Passerby -- Jorgen's case file

Zirabi Copperbolt raised the surgical saw and took one last look at the patient, who had a towel clenched in his teeth and both hands tied to the bedpost.

"Are you really not going to change your mind? I'm about to start," she said. "I mean it, are you really not changing your mind?"

The patient nodded. Sweat dripped onto the towel.

"Alright then." Zirabi put on her goggles. At that moment, the patient's eyes widened as if he was desperate to say something, but it was too late. The saw descended toward his severely infected leg.

When performing amputations, Zirabi never used anesthetics. Genuine anesthetics were too expensive, and her patients couldn't afford them. Besides, most of them were outlaws with an excessive sense of nobility, viewing themselves as constantly on the battlefield, believing that enduring severe pain was a testament to their courage. Nevertheless, it didn't stop them from passing out midway through surgery.

After the operation, Zirabi removed her goggles and earplugs—sometimes the patient's screams could throw off her aim. She left the clean-up to a nurse and walked out of the operating room into another room. A red-gold-haired bandit was sitting on the bed.

"I knew that guy was yelling too loudly and would wake you up," Zirabi said.

Bossia looked at the female gnome and pointed to her right cheek. "You still have blood there," she said.

Zirabi wiped her face with the back of her hand, then walked over to the bed and said, "I'm going to tell you how you got here, Sharll. Though you might not like it. Someone you really dislike carried you here. Want to guess who? Here's a hint—he's still a kid and shorter than you. Another hint… oh, looks like you already know."

"Is he still here?"

"Outside eating."

"My sword?"

"On that chair over there… wait, Sharll, where are you going?"

Bossia flipped out of bed, grabbed her sword, and headed for the door. She had actually been awake for an hour, and after eating the food Zirabi had left at the bedside, she was sure she had the strength to do this. She walked down the corridor of the small clinic and out into the street. Zirabi had been hurrying after her, but halfway there, a frantic nurse pulled her into the amputation patient's room.

Bossia saw Khalif squatting by the roadside, tearing off a small piece of bread from what he held in his left hand and feeding it to a stray dog. When he sensed someone approaching from behind, Khalif quickly turned, but it was too late to run; her sword was already coming down on his head. Khalif raised his hands, shielding his head like a child trying to block a teacher's cane, but he still held the bread as if it could serve as a shield.

"Don't kill me," he said.

Bossia still struck his head—with the scabbard. She hit his arm twice more but then felt exhausted. However, more than physical fatigue, she lacked the motivation. Why was she punishing him? For snitching? In the real world of banditry, snitching meant death, and all she was doing was lightly tapping his head with a sheathed sword. She wasn't even hitting him hard. Was she punishing him for herself or for some so-called comrades? They were just a group of reckless people thrown together, unable to remember each other's names. With this thought, Bossia felt like her actions were no different from a frustrated little girl beating her pillow and stopped.

After a few seconds, Khalif lowered his hands and looked at Bossia. It was clear he was still afraid of being hit again, as he was always afraid—ever since she first met this young man, Bossia had noticed that his eyes always seemed to be filled with some form of fear. But beneath that simple, varying degree of fear, there seemed to be an impulsive element balancing it. Otherwise, how could his snitching be explained? He was like a small piece of wood with a faint flame, seemingly weak enough to be extinguished with a finger, but given enough time and opportunity, he could also set something else ablaze.

"Stand up," Bossia said. "I won't hit you anymore."

Khalif stood up, tugging at the wrinkles on his pants, then said, "I'm the one who brought you here."

"I know." Bossia vaguely sensed that Khalif wanted to hear her say "thank you," but she wasn't going to let him get his way.

"If you had kept sleeping there, you would've died. So, the debt for snitching is settled."

"Probably… fine, get out of here. Settled is settled."

"But there's one more thing," Khalif said. "There's something I still have to return to you. You'll need to come with me to get it back."

Bossia almost blurted out, "What are you talking about?" At that moment, she truly couldn't remember; that once extremely important object had become something so faint in her memory that even its absence didn't cause Bossia any distress.