TSMFWL 12

Chapter 12

Usually, a lord’s main source of income was the taxes collected from the people living in his territory.

However, things were a little different in Swaph, the contaminated land.

The soil was polluted, making it difficult to maintain proper farmland, and constant attacks from monsters made hunting difficult as well.

There were no particularly noteworthy local specialties either, so there simply wasn’t any money to collect from the people, whose pockets were already full of holes.

Perhaps they should even be grateful that the residents hadn’t fled to other territories.

‘Of course, if I squeezed them hard enough, I could probably get some money out of them… But judging by the state of the White Castle, it’s obvious that Owen isn’t the kind of lord who would be that cruel.’

She needed to find a way to make money before all the embezzled funds disappeared.

Otherwise, she would end up crying out for austerity once again and living in a drafty castle, eating nothing but plain potatoes.

“Money…! I need to make money!”

Pesha put down the ledger, grabbed her head, and fell into deep thought.

When things like this happened, the heroines in romance-fantasy novels usually overcame their crises by starting a business.

‘How did they usually make money?’

Clothing designs, perfumes, cosmetics, cooking…

Pesha tugged at her hair.

“Argh! None of those have anything to do with me!”

Wasn’t designing something people did in salons?

Perfume already existed.

She had used cosmetics before, but she had never even considered making them herself.

Cooking? She was good at eating.

Looking at it this way, she really did feel like she had possessed the body of a completely useless minor villainess.

What good was it for a villainess to have flashy abilities that served no practical purpose…? They were probably only useful for tormenting the protagonist…

Pesha let out a deep sigh and stared gloomily into the distance.

“It’s not like my knowledge from my previous life is particularly impressive either…”

The profession she had had in her previous life was neither particularly special nor especially useful in this world.

‘Maybe I should’ve learned cooking or design so I could actually make use of my profession…’

Perhaps that was why she had devoted herself even more to studying herbal medicine. She had never thought that her profession would be something useful that she could pull out like a trump card whenever she was caught in the harsh currents of life.

‘Honestly, all I know about is things that grow from the ground.’

Things that grow from the ground…

Her gaze settled on the scenery of the territory.

Tiny people, looking like ants, were bustling around as though they had somewhere terribly important to be.

She turned her eyes to the side and saw a mountain.

It was a bare mountain with very few trees left, but it was low and gently sloping like a hill, making it look easy enough to walk around.

Still, it was a forest. Perhaps if she walked around for a while, a good idea might come to her.

“All right. Let’s go.”

As Pesha happened to be wearing a comfortable dress without any elaborate decorations, she left a note for the maids saying that she was going out for a walk and then left the castle.

It had been a long time since she had traveled on foot instead of taking a carriage, but this was actually her first time leaving the White Castle itself.

She had heard that Swaph had a small population compared to its vast territory. Since the area in front of the White Castle was relatively bustling, she decided to leave through the back gate instead.

After showing her identification card and passing through the rear gate, Pesha began climbing the hill.

Because the terrain was low, the climb wasn’t difficult.

As she walked past the scattered cedar and rubber trees that remained despite most of the forest having been cut down, she realized a few things.

“The soil is better than I thought…”

The earth was moist, dark in color, and soft.

When she looked around, she could easily spot earthworms, which were said to live only in clean soil, as well as traces of holes dug by moles.

“And this land is supposed to have been contaminated by monsters…”

It was a shame.

When Pesha finally reached the top, she shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand and looked around.

She could clearly see the tall, jagged rocky mountains surrounding Swaph Territory.

“Ugh, only the inside is even remotely usable. The surroundings are nothing but rocky mountains.”

Then again, it was a well-known fact that the Emperor didn’t like Owen Namoi.

A hunting dog that had finished its hunt was only going to be eaten by its master.

To the Emperor, Owen was probably nothing more than a tool to be discarded once it had become rusty, so there was no way he would have given someone like that good land.

“Barren. So barren.”

Shaking her head, Pesha began descending the opposite side of the hill.

That was when she heard someone screaming.

“Argh! Aaaagh! Help me! It hurts so much I could die!”

The sound was so much like someone being killed that Pesha startled and looked around.

At the foot of the hill, she spotted a white tent.

Smoke was rising from the tent as if there were a fire inside, and the closer she got, the more groans and moans she could hear.

Although bewildered, Pesha approached out of curiosity.

The first thing she noticed was the pungent smell.

“Cough!”

She covered her mouth and nose with one hand and burst into a fit of coughing.

“Cough, cough! Ah, it’s so strong.”

It was so acrid that tears sprang to her eyes.

“What is this smell?”

“It’s the smell of painkillers.”

A voice answered her muttering from somewhere nearby.

Startled, Pesha turned around and saw a woman wearing a white headscarf and an apron. She had just set down a water jug in front of the tent and was smiling.

“You must be from out of town? There isn’t anyone in Swaph who doesn’t know this smoke…”

At those words, Pesha’s eyes darted around.

What should she say?

She pondered for a moment, but since it was true that she had come from elsewhere, she simply nodded.

The woman kindly introduced herself and explained.

“My name is Sally. I’m a nurse working at this hospital.”

“Hospital?”

Pesha looked up at the white tent in surprise.

At the top of the tent was an emblem of two snakes climbing up a staff.

Since snakes had symbolized resurrection and regeneration since ancient times, they were commonly used as symbols by physicians.

‘Still, come on. They’re calling this a hospital after putting up a single tent like this…’

As though she had read Pesha’s thoughts, Sally laughed and explained.

“Of course, this isn’t the main hospital. The main branch is over in the old town. This place is more like an emergency ward we hastily set up because the number of patients has increased recently.”

“But why are there so many patients?”

“It’s all because of the monsters, I suppose… There is a lord here, but he can’t protect us from every possible danger.”

“Ah…”

Pesha nodded for the moment.

“The fortress has been left in ruins for so long that monsters occasionally make their way into the territory. Most of the patients here were injured by those monsters.”

Sally took two handkerchiefs from her pocket and soaked them in the water from the bucket she had carried over.

Then she held one out to Pesha.

“If you’re curious, you can go inside. If it’s your first time, the smoke might be difficult to handle, so cover your nose with this.”

“Th-thank you.”

Half pushed along by the situation, Pesha covered her nose and mouth with the handkerchief and entered the tent.

She had already had some idea of what to expect from the smoke drifting outside, but the inside of the tent was practically a den of raccoons.

Temporary beds were lined up on both sides, and every patient lying on them was puffing away at something that looked like a cigarette.

The patients who weren’t smoking were coughing or groaning in pain.

‘What in the world is going on?’

Medical personnel seemed to be attending to the patients whose conditions appeared serious, but there were clearly far too few of them.

As Pesha stood there in a daze, staring at the scene, Sally cleared her throat and explained.

“If you dry the leaves of a plant called Hoban and roll them in paper to smoke, they make an effective painkiller. Since medical supplies are always in short supply, we give the patients painkillers so they can at least get some relief from their suffering. Cough, cough. Painkillers.”

“Hoban?”

Good heavens. Pesha couldn’t believe it.

‘Hoban leaves do have pain-relieving effects, but they’re incredibly bitter. They can also cause side effects like nausea and hives… And they’re turning them into cigarettes and smoking them?’

Even Pesha, who had read countless books on herbal medicine, had never heard of such a method of treatment in her life.

‘Even the things being handed out as painkillers are terribly inadequate.’

The severity of the situation in this territory suddenly became painfully clear to her.

She stood there with her mouth slightly open in shock, and a cloud of acrid smoke suddenly slipped into her mouth.

She immediately burst into such a violent coughing fit that tears welled up in her eyes.

“Cough, cough! Cough!”

“Oh my! Are you all right?”

Sally patted her on the back, but once she had inhaled the smoke, there was no way to spit it back out.

‘Even if it’s a painkiller, are these people’s lungs really all right?’

In fact, the medical staff themselves coughed quite frequently, and even the patients who weren’t smoking Hoban and were asleep couldn’t stop coughing.

“This can’t go on like this…”