Case 03: The Doctor-Hating Flesh Golem

CASE 03:
The Doctor-Hating Flesh Golem

 

Glenn Litbeit had learned a variety of different monster medical treatments. The breadth of his knowledge included many topics.

For example, in order to extend the lifespan of an elderly dryad, he could reinforce their weakening branches with a grafting trick. For an ill slime no longer able to support their shape, he could create a special culture solution to heal them.

Glenn was also well-versed in both botany and chemistry, and his knowledge even extended to the strange fields of alchemy and the occult. Treating monsters—a species quite different from humans—required a wide range of know-how in order to be fit for the job.

Of course, his teacher, Cthulhy, possessed an even more comprehensive knowledge of monsters than Glenn did. As such, he was still inexperienced. No matter how much he studied monster medicine, there would always be more to know—which, naturally, meant there was a limit to what he could know.

One such example was dragons.

Even among monsters, they were quite mysterious, and it was unknown exactly how evolution had brought them to their current forms. Some believed they had been the original monsters, who had now reached the peak of evolution. When it came to this strongest breed of monsters, who could effortlessly transform their colossal wings, arms, and legs into the shape of a human, Glenn couldn’t help but admit he was ignorant.

It was for that reason that, when a certain monster arrived at the clinic, all Glenn could do was greet her with a stiff and twitching smile.

“W-welcome to the Litbeit Clinic…”

In the doorway stood was the City Council representative for Lindworm—the most influential person in the city, who had changed Lindworm into the city that it was today, and who still worked hard to manage its affairs: Skadi Dragenfelt, commonly known as the Draconess.

 

***

 

She had a tiny body and a pair of horns that seemed out of place on her small frame, twisting high from her head.

Her entire form was hidden under a silk robe with decorations embroidered in gold thread. A string was tied between her horns and from it a white veil hung down over her face. With the veil, Glenn couldn’t get a peek at her expression, but the tail that poked out from under the bottom of her robe was unmistakably that of a dragon.

It was indeed the powerful political figure that had made Lindworm what it was after the war, Skadi Dragenfelt.

With economic and political strength, as well as her ability to lead, she was in direct control of the Lindworm City Council. While she did have bodyguards assigned to her, there were doubts as to how necessary they even were, as it was hard to imagine there existed anyone foolish enough to attack a dragon.

He had heard her name from a number of different people during his travels around Lindworm, but this was the first time Glenn was meeting her face-to-face. Glenn’s teacher Cthulhy was said to be an old friend of Skadi’s. In fact, he had heard that it was with Skadi’s support that Cthulhy had been able to construct the big city hospital. As she was an investor in his former teacher, Skadi was someone Glenn needed to be extra courteous to and conscientious of.

“U-um…?” Glenn fumbled.

Skadi lingered silently in the doorway of the clinic.

“If you have some business with our clinic, please feel free to come inside.” Sapphee said, inviting her inside with a smile.

Skadi, however, did not move. Though she was no taller than a child, she was not someone to be taken lightly. She was a dragon, capable of destroying whole cities and entire nations. While she had no reason to suddenly become violent, just the thought of the tremendous power she was capable of wielding was enough to make one afraid of her.

One day, for fun, Skadi had participated in a match in the arena, but she was so incredibly strong she was banned from ever competing again. As a result, any who had heard of that match were very cautious when dealing with her.

“Excuse me?” Sapphee said.

Skadi’s silence continued.

Looking closer, however, Glenn glimpsed faint movement; her lips were very slightly trembling. It seemed that she was saying something or other, but Glenn couldn’t catch any of it.

It was hard to believe, but was her voice actually just too quiet to hear?

“Excuse me!” a voice said, as a new figure stepped across the threshold behind Skadi. “This is the Litbeit Clinic, correct?”

“Th-that’s right…” Glenn said.

“My name is Kunai Zenow. I am the Lady Draconess’s bodyguard attendant.”

She was a woman with a penetrating gaze. Her hair was tied up high at the back of her head. Judging by the way her collar wrapped around her neck and the particular cut of her clothes, she didn’t seem to be from the central part of the continent. The design of her outfit closely resembled the styles used in the farthest limits of human territory, known as the Far East or the Orient. The sound of her name, Kunai, also had an Eastern sound to it. Glenn was also from the East, so if anything, he was quite familiar with her style of clothes.

However, the patchwork sutures that ran across her entire body stood out more than her clothes, or anything else for that matter. Glenn could even see parts of her that had lost their color and looked like dead flesh, but Kunai herself was completely calm and composed. On top of that, her right arm had been dramatically lopped off at the elbow; a number of stitches hung down from her elbow, dangling where the absent half of the limb would have been.

At the nape of her neck, Glenn could see a scroll typical of the Far East. At first, he had thought it was a strange accessory for tying her hair up, but when he looked at it more closely, the scroll was stuck there, piercing through her neck. It went through the muscle and bone and poked out the other side.

Undead monsters did indeed exist, such as zombies and the living dead. Kunai’s face was so poor in color that her face resembled a corpse. Yet, the scroll and the sutures across her body were peculiarities that weren’t seen among other types of undead monsters. The undead Glenn was familiar had a slightly difference appearance than Kunai’s.

“Um, well…” he said uncertainly.

“I will be conveying my mistress’s messages to you!” Kunai announced. “They are words graciously given by the Lady Draconess herself, so listen respectfully!”

She spoke with an extremely overbearing attitude. Skadi Dragenfelt was a very powerful person, but she wasn’t someone one should have to prostrate themselves in front of.

“Dr. Glenn,” Sapphee said, speaking quietly so that the sutured attendant Kunai wouldn’t hear her,“It’s a rumor, but…it’s said that Lady Skadi’s bodyguard is a rather excessively devoted follower of hers.”

“You!” Kunai spat. “I told you to listen respectfully, did I not?!”

It seemed like the overbearing attitude was just coming from Kunai herself. Skadi was speaking rapidly in a low voice, but as before, Glenn couldn’t make out even a single word of what she was saying. Perhaps she was apologizing for her disrespectful bodyguard.

Glenn hoped that was the case. It was preposterous that Kunai’s insufferable attitude might extend to her master as well.

The one-armed bodyguard looked Glenn straight in the eyes and said, “Listen up! These are my lady’s words: ‘A few days ago, my bodyguard’s right arm was wounded in battle with a bandit, and ended up going missing. Therefore, we are searching for her arm throughout the city, and I would like to have you suture it back together with your surgical skills, Dr. Glenn.’ The two of you get all that?!”

Glenn had heard everything. He had heard everything, but because Kunai was repeating Skadi’s words just as they had spoken, it was difficult to tell who she was talking about. By bodyguard, Glenn assumed that she was talking about Kunai, which meant that Skadi hadn’t come to the clinic for treatment of her own—instead, she had come on behalf of Kunai, her bodyguard whose arm was missing from the elbow down.

“There was a battle?” he said.

“As my lady said to me, ‘For a while, my bodyguard has been pursuing slave traders hiding in the city. A few days ago, Kunai thought that she finally had them cornered, but she had actually fallen into a trap. She clashed swords with ten opponents as she made her escape, but ended up dropping her arm somewhere during her retreat…’” Kunai paused and then said, “I am utterly ashamed of my defeat, Lady Draconess!”

Glenn wasn’t quite sure if Kunai was talking to himself or to Skadi. Nonetheless, he understood the situation. He had wondered what type of medical treatment he might be asked to perform on the dragon, but it seemed that Kunai’s arm was the thing that needed treating. With Glenn’s surgical abilities, stitching up the wound wouldn’t be an issue at all.

A needle likely couldn’t pierce a dragon’s scales, but sewing Kunai up would be much easier. As far as Glenn could tell from looking at her stitched-up skin, it seemed her body was constantly being injured and damaged.

The fact she felt no pain despite her injuries convinced Glenn that she was an undead monster of some kind. Glenn also was interested in the fact that she had squared off against ten assailants. Escaping a trap, battling through her retreat, and making it out only half an arm was proof of just how skilled Kunai was in battle.

“In her orders, my lady said, ‘I have other subordinates searching, but they have yet to find her arm. I’d like you to sew it back on as soon as they find it.’ Lady Draconess, how incredibly warmhearted of you!”

Once again, Skadi was inaudible.

“Yes!” her bodyguard exclaimed. “I, Kunai Zenow, am prepared to give my life for you, Lady Draconess!”

Glenn felt her dedication was a bit smothering. It was a mystery to him why Kunai could hear Skadi’s voice when it was quieter than a fly’s buzzing, but whatever reason, there was no doubt that Kunai’s devotion to her was tremendous.

He felt that if Skadi told her to die, then Kunai would have gladly sliced open her own stomach at a moment’s notice. Not that cutting open their own stomach would kill one of the undead…

“Miss Skadi,” Glenn began, “We of course have the equipment to treat patients here in our clinic. We do everything in our power to treat our patients…but may I ask you a couple questions?”

“‘Please ask me anything’—that is her answer! However, obviously that doesn’t mean you can truly ask her anything. Know where you stand, Doctor!”

Though all she had to do was interpret Skadi, Kunai seemed insistent on adding her own addendum to everything her lady said. Frankly, Glenn found the habit irritating.

“First, why have you come to us?” he asked. “I’ve heard that Miss Skadi is an old friend of my former teacher, Dr. Cthulhy. Wouldn’t it be better to go to the central hospital…?”

“‘I went but was turned away before even meeting with her. I was told she has an excellent protégé and I should ask him for help.’ That is her answer! How disrespectful, to turn down a request from the Lady Draconess herself!”

In other words, it was the same reckless behavior Glenn’s teacher was known for. Beside him, Glenn could hear Sapphee speak bitterly, saying, “That damn octo-woman.”

But for Glenn, he felt that passing on a direct request from Skadi wasn’t simply Cthulhy’s normal recklessness. After all, they were speaking with the most influential person in the city. Making a connection with such a person would be beneficial for the future of the clinic.

“In that case, I have one more question,” Glenn said. “But, um… It’s about Miss Kunai.”

“Me?” Kunai said.

“To properly conduct treatment, I need to know what she is. Would you be able to tell me what type of monster Kunai is?”

“‘…She is not a monster.’” Though Kunai continued to speak for Skadi, her expressionless face had gone stiff, like she was a doll. Combined with her patchwork sutures, it made her look even more like the vestige of some artificial construction.

“‘Kunai was originally human,’” Skadi said through Kunai.

“H-human?”

“‘She is a flesh golem, made by stitching together human remains. A Far East doctor ripe with ambition experimented with creating life, and she was the result. Kunai was not birthed from a monster, she was built from human corpses.’”

Glenn was speechless. As someone working to treat patients and sustain life, Glenn had never before heard of anyone trying to create life themselves. He wondered if such a thing was even allowed.

Though Kunai was a corpse, much like the undead monsters Glenn had originally thought she was related to, but it appeared she had been created by the hands of a human. From what he could remember, golem creation was a secret and ancient art, created by kneading together mud and clay, and then given orders like a doll to do the bidding of their creator.

Then Skadi, through Kunai, gave him a last word of caution, one that left Glenn with his hands on his head, perplexed:

“‘Because of all this…Kunai hates doctors.’”

 

***

 

Kunai’s eyebrows drew together, giving her a lonely visage. She looks like a cast-out puppy, Glenn thought.

It was now just him, Sapphee, and Kunai in the clinic. Skadi had many other things to attend to, so she had left immediately after giving Glenn and Sapphee the details of the situation. Without a master to protect, the flesh golem bodyguard didn’t speak a word—though she was clearly depressed.

There wasn’t a single trace of the haughty and grand attitude she had had when Skadi was at her side.

“Miss Kunai?” Sapphee said. “Is it okay if I call you that?”

“Call me whatever you want,” Kunai said. “You’re Miss Saphentite Neikes, correct? According to the documents I’ve seen, you’re a lamia well versed in drug and herb preparation—a member of the Neikes family, who have made their fortune selling medicine. It also mentioned that Miss Saphentite is an unparalleled genius in the world of pharmaceutical medicine.”

“I’ve left my family behind, so they have nothing to do with me,” Sapphee said. “I just have one thing I would like to ask you, Miss Kunai.”

“What?”

“While it is certainly true that Dr. Glenn is well-learned in many different fields, golems and other occult matters are not his specialty. He certainly isn’t able to use any ancient magic. We only perform scientific treatments, based on observation and clinical medicine… Are you still fine being seen by us?”

“I didn’t anticipate a town doctor would be able to do any of that stuff in the first place, anyway.”

She gave the nape of her neck a good slap. It appeared that she was pointing to the back of her neck, where the scroll was piercing straight through her cervical vertebrae.

“Written on this scroll are my orders as a golem,” she said, a strong tone to her voice. “Right now, I’m moving autonomously, but that is also because there is an incantation inscribed on this command scroll that allows it. The only person who can change what is written here is my mistress, the Lady Draconess. This isn’t something that anyone can just have their way with, and I don’t plan on letting you touch it.”

As there was no question that she had mastered some form of martial art, it was hard to imagine that there was anyone who’d be able to touch the nape of her neck even if they had wanted to. She was a dragon’s bodyguard, after all, and surely had the strength required of such a role.

“The Draconess is looking for someone to suture me. All you need to do is sew up my body with string. That said, though it is a simple task, it is quite important, especially considering that my mistress herself has graciously appointed you to take care of it. Know that it is an honor.”

Glenn thought that it would best if they followed everything Kunai said obediently. He was a complete amateur when it came to making flesh golems—but just as Kunai had said, if all he needed to do was sew her lost arm back onto her body, then that was indeed a job for a doctor. He might have objections to Kunai’s attitude, but he had none to the work in and of itself.

“However,” Kunai said, glaring at Glenn and Sapphee. “It may go against the wishes of the Draconess, but I have no intention of relying on a town doctor for help. I will sew my own arm back on. In the end, as long as my body is back to perfection, she will be pleased.”

“Huh…?” Glenn said. “Wh-what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I won’t be asking for your help. I will search for my own arm and attach it back to me as I see fit. I hate doctors. I can’t stand even being in a clinic like this.” There was truly no end to Kunai’s insolence.

To tell the truth, Glenn wasn’t all that surprised by her words. Kunai had only come here as an attendant of Skadi’s, after all. Kunai herself didn’t have the slightest intention of letting Glenn examine and treat her.

“Sorry for disturbing you,” she said and with those words, Kunai exited the clinic and headed off.

Glenn couldn’t even try to stop her. It was as if everything had been decided from the beginning. She really did hate doctors and had made Glenn keenly aware of the fact that she wanted to leave the clinic as soon as possible.

“There are always some patients who hate doctors, but...” Sapphee trailed off, resting her cheeks on her hand. She sighed as she rubbed the scales at the corner of her eyes.

“Most of the time, the further a disease progresses, a patient must stay in the clinic whether they like it or not. I suppose it’s because they can’t handle the pain. But…perhaps it’s a little different for Miss Kunai?”

“Does she even feel pain in the first place? She was what, a flesh golem? Was that it?”

As far as he could tell from looking at Kunai, her severed right arm seemed to cause her no pain. Even if her head were cut off, she would probably have acted like nothing had happened. Still, Glenn wondered if it was really all right for them to leave her alone.

Kunai had said she would sew her own arm back on. However, was she even capable of performing such a feat? It was clearly a difficult task—keeping the right arm to be sutured fixed in place, all while threading the needle through the flesh…

Besides.

“It must be hard to live her life one-handed,” he said.

“Live her life? She’s dead, isn’t she?” Sapphee said.

Glenn shrugged. “We still need to make sure our patients are healthy. Dead patients aren’t all that uncommon anyway, right? Just the other day, Frank—that zombie—came here for some antiseptic, right?”

“Oh my, well now that you mention it…” Sapphee said. As she had been the one to create the antiseptic, however, she was definitely just playing dumb. Sapphee wasn’t the sort to tell Glenn that it was fine to leave a patient alone simply because they were dead—and Glenn had no intentions of leaving her alone, either.

“I’m going to head out for a bit,” he said. “We have to search for Miss Kunai’s arm anyway, right?”

Putting on his white coat, Glenn quickly prepared to leave the clinic, stuffing the emergency first aid tools he would need into a bag.

“Sorry, Sapphee, but I need you to look after the clinic,” he said.

“Leave it to me. The fairies are here, too.”

The clinic’s fairy helpers were rushing about the floor as if the series of disturbances caused by Skadi’s visit hadn’t even happened. They were zealous in their work, but had a tendency to be a bit fanatical and didn’t always take notice of their surroundings.

Sapphee clapped her hands.“All right now, line up,” she said

“Line uuuup!”

“Okaaay.”

“Is this a new joooob?”

All of the fairies filed into a line. They hadn’t been working on any specific task and ran over at Sapphee’s orders.

“Dr. Glenn will be stepping out for a house call and surgery. He will be stitching up Miss Kunai Zenow, who’s lost the bottom half of her right arm. He anticipates that he will need to perform the suturing at his destination, so depending on the situation he will need disinfecting alcohol, stitching needles, and thread. Also, we need some of you to head out into the city and help Miss Kunai find her right arm, okay?”

“Uuuuunderstood!”

“Goooooot it!”

Having received their orders, the fairies spread out like a blooming flower. Some of them were already rushing out of the clinic. With their superb sense of danger and ability to defend themselves, it was hard to imagine that they would get smashed or run over by a carriage the moment they exited out into the road, but even so, it was a scene that Glenn couldn’t help but feel uneasy watching.

“Perfect,” Sapphee said. “With this, all the preliminary preparations are taken care of. Now then, Doctor, please be careful.”

“Yeah… You’re really well prepared, aren’t you, Sapphee?”

“Of course.” She extended her long tail smoothly. It passed Glenn and was already opening the door to the clinic.“I’m Dr. Glenn’s assistant, after all. Even if I can’t join you, I will assist you in any way I can.”

“You’re a huge help… All right, I’m off.”

Sapphee brought her tail back to her side and used it to wave goodbye to Glenn instead of her hand. Glenn often wondered why Sapphee tended to use her tail instead of her hands much of the time. Was it out of laziness or for some other reason?

With the preparations complete, Glenn ran out into the street to follow after Kunai. He emerged onto the main southern avenue, where monsters and humans were all jumbled together in the crowd. Glenn scanned left and right, but the patchwork scarred figure of the flesh golem was nowhere to be seen.

Where had she gone? Should he chase after Kunai first or go first search for her right arm?

It was good he had rushed out the way he had, he still didn’t know what to do. He thought for a moment. Skadi’s underlings and the fairies were all looking for her right arm. Maybe he should chase after Kunai, then. However, he had the feeling that doing so would further provoke her hatred of doctors.

Before he could make a decision, a scream broke into his thoughts.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!”

Glenn had heard that voice before. Without any hesitation, he ran toward the scream.

 

***

 

Tisalia was screaming.

A crowd had formed in an alley that continued on toward the arena. Standing in the middle of the crowd was none other than the centaurs’ princess. Tisalia caught sight of Glenn and immediately rushed over to him.

“D-Doctor!”

“Whoa!”

Tisalia had a massive, carthorse-like physique. Having someone her size come bounding toward him could only end in injury—or so he thought. Glenn thought he would be run over in the blink of an eye, but a second before she crashed into him, Tisalia came to a sudden, skillful stop. As expected from a fighter in the arena, she appeared to have complete control over her movements. It didn’t seem that she would make any mistakes that might cause an accident.

“Wh-what’s that matter, Miss Tisalia?” Glenn asked.

“Sniff! Doctor, I was on a walk… I just thought I’d buy some vegetables, so I came without Kay and Lorna, but…”

Glenn realized that Tisalia wasn’t equipped for the arena. Her clothes were embroidered with a checkered design, and while they seemed to be high quality, it didn’t appear to be her best outfit, either. Tisalia appear to be wearing what she might consider normal, everyday clothes.

“Then, I saw… I saw…”

“Ah.”

Looking at what Tisalia was pointing out with a trembling finger, Glenn understood what had happened.

It was a leg—a patchwork left leg he had seen before. Its greave had fallen off and lay nearby. Kunai had only worn a steel greave on her left leg, so there was no mistaking that it was hers.

Glenn approached the limb. He ignored the sense that the crowd was taking a step as he approached the limb. He gently lifted it from the ground.

“D-Doctor…?” Tisalia said.

“It’s seems to have been cut off around the femoral thigh muscles. No, maybe the stitches came undone? Her greaves are dented… The impact of some sort of blunt weapon must have cut the old stitches. It doesn’t seem her stitches were made with very high-quality thread, does it?”

“How can you discuss this so calmly?!” Tisalia said. “I-Isn’t this a murder?! We need to call the Guard Patrol!”

“If this was cut off during a recent murder, the color of the flesh wouldn’t look so poor. Not to mention the fact that there’s been almost no bleeding. This is Miss Kunai’s left leg.”

“Kunai… Kunai Zenow…?” Tisalia trailed off, at a loss for words. She seemed to know Skadi’s bodyguard somehow. After a moment, she regained her voice.“You mean the fighter who appeared like a bolt of lightning at the arena five years ago, had an unprecedented win streak, and was scouted to be Miss Skadi’s bodyguard based on those achievements? The top ranked arena fighter—that Kunai Zenow?”

Five years ago meant that this had happened before he opened up his clinic. Tisalia must have known because she was a fighter in the arena. Kunai apparently had been a fighter, as well. If she was the top ranked fighter, then she had surely been inducted into the arena’s hall of fame, a place of honor shared only by the strongest of warriors. It was every fighter’s goal, for the top-ranked fighter was renowned as a hero throughout the continent.

Tisalia was a middle-ranked arena fighter, still rank three—in other words, Kunai was even stronger than Tisalia.

“I can’t believe someone like her would lose a leg,” Tisalia said. “Who could her opponent have been…?”

“Miss Kunai is already hurt,” Glenn explained. “Most likely she was targeted because of her vulnerability.”

“You’re so calm about this, Doctor!”

But of course he was—after all, examining patients was a fundamental part of his job as a doctor. “From what I can tell from looking at her left leg, the threads used for her sutures have already deteriorated quite a bit,” he said. “She might have been the top ranked fighter in the past, but right now, I believe her abilities are a bit more limited.”

The junctions in the muscles of her legs had been sewn together with thread, which meant that her whole body must have been sewn together in a similar fashion in order to create a flesh golem. Glenn was sure that the deteriorating threads and loosening bonds would have an effect on the movements of her body.

The degree of rot differed depending on the flesh in question. Considering the shape of her muscle, it seemed to be sewn together into one piece, regardless of the original sex of the body it had come from. Glenn wondered how her maker had done all that and still managed to create a moving body? Not only that, but the end result was a well-proportioned female leg—how had that come to be?

The more Glenn looked at Kunai’s leg, the more he felt like it was something unfathomable, far beyond the current medical knowledge. Surely it was an example of the secret art of gathering corpses together to create a flesh golem.

The ankle of Kunai’s leg suddenly convulsed.

“Eeeeeeeeeek!” Tisalia backed away, her face pale. The crowd that had gathered had already taken flight.

The foot, still wearing an eastern style sandal, was moving slightly.

“Amazing,” Glenn said. “It moves even when separated from the body. Does that mean the various parts of her body aren’t dead—that each of them has a will of their own?”

“Doctor, how can you be so clinical about all of this?!” Tisalia said in disbelief.

The answer, of course, was simple: in order to learn how to treat monsters, Glenn had examined a large number of patients; during his time at the academy, he even participated in autopsies of human and monster alike. It had all bee necessary in order to acquire the technical knowledge for medical treatments. Looking at a dead body simply didn’t frighten him.

Furthermore, now that Glenn understood that it was simply just Kunai’s leg that had caused Tisalia to scream, he knew there was no reason to be frightened. However, Glenn was still unsure why her left leg—which had clearly been connected to her body back in the clinic—was now on the ground in the middle of the avenue.

“There are many strange people in this town,” Tisalia said, “but… it seems that you, Doctor—that you’re actually pretty strange too, aren’t you?”

“Oh, sorry,” Glenn said. “I lost track of where I was for a moment—it used to happen at the academy all the time. Scary, huh?”

“Not at all—I’ve fallen in love all over again!” Tisalia said. Judging by the restless twitching of the ears on top of her head, there was no mistaking that she had been charmed somehow or other.

“At any rate, it’s not good for me to treat a patient’s leg like a specimen… I have to be careful.”

“So it’s safe to say this is Kunai Zenow’s leg?” the centaur princess asked.

“Yes. Originally, Sapphee and I were asked to help stitch up her right arm, but considering the circumstances, it seems her arm isn’t the only thing in need of stitching…”

Tisalia pointed to the greave in Glenn’s hand and said, “Let me look at that, please.”

He handed it over.

The greave only protected the shin, but Kunai hadn’t been wearing much armor to begin with—nor did Glenn remember her even carrying a weapon. Considering that her goal was to protect a rather important person, one would have expected her to carry at least some sort of small blade. Glenn wondered if wearing greaves only on her left leg meant Kunai’s fighting style put more emphasis on moving easily than being well armored.

Tisalia stared closely at the dent in the greave.

“It seems this was struck by a mace or some other kind of blunt weapon. Whatever it was, it didn’t have much power. I think it must have been something that could be concealed under a long coat.”

“I-Impressive,” Glenn said.

Glenn could inspect the fallen leg, he hadn’t the knowledge to guess the type of weapon that had been used simply from looking at the traces of the blow dealt to the greave. Those things were Tisalia’s expertise, what with her knowledge of weaponry and combat.

“I suppose this blow was from a surprise attack?” Tisalia mused aloud.

The toe of the leg in Glenn’s hand twitched. Was it agreeing with the princess? Although, how a leg without ears could listen in on a conversation was beyond him.

Piecing what Tisalia had just said together with what Skadi had said earlier, Glenn began to work out what must have happened. Kunai had been attacked by someone. Earlier, Skadi and her subordinates had been chasing after slave traders, and Kunai had fought with those bandits directly—the very battle that had prompted her to come to Glenn with only one arm in the first place.

The answer was clear: Kunai must have been attacked by those bandits again.

On top of that, there was a high chance that the culprit that attacked Kunai had slipped back into the crowd with his weapon. Not that Glenn could do anything about the bandits…

“Can this…be healed?” Tisalia asked.

“I believe it will function properly if I sew it back together. It seems the construction of the bone areas is adequate. It should be good as before if I just properly reconnect the muscle together.”

If he stitched it together properly with new thread, Glenn thought he might be able to reattach it even more firmly than it had been before. Of course, simply sewing together the dead flesh wouldn’t be enough for it to move, but…Glenn was sure that the movement was catalyzed thanks to the secret magic of the flesh golem.

What was really on Glenn’s mind were the suture marks. It was understandable that the old suture marks had the loosest seams. Examining her foot made that clear enough. Some of the seams there were sewn with pitch black thread—old thread. Glenn figured they were Kunai’s first sutures. Had they been sewn by the doctor that “made” her? As a doctor himself, Glenn couldn’t help but doubt her creator’s suturing skills.

And they had been this bad at stitching, then it wasn’t too much of a stretch to surmise that their other skills were likely just as bad. Glenn wondered if the person who had created her had even been a doctor at all.

Tisalia’s voice broke into his thoughts, speaking with a strained smile. “It might not be my place to say this, but…stroking a woman’s leg like you are, Doctor, makes you look like some kind of abnormal pervert—you know?”

She wasn’t wrong—people were avoiding getting near Glenn as they walked by him.

Unsure about how he should reply, Glenn cast his eyes downward and said, “Even with you telling me that, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop. Just—you definitely can’t tell Sapphee I said that, okay?”

 

***

 

Even when Glenn told her there might be bandits in the city, Tisalia simply smiled at him. She had just been out for a stroll, but had bravely taken on the responsibility of locating the bandits. Given Tisalia’s strength, Glenn was sure they wouldn’t best her—though on second though, they had been able to injure Kunai, so optimism perhaps wasn’t the best route.

He told Tisalia not to take any chances, but understood that she wasn’t the type of woman to listen to him. At the very least, he wanted her to take proper precautions, and not think it was some carefree task to take up after going for a stroll. After cautioning the enthusiastic Tisalia again and again, Glenn parted ways with the equine princess.

Next, came Glenn’s job: he needed to find Kunai, who had to be around somewhere, and perform the stitching surgery without delay. If Kunai had the ability to brawl with ten bandits at once, Glenn had no doubt she could chase after the bandits once she was back in top form.

“Now then… Where could she be…?” he wondered aloud. Carrying Kunai’s leg—now wrapped in cloth—under his arm, he continued down the main avenue. He kept a close eye on the end of her foot, which was peeking out from under the cloth, thinking he could use the twitching of her toes to locate the rest of Kunai. He knew he couldn’t just carry a bare woman’s foot down the street, but he had no idea what else to do with it. Still, if someone happened to look at him, there was no question that he looked like a freak, walking around with a lopped-off half of a leg like he was.

And indeed, there were some humans and monsters who recognized that what Glenn held was a piece of a human body wrapped up in cloth. Half of these people put some distance between themselves and Glenn, while the other half called for the Guard Patrol.

Glenn, however, didn’t pay them any mind. Being a doctor, he was understandably consumed with single-minded worry for Kunai.

At last he arrived at the central plaza, where shops and stalls were lined up side by side. All this had sprung up because so many guests had come by to see the newly constructed water fountain. Some time had passed since the water fountain had been completed, but it had turned out to be an ideal date location, so many couples and newlyweds visited the area.

Glenn had arrived there by following the movements of the foot. Its twitching had slowly gotten stronger. He wanted to believe that he was getting closer to Kunai, but—

On the central stage in the plaza fountain, Lulala’s loud singing voice rang out, cutting into his thoughts. The audience applauded, leading Glenn to believe that he had arrived right as she was ending one of her songs.

“Oh!” the dark-skinned mermaid said, catching sight of Glenn, staring at her blankly. “Hey! Dr. Glenn! Where have you been? There’s big trouble!”

“T-trouble?” he said.

Before, either out of embarrassment or for some other reason, Lulala ran away as soon as she saw Glenn. Today, however, it seemed she had forgotten about all of that and was hurriedly beckoning him over.

With every movement of her arm, their large, wide fins would sway. The glittering light they gave off was mystifying.

“Hey, hey, so there’s this rumor that you’ve been searching all over for a human body for some experiment, you know?” she said.

“What sort of rumor is that supposed to be…?” Glenn said, a bit confused. For starters, it was oddly mistaken about a few key points.“It’s true I’m looking for a human body, but it’s not for any sort of experiment of mine. It belongs to a patient.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lulala said. “It’s Miss Kunai’s right?”

“You know her too, Lulala?”

The tanned songstress nodded in agreement. “Yeah—after all, when Miss Skadi came to scout me, Miss Kunai was there, too. She looks a little scary, but she was a really kind lady.”

Kunai had been unnecessarily overbearing with Glenn, but it seemed not everyone was given the same treatment. Lindworm was quite big, yet also surprisingly small. It appeared that Glenn’s acquaintances were connected in a variety of different ways.

Lulala continued speaking. “That, and I heard that she was chasing after slave traders doing business in town.”

“You know about all that, too…?” Glenn asked.

“Heh heh. I’m just well-informed, that’s all.” Lulala chuckled suggestively.

It was just for a second, but on the other side of her cheerful smile, Glenn thought he had glimpsed a suspicious tint to her eyes— Sapphee sometimes wore a similar expression, too. He supposed that in the past mermaids had seduced men and pulled them in into water—and that the blood of such water sprites ran in Lulala’s veins.

“Anyway, that’s why I was searching for you,” Lulala said. “Not just you—Miss Kunai or Miss Skadi would’ve been fine, too—but anyway.” With a big splash, Lulala pulled something up out of the water.

It was an arm—a corpse’s arm, patched together from different colors of muscle, a sight Glenn had become familiar with. It was, without a doubt, the very thing that Glenn and Kunai had been looking for.

“This was dropped into the Waterways the other day. The guys that attacked Miss Kunai probably just took her arm and threw it away into the canals. Honestly! The canals aren’t a place to dump your trash, you know!”

“Oh, okay… I see.”

The Lindworm canals weren’t like rivers in normal cities, but were in fact the passageways for aquatic monsters and were maintained for that purpose. It was unthinkable that a person from the city who knew this would throw trash into the canals, not when they knew the problems it would cause.

The fact that someone had been so disrespectful was what had Lulala so angry.

Occasionally, one would come across a citizen who was simply indifferent to the people living in the water, but most of the time, the culprits were visitors from outside Lindworm, people who weren’t aware that there were monsters dwelling in the canals.

Glenn figured that the slave traders who had attacked Kunai weren’t originally from Lindworm—that was why they had thrown the arm in the canals. They would never have expected it to get picked up by a mermaid.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been searching for this… Now I just need to find Kunai herself…”

She had now lost one arm and one leg. Glenn didn’t think she could have gotten very far in such a state, though he wondered how he had come so far without seeing anyone that fit her description.

“You know, Lulala, you’re pretty calm holding that human arm, aren’t you?”

Thinking about how flustered and panicked Tisalia had been, it was surprising to see the younger Lulala completely indifferent to the severed human arm.

“Yeah. I used to live in the ocean, after all.”

“The ocean?” he said.

Most merfolk had bodies evolved to survive in both fresh and salt water. As such, it wasn’t at all strange for Lulala to have lived in the ocean before—but Glenn couldn’t quite see the connection between living in the ocean and being fine with holding a human arm.

“A lot of different things flow through the ocean, you know… It’s little different from what we were just talking about, but everyone always seems to think of the ocean as one big garbage dump or something, right?”

“I could see that…” Glenn said slowly.

“Like shipwrecks and stuff!”

That’s flotsam, not garbage, was what Glenn wanted to say, but Lulala didn’t give Glenn any time to get a word in.

“The next day after a storm is really awful!” she continued rapidly. “The sea is so rough and stormy—and then it finally all clears up! Great, you think, let’s go sunbathing! But then a ship sinks right in front of your family’s eyes!”

“O-oh…”

“There’s nothing you can really do but clean it up, but, you know, there’s a lot of people that are on the ship… If they were just bones it would be one thing, but a drowned corpse right before it rots is all fat and flabby, turned completely black and—”

“I-I get it!” Glenn interrupted, flustered. “I don’t need to know anymore!”

Naturally he had seen drowned bodies before, and in his role as a doctor, he wasn’t opposed to touching dead bodies in and of itself—but it wasn’t something to be heard out of the mouth of a young songstress.

The absent-minded and blasé way Lulala spoke about it only made things even worse.

“Well, long story short, I’m totally fine with arms and stuff,” she said.

“I understand now…” Glenn felt that he had seen another side of Lulala. She seemed to have suffered in her past, as well.

Whatever the case, Glenn was glad Lulala had found the arm, as he wouldn’t able to search for it in the water. After all, there wasn’t much someone who lived on land could do to search for something underwater.

He wiped off Kunai’s arm with the cloth he held in his arms. It was vaguely cool to the touch, possibly because it had been underwater so long—though its temperature could just as easily been because the limb had come from a dead body. And because the dead flesh had been treated with preservatives, it had been able to maintain its shape even in the lower temperatures of the canal.

The arm was twitching much like the leg. Its fingers moved incessantly, like it was being tickled, as Glenn let the remaining water fall from the arm.

“Wow…” Lulala stared with great interest as the arm thrashed like a fish. Her reaction was truly the complete opposite of Tisalia’s.

Now that Kunai’s arm was mostly dry, Glenn examined her limb. There didn’t seem to be any other injuries. If a finger had fallen off into the canals, then he would have had to scavenge all the waterways of Lindworm to find it, but that didn’t seem to be necessary.

Examining the right arm closely, its muscles appeared to be the muscles of a man. The strong girth of it wasn’t like that of most females. From what Glenn remembered, Kunai’s left arm had been a relatively normal female arm. It appeared a female corpse had been used as a base, but that the other specimens used differed depending on the part of the body.

“Isn’t that great, Miss Kunai? If you have Dr. Glenn treating you, I’m sure you’ll be fine!” Lulala said, smiling as she spoke to the arm. Glenn didn’t know whether it was actually listening, but its fingers did seem to twitch slightly in response.

“Now I just need to find Miss Kunai herself,” Glenn said.

“Should I ask some of my merfolk friends?” Lulala asked.

“I’d really appreciate it, if possible…”

“Okay! I’ll let them know Dr. Glenn is looking for the owner of a chopped-off arm and leg!” It was another remark that would surely cause people to misunderstand the situation, but Lulala dove into the water before Glenn could correct her.

The fountain in the plaza had canals built on all sides of it, and from there, one could move underwater throughout all of Lindworm. Lulala’s message would quickly spread to the denizens of the canals—along with macabre rumors about Glenn.

“I’ve really done it now,” Glenn muttered. “Dr. Cthulhy already has more than enough weird rumors going around…” He let out a sigh and said something that surely would have upset his teacher if she had hear him. “Miss Arm. If possible, would you be able to tell me where your owner is right now?”

The chopped-off arm stayed as it was for a few moments. Then…

“Hm?”

At long last, the index finger bent and pointed toward the southwest end of the plaza. Glenn thought it was just his imagination, but even when he tilted the arm in another direction, the index finger would still point in the same direction, much like a compass. It was indeed pointing to the southwest, after all.

“So this is why the leg couldn’t properly make any gestures,” he murmured.

Thus, using the arm as a makeshift compass, Glenn followed its lead out of the plaza.

 

While Glenn was busy looking for the bodyguard, Kunai herself was biting her lip in frustration.

She was missing half her right arm. On top of that, she had now lost her left leg. Losing one leg while she only had one arm meant her movements were limited to crawling. Wanting to escape the commotion that would have arisen if she had been seen by others, Kunai crept into a back alley.

“Dammit…” she sighed, collapsing in the dirty alleyway. The prolonged movement she had made while concealing her body had taken her to the limits of her strength. Unable to move, Kunai desperately tried to catch her breath.

She should have asked someone for help. If she could just get a message to Skadi, her mistress wouldn’t hesitate to rescue her exceptional attendant. However, Kunai’s loyalty wouldn’t allow her to trouble her master. She wanted to avoid the commotion reaching Skadi at any cost.

Thus, she was in her current sad state.

“Hmph, embarrassing,” she muttered. Grinding her teeth, she cursed her own powerlessness.

She had found the bandit’s gang soon after she left the Litbeit Clinic. As Skadi’s attendant, she had prioritized maintaining peace and order, and verifying the bandits’ position, rather than focus on searching for her arm.

Kunai simply couldn’t allow them to do as they pleased, so she had immediately set out in pursuit. However, it hadn’t taken long for the bandits to realize that they were being followed.

They had quickly escaped into a back alley. Kunai followed after and had been hit by an unexpected attack. Her assailant hit her with a self-defense mace. With the threads on her legs tearing loose, she had been unable to counter-attack or chase after the bandits.

She had then crawled after the fleeing bandits. Her torn-off leg had been carried off; she had no doubt it had been ditched somewhere. Kunai imagined it had probably been found by now and hoped it was someone who would realize it was her leg—otherwise they would likely start screaming.

“That bastard…” Kunai growled.

It seemed to her that the bandits had picked up on the fact that her undead body suffered from a number of complications and failures. She had no doubt that it had been for this reason that the her attacker had only aimed for her leg, rather than dealing a final blow. After all, Kunai’s body had already become brittle enough to fall apart from a single mace-swing.

“The Draconess must be disappointed, too…” she murmured to herself.

Skadi Dragenfelt had been the one to pick her up when she had nowhere else to go and Kunai thus felt she owed Skadi a great debt of gratitude. It was the only thing that gave meaning to her existence in Lindworm.

Kunai had been created at the edge of the Far East. She didn’t know how many years had passed since she had run away from the doctor who created her. A flesh golem couldn’t die, but if the dead flesh that constituted its form was pulled apart as was happening to her now, the golem would sooner or later regress back into a dead corpse.

Kunai didn’t particularly care whether she lived or died. It was unnatural for a corpse like herself to be moving in the first place. Returning to the earth was nature’s providence.

“I always end up thinking about pointless things when I’m tired like this…” Kunai gave a sigh laden with the heavy emotions building in her chest.

The emotions she was struggling against weren’t actually her own. All the memories of the various corpses that made up her body sometimes disturbed her own thoughts. Sometimes it was pleasant, but other times it could be annoying—especially during times like this, when Kunai was feeling depressed and seized with a sense of powerlessness.

For example, her right leg had come from the corpse of a certain guard. He had served his master for a long time, and he had died using his own body as a shield, protecting his master from an assassin’s blade. Even now, his voice came from her leg. It wanted to serve a worthy master. It wanted to protect someone.

She was missing it at the moment, but in part of her right arm was the muscle from a bloodthirsty killer who used to slice and murder the people of his city every night. He was someone who liked seeing blood and the anguished looks on his victim’s faces more than anything else, and would still say to Kunai—I want to cut people. I want to kill people. His voice wasn’t strong enough to become an impulse, but it took much of her mental energy to ignore him.

The heart of a young maiden beat in her chest. She had been a girl who loved stories and dreamed of loving someone like the people in her stories. However, her own lover was unfaithful to her once, and she hung herself by the neck. She had despaired that that the man she loved wasn’t the hero that appeared in her beloved tales and stories. But now, still, the heart of a young girl pining for love beat in Kunai’s chest.

“All of you, be quiet.”

Kunai’s personality was composed of the spirits of the dead people that composed her body. That was the truth, and at times like these, when she was lost deep in her thought, their voices rang in her head.

It was almost like she had a hangover. She wanted to stifle the loud voices echoing in her head and think her own thoughts, but the loud voices of the corpses were unending. They would always be there.

It was the fault of her creator. It was because of that quack doctor, who had committed the taboo of making dead flesh move—

A strange sensation coursed through her, interrupting her self-deprecating train of thought.

“Kya?! Wh-what… Hyah?!”

It was her left leg.

Her twisted her body at the tickling sensation, though she had lost her left leg in the fight earlier.

It didn’t take her long to realize that someone was touching her missing leg. Even if her sutures were cut, even if she were separated from one of her limbs, each part of a flesh golem’s body was—in a certain sense—alive and interconnected. They shared senses, so any time a part of Kunai’s body was touched—even at a distance—that touch was transmitted directly to Kunai herself.

“Who is it, who has my foo—Ah, hnh!”

Kunai covered her mouth with her right hand to make sure her labored breathing didn’t escape. She thought that someone might have heard her, but her worries were unfounded, hidden as she was in the isolated back alley.

Nevertheless, Kunai held back her voice. Her face distorted even more in shame. Her cheeks shouldn’t have had any blood flowing through them, but she felt them grow hot, as though she was blushing.

It had an illusion, the memories of the dead bodies—just the remnants of the young maiden’s love giving Kunai this sense of embarrassment.

“S-sto—!”

Flesh golems didn’t feel pain. If their permanently damaged body had been able to experience it, normal life would have been impossible for them. The incantation inscribed on the scroll pierced through her neck made Kunai’s body was immune to pain—but she still had a sense of touch. After all, if she’d had no sense of touch, she’d no longer be able to detect injuries or changes in her body.

As a result, despite it being disconnected from her body, she knew that someone was feeling and fumbling the foot attached to her missing leg. As the sensation continued, Kunai tried to hold back her voice, but her voice still escaped.

“Hnh…Ah!”

Was some child playing with her leg as some sort of mischief or joke?

No, Kunai thought, that’s not it. The hands touching her were clearly those of an adult man. They didn’t seem to be trying to hurt her leg. If she had to guess, Kunai would have said it was the limb was being carefully examined—as if the the construction of her foot was being examined.

And not out of some vulgar interest, but with genuine intention and concern—as if it were their job.

“That…doctor?!” she said. “…Hyanh?!”

A sweet voice escaped her lips—one that even Kunai couldn’t believe she had made. She wondered why she made such a voice simply from being caressed below her knee. Perhaps her the nerves of her missing body part were especially sensitive.

She would have wanted to kill herself if someone overheard that voice. Unfortunately, for a corpse like Kunai, suicide wasn’t something that could be done at a moment’s notice. Even having her head cut off wouldn’t kill her.

For a while, the strange sensations stopped.

She didn’t know what that doctor Glenn Litbeit was doing with her leg, but she imagined that he was probably intending to stitch her back together—which also meant he was looking for her, the body he needed to attach the leg to.

“Dammit… Argh… Dammit!”

Kunai didn’t know who she should be angry at.

She had put on a strong face in front of Glenn, but in reality she didn’t at all think she’d be able to sew her body back together one-handed. To be honest, since she had been taught nothing but martial arts, there was no way she had any sewing skills. She couldn’t even sew a blanket—there was no way she could suture a human body.

The odd feeling in her leg was still absent, but now she felt like her right arm was being held. Then, not longer after, it felt like the limb was being wiped with a cloth.

“What’s this…?”

She hadn’t mentioned it to Glenn earlier, but Kunai had suspected that her right arm had been underwater.

Early on, she had considered the possibility that it had been thrown into the canals. There was no other explanation she could think of for the cold feeling that had surrounded it. She had intentionally avoided telling Glenn this, because there would have been no point in arguing against him reattaching the arm if he had found it first.

Yet her cold arm had been pulled up out of the water, and was now being wiped off with some sort of cloth. Then she felt her arm being touched by Glenn’s hands.

The arm was being touched.

By a loathsome doctor.

“Ah! Hngh! …Ah!”

The way he touched her felt ticklish. She shouted at him in her mind to be more careful—he was a doctor, after all. Though he might treat his patients gently, he saw the detached arm and leg simply as things. Glenn didn’t understand she could feel his touch even though her limbs were separate from her body—that was why he was touching them this way. That might have been the natural way to regard them, but that didn’t mean Kunai had to accept it.

That part of a woman’s body you’re touching, you know. Be gentle—

“Hnh…Ngh!”

It took all she had to hold her voice back.

Kunai Zenow had once been the top-ranked fighter in the arena and she had no intention of putting up with this humiliation. Her fists had floored countless opponents; with them, she would get payback on the doctor Glenn Litbeit for this humiliation—

“Oh…”

At least, that’s what she had determined to do. But then she remembered that her knockout fist belonged to her right arm, which was still being held in Glenn’s hands.

With that realization, Kunai once again became overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness.

 

***

 

“Miss Kunai!”

When Glenn found Kunai after following the right arm’s directions, he first thought he had found a corpse.

Obviously Kunai’s body was a corpse, but with her body missing its left leg and right arm, she looked like nothing more than a mangled body from afar.

“The doctor, huh…” Her voice was weak.

Glenn noticed that her eyes were watery and wondered why she was on the verge of tears. Of course, he had no way of knowing the turmoil in Kunai’s heart.

“I’m glad I found you,” he said. “I’ll stitch you back up quickly.”

“I won’t let the dirty likes of you touch me.”

Glenn let out a dry, involuntary laugh at Kunai’s words. She had told him not to touch her, yet he held in his hand a part of her body. He had already touched her a great deal.

It seemed Kunai didn’t have any intention of resisting and only gave him a quick glance as he knelt down next to her. He opened up a dry piece of cloth and placed the right arm and left leg on it. He then began laying out a number of tools necessary for the suturing procedure.

First, a surgical needle and suture thread. Then the needle holders—scissor-like tools used to restrain the surgical needle. Seeing everything lined up in front of her, Kunai’s expression changed slightly.

“Hey, Doctor?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“Aren’t you going to stitch me up? Why do you have that…small, fishhook-like thing?”

“It’s a surgical needle. It’s so small because it has to be able to to sew blood vessels together. Wait—you didn’t think I was going to sew you up with a sewing needle, did you?”

Kunai nodded. Glenn was dumfounded.

Sutures and stitches were a fundamental medical skill. The quality and shapes of these tools used to sew up injuries in the human body were constantly being refined and improved upon every day. The needle in Glenn’s hand had been used throughout all of medical history and honed into its current shape. Not only that, but it was a high-quality item, small but sturdy. It was a surgical needle created by the Kuklo Workshop, which assured Glenn of its quality.

He wondered—did Kunai’s reaction mean the doctor who created her hadn’t used a surgical needle when he was stitching together her body? He hadn’t actually used a sewing needle when he made, had he?

Once again, Glenn wondered if her creator had even been an actual doctor.

“…No, wait, Doctor,” Kunai said. “Did you say you were sewing blood vessels?”

“I’m connecting the nerves and blood vessels together. It seems that this part of the tissue isn’t dead, and I can connect most of the blood vessels together. However, you probably aren’t metabolizing at all, correct? The tissue won’t regenerate, so I can leave the stitches in.”

“The thread or whatever doesn’t matter! You don’t have to connect the blood vessels! Just connecting the muscles together is enough. I’m a flesh golem, this body operates under a different logic than living things. Stitching them together like that won’t do anything.”

“Is that so?” he said, then quickly fit Kunai’s right arm to the cross section of her elbow. Kunai had told him not to touch her, and yet she held her right arm in place with her left, helping him. With her cooperation, Glenn’s surgery would be easy.

Looking at the open wound, he understood the situation better. The portion of her arm in question had in fact been handled sloppily. However, her blood vessels peeked out from the open spaces between the colorless dead flesh. With his skill, Glenn didn’t have any problems pulling them out and connecting them together like they had been when the flesh had been living.

He passed thread through the needle and restrained it with the needle holders. Dexterously handling the needle holders, Glenn immediately began stitching, starting with the internal tissue.

“Even if you have no blood flowing through you, even if the movement of your body is driven by a different logic than my own, it’s important to link the flesh. If I don’t properly connect it all together, you’ll remain a body composed of different people, right?”

“Different…people.” She repeated Glenn’s words in blank amazement, her mind seemingly far off.

During all this, Glenn smoothly slid the thread through her blood vessels, bound them together, then cut the thread. He repeated this again and again, stitching one blood vessel together after another. Not even Sapphee was a match for Glenn when it came to delicate techniques like this. Cthulhy could surpass him in speed, but when it came to the thoroughness of the work, Glenn had surpassed even his master.

“So there are doctors like you out there, too, huh…” Kunai mused.

Glenn gave a dry laugh, wondering who exactly she was comparing him to—though he soon abandoned that train of thought. He didn’t want to think too hard about a doctor willing to connect one dead body to another dead body.

A silence fell on the back alley.

Glenn focused on his work. He wanted to draw the major blood vessels and nerves together somehow or another. However, that surgery naturally took a considerable amount of time.

“My name. It’s Kunai, you see,” she said.

It seemed she could endure the silence no longer. She began to murmur quietly and Glenn listened to her, through his hand hand working the needle holders never ceased.

“This seems to be a name only used at the eastern edge, the Far East area of human territory,” Kunai told him.

“Yes, I know,” Glenn said. “I’m from that area as well.”

“…Really? But your name…”

“My name is Glenn. In the Eastern script it’s written ‘Guren,’ meaning ‘crimson lotus.’ It would be troublesome to continue using that here, so I changed the spelling to match the continent’s official language, and made the pronunciation easier for those with a central continental dialect.”

At the eastern edge of the world, a culture different from the central continent had taken root. Even after the war was over, many of the people there were still racist, and thus almost no monsters lived in that land.

Kunai continued to speak. Glenn listened attentively to his patient’s words while he ceaselessly worked his needle holder.

“Written out, apparently my name says I ‘have no suffering,’” Kunai said.

“That’s right,” he agreed—naturally, he knew that spelling.

“My creator said I was a perfect human, one ‘without pain.’ And it’s true—I feel no pain. I don’t suffer. Even as you poke me with that needle, I only feel a slight touch and a sensation of discomfort. That’s why, Dr. Glenn, you don’t have to move so carefully. I—”

“I’ve finished up most of the blood vessels. I’ll move to the nerves next.”

Glenn took a microscope out of his bag. A portable microscope, it could be mounted to his head and looked like a pair of glasses. The nerves—particularly the perineurium that sheathed the nerves—were much finer than the blood vessels. With the microscope, Glenn sutured them together with a needle so tiny it looked like it would be easy to misplace.

The tools had been appropriately sterilized with a bottle of disinfectant alcohol, though Glenn honestly didn’t know if there was even any danger of a flesh golem getting an infection or any other type of disease. She had been given preservative treatments, so there didn’t seem to be any worries of bacteria rotting her flesh.

Nevertheless, Glenn was a doctor. He tried his best to treat her the same way he would treat a living person.

“…Why are you taking such care?” Kunai asked.

“Because I’m a doctor. It’s natural for me to exhaust all my power for the sake of my patients, as the only thing a doctor can do for a dead patient is pray for their spirit in the afterlife, notify their family of their passing, and write a medical report.” He couldn’t treat a dead patient, after all.

“Besides,” he went on. “Someone who doesn’t suffer or feel pain wouldn’t have such a pained look on their face.”

Kunai’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

She looked rather lonely, like she was feeling her own powerlessness quite acutely. For someone like her without any parents, her life up until now had probably been lonesome. Glenn was sure she had her own reasons for not being at the side of her creator—they were probably why she was almost excessively attached to her master, Skadi.

No suffering… Glenn wondered what that was supposed to mean. Ever since he met her earlier that day, Kunai had looked to be in constant pain.

Glenn magnified the lens on the microscope and continued to work, sewing the nerve bundles together, now perfectly visible with his eyes. For a normal human, when repairing the nerves, it was necessary for the patient to train the reconnected nerves to move as they originally had. Glenn wondered if the same were true for flesh golems.

“This is second-hand information from my teacher,” he said, after a moment of silent work, “but living things need pain and suffering. You feel pain and suffering precisely because your life is in danger. This is true even of the undead patients we get at the clinic. They are all already dead, and don’t have any worries about death, but they still come to the clinic with various distresses.”

Sometimes, a zombie woman that lived in the clinic’s neighborhood would even come by without any real medical issues. Instead, she came by to gossip with Sapphee, who said she was lonely because all of the people she’d been friends with in her lifetime had died. Part of it was also because a weak part of her brain made her mistake Sapphee for her granddaughter.

“Suffering is proof that you’re alive,” Glenn explained to Kunai. His teacher Cthulhy had said that. There was truth in the words even if one were dead.

Being dead and not being alive looked like similar states, but they were different.

“I think my job—the job of doctors—is to relieve pain and suffering as long as one is alive. We can’t take it all away, but we mitigate it as much as we can.”

“I see…” Kunai said; she seemed to be lost in thought. Her colorless lips quivered slightly and then still. She appeared to be trying to tell him something that was difficult for her to say. Finally, Kunai relaxed with a sigh, smiled, and said once more, “So there are doctors like you out there, too, huh…”

Glenn didn’t know how to answer her. He thought that the fake doctor Kunai was thinking of was the exception, and that there were far more doctors like him than like her creator.

After that, it seemed that Kunai had nothing more to say, and she grew quiet. Meanwhile, she tightly held the right arm being sutured. She seemed to be trying her best not to move at all and assist Glenn with his work.

Glenn normally needed an assistant to perform suturing surgeries. Starting with stabilizing the affected area, there were a number of different things that one needed help with, so no matter what, one person’s hands just weren’t enough. Indeed, Glenn was performing a job that required incredible skill, but it couldn’t be denied that it was taking longer than normal to do. Glenn continued with precision, but also tried to work as fast as he possibly could.

If only Dr. Cthulhy was here…

If Cthulhy, with her excellent suturing technique, had been there, she would have been able to complete the entire surgery without an assistant. Glenn was jealous of that ability of hers.

At long last, he finished stitching the perineurium together, which meant it was time for the last step: the arm’s muscle tissue and skin. Originally, Glenn thought he would have to do this part delicately as well, but from what he had seen of Kunai, he knew that if he used thin thread to sew her limbs together, another one of her body parts would end up falling off again. To prevent that from happening, Glenn used a strong needle and thread to tightly piece her muscle and skin together.

Taking off his microscope eye piece, he began sewing Kunai up with a large needle, the sort one would use to sew thick clothing. Kunai, however, didn’t seem like she minded at all, and calmly let Glenn treat her. Glenn wondered if her complacent attitude was why she had been roughly sewn together with a big needle—like the one he was currently using—before.

At last, he said, “I’m done. How is it, Miss Kunai?”

Having finished stitching her right arm together again, Glenn wiped sweat from his forehead. The surgery had naturally taken a lot out of him.

“………………” Kunai opened and closed her hand, checking the feeling in her right arm. “Hm. Excellent,” she remarked.

“Are there any problems?” he asked.

“Not at all. In fact, it feels better than it did before. Great job, Dr. Glenn.”

Thank goodness, thought Glenn. He had managed to get by without her telling him it had been meaningless to connect her blood vessels and nerves together.

Even though she had blood vessels and nerves, they didn’t seem to be what made Kunai’s body move. However, Glenn had wondered if, by firmly and physically connecting her arm together, he could make Kunai’s body listen to her mind more closely and fluidly. It seemed that, one way or another, he had been right.

Since he wasn’t able to perform any of the secret arts that were used to create flesh golems, this was the only treatment Glenn could properly give her.

“Next is your leg,” he said.

“Oh, right. My leg. That still needs doing, doesn’t it…?” For some reason, Kunai averted her eyes as she spoke. Her arm suturing had done something, though Glenn wasn’t sure what.

Considering the rate at which his work was progressing, he felt confident he could suture up her leg before the sun went down. However, Kunai was strangely against it. However, it didn’t seem to be just because she hated doctors. Something else was at play.

“L-listen up,” she said. “Be gentle! And get it over with fast! Got it?”

“Yes, of course. It’s part of the treatment, but I’ll need to lift up your skirt.”

“Hng!”

Having politely informed her beforehand, he began to lift up her skirt. The sutures in Kunai’s left leg had been torn away in the middle of her femoral region and her foreign style of skirt would get in the way of his sewing.

“S-stop, I’ll do it myself!” she said. Flustered, Kunai rolled up her own skirt, high enough that her hips were just on the verge of being visible. There wasn’t a trace of her warrior-like aspect as she held her skirt up with trembling hands.

“My apologies,” Glenn said. “I’ll try to finish this as fast as possible.”

Her underwear wasn’t visible, and even it had been, he had planned on pretending it wasn’t. Thus, Glenn felt a little sad that she was so on guard against him.

Quickly, Glenn took the needle holders in his hand and began connecting the blood vessels with the tiny needle.

“Unh!”

When he did, a small voice slipped out of Kunai, one that Glenn hadn’t heard up until that moment.

“M-Miss Kunai? Does it hurt?”

“I-It doesn’t hurt! It’s just a little cold!”

Of course, with the needle being metal, it was natural for it to be cold, but—

“It was all fine up until a moment ago…”

“I-I know that! I-it’s probably my legs, or, you know, my thighs… Th-they’re sensitive, or something. Dammit, who the hell made this body to be like this?!”

Her arms were okay, but her legs are sensitive, Glenn thought and had a feeling that he more or less understood the meaning behind this. He was really beginning to hate the doctor who created her from the bottom of his heart. This “doctor” had been awful at sewing Kunai’s body, but didn’t seem to have cut corners when it came to her body’s sensitivity.

In short, from what Glenn could tell, Kunai’s legs were a delicate area for her.

“Eep, hnh!” she cried.

“I’m sorry, Miss Kunai,” Glenn said. “Please try to endure this without moving, if you can. I’ll make sure to finish it quickly.”

“D-don’t be ridiculous!”

Glenn couldn’t suture her without his needle and thread. Now that he thought about it, he had been performing the surgery without any anesthesia, as if it had been a matter of course—but if the patient hadn’t been Kunai, this was a situation where he would give the patient an analgesic treatment. It was strange that Kunai could get through it with just a tickling sensation, but that was to be expected of someone undead like her.

“Tch…Ahn, hyahn!”

Glenn focused all his attention on the situation, and continued working faster than he had been before. He passed the threaded needle rhythmically through the vascular tissue.

As he worked, Glenn wondered what the operation looked like to Kunai. The cold needle and Glenn’s fingers were forcing their way into the inside of her own thigh. And though it didn’t hurt, she could feel the temperature of both. Glenn could only imagine what the sensation was like—and yet, Kunai held her voice back, her face twisted in shame and humiliation.

“Dammit, I told you already—be gentler!” Kunai demanded.

“I will finish this quickly,” Glenn promised. “Please put up with it a little longer, Miss Kunai.”

“Damn you, your personality is completely different—Hyanh?!”

Kunai’s gasps wouldn’t stop, but Glenn’s fingers didn’t stop moving, either. Since he couldn’t curb her sensitivity, the only thing he could do was finish the procedure as soon as possible.

“Kya! Ahn! Hnyah!”

“………………”

“S-say something, you charlatan! D-don’t just stay silent with me crying out like this... Actually, a r-reaction might be wors—Ahn!”

Glenn had reached the limit of his concentration. Only half of the sounds Kunai was making reached his ears, but he couldn’t afford to give a reply.

“Damn! Dammit!” she cursed. “I’m won’t forgive you, not even after this is over! I’ll never forgive you, bastar—! Ah, aaaaahn, hnh-hhhhhhn!”

Not long after, Kunai’s leg jumped up for just a second.

For a while after that, Kunai tried desperately to catch her breath and didn’t speak to Glenn at all, which allowed him to very calmly immerse himself in connecting her leg back together.

Meanwhile, the flesh golem glared at Glenn with eyes that had lost their light.

***

Somehow or another, Glenn managed to finish the suturing before nightfall.

If night had fallen before he had finished, suturing would have been difficult in the poorly illuminated alleyway. If it had come down to it, the main avenue did have the illumination of the street lamps, but even that light wasn’t adequate enough light to perform surgery by—not to mention the fact that Glenn couldn’t exactly have sewn a corpse together in the middle of the main avenue at night.

If they had returned to the clinic, there would have been sufficient light to work under, but moving Kunai would have been tough while she was missing her leg. Thanks to Glenn’s skill, however, the surgery was finished before the sun had gone down.

“…Thanks,” Kunai offered with a sort of glum expression after the suturing had been completed. “But d-don’t misunderstand anything! I won’t forget the embarrassment you gave me today, got it?! It’s just, that, well, this way, I won’t make Lady Draconess worry any more… So I’ll save your punishment for later! Got it?!”

This was the parting Kunai gave Glenn. Her words made it plain just how much she loved and respected Skadi.

By then, night had fallen. Kunai walked down the big avenue and headed toward the Lindworm council hall. Her movement wasn’t at all shaky, and even an amateur like Glenn could tell from looking at her that she was a top-class martial artist.

If she had taken revenge on Glenn for the day’s forceful treatment (which he had naturally done his best with, though Kunai did not seem to think so), he would have been at his wit’s end to try and keep himself from being done in. All he could do was pray that such a day never came and that Skadi would keep a firm grip on her attendant’s reins.

“I’m back!” he called as he stepped into the clinic, exhausted from his hard work.

The fairies responded to him at once, immediately pestering him for their reward.

“Welcooooome.”

“Baaaaack.”

“Heeey, where’s the miiiilk?”

“Oh, right. I’ll put it out now.”

As usual, the fairies they were strict about their payment of milk. They didn’t accept early or late payments for their wages and accepted no reward other than milk.

Despite Glenn’s skill, he was still dead-tired from the body suturing surgery he had performed on the street. He had given the procedure his full concentration—which was fine, course—but now that it was over, the fatigue he’d been staving off weighed on his shoulders. All he wanted to do was relax for the rest of the night, for if he didn’t get enough rest, then it would hinder patient examinations the next day.

“Sapphee…isn’t here?” he said.

“I’m here, Dr. Glenn,” she said and slow, silently appeared from further inside the clinic.

Glenn wondered what she had been doing behind the curtain. The pale doctor would sometimes damper her presence and the noise she made, so that she didn’t even seem to be there.

However, Glenn was dumbfounded when he looked at Sapphee’s figure.

“…Sapphee?”

“Heh heh—look Doctor.”

Sapphee was stroking her stomach. She always wore opaque underclothes that stuck fast to her skin, but apparently she had in the middle of getting ready to go to bed, for she wore a thick negligee over her underthings. That wasn’t the issue, however—after all, it was about the time most people retired for the night.

The problem was that the comfortably sized midsection of her nightwear was strangely swollen.

Sapphee had a suggestive smile on her face as she said,“It seems that, somehow or another, I’ve gotten pregnant.”

At these words, Glenn put his hands to his head, completely unsure how to respond.