Don’t Tame It [Novel]

34.

Irene was in the middle of withdrawing her fingers from the soldier’s abdomen. This time, she inserted a clean piece of cloth instead of her digits. The white fabric turned red in an instant.

“Thank goodness.”

“What is?”

When a response cut through her mutterings, Irene turned around, startled. Her gaze locked with sparkling eyes.

Realizing it was Mia, Irene let out a low sigh of relief. She pulled out the blood-soaked cloth, packed a fresh one into the soldier’s abdomen, and answered indifferently.

“The blood vessels appear intact. The organs seem unharmed.”

“Oh, I see.”

Glancing sideways at the soldier, Mia let out a groan and instinctively clutched her own stomach. She stretched her neck, peering over Irene’s shoulder again.

She didn’t particularly want to see the inside of a human abdomen, but her curiosity was an itch she couldn’t ignore.

“Why is that a good thing?”

“Because I only need to suture the skin.”

“But, Physician Rios.”

Mia called out in a serious voice. Irene didn’t lift her head, her focus tethered entirely to her task, but Mia persisted.

“Where is the cauterizer? And why are you using that strange needle?”

Until now, the standard for closing wounds was to sear them shut with a burner. Mia’s question was natural.

Irene didn’t answer. Her hands worked with rhythmic precision. Mia’s eyes widened.

“Physician Rios!”

As if her earlier hesitation had been a lie, the tips of Irene’s fingers remained perfectly still. She began to draw flesh to flesh with intimate familiarity.

With forceps in her left hand, she steadied the skin; with the needle in her right, she pierced through. She tied a double knot and snipped the thread with scissors.

With every stitch, she moved to the next. The motion flowed with grace.

“…….”

Truthfully, when suturing the abdomen of a corpse, there was no need for such delicacy. No one would blame her for sewing it all at once, like patching a burlap sack.

But the soldier was a living man. Irene had a duty to minimize the long-term trauma.

She repeated the inefficient cycle: suture, release, cut, repeat.

Every time the needle pierced the skin, the soldier’s body flinched. That was the stark difference between a living person and a corpse. A corpse would not move, nor would it complain of pain.

The blood warming the tips of Irene’s fingers was fever-hot; the pulse in the exposed vessels was intense.

This was why she had always hated people.

Nevertheless, Irene’s hands moved with practiced dexterity. It was as if she were dancing.

“Aaaah, what do I do?”

Mia stamped her feet, caught in an indecisive frenzy. Uno, who had barely managed to catch his breath, looked over at the commotion.

He scowled, sensing an outsider—a woman, no less—had breached his territory.

“Hey, you there!”

Letting out a roar, Uno strode over. A dark shadow fell across Irene.

She was so deeply locked into the movement of her fingertips that she didn’t even notice him. Uno, who had intended to be aggressive, kept his mouth shut, held captive by the sight of her work.

Having finished the final stitch, Irene let out a silent breath and snipped the knot. The palm-sized wound was cleanly sealed.

As she straightened her back, she noticed Uno belatedly and gave a start, her shoulders trembling. Uno stroked his chin with one hand.

“Are you the new surgeon they mentioned?”

The tone was arrogant, common for someone addressing a peer, though he was merely a barber. After all, she was Duke Diego Cassis’s personal physician.

Irene did not care. She had heard far worse.

Troublemaker, hopeless case, iron mask, broomstick—she had even been called a witch.

Irene didn’t answer. She washed her blood-stained hands. *Splash, splash*—the sound of water, leisurely and out of place in the tent, echoed.

Uno turned his gaze from Irene to inspect the wound she had sutured.

“You’re leaving the thread in like that?”

“I will remove it once the wound has healed.”

“…….”

Seeing Irene speak with such formal composure, Uno finally looked sheepish.

The sight of the bandit-like man scratching the back of his head was so comical that Mia’s eyes went wide. She quickly covered her mouth with both hands to stifle a laugh.

“Hmm.”

Grunting, Uno observed Irene.

He had heard rumors that the Grand Duke had hired a surgeon, but he had dismissed it as irrelevant. A personal physician to Duke Diego Cassis wouldn’t care about the lives of common soldiers. The work of a barber-surgeon wouldn’t change.

One only had to look at Sir Miguel Flich, who was busy berating a soldier over his dinner while men died nearby.

And yet, this new surgeon was actually treating a patient.

Why?

What was she thinking?

“It’s certainly a new method.”

Uno’s tone had turned polite without him realizing it, though he couldn’t quite mask his innate coarseness.

“Are you perhaps from the Royal Medical College?”

Irene nodded indifferently. Uno gave an “Ah,” looking convinced.

“I heard rumors that a surgery department was established a few years ago.”

He looked at Irene, his brow knitting slightly.

“I don’t know what they taught you there, but you’ll soon learn that it’s all useless here.”

For the first time, Irene’s gaze met his. Uno swept a hand toward the rows of beds, his lips curling.

“There are so many patients you trip over them. There are only three barbers left in this camp. Two died in an enemy surprise attack yesterday. That means I am the only one left. Dammit.”

Chewing on a curse, Uno narrowed his eyes.

“When would I have time to sit around sewing stitch by stitch? Other patients will be dying in that time. It would be better to just cauterize it with a burner, even if it leaves a large scar. Besides, this must take at least twenty minutes. Wouldn’t it be better to have it hurt for a moment than to be in pain for such a long time?”

His tone mocked a stuffy scholar who had only studied at a desk. Or perhaps it was simply cynical, resigned to an inescapable reality.

Mia, who had been struggling to stay quiet, widened her eyes and cut in.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t time it, but it didn’t take any longer than using that cauterizer of yours!”

Uno turned to look at Mia with distrust. Mia planted both hands on her waist and glared back confidently.

Irene stood blankly. It seemed she was the subject of the conversation, but there was no room for her to interject.

Perhaps that was for the best. She didn’t have the talent to soften the mood anyway.

Uno turned his head back to Irene.

“If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition, could you suture one more person? Right before my eyes.”

It was a challenge. A provocation. Regardless of the intent, it was an unpleasant situation.

Mia glared at him. “Who do you think you’re—!”

However, Irene nodded nonchalantly. She had nothing to do until Duke Diego Cassis returned anyway.

Moreover, a tingling thrill sparked in her knuckles at the prospect of suturing again. It felt nothing like working on a corpse.

Warm body temperature, soft skin, and surging blood. These were conditions a corpse did not possess. Each time she overcame the aversion, her fingertips grew more delicate.

*Glance.*

Irene looked at the flank of the soldier she had just finished. She had thought she might fail. She had nearly tucked her tail and run.

But she had done it. And she had done it cleanly.

The countless corpses she had sutured before were destined for the dirt, regardless of her skill. But this soldier would live. He would walk again, run, and laugh.

Suddenly, her hands grew hot. Her skin, usually as cold as a snake’s, burned as if she had a fever.

“?”

Irene looked down at her hands, confused, and quietly curled them into fists.

*Gulp.*

A hot lump surged into her throat. Her vision blurred, and she swallowed it down.

These were hands that saved people. Desperate screams, painful moans, red blood—these were not signs of death, but the violent struggle to live.

Irene pulled her lips tight and waited in silence until the roiling emotions subsided.

This was why she hated the living. They made her calm, frozen self tremble.

She sealed her emotions away, put a lid on them, and pressed down hard.

“…….”

She followed Uno without a word.

For this moment, she didn’t feel like a ghost. It felt as if she were a living person herself.

Like the soldier, she was a person with hot blood flowing and a heart beating fiercely.

It was a strange sensation. Irene looked only at her own feet and walked in silence.

Uno stopped in front of a bed. Irene stopped beside him and slowly lifted her head.

Uno, wearing a bitter smile, looked at the soldier lying at an angle and explained.

“There is a long laceration from his cheek down to his neck. It would be quick to just burn it with a cauterizer, but since it’s his face, I held off, fearing the scar. Though I suppose living with a scar is better than dying, in the end.”