Wrote About 5,700 Characters

“Te-Teacher?”

“What are you doing? Come on, do it.”

“Do… do you mean according to this book?”

“Yes, do it as shown in that book.”

I encouraged Dale again while lying on the bed.

I know what he’s worried about, but first aid is one of the essential knowledge that people must learn in their lifetime.

As it’s part of the lesson, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

I’ve had many such experiences, so I didn’t feel any aversion to a child touching my body.

“…Uh, uh.”

But could it be that my sincerity wasn’t conveyed?

Dale was just standing there, trembling. His eyes welling up with tears made him look like he didn’t know what to do.

Geez. Why is this boy so shy?

“Can’t be helped, teacher will have to demonstrate first.”

“Huh? Demonstrate… Hyah!?”

Dale was pulled by me and thrown onto the bed.

For a moment his body froze, but when he belatedly grasped the situation, my hand was already on Dale’s chest.

“Now, Dale. From now on, teacher will try first aid on you. Are you ready?”

“Y-Yes…?”

Could it be that he still hasn’t fully grasped the situation?

When those round eyes turned towards me, I asked a question while recalling the content of the first aid book Dale had read.

“What did it say to do first?”

“Wh-What to do…”

“About first aid. What did it say to do first when you encounter an unconscious person?”

“…Th-That.”

Oh dear.

Why has a child who got first place even forgotten the content of the book he just read?

“Fi-First… it said to… check consciousness.”

Dale finally answered in a small voice.

Seeing that made the itching in my chest feel even stronger.

“…Knock, knock.”

With that feeling, I quietly brought my mouth to Dale’s ear and whispered.

Dale flinched in surprise and shrank his body.

I continued whispering in his ear.

“Patient, can you hear my voice? Please speak if you’re not okay.”

“……”

“…Oh my, you’re unconscious~”

If unconscious, I should do it right away.

I immediately took position next to Dale and prepared to place both hands together on Dale’s chest.

“Now, Dale. This is how you perform CPR.”

“Hik…!”

Dale swallowed and stiffened his body.

Even so, I could clearly feel his heartbeat through my palm.

“Like this, with arms spread wide, you stimulate the heart by putting strength into your palms so they don’t shake. At regular intervals, one, two…”

Of course, since it’s practice and not real, I don’t apply force.

It’s just a demonstration.

But even that seemed to have an effect, as with each press on the chest, the heartbeat speed increased.

Fufu, is he very nervous?

“Ha, haauu…..”

Dale let out a sob after I finished the thirty compressions.

When I checked his face, I saw that he had his eyes tightly shut and his head turned away.

Oh dear, it’s troublesome if he’s being so uncooperative when we’re clearly having a lesson.

“Well then, shall we move on to the next step?”

I immediately grasped Dale’s face with my hand and straightened it to make him look me in the eyes.

His eyes opened at that moment.

Those clear, round eyes were focused exactly on my lips.

“Ne-Next… Next?”

“Just massaging the heart won’t secure breathing, you know~”

Yes, even the heart’s pumping is ultimately a process to deliver oxygen carried in the blood to the brain.

It’s useless if you can’t supply oxygen to a person who can’t breathe.

“What was it we had to do next? Dale, do you know?”

“Th-That’s……”

His skin flushing and turning red, and his body temperature rising.

The heartbeat I could feel through my hand on his chest was intensifying even more.

“K-Kiss… we have to…”

“Yes, we have to kiss and blow in air.”

“Br-Breath……”

“Stay still.”

Lest he have a fit, I held Dale’s head and chin with both hands, and gently stroked his lips with my thumb.

“Don’t worry Dale, you just need to stay still.”

Yes, this is clearly education.

It would be good to have this kind of experience at least once, even to prepare for when dangerous patients appear in the future.

“Teacher will take care of everything, so just… stay quiet and still.”

With that, I slowly closed the distance with Dale.

Removing my finger from the tender boy’s lips, to prepare to blow my breath into them.

“…Hick.”

But at that moment, a faint sob escaped.

Reflexively, my head stiffened at that moment, and my gaze turned back to Dale’s face.

Tears welling up in his open eyes.

The sight of him clutching his chest, not knowing what to do with his hands, looked like a fragile child about to burst into tears to anyone watching.

“Te-Teacher… This is my first time, so……”

Dale said in that state.

“Please… be gentle…”

“…Ah.”

An exclamation escaped my lips.

It was only then that reason returned to my mind, and guilt began to stir in my chest, as if a nail had been driven into it, where it had been fluttering until now.

Damn it, what have I been doing?

No matter how much he seemed to like joking around, to try to take the first time of a child who doesn’t even know how babies are made.

“Excuse me.”

As I was at a loss for what to do, the infirmary door opened with a clatter.

“Kyeeeeeeek!!”

Startled by the sudden intrusion, Dale screamed, pushed my body away, and fled from his seat.

Towards where the window was, on the opposite side of the exit.

-Crash!!

His curled-up body spectacularly shattered the window.

---

“So, what brings you here?”

“Ah, well. I got a bit injured.”

“For now, sit on that bed over there.”

The student who came to the infirmary was a handsome student who had just entered high school.

His body seemed to have been consistently trained, but despite being sturdy, his walking form was terribly clumsy, as if he couldn’t ignore the injury.

“I’m sorry.”

As I was staring at such a visitor, Dale, who had returned to the infirmary, bowed his head next to the broken window.

His posture was a perfect 100-point dogeza from the start.

Even the company commander who’s always disappointed would give a thumbs up and generously send him to the guardhouse if he saw Dale now.

“It’s okay, so write an apology letter while I check the condition. I’ll have someone called later to clean up the glass, so don’t touch it unnecessarily and hurt your hand.”

“Y-Yes. The apology letter, right?”

Then Dale jumped up, returned to his seat, and grasped a pen.

With my back turned to Dale, I examined the legs of the high school boy sitting on the bed.

“Your ankle ligament is sprained. Are you in a sports club?”

“….You figured it out right away.”

“Well, only sports club members would get injured like this before regular classes start.”

After finishing the brief examination, I immediately took out bandages and medicine from the first aid kit I brought.

“I’ll prescribe one painkiller, so take it after the treatment is done, and I’ll put a splint on, so refrain from excessive exercise for a week. If you really need to exercise, I recommend race walking rather than jogging.”

Sprains are symptoms that can cause lifelong suffering if mismanaged even once.

In fact, if it’s a cruciate ligament rupture, you could even get a public service exemption in Korea… Wait a minute, if the ligament is completely destroyed, couldn’t you get a full exemption?

Come to think of it, the empire’s conscription rate during the war was lower than Korea’s conscription rate. Damn Military Manpower Administration.

“…Divine power.”

As I was having such idle thoughts while finishing wrapping the bandage, the male student receiving treatment casually asked me.

“Are you not using divine power?”

“You mean this?”

As I raised my hand and exerted my will, a faint light began to flow from the tip of that hand.

Divine power.

It’s an ability that’s called the omnipotent healing power by the public, which only those who have awakened true faith can handle.

“…So you can use it.”

“Well, I am a clergy after all. However, according to the policy of our order, the use of divine power is limited to auxiliary means of treatment or emergency patient relief, so I don’t plan to pour out divine power excessively to children coming to the infirmary in the future.”

Even if I can quickly heal a sprain, it shouldn’t be overused.

Having expressed such an intention, I continued wrapping the bandage around his ankle while changing the topic.

“What’s your name?”

“Gillette Sieghart.”

“I see, Student Gillette from the Sieghart family. Our friend seems to be quite interested in divine power. Is it because you’re from a holy knight family?”

“Huh? How did you…?”

“Your body is trained, and there are traces of divine power being used periodically. It seems you haven’t awakened divine power yourself yet, but in most cases like this, it’s often because the family belongs to a religion.”

“…You can even know that?”

“If you do this job for a long time, you get a feel for these things.”

I briefly looked up at Gillette, pausing the bandaging for a moment.

“As a fellow believer, let me give you a bit of advice… relying on divine power every time you get hurt isn’t a very good method. Sometimes, even staying away from divine power is a recommended attitude for believers.”

“Huh? Why is that……”

“There are various reasons, but the most important one is… well, the longer you’re exposed, the more muscle loss occurs.”

“…Muscle loss?”

Gillette’s eyes widened as if he’d heard an unexpected fact.

But my words just now were certainly true.

Healing by divine power is closer to restoration that ‘undoes’ the process leading up to the injury, separate from the natural healing effect that people have.

Of course, religious folks don’t much like analyzing divine power. If explaining, it’s better to rely on common sense rather than analysis.

“Just as iron becomes harder the more it’s hammered, muscles also become trained the more they’re overworked. You know that much, right?”

“Yes, that’s…. Are you saying that God’s miracle makes even the results of such overwork as if they never happened?”

“It’s a problem because the performance is too good. As it doesn’t distinguish treatment according to symptoms, it can actually be poison for those who train hard.”

Divine power is an omnipotent healing power…

It sounds good. I admit the effect is certain, but if you examine it closely, you can find several disadvantages and limitations.

It’s just that mentioning it itself is considered blasphemy, so everyone keeps quiet about it. But the order I belong to is a place that advocates the coexistence of medicine and faith.

Divine power is just one of the convenient tools rather than proof of faith. There’s nothing to hesitate about in preaching the current teachings.

“There are several other reasons why you shouldn’t rely on it too much. Divine power is surprisingly consumable resource, so after using it, you need to replenish as much as was consumed through prayer or rituals. The longer clergy spend healing, the longer they stay cooped up in prayer rooms, right?”

It takes time to accumulate, and once used, it needs to be recharged again.

For this reason, even during the war, divine power holders were treated as high-value personnel.

They alone couldn’t handle the injured who poured in almost every day, so there was a need to prepare alternatives to complement their absence.

“Medicine can be said to be the best partner to complement these points. It may not be a complete cure, but it can provide the grace period needed to take someone to a place with professional healers, and anyone can heal people if they have the right medicines and tools.”

I finished wrapping the bandage around his leg and finally tied a ribbon to tighten the string.

With sincerity, hoping that this chick believer living in this age of divine omnipotence would understand the path I’m taking.

“I’ll give you a book about first aid, so read it with your friends when you’re bored in the club room. You sports club kids get more minor injuries than other kids, so it’s better to keep some first aid supplies in the club room and use them rather than going to the clergy every time.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you for the good advice.”

Gillette bowed his head politely as he received the book.

Seeing that, an unconsciously warm smile formed on my lips.

Despite clearly being from a holy knight family, he didn’t disparage me as a heretic for being from a different order, but rather tried to accept the current teachings.

Isn’t it rewarding to feel that the lecture was worthwhile?

“Teacher, I finished writing the apology letter!”

“Alright, let’s check it once.”

Dale approached as soon as I finished the treatment.

When I saw the writing densely filling both sides of the paper, I inadvertently let out a groan.

“…Isn’t this too much for an apology letter?”

“I wrote about 5,700 characters.”

“On second thought, it seems appropriate.”

Of course.

5,700 characters is the standard specification.