16 hours, couldn’t hold on and got sucked into machines, losing limbs or even their lives.
Even just losing a limb was considered a minor injury.
There were many cases where children, smaller in size, got sucked into the machines and their bodies were never found.
Children who worked in textile factories often grew up with deformed bones from the excessive labor, limping when they walked. Some, who couldn’t even sleep properly, were exposed to chemicals and lost their vision, ending up as beggars.
The more I treated, the more sorrow and anger grew inside me.
Making money?
It’s important.
I know that well.
But no matter what, there’s such a thing as a limit.
This situation clearly went far beyond what could be considered acceptable.
What made me even sadder was the attitude of the workers after receiving treatment, as they couldn’t even fully rejoice.
"Will you stay here long, Saint?"
"Now that I’m healed, I’ll have to go back to the factory. I might lose my hands again or go blind."
"I think I’ll have to come back for more treatment. Can you stay here for a long time? I don’t have money, but I’ll help you with labor, just like today."
It’s disgusting.
It’s revolting, to the point of gagging.
The greed of the people who mass-produce injured and suffering humans, not one or two, but entire cities, is repulsive.
The attitude of forcing children, who should be playing and growing, into hard labor that even the worst temp jobs in Korea wouldn’t require, without proper pay, is utterly revolting.
Now I understand why the people carrying the red books keep multiplying.
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Now I understand why the police are trying to catch them.
It was a crazy era.
And the monsters who are even more obsessed with greed than anyone else, they are the upper class of this city.
The factory owners.
I did everything I could.
I reduced even my eating and sleeping time, desperately treating the injured people harmed by their greed.
But no matter how much I struggled, there were limits.
"Saint!! My daughter!! My daughter!!"
A mother runs toward me, holding her young daughter.
"After getting injured in the factory, she hasn’t had a fever drop!! Please, save her!!"
A child, whose arm is crushed, is thrust before me.
I quickly raise my hand, but...
[Body modification skills can only be used on living creatures!!]
[Only on living creatures!!]
She’s dead.
Once again, I couldn’t save a life, and another soul has passed.
I couldn’t bear to look at the mother's devastated face, so I turned my head.
"It’s already too late."
"Ah! ...Ahhh!!"
-This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.-
"Please bury him properly. He has passed away."
"Please!! Please perform a miracle! Please! Just this morning, he was still alive! Saint, please! A miracle!!"
There was no way to resurrect a dead body.
I couldn’t bear to look at the desperate face of the mother, still holding the child’s lifeless body, pleading in vain. It felt like I might collapse right then and there.
"I’m sorry."
When I declared, with a trembling voice, that there was nothing more I could do, a beast-like cry erupted from the mother.
Was this what they called chamcheok?
The agonized wail of a parent who lost their child was unbearable to listen to.
"Just... just a little... a little earlier... Why...?"
The mother’s voice trembled as she choked on her words. I could feel something inside me swelling, threatening to burst.
After the mother fainted from crying and was supported by others, I stared down at the spot where she had stood for a long while.
"Why... is there no hospital in this city?"
At my words, the people I had treated laughed bitterly.
"There are hospitals. Probably some of the best doctors in the empire are here. This area has many people who inherently dislike religion, so medicine has advanced quite a bit."
"Then why...?"
"It’s expensive. Medicine is expensive, and doctors are even more expensive. Places like that are not something workers like us could ever afford to visit."
Yeah.
I thought so.
Why wouldn’t it be like that?
If you torment and oppress people this much, of course, they’ll turn into something strange and end up reading the red books.
I know all too well how this kind of situation ends.
When a society rejects magic, faith, and religion, it rots away due to endless greed, and I know exactly how it will all end.
The red faction and the blue faction will split and fight to the death. In the end, both the red and blue factions will become places where the socially vulnerable can no longer live.
Eventually, the blue faction will win, but thinking about the tremendous amount of blood that will be spilled in the process, I shuddered.
What the hell am I doing, saving these people?
I needed to address this issue on a more fundamental level.
If not, my treatment would just be a pointless, futile effort.
These people will be hurt again, and in the end, the societal conflicts that have festered will explode. They will struggle for a utopia, but in the end, they will all fall into hell.
What should I do?
What can I, with only game-like skills, possibly do to improve their lives even just a little?
The thought of treating just for a week and then running away had almost completely disappeared from my mind.
I couldn’t just treat them briefly and run away. The sorrow and anger I’ve witnessed in such a short time are too immense and terrible.
Something had to be done.
I was consumed with this thought when, more precisely, it had been exactly two days since I started treating people.
"Get out of the way!! Get out of the way, you bastards!! You filthy insects!!"
The city’s police arrived, pushing the patients aside and surrounding me with guns and clubs.
After roughly pushing a young girl, whom I was treating, aside, the police circled me.
"Jericho Amayel. Are you the one called the Saint of Healing in the capital?"
Having not slept or eaten properly for two days, my hair was messy, and I slowly looked up at the police.
"Yes, that’s me."
"I have one question. Do you have a medical license?"
"No."
"Then you’re performing illegal treatments without a license? This is a clear violation of the law, Amayel. Furthermore, your actions are infringing on the interests of the city’s pharmaceutical companies and the doctors’ association."
"......"
"This is a serious violation of imperial law. If you cause significant damage to businesses with unauthorized actions, you can be punished under imperial law, and the level of punishment is decided by the regional governor, as stated in the imperial law."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"Please leave the city. Otherwise, we will have no choice but to interrogate you for causing significant harm to corporations. You are currently under suspicion of being a labor theorist. I personally don’t want to interrogate someone the temple and the royal family hold in such high regard."
A bitter laugh escaped me.
A labor theorist?
Are they blaming me and kicking me out, all while using me as a scapegoat for the countless sick and injured people they’ve created?
"Would you like to be interrogated? Or will you quietly leave the city?"
The police officer’s words made the patients around me begin to murmur.
"My daughter hasn’t been treated yet!!"
"Please fix me!! I can’t see because I’m blind! Saint!!"
"Please heal my son!! Don’t leave!!"
At the patients’ cries, the officer’s eyes narrowed in irritation.
"Do you all want to be arrested on charges of being labor theorists and dragged away? Do you want to live in a detention camp?"
The terrified voices, accompanied by a roar of anger, made the patients flinch and begin to step back.
"The free treatment and welfare guaranteed by society!! Isn’t that all just something labor theorists talk about? You bastards wanting free treatment, I seriously question your mental state! All of you step back if you don’t want to end up in a detention camp!!"
After easily subduing the patients, the police turned their attention back to me.
"Please leave quietly, Amayel. Don’t incite the trash of this city and cause harm to businesses and factories. This is a serious violation of imperial law."
With a displeased expression urging me to leave quickly, I couldn’t help but laugh.
My anger reached a breaking point.
The pharmaceutical companies and doctors’ associations, who had failed to treat and created this many sick and injured people, were now trying to chase me out because they were losing tiny amounts of profit?
Fine.
I ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) could take their mocking tone.
Sure.
They’ll never care about the suffering of those without money, while they can’t tolerate even the smallest loss of profit.
But, you know.
"Trash, huh?"
Calling those desperate, suffering people trash.
"Don’t stir up trouble and cause chaos among the city’s trash?"
I couldn’t stand that.
I absolutely couldn’t stand it.
I activated time stop around the officer, who seemed to be the leader of the police.
Slowly, I began to lift him up in the frozen space, and he started to float in the air as if caught by telekinesis.
"Ugh!! What is this... what are you doing!!"
The officer, struggling and flailing in the air, became the target of all my suppressed anger.
Trash?
No.
"They are the ones I healed. They are the ones I’ve decided to take care of!!"
The trash is you!
"Don’t you ever dare call the ones I have mercy on, trash!!!!!!"
The anger that had been building up for two days exploded with a tremendous roar.