[Placebo]. A skill she hated needing because it meant she had to rely on something other than her medical knowledge. Oh, it was useful of course, no doubt about that. Olivia had been putting every skill point she could into it. But… if only it was just the lack of skill.

Finally calming herself, she stood up, took support from a wall, walked a few steps forward, and then collapsed down into the shoddy bed in the room’s corner. The damned skill really did make her feel conflicted.

The comments the other [Doctors] had made to her really did sting. It had taken her a lot of convincing just to be allowed inside here at all, and they had even forced her to prove her skills by answering a deluge of medical questions.

She had only managed to answer half. The rest… it had just been things she had never learned. Never had the chance to learn because her education had been interrupted. But she had persisted, shown her diagnosis skill, and the others had relented.

What did they think of her now? Now that she had cured what was supposed to be way beyond her level or knowledge to cure?

Because it really was. Olivia rolled around on the bed, staring at the dark ceiling above. She didn’t really know how to cure a magical illness—of course she didn’t. But she had managed to convince patients waiting in that room that she could, and that was all that mattered for the skill. Not her genuine ability in medicine.

She had been honing her use of it ever since leaving Palogne. First smaller things, down in the mines. Helping her teammates manage in the darkness and heal minor ailments. And the more the pills had healed, the more effective they had become. Olivia winced, remembering the duel. Fayette even managed to stay off blood loss with the blasted pill.

But faith was such a fragile thing. Again, the same question came to her. If the others find out what I’m using… if Marie uses her [Appraise] skill on me… what will happen? Will I ever be able to help them again?

That was another reason she detested the skill. If it could fail so easily, could she really rely on it as much as she was? It couldn’t truly be relied on as a replacement for everything else.

But all that was only part of the reason she didn’t like the skill. The bigger part, the main part, was because of what it represented.

What her class represented.

What was a [Gutter Doctor] anyway? What did her Hypocritical Oath skill domain mean?

Olivia took out her flask and drank down a quick gulp of the liquor. It stung at her throat, just like her class always stung at her. She didn’t think the class’s name really fit. She knew what it should really be called.

It was why she hadn’t gained a capstone skill yet. And why she gained new skills the way she gained.

Maybe she did belong in the gutter because of it, but the name wasn’t half enough to encompass what it meant. Olivia drank down a second gulp of the liquor and then watched her reflection in the bottle. She saw tired, sunken eyes.

No, the better name for the class would have been [Oathbreaker Doctor], because that was what she was. That was how she gained new skills. Once, not even so long ago really, she had sworn so many oaths. Because she had felt it was right.

And then she had begun breaking them.

Once, she had sworn to never withhold a patient treatment on demand of recompense. Then she had told a [Lord] she would only help heal him if he agreed to her terms. She had leveled, and gained her [Medical Contract] skill.

It had felt so right at the time of course, so easy, but that didn’t matter for oaths. Blackmailing the [Lord] had been the obvious, right thing to do, but her class had cared not. It had branded her an oathbreaker yet again, and as always, rewarded her.

Once, she had sworn to never lie to a patient. To never mislead them about their illness, even for the sake of hope or peace of mind. It had felt right to her. She never liked the false peace some gave, preferring the grim truth. Then, after Palogne, she had gained her [Placebo] skill—a thing built on those lies.

She almost threw the bottle in her hand right at the wall. Because that one irked her the most of her skills—she didn’t even know what lie she had told. She got up, sitting at the bedside, once more racking her brain. What did I do in Palogne? What lie did I tell? I never misled anyone, at least not that I remember. I… I didn’t lie. I really don’t think I did.

But her class had judged her, and so it had to be true. But still, she didn’t know. It was the worst part. The lack of clarity.

Oh yes, Olivia knew why she did not have a capstone skill. All those broken oaths, but none were enough yet for the class. Not grand enough, or sinful enough. What would it take? How far would she have to truly fall?

Even the first one had not been enough, the one that had started it all. Her strongest skill too perhaps, her [Transfer Condition]. The oath that had given her the class in the first place—the one that was the root and cause of all. Because… after breaking one oath, the rest became so much easier, right?

That day was as clear in her mind as if it had all happened just yesterday. Olivia watched her reflection in the bottle, sitting in a room lit by grey light, and remembered.

—

Olivia had spent her childhood on the other side of the channel which divided the monarchy, in a small village by the river Themms. She had been a sickly child, always ailing from one illness or another, and her family had been poor. Slowly but surely, her condition got worse and worse, as her family couldn’t afford the treatment she needed. They had feared the worst.

Until the [Doctor] came. For her, there only ever would be one the [Doctor]. Sure, others shared his class, but that man would forever be the only one she would think of as the embodiment of the class itself.

She remembered his kindly smile and playful eyes best. The rest of him was old, but that didn’t really fit, so she remembered the eyes and smile. That man had arrived in their village, seen the 8-year-old girl’s condition, and offered to treat her.

For free.

When her parents had asked for payment, the man had just laughed, a twinkle in his eye. “What kind of [Doctor] would I be if I were to leave a poor girl like these here?” He had said, patting the young Olivia on the head.

But he hadn’t found a solution. Not immediately at least. As Olivia had returned from his impromptu clinic to her parents, still coughing and skin pale, they had cried and hugged her. But then, the next day, the [Doctor] came back. His smile had been reassuring.

“What kind of [Doctor] gives up after only one attempt?”

So Olivia had gone with him that day too. And the next, and the one after that, and for the whole week the man had stayed in the village.

Then he left the village, with great apologies to Olivia’s parents, because he could not stay. He had duties and other patients to tend to. But, as he left the village, boarded his carriage, and began making his way back to the big city—

Olivia followed along.

—

For an eight-year-old girl, leaving her parents behind to live in a big, smelly, and scary city had been terrible. She had cried so much. But then the [Doctor] had given her a sweet bit of candy to suck on, and patted her on the head.

Still, even with the sweet snack in her mouth, Olivia had been doubtful. While the wagon shook and creaked on the winding road, she had looked up at the [Doctor] and asked a question with the honesty of a child. “Is there really a cure for me, mister [Doctor]? Can it be found in the big city?”

He had looked at her seriously and answered honestly because that man had never lied. “I do not know, little Olivia. Not yet. But that is what science and medicine are all about. You work away at mysteries, finding new things and disproving old things. Then you teach what you learn to others, and they continue on. Year by year, progress happens. Eventually, everything will be known. Do you understand?”

And Olivia had nodded her heads because she really had. Her eyes had sparkled at those words. That had been the day she understood the first bit of being a [Doctor]. Perhaps that had been the day she had decided she wanted to become one too. Knowledge—she hadn’t really thought of learning and school before, but now, suddenly… she found she hungered for it.

“I understand, mister.”

“That is good, but just one thing. My name is not mister, or [Doctor]. Please. Call me Thomas.”

—

It took Tomas two years to find a cure for the young girl’s ailment. Many measurements, many tinctures and herbs, many skills from colleagues with different types of [Doctor] classes… but he did manage it.

Olivia had never doubted him one bit. As she had drank that final tincture, hands shaking with nerves, she had looked up at the [Doctor’s] smiling face and felt… fear. Not at the tincture not working—no. She had feared that it would work. And that she would have to leave.

Because living with Thomas was just so much more interesting than her old life back in the village. No more practicing needlework to be a good housewife, no more helping in the fields for long days. Here, there were always new things to learn. New books to read. Maybe, just maybe… even new classes to get.

But then the tincture had worked, and her pale complexion had slowly grown better, and her underdeveloped body had started growing as it was supposed to. She had spotted just a few tears in Thomas’s eyes that day when he had thought that she wasn’t looking.

So, two weeks later, once timetables permitted—Thomas had taken her back to her parents. They had looked different than Olivia had remembered. She had clung to the [Doctor’s] long coat, not willing to let go—but the man had pried her off and walked away, still with that reassuring smile on her face.

Olivia had looked at her parents then and found that their smiles were tense. Weary. She hugged her mother and got back to needlework the next day.

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A year later, she ran away. Stowing away on a carriage and nibbling at the scant bread she had taken along, Olivia managed to make her way to the city and went right back to the [Doctor’s] house, knocking at the door furiously at the break of dawn. It took Thomas a few minutes to answer, and Olivia had felt some pangs of fear that he would be gone.

But then he had opened the door, protective gloves and mask on his face, evidently having just finished some procedure for the haggard beggar who was waiting in the backroom. He had smiled at Olivia, and this time… Olivia had smiled right back. Her eyes had a fire in them.

“I want to learn and become a [Doctor] too.”

—

Of course, there had been negotiations first. Tense negotiations back at the village with her parents and many hours of them scolding her for running away recklessly. But Olivia did eventually begin her studies back in the city, working alongside Thomas the [Oathbound Doctor], and only then did she truly find out how amazing her master was.

And how vile other [Doctors] were.

She had never really thought about it—used to her village as she was, but Thomas’s clinic wasn’t a grand place. It was in the poorer part of town, a humble one-story building with four rooms in it. She met [Doctors] much below her master in level who lived much grander.

But they would only help if someone had money to pay. They didn’t stop by beggars in the street to make sure they were alright, and they sneered at Thomas when he wasn’t looking their way, but Olivia saw it. And so she asked.

“Master, why don’t you put those others in their place? They’re not half as good as you are!”

Thomas had smiled at her, in a way her father never had. “What good would it do? But think, young Olivia. The man we just spoke with, [Doctor] Kreli—he is ten years my senior in age, but ten years my junior in level. Do you think that is a coincidence? Let him talk, we have better things to do.”

And so, Olivia had begun to admire him more and more. For all the oaths he kept, and all the people he healed. Thomas never demanded payment, but many still paid what they could. He never turned away from a patient.

He had sworn all that. And so, eventually, Olivia swore it too, because she wanted to be just like him one day. The path to the future was clear. Sure, Thomas wasn’t the most affluent, but he did have connections—and friends. Once she came of age and reached the appropriate level, he would sponsor her enrolment in the academy and arrange matters, so she could become a proper [Doctor].

Time passed, Olivia gained her class and chose [Healer] for herself, and continued learning. Every day, her conviction grew.

Until the magical plague arrived, and the city was thrown into chaos.

—

She remembered that fateful argument like it was yesterday. Because it was one of the few times she remembered Thomas not smiling. His eyes and mouth, again, were the only things she really remembered.

“You can’t be serious, all the others are leaving! The [Royal Doctor] will be arriving in a week they said!”

The man didn’t respond to Olivia’s words, just kept peeking out from behind the window’s curtain, carefully surveying the street. Monitoring the situation.

Because a plague had come, and he had said it would be getting worse. Right now it was mostly a bad flu, something that had started among the local factory workers. But a few people suddenly died from the illness changing into something worse.

Then, the dead had not stayed dead.

And now people were trying to leave, rushing through quiet streets, eyes wary and jittering. But Thomas wasn’t leaving. He closed the curtain, then looked back at Olivia, just a bit sad. “I can’t leave—I’m sworn to help. And maybe, just maybe…”

“You think you can cure it?” Olivia asked, eyes wide.

He didn’t nod. But he did smile. “As I said—maybe. I haven’t tried yet. Besides, remember your own case? How many tries did it take to get you healthy?”

Olivia took in air sharply, then hissed at the obstinate man. “That wasn’t an infectious monsterification disease!”

His eyes stayed steely. “That only makes me staying more important. Lives are at stake. And besides—” he looked out the window again, crouching low. Thomas lowered his voice “—leaving might not be so easy.”

There were sounds of magic explosions in the distance, and then rushing footsteps outside the window. Olivia gulped. The Quarantine has started.

But she calmed her thundering heart, and crossed her arms, giving the man a triumphant look. “Then I’m not leaving either! You’ll need help here right?”

His eyes snapped back to her. “No. It’s too dangerous.” Thomas said, voice firm.

“You just said leaving won’t be easy!” Olivia pointed out.

Thomas gritted his teeth. “I can get one person out, I know people. But you’re not staying.”

Olivia backed off, ready to bolt. “No. I refuse.”

“Don’t make this difficult.”

“You’re the one making it difficult!”

Thomas’s expression shifted then, and Olivia saw him pained for the first time. Because a [Doctor’s] duty and a father’s had conflicts. His dark eyes looked at the young girl standing before him, full of defiance. And then he deflated, looking away. “We’ll… see.”

Olivia did not see his expression but thought she had won the argument. They went on with the day, the [Doctor] making preparations with his protective gear and equipment, and Olivia poring over countless books on prior magical plagues. Details were scarce. The last one had been decades ago.

And so she went to sleep, in the room that had become her own, where the window had already been boarded shut for safety’s sake.

When she woke up the next morning, the door wouldn’t open. She banged on it, and soon the [Doctor] woke up to explain. It was simply too risky, much too risky for her to come close to anybody diseased. He would bring her meals and ward off the doors. But he would not risk her to the disease.

Olivia faced house arrest. She just had to wait, and things would be resolved without her.

“This is… absurd! You can’t do this!”

“I can, and I am sworn to. It’s too risky!”

Of course, she had considered breaking out through the window… for a moment. Then she heard the noises from outside. Sounds of things getting worse, and after peeking through the boards just a bit—she had seen the changes. People were no longer rushing about, now they were huddling indoors, barricading themselves off to wait things out.

And if she were to make any sudden noises… Olivia saw something human-shaped running at the edge of her vision, on four legs. But when she snapped her eyes there, it was gone. She stumbled back from the window, fell back on her messy bed, and then just—stopped.

Does this really make sense? Why is he doing it like this? She had asked, pondering in the bed. It still felt too dangerous in a way. Surely he could have just forced her out, or done something to make her go away? Why go on with the house arrest ploy?

Then she had sat up, eyes wide with realization. Maybe he can’t! Because of his oaths!

After all, her master wasn’t an ordinary healer class, but an [Oathbound Doctor]. Olivia had looked at the door, wondering. What options does he have? If I do break out or do something rash…

Would that impact his oaths? Startled, she realized that she could never risk something like that. Sighing, Olivia had laid back in her bed to wait, mindlessly flipping through her textbooks every now and then. And she listened.

Despite what was happening outdoors, the [Doctor] still managed to get supplies in and out through some contacts of his, and even brought in some patients. Olivia heard them pleading with the man for aid, and she also heard how Thomas reassured them he would try his best.

A few days passed, and gradually the talk quieted. When Thomas next brought her meal, clad in a thick protective coat and a mask over his mouth and nose, he opened the door for a brief moment to pass the meal through. Olivia caught darkness in his eyes. The patients who had come hadn’t made it. Not exchanging words that day, the door had closed.

And more patients came on the morrow.

—

Olivia wasn’t quite sure how much time passed like that, the [Doctor] working at his patients while she was locked down for her own sake, but life went on. She chatted with him through the door every morning and evening and briefly saw his face when he gave meals.

She didn’t try to make a run for it or anything—she was resigned. What would be the point? She had been only a level 8 [Healer] anyway. There was no way she could really help. So she waited and listened.

Until one day, with one patient, the [Doctor] had sounded ragged in their evening talk. His voice hadn’t come as clear as it used to. He did not speak as much as he usually did. In the brief opening of the door, he had been wearing a coat double as thick as the prior day, and his face was covered wholly by a mask.

The next day, he did not arrive to bring her food in the morning. Olivia waited, pacing in her room, listening. She heard muffled sounds, maybe yells, but not the voice she was waiting for. She didn’t hesitate long.

Olivia broke down her door. It took her a while, the thing was made of sturdy wood, but with a sharp blade in hand, she pried nails out one by one, pulled the boards off with frantic energy, then squeezed out of the gap she had formed.

Scrambling, she rushed through the eerie house, noting how things in the main hall and entrance area seemed fine—but she didn’t see Thomas. So she went to the place where the sound was coming from, the only place where he could be. The treatment room.

Feeling a growing dread, Olivia walked toward the room, until she almost jumped at the door, then pulled it open. Her eyes widened.

Two men, two faces that would forever be burned in her mind. The room had used to only have one central chair for a patient to sit in and a bed by the far edge for rest, but things had been rearranged. The bed had been taken out, and two heavily-built wooden chairs were laid at the back, on opposite sides of the room, so those seated could stare each other in the eye.

And, gulping, Olivia’s eyes went to the rightmost chair. The one where no noise was coming from. Thomas, chained to the chair with an iron manacle, just like a patient of the disease should be handled. Had to have done it himself, Olivia’s analytical side said. But her [Basic Diagnosis] had a clear verdict.

Not alive. But not undead either. His face was marred with pale blotches like running footsteps as if the disease had been forced to race to claim him. But the [Doctor] had been faster, and as the empty vial by his feet proved—managed to keep himself from whatever the disease had planned.

But his face, lifeless and pale thought it was, was still smiling. But it was a farce, a grim facsimile engineered by death. And the culprit…

Olivia’s eyes finally went to the other side of the room, to the other chair, to the man seated there. The living man. She finally registered the words he was shouting.

“—have to let me go from here, that fool didn’t—”

He was trashing against the chair, clutching at the chains shackling him to it. Olivia didn’t really parse the meaning of his words. She had just stared, at a healthy man—but one who still bore markings of being recently ill. [Basic Diagnosis] revealed his condition. Recovering.

The young girl breathed in and felt an anger build. Because the man’s red face seemed angry if anything, not grateful. The [Doctor] had managed to save him, getting infected himself in the process. But for what?

Thomas had been such a great man. But the man who had been his death… Olivia had felt fury then—because that one had seemed so lesser in comparison. Not worthwhile at all.

—

Back in the present, Olivia looked long at the bottle in her hand. Those were the two faces she remembered. The [Doctor], lifeless, and the patient, living. It was that moment that stung her with regret and had set her on this path.

Because Olivia had never freed him. She hadn’t been able to take one step further into the room. The young woman had just stood in that doorway, feeling a burning anger and horror, then turned away. Ran away.

She didn’t remember much after that. A long week sneaking in a city of shadows and death, and the sudden recovery by the men dressed in red and return to normalcy after. But she had never gone back, never could go back.

And only later had she begun to remember that moment, and began to wonder. What had happened to that man in the chair? Had she doomed him to a steady death of dehydration—or something worse? Had somebody arrived to save him?

She didn’t know. But that had been her first sin. Once, speaking with the [Doctor], the real one, she had sworn with him to never turn away from a patient in need. And yet—in that moment, she had just walked away.

Years later, when she had finally reached level 15 after grueling effort, she had only had one real [Doctor] class available, as if it had been waiting for her from that moment, with a skill to mark her oath.

Had that man lived? Did it matter? Probably not anymore, the past was past, and Olivia once more felt the bottle calling to her. But this time, as she watched the bottle in her hands, she looked at herself.

What did her own face look like? Not like Thomas’s had, surely. She wasn’t so bright, so dazzling of a person. But still, as she traced the lines of her own face on the bottle, there was something similar there.

A smile.

That shocked her for a moment. Am I really smiling now of all times? It’s really not… But then she looked again and saw it was a different smile. Not quite warm and comforting like that great man’s own had been, but there was that one final bit that completed the smile. The key bit that Olivia had inherited.

Audaciousness. Yes, that was what her own smile, darker thought it was, shared with that man. He had dared live an audacious life, mocking all other [Doctors]. And Olivia had only gone further.

Chuckling, she put the bottle away. She didn’t drink from it, because… she had better things to do. Olivia stood up, some more resolve in her eyes.

Sure, she didn’t have her level 20 capstone quite yet, and she feared what she would have to do to get one. Olivia had never sworn an oath to not kill, but there were so, so many others to break.

But she had something else now too. More than just broken oaths. Olivia reached into her pocket and took out one of her pills. She looked it over, marveling at how dark and foreboding she had managed to make it.

She had a cure.

Olivia snapped her hand closed and started striding for the door, to make her way back to the main hall. Enough moping around, there’s work to do.

So, what if it’s not the knowledge I seek? A cure is a cure.

Could she really pretend her way to curing a magical plague? Olivia smiled because she wanted to find out too.