Chapter 156 Ever-Changing Orders
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”My lord… my hands are cracking so bad.”
The woman’s voice trembled a little as she held them out, red and raw. Ayumu blinked down at them, wondering for the hundredth time why his office had somehow turned into… this.
Still, he dabbed a cotton swab into the steroid cream he’d synthesized from kidney hormones through modern chemical methods—because of course he had—and gently smeared it over her knuckles. She gasped, relief flashing across her face, and showered him with thanks before scurrying off like a sparrow escaping the rain.
Next came a broad-shouldered man, tall enough that he had to duck through the doorframe—definitely Yugan stock. He grunted that his lower back was killing him from unloading cargo all day. Ayumu just sighed, peeled a steroid patch from its wax sheet, and smoothed it across the man’s spine. More grateful words. More bowing. Then gone.
And then the third one shuffled in and whispered, “Recently… it just won’t… y’know… stand anymore…”
Ayumu froze.
(THIS ISN’T A HOSPITAL—!!!)
His brain screamed it so loudly it almost came out of his mouth.
Why. Why were they all coming here?
In his old world, practicing medicine without a license would’ve gotten him arrested on the spot. But here, where half his peasants couldn’t even dream of proper treatment, it felt cruel to turn them away. He wasn’t doing surgery or anything—just basic care, and only for his own people. At first it seemed harmless. Kind, even.
But word had spread. His little “free clinic” worked better than the half-baked barbershop doctors in most towns, and it didn’t cost a single coin. So now, they were coming from as far as State Capital Livonia, lining up in the corridor with pale faces and hopeful eyes.
He wanted to stop. Gods, he needed to stop. It was clogging the whole government building.
But when he said “maybe no more visits,” they looked at him with those eyes—those big, desperate, don’t-abandon-us eyes—and whimpered, “Please… no, don’t say that… What are we supposed to do…?”
And just like that, his resolve collapsed. Again.
(Everyone! If you’re sick, go see an actual town doctor, damn it!!)
He was a former pharmacist, not a doctor. This was supposed to be the town hall. The lord’s mansion, even if it was just a “temporary” one. People were supposed to come here to file petitions, not to have their lower backs patched up!
He was still silently fuming when an elderly woman, shoulders stooped like broken branches, shuffled up. Her voice cracked as she asked, “Um… Lord… when will the road through the suburbs be paved? My legs ache so much I can hardly walk…”
Ayumu’s head snapped up.
”Brilliant! Yes, absolutely! I’ll have my staff repair it at once!” He threw his arms wide, half-turning toward the whole room like an actor on a stage. “Everyone, did you hear that?! This is what this office is for! Petitions! Not treatment! This is a government hall, not a clinic!”
He might have been overdoing it, but he didn’t care.
If he had to yell it at the rooftops to drive the point home, so be it.
He immediately called for Ninim and ordered her to get the suburban roads paved using asphalt made from oil by-products.
Ninim, naturally, exploded.
”AhhhHhhHhhꐦ! Just a week ago when I begged you to lay roads in the suburbs for the People of Birene, you sat there all calm and smug and said, ‘…Let’s postpone it. We should wait until the finances can handle it.’ Remember that?! And now suddenly you say yes?! What is this, discriminationꐦ?!”
”Eh? …Did I say that?” Ayumu blinked, scratching his cheek. “Sorry…”
He vaguely remembered something like that. Maybe. He might have refused on the grounds that he couldn’t justify roadwork just for the People of Birene… yeah, that sounded like him.
Also, honestly, he still didn’t understand the People of Birene well enough to even know how to “discriminate” against them.
Though if he were being brutally honest… maybe it was people like Ninim—loud, prickly, and unrelenting—that made others dislike them.
People always had reasons for their hate, and before crying “victim,” maybe they should put their hands on their paper-thin little chests and think about whether they’d ever done anything to deserve it.
…Or maybe, he thought as he watched her fume like a kettle, maybe she had only become this loud because of all the brutal discrimination she’d survived.
”…Anyway. Don’t get so worked up,” he muttered, pretending not to hear the rest of her furious muttering as he sidestepped toward the door.
And then Ayumu did what any self-preserving lord would do.
He ran.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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