Stigma Effect

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Shudmuel looked at his mother, who frantically kept records.

She recorded the words of those she spoke to, the food and drink eaten, the number of people who entered the orphanage, and even hid and recorded the shape of the carriage entering the Temple, looking at the Temple entrance, and recording the length of time the carriage stayed in the Temple.

As if she believed something would harm her and her child, she documented everything every day in her journal.

Shudmuel didn’t even have to look at the studies. Just reading an introductory psychiatry book was enough for Shudmuel to determine that his mother was exhibiting paranoia.

Since she had a symptom listed in medical books, he was hopeful that there would be a treatment method. Shudmuel read medical books in anticipation.

Was there any way to cure her?

As he flipped through medical books, what caught his eye was hypnosis. It was a treatment that could be done without medicine.

[If attempted by unskilled people, side effects may occur.]

Below a brief note of caution was written how to attempt hypnosis.

He couldn’t make his mother’s condition worse….

Shudmuel, who was about to give up, looked at the children in the orphanage and his eyes lit up.

He would just practice on the children in the orphanage until he was proficient.

The orphanage’s inability to pay attention to each child has been acutely felt since the day his mother lost her mind.

Shudmuel took a child with wavy dark hair and practiced hypnosis several times. After a few days, the child began to get hypnotized.

The hypnotized child began writing graffiti-like texts and occasionally making strange noises.

This was a side effect.

Shudmuel thought as he looked at the child’s scribbles. It was strange to see a child who did not know how to write suddenly read and write.

The child suddenly seemed to have acquired a strange ability. The only recognizable character in the child’s writing was the word ‘monster’.

The child had terrible handwriting.

Having achieved the desired result, Shudmuel was no longer interested in the child. A few days later, he heard that a child who had lost his memory and turned violent had been expelled from the orphanage, but it was not his concern.

Not just one or two children were expelled from orphanages.

After the child disappeared, Shudmuel made several more attempts, but with no appreciable success. He had no results, but also no side effects.

He wanted to practice more, but he didn’t have time now.

The last month of pregnancy was fast approaching. If his mother did not regain her mind after giving birth, his mother would surely be kicked out of the orphanage.

He approached his mother and tried to hypnotize her with his inexperienced workmanship.

It was after that night that her symptoms of paranoia began to appear. The day she met the high priest. She started waking up with an anxious face after that.

The time she smiled happily and looked after Shudmuel was shortly after her pregnancy.

Perhaps it was because her mind was precarious that she was vainly caught up in Shudmuel’s hypnosis.

‘When you open your eyes, you will forget the memories of that day.’

Erase all the bad memories and put it back to the way it was.

Shudmuel got what he wanted.

Leaving only memories of her early pregnancy, she looked after Shudmuel with a gentle face as before. Although flustered by the loss of her memory a little, it wasn’t as strange as before.

The news that she had returned to her original state soon became known to everyone. And on the day of the childbirth, she smiled and said to Shudmuel that it will be fine, and she left the orphanage to give birth to the child.

‘I’ll come back with your younger sibling, Shudmuel.’

She didn’t come back

‘Shudmuel. I have something to tell you, so please come into my room.’

Those who returned with a dark expression called Shudmuel and told him about the terrible childbirth. The child did not come out, and neither did his mother ….

Shudmuel couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing. At one point, he came to his senses and only vaguely remembered that he was crying while holding his mother’s things.

His mother’s journal protruding from the luggage caught Shudmuel’s attention.

Shudmuel flipped through her records as if possessed.

Her biggest concern was that the high priest would take her out of the orphanage on the day of the childbirth. What the high priest wanted was a newborn child.

A child, a monster, and an experiment.

There was something written that Shudmuel did not fully understand. But one thing was clear to him.

His mother had no intention of leaving the orphanage to give birth. She knew she would be in danger if she left the orphanage.

It was Shudmuel’s fault that she left the orphanage.

Because she was hypnotized and her memories erased….

Shudmuel stared into the air while holding the records.

＊＊＊

“… Have you checked yet?”

Lost in thought, Shudmuel heard a voice full of hostility and moved his stiff body. The back of his hand, which was touching Yuriel’s cheek, was burning.

Yuriel’s heat seemed to have been transferred to the back of his hand.

How long had he been standing here like this, there was displeasure in Raphlet’s eyes.

As he removed the back of his hand, Raphlet brushed away the messy hair on Yuriel’s cheek and brushed her cheek.

Yuriel opened her eyes at the touch on her cheek. The out of focus eyes slowly rolled from side to side. Her eyes, which had been moving slowly as if to confirm where she was, stopped at Raphlet.

“Even if I don’t take medicine, I will get well soon, Lord Raphlet.”

Yuriel, who saw him, smiled innocently as if she had come to her senses, and muttered. Yuriel, who repeatedly recited that she did not need to take medicine, lost consciousness again.

Shudmuel didn’t pay any attention to her, but he just fully understood Yuriel’s intentions by her actions.

She wouldn’t take the medicine because of her unborn child. Commander Raphlet doesn’t listen to Yuriel at all, so he would have to give her a nutritional supplement instead of a fever reducer.

Shudmuel said while thinking about the nutrients needed in the early stages of pregnancy.

“She just needs to take a fever reducer. She is not feeling well, so I’ll go to Yuriel’s room for the next treatment. When she wakes up, give it to her….”

“During treatment, I will bring Yuriel to the infirmary. There is no need for Commander Shudmuel to come to the room.”

“It doesn’t matter, but I am not waiting in the infirmary. Please come to my office.”

Shudmuel answered in an uninterested voice.

As he nodded to Raphlet and stepped out around the partition, the medic, who had been glancing at where they were, quickly turned his head and pretended to be preoccupied with his work.

Shudmuel looked at the medical officer’s back and moved forward. The medical office was adjacent to the infirmary. When he opened the door to the completely locked medicine room, there were drugs filling the large room.

He approached a shelf with fever-reducer medicine, pulled them out, and recorded on a log that he took some.

All medicines in the medicine room were meticulously managed under his supervision. Since he took over this place, all the medicines going in and out of the medicine room were recorded.

Even with such thorough management, it was not uncommon for medicine to disappear from time to time. He knew there were people stealing medicines from the Temple.

It didn’t matter because he was deliberately neglecting drug management. A smirk popped out when he remembered that the high priest’s pupils, whom he occasionally encountered, had been greatly dilated under the influence of drugs.

This, too, will one day return to the high priest’s karma.

Shudmuel ignored the medicine boxes that did not match the quantity. Now was not the time to worry about this.

He put the fever reducer pills in his pocket and picked the ones that wouldn’t affect the fetus.

It’s a simple nutritional supplement, but it’s better than not eating it.

He checked the inventory of nutrients not long ago, so there was a lot of time left before the next check. If he fills in the empty pills before the check, no one would find anything out of the ordinary.

“Take one tablet now, and one in the morning tomorrow. I will prescribe the next drug after reviewing her condition.”

Shudmuel, who had wrapped the medicine so that the medical officer in the same location could not see it, handed the two small envelopes to Raphlet and said:

It’s not a fever reducer, so the fever won’t go away anytime soon.

Shudmuel frowned as he looked at Yuriel who was breathing heavily.

He could not comprehend her desire to protect her child so that she would endure this pain. What was with a child who she has not even seen the face of, why was it that she was trying to give birth to the child?

Raphlet, who received the medicine, got up holding Yuriel as if there was nothing to do anymore. Yuriel pressed her forehead to his neck as if she recognized her master even while she was asleep.

“Does the fever go away right away when she takes the medicine?”

Raphlet asked with a frown when he felt the heat on Yuriel’s forehead touching his neck. Raphlet had never been ill with a cold since coming to Albraca.

Judging from that reaction, it seems that it was the same when he was living in the Mogris Estate.

He, who had never been ill, wrinkled his brow and asked a question with concern.

“It depends on the condition, but not immediately. If the fever does not subside, cool herself moderately with a cold towel. If you can’t do it yourself, you can call a medical officer or a maid.”

“I understand.”

Rejecting Shudmuel’s request to send the medic, Raphlet said his farewells and turned away.

effe’s commentary (XD) : 

okay so was the child that was Shudmuel’s first test subject Baraha?! some of the conditions checks out; losing memories, not being able to write and suddenly can, writing about monsters? 

so then does that mean it wasn’t real prophetic ability? or was it that the hypnosis ‘woke’ his prophetic ability? 

so if it was really Baraha then all the commanders actually meet Baraha in their childhood somehow, and now they were all commanders together. is this too much of a coincidence?

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