Chapter 91: The Intentions Were Good (2) |
*
Holding a bent car door panel in one hand.
Our hero Gregor trudged back toward us.
"It seems the attack ended with that carriage just now..."
The muscleman reported, shoulders drooping.
His beard hung just as low, as if speaking for his feelings.
Watching that dejected figure, I found myself letting slip words I'd been holding back.
"When you think about it, you came along taking on all that risk yourself, so it feels rather unfair to be so stingy about it. I'll handle the car repair costs and the building damages in your stead. As for the church... I won't say a word."
In the end, it had all been done to protect me, the citizens, and the guards.
A 4th Rank Superhuman could probably stop a carriage barehanded without causing any damage whatsoever.
But to berate a hero simply because he didn't produce the best possible outcome—that's no way to treat one.
'It's no different from filing a civil complaint about an ambulance siren.'
Once or twice might be one thing.
But when this sort of thing keeps repeating, it starts to weigh on a person.
Making a hero worry about things like that just doesn't sit right with me.
"Mr. Gregor. Thank you. Please don't let it trouble you."
"Lord Saint...!"
The collateral damage would be buried without further inquiry.
Upon hearing those words, Gregor's eyes welled with tears as he pressed a handkerchief to his mouth.
At that, Gregor's adjutant, who had been pulling people out from beneath the overpass, turned to me with a protest.
"Lord Saint! This is already the tenth time you've done this. Isn't it precisely because you always handle things in his place that he keeps on like this?!"
The adjutant's sharp gaze skewered Gregor.
Gregor broke into a cold sweat and looked away.
"I... this one..."
"Was it not just the other night during that chase that you smashed through several walls of private houses to take a shortcut?!"
"This one felt it couldn't be helped..."
"Lord Gregor!"
"(Whine.)"
What the heck.
He'd broken more things while I wasn't looking?
"If you tell me about that part as well, I can—"
"Lord Saint!"
"But were they not all matters directly tied to my safety? We can't have a hero fretting over trifles like this, can we."
The adjutant opened his mouth as if to say something, then pressed a hand to his forehead instead.
"Haah... Very well. But even within the church, formality and procedure matter."
I know.
When an organization keeps turning a blind eye like this, problems tend to pile up in all sorts of ways.
Ultimately, the reason rules and procedures exist in the first place is that ignoring them invariably leads to collateral damage growing too large to contain.
Dismissing them entirely isn't good either.
"If precedents like this keep accumulating, what kind of example does it set for the other Holy Knights..."
"Then let's close it with a written apology."
A written apology is little more than a formality—a letter of self-reflection.
No additional disciplinary action. No pay cut.
Even a show-piece apology like that has its place.
I'd handled plenty of complaints this way back when I worked at the hospital in my previous life.
Whenever I caused some incident, the hospital director and the department head would cover for me, and it would end with a single letter of self-reflection.
Back then, they were the ones covering for me.
Now the roles have reversed.
I'd always wanted to become that kind of adult.
Looks like I achieved that dream—in another world.
"Would this arrangement be acceptable, Adjutant?"
"Haah... Understood."
"Lord Saint—! How merciful a Saint you are! Please, I beg you, accept this one's hug of gratitude!"
Weeping, he spread both arms wide.
A massive shadow came crashing down toward me.
...I reflexively ducked behind Otto.
"Gack!"
Just like that morning, Otto's face buried in a mass of muscle turned an alarming shade of blue.
The difference from the morning being that he'd been in uniform back then, whereas now his top was gone.
A pectoralis major gleaming with an almost oppressive radiance swallowed Otto's face whole.
"H-help...!"
"This is a hug of joy! Don't resist! Here!"
"Grgk...!"
At that moment, the adjutant, watching Gregor's rampage with cold eyes, spoke in a voice that had gone equally cold.
"But regardless of anything else, the matter of removing his top must be reported to the Diocesan Head."
"Yes. I know."
That one I couldn't help.
"Haah... These clerical robes are precious things... I've lost count of how many times now..."
The adjutant gathered up what remained of Gregor's clerical robes—reduced to scraps of rags—and heaved a sigh.
The clerical robes of a High-Rank Holy Knight are extraordinarily expensive strategic resources.
They were nothing less than a wearable barrier, crafted by imbuing divine magic into every last thread.
And he had torn such protective gear—not in the heat of battle, but simply because he wanted to show off his muscles.
That was something even I couldn't cover for him.
There was another reason as well.
"The Diocesan Head?! No! Not my father—!"
"The Diocesan Head personally requested it, so it can't be helped."
I was sorry, but this truly was beyond my power to help with.
The Diocesan Head is Gregor's adoptive parent, after all.
The Diocesan Head had told me once before.
— "He is my inadequate son. To think a High-Rank Holy Knight who ought to model piety would carry on like that... I apologize to you, Lord Saint, but if there are ever occasions where he flaunts himself in the middle of the street, please inform me."
Honestly, I understand the Diocesan Head's feelings.
A High-Rank Holy Knight, in broad daylight, staging a top-removal show while radiating his divine power to make his upper body glow.
For a Diocesan Head who had lived a lifetime of piety, it must be an intolerable bad habit.
And I have to admit, it's a bit much from where I'm standing too.
If children grew up watching that and later resolved to walk the path of a priest—what would become of this nation's faith?
"I would like to let it go as well, but the Diocesan Head was so earnest in his request..."
"NOOOO!"
Gregor sank to his knees with a wail.
Gregor Ardenu. Age 24.
A man who feared neither black sorcerers nor harm to himself.
And yet, it seemed his parents' nagging was still something he had yet to overcome.
*
Amid that idle chatter.
The rescue operation for those pinned beneath the overpass appeared to be nearing its end.
In my heart, I wanted to join in, pulling people from the rubble myself.
But according to rescue site protocol, it is taboo for a doctor to personally participate in the rescue—so I held back.
At a rescue site, the rescue is the emergency rescuers' domain.
The doctor's role is to stand with arms crossed and wait, then treat the people once they've been pulled out.
If I went wandering around the scene and got hurt, that would truly be putting the cart before the horse.
So the best I could do was trust the Holy Knights carrying out the rescue and wait.
Good intentions alone are never enough to produce the best results.
"How many victims are there?"
"Having detected life forces using divine magic, it appears there are approximately 8 survivors currently pinned beneath the overpass. Of these, 5 have already been extracted."
The adjutant reported.
Fortunately, most were trauma and dehydration cases.
A few had taken worse injuries, but nothing that proper treatment couldn't see through.
Yet this outcome was not owed to sheer luck.
"Those black sorcerers. They'd cleverly collapsed just enough of the overpass to trap people without killing them—they needed the victims alive before you arrived, Lord Saint."
"If they have a talent like that, I do wish they'd put it to better use."
At every fractured edge of the overpass, mold was visible.
They must have used it to bring the overpass down at just the right moment, taking the people hostage.
And while I was occupied with the rescue, the plan had been to strike with the carriage.
"What about back-tracing?"
"We apologize. Due to our own incompetence..."
"Please don't blame yourself, Adjutant. This kind of black magic is difficult to track, isn't it."
They hadn't specifically targeted people close to me to kidnap them.
Black magic set up in this manner—a trap meant to ensnare whoever happened by—is not easy to trace.
As they say, even profiling only works when you can grasp, to some degree, what the criminal intended.
When the trap is set to catch anyone at all, it's difficult even for me to track down the culprits.
"What worries me more is the thought that I keep exposing weaknesses for them to exploit."
What genuinely concerns me right now is something else.
By the conventions of dark fantasy, the more precious things a person gains, the more vulnerable they become.
In that sense, my weakness was my patients.
In a world where even the guards hesitated to rescue citizens the moment black magic was involved, I had walked boldly into a trap for no other reason than the possibility there might be patients inside.
From the black sorcerers' perspective, they'd gained one more weakness to target.
"I can only feel sorry that innocent citizens keep getting caught up in things because of me."
Hearing those words, Gregor released Otto and let a shadow fall across his face.
"Lord Saint."
He called to me in a low, quiet voice.
"That you cannot turn away from the innocent is a virtue. It is those vile creatures who exploit that virtue who deserve condemnation—your goodwill, Lord Saint, must never be the target of blame. Is it not precisely because such things have happened again and again that people have grown so indifferent to their neighbors?"
Draping the overcoat his adjutant handed him across his shoulders, he looked at me with a solemn expression.
"I believe that the goodwill of people like you, Lord Saint, will ultimately make this world a better place. So you must not yield to their malice."
"I think I gave you the wrong impression. I'm all right. I have no intention of letting something like this make me deny the path I've walked."
It's true that I've exposed a weakness the black sorcerers can exploit.
But so what.
Have you ever seen a protagonist tuck their tail between their legs just because some villains threatened them a few times?
If anything, it's precisely in moments like these that a protagonist must see their conviction through.
If the world denies my conviction,
I will see that conviction through to the very end, no matter what.
That's what it means to be a protagonist.
'Besides, how could a doctor ever walk past a patient.'
Between my previous life and this one, that's how I'd lived for decades combined.
I'm not soft enough to bend my convictions over something like this—not now, not ever.
"If they come at me like this, I will simply overcome it all in plain sight and prove that I am right. Though of course, in the process, you'll be put in danger, Mr. Gregor. I'm sorry for that part."
Hearing those words, Gregor let out a snort.
"You need not say such things! Have I not told you time and again? If malice stands in the way before you, Lord Saint...!"
Hup!
He flexed his muscles again and struck a most muscular pose.
Pop!
With that sound, the button on the overcoat his adjutant had just procured flew clean off.
The button, launched from the overcoat, traced a parabolic arc and came to rest on the crown of the adjutant's head.
A vein bulged on the adjutant's forehead.
But Gregor paid it no mind and cried out.
"This one shall simply smash through that wall and press forward! Is that not my wish and my mission?! So think nothing of it and cast me onto the thorny path!"
"Ha ha... What a reassuring thing to hear..."
Grrrk...
I could hear the adjutant grinding his teeth beside me, but I pretended not to notice.
*
Even as we traded idle chatter, the rescue and treatment continued.
Dehydration corrected with IV fluids.
Trauma cases triaged and urgently transported to the nearest clinic.
Thanks to the life force detection of divine magic, the rescue had proceeded smoothly.
"Lord Saint!"
And when only one person remained.
The adjutant waved his hand and called to me urgently.
"There is one person left! But..."
The adjutant pointed beneath a massive rebar.
A patient whose leg was pinned and couldn't be pulled free.
Apart from mild dehydration, no obvious symptoms were visible.
"This rebar is too large! We need Lord Gregor's help!"
At that cry, stars lit up in both of Gregor's eyes.
Crack.
"Oh! Understood!! This is precisely the moment my muscles are needed! The essence of the Ardenu Sect's muscle training techniques, honed across a thousand years—I shall show you their true nature here, today, in this very place!"
He charged toward the rebar without a moment's hesitation.
Before anyone could stop him, Gregor was already sliding his arms beneath the lower edge of the rebar.
I called out to him urgently.
"Gregor! Wait! If you lift that, the patient will die!"
"What?!"
Gregor froze in place, aghast.
I explained quickly, in terms he could follow.
"It's been two full hours since the rebar came down. The lower part of that person's leg has most likely begun to undergo necrosis."
When muscle is compressed under a heavy object for a long time, the muscle fibers in the compressed area begin to die off little by little.
Dying muscle slowly expels potassium, myoglobin, and acidic waste products out from the cells.
While the leg remains pinned, those toxins don't cause a problem.
Because there is no path for them to flow out beyond the compressed blood vessels.
But the problem arises the moment that compression is released—the moment the rebar is lifted.
The instant the beam is raised.
The toxins pooled beyond the dying leg will come flooding to the upper body like a dam bursting.
The potassium travels to the heart and stops its beat.
The myoglobin clogs the kidneys.
The other substances acidify the blood and devastate every corner of the body.
Crush Syndrome, in a word.
It had been one of the most common mechanisms of death I encountered at collapse sites and earthquake scenes in my previous life.
Of course, I couldn't walk through each of those details one by one.
So I kept it simple.
"If the toxins from the dying leg rise up, it could kill him."
"Then..."
Gregor murmured, eyeing the leg pinned beneath the rebar.
"...The only option is to amputate..."
"Eek!"
The patient, already pale, went even paler.
Remarkably, Gregor was right.
Amputation was indeed one of the options in Crush Syndrome.
You couldn't weigh a patient's life against preserving one necrotic leg.
The procedure was to call a doctor to the scene and saw the leg off.
It was work I'd done many times before.
But.
"If the situation were severe, that would be the case—but this person won't need that."
There is a standard called the MESS score.
A set of criteria for deciding whether to amputate a limb.
By that standard, this patient wasn't to the point of requiring amputation.
It had only been two hours since the pinning, and the patient looked young.
And the patient had reacted to our conversation.
"Sir. Are you in pain right now?"
"My leg... hurts a little."
"Fortunate. I'll give you something for the pain."
A patient like this, you don't amputate.
Instead, you extract them first and treat preemptively for the toxins that will rise afterward.
"Otto. Could you fetch the IV fluids from the medicine box?"
Otto nodded and brought what was asked.
I immediately administered IV fluids to the patient at maximum volume.
"The idea is to flood the system with fluids before the toxins rise, diluting them."
Then I bound a tourniquet around the leg.
Ordinarily, tourniquets aren't called for in Crush Syndrome.
But after treating people in this world a number of times, I'd had to revise my protocols from my previous life.
I looped the tourniquet strap around the upper thigh and twisted the rod—the strap cinched tight around the patient's thigh.
"The blood vessel is blocked. You can lift it now, Mr. Gregor."
"Understood!"
Hnngh!
A rebar that looked like it would require heavy equipment to move rose into the air.
"Gregor. One more thing—please go to the nearest Merkur Clinic and bring back a healer who can perform detoxification magic. If anyone asks who sent you, use my name."
What's needed now is detoxification magic.
In this world, detoxification magic is quite difficult.
Where ordinary Heal only requires a general understanding of the concept of recovery to apply,
detoxification magic requires fully identifying every type of toxin involved and applying the appropriate counter for each.
Years ago, during the Star Anise Incident, the reason newborns died before healers could do anything was precisely this.
If you don't know what the poison is, even a healer's detoxification magic can't be expected to produce dramatic results.
Fortunately, our clinic has experience treating patients like this from a large-scale disaster some time ago.
Even an adventurer who had been pinned beneath a demonic beast corpse for several hours walked out of the clinic on both legs.
This patient will do the same.
That's exactly why I specified to bring someone from our clinic.
"Understood!"
Gregor dashed off.
A gleaming mass of muscle charging at something close to a carriage's full speed.
He'll probably have a healer dragged back within ten minutes.
In the meantime, I had one thing to do.
"Sir."
"Yes?"
"Would you count down from ten while you breathe this in?"
"Uh... one... two... three... glk."
The patient was asleep.
The ether had taken effect.
An inhalation anesthetic I'd obtained from the airship mooring.
A fairly recent acquisition, it turned out.
They'd been selling it there under some unfamiliar ingredient name rather than ether, which was why I was late to find it.
It's an anesthetic full of side effects and complications, but right now there's no alternative.
'Chloroform is contraindicated in Crush Syndrome.'
The chloroform I normally used couldn't be used here.
The hepatotoxicity side effect could send the patient straight to the Main God's side.
"The patient is asleep. Otto, please move him to the car."
This is no place for surgery.
Whether the inside of a car is any better is, admittedly, debatable.
Still, it was preferable to a dust-choked scene.
With the car converted into a makeshift operating room, I immediately drew out my surgical tools.
The adjutant looked on in alarm as I produced the razor blade.
"Did you not say you wouldn't amputate?"
"I won't amputate."
I'll only cut.
And with that, I began to make an incision along the patient's leg.
