Chapter 27

Episode 27 - Investigation

Aside from Tollin’s nerves burning away and Rasia’s temper growing rougher, the number of nobles who expressed their desire to study medicine with the Feedus family greatly increased.

Outwardly, it was an undertaking aided by the imperial family and the temple.

Once the reason to avoid the Feedus family disappeared, the lower nobles, who no longer had anything to be wary of, began sending letters like mad.

Thanks to that, Tollin, who had lost even more weight, also began seeking out the ducal family’s physician more frequently.

If his head became too dull, the speed at which he could handle work ultimately slowed down, so it could not be helped.

There was also the nagging from Pale and Jack, who were worried about him growing thinner by the day.

And so Tollin had to endure uncomfortable gazes while trapped between the physician and Pale and Jack, who stood firmly behind him.

“Lord Tollin, I am cautious about saying this, but...... If you lose just a little more weight, you may become lighter than the Little Duke.”

“Do not exaggerate. The Little Duke is only eleven years old.”

“And he is healthier than others his age. Lord Tollin, compared to young people your age, you are quite......sickly.”

For that to be the word he had chosen after carefully choosing, what on earth had been the word that first came to mind?

Displeased, Tollin wanted to immediately refute it, but when he thought of the Little Duke, who was far healthier than children his age, he closed his mouth.

Besides, he already knew unpleasantly well that physical work had not suited him since birth.

“......There is still a year left before he catches up.”

“I am not telling you to calmly plan to be caught up to. I am telling you to gain weight. Has the Feedus family not regained stability now? With the help of the temple, the number of personnel who can teach medicine has also greatly increased, has it not?”

Yes, for now.

For now, time was passing without anything special happening.

Things were going suspiciously well, and that made Tollin even more anxious.

It was an uneasy feeling, like someone was forcibly blocking a volcano that should have erupted long ago.

When Tollin stopped speaking entirely, perhaps thinking that his concern had been too presumptuous, the physician watched his mood and cautiously opened his mouth.

“In any case, Lord Tollin, this is only something I heard, but a letter may soon come from the Selby count family.”

“Selby?”

It was a familiar name.

It was a family that had carried on the history of nobility as stably and for as long as the Crisa count family.

If those who had sent letters until now had been lower nobles with almost nothing to lose, this side was a prestigious family with history and tradition.

“Are they saying they will teach medicine instead of alchemy at the academy?”

“He is young, but I hear the fifth young lord wants to learn medicine. Moreover, alchemy is not exactly a field that just anyone can learn.”

True, one needed the mind for it, and it required astronomical research funds for an entire lifetime.

Unless one was a fairly high-ranking noble, it was indeed a difficult field.

It seemed the inheritance of the Selby count family was not generous enough to allow the fifth son such luxury.

It was not bad news.

High-ranking nobles were currently glancing around and subtly testing the future of the Feedus family.

A family like the Selby count family would be more than enough to become the starting point for other nobles to also join the physician training business.

“As long as nothing happens......”

Tollin, who habitually adjusted his glasses, muttered.

“Yes?”

Pale asked back, but instead of spreading his anxiety, Tollin simply gave an order to strengthen the guard around the temple and swallowed the bitter medicine the physician had prepared.

* * *

“Was touring this place enjoyable, Jing?”

Jing nodded at the old man who stood in front of the simply made altar and smiled brightly.

Perhaps he had thrown away the elegant way of speaking from their first meeting, because now he spoke to him without reserve.

“That is a relief.”

“What happens to me now?”

At Jing’s direct question, the other man’s eyes briefly widened, then he soon smiled again and answered.

“Since we cannot kill you, we will let you live. Since we cannot treat you poorly, we will welcome you.”

That damn wordplay.

Jing clicked his tongue.

“So if I cannot prove that I am Amica’s messenger, I will remain trapped here forever?”

“If you are not caught not being one, you can continue living.”

At the smiling answer, Jing firmly tightened his lips.

There were not many records left about those who believed in Amica.

Only that they were as blindly devoted to their god as the imperial citizens who believed in Sierra Abiran.

Even that was shallow knowledge he knew only because he had been the head of a ducal family.

In any case, it seemed certain that this man was in a situation where he could neither send him outside nor kill him.

“As you know after looking around, it is not such a bad place to live.”

Pretending not to notice his stiff face, the elder smiled brightly.

Do not change the subject for no reason.

“I am telling you to think positively. I also said we would welcome you.”

Judging that the other party was someone he could not communicate with, Jing folded his arms and stood crookedly.

“If I prove that I am that messenger of Amica or whatever, can I leave?”

At his roughening way of speaking, he sensed the young man named Ratel grip his sword.

“If that is His will......then perhaps.”

Jing raised one eyebrow.

Even now, when there was only a possibility, these people were letting him roam around this much. If he truly was the messenger, they might even prostrate themselves and bow.

“Fine. Then what should I do? What must I do for you to acknowledge me as that messenger or tiger or whatever?”

“That, I do not know.”

“What?”

If Jing had still had the bag the Seventh Prince had given him, he would undoubtedly have thrown it at him with all his strength.

The old man raised both hands as if telling him not to get angry and calmed him.

“Do not be too angry. Priests are originally people who know nothing. Anyone who claims to hear the words of God is a fraud. Do not ever be deceived by them outside in the empire either.”

“You are the elder!!!”

As Jing rushed forward as if he would grab the old man by the collar, Ratel, who had been standing behind him, immediately tried to hook Jing’s splinted right ankle and trip him.

Jing, who barely avoided that foot and fell forward, looked in shock at the terrifying young man who knew nothing of respecting the elderly.

For him, who had secretly held a favorable impression of Ratel because he had splinted only his right foot even in the cave, it was a great shock.

“Well, calm your heart and search. This place is Amica’s space. If Jing is truly someone who came after receiving Amica’s call, He will give you a path.”

It also meant that otherwise, he would have to stay stuck here for the rest of his life.

In the end, except for the fact that he was not stuck in prison, it was no different from being back at square one.

Leaving behind the irresponsible words that he should live comfortably until then, the elder went away.

He did not forget to say that Jing should return to the temple in the evening.

“Before I leave, I will definitely take that old geezer......”

Ratel approached Jing, who was still sitting there, and encouraged him.

“We do not have time for this. Please get up.”

Jing glared at him.

“Why, are you going to help me, young man?”

“Yes.”

At the ready answer, Jing narrowed his eyes.

“Why would you?”

Facing Jing’s gray eyes, which were full of suspicion, Ratel shrugged.

“Are you dissatisfied?”

“Yes, very dissatisfied. How can I trust a person who trips an old man from behind?”

“Think of it positively. I am a person who does not swing a sword even when I am behind you.”

At the calm and shameless attitude of the young man, Jing tightly closed his mouth.

That was not something a man who had drawn his sword from the front and threatened him in the cave should say.

It was not only the old man.

Those who believed in Amica must all have mastered the art of getting on people’s nerves.

* * *

Having begun life in that bizarre space, Jing started diligently wandering around the temple area while limping.

Behind him, the black-haired young man, Ratel, always followed.

“Do you not have work to do?”

“This is the work given to me this time.”

“Watching me?”

At Jing’s question, Ratel answered calmly.

“The elder told me to help Jing.”

I think staying away would help me more.

Jing swallowed down the fact that would only make his mouth hurt if he said it.

Using the reason that he was searching for the evidence the elder had mentioned, he went around poking into various places, but he gave up on that after only one day of wandering.

Evidence? What evidence?

This place, which was nothing more than a peaceful village, did not even have anything to investigate.

Moreover, had the elder not said it himself?

If a person claiming to have heard the voice of God stepped forward anywhere, they were definitely a fraud.

Unless he performed a real miracle right before their eyes, they would clearly turn him away by saying anything was the wrong answer.

As a closed group, they must simply intend to keep a dangerous element from going outside.

He did not have enough time to play along with such games.

Jing glanced at Ratel, who was walking behind him.

He was walking while looking straight ahead with an expressionless face.

Since the slip of the tongue during their last meeting, the relationship between the two, which had not exactly been comfortable to begin with, had remained in a subtle state.

Jing did not know whether he had a refreshingly straightforward personality, or whether so much time had passed that the existence of parents no longer held great meaning to him, but Ratel acted as if Jing’s small mistake had never existed at all.

Thinking that continuing to mention something that had already been said to be fine might only dig into the wound for no reason, Jing suppressed his discomfort and went along with Ratel, who acted as if nothing had happened.

In any case, he was also the only person who gave proper answers to his questions to some degree.

Still, there were not absolutely no results. After diligently walking around for about three days, he learned a few things.

First, because most people here lived self-sufficiently, there was no need for currency.

It seemed that when they truly needed something, they went outside, secretly obtained it, and returned.

When Jing asked how they obtained currency used outside, Ratel became sparing with his words.

So they steal it.

Jing understood quickly.

And every one of the people seemed relaxed and without greed.

These people lived each day so slowly that it would be difficult to find people living this peacefully even in the rural regions of the empire.

When Jing asked them something, there was so little reaction that he wondered whether they were even listening.

At first, Jing thought they were rejecting an outsider, but after speaking to the third person, he realized that they were merely slow to answer because they spent a long time thinking.

It even made him think that the elder might have assigned Ratel to him out of consideration so that Jing would not die of frustration.

At least Ratel answered right away when asked.

Lastly, the food was truly, extremely, horribly awful.

Jing leaned against a tree while chewing bread that had grains of rye flour like sand in it, brought from the temple.

When he climbed the hill where he could see the place where the people lived all at once and ate a slightly late lunch, he sometimes felt the illusion that the burdens pressing down on him were becoming lighter, so Jing liked eating here.

That did not mean the food became delicious, though.

If he had been just an old man from a noble family without any experience wandering battlefields, it was a taste he probably would not have endured and would have spat out.

There had been times when he suspected that this too was a method the elder used to torment people, but through a few dinners, he had confirmed that what the elder ate was the same tasteless bread and watery porridge.

This is a space without pleasure.

Is that also Amica’s teaching?

‘No, I must not dig too deeply.’

After shaking his head a few times, Jing stuffed the remaining bread, like a piece of sandpaper, into his mouth and stood up.

“Hey, Ratel.”

“Yes, what is it?”

At the sound of his name being called, Ratel, who had likewise finished eating bread like sandpaper, answered.

Jing pointed to the wide plain stretching out from a tree in the distance that seemed to be a zelkova.

“How far does that land continue?”

“.......”

It was something he had brought up simply to escape his thoughts, but Ratel did not answer.

What is this?

Since Ratel had not been late in answering until now, Jing looked at the young man with puzzled eyes.

He was looking into the distance expressionlessly, so his thoughts still could not be read.

At length, Ratel opened his mouth.

“It continues as far as the eye can see.”

The answer that came back was more philosophical than expected.

Is he teasing me? Jing thought, but soon shook his head.

The past few days had not been a long time, but it had been enough for him to know that when the other party answered like that, he would not add any particular explanation.

“I see. Then how many people live over there?”

“No one lives there.”

This time, the answer was too quick.

He also could not understand why no one had settled on such wide and good land.

Come to think of it, Ren, who had guided him around when he first came here, had subtly not taught him what lay beyond that place either.

He had merely passed it over by saying that no one lived there.

Jing tapped the wrinkle between his brows.

In the empire, if people could not live in a place fit for human habitation, the reason was usually one of three.

It was land owned by the imperial family, or something that ate people lived there.

“Are there magical beasts there?”

“No, that is not it either.”

This answer too was quick.

“If you are looking for a place where people live, the opposite side would be better. There is truly nothing good about going that way.”

“Yes, it seems so.”

While answering obediently, Jing took one last look at the distant place.

If there was no settlement in a place where people could live, then it was one of three things.

Either it was owned by someone, or something that ate people lived there.

......Or a great secret was hidden there.