Chương 44: Here or There

In the morning, Kichan felt the inside of his throat go dry. He had made no sound, but it felt as if someone far away had called his name. Kichan looked around, checking people's faces and hand gestures. The great city felt different from the local lord's city from the start. The walls were higher, and old flags hung in rows above the gate. Beneath the gate, five separate lines had formed. Merchants, pilgrims, mercenaries, people with Magic Institute marks, and a temple procession.

The merchant line smelled of dried fish and spices. The mercenary line smelled of sweat and oiled leather. The temple line smelled of wet cloth and holy water. The Magic Institute line had fewer people, but the blue measuring stone beside it kept glowing faintly. Kichan looked at the crowded lines and felt sick of them already.

"We'll be waiting all day." The investigator said they could enter faster with the Magic Institute mark. At the gate, one soldier poked under cart wheels with the tip of his spear. Another made people hold out their hands. Each time someone placed a hand on the measuring stone, the stone's light changed slightly. Some passed through at once, and some were sent to a small table at the side. Kichan looked at that small table. Two clerks sat there. One wrote names, and the other stamped marks.

Behind them, blank wooden tags hung on a string. They were the size people wore around their necks. When Kichan's turn came, the clerk's pen stopped. No mana. Unclear purpose of visit. Accompanied by a temple sealed report. Related to the village protection document. The clerk stopped speaking and looked at the investigator. The investigator explained smoothly. Ren tried to follow the explanation, and his face slowly hardened. Kichan did not understand every word. But he saw the blanks growing longer.

The clerk took out a new wooden tag. The line where a person's name should go was empty, and there were many smaller boxes below it. Companion. Observation. Responsible party. Temporary custody. Kichan's expression cooled the moment he saw those boxes. He remembered the empty signature line on the contract in the lord's manor. A blank was not just a blank. It could be a hole someone pushed a person into. The investigator suggested a temporary visitor mark.

It was close to a classification for an accompanying object or special observation target, without a name. Kichan did not understand the whole sentence, but he caught the word that sounded too close to object. He pointed at his own chest.

"Person." Ren translated. Kichan said it again.

"I said, person." The air in front of the gate turned awkward. Someone in the line behind them almost laughed, then stopped. The clerk froze with his pen still touching the paper, and one soldier looked back and forth between Kichan and the investigator. The investigator did not smile. An administrator came out from inside. He walked over while adjusting his collar, his face already prepared to apologize. His head was low, and his voice was soft.

"Of course he must be treated as a person." Ren translated carefully. But the administrator's hand went toward the clerk's pen. He pointed not to a box for a person, but to the box that would leave less responsibility. Kichan could not read the letters. Still, he saw where the finger pointed.

"Ah. So it's the same everywhere." Ren could not answer. The investigator stepped in. Witness to the village protection document, companion to the temple sealed letter, scheduled visitor to the record hall. Several terms moved quickly back and forth. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. In the end, the clerk took out a different wooden tag. This time, the name line was at the very top. Ren gave Kichan's name, and the clerk wrote it slowly.

He asked Ren again if the pronunciation was right. Only then did Kichan breathe out a little. He did not like it completely. Still, the first line on the wooden tag around his neck was a name, not an item number. Inside the city was even more complicated than outside the gate. The roads were wide, but there were more people. Whenever a cart passed, people pressed themselves against the walls on both sides, and cloth hung from every window. At the end of the main road stood the treatment center.

It had white stone walls and blue glass windows, and a long line had already formed before the entrance. Kichan looked at the patients. Some coughed like the village child. One man clutched a coin purse to his chest, and another woman held only a child's hand with empty hands. Beside the entrance, the line split into two. One line stood in shade under the roof, and the other stood under the sun. The people in the shade held out papers or marks. The people in the sun rubbed their hands together.

Kichan watched those two lines for a long time. The investigator said carefully that a high healer of this place and a royal mage wanted to examine Kichan's case. Kichan stopped in front of the treatment center door. He smelled medicine. Before that, he saw hands clutching coin purses. And before those hands, he saw the marks entering first. Kichan said low,"Here or there, capitalism wins."

The treatment center was clean. White cloth hung between each line, and metal instruments were arranged on small trays. Glass pipes carrying mana ran along the walls, and blue light moved slowly through them like water. Healing assistants sent from the temple wore white aprons, and clerks kept writing on boards attached to the ends of beds. At first, Kichan felt a little relieved. At least this looked like a place made for patients. That thought did not last long. Inside the entrance, the line split again.

Different doors opened depending on clothing and marks. People with documents or tokens went into the inner shade. People who took out coin purses went that way too. The empty-handed sat on long benches along the wall. People whose hands lit the measuring stone received bed numbers immediately, and people whose stone barely lit were told to wait. A coughing old man and a crying child waited a long time on the bench by the wall. While Kichan silently watched the lines, a young royal mage appeared.

His clothes looked expensive, and thin gold thread was worked into the ends of his sleeves. He bowed to Kichan. His manners were correct, but his gaze stayed longer on Kichan's hands, throat, and the empty space behind his back than on his face. He thanked Kichan for healing the village people for the kingdom. Ren translated. Kichan did not answer. The mage opened a small recording board. Several blanks had already been drawn on it. He began asking questions. What materials had the medicine used?

How had the patients recovered without mana reacted? After recovery, how had fever, breathing, appetite, and skin color changed? And. Could the child healed in the village be brought here for comparative examination? Ren stopped while translating. Kichan did not understand all of it. But he caught child, examination, and bring.

"Bring who?" Ren could not answer right away. The royal mage smiled. He said it was not dangerous. It was confirmation. It was research to save more people. As he spoke, the blanks on the recording board remained open. Kichan's eyes caught on those blanks. He looked down at them and asked,"Did you ask the patient?" The royal mage only narrowed his brows. The investigator understood, but did not translate at once. Kichan saw that. Then crying broke out inside the treatment center.

At first it sounded like noise from the waiting room. Soon healing assistants began to run. A small bed was pushed out from the inner room. The child on the bed was three, maybe four years old. The limbs were too thin, and the belly was strangely swollen. The lips were blue. The breath broke off like wet cloth being wrung out. The child's hand tried to grip the edge of the bed and fell weakly away. In front of Kichan's eyes, the child from the village overlapped with this one.

The mouth that had accepted bread from his hand. The forehead whose fever had gone down. The parents who had smiled because the child lived. The healing assistants exchanged quick words. Malnutrition and pneumonia, no mana reaction, low chance of recovery. Kichan did not understand all of it. But he knew the child was dying. The child's mother tried to cling to the bed and was pushed away. She could not speak and only opened her mouth. Her hands were empty. Before he knew it, Kichan had stepped toward the child.

"How?" At that moment, the sound came out of his throat first. A short note that was not quite song, breath, or prayer. Kichan tried to cover his mouth in surprise, but it was too late. The mana inside the treatment center's glass pipes shook for one instant. Blue light pushed toward the wall and returned. The surface of a holy water bowl trembled. Thin metal plates hanging at the ends of beds rang very softly. A faint outline of golden wings appeared behind his back and vanished immediately.

The child drew in a breath. One wet cough burst out, and blood color returned to the blue lips. The boiling sound inside the lungs slowly calmed. The dry fingers gripped the bed sheet again. The child who had been dying a moment ago opened their eyes. Footsteps and the scratching of pens inside the treatment center stopped all at once. The royal mage nearly dropped his recording board. His fingertips slipped from the corner and barely found their place again.

The temple healing assistant half-bent one knee, then stopped. Only the hand holding the holy water bowl trembled. The child's mother collapsed beside the bed. Her crying did not come out right away. Instead, she took the child's hand, pressed her face to the back of it, and only then let out her breath. The investigator did not look at Kichan. He looked at the empty space where Kichan's back had been. Kichan did not know what he had done. He only checked the child's breathing and muttered,"Is it done?"

That night, the title of the royal mage's report changed. It was not `Non-magical healing case. ` It was `Uninterpretable sacred voice and sighting of luminous wings. `