WeTried Translations
Translator: [IncomeElastic]
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◈ I Became an Undetected Priest Impersonator ◈
Chapter 28
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I Became a Teacher (2)
"You refine the power and shape it into a single image."
Watching Priest Malja attempt the healing, I slowly taught her the knack.
"The image can be anything related to recovery. Adding more firewood to a dying hearth works, and so does watering a wilting flower."
The explanation continued.
"Once you've settled on an image, give it a name. When you get used to it, you'll eventually be able to draw out the power skillfully just by recalling that name."
It was the so-called image association technique.
"Phew.."
She seemed to have come up with a suitable image and name, because a gentle light slowly began to swirl around Priest Malja's fingertips.
It was still clumsy, but a sign that the Heal was taking shape.
"Good. You have talent."
"R-really?"
"Yes."
‘Honestly, that's bullshit.’
She was nothing more than average, but I praised her without letting it show.
Telling the truth would only have drained her energy.
Fortunately, the white lie must have worked, because after repeated concentration Priest Malja managed to complete a Heal in its proper form.
"Now just let it settle into the patient."
The patient was watching it all nervously too.
"Ooh! That's amazing, Priest!"
The moment the Heal settled into the injury and the wound closed, the patient leapt to their feet and let out a cheer.
"Gah!"
‘..The wound reopened.’
As a result, the wound she'd worked so hard to treat tore open again, but the teaching material had effectively been refilled, so it wasn't all bad.
"Let's treat it again. It's your second time, so it'll be easier."
A new patient came in around the time Priest Malja had gotten a decent feel for it.
This one was unusual, with one sleeve hanging completely empty.
Nothing else about the patient stood out, so they seemed to have come about the arm.
Sure enough, the man cautiously held up the empty sleeve and asked.
"Um, I came because I heard the rumors.. could you possibly treat an arm that's already been cut off?"
It wasn't difficult.
It was more troublesome than an ordinary injury, but not beyond what I could treat myself.
But since this could be a learning experience too, rather than step in myself, I called Priest Malja over to do the treatment.
"It'll be hard, but think of it as getting some experience and give it a try."
"..Can I really do it?"
"Even if you make a mistake, I'm here."
Priest Malja nodded once at that and carefully reached out to the severed end of the patient's arm.
The power, more familiar now than a moment ago, bloomed from her fingertips along with the scent of flowers.
And the moment it touched the patient's arm.
Something rather bewildering happened.
"..?"
Vines had sprouted from the severed end.
"P-Priest? Something seems off about this..?"
But Priest Malja was in no state to answer the patient's question.
Her strength had been abruptly drained, and she lost consciousness on the spot.
I hurriedly tried to sever the flow of energy between Priest Malja and the vines.
-It won't be dangerous.
The one who stopped me was the goddess.
-Trust me and Malja!
Honestly, that was hard to do.
The vines soon began to tangle and clump together.
What was finally formed was, strangely enough, a single arm made of plants.
To examine it closely, I grabbed the vine arm firmly.
"Ow, it hurts if you hold it like that!"
I couldn't help frowning at the patient's reaction as he felt the pain and the vine arm twitched.
It was because the nerves were connected.
‘I told her to heal.. and she made an automail?’
I'd prided myself on having seen plenty of strange things while climbing the Tower, but this was a first.
After finishing some additional checks and confirming there was nothing wrong with the arm, the man went home in a daze.
He still couldn't seem to decide whether to be happy that his lost arm was back or horrified that it was made of plants.
Of course, I was no different when it came to not being able to decide.
It was because of the new direction that had been presented to Malja.
‘This is tough.’
But soon I reached the conclusion that it was a pointless worry.
‘It would be a bit ridiculous for me, who's not even her parent, to worry about her future and decide it for her.’
Asking for her wishes and respecting them was enough.
"I don't know what you were thinking about, but looks like you're done fretting?"
As I put my thoughts aside, someone spoke to me with uncanny timing.
It was Priest Margaret, who'd gone off on vacation as if vanishing to dodge troublesome work.
"..Did you have a good vacation?"
"Thanks to you, I got a nice, comfortable rest. So? Are you done fretting as a parent?"
"A parent? I'm still unmarried."
"Hmph, if you take someone in, let them sleep under the same roof and feed them, that makes you a parent. Or is it a wife?"
I thought it was a teasing question.
I didn't know how to react, so I ignored it, and Priest Margaret changed the subject as if deflated.
"By the way, it seems the Solar Church's Saintess stayed quite a while. Nothing special happen?"
What had happened flashed through my mind for a moment.
"Nothing much."
At most, the Saintess's party had nearly been wiped out by a demon and barely managed to subdue it, and that was all.
"..Does anyone usually brush that off as nothing much?"
It was no wonder Priest Margaret asked back in disbelief.
"If nobody died, then nothing much happened."
"I've got a warped personality too, but yours is something else."
It felt unfair, but I couldn't argue back.
"Mmm.."
Priest Malja, who'd collapsed after the series of treatments, was waking up.
The first thing Priest Malja asked after coming to was about the one-armed patient's condition.
"Priest Flowie, what about that patient? Is he okay? I didn't do something wrong, did I?"
To calm the words tumbling out of her in disorder, I poured some tea and handed it to her.
"Honestly, you can't say he was cured."
"Ah.."
Strictly speaking, it was far from a regenerated arm.
It was hard to call it treatment.
"But I'd like to praise you."
Then again, it was hard to call it a failure either.
After all, the man without an arm had unquestionably gained one.
And, personally, it was kind of cool too.
But I kept these feelings tightly hidden and praised Priest Malja.
"You have talent. Well done."
This time it was sincere, not a lie.
Just as a moving atmosphere of sorts was coming together,
an old woman who'd been watching the scene warmly butted in for no reason and poured cold water on it.
"If you're praising her that much, it must mean she can already pull a full person's weight, eh?"
"..What's this all of a sudden?"
"Perfect timing. I was worried just the two of us, you and me, wouldn't be enough."
It was an oddly ominous answer.
"..A provincial city is lucky to have even one priest who can heal. What, is a war about to break out?"
"Of course not. When have times ever been as peaceful as now? Even the kingdoms and domains that live with demons crawling out and wars all the time are keeping their heads down."
I wondered whether that could really be called peaceful, but since she said so herself, I let it go.
"Then what is it?"
"What do you think?"
Priest Margaret pointed her chin at the blazing sun.
"It's summer now, isn't it?"
I came to understand those words in the afternoon not long after.
In front of the clinic, a farmer who'd been carried in on a cart and a farm horse lay collapsed with their tongues hanging out.
On top of that, the ox that had hauled the two in didn't look normal either.
"Heatstroke. If that's why you said it, I understand."
Summer was certainly a harsh season in a place with such a heavy workload.
But Priest Margaret only snorted.
"Don't get the wrong idea. If it were just heatstroke, I wouldn't have brought it up."
"..?"
"Do you know what the most popular festival in this country is?"
No way I'd know.
If I had to guess, maybe the village festival after the harvest was over.
But Priest Margaret shook her head in denial.
"The Stone Fight."
"..Pardon?"
At the unexpected name, I wondered for a moment if I'd misheard.
"A time-honored festival that's been passed down for hundreds of years. In the city, no matter how many times I tell them not to, the damn fools never listen and hold it every year."
"…"
"It's a goddamn awful festival."
It was then that I quietly opened the Gallery and posted a question for the first time in a while.
Title: Why is there a Stone Fight here?
Author: ㅇㅇ(123.123)
I'd only ever heard it mentioned as something from the Joseon era, so why does it still exist here?
And wasn't the Stone Fight a festival held in the first lunar month??
[(Well, you see Con)]
[Listen up, Head Admin, Earthlings started getting summoned at least several hundred years ago..]
ㄴ[Obviously our ancestors got summoned too..]
[Just gloss over the timing and the little setting stuff]
ㄴ[It's not even the same Earth for everyone anyway, so the history's all different]
ㄴ[Where I was, Lee Wan-yong[1] did independence activism]
ㄴ[Lee Wan-yong doing independence activism is rough..]
ㄴ[Fuck, you disrespecting our Martyr Lee Wan-yong right now?]
ㄴ[(Oblivious Con)]
ㄴ[(Dumbfounded Con)]
"…"
My head spun.
This year's first Stone Fight casualty was brought in not long after that.
Looking at the familiar face with its caved-in skull, I lost my words for a moment.
‘Losing here too, what's the deal, Sean?’
Footnotes
[1] Lee Wan-yong was the Korean prime minister who signed the 1910 treaty that annexed Korea into the Japanese Empire, and he is one of the most reviled collaborators in Korean history. "Martyr" translates yeolsa (열사), a title for patriots who died for independence, so the poster's line is mocking reverence for a traitor.
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