GDTEA Chapter 99

Manipulation

Sharti headed home holding hands with Tein.

Since she’d met Tein, she wanted to go straight down to the village to meet Virena, but she had too much luggage.

More importantly, her long period of sleeping outdoors had left her appearance shabby and unsightly.

“-So there was an herb I didn’t know among the homework, and I was looking for it!”

Even during Sharti’s absence, Tein had been diligently solving the homework he’d assigned.

Whenever something was unclear or questions arose, Tein would climb the mountain without fail, passionately studying herbs.

That’s how he waited for Sharti day by day.

“You’ll only be able to see that herb when it gets colder than now.”

At the familiar sound of Tein’s chattering after so long, a smile wouldn’t leave Sharti’s lips.

Tein also smiled brightly as he received the gentle touch wiping dirt from his cheeks. He had missed the teacher’s touch that smelled of winter wind and herbs.

“Still, Tein, you mustn’t climb the mountain alone.”

There was a chance he might encounter beasts that had come out late to find prey.

“Yes!”

Tein answered vigorously. Then he waited for Sharti’s response with expectant eyes.

His pure eyes believed without doubt that classes would start immediately tomorrow now that Sharti had returned.

Just as Sharti was about to look at Ren with a troubled expression at Tein’s expectations—

“-Wait, Sha. I hear people.”

“……?”

Ren stared forward with eyes full of wariness.

Sharti’s shoulders hunched at the murmuring that happened to be coming from the direction of her small log cabin.

‘What’s going on?’

As Sharti reflexively reached for her robe, Tein let out a small exclamation as if just remembering.

“Ah! Teacher, you have visitors!”

“Hm?”

Visitors?

Sharti momentarily thought of Ashu.

Tein nodded her head vigorously and pointed ahead with her finger.

“Soldier uncles!”

“……!”

The moment Sharti flinched and stopped walking, Ren urgently tried to block her path.

Trudging footsteps came down the path, and an unfamiliar voice cut through the winter wind.

“-Tein?”

At the other party’s greeting recognizing Tein, Sharti slowly raised her head.

After failing to recognize him in his different clothes for only a moment, Tein shook Sharti’s hand.

“Teacher. They’re the soldier uncles!”

“Ah……!”

At Tein’s explanation, both Sharti and Tristan and the soldiers coming down the path were startled and looked at each other.

Before Sharti could say anything, the soldiers came running over hurriedly. As the distance quickly closed, Ren frowned and raised his hand to stop them.

“Doctor!”

“Good day to you!”

With a vigorous greeting, Tristan and all the soldiers bowed their heads toward Sharti.

Before she could recognize their faces, she could only see the tops of their heads, and Sharti waved her hands in confusion.

“You don’t need to greet me so formally. Please raise your heads.”

“……?”

As Sharti floundered, the soldiers blinked and slightly raised their heads. They too exchanged confused glances with each other. For them, this was the first time hearing Sharti’s voice.

Tristan at the front also straightened his posture while gauging Sharti’s reaction.

“……Are you really the doctor?”

“Yes! This is the teacher!”

Tein smiled broadly and shook the hand he was holding with Sharti.

Tristan looked at Sharti with surprise, then glanced at Ren. Recalling the small-framed doctor with the large runaway slave, Tristan nodded with a comfortable expression.

“It seems your throat has fully healed.”

Sharti smiled gently with an awkward expression, fiddling with the silver ring on her finger.

Who would believe her if she explained that she’d gained a normal voice overnight?

“As expected of the doctor!”

“That’s right! With such outstanding skill, it’s only natural!”

The soldiers who had been cautious started praising Sharti’s skills in unison.

Sharti blinked in confusion at the sudden enthusiastic reactions.

Meanwhile, Tein and Ren were nodding their heads vigorously, encouraging the soldiers’ praise.

“F-first, we should move to a different location!”

Since they couldn’t go forward or back in the middle of the mountain path, Sharti suggested first.

In the end, Sharti had to move to the small log cabin together with the soldiers.

The praise didn’t stop until they arrived home, and Sharti’s face kept heating up.

“When I went home and showed my injury to the doctor my wife called, she was shocked and kept asking who had treated it.”

“Me too! She said the suturing goes without saying, and the treatment was perfect.”

“After seeing the medicine you prepared for us to take, there was even a doctor who asked if they could buy it from you.”

When they first saw Sharti, their expectations had been low, so they had just been grateful to meet a doctor who moved briskly and provided treatment that immediately reduced pain.

They had admired her skill, but it was the ordinary, general reaction patients typically feel. However, after returning home and meeting other doctors, they realized anew how lucky they had been.

“We haven’t mentioned anything about you other than your treatment to anyone, so you don’t need to worry.”

So there were no soldiers carelessly gossiping about Sharti.

Wasn’t she a benefactor who had enabled them to live without major aftereffects?

“You’ll never see the criminal who broke into your house and threatened you again.”

“……Ah.”

She must be talking about Dodindtman, the squad leader who had come to the village leading the soldiers.

She suddenly remembered that cloudy night when he had threatened her.

‘Come to think of it, it was definitely raining then too……’

Sharti quickly turned her head toward Ren.

Though she didn’t particularly remember symptoms that could be seen as madness, she recalled Ren’s actions that were violent enough to chase after Dodindtman and leave him half-dead even after being cut on the arm by the sword he wielded.

‘But even though it was raining then, he ran outside……’

What’s the difference?

Sharti squinted her eyes.

“Teacher?”

“Th-that’s fortunate.”

Sharti put aside Ren’s madness problem for later, wanting to focus on the soldiers before her for now.

Then she raised her head and looked at the small log cabin she was returning to after so long.

Feeling somehow comfortable, she glanced at Ren and their eyes met as Ren happened to be looking at her.

“Let’s go inside, Ren.”

Following Sharti’s smile, Ren smiled together with her.

“Would you like to come in? I haven’t been home, so I don’t have anything to offer you.”

“No. We heard you went on a house call for treatment. You must have just returned, so we’ll just deliver this and head down.”

What Tristan handed over was a document envelope.

“You may open it.”

When Sharti carefully opened the envelope, there were several documents inside.

“……What is this?”

It was a male identity registration application with only the name field left blank. The listed address was also an unfamiliar region. As Sharti tilted her head at the man’s documents that had no connection to her at all—

“They said it’s for Ren!”

Perhaps having heard about it in advance, Tein pulled on Ren’s sleeve excitedly.

At Tein’s words, both Sharti and Ren’s eyes simultaneously turned toward Tristan.

“We thought it might help.”

“What?”

“If you’re living with a runaway slave, it seemed like there would be various restrictions, so these are documents we prepared on our own.”

“If you just write the name there, we’ll complete the registration process as soon as we return.”

“Then he’ll have ordinary status.”

The soldiers explained in succession.

Sharti blankly read through the documents, then signaled to Ren with her eyes. Ren immediately covered Tein’s ears.

Looking at Tein, who blinked in confusion, Sharti carefully opened her mouth.

“……Isn’t that, manipulation?”

“That’s correct.”

Tristan calmly confirmed.

For imperial soldiers to register a runaway slave as an imperial citizen was a serious crime beyond just being illegal.

Yet the soldiers showed no particular reaction.

Only Sharti gulped down dry saliva while tightly gripping the documents.

“There won’t be any harm to you, doctor.”

“Yes. Th-that is, just in case, we also prepared identity documents for you, doctor……”

Scratching his head with an awkward smile, one soldier handed over another document.

There too was a female identity registration application with the name field left blank. The address was written identically.

One difference was that the female documents had the occupation and license fields filled in.

“……!”

“It’s a registration form stating your status is as a doctor of the Empire.”

That wasn’t all that shocked Sharti.

“A-Academy completion certificate is listed as obtained?!”

“They said to become a doctor in the Empire, you must take a license exam. The qualification condition is obtaining an Academy completion certificate, so we added it.”

“No, that’s……!”

That’s fraud!

Sharti swallowed her shocked response while glancing at Tein, who was watching the conversation with sparkling eyes.

But she was the only one restless.

“First, let me say that those documents haven’t been submitted yet, so no law has been broken. If the doctor doesn’t want them, you can tear them up right here.”

Tristan added the explanation calmly.

“And the truly ‘manipulated’ documents are only the report we wrote and submitted to our superiors about what we experienced from the moment we visited the village last time until the day we left.”

“……!”

“If we reported the truth, this entire mountain and the villages below would all become search targets for fact verification.”

At Tristan’s calm revelations, Sharti made a stunned expression.

All the soldiers, including Tristan, knew how serious a crime these documents were. Knowing this, they had all prepared themselves and presented them to Sharti.

To hide and cover up Sharti and all the misfortunes that occurred in this village.

“……Why are you going this far?”

For Sharti, she couldn’t understand at all why the soldiers had written false documents while taking such risks.

Tristan already knew she was living in hiding. Yet he was trying to overlook Ren’s existence as a runaway slave as well.

‘I did treat them, but I received treatment fees separately, so why go this far?’

Excessive favor could only build suspicion and resentment.

“To tell you the truth, it’s because you, doctor, are like our shame.”

“……Shame?”

When Sharti asked back at the unexpected reason, Tristan let out a deflated laugh quietly.

“You saved imperial soldiers who nearly died at the hands of some insane squad leader, and you fell into danger because we let that insane squad leader escape, and in the end, you captured him instead of us.”

“Yet we suspected you, interrogated you, and as a result, we hurt you, the victim, twice.”

“We received great kindness but didn’t trust your testimony, and in the end, didn’t you collapse, doctor? ……Even if we expressed our gratitude for the kindness we received, leaving without a proper apology—isn’t that a cowardly and ungrateful thing that imperial soldiers shouldn’t do?”

“No, well, not that much……”

For Sharti, it was already all in the past, and given that a nameless doctor and a runaway slave were involved, she thought the soldiers’ suspicion was natural.

Most of all, there was no excuse for Ren nearly killing Dodindtman.

On the other hand, Ren kept nodding his head vigorously at the soldiers’ confession. He felt very proud of the rebuke he’d hurled at them as soon as Sharti collapsed.

“So please consider those documents as compensation we can offer in exchange for you covering up our shame, doctor.”

“Even so, this is……”

“As we mentioned earlier, we’ve finished preparing all the documents, so there won’t be any problems for you later, doctor.”

“That’s right! There’s no way you’ll get caught.”

Perhaps because it was an illegal act directly connected to their own safety, they emanated a determination to handle it properly.

Sharti nodded awkwardly.

Actually, if you think about it, she had secretly crossed into the Great Empire of Neweiton thanks to help from Vireta of the Krofl Mercenary Group, so she had nothing to prove her identity.

‘Either way, this isn’t a problem I can righteously question.’

As Sharti rubbed the edge of the documents with a bitter expression—

One of the soldiers looked carefully at Sharti and Ren’s left hands and his eyes lit up.

“Ah, if you’d like, we can also fill in whether you two are married!”

“What?”

“Married? Couple?”

For the first time, Ren showed an interested reaction.