Family Business 17: A Peaceful Confrontation

Family Business
Chapter 17: A Peaceful Confrontation

-VB-

I sat next to the hospital bed of one of the victims of Sylas’s escape. Burned from head to toe by some kind of magical fire, he wheezed painfully while his body trembled constantly.

This was not something mundane medicine, no matter how advanced, can cure within a reasonable amount of time. Normally, people would then talk about extending that expected period of healing, but did most people have the time and money to recover?

No.

This man was one such man. He wasn’t a noble, bigot, or even a soldier. He was just a janitor who’d been caught in the middle of a mage’s prison break, and burned for merely existing in the same vicinity.

“It’s okay,” I said as I held his hand, the only part of his body that hadn’t been burned. “We’re here to heal you. Just hang on for a bit more.”

The man wheezed. I doubted that he could hear me, though.

I turned to the robed and hooded healers bearing the insignia of the Jorasmang-Crownguard. One of them stepped forward and bowed to me. Then as I moved out of the way, he stood over the agonized man and his hands lit up in a soft yellow glow.

The nobles around us gasped in shock at the blunt use of magic in this city, but as they watched the man start to glow dimly and flesh began to appear and knit over his charred and burned body, their shock and horror changed into something dangerous.

Contemplation.

“This is nothing like magic I have heard of from Noxus or Ionia,” the head doctor of the only hospital in all of Great City of Demacia muttered. He turned to me. “What is this magic?”

I hummed. “I am not well-versed in this magic, but I do know the basics of it. My cadre of mages, kept under strict oversight, calls this form of magic healing ‘Rejuvenation of Soul.’ Essentially, the magic asks what the optimal form of this man is through the emotions, feelings, and experiences it has absorbed - and all of us have souls - and uses magic and detritus as fuel to bring the body as close as it can to that state of -”

“You dare bring magic to Demacia?!”

And of course, there are bigots who can’t seem to understand the level of political and social play happening here.

I could just lay it out for him, but he was neither a noble nor a politician. From his robes, I could see that he was not from any of the great houses either, and all those who carry the support of great houses and nobility had to carry the mark of the patron or matron. He looked rather plain - rather peasant - with his crow’s nest brown hair, wide brown eyes, narrowish square jaw too common in Demacia, and low cheekbones complete with a shortened face. He wasn’t anyone I was familiar with nor someone of prominence; I have many people, including spies posing as artists and artists posing as spies, who report to me on such people, and this person was not on any report.

That said, I wasn’t one for just kicking someone out of an event just because they said something once. If that was the case, then I would have already run Jorasmang City down to the ground and then below it when the inevitable royal interference happened from such inability to rule.

I glanced at the head doctor, and he nodded.

“I see someone who can’t bother to introduce themselves,” I replied easily while I gestured for the healers to spread out and heal the rest of the people in the ward. “I am Count Marris Jorasmang-Crownguard, the lord of the Jorasmang County, a vassal directly under the Crown of Demacia. Who are you?”

My introduction sapped the strength out of the man for a moment, and the way he froze told me that he clearly did not expect someone of my status to be here in this hospital and neither did more than half of the noble audience.

“I am waiting, sir.”

He gulped.

“I-I am Markus Renovilus, an accountant of … the herbalist guild.”

So …

A peasant.

Not even a rich peasant, because at least they held some importance, but a working-class peasant from a weak guild.

I nodded slowly. “I see. I see. And how did you even get in here?”

The head doctor seemed to be also interested in that, because his eyes narrowed and seemed rather upset if the vein bulging on his temple was any indication.

“I-I-I heard that t-there might be a healer-”

“And so when you see the healer, you berate him?”

“Y-Yes! Y-You and your w-workers are using m-magic!”

“And? Is the disdain for magic greater than the lives it could save?”

I didn’t use flowery words in such controversial topics. I needed to establish the “greater good” magic can be used for.

And in this case, the “greater good” was the Demacian state and people.

“If magic is allowed to be used outside of an emergency crisis like this one, then how many lives can it save?”

“How many lives will it kill?!” Oh, he got some stupidity back, didn’t he?

“This magic? It will not kill anyone who already can’t be affected by magic,” I snapped. “Perhaps other types of magic will, but so will swords, you idiot. You give a kitchen knife to an assassin and it will kill as surely as magic will in the hands of bigots and evil.”

My words seemed to cause a few to bristle.

“It is exactly to prevent magic from misuse that the state, the Great City of Demacia, must take charge in regulating magic!” I snapped louder. “Just as knights and warriors who have no oversight will pillage, rape, and loot when it suits their fancy, so to will magicians, because at the heart of it all is not magic or sword or ideology or nations, but people who misuse it all!”

A few of the nobles seemed enthralled by my words. How odd.

Others looked begrudgingly accepting of my words. Good.

And a very minority of my noble audiences… They looked angry.

That was alright with me. I can’t satisfy or convince everyone. Some of them were sure to defy against the coming change, but if you defy this necessary change, then I’ll be there to anonymously back your little rebellion just so I can turn around and crush it from both the shadows and from the light.

I’ll have that revolution however I have to bring it around.

You are welcome to become my sacrificial lamb.