That look was all too familiar. Patients and their families—men and women, young and old, rich and poor—so many people had looked at him that way. Gret almost blurted out, "I can treat it," but the words caught in his throat and came out as:
"There's a chance I can heal it."
As soon as he delivered his verdict, Gret scooted backward. Even though he was sitting on a broken chair with his back against the wall and nowhere to go, he still managed to inch himself farther into the corner.
In his previous life, most patients and their families weren't satisfied with "There's a chance." They'd almost certainly press him for details. Exactly how likely was a cure? How long would it take? How much would it cost...
And after all that, they'd often complain that the doctor wouldn't give them a straight answer. Then, if they had a bad temper, there'd be another round of complaints.
Even if these knights were good-natured and didn't cause trouble, he still couldn't take it if they picked him up and shook him around!
Gret watched the men opposite him cautiously. To his surprise, after a moment's stunned silence, Knight Flynn and Knight Xiluo erupted with joy. Each of them reached out an arm, grabbed Knight Balen by the shoulder, and shook him until he rattled.
"It can be treated! It can be treated!"
"Old Balen, did you hear that? It can be treated!"
"You've seen so many people... so many... Three years. It's been three years..."
The two grown men shouted with abandon. Their voices gradually grew lower and hoarser. In the dead of night, they almost sounded like wolves howling.
Knight Balen sat frozen in place like a puppet, offering no response as they shook him back and forth. After a long while, he suddenly jolted to his feet, threw off the other two, and gave Gret a slight bow.
"Then please treat it right away!"
"Yes, hurry up and treat it!"
Knight Flynn and Knight Xiluo immediately came to their senses. The three men formed a half-circle, leaning forward and staring down at Gret as if they were about to devour him. Under their burning gazes, Gret shrank back again.
"I can't do it yet..."
"Why not? You said it could be treated!" Knight Balen's voice rose sharply. Gret glanced at Knight Flynn for help and argued in a small voice:
"I can't treat it right now... I'm missing some things..."
His voice was drowned out by the commotion inside and outside the house. Knight Balen, Knight Flynn, and Knight Xiluo were all talking over one another. The bald bishop's voice was louder than anyone else's.
"Little Grete, you really can treat this injury? What are you missing? Are you short on casting materials? If your healing spell isn't strong enough, tell me how to do it. I'll do it!"
Once again, everyone looked at Gret with eager anticipation.
When nobody tried to cause trouble or complain, Gret finally relaxed. He stepped forward, met the bald bishop's eyes, and answered clearly:
"I'm about seventy percent confident I can heal it. But if you want your wrist to be flexible and strong afterward, without injuring anything else, I'll need to see whether I have the right tools before I can say how likely that is."
"Can't you treat it right now?"
The bald bishop and Knight Balen both looked disappointed. Gret thought for a moment, then grabbed Knight Balen's arm and gestured as he explained:
"It's like this. Your arm has a lot of muscles, and each one is attached to the bone by a tendon—that's what you call a 'hand sinew.' I suspect the tendon that snapped was the flexor carpi radialis—that is, from here to here."
He moved his finger back and forth along Knight Balen's arm, pressing near the crook of his elbow, sliding down, and pressing again at the base of his palm. Then he traced a horizontal line across the scar on Knight Balen's right wrist.
"This is where it snapped. Tendons are very strong, and they keep your muscles stretched tight. When a tendon snaps, the whole muscle retracts. What I need to do now is cut open the skin, pull out the retracted muscle, stretch it back to where it belongs, and then let the tendon heal."
He did his best to keep his explanation simple. But as soon as he finished, Knight Balen immediately stood up and shouted:
"Then what are we waiting for? Treat it!"
Clang! A dagger landed on the table, gleaming coldly.
Gret: "..."
I need forceps! I need hemostats! I need retractors! This surgery might even need to be done under a microscope. If there's no microscope, at least give me a magnifying glass!
The words caught in his throat, leaving him choking on them. Before he could recover, the bald bishop was already asking:
"I've treated it this way before, too. But it didn't work!"
You've done it that way before?
Gret looked at him in a new light. Sir, you've got guts! How many years did you study medicine? How many cadavers have you dissected? Do you know where to cut without severing a blood vessel, or how not to slice through a nerve?
Hmm... How should he explain this?
Gret pulled out some paper and a pen, then sketched rapidly across the tabletop. In no time at all, the ulna, radius, and bones of the hand were clearly laid out. He carefully drew the dozen or so muscles running over the bones, and a diagram of the forearm's muscles and skeleton took shape before their eyes.
He'd done this sort of thing often enough in his previous life. He couldn't make it lifelike, but simple and clear was the norm. While he drew, four heads crowded around to look. The bald bishop decided the oil lamp was too dim and casually cast an Illumination Spell, lighting up the entire room.
Gret: ...Actually, your head's already bright enough.
In less than two minutes, the diagram was finished. Gret silently repeated, This is what happens when you haven't studied medicine, then slowed down and began to explain:
"See? This arm alone has one, two, three, four, five... I'll stop counting. Count them yourself. And besides the muscles, there are blood vessels and nerves...
I'll explain what nerves are another time! The point is, damage any of these things and your arm won't work right. You think all I have to do is cut it open, pull it out, and heal it?"
The bald bishop nodded vigorously. Gret turned to Knight Balen, exasperated:
"What good is one knife? What do you think this is? Butchering a pig? Slaughtering a sheep? You make a cut here, reach in and pull out the tendon, stitch it up a few times, and you're done? Just answer me this: if I cut into your wrist, will it hurt? Will you move?"
"We'll hold him down!" Knight Flynn and Knight Xiluo answered together. Gret scoffed. What good was holding him down? This was tendon surgery. Did they think he was scraping poison from someone's bones?
"I can stay still!" Knight Balen roared. Gret roared right back:
"What good does that do? If you stay still, won't your arm tense up? If it's that tense, I can't pull the muscle at all! All of you, one by one, one by one—"
He pointed at Knight Flynn, Knight Balen, and finally Knight Xiluo on the outside. A few days ago, when he'd performed a chest decompression on Knight Xiluo, one stab hadn't even pierced his chest. Knight Flynn, standing beside him, had to step in.
"You're all knights! I can stab you with a knife and still not get through!"
Knight Balen was left speechless by Gret's shouting. Just then, a flash of white caught the corner of Gret's eye. He turned and saw the bald bishop move with lightning speed, snatch up the diagram Gret had drawn, and tuck it into his robes...
When he noticed Gret looking, the bishop even winked at him and gave a cheeky grin without a hint of shame.
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