The moment I escaped the mansion where they saw me as a thorn in their side, I clutched the beastkin slave on my back tight and sprinted toward the annex without even catching my breath.
The breath felt on my back was too faint.
So faint that I could feel it flickering out even now.
More accurate to say she hadn't died yet than that she was alive.
And the words I'd just said in front of the mansion.
Birthday?
What a joke.
In the original story, the character Lucas Argent was written to die after brutal torture from chapter 1, to ingrain in readers that 'this novel is a revenge tale.'
Who would remember such a character's birthday?
He was just a handful of dust vanishing into the air.
So I just made it up.
If it's a day no one in the family cares about, even a lie rolls along like truth.
'What a rough life... both you and me.'
Letting out a hollow laugh, I crossed the threshold of the annex.
"Young Master! Where the hell have you— Huh? What's that on your back?"
Karen approached with a prickly expression.
As always, a maid with no sign of serving me.
"Warm water, clean cloths, herb box. Bring them all. Right now."
"Why should I—"
"By the way, this kid is a slave given to me by Brother Wolfram Argent. If her condition worsens... you'll be held responsible too, since you're formally my servant, right?"
But Karen's eyes shook instantly.
"W-Wolfram!? Y-Yes, got it! I'll bring them right now!"
She rubbed her palms together and dashed off frantically.
The look she'd given me like a frayed rag moments ago vanished in an instant.
As expected, in this mansion, it's not words but fear that makes things move.
"From afar, I thought it was bad, but up close, the reality is even more horrific."
While Karen fetched the herb box and clean water, I carefully laid the slave I'd carried on my back—Piel—on my bed.
Heat radiating from her tiny body scorched my palms.
The moment I stripped off the sacking, I swallowed hard.
"...Ha."
It was a horror words couldn't capture.
Karen nearly dropped the basin she was carrying.
"Eek?! Ugh... so filthy—"
"If you're gonna puke, do it outside. If even a drop of your vomit gets in her wounds, it'll really be over."
Whip lashes, jagged tears from saw teeth or rough tools, and festering infections where flesh had rotted and burst—all tangled across the child's body.
Ragged scraps barely qualifying as bandages were wrapped around her; peeling them off let rotten blood and pus hit the air, spewing a foul stench.
The worst was her head.
The severed stump of one ear wasn't clean.
Flesh hung in ragged shreds, and maggots writhed in the gaps, feeding on her body heat.
"...This isn't just simple lacerations. Dirt, rust, fibers embedded deep in the dermis... and toxic tissue necrosis already underway."
My voice was calm, but my stomach churned.
Piel's breaths came shallow and ragged; her fingers and toes were losing color, turning purplish.
Early shock symptoms.
If she were a human child... she'd have died three days ago in this state.
"Karen, once you've gathered everything I asked for, get out."
Karen blinked.
"Pardon? You... you're doing it yourself?"
"Or do you want to? Washing wounds, squeezing pus, holding flesh for sutures. Up for it?"
At that, Karen flapped her lips and waved her hands.
"Th-that's... I have a weak stomach. That trash— I mean, if you want the kid tended, you do it yourself... heh."
She hastily corrected the word that slipped out and bowed.
Contempt lingered in her stance, but Wolfram's name enforced her silence.
And for what came next, it was better to keep her outside.
All she'd do in here was gasp and retch anyway.
"Fine. Lock the door and let no one in. Or... if you're into gore, peek all you want."
"...Understood! Treat her— I mean, do it without mistakes!"
Karen bolted from the room with a look of barely contained relief.
Her toes bounced like she was grateful to escape the gruesome sight.
Once the door shut, the room held only one hushed breath.
Piel.
The small body on the bed was still feverish, and the unrelenting heat only fueled my anxiety.
"Alright... let's begin."
First things first.
Cut off the contamination.
I started wiping her body with a cloth soaked in warm water.
Moving from fingertips, not wrists, to avoid tearing scabs forcibly.
Not scrubbing, but gently lifting stains.
Then gauze soaked in antiseptic laid—not rubbed—over wounds.
As the solution seeped in, Piel's lips quivered; even in delirium, faint tears welled in her eyes.
'Still hanging on, huh.'
Feeling no pain at all—that's true death.
I knew that, so I took her faint groans as a start, not an end.
Once the bloody water was cleared, it was time for pus and necrotic tissue.
Snip... snip...
The narrow, thin blade tossed in as a bonus for chopping herbs.
This morning, the apothecary owner had handed it over as a 'service' when I bought poison weeds.
I never imagined it'd slice through blood and pus like this.
But a blade's purpose is decided where it touches.
The tip glided along dead flesh; layered membranes unraveled like quiet threads.
The line between living and dead tissue showed in color and smell.
Healthy flesh is red and springy; rotten pus twists murky between gray and yellow.
I plucked away the dead bits along that border like pulling threads.
"Ngh... urk...!"
Piel swallowed a faint scream deep in her throat.
"Sorry. If I could use anesthesia, I would... but no such luxuries here."
The Argent Family spares no expense acquiring slaves, but never on repairs.
Sure, deep in the mansion, there might be fine silver ointments, refined spirits, or healing powders—but as a bastard, I only got leftovers.
What I could rely on now was one thing.
Beastkin regenerative prowess, and this child had reason to live again.
Piel.
As everyone expected, she was one of the protagonists in Vengeful Goddesses.
In the original, she survived without treatment like this and emerged a decade later as a 'hero.'
...But that was on paper.
Before me now was a bleeding creature.
And before I was a reader, I was a surgeon.
In Korea, I once had a name worth something.
So I know.
There's no such thing as 'cured' in this world.
Diseases merely sleep, and sleeping ones awaken.
People die quietly, without reason, when you let your guard down.
I'd seen countless such deaths.
So right now, as I tweezed wriggling maggots from Piel's severed fox ear stump.
I trusted neither the original nor the future.
Only the work at my fingertips.
Sticky pus dangled from the tweezers, slowly dripping.
"Hang in there. Live and cry."
I muttered low.
"The dead... can't claim revenge or freedom."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Surgery end time.
Precisely 11 hours, 24 minutes, and 41 seconds.
This world's clocks only track minutes, but these fingers, carving rotten flesh without anesthesia, remember seconds.
"...Phew. Done."
No assistant, no sterilizing lamp, no sterile tools—just a room.
Compared to Korean ORs, this was a workshop.
Yet I'd focused longer than any operation, for a patient with every reason to be saved fiercely.
On the bed, the fox beastkin Piel breathed quietly.
"Mmm... nyah... mmm... nyah..."
"Sleeping soundly, oblivious to the world."
The dying beast stench from when I carried her was gone; now only faint sweat, restored body temp, and the scent of life remained.
Fever lingered.
But this was reactive pyrexia.
The body's defense, heating blood to burn internal bacteria.
The bandages weren't the old filthy rags.
Layered pressure wraps with drainage secured, herbal suture powder evenly adsorbed on the stump.
"Well, couldn't heal her perfectly, but..."
I reached to stroke Piel's head, then stopped.
Partially ruptured abdominal organs, lightless right eye, one ear ripped clean off without trace.
Those deep, stubborn wounds were beyond even 21st-century Earth medicine, let alone me.
Having read the original, I knew.
Piel would definitely survive.
And a decade later, awaken as a world-changing hero.
But behind that glory, she'd live with ear-ringing forever, vomit during meals some days, relive torture pains nightly in screams swallowed in sleep.
...I wouldn't accept that future.
I was a reader who'd followed Piel's path, and a doctor too.
And as a doctor, I knew.
Somewhere in this world existed techniques to restore lost senses and ruined organs.
Right then, a tap at the window.
Tap, tap.
"Tweet tweet!"
"Right on time."
Luck sometimes strides to the operating table without a moment to wash the blade.