Year of the Silver Dragons, 89 Crode
"He did what?"
The tough long nails of Ignaferziphoras Xelomorbidan Sol dug into the mahogany table, the coating slowly being carved out as they grew. Her head was tilted to the side, the veins on her neck etched to her olive skin. The fire orbs in her eyes were dancing on the edge, threatening to free themselves. Her smile petrified her students, their backs to the cold white wall behind them, clutching to their clipboards for support. Only one of the students wore a smile on her face. Edra Munchkin. The glee on her face was transparent, malicious even. Jethro had made a lot of bad calls and for once, Edra was able to see him not get away with it. Edra despised Jethro. Her skin wretched at the sight of him. Her whole body was alert when she saw him, like a rabbit standing next to the barrel of a shotgun. Heavy breaths flowing from her lungs threatened to flood the air, overflowing with the steam she built up in her heart. His footsteps made her nauseous. His grey hair, odd and yet unflatteringly flat, emboldened her to spit on his face. Maybe he'd brush it once in a while if she did it enough times. Maybe he'd get a haircut or shave it all away so that she wouldn't have to see it. His face, built to collect as much sympathy as humanly possible, annoyed her. She wanted to step on it. She wanted to crush his nose with a bat and then proceed to kick his ribs until all of her anger was quenched.
Why? She had no other reason, other than it was a natural thing to do. Jethro never talked much to her. He hardly looked her way. He seemed to understand her loathing for him and steered away. That annoyed her even more. Edra wanted him to try and appease her anger and watch as she crushed his hope again and again. And every time he didn't, she would wish for his death and think of the most painful way it could happen. So to see their director pissed at him and willing to break him on her behalf…the rush of endorphins was cathartic. Ignaferziphoras, or Dr. Igna for those who would inevitably get her name wrong, marched across her office and walked down the hallway. She crossed three rooms to the left and made a turn into the fourth. There was a pregnant blood fairy who had seals drawn on her head and arms. She arched her back, desperately seeking comfort from the missionary bed provided in the room. The man that seemed to be her husband, another blood fairy, held on to her left arm. To her right, seated nervously, was Jethro. He couldn't find the strength to look his director in the eye. Igna shot her arm and locked Jethro's in her claw, digging deep into his flesh. He was too scared to scream. She slowly dragged him out of the room and went to the first room she had passed on her left; a lab that was set opposite her office. He was sent flying across the room before crashing to the floor and she formed a seal that locked the door behind them violently. The beakers filled with acid shook as some spilt to the table, the acid lightly reacting with the thin metal tables. There was a compound under a yellow flame that bubbled up rather loudly and sent a foul scent across the room. Jethro couldn't so much as register the smell. His senses had numbed in fear of what was in front of him.
"Heal yourself."
Jethro woke up and created a weak healing spell that left his arm with minimal scarring.
"Explain yourself."
"She was pregnant, about to have her child outside. The staff couldn't allow her to give birth without medical attention so they called for one of the students."
"What are my orders when it comes to pregnancy, Jethro?"
"Let the minor medics handle it. But they needed help, my help. I couldn't let them-"
"Your help, you say?"
The sharp green heels clicked across the room and Jethro swore the room was shaking. Igna brushed the gold streaks of hair obstructing her left eye and walked slowly towards Jethro. The grey jacket she had on crackled as her muscles expanded against it, threatening to rip it apart.
"So you wouldn't mind if after the surgery, I took your licence, Jethro? Is saving people I explicitly denied help worth your practice?"
Jethro was silent, slowly staggering against the floor, trying to find his footing in vain. He slipped back to the floor, the echo in Igna's voice blasting across the room, causing his weak frame to shudder. He felt tears burn at the edge of his eyes but he held himself. His throat stung and he lost the ability to form words.
"Go on, Jethro. Go on and help those poor bastards who need you. After all, they wouldn't survive without you, right?"
"I…I…"
"Yes?"
"Nothing is worth my licence, Master Igna."
"Master. Aren't you a charmer, Jethro? Now listen to me carefully."
Jethro was grabbed and smashed against the wall, the nails lightly placed against his throat.
"My orders are not optional. The only reason I am using violence is because it's easy. Blood fairies are good at psychological warfare if they care enough. You test my patience again, Jethro, and I will care enough. Understood?"
"Yes," Jethro squealed. She dropped him and licked the blood off of her hands, giving him a satisfied smile. Jethro was finally able to breathe comfortably. He looked at the time and sighed. He had about a few minutes before his mana came back to him. He felt the room spin and collapsed on the floor. Upon waking up, he found a medic attempting to heal his wounds. His hands were cold. His mana stitching was clearly by the books. Jethro to him might as well have been a cadaver for all the gentleness the medic had. As a young Medical Knight in training, Jethro had the right to complain but minor medics were responsible for a lot of things in the hospital. Messing with them was looking for enemies and the chances of graduation would be slim to none. Your best hopes lay in bearing with the pain and being meddlesome once you were a knight.
Jethro's eyes then turned to the window, where Edra was staring at him. Her eyes held a blank expression but Jethro sensed there was more to it. Edra had been watching for a while now, hoping the minor medic would mess up and possibly kill Jethro in the process. She imagined herself in the room, doing just a good enough job to never get suspected of anything. Jethro would then beg for mercy and she would be ecstatic as she watched him slowly breathe his last. It was marvellous, too marvellous to be stuck in her dreams. Maybe if she went inside and forced his hands. She'd recently learnt of a spell that can rewire the neural network. She wasn't sure if it was still legal as far as Hypocreta was concerned but when it came to creatures like Jethro, surely an exception could be made.
She slowly walked in. Step by step, her arm slowly ready to create the seal. She then felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around, annoyed, to find Igna staring at her.
"Are you sterile enough to enter this room?"
"N-no." Not even Edra was immune to Igna's stare.
"So, what business do you have here? Do you want the minor medics to think I teach idiots?"
"I'm sorry. I will leave now."
"Not good enough."
"And I won't do it again."
"You better."
Igna flashed a creepy smile for good measure and Edra rushed away. Igna then snapped her fingers, signalling for the medic working on Jethro to leave, walked towards her student and threw the patient's chart at him. Jethro had good reflexes and caught it mid-air. Igna then stared at him for a moment before he realised he was being prompted to look at the patient he brought to the hospital. Staring at the chart, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. While the internal composition of the fairies differed greatly from the humans, if you got a good look at their structure for long enough, some things would make sense over time. The heart levels pumped out the right levels of mana for a pregnant fairy. Outside of sexual reproduction, the more powerful fairies were able to also make children via powerful conceptual magic that would basically make body parts with mana. During the golden age, several fairies were made this way to be bred for war against the other races. But over time, it became a dangerous practice during the silver age when the fairies could not have enough blood tracing back to the dragons. And so, medics rarely had to worry about that type of pregnancy.
Jethro turned to other vitals and they seemed to be normal as well.
"I don't understand the problem, Master-"
"If you don't see a problem on that chart, why are they in a hospital, Jethro?"
It finally clicked.
"You think they came in here to have a free check-up under the guise of an emergency?"
Igna nodded.
"They are con artists. This is why I don't let them near my hospital."
"But…but they're rich. Why would they try to fraud when they can afford their way to good medical care?"
Igna had to laugh.
"They wouldn't be effective if they looked like bums, now would they?"
She walked out, leaving Jethro in confusion. As he browsed the doctor's notes, a note slipped out. The lime green color communicated enough information to Jethro. It was a mandatory pass to leave the hospital for the day. He could stay in the barracks until the following morning. This was often done to prevent student medics from racking up credit they couldn't pay up for hospital fees. He slowly exited the room and walked to the end of the hallway of the second floor, which mostly held comatose patients. Students were encouraged to pick this floor in case they needed medical attention of their own because they were less likely to run into paperwork. There was a summoning mana pool at the end of the floor, which was slightly different from the summoning seals at the end of the other floors. All of them did the same job of transporting patients back to the ground floor. But the one on the second floor relied more on the mana of those using it. This way, even when injured, the young knights would never forget the basics of magical medicine.
Jethro passed through to the reception desk where he got his permission slip after exchanging it with the green note. He pushed through the double doors of the hospital and took a deep breath of the afternoon air, something he rarely had the chance to. Dried leaves danced in the wind, signalling the start of Cathogary's equivalent to autumn. There was a brick road that led back to the barracks cutting through a forest. Jethro tapped on the poles that were spaced out across the road, subconsciously counting how many were not rusted. There were a couple of knights talking animatedly, sitting on the blue benches constructed on carefully trimmed and carefully watered grass. Seals would occasionally appear after a few hours and sprinkle water before disappearing.
There was a young child running around the grass, attempting to fly a kite unsuccessfully. Jethro had seen the child before. He was diagnosed with Ywelchvicrodium [or Iwataka-kuryagetupotokoy as it was known in the golden age], a disease so ancient to the time of dragons that the current translations of it held no true meaning. All that was known was that it converted mana to poison in an attempt to protect its host from danger of being consumed. But since the current age no longer had the immunity of dragons, all the toxin did was slowly kill the host instead.
Someone was watching Jethro, he could feel it. In fact, he knew exactly who it was. He chose to ignore her anyway. If she was okay with breaking the rules to attack him, then maybe the hate truly ran that deep. His leisure walk turned to a light jog. She followed his pace. The light jog turned to a short sprint as he navigated corners until she was out of sight. Maybe she took the hint. But now, in his attempts to be cautious, he found himself lost. He was no longer on the brick road. The afternoon sun was hidden by the large trees and it was slightly darker. A shadow emerged from the only light source, marching slowly towards him.
"Why did you get a pass?" Edra's voice peered through the opening. "I clearly reported you for doing something bad. She just won't stop defending you, will she?"
Her hair was neatly tied in a bun. Her black pupils held a sudden blue hue to them. Jethro had spent enough time at the library to know what she was attempting to do. It was going to be more dangerous to her than it would be to him. She had to know that.
"Edra, the spell you are about to perform-"
"What will it take to hurt you just a little bit? A miracle? Should I wait until you become important enough that people will see you for what you truly are?"
A silver knife emerged from her right hand.
"Summon: Butcher's Glory."
Butcher's Glory was a mana drain on even the most proficient of Medical Knights. She was basically on a death sentence. At the expense of using your own mana cost as opposed to getting some from Hypocreta, Butcher's Glory was not subject to a time penalty. One could use it for as long as they wished. But there was a reason the time penalty existed in the first place. Edra didn't care for that. Her mission, her greatest mission, was mere minutes from being a reality.
"You can't hate me enough to want to hurt yourself, Edra. Please put that knife away. I'll…"
Jethro looked around.
"I'll hit my head on that tree. I promise I will. Just don't destroy your mana-"
"Don't you dare show me mercy, you flea! You act like you care about everyone and everything, even those who want to take advantage of you. You know what I call that? Pathetic! You are pathetic, Jethro! That's why I hate you! That's why you shouldn't exist as a human or any being for that matter. You are a liability. And I can't have you be a liability to my career when I'm close to the summit."
"Alright, I'll stop caring or whatever. Just please stop."
"You're not listening to me!"
Edra sliced the air and it ruptured with a bang, sending both of them flying to the ground on opposite ends. She woke up first, realised her arm was bruised and ignored the bleeding. She walked towards Jethro to finally end things.
"What do you want from me, Edra? What will end all of this anger you feel towards me?"
"Wasn't that obvious from the start?"
Jethro took a deep breath as he woke up. He fought the sharp pain on his back and formed a weak summoning seal. His expression filled with new conviction and naked anger. It wasn't fun to be this enraged at someone. But he had to do it.
"I'm sorry to say this, but I don't want to die."
Edra looked at her knife, worried that he'd plan to summon it but then noticed that the distance between them had been erased. Jethro punched her so hard that her hand let go of the knife. Just as she was ready to recover, Jethro punched her again, sending her to the floor. He punched again and again and again, with Edra gaining less and less time to heal her face. Every punch held a memory to it; the moments Edra spat on his face, the moments where she went out of her way to ruin his schedule, the moments when she would report him for small mistakes. But it was also memories of his worst mistakes. Patients he had to let die. Patients he had to let go of who couldn't afford medication. Patients who defrauded him and got him into trouble. He was tired of everything. After a few rounds, Jethro finally saw something that shocked him. Edra's eyes, once fierce and determined, held an unrelenting fear. She found her voice and said…
"Don't…kill…me."
His senses returned to him and he backed away, scared of what he had chosen to become. Edra coughed and tried to look for her knife in vain. It was gone. Her mana cost could no longer sustain it. She was tired and weak but she still tried to force a laugh.
"You showed me mercy again. Are you an idiot, Jethro? I'll just get better and come for you again."
"No," Jethro replied with a sense of finality. "You won't. Never again. You now know I can hurt you without hesitation. You'll keep your distance."
Jethro didn't bother turning around to look at her. For once, Igna's words seemed to make sense in his mind. There were people in this world that weren't worth the effort.