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Translator: penny
Chapter: 31
Chapter Title: The Girl with Closed Eyes
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Originally, the time when he was supposed to meet "her" was about half a year later.
In the original work Vengeful Goddesses, that was the case.
Lucas Argent tortured Piel for nearly half a year before finally losing interest in the beastkin slave who was already broken beyond repair.
And only then did he seek out his next plaything.
The destination was predetermined.
The place where those with physical disabilities or indelible scars flowed—ones that had lost even their value as slaves.
Creatures filtered out from the underworld's breeding grounds for training monsters, deemed unfit even as fodder and treated as "rotten meat."
A slaughterhouse where they gathered, awaiting incineration.
In the original story, Lucas pulled one such existence from there—one that would have been better off dead.
Under the pretext of recycling trash.
He brought her to his room and destroyed that child alongside Piel.
And there was one clue attached to that scene.
One of the slave carriages that came and went from the Argent estate.
A rickety cart with a half-torn canopy and wheels screeching from a worn axle.
An old hunter with a large white beard sat in the front seat, and the merchant had merely nodded without stopping the horses, or so they said.
He had paid disposal fees just to claim one spot for her.
An elf they claimed was already barely clinging to life, brought for incineration.
A form tossed carelessly onto the straw inside the cart, unable to even open her eyes properly.
—That was all the original work revealed.
And the timing of that elf's discovery was clear.
Six months from now.
But.
"This is the one... Are you really sure about this?"
As the cart door opened, a huddled form revealed itself amid the fishy stench.
"Ah... aaaah...."
Even at this point in time, she was ragged enough that "tattered rag" didn't begin to describe her.
Her condition was in no way inferior to Piel's when she was first found.
A body sagging like meat forcibly draped over bones.
Skin that had lost all luster.
The only proof she hadn't died yet was the fact that she was still breathing.
One of the protagonists in Vengeful Goddesses.
The elf, Aira.
"The state she's in... it's wretched."
"I bought her dirt cheap thinking she might be useful somewhere, but she was like this from the start. Especially because of her 'eyes' and 'mouth,' no matter how much we dressed her up, she wouldn't sell, so we skimped on her food a bit, haha."
She was originally a slave that should have been discarded, even if it meant paying for it.
But when he heard I was buying her for hundreds of times the price of an ordinary slave, the white-bearded merchant's attitude shifted.
He rubbed his hands together as if making excuses.
No, more precisely, he was chattering on as if introducing this worthless slave under my feet like a product.
I clenched my fist tightly while listening.
Bones creaked, but I didn't even register it.
"How did this child... usually fare in the cart?"
"Pardon? Ah, well... she was basically tied up, but this one was peculiar. From the moment she was loaded onto the cart, she just huddled in one spot without moving."
The merchant paused mid-sentence, frowning briefly.
"Maybe her holes for relieving herself were busted too, 'cause she'd shit and piss right there, and it was a hassle cleaning it up every time."
He caught his breath for a moment, then added reluctantly.
"No matter how much I whipped her, she was already a cripple who couldn't even speak... jeez."
"May I examine her condition myself?"
"Haha, of course! Though... I'd be even more grateful if you settled the payment upfront."
"The coin pouch is already at the front of the cart. Count it."
"...! Yes, sir! Right away!"
I used the money as bait to quickly shoo the white-bearded merchant out of the cart compartment.
Only then did I lower my gaze.
Elves weren't as sensitive as beastkin, but they were still a race with highly developed senses.
She couldn't have failed to notice a new presence approaching when she was used to the merchant.
Yet there was no reaction.
She remained huddled like a corpse in that same spot.
I knelt on one knee and squatted down in front of her.
Then I began inspecting Aira's physical condition.
The result.
My conclusion was just as expected.
No, even worse.
"Fuck... without protagonist protection, she would've died ages ago."
First, as the merchant said, the eyes and mouth.
In my previous life as an orthopedic surgeon, I'd seen every kind of patient from traffic accidents and industrial disasters to scenes where people treated others worse than animals.
Even I couldn't help but grimace at first sight.
Not as a doctor, but as a human—no—
As an adult, I couldn't accept that a child bore such wounds.
Her eyes were wrapped in layers of bandages crusted with dried blood.
When I cautiously touched them with my hand, her body finally twitched.
That single reaction told me her senses were almost completely gone.
Lifting the bandage slightly confirmed it.
This wasn't damage or rupture.
It was enucleation.
The sockets where her eyeballs had been were already filled with fibrous tissue, with traces of them being forcibly sealed without proper hemostasis.
Just looking at the bleeding pattern made it clear it had been deliberately prolonged.
And—
The mouth was even worse.
I wasn't an ophthalmologist or dentist, but this didn't even require looking.
Carefully prying open Aira's mouth revealed the inside plainly.
There were no teeth.
Not a single one.
Only gums remained, and even those showed no signs of proper extraction.
No incision lines, no cleaned tooth roots.
Traces of breaking, twisting, and ripping them out.
Judging by when the bleeding stopped and the progress of tissue necrosis, it hadn't been done all at once.
It was the result of spacing it out over time, in multiple sessions.
'Who the hell did this to you...'
In the original work, this part was glossed over in a single line, like a MacGuffin proving her ruin.
No culprit, no reason.
Stroke, stroke.
"Ah... aaa...?!"
A small breath leaked out as my fingertips touched her hair.
"Ah, sorry. Did that hurt?"
I pulled my hand back briefly, then moved it slowly again.
"Even without teeth, speech should be possible... but at this point, it's not just pronunciation issues. Could be psychological trauma or vocal cord damage."
"..."
As I stroked her head, Aira visibly flinched.
Her body trembled.
From just this much contact, like she was having a seizure.
It reminded me of Piel when she was first found.
Drip, drip, drip.
Then, perhaps from sheer terror, she wet the cart floor.
Just as the merchant had described moments ago.
Still, I couldn't leave the child like that.
"Y-Young Master. How should we... transport this one—"
"I'll do it myself."
If I left it to the slave hunters, they'd drag her out by the hair like luggage.
They wouldn't treat a child who could die any moment like a human.
No matter how filthy or ugly she seemed.
Frowning at a suffering patient was the greatest shame for a doctor.
With that, I didn't hesitate to scoop Aira into my arms.
Even the Water of Life used by the Imperial Family wasn't omnipotent.
If merely touching it cured everything, there'd be no need for healers or imperial physicians to this day.
Of course, the Water of Life possessed healing power beyond modern medicine's explanation.
Just the fact that it could regenerate missing body parts was overwhelmingly superior.
But regeneration ignoring structure was no different from building a structure without rebar.
The exterior might look fine, but it would crumble from the inside.
That was the case with Piel.
The Water of Life restored her missing eyeball and severed ear, but the rotten tissue inside her body, the maggots devouring flesh, and the pus didn't vanish one bit.
This was like an expanded version of that.
"First, little by little..."
Drip.
I dropped a tiny amount of the Water of Life onto her eye socket first.
Regeneration began, and tissue writhed from the inside to fill the void.
Soon, surrounding flesh started swelling up.
'As expected, an eyeball is starting to form.'
However, if the surface regenerated first, the internal issues would become even more glaring.
I immediately stopped my hand.
Pouring more here wasn't treatment. It was covering it up.
Suddenly shoving tissue into a missing space would cause backlash starting from the blood vessels.
Especially in a pressure-sensitive area like the eye, forcing it all at once could spike intraocular pressure dramatically.
So I halted the regeneration and pressed the surrounding flesh with my finger.
Slowly, checking the response.
It's hard.
Adhesions had begun.
The eye socket originally housed the optic nerve and major blood vessels.
Now those pathways were blocked by damaged tissue.
If I didn't clear them first, she'd never see even if I made new eyes.
"Ah... aaa...."
At that moment, Aira's breathing faltered.
"...!"
I looked up.
"Princess. Increase the anesthesia magic intensity a bit."
"Yes. Raising it now."
Evelyn promptly infused more mana, and the unstable breathing settled again.
Frankly, the anesthesia we were using wasn't perfect.
It was an anesthetic I'd concocted by scouring the market with all my modern medical knowledge and blending herbs, but it had limitations in this medieval world—poor duration and stability.
It wouldn't be strange for her to wake midway if we probed too deeply.
That's why—
The most fortunate thing in this situation was having Evelyn, who had reached 5th circle at just 10 years old.
She periodically overlaid the dulled senses with anesthesia-series magic.
Thanks to that, pain responses didn't resurface.
Without this, the surgery would have been halted long ago.
Moreover, this time was different from before.
Not the discarded slave Piel, but Piel the head maid managing the annex was here now.
"Piel, hand me the items I mentioned at regular intervals. Please."
"Yes, Master. Leave it to me!"
I lowered my gaze again.
Anesthesia holding steady, bleeding under control.
Now it was finally time to proceed.
And with that, our surgery began.
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