Chương 227: Fizz Crystals

The next day, I prepared to focus on long-term planning. I also needed to deliver Markus's letters, and get my mother looked at by a doctor. After all, she had never recovered her mental faculties. I had spent years healing her, and she wasn't getting better. I wanted to know why that was the case. Luckily, I had a way to address everything at once. I needed to go see the doctor Markus had recommended. With that thought in mind, I first bought a new set of clothes.

After our journey to Damilius I looked like a beggar. I had taken a bath and cleaned myself, but my clothes, apart f looked like they had been through a war zone. They smelled like a sewer. I was thankful that my dress had a self-cleaning ability, because I had no other clothes to wear right now. While I was getting a new outfit, I also bought everyone else something to wear. They might not fit perfectly, but they presentable, at least.

That drained most of the money Markus had given us, but I still had enough of my portion left to afford the doctor and a meal. So I took my mother and went off to find Markus's girlfriend, the doctor of Vintella. It took a while to find our way through the streets. After an hour of walking, we stood in front of a small, brightly lit doctor's office close to the alchemy university. The sign outside of the door proudly proclaimed that we were about to enter Doctor Trish's General Clinic.

I took a deep breath, before I opened the door and led my mother through.

"Hello?" asked a man sitting behind a desk.

"Do you ….. an appointment?" He gazed at my mother, before frowning in confusion.

"Ma'am? If.... urgent, you would be better of..... to see an emergency doctor."

"I don't, have an appointment," I said.

"We're new to area. Not urgent." I resisted the urge to frown. I had learned more of the Damilian language with Old Mo last night, and I had learned phrases relevant to visiting the doctor. But I still didn't understand everything the receptionist said. The receptionist seemed surprised that I had spoken instead of my mother. He turned his attention from her to me.

"Is … urgent? Is she …….?" asked the receptionist. He eyed my mother far more critically this time. It seemed like he was worried by what he saw.

"I was hoping to see Doctor Trish, but it's not urgent," I said, trying not to stumble over my words. My mother hadn't gotten better after two years of healing. I doubted a few hours would make much of a difference. The receptionist frowned.

"Is she… mother? Or …. sister? She ….. seem …" I sighed.

"She's my mother. She's.... uhh." I tried to remember the word for 'been,' and came up completely blank.

"She like this for long time now." My grammar made me wince. I was now speaking like a cavewoman. The first thing I needed to do was learn proper Damilian. The receptionist started to frown, and then looked at me.

"Do you not …… Damilian?" I spent a few seconds puzzling out the meaning, before I shook my head.

"Not well. No speak good. Trying hard." The receptionist glanced at me a bit more closely, before he nodded. When he spoke again, he slowed down the tempo of his words. It made it much easier for me to figure out what he was saying.

"I'm sure I can..... a time..... Give me a moment." The receptionist cleared his throat, before he started thumbing through a pile of papers. A few moments later, his eyes lit up.

"Doctor Trish free… two hours. Does that work?" I nodded.

"Sounds good. I get lunch. Come back later. Okay? I Miria."

"Of course!" said the receptionist, before shooting me another worried glance.

"I wrote.... down. You have an appointment now. Are you … sure that …. mother …. okay? She really… look well. Dangerous." I nodded.

"Two years. Never better. Same as always. Just hoping this doctor help." You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. That answer seemed to satisfy the receptionist. Some of the concern bled out of his face when he heard that my mother had been like this for a while. Then, he frowned, and looked at me a lot more closely.

"Are you.... kid?"

"I'm six," I said.

"Do you........... parent?"

"Old Mo," I said, after a moment of thought. I was pretty sure the receptionist was asking me if I had another parent. Old Mo was kind of like a father to me. And I didn't want the receptionist worrying about a six year old wandering around without any adults. I could take care of myself, but he had no way of knowing that. The receptionist looked relieved at that statement. I led my mother away and left before the receptionist could ask more awkward questions.

I walked around the streets of Vintelle for over an hour. I quickly realized how different Verne and Damilius were. There were a lot more restaurants in Damilius than Verne. Every other street had a few restaurants, unlike Verne, where they were more scarce. My understanding of Verne was somewhat biased, since I had lived in the slums. But I was still sure the restaurant density was lower there. I also noticed that there were a lot of theaters in Damilius, as well as a few art galleries.

I didn't remember seeing either of those things in Verne. When I asked Anise, she said that even in the middle-class district, they were rare. Clearly, Damilius put a lot more emphasis on arts and culture than Verne did. The quality of people's lives in this country also seemed to be pretty good. If people had the time and money to see plays frequently, things couldn't be too bad here. A bit of asking around confirmed this suspicion.

Apparently, the land in Damilius was very fertile near the biggest river in the country. The country was also very isolated from the rest of the continent. As a result, Damilius spent far less on its military than most countries of comparable size. Damilius sank this extra money into art. People in Vintelle believed that Damilius was the artistic center of the world. I didn't know whether people outside of Damilius believed the same thing, but it was an interesting national identity.

Of course, that didn't mean the country was totally untouched by war or conquest. Damilius also had a few colonies overseas, and owned a small set of islands that grew cocoa and sugar. Damilius still had a respectable navy and a small land army. But for a country of its size, its military spending was low. After walking around for an hour, I had a nice fish stew from a nearby restaurant and fed my mother. After our meal, we returned to the clinic.

We only had to wait five minutes before I saw an old man walk out of the examination room. The receptionist gave me a warm smile.

"Doctor Trish is ready," he said. I stepped into the examination room of the clinic, where I saw a woman in her mid twenties standing behind the counter. She had bright auburn hair, brown eyes, and a stern but warm expression.

"Miria," she said, eyeing me.

"I hear you don't speak the language of Damilius very well?" I nodded.

"I'm sorry then. I don't speak other languages. If you don't know a word, tell me. I'll simplify. Okay?" I noticed that she was making efforts to speak with very basic vocabulary. I actually understood everything she had said, which was nice.

"You doctor Trish?" I asked. She nodded. I reached for Markus's letters.

"From Markus, I have letters!"

"Markus?" Doctor Trish seemed shocked. I quickly pulled Markus's letters out of my pocket. Doctor Trish looked at the envelopes in my hand, before her gaze softened.

"That guy sent me letters again, huh. Thank you...... delivering them." She gently caressed the letters, before she carefully placed it in a little box near the back of the room. Then, she turned back towards me and frowned.

"I'll read..... later. But why did he send letters with a six year old?" I paused, trying to think about how to explain our arrival circumstances in broken Damilian. Before I could, she sighed.

"Nevermind, I'll find out when I read them. Right now we have more urgent matters to take care of. Is this your mother?" She pointed towards my mother. I nodded, and helped seat my mother on doctor Trish's examination chair.

"Let's......... her," she said. She started asking me questions about when and why my mother had become like this. I answered truthfully, talking about my mother's fizz addiction and the constant use of my healing 'ability' to keep my mother alive. It was a bit hard to translate some of my words into Damilian, but with some back and forth, we managed to mostly understand each other. Finally, she spent a few minutes prodding at my mother, testing her reflexes, and examining my mother's eyes.

Her frown grew deeper with each test.

"I........ I know what problem your mother has, but I'd like to take a closer look," said doctor Trish.

"There's a certain …. that a lot of long-term Fizz addicts ….., and it sounds like your mother already has it." Then, she paused.

"Actually, it sounds like it should have killed her already. I ….. your healing ability has kept her alive well past the point she should have died." Then, she opened my mother's mouth, and stuck a strip of some sort of paper inside of it. She stuck two similar strips of paper up both of my mother's nostrils. My mother started squirming, and I worked with doctor Trish to keep her from dislodging the papers for a moment. Finally, doctor Trish pulled the pieces of paper back out.

I stared at them, and realized that all three papers had turned bright blue. Doctor Trish eyed the pieces of paper before she nodded.

"Yup, that …. it. Your mother has ……. Fizz crystals lodged in her brain."