Rose's family

Chapter 6

There was something that this Allison was hiding from me, and it was making me restless for some reason. However, I focused on what we were doing. For now, I will focus on the task at hand.

I had no reward for curing Rose's father but that didn't mean that saving a life wasn't important. A doctor can't ignore a patient no matter how unrewarding.

[Oh yeah]

[You were a doctor]

'Yes. And that is why I am doing this despite your ridiculous description.' I replied with a little annoyance.

[I am just an A.I]

I chose to ignore that remark and turned my focus back on Rose. We were currently traveling through the slums of the capital. Oh yeah! The slums. Even the biggest, and the cleanest city can't avoid having a slum.

A slum is where mostly the families of the servants live. I mean sure, there are other jobs in the capital but the largest number of people have the jobs of a servant in the imperial palace.

That becomes apparent by the fact that just the kitchen has more than 200 people as its staff and the laundry staff was in at least three hundreds. Combined with other jobs in the palace, the workforce was at least five thousand and their families must be in the tens of thousands so the slum was quite populated.

Then there were also other families of people who didn't work in the palace but in the capital. Such as workers of the merchants, or other jobs. The population of the slum alone was around thirty thousand. The capital was home to a hundred thousand population which wasn't much if we compare it to the modern era where millions of people live in a city, it is still impressive in this era as the medieval era had at most ten thousand people in a city at a time.

Anyway, we finally reached a decrepit house in the slum area. It was quite far even within the slum which meant that they were even the lowest in the slums. The status was dependent on how close you were to the palace. First the palace, then the dukes and barons came at the last.

Then came the commoner district which would begin from the richest to the poorest. The same law was in the slums. The poorer you are, the farther from the palace and the closest to the walls you are.

We entered the house and as soon as we did, three children came running towards us. Well, towards Rose. Seeing as they all shared the same colored pink hair, they must be her siblings.

"Rose." "Rose is back." "Rose, Rose." It was quite hectic and I couldn't help but smile. Growing up, I was never surrounded by children but that wasn't the case inside a fragment. A painful and sad memory assaulted me when I saw those smiling children. I shook my head to forget that moment. I wasn't the kind of person to live in the past anyway.

"Wha-What are you doing!? Quick! Kneel to His Highness." Rose admonished her siblings and they hurriedly turned to look at me. A look of fear appeared on their faces soon which greatly contrasted their happy expression from before.

It seems Adrian was a scumbag. I smiled at the children before they could kneel and said, "It's okay. I don't remember anything about it anyway."

Rose was astonished at my nonchalant remark and only now remembered that I didn't have my previous memories. I ignored the four dumbstruck siblings and made my way deeper into the house. The house had only two sections. An entrance room and a room in the back next to it. There was no bathroom, no kitchen, or any furniture of any kind.

I'm sure Adrian wasn't in charge of Rose's payment so there was no chance of him holding back her money. The only other cause could be that whatever she earned, went into helping her father.

I entered the second room to see a woman with pink hair. Her features were beautiful but with her face covered in dirty marks, a few odd cuts here and there, and black tar etched in her skin, her features were thoroughly hidden from anyone except my keen eyes.

[Leave it to you to be creepy]

'Shut up.' I replied as I moved to the man who was lying on the table. He wasn't pink-haired but his hair was black in color. It seems that all the siblings didn't inherit any features from their father.

The man was fast asleep while the woman was relieving his pain slowly by massaging his chest.

That was the wrong thing to do. Anyway, she didn't notice me until I was just next to her and when she did, she was startled at first and swung her fist at me. By the time she figured out who I was, the fist was already at my face and it was difficult for her to stop it.

'Divine shield.' I used the skill with ten MP. Although I had used MP before, it was restored by now after traveling for about an hour. The fist struck the shield, and the impact was greatly lessened but I seem to have also underestimated her as she didn't quite look like a fighter, yet her punch was precise and even after striking my shield, a considerable force was still left which when struck me, knocked the bonkers out of me.

[HP -23]

[HP 17\50]

My eyes went wide as I saw how close I was to death. If I hadn't used the shield, I would have been dead by now. It was also amazing how a frail-looking woman could deliver such an impact.

[Kate]

[Rank C-]

My eyes once again went wide at the information shared by Allison. It seems that I was quite mistaken to think that she was frail. She just looked frail. She was actually in higher ranks and from the looks of it, was really holding back against me since if it had been a full-force attack, I would have been blown to pieces.

"Mother! What are you doing?!" Rose shouted as she entered the room and saw me crash in a corner with my cheek a bit swollen and my head spinning.

The woman, also known as Kate, panicked when she saw who she had attacked. I stood up, although I staggered a bit and Rose hurriedly caught me before I could fall.

"Thanks," I mumbled quietly as she supported me.

"Please forgive my mother, Your Highness." Rose hurriedly started pleading and following her suit, the other siblings along with their mother also fell on their knees and started pleading with me to forgive their mother.

[Embarrassing]

[Isn't it?]

She was right. Rather than being angry, I was more embarrassed right now. 'You didn't see that.'

I thought in my head, which was meant for Allison but at that moment, another hologram appeared before me on which a video played of the exact thing that had happened. It was slowed when there was impact on my face and showed how funny my face was.

If it was someone else in the video, I would have laughed but my cheeks turned bright red when I saw myself getting thrashed like that.

'I will remember this.' I said in my head before smiling a little as the people in the house seemed to have mistaken my red cheeks for anger.

"It's okay Rose. It was my fault anyway. I should have announced my presence." I said while using the heal skill which restored half of my total HP and my head no longer spun like a spinner.

"But-" Rose was about to say something when I interrupted her by saying, "Let's take a look at your father first."

I let go of Rose's support and walked towards the man lying on the floor. Kate moved slightly and I flinched remembering the hit from earlier but from the looks of it, she was just about to say something.

Kuhum. That was embarrassing. Anyway, I finally checked the patient lying on a mat. From the looks of it, he was having trouble breathing. It could be a problem with his lungs, so I removed his shirt and found that his left lung was swollen very badly.

Kate moved, no doubt about to say something as she knew that I wasn't qualified to look at her husband's disease, but she couldn't speak because of my status.

I ignored everything else and focused on the patient. This could very well be life-threatening. I took his pulse and noticed that after a few beats of his heart, there was an extra heartbeat. This only happens when there is something hindering the natural flow of the lungs or an external impact on the lungs.

Since it was swollen, it could be an external factor. But since there was nothing pressing on it, then it must mean that something was inside his body. The most common case that happens in this scenario is Abscess.

Abscess is quite easy to deal with but also very tricky at the same time. I could make a cut to cleanse the formed puss in there but without proper equipment to examine it, if I cut a vessel while doing so, the consequences would be disastrous.

That only left me with the option of acupuncture. The problem is that there is no acupuncture in this era. Acupuncture is an Asian medical method and if this world is indeed after the Victorian era, then I doubt there would be acupuncture here right now.

"Get some mildly heated coal which is burning from only one side and place the side that isn't burning on these points," I instructed before turning him around and marking the points that I had suggested. Although Rose believed me and hurriedly left to get the coal, Kate was skeptical of my means but said nothing in return.

I had no time to make her believe me. The patient was in critical right now. He wouldn't live for more than ten days. It was thanks to him being awakened that he survived. He would have long since died if he was a normal human.

Rose returned with some coal holding in a tray and I placed them to show them how to. I also applied some pressure at the precise points which alleviated the breathing of the patient.

Kate and Rose were both surprised at how normally their father was breathing but there was no time to lose. "Take me to a good blacksmith," I instructed Rose.

=========

The palace blacksmith looked at me skeptically for three reasons. One, why was I there in the first place? A prince doesn't need to be there to place an order. Second, my request was very peculiar. As expected, the acupuncture treatment didn't exist, so my request didn't make sense.

Third, why him? Why not the head blacksmith or any of the young blacksmiths who have a reputation but him who is old and not much known?

"You have precision young hands can't have." I simply replied to his inquiry. Patience is not a virtue but a skill. Young hands don't have patience; only old ones do. Patience is required to precisely make those needles. A slight mess up in the craft, then the patient would die. I can't have that.

In other words, it's like administering the wrong blood type and there are no second chances. If the craft of the needles isn't precise, the patient would die. There was no in-between.

"Very well." I smiled at his reply. He was old so he knew what I was talking about. I gave him the blueprint for how to craft the needles and what were my requirements. I would have crafted them myself, but my stats were so pathetic that I could barely run for a mile before breathing for my dear life. Precisely crafting a pair of needles in scorching heat was something I could only dream of right now.