Viscount Elwin was seeing these children for the first ti. He hadn’t been the one dealing with the orphanage—
What a joke, such nial tasks, a butler could handle it. Just have a drink with the orphanage director and the corresponding city hall officials, slip them a couple of gold coins, explain the reason, and they could borrow the kids for a day out.
...Yes, gold coins had to be given. These children, the youngest being around three or four and the oldest under ten, were already working: tearing apart rotten cloth and bad yarn so that they could be used as stuffing for ship hulls and so on. Missing a day’s work would indeed an a loss...
And what Garrett was waiting for was a group of children in tattered clothes, clearly malnourished, and even looking sowhat large-headed due to their frail bodies.
Viscount Elwin had specifically hired a string of carriages to bring these orphans. However, as soon as they got off, these children who had never ridden in carriages before were pale and unsteady, with about one in ten collapsing on the spot, even vomiting outright.
Viscount Elwin: ...I hired carriages to make a good impression on Mage Nordmark! It was to prevent you lot from scattering! Not for you to vomit at the hospital entrance!
Garrett, however, made no complaints. At his command, the barbarian security guards led, carried, and held the orphans, entering in a single file. First, it wasn’t for a physical examination but to take them into a large room and loudly order:
“Everyone off with your clothes! Ti for a bath first! Your clothes will be washed!—Let’s wash off all the fleas, lice, and bedbugs on you!”
This is a hospital! A hospital! The magical wards in the hospital could keep flies, rats, and various insects at bay, but they couldn’t stop what people carried on them!
If they didn’t clean up these little ones thoroughly, the entire hospital’s hygiene would be ruined!
The barbarian security and a team of matronly nurses each grabbed a child, scrubbing away.
The dirty clothes were thrown into a large barrel, doused with a bucket of soapy water, and then the skeleton nurses, without even rolling up their sleeves, jumped straight into the barrel:
“Three circles left, three right, twist the neck, wiggle the butt, early to bed and early to rise, let’s get moving!”
Lifting arms, stepping feet, turning bodies, swinging arms, stomping legs... the skeleton brand washing machine, working efficiently!
The skeletons took care of the laundry, while the barbarian security and nurses washed the children. Once cleaned, each child received a set of sweatshirt and shorts, and they were taken to the clinic. Healers with Garrett’s provided forms checked each one:
Age, sex, height, weight. Vision, hearing, sll. Checking for any skeletal abnormalities, listening to lung sounds for irregularities, checking the heart for abnormal murmurs...
Garrett himself was also busy in the clinic. He had waited less than ten minutes when a child with brown-black hair, soft and clinging to his forehead, was brought by a nurse to his front:
“What’s your na?” Garrett indicated for him to sit across on the stool, flipping open the first page of the dical form: “How old are you?”
“Bill, sir.” The boy shyly lowered his head, peeping out from under his bangs: “I’m Bill. Six years old.”
He didn’t look six. Garrett noted this down, guiding him to stand straight against the wall and quickly glanced at the marks on the wall: just over a ter. As for weight, the scale barely read 15 kilograms.
Height and weight both below standard. Vision and hearing seed fine, limbs and bones had no abnormalities, and the spine had no scoliosis. Pale complexion, clearly anemic without needing a blood test.
Obvious frostbite marks on his hands and feet, large areas of dermatitis likely due to poor living conditions. Swelling in the lower limbs, especially noticeable on the foot dorsum, thin torso, clearly a result of starvation.
Garrett sighed, placing the stethoscope in his ears. He hadn’t even touched the chest piece to the boy’s chest when a long growl emanated from the boy’s stomach.
“I… sir, I…”
The boy’s face flushed, fumbling. Garrett sighed, patting his head:
“No worries, there’ll be food soon. Co, sit properly, I’ll tell you when to breathe out and when to breathe in…”
No heart murmurs, breathing sounds also normal. But Garrett knew, this was just a delicate balance:
Malnutrition, frailty, severely lowering the child’s resistance. A bout of cold or an epidemic could easily claim their
young lives.
“Alright. Next!”
The boy was timidly led out by the nurse. Another child was brought in, and soon, he turned his head to listen to the bright cheers at the end of the hallway:
“There’s food! There’s food!—And there’s at!”
The child on the round stool began to squirm, stretching his neck to look outside, naturally moving away from the stethoscope. Garrett didn’t scold him, but instead turned his head too, sighing absentmindedly.
This one was also malnourished. Other than malnutrition, there weren’t major problems. Indeed, given these children’s living conditions, those with congenital diseases probably wouldn’t live past five or six.
He quickly completed the examination, the child needing no guidance, ran towards the door. Soon, another cheer rose from the hall at the end of the corridor:
“Give a bowl!—Give a bowl!”
Viscount Elwin quietly walked in. Silently, he sat in a corner of the clinic, watching Garrett fluidly examine the orphans. After a while, taking advantage of a brief interval between one child running out and the next not yet coming in, he asked in a low voice:
“Does this really help?”
These are just so orphans! Picked up from the orphanage in the morning, and they have to be sent back in the evening! Letting them have a full al here, even getting a piece of at, what does that change?
Such an experience, etched in their mories, would only make these orphans more miserable!
Garrett hesitated. Just about to respond, soone shouted from another clinic room:
“Mage Nordmark! Could you co over here?”
Garrett imdiately dashed out. Listening to heartbeats, checking breathing, then shaking his head:
“That’s normal. You placed the chest piece wrong, it should be a bit more to the left—”
After guiding, he returned to his clinic, finished with the next child, and then smiled at Viscount Elwin:
“Perhaps this won’t solve the problem. But this is the only thing our dical center can do for these kids.”
This round of physical exams, Oakwood Hospital prepared a physical exam al for each orphan. Each received two slices of buttered bread, a cup of milk, a piece of cheese, a bowl of at soup with a piece of at in it—
Giving them a mory of a full al, an experience of eating at, providing so nutrients, storing a little energy to fight diseases. Maybe, just maybe, one of these children could survive a disease because of this?
In his previous life, he had also aided Africa. Those children in impoverished areas, malnourished, tornted by diseases, maybe cured this ti, but who knows when they might die next—
But, does aid work matter? Of course, it does. Kindness and help converge into rivers, trickling streams, even if it changes a child’s destiny just a little, that’s still good.
Viscount Elwin also fell silent. After a while, he softly said:
“In my castle, I could probably employ five—hm, maybe ten orphans. After all, feeding them, as they grow up, they’ll also be citizens of my territory.”
Garrett nodded in agreent. Adopting, nurturing, and educating these orphans, even improving their conditions, required too much manpower and resources. Even if he could afford it, he lacked the personnel and energy to supervise their caregivers.
He and Viscount Elwin exchanged a few words, then continuously moved between various clinic rooms, guiding the healers in identifying heartbeats and breathing sounds:
Two children suspected of bronchitis were treated by a single healing spell, solving the problem;
One child suspected of a cold causing myocarditis, also resolved with a healing spell;
Another child sounded like he had abnormal heart sounds, but it turned out to be a bit of pigeon chest, causing a misplacent of the stethoscope position...
Garrett was busy all day, sweating profusely. Fortunately, this day wasn’t entirely unproductive, after a full day’s work, he finally took a seven or eight-year-old boy to Viscount Elwin:
“This child also has a congenital heart disease.—Different type and degree from your son, but the examination can be done in the sa way, and the treatnt can be similar.”
After examining two to three hundred children, only finding this one. Viscount Elwin was sowhat disappointed, but seeing Garrett bustling about, he had to accept this outco.
He gave a signal, and his butler imdiately dashed out, shortly bringing the orphanage director:
“This child has a very serious illness.” Viscount Elwin haughtily raised his head, nodding towards the boy:
“This priest here is now willing to treat him. This treatnt might be a bit dangerous, but it could cure him—does the orphanage agree to the treatnt?”
“Your Excellency the Viscount
, what are you talking about.” The orphanage director bowed slightly, his half-worn black suit nearly bursting at the buttons. Holding a velvet hat in one hand, he smiled broadly:
“It’s his honor that the esteed caster is willing to treat him—As for the danger, in life, what doesn’t involve risk?”
Garrett couldn’t stand it any longer. He took the boy a few steps away, squatted down, and looked him in the eyes:
“You have a very serious illness, your heart—here is sick. Do you understand?”
“No, no, sir.” The boy shrank back, pressing against the wall and sinking down further. Garrett, ignoring this, didn’t scold him for “dirtying the wall” or “dirtying his clothes,” and continued to inquire:
“I want to treat you now—this treatnt might be dangerous, might cost you your life, though the chance is very small. But I’ll be very careful to protect you—so, do you want to treat you?”
The boy fell silent. He lowered his head to ponder for a mont, touched his stomach—warm and full, he had just had a full al—then looked up with hopeful eyes:
“Sir, if I die, will I never feel hungry again?”
Garrett suddenly turned his head away, his nose tingling.
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