Your Hand-I Can Heal It

The two knights hurriedly took their leave. Gret spent the next day copying books again. When he returned home that evening, just as expected, he saw Knight Flynn and Knight Xiluo, who had visited the day before, waiting outside with a scruffy, middle-aged man.

Besides the three of them, there was one unexpected visitor, stubbornly refusing to leave and grinning as he loitered at the door. Gret hadn't even come close before he spotted the man's shiny bald head, impossible to miss.

"Bishop?"

"Ah, Little Grete, you're back!" The bald Bishop waved cheerfully, as if they were old friends. Then, without a second thought, he pulled someone out from between the two knights.

"You're going to treat him?"

Gret: "..." Could someone at least tell him who that man was?

He stepped forward to greet them, while looking to the two knights for an explanation. As he approached, he caught a very familiar, unpleasant smell coming from the middle-aged man.

That smell was so familiar... Gret's nose twitched, and he suddenly realized.

"Do you smoke?"

Did this world have tobacco?

Had the Age of Discovery begun?

Rubber, quinine, coffee, cocoa, and coca, the stuff doctors both loved and hated—had all of these things made their way here?

And what about the three miraculous high-yield crops: corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes? Had those made it here, too?

Gret pulled his thoughts back with an effort. He opened the front door and invited everyone inside. The bald Bishop strode in without hesitation, with the three knights trailing behind him, looking rather miserable as they asked:

"Bishop, what are you doing here...?"

"I treated this injury before, and couldn't fix it! Now Little Grete says he might be able to, so of course I had to come see!"

"You really believe he can treat it?"

"Well, Little Grete's methods are a bit different from everyone else's. He says he can treat it, so I thought I'd come see for myself."

After Knight Balen injured his wrist, he had gone from doctor to doctor. He had even made a hefty donation to get the Temple of the God of War to treat him. But no matter how many times the healing spell was cast, the bald Bishop could only tell him, "The tendon's severed. There's nothing we can do."

Watching the knight leave in despair, knowing he'd never be able to draw a bow again, had pained the bald Bishop. So when he heard there might be a way to heal him, he'd forced his way in, even though he knew it wasn't right to pry into someone else's secrets.

All five of them crowded inside—three of them knights, and one built even more like a knight than the knights themselves. The tiny, twenty-square-meter room seemed ready to burst. Worse, there were only two chairs, and one of them had a broken leg...

Gret glanced around. For the examination, he had no choice but to ask the patient to sit in the one intact chair. He carefully perched on the broken one himself, and dealt with everyone else with an apologetic smile. They could sit on the bed or stand, whichever they preferred. Gret focused and began asking questions.

"Knight Balen?"

"That's me."

"You... injured your wrist three years ago? What's it like now?"

"Yes... I hurt my right wrist..."

As he asked questions, Gret discreetly studied the man. Just by looking at him, Balen seemed a good seven or eight years older than the other two knights. His face was weathered, his beard scruffy, and he looked worn down by years on the road. His complexion was dull and the skin beneath his eyes sagged. Only when Gret asked his name did he lift his eyes, revealing a faint glimmer in them.

Gret looked over his torso. Even though he'd been injured for three years, Knight Balen was still in good shape, and hadn't grown a belly. The biceps in his left arm bulged, while the muscles in his right arm were visibly less taut.

Hmm... The patient had kept exercising and was highly motivated to recover. Gret, former emergency physician, Nordmark, silently made a note and held out his hand.

"Let me see your right hand."

Knight Balen obediently held out his hand, palm up, and rested it on the table. Gret leaned in under the lamplight to examine it. A reddish scar lay across the inside of his right wrist, raised like an earthworm. The bald Bishop's bear-paw of a hand immediately reached for it, ready to point it out and explain, but Gret had already relaxed.

"How does your wrist feel? You can't bend it inward anymore? But you can still extend it outward, right?"

"How did you know?"

Knight Balen glanced to either side. Knight Flynn on his left and Knight Xiluo on his right both denied it at once.

"We didn't tell him!"

Gret pursed his lips. He wanted to continue asking questions, but the bald Bishop flipped his hand around and held it between Gret and the patient, clearly determined not to give up until he got an answer.

"How did you know?"

Gret rolled his eyes. He glared daggers at the bald Bishop, but couldn't outstare him and had to give up. He took a breath and pointed to Knight Balen's wrist as he explained.

"It's obvious! He injured the inside of his wrist, not the outside. The tendons on the inside control bending the wrist inward. The outside wasn't injured, so of course he can still extend it outward!"

"Ah... I see." The bald Bishop pulled his hand back. "So what exactly was injured? Why couldn't I heal it at the time?"

Gret wiped away his sweat. How was he supposed to know which tendon was injured without examining him? But at least it wasn't his right hand...

Gret could perform this kind of surgery for an injured hand tendon. The problem was, the Surgical Instruments he had were too crude...

He shooed the bald Bishop away, then focused on examining Knight Balen. In the twenty-square-meter room, the knights huddled together, barely daring to breathe. Gret's clear instructions rang out one by one in the lamplight.

"Now, bend your wrist."

"Straighten your wrist."

"Move it outward."

"Move it inward."

"Bend your elbow."

"Rotate your arm forward. Yes, just like that."

"Bend your thumb. Good, straighten it... Now your index finger... your middle finger..."

Flexing, extending, rotating, pressing. Gret examined him carefully, and Knight Balen cooperated fully. The only thing that gave him a headache was the bald Bishop hovering beside him. With every test, he asked, "Why are you doing that? What does it show?"

At last, the examination was over. Gret let out a long breath and confidently gave his diagnosis.

"Radial Flexor Tendon Rupture."

"Wh... what?"

The three knights looked from side to side, all six eyes bewildered. The bald Bishop's big head loomed over them once again as he fired off questions like a barrage.

"What exactly is severed? You had him move this way and that—what were you doing? Can you heal it?"

So many questions...

The bald Bishop's chatter gave Gret a splitting headache. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He slapped the table and erupted.

"I'll explain it to you later, okay or not?!"

There were more than ten tendons in the hand. Starting with systemic anatomy, then moving on to regional anatomy, then explaining how to examine and diagnose the injury—that would take at least an entire lecture! Couldn't they focus on the patient first?

The bald Bishop gaped at him, staring as if he couldn't believe this kid could get so fired up. He blinked a few times, and only after a while did he manage a dazed response.

"Ah... okay..."

He shrank back, crestfallen. Knight Balen glanced at his wrist, then asked cautiously, "Can it be healed?"