Chapter 45: Treatment

The Leone clan were said to be a mercenary tribe with no fixed land. So they lived in tents for mobility, or rather, that’s what one might say.

This base camp, however, had proper beds built. It was not just tents.

Number Seven. Seventh in rank. Apparently, even someone like me was given a decent bed. I felt grateful.

If I were honest with myself, though, I wanted to punch myself for thinking that.

That was the mood at three in the afternoon. How are you feeling, Mother? Probably resting in heaven.

I had forgotten your face. Your son was not doing well.

White oval grains were writhing and moving.

They looked like insect eggs, but their motion was closer to larvae. They flexed segments and slid along, oozing.

They had gathered in their thousands.

You can imagine it if you want, or you can not.

Praying mantis eggs hatching. Tiny ants swarming a candy. A ladybug hiding under a leaf. Aphids clustering on an eggplant. Masses of fly eggs.

It was like that.

Unfortunately, there was no need to imagine. It was right in front of me. My neck itched.

Then they burst.

All at once.

Psssh. Fluid sprayed. Flesh spread. It writhed. The meat fused and became a single mass that pulsed. That flesh repeated cell division as it pulsed, growing. 

Thirty minutes passed.

The lump of meat had become something like a house. Inside, it smelled of blood, and the walls pulsed. It was still living. The entrance opened and closed like an alien’s maw. It was terrifying.

I glanced to the side in silence and saw Rikan smiling.

“No need for thanks. Make yourself comfortable.”

I had no intention of thanking anyone, and I did not intend to live there.

Because Rikan smiled without malice, I gave up trying to understand the Tooth.

We tore down the meat-house and had the Monoz build proper shelters. It took time, and they were more like pillboxes than houses, but much better.

I needed to do something about my left leg.

I could not keep disguising it with the Hound model forever.

When I voiced that to Rikan, he took me to the “human village.”

It was where the Leone kept prisoners they had taken.

There was a woman whose eyes were dead. Her belly was swollen.

For three seconds, I tried not to think about it.

I had been forewarned by Eevee. So I had steeled myself for such things. Only the determination, though. That was all. It was no good; I didn’t look. I couldn’t do anything about it, so I chose not to see. That was that.

She did not even look at us, begging for help.

That irritated me like nothing else.

“Rikan.”

“Sorry. There’s nothing I can do. Bear with it, Ratchet.”

“All right. I understand. So…” I took a breath. “Do not show me the scene. If I see it, I truly cannot handle it.”

“Understood. In that case, by all means—do it.”

Rikan said it bluntly, and I cocked my head. By Tooth biology, women were important. What did he mean? Was he actually female himself? Could he make one by himself?

Noticing my stare, Rikan said, “I have a fiancée. Also, mine is… rather large. For a human, it would be impossible.”

“I see. Good to know. If I happen to be there, I’ll have a perfect taunt ready.”

He said only that, pulled his cap low, and walked with his eyes on the ground. There were far too many things I did not want to see.

There were far too many things I could not change.

Weak as I was, I treated them as if they did not exist.

We walked for about five minutes.

“This is it.”

When I looked up at Rikan’s words, I saw clean white. The red cross had not changed meaning in five hundred years. It was a hospital.

I decided to regenerate my left leg.

I had hoped the doctor would be a woman.

“Heh, you’re crazy, kid.”

He had stubble. His hair was unkempt and filthy. His white coat was stained.

In short, unfortunately, he was an old man.

When I explained the wound, the old man grinned and said something like that.

“Wasn’t there a column for that on the preliminary questionnaire?”

“Haha. Nice answer. Doc, I love that kind of look.”

He slid a pen across the chart and showed me the remarks field where he’d scrawled a crude insult.

“I want regeneration.”

“Your reaction is boring.”

“I don’t care.”

I tossed my spinal necklace to him and said it plainly.

I don’t do well with this type.

“How long since removal?”

“About a year.”

“That’s borderline. If it was harvested, we might regrow it, but…”

“If it’s impossible, then mechanize it.”

“All right. Leave it to me. If the time comes, I’ll fit it with a self-destruct too.”

No thanks.

I glared and protested with a look.

It took about a week to fix me up, and I’d be bedridden during that time, so to kill time, I decided to write in a diary.

Day one.

The test results were in. Regeneration was impossible. We would proceed with mechanization.

Doc quack said that was his specialty, and I told him to make me the best left leg he could.

Then a problem arose.

Although my knee remained, he said it would be easier to replace the whole joint, so they removed my knee.

During that operation, the anesthesia barely took, and I thought I was going to die.

“You handled battlefield pain all right, didn’t you?”

That was the quack’s line.

I insisted it was because it was the battlefield that I could stand it.

Day two.

The Monoz and Rudo came to visit.

I’d forgotten to tell anyone I’d been admitted, so they were very angry… or at least I thought so.

Rat Unit, Snake Unit, and Dog Unit surrounded me from three sides and stared in silence.

I apologized for the trouble.

They said the pillbox-house used as a dwelling was finished, so I ordered them to rough out the interior.

Sheep Unit seemed enthusiastic.

One Monoz would remain to monitor my recovery.

Sheep Unit stayed behind—apparently, it had knowledge of medical care.

Sheep Unit looked glum.

It wanted to help with the house renovation.

Day three.

Other human mercenaries came to visit.

Mid-tier types around rank twenty-five, dressed in black, the so-called Black Heaven Knights—written as “Mayonaka no Kishidan”—men in black. They looked like they had problems in the head.

I recommended hospitalization. They refused.

Snake Unit, who happened to be present, could not control his excitement. He forced the fellow into admission.

Day four.

Rikan brought documents about post-discharge work.

What a black company.

Nerve connections were starting in the new leg. Movement was almost fine, but nerves had not yet reached the toes, so I could not move them. Discharge seemed near.

And then it began to itch horribly.

Imagine having both hands strapped to the bed with tubes, and you might grasp how intense it was.

Now, as I write this, I’ve calmed down, but at the time I thought I would go mad.

Day five.

I was bored.