Someone was knocking on the door of the log cabin.
‘Could it be…?’
Her heart rattled from the morning.
Sharti hurried out of the room. She made eye contact with the man standing outside.
“It’s soldiers.”
His sharp eyes, tinged with fatigue, pointed toward the door. Fortunately, all the windows had curtains drawn. He must have drawn them beforehand.
Sharti gulped nervously.
<I’ll hide in the room.>
“They’ll find you anyway if they search the house.”
There was nowhere to hide in this old log cabin, and if discovered while hiding, there would be no room for excuses.
The man chose his words with a grave expression.
“If they threaten you…”
Sharti interrupted him by waving her hands frantically and led him to the bedroom.
There was no time to argue with him. The knocking on the door grew more frequent and intense.
‘We don’t even know if it’s a search! Just hide in my bedroom for now!’
The man looked bewildered, but Sharti didn’t listen further and firmly raised her index finger.
‘Don’t make a sound!’
Sharti closed the bedroom door.
Whew. Sharti moved with a tense face.
‘Why would they come here so early in the morning?’
Was this the end of the search? Or the beginning of today’s search?
Bang bang bang!! Before they could break down the door, Sharti opened it.
“Ah, Sha! Good thing you’re home!”
It wasn’t just soldiers who came to the log cabin. Mrs. Patricia, who ran the inn in the village, was also with them.
That didn’t make her feel any safer though.
Patricia, a villager, was known for her love of gossip and loose lips.
<What brings you here?>
Writing was convenient in situations like this. She could hide her frightened voice, discomfort, and anxiety.
“Well, you see. These soldiers are looking for a doctor. Last night, they went up the mountain for their search and encountered the dangerous criminal they’ve been looking for. Many were injured. They asked me to help, so I told them you’re the best doctor in our village.”
“…?”
They encountered the dangerous criminal they’ve been looking for.
‘Did they meet a criminal in addition to the bear yesterday?’
Thankfully, she was wearing a hood. Otherwise, her expression full of questions and doubts would have been completely visible.
“How long do we have to wait?”
Just then, a tall soldier who had accompanied Patricia prodded from behind.
He was a soldier in his early thirties.
“Yes, yes. Come on, Sha. Let’s go. They just finished their search at dawn and came to the village.”
That explained why the soldiers looked so disheveled.
Sharti, having barely pulled her arm away from Patricia’s urging hand, quickly wrote on a note.
<Please wait a moment. I’ll gather my medicine and come out.>
Sharti asked for understanding and closed the door briefly.
‘I just need to pack my field bag.’
There was no need to pack anything else. Instead, Sharti left a note under the bedroom door.
<I think I need to go with the soldiers. It doesn’t seem like they’re trying to search the house, but stay hidden just in case. I’ll be back soon.>
With anxiety in her heart, Sharti left the log cabin, surrounded by Patricia and the soldiers.
Her hands, hidden by her robe, trembled throughout the descent from the mountain.
‘Stay calm. They haven’t laid a hand on you. These aren’t the imperial soldiers from five years ago. They’re frontier soldiers. They won’t, know me.’
While they were looking for her just like five years ago, the purpose was different. The imperial soldiers had sought the princess of Krianet, but the frontier soldiers were looking for a doctor.
They sought her help, not her death.
“Sha, it’s okay. I already told them about your unique circumstances.”
Patricia, who was looking at the frozen Sharti with pity, whispered.
“I told them you have a big scar on your face and that you were born unable to speak, so they won’t harm you.”
Sharti nodded slightly.
Of course, there was no such big scar on her face. Nor was she born unable to speak.
It was a lie that Vireta and Sharti had agreed upon long ago.
“But can’t the doctor fix the scar on her own face?”
One of the soldiers looked at Sharti with suspicious eyes. Patricia laughed and waved dismissively.
“She says it’s been there since birth, so it’s difficult. You know, soldiers, if she could fix something like that, would she be hiding in a mountain village? She’d be living luxuriously in the capital.”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
Although Patricia stood up for her, the soldier’s gaze wasn’t kind. There was an atmosphere of doubt about her skills.
It wasn’t an unreasonable attitude, considering his comrades were injured.
“Oh my, our Sha is so skilled. Hohoho, she’s a doctor envied by other villages.”
Sharti squirmed and tried to stop Patricia’s excessive praise. While she appreciated the recognition of her abilities, she didn’t want the soldiers to know anything about her, no matter how trivial.
The soldiers hid their skeptical expressions at Patricia’s boasting.
‘They’re going to watch and see?’
Sharti glanced at the exchanged glances between the soldiers and clutched her bag tightly. She wanted to finish the treatment quickly and return home.
“Let’s hurry.”
Urged by the soldiers, Sharti quickened her pace and arrived at the village a while later.
“The owner stays here. Only the doctor comes with us.”
As soon as they entered Patricia’s inn, Sharti wrinkled her nose.
There was a strong scent.
‘Sleep fragrance… no, this is a sleeping poison.’
It made sense why they left Patricia, the inn owner, outside.
There were many sleep medicines in the village that Sharti had manufactured and sold. Yet, the soldiers had deliberately used their own sleeping poison. It was a strong poison that would make civilians dizzy and staggering if they inhaled it.
“Hmm. Seems like a real doctor after all. Seeing how you’re walking straight.”
Sure enough, the soldier guiding Sharti smiled bitterly. The soldiers’ expressions had been gloomy since entering the inn.
After some consideration, Sharti handed them a note.
<How serious are the injuries? How many people are hurt?>
“You’ll see for yourself.”
When the tall soldier nodded, the soldiers following behind simultaneously opened all the inn rooms.
“…!”
Sharti’s body froze at the scene in the rooms.
All the soldiers, except for the few who had come to fetch her, were lying on beds, suffering from their wounds.
Sharti quickly checked the condition of the injured.
‘These aren’t wounds from a bear.’
These weren’t injuries from a sharp beast’s claws and teeth.
Rather, long, sharp weapons.
‘These are wounds from being cut and stabbed by swords.’
It seemed they had been cut and stabbed in various places, not to kill, but just to wound.
“Can you, treat them?”
Tristan, the tall soldier who had guided Sharti, scratched his head vigorously.
He was asking about the soldiers in the most critical condition.
“They’re new recruits in our unit. We need to save them. Otherwise, I don’t know what to tell their families…”
Tristan’s expression turned grim.
Getting injured during a search due to unavoidable circumstances wasn’t particularly unusual. But all the soldiers’ faces were hardened.
Sharti didn’t want to know the details of the truth she had guessed.
‘But I have a responsibility too.’
While there didn’t seem to be any injuries from the bear she had lured, she surely had an impact on what happened afterward.
Though the presence of soldiers still frightened her, Sharti couldn’t turn away from the injured before her eyes.
<What I’ve brought won’t be enough. I’ll tell you what I need, so please bring it.>
The expressions of the soldiers, now filled with hope, improved slightly.
First, Sharti rolled up the cumbersome long and wide sleeves of her robe. The burn scar running from the back of her left hand up her arm was exposed, but she didn’t mind.
<You, soldier, bring water to clean the blood from the injured bodies.>
<I need clean towels. And bandages. If there are no bandages, clean cloth will do. But it should have a texture similar to bandages.>
<If you exit the inn, turn right into the alley. There’s an herb shop there. Buy the herbs I’m listing. Just ask for all of them.>
<Hold this soldier’s body. I need to stitch the wound. Put something in his mouth, as he might bite his tongue.>
The soldiers moved in unison according to Sharti’s unwavering instructions.
Sharti, too, moved without rest, her delicate frame barely concealed by her thick, long robe.
It was only natural that soldiers who had only applied ointment and wrapped bandages a few times couldn’t keep up with Sharti’s pace.
****
By the time the sleeping poison in the air had thinned, the soldiers’ attitude had changed.
“Doctor! We’ve given the medicine you provided to everyone in that room.”
“Here! Please come here too, Doctor!”
Their form of address naturally became more respectful, with honorifics added spontaneously. The soldiers who had looked at her with suspicious eyes were nowhere to be found.
Seeing the hot droplets of sweat falling from inside her robe naturally made them solemn.
‘What should I do, I need more hands.’
Due to the heat inside her robe and her heightened concentration, Sharti’s energy was being rapidly depleted.
By the time she had almost finished suturing the wounds, her left fingers momentarily trembled.
‘The sleeping poison has dissipated, so Mrs. Patricia and other villagers are helping, but…’
The person Sharti needed was someone with knowledge of herbs.
More precisely, she needed a doctor who could prescribe properly.
‘Hmm, would it be okay to mention it?’
In this village, Sharti was the only doctor. But there was a child who dreamed of becoming a doctor in the future.
Sharti used a brief gap to find Patricia.
“Huh? What is it, Sha? Do you need something?”
Patricia, who seemed to be calculating the inn fees to charge the soldiers, asked while tapping on a calculator.
<I’d like to meet Tein. Could you bring him here?>
Patricia looked quizzically at Sharti, who wanted to meet Tein despite the busy situation.
<I need Tein’s help.>
“Come on. Then we should call the herb shop man. What good would Vireta’s grandson do?”
Sharti was about to write more on the note but stopped.
In the village, Tein was just a smart child. No one paid attention to the intelligence of a 7-year-old child.
‘I need to move more instead of wasting time like this.’
Sharti swallowed her sigh and turned around again.
Just then, Tristan, who had taken off his armor and was busy wiping away blood, approached.
“Who are you looking for?”
His tone was respectful. Sharti shook her head with a slightly bewildered expression.
That’s when Patricia interjected from behind.
“I think Sha is very tired and wants to rest. Asking me to bring a child, of all things!”
Sharti was about to refute Patricia’s chuckling words but stopped.
Watching Sharti, Tristan put down the bucket of water.
“Is there a child we need to bring? Is this child necessary?”
“……”
After hesitating, Sharti nodded slightly.
<He’s a smart child and will be helpful.>
“Understood. Owner, what are you doing? Bring the child the doctor is looking for.”
“What? Ah, yes, well…”
Patricia nodded grudgingly and left the inn.
Sharti glanced at the soldier. Her expression wasn’t much different from Patricia’s.
Sensing her gaze, Tristan cleared his throat as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“We had no hope that there would be a doctor in a village like this. At that time, I was desperate enough to seek help from a child…”
Tristan was the oldest brother among the soldiers who had come to the village.
Sharti understood his attitude when he had come to the log cabin.
The fear and anger of possibly losing all his comrades. Yet, the helplessness of having to climb the exhausting mountain again to grasp a sliver of hope. The sharp attitude that emerged from being swept up in urgency and anxiety.
<He’s a child who will become a better doctor than me.>
At Sharti’s note, Tristan smiled awkwardly.
“Then I trust him. A future seedling guaranteed by an excellent doctor.”
However, Patricia returned alone shortly after.
“They say he went out early in the morning?”
Naturally, the places Tein frequented weren’t around the house, nor the village playground, nor the alleys. Was there a child who could climb the mountain as well as Tein?
‘…It can’t be. Surely not.’
Hadn’t she even given him homework not to climb the mountain for a while?
Tein, like a child educated by Vireta, was quick-witted. He wasn’t a child who would create difficult situations for Sharti.
But in the quiet log cabin in the mountains…
An unwanted meeting had already taken place.
“Patient mister!”
“……”
A man who should be hiding. And a child who shouldn’t be with him.
The man rubbed his brow at the troublesome situation.
