I’m Looking for the Backer of the Betrayed Villainess

Episode 10

“Celine! Celine, are you awake?”

“Mom, I’m hot…….”

“Oh, heavens. God, thank you. Thank you!”

Celine’s eyelids trembled, and soon her eyes were revealed. Both of her cheeks were flushed red with heat.

Thank goodness. It seemed the medicine was working properly. I let out a sigh of relief.

“Ri, Rita.”

“Yes.”

“She has a very high fever.”

Maria carefully examined Celine before speaking. It was only natural. I nodded and said,

“Maria.”

“Yes, yes!”

“Put the Bingrancho into that water, roots and all. The treatment isn’t finished yet.”

Without questioning it at all, Maria immediately moved.

Come to think of it, Maria was one of the people who didn’t have much of an aversion to potions.

I should quietly ask Maria about it later. What exactly had happened?

In any case, thanks to Maria moving so quickly, I was able to make another potion before long. I poured it into a bowl and handed it to Miriam again.

“Have her drink that one slowly, in three portions. Ten minutes apart.”

The raging fire energy had been brought under control with the potion containing Hwarancho.

The energy of the Hwarancho would draw the fire energy inside her body toward it, while Noctil would probably bind it in place. The energies of the other herbs would also heal some of the damage to her body.

Then it was time to cool down the fire energy that had been gathered.

The potion made by mixing in Bingrancho would take care of that.

Every time Celine took a dose of the potion, her complexion visibly became more relaxed.

I rose to my feet with a sigh. My ankle throbbed from moving around so hurriedly.

Condition: Minor erosion caused by fire energy, intermittent coughing, slight fever.

This much could probably be cured with the medicine of the physician lying over there.

“It looks like we’ve gotten past the worst of it.”

As if those words had been a signal, Miriam crawled on her knees and grabbed the hem of my clothes at my feet. Startled, I bent down again, and Miriam clasped both of my hands tightly in hers.

Burying her face in my hands, Miriam repeatedly bowed her head.

“Thank you, thank you. I’ll live the rest of my life grateful to you. I’ll give you everything I have. If there’s anything you want, anything at all—”

“It’s all right. I told you, I’m a physician. I only did what I was supposed to do.”

I soothed Miriam.

I wasn’t pretending. I truly meant it.

The sensation of having healed someone still lingered vividly in both my hands.

Bringing a fading life back with my own hands was the greatest happiness and pride I could gain from doing this work.

For the first time in a very long while, I felt truly alive.

A proud smile naturally formed at the corners of my lips.

“P-Physician.”

“Just call me Rita.”

Perhaps I had been tense as well, because my hands were tingling. I massaged them alternately while looking around.

The people who had looked at me as though they had witnessed something they shouldn’t have were now looking at me with completely different expressions.

I shrugged.

“Can you believe me now?”

At those words, the tense atmosphere surrounding us shattered all at once.

As though they had all been startled, the people who had widened their eyes opened their mouths almost simultaneously.

“P-Please help us. Please, I beg you.”

They turned around and pointed toward the injured people inside the shelter.

“We’re sorry for doubting you, Physician. We weren’t properly educated, so we’re ignorant and short-sighted. But please, just this once. Please save them…….”

The very people who had glared at me with suspicion were now kneeling before me and begging.

My gaze followed theirs into the shelter.

It was filled with patients.

I let out a faint sigh and helped the kneeling man back to his feet.

“Please don’t do this.”

“Physician, please…….”

When he tried to kneel again, I bent my knees first.

“Physician!”

Seeing his eyes widen in surprise, I said firmly,

“I told you. This is something I’m supposed to do. There’s no need to beg me like that.”

Rueta, a village in the south of the Grand Duchy.

Under normal circumstances, the village would have been filled with the chatter of people gathering in small groups after finishing their work.

Instead, it was filled with the acrid smell of burning and smoke.

It was because of the massive fire that had broken out at Mali’s smithy.

Not only were all the buildings made of wood, but someone had deliberately set the fire, causing the damage to increase exponentially.

And yet, the atmosphere in Rueta, which should have been filled with despair and sorrow, was brighter than expected.

It was thanks to Rita, the physician who had suddenly appeared.

“Rita, Rita! Here, this person—”

“Yes. I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Amid the subtle commotion, Mali, the owner of the smithy, slowly regained consciousness.

“Mali, are you coming around?”

“Ugh…… how did I get here……?”

His consciousness, which had seemed to float in empty space, gradually returned to reality.

Then he heard the voice of Tony, an old friend.

“It’s a temporary shelter. His Grace the Grand Duke has set it up and is overseeing the relief efforts.”

“A shelter……?”

Hearing those words brought back, one after another, the horrifying scenes he had witnessed just before losing consciousness.

A beast-like cry escaped Mali’s mouth.

“Aah, aaaargh! How, how could they do such a thing!”

The person who had set fire to the smithy was an employee he had known for a very long time.

Why would he do something like this?

Why?

Along with those thoughts, all sorts of sensations came rushing over him like a wave.

“Huff, huff. Aaargh!”

His heart pounded violently.

The pain of being burned alive had been beyond anything he could have imagined, and he had thought the old smithy would become his grave.

His mind grew hazy.

Pain once again spread across the skin covering his entire body.

When he twisted his body and screamed, Tony, who had been sitting beside him, was startled and called out his name.

“Mali, Mali! Rita, this person!”

Flames had been raging around his body.

The flames melted his skin.

Blisters swelled up, and his skin became horribly red and raw.

He was going to die like this.

He opened and closed his mouth, but his throat and even his tongue had melted, leaving him unable to make a sound.

Then—

“Upsy-daisy. How about drinking this first?”

A cool, refreshing sensation flooded his mouth.

That sensation quickly spread throughout his entire body.

The heat that had seemed capable of killing him at any moment gradually subsided.

The sensation of his eyelids moving tremulously was vivid, despite the fact that he had been certain they had melted away.

A single tear rolled down from the corner of his wrinkled eye.

“The fire energy hasn’t been completely drawn out yet. Give him this medicine once every ten minutes, and if he continues to show any abnormal reactions afterward, tell Maria or me immediately.”

His unfocused eyes turned toward the pink blur moving in front of him.

After thanking her, Tony carefully poured the medicine into Mali’s mouth at the prescribed intervals.

Each time he did, sensations that Mali had thought were already gone quickly returned.

It still hurt, and various parts of his body burned painfully, but he no longer felt as though he was about to die.

Only then was he able to slowly assess his own condition.

“H-How……?”

“Don’t even ask. This is someone Maria treated not long ago. They say she’s a physician. Thanks to her, there are more than a few people who’ve escaped death.”

The surrounding scenery gradually came into view.

Considering the scale of the accident, the people’s faces were surprisingly bright.

Beside them were empty medicine bottles and bottles filled with medicine, scattered everywhere.

“……A-Aren’t those potions? Lord Tinte—”

“Shh. Don’t say anything.”

“But even so!”

“If we didn’t have that medicine, you would have died.”

Mali stopped and fell silent, then looked around.

Everyone who had been looking elsewhere until a moment ago was now staring at the two of them with their mouths firmly shut.

Mali’s voice immediately faded.

“Th-That’s black magic, isn’t it…….”

“Hey, Mali.”

At that moment, Miriam, who had been assisting the physician while wearing a headscarf, strode toward him.

Mali’s head dropped toward the ground.

Mali had seen it clearly.

He had seen Celine, Miriam’s daughter, who had helped at the smithy, being engulfed by the flames.