She couldn't very well sit around doing nothing while waiting for the jade tag's origin to come to light. There was her regular work to attend to.
And so,
Maomao
carried on with her duties in the medical office as usual.
"Hey, we've got an emergency!"
Summoned by the shout, Maomao put her inventory check of the medicine cabinet on hold.
The patient who had been brought in bore a bruise between his chest and abdomen—a round contusion, blue-purple in hue. He was a young man, barely past twenty.
"Looks like you've been gritting your teeth through this for a while."
"Yes. He was trying to play it tough."
The man accompanying the patient answered in his stead. His tone was far too polite for a military officer.
Bruises tend to hurt more as time passes. Even so, this injury looked far too severe for a simple contusion.
"The ribs..."
"Oh, are they broken?"
"There may be hairline fractures. He was sent flying pretty hard."
The injured man was bearing the pain in silence, so the accompanying officer did the talking.
"What hit him? There are no marks from a wooden sword."
"Bare fists."
"Did you get mauled by a bear or something?"
The bruising was so severe that even the normally serious
Li
couldn't help but crack a joke about it.
Maomao couldn't help but blink.
For the time being, she left the treatment to Physician Li and set about preparing bandages and cloth to immobilize the ribs, along with a cold compress for the bruising. If there was any organ damage, additional tools would be needed as well.
"How does it look?"
「There doesn't appear to be any internal organ damage, but of course we'll need to monitor the progress. Help me immobilize the body.」
「What should we do about cooling the affected area?」
Ice was difficult enough for royalty, let alone for an officer's injury. Chilled well water was about the best they could manage.
「Prepare a poultice. No, wait — painkillers first.」
It seemed he was prioritizing bone stabilization over cooling.
「Understood.」
Physician Li had awakened to the study of muscles during his time in the Western Capital, yet he remained a thoroughly conventional physician. Watching him examine a patient without a hint of panic was oddly reassuring.
The patient didn't seem to have sustained any organ damage and was taking his medicine without issue. However, he remained tight-lipped about how the injury had occurred, so Maomao decided to ask the attending officer instead.
「Was this sustained during training?」
「Well, yes. You could say that.」
The officer's answer was evasive. More than that, he barely seemed like a military officer at all. There was a gentle air about him, and his build was far slighter than Physician Li's.
「We had a bit of an argument, so we decided to settle it with a spar.」
In other words, a duel — or so Maomao thought.
「What do you mean, a 'spar'...?」
The patient finally spoke up, his voice heavy.
「That thing's a monster — broke a wooden sword with his bare hands.」
「With his bare hands?」
Maomao tilted her head. This story sounded familiar.
(Who was it that...?)
She was about to ask who had done it, but Physician Li posed the question first.
「What exactly was the argument about?」
Depending on the circumstances, this could be a matter that needed to be reported to their superiors. Lately, injuries from factional disputes had become commonplace.
「It really was nothing significant.」
The attending officer looked troubled.
「Nothing significant, my foot!」
The patient was the one who was angry. Whether his stomach still hurt or not, he was screaming and clutching the place where he had been struck.
"How can you be so calm when your own sister is being mocked?"
"I thought it didn't matter what anyone said about my sister at this point. If anything, being treated as family would be more unpleasant for her, I imagined."
"So, you got angry that a friend's sister was mocked and challenged him to a duel?"
Dr. Li looked at the patient as if to confirm.
"No, that's not it."
The attendant corrected him.
"This fellow here was the one who mocked my sister. A different officer who happened to pass by got angry, started fighting with him, and lost."
"...What exactly is the situation here?"
Dr. Li tilted his head.
Maomao did the same, tilting her head while organizing the situation in her mind.
"Alright, so first, the one whose sister was mocked is you, correct?"
"Yes."
The attendant replied.
"And the one who did the mocking is you?"
"That's right."
The patient confirmed.
"Then, a completely unrelated third party got angry, it turned into a brawl, and he was seriously injured. And the one who was mocked came as his companion."
"That's right."
Dr. Li and Maomao tilted their heads in unison.
"Don't you think you're too kind?"
Maomao said, looking at the attendant.
"Yeah. I hear that a lot."
The attendant answered Maomao's question with a smile.
"In any case, I'd like to know who injured him."
"...sen."
"Hmm?"
"It was
Basho.
Him."
The patient said, sounding resentful.
"Lord Basho, was it..."
"Aaah," Maomao murmured, finally understanding.
She had thought the injuries were terrible, but if Basho was the one responsible, then there was nothing to be done about it. If anything—
"It's a good thing your insides didn't rupture."
She murmured this sentimentally. She remembered how Basho had snapped the arms of those thieves in Seito like they were twigs. He must have been holding back for her sake.
"Huh? I was using a wooden sword to block and take the fall, and this is what I get! The sword shattered on top of everything, and I got this giant lump... *cough*!"
He apparently still wasn't well enough to raise his voice.
Officer Li tightened the bandage further, as if to tell him to stop talking.
(If you're a bear wearing human skin, I suppose there's no helping it.)
But it was then that Maomao noticed something.
"Um..."
"What is it?"
She looked at the attendant—a man with a kind demeanor who hardly seemed like a military officer.
"Could it be that your sister is
Risu—
isn't that right?"
"Yes, she is. How did you figure that out?"
The attendant smiled and nodded.