I Won't Harm People With Medical Skills!

A necromancer and a former Deputy Director of Emergency Department could talk about bones endlessly, as if they'd found each other too late in life. They chatted for half the night, until the necromancer, Andrew Lynn, got carried away and reached across the table to grab Gret's wrist:

"My dear friend! You'd be perfect as a necromancer. What do you say? Would you like to join us at Black Crow Marsh? I can put in a good word for you...

"Oh, right! I'll ask my mentor! He's an Archmage of the eleventh level. Once he breaks through the limit, he might even be able to help you become a lich!"

Gret: "..."

Thanks, but no thanks.

I don't think I've lived long enough yet.

Still, the necromancer's offer did have its appeal. Gret turned his wrist over and firmly clasped the other man's hand.

"I'm more interested in Elemental Magic. Mister Lynn, you mentioned the Mage Tower and the Magic Council earlier. Could you introduce me?"

"Ah—Elemental Magic, Elemental Magic." The necromancer spread his arms theatrically. He threw his head back, his voice rising and falling like the climactic passage of an opera:

"Everyone likes Elemental Magic. At the very least, they'll choose Alchemy or Summoning. As for the poor necromancy school, whenever we invite someone, this is what we hear:

'Dear Mister Lynn, I prefer Elemental Magic...'

'Dear Mister Lynn, I prefer Alchemy...'

"Except for those who are drowning in grief and want to bring back a loved one, nobody—no adult at all—would choose the great art of necromancy!"

Gret was mortified. A hammy actor was amusing from a distance, but up close, it was a lot to handle. Dodging the necromancer's flying spittle, he racked his brain, thoughts running wild:

Is this guy histrionic?

Or is he having a manic episode?

Could anything else corroborate the flight of ideas I noticed earlier?

Could necromancy affect hormone secretion and, in turn, a person's mental state?

There's nowhere in this damned otherworld to get an EEG, let alone routine bloodwork...

"Uh... if it's inconvenient..."

"Not at all! Of course it's not!"

Mage Lynn stepped forward with enthusiasm. Gret couldn't dodge in time. The man grabbed him by both arms, spraying spittle right into his face.

"The Northman who runs the Mage Tower may be fat, irritable, and fond of drink, but he once explored the Strait of Hall with me, and we fought the Church of Radiance's tin cans together! My dear friend, don't worry. With my letter of recommendation, there's no way he won't take you!"

The necromancer swept over to the desk like a gust of wind, spread out a sheet of parchment, and wrote in one flourish:

"Here!"

"Uh, thank you so much..."

"It's nothing!" Lynn waved a hand grandly. He glanced toward the door, then suddenly grinned like a sneak and leaned toward Gret.

"By the way, that knight's hand really is ruined? There's no fixing it?"

"He didn't have his tendons sutured." Gret shrugged.

"Can you fix it?"

Gret hesitated. He neither nodded nor shook his head. He could do a hand tendon repair if he had to, but it was primarily the work of a hand surgeon—a delicate operation involving suturing tendons, blood vessels, and nerves one by one. You needed a microscope to do it properly. After several hours of work, you'd take off the microscope and the world would spin.

Besides, there was no microscope here, nor the needles and thread used for microsutures. The result would be better than doing nothing, but it was easy to imagine how well it would go.

And he wasn't good at this kind of work. Gret remembered clearly that back in school in his previous life, he could only reconnect four or five tiny mouse tails in a single class. The blood vessels in a mouse's tail were about the same size as those in a hand, making them the cheapest material for practicing the basics.

The best student in his class had been the guy who later got snapped up by hand surgery. His record was twelve.

But in Necromancer Lynn's eyes, Gret's failure to say no was as good as a yes. The necromancer's eyes lit up.

"So how exactly do you fix it? How about I drag him in and you show me right now?"

No anesthesia, no sterilization, no stopping the bleeding—just straight to work? That was far too crude. Absolutely not!

Gret opened his mouth, unsure how to answer—or where to start complaining. But the necromancer was already moving. With a wave of his hand, the stone door separating the hall from the inner chamber swung open again, and the Black Cat leaped down to the floor.

Gret saw a flash of black. The black cat named "Mister Troca" had been normal-sized when it jumped, but by the time it landed, it was the size of a lynx. By the time it reached the doorway, it was as big as a leopard.

Amid the beast's low growls came a series of cracking bones, followed by the knight Roman's scream.

"Let me go—let me go!"

Roman Knight struggled as his voice drew closer. Cries of alarm rose throughout the hall; the commotion had alerted who knew how many people. Priest Donald's voice rang out above the rest:

"Let him go! Mage, please, let him go! Gret! Gret!!!"

Gret froze in place.

In the two days since arriving in this otherworld, he'd been pinned to the ground, had a sword held to his throat, been forcibly conscripted, and been attacked by monsters. He'd faced more danger than he had in the past month, or even the past year.

But never had he felt so cold all over as he did now.

Just a few hours ago, a man had stood above him, powerful enough to threaten his life. Now a magic pet was dragging him inside by the scruff, all because a necromancer was curious and wanted to see a procedure he'd never witnessed.

Man is the knife, I am the meat.

But in a world like this, the butcher one moment could become the meat the next. Who could say how things would turn out?

"This doesn't seem right..."

Gret shook his head like a windmill. The necromancer assumed he had a grudge against the knight and didn't want to treat him, so he tried to persuade him.

"Just treat him so I can see! At worst, you can fix him first, and then I'll..."

He slashed his hand through the air. Gret broke into a sweat and kept shaking his head. His skull was buzzing; it felt as though all six little bones in both ears were about to rattle loose.

"You don't want to kill him? Then... fix him first, and cut his tendons afterward?"

In the time it took to say those two sentences, the Black Cat, now leopard-sized, had dragged the knight to the stone door. At death's door, the badly injured knight summoned his last reserves of strength and clutched the edge of the stone doorway with both hands. He raised his head and stared at Gret, his gaze full of hatred and despair.

Crack!

The edge of the stone door broke beneath the knight's fingertips. Gret shuddered all over.

"No!"

He turned and took a step across, putting himself between the necromancer and the knight. Looking the other man straight in the eye, he spoke with firm resolve:

"I won't do that. I swore never to use medicine to hurt anyone!"