"What an interesting description, 'no longer suffer the harassment of endless pain.' It's sparked a lot of inspiration for me."
Fran opened her small medical kit and deftly took out a vial with an attached needle.
"Sister Haida, could you help me open his skull? He's healed up again after being left alone for too long."
"At your service."
Haida raised the solid wood handle of her folding knife and struck Hoven's skull like a blunt instrument, reopening the fragile bone that had just closed. Fran followed closely, injecting the liquid from the vial into it.
After finishing this, Fran pulled Haida back two body lengths.
She also took out the brass pocket watch to check the time. It was already around eleven at night; in a little while... this quarter's cross-world house call would begin.
Good, the ascetic's problem is solved.
"You want to interfere with my brain? Hah, thinking you're clever... You can apply mental suggestions to me, but you can't possibly affect my brain on a material level... because it ceased to exist long ago. Now, my consciousness resides in every blessed nerve."
Fran maintained her professional smile, nodding repeatedly. Like a customer service representative dealing with a chatty client.
"Be patient, Ascetic sir. Savor it carefully. Soon, you will never be in pain again."
Hoven didn't initially understand what Fran had done, but he soon sensed something amiss from the gradually changing nature of the pain.
The extreme pain was gradually softening, turning into a feather-light caress, like the gentle stroke of a beautiful woman's fingertip. Brief touches, leaving ripples of tingling and pleasure.
"What is this feeling? Ah, ah... No, my Master, how can there be such... joy? No... someone is... stroking my brain?"
He began to moan weakly. Though trying hard to endure, he couldn't suppress the sounds. Nerves long numb to pain were suddenly filled with extreme pleasure. This violent reversal nearly destroyed his self-awareness.
"Now, pain will be converted by your consciousness into equivalent pleasure."
Fran gently swung the chain of the brass pocket watch in her hand, observing the scene before her with great interest.
[The pain of 'Suffer-Walker' Hoven has been cured. This month's routine house call mission has been completed. Completion Grade: S. Your next Monthly House Call will be randomly triggered next month.]
[Reward for this mission: Unknown Book x1 (Fine Quality. Unidentified)]
[Your Parsing Rate changes: Clinical Psychology (20% → 20.3%), Neurology (21% → 21.5%), Terra Medicine (3% → 5%), Genetic Research (27% → 27.2%).]
"Displaying the parsing rate gained from researching the vertebra earlier along with it... that's somewhat considerate."
Fran stretched comfortably, then stepped over the ascetic writhing and moaning on the ground with her thick-soled little leather shoes.
….
At that moment, Haida unfastened the clasp on the abdomen of her nun's habit, fully exposing her pale abdomen and the wound on her ribs.
Fran was leaning over, using tweezers and cotton balls to clean the blood plasma and foreign matter around the wound.
Although Haida occasionally felt not-so-honest caresses on her abdominal oblique muscles, Fran's skill in handling external wounds was indeed impeccable. She glanced at Hoven squirming and struggling on the ground, then asked.
"Dr. Fran, is this ascetic... also only 'half a High Priest'?"
"Hmm, correct."
Fran finished cleaning the wound, then nodded to confirm.
She didn't do any extra stitching, just bandaged it with homemade bandages. Because the injured area had already healed and closed on its own; just waiting for it to recover naturally was fine. Haida's blood coagulation and muscle repair abilities far exceeded normal humans.
"Sister Haida is as sharp as ever. Can you tell me how you judged that?"
"He is weaker than the complete High Priest(ess) I imagined. Although he can ignore physical damage to some extent, he didn't demonstrate the expected suppression power."
Haida explained her perspective.
She actually didn't know much about High Priest(esses) either. The dancer Sines she encountered earlier was her first time meeting a cultist of that rank.
"Actually, he's not that weak. This ascetic received the Red Cup's blessing. If given enough time to repair his damaged body, he could completely transform into half a 'Sacred Spawn.' I just interrupted that process."
Fran put the used medical instruments back into her small kit, planning to sterilize them after returning to Fog Street Clinic.
Although Hoven had already collapsed into a pile of writhing pale nerves, Haida still wasn't at ease with him.
The resilience cultists gain through fanatical faith is unimaginable. Once you deprive them of mobility, it's best to completely destroy them.
Currently, she hadn't brought ritual materials, so she couldn't use the Third-Category ritual [Dissolve the Blasphemous] to render harmless an evil spawn that had lost mobility. Gunshots and cuts had quite a limited effect on him; even the Secrets-Hunter prayer scriptures inscribed on them merely hurt him.
Forget it. Vivian should have already contacted support using Confidential Division methods. Let's keep watch here.
Vivian also let out a relieved sigh and slowly approached the two. Although she felt like she hadn't done much, participating in such a dangerous event was still too hard on her.
At the same time, she felt a bit of small curiosity about the drug Fran used earlier.
"Dr. Fran, could the drug you used really reverse someone's senses?"
"No."
Her answer was extremely concise, and unexpected. Vivian was momentarily confused.
"Then why did Hoven become like this? Wasn't it because he couldn't adapt to the transformation of pain into pleasure that he ended up this way?"
Hearing Vivian's interest in her drug, Fran immediately enthusiastically began explaining to her.
"Miss Vivian, medicine has its own limits. Although I'm not incapable of preparing a drug that converts pain into pleasure, that would take time... And I didn't prepare such a drug in advance. Starting to mix on the spot was obviously too late."
She was patient and calm, her hands covered in suture lines, fingers slightly interlocked.
Vivian sensed a hint of coolness. She followed up, "Then... what did you inject into his body?"
"An aphrodisiac."
"Cough, cough!"
Fran blinked her amber eyes, maintaining a harmless expression.
This answer made both Haida and Vivian look at Fran with an indescribable gaze and fall into silence. She, however, seemed not to care, just explaining the principle on her own.
"First, use drugs to forcibly make the ascetic experience pleasure. Then use language and the 'Swaying Heart-Clock' to further give him guidance and suggestion, making him believe all his suffering will completely transform into joy."
"Once this simple common sense alteration is complete, he will be overwhelmed by his own habitual pain."
"I see..."
Now Vivian knew why Fran had been holding the pocket watch. From the very beginning, she had been trying to exert influence on the High Priest from the spiritual level.
"But, is there no problem saying it out loud like this... Wouldn't it become invalid if he heard it?"
"This patient has already lost the ability to recognize auditory information. Besides, even if he could regain consciousness... then we could just have Sister Haida keep beating him, preventing the final Sacred Spawn transformation."
Fran slightly waved her hand, indicating she didn't need to worry.
"I have a very important house call today, so I'll leave first. Looking forward to our next meeting. Hmm... If I'm not mistaken, the Red Cup's attack has only just begun. You need to be more careful."
As she spoke, Fran took out the brass pocket watch to check the time.
Vivian trembled inexplicably. The ascetic's tragic state was still vivid. She now had an inexplicable psychological shadow towards the action of checking the watch...
Just then, Fran's smile stiffened slightly.
She seemed to have been a bit too engrossed while explaining the medical plan earlier, to the point of ignoring the time... In a few seconds, it would be midnight!
"Hmm... I forgot to set an alarm for around ten to twelve. How embarrassing."
The dark, illusory, chaotic gray mist was like an invisible giant mouth, instantly swallowing Fran's slender figure.
Haida keenly noticed that this time, Fran didn't specially look for a door. These mists appeared on their own as if alive and lingered around her.
Dr. Fran said she had an important house call later… What kind of patient and illness could she call "important"? Was the unusual state of the gray mist related to this?
Just as Haida was pondering, these chaotic mists had unknowingly wrapped around her ankles... By the time she realized this, all the surrounding scenery had completely disappeared, leaving only a hazy, pure gray-white.
The gray mist had taken her too...
Thus, Fran and Haida disappeared together on the spot, leaving Vivian behind, full of shock and confusion.
She looked at the empty Sated Club, then at the ascetic Hoven writhing on the ground, momentarily speechless.
About two minutes later, Vivian regained her composure.
"It seems there was some problem with Dr. Fran's mist, causing it to take Sister Haida as well? How... how do I explain this to the support colleagues who will arrive soon? And also..."
She looked bit by bit at Hoven on the ground.
His body had now collapsed and disintegrated. The mutated nerves that relied on pain for support were weakly contracting under the infusion of endless joy, like a plant about to wilt.
"Am I supposed to stay with this guy until support arrives? By the Hunter's God..."
...
"Ah! What is this... No!"
The "other half" of Hoven, who had been walking, suddenly extended both hands from under his red leather robe, tightly hugging his own head, screaming heart-wrenchingly.
This made several ascetic Deacons nearby show shocked and suspicious expressions.
The High Priest(ess) is a blessed one who received divine grace. No matter how inconceivable the pain, he would only welcome it and gladly endure it... But why was his face now full of fear?
"No, this is just a mental influence... just mental influence!"
Hoven trembled, exhaling a deep breath heavily, then reached out and stabbed into the chest of a nearby ascetic.
Pale nerves gushed out from the gaps in the bones, burrowed into this ascetic Deacon's body, emptied his internal organs and flesh within twenty-odd seconds, leaving only a bloody, intact skin behind.
"High Priest, what happened? Did the 'half' you sent to the Sated Club ruins encounter trouble?"
"Those White Cup deceivers! Her drug had absolutely no ability to reverse senses... She just step by step affected my mind through some relic!"
After devouring a whole person's flesh and blood, Hoven's condition visibly improved, but the intense joy faintly transmitted earlier still left him with lingering fear.
Never mind a "Suffer-Walker" who endures pain and torment day and night; even if you brought a dancer... she would probably become addicted to that previous blissful sensation.
"Next time, I must kill her before she exerts influence... No, if the [Drinker] descends today, all this will be meaningless... Error-Purgers, Chief Hunters, all will offer their lives here."
He reached into his skull, pulled out several brain-like nerves to make himself forget that addictive, fatal joy. Then, driving his somewhat weak and numb legs, he continued forward.
——
[Cross-World Quarterly House Call begins. You will be traveling to 'The Lands Between.' This house call is a two-person assignment. Your assistant is 'Burial Attendant' Haida Moira.]
[Treatment Target: The fear-ridden 'Tarnished' Yvonne.]
[Patient File: Yvonne is a reconstructed modern soul. Although she has never truly possessed experiences from the real world, she indeed understands what 'a player' represents. Precisely because of this, she has truly fallen into despair.]
[Symptoms: Personality Dissolution Syndrome (Severe Late Stage).]
[Warning: Do you really think you can cure her? Or rather, do you really think she has been cured? Fool!]
[Commencing consultation process.]
——
A sky veiled by gloomy clouds, colossal, broken high walls and towers standing between mountain ranges... and that one attached to the center of the world, whose branches and leaves touch the stars, the Erdtree.
Unfamiliar yet familiar.
This is the southernmost region of the Lands Between, "Limgrave."
"The last time I was here was to treat another patient. Who was it again? This memory is a bit unclear; I'll need to check my memo back at the clinic..."
Fran tapped her lips, looking somewhat puzzled. Her memory was quite good; she normally didn't forget things.
"And this time, I accidentally involved Sister Haida too..."
Fran looked apologetically at Haida, who was experiencing cross-world dizziness, her hands slightly clasped together, maintaining an awkward yet polite smile.
"This... where is this?"
Haida slowly stood up from the soft grass, rubbing her still slightly aching brow, then looked at Fran with a puzzled and sharp gaze.
"Dr. Fran, please explain the current situation to me."
"Dear Sister Haida, this is a house call accident, all due to my mistake... We are currently in what is conventionally called an 'otherworld.' Of course, this place has its own name. You can call it 'The Lands Between.'"
Fran came before Haida, her amber eyes clear and transparent, appearing sincere and well-behaved.
The current situation couldn't be bluffed through... Maybe trying to act cute to slip through would work?
"...I understand."
Haida was silent for about five minutes before fully accepting the current situation. A profound sense of unreality arose, but her reason told her this was logical.
After all, the magnificent giant tree reaching into the starry sky at the horizon diffused golden radiance that compelled kneeling. That was a divinity that could not be falsified...
If Outer Gods existed, then nameless otherworlds probably also existed... She just never expected to set foot on one herself one day.
Seeing Haida had regained composure, Fran extended an invitation to her.
"Although your presence here stems from my mistake... this consultation may require an experienced assistant. I wonder if Sister Haida would be willing to accept employment from the Fog Street Clinic in the capacity of 'Head Nurse'?"
+++
T/N: Hey readers~! New Translator here! Before I say anything, I'd first like to thank the original author for creating this wonderful story. Without them, I wouldn't have the chance to share this adventure with you. I hope my translation does justice to their work, and that together, we can enjoy this story.
With that said, I'm happy to let you know I'll be uploading daily chapters. And for those who wish to support my work and gain early access, I've set up a Patreon where advanced chapters will be available.
[email protected]/PeakTL