I’ve Become a S*ave Bride - Chapter 18
“Uugh…”
With a faint groan, Lenette slowly opened her eyes from where she had been slumped over asleep.
‘Where… am I?’
Her mind was awake, but her surroundings didn’t make sense. She furrowed her brow, blinking several times.
‘My neck hurts…’
Just because her head was tilted didn’t mean the world tilted with it, but the lowered angle of her vision made everything look unfamiliar.
That’s when a deep voice sounded from behind her.
“If you’re awake, you should get up.”
“……!”
Startled, Lenette shot up like she’d touched a hot stove.
“Ugh…!”
Having stayed in one position too long, a sharp pain surged through her neck.
On top of that, she had gotten up so quickly that she didn’t notice the blanket draped over her back. She stumbled backward in a panic—and her feet tangled up.
“Careful.”
She had no idea when or why he’d gotten that close, but Kazen was standing nearby and quickly reached out, grabbing her by the waist.
And that—
Only made Lenette react even more violently.
“Eek…!”
A sound completely unlike her burst from her lips without warning.
“Eek?”
“Y-You’re too close…”
Also unlike her was her flustered, scrambling behavior—something she hadn’t even shown in front of her parents as a child. She quickly wriggled out of his grasp.
Kazen glanced down at his now-empty hand, then looked at Lenette with a baffled expression.
“Anyone seeing this would think I tried to assault you.”
“……”
Well… it looked a bit like that, didn’t it?
But she couldn’t say that out loud. No—she didn’t want to. Lenette had no desire to speak about what happened the night before.
“Ahem… Sorry. I’m always a bit sensitive right after waking up.”
Kazen stood with a tilted posture, silently listening to her awkward excuse. Apparently, her reaction wasn’t a big deal to him—he turned around without another word.
“Breakfast?”
“…Not really hungry.”
He casually picked up the blanket from the floor and tossed it back onto the bed before turning back to her.
“Good. Then let’s go.”
“Go? Where?”
“You said you studied medicine. There’s someone who needs treatment.”
Still shaken by everything that had happened the moment she woke up, Lenette took a moment to refocus on her current situation, then nodded.
“Alright.”
Satisfied with her answer, Kazen began walking. But after only two steps, he suddenly stopped and turned his head back toward her.
“Oh. Do you, uh… need time to get ready or anything?”
The unexpectedly considerate question made Lenette blink in surprise.
‘He’s… capable of that kind of thoughtfulness?’
And yet this was the same man who had just crawled into bed with her without warning.
‘What is going on…?’
She shook her head.
“It’s fine. The patient comes first.”
Seemingly pleased with her response, he smirked and pushed open the door without another word.
“Then let’s go.”
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
The place Kazen had rushed Lenette to right after she got up turned out to be the kitchen.
And the patient he wanted her to treat was none other than the mansion’s only female servant—an elderly mute woman.
“She’s the patient?”
“What, disappointed?”
“It’s not that.”
Lenette responded with a touch of frustration and approached the old woman to greet her.
“Good morning, ma’am.”
The woman responded with a warm smile and the soft, distinctive sound she always made.
“Ma’am, would you mind sitting over there for a moment?”
The old woman blinked and tilted her head, glancing over at Kazen standing in the doorway.
“Do as she says.”
At that, the old woman obediently took a seat. Lenette reached her hand out.
“Let me take a quick look.”
“Do you need me to tell you where to treat?”
Kazen, standing behind her, suddenly asked.
“It’s her leg, right? Specifically, the knee. Isn’t that it?”
She answered without even turning around, and silence followed. As Lenette moved her hand again, Kazen muttered under his breath.
“Guess she’s not just a quack.”
A slightly deliberate provocation.
Most physicians are prideful about their skills. Usually, even a small jab like that would make them puff up, launching into long-winded speeches about how skilled they are, how many patients they’ve treated, how respected they are, and how they differ from the average doctor.
Kazen likely threw that comment with the same expectation.
‘Yeah. He’s still testing me.’
But unfortunately for him, Lenette wasn’t someone who rose to that kind of bait.
“Isn’t that something better said after the treatment?”
She responded with calm humility. In response, a low chuckle came from behind her.
‘That guy laughs more than you’d expect for someone with that face.’
Not that it mattered to her. Ignoring him, Lenette refocused on the elderly woman in front of her.
“I’m going to touch your leg now.”
Nod, nod.
With steady fingers, she pressed carefully along the woman’s right and then left calf, feeling the muscles with precise pressure.
Even as she worked, she asked several follow-up questions.
“Does it hurt here?”
“Uuh!”
“What about here?”
Shake, shake.
“Does it hurt when you’re just sitting or lying still?”
A series of questions went back and forth, and Lenette’s hands never stopped moving.
At last, she turned to Kazen.
“I think I’ve found the cause.”
“Already?”
Intrigued, Kazen had somehow moved closer, now standing right behind her.
“Yes.”
“You figured it out just from touching her leg?”
“Not always, but in her case, it’s something I’ve seen before.”
He raised a skeptical brow and motioned toward the old woman with his chin.
“Then go ahead and treat her.”
“This will only be a temporary fix. She’ll need to continue doing certain things regularly for the pain to go away long-term.”
“Alright, just get on with it.”
Lenette crouched back down and met the old woman’s eyes.
“This is going to hurt a lot, ma’am.”
With that brief warning, she pressed hard on the muscle next to the woman’s right shin.
The old woman flinched and cried out—whether from shock or pain, it was hard to tell.
Lenette spoke calmly, despite the outburst.
“Peace only comes after hardship, so bear with it for a bit.”
Her grip was surprisingly strong. The old woman clutched the chair and looked up at Kazen as if begging him to save her.
The scene almost looked like she was being tortured.
“…Are you sure this actually works?”
Whether Lenette didn’t hear his question over the screaming or simply ignored it, she didn’t answer. Only the elder’s near-screams filled the room.
“Uwaaaagh!”
She might as well have been yelling, ‘Save me.’ But Lenette remained composed as she explained.
“It could be cartilage damage in the knee, but the first thing to suspect is this muscle along the shin. When it’s tight or loses flexibility, it pulls down on the knee and causes pain that’s worse than you’d expect.”
The old woman was clearly in too much pain to follow any of that, but Lenette didn’t stop explaining.
“When that happens, loosening this shin muscle—and this part down here near the ankle—helps a lot.”
As Lenette moved her hand down from the shin to the ankle, the woman’s screaming stopped.
“There. That should do it.”
Lenette stood and offered a hand.
“It hurt while I was doing it, but now that it’s over, doesn’t it feel better?”
…Nod.
The old woman gave a small nod, and Lenette smiled softly.
“Do you want to try standing up and walking a little?”
The old woman took Lenette’s hand and slowly rose from the chair. Carefully, she placed one foot forward.
Then suddenly—
“…!”
The old woman’s eyes flew wide open.
“Aaaah!”
Despite the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, her face lit up with a bright, childlike smile as she began moving around excitedly. Lenette quickly held her by both forearms to steady her.
“You can’t move around so roughly all of a sudden.”
Nod, nod, nod!
“You remember the areas I pressed on just now, right? Make sure to massage them every morning and night. That’ll help prevent your knee from hurting like this again.”
Nod, nod, nod!
Even as she nodded, the old woman couldn’t stop walking back and forth around the kitchen, visibly delighted. Watching her move like a happy child, Kazen stepped closer to Lenette.
“That’s really it?”
“Seems like it.”
“Don’t you use medicine in your kind of healing?”
“Medicine doesn’t fix everything. It depends on the case. For her, I think it’s better to just keep observing for now.”
Kazen frowned, seemingly dissatisfied with the vague answer.
“Not very reassuring.”
“There’s no such thing as certainty in medicine. It’s all based on past experiences, guesses, and careful observation.”
“The doctors around here always seem so sure of themselves.”
“Well, that’s true anywhere. Giving the patient confidence is important. But in reality, doctors don’t have all the answers either.”
Kazen stared quietly at Lenette, who neither boasted nor tried to take credit for her treatment.
“You really are different.”
“You’re talking about the doctors here?”
“That, and the way you practice medicine too.”
Of course. How could the medicine of people dulled by peace be the same as that of those who live with war and plague as part of daily life?
Lenette stopped herself from explaining further.
‘No need to say all that. I don’t have to reveal the desperation behind Ecaron’s medicine.’
The correlation between muscle and pain that was discovered in Ecaron wasn’t for saving lives—it was found while trying to keep soldiers barely functioning so they could be thrown back onto the battlefield. In other words, it was a medicine developed to kill more efficiently.
It wasn’t healing, but weaponry.
That was the true nature of Ecaron’s medical science.
‘To someone who doesn’t know that history, it probably just seems… impressive.’
Lenette had no desire to reveal the brutal truth of her homeland.
Swallowing those bitter words, she met Kazen’s gaze.
“Do you have any more patients for me to see?”
