CHAPTER 215: CHAPTER 187: OVERWHELMING VICTORY_4

She was actually able to rescue someone from the clutches of Death itself. Some even exaggeratedly compared her to those Priests of the Church who performed Divine Arts. However, they all tended to favor the doctor. They had only heard of a Priest’s Divine Arts, whereas the doctor had saved people right before their very eyes. At the same time, a Priest’s Divine Arts required Gold Coins, while the doctor had been brought in by the lord, who paid to save these commoners.

Lance stepped out onto the deck. More than a dozen surrendered Pirates were tied up, some of them wounded. The wooden planks touched by the corrosive Potion had turned to something like black charcoal, but fortunately, they hadn’t been breached. As for the pirate ship, its sails had been removed, and it was being towed along.

"Stuff all the captives into the hold and have them guarded, and throw all the bodies onto the pirate ship."

Having said that, Lance jumped onto the pirate ship, intending to conduct a search.

The space inside such a swift ship wasn’t large. After a sweep with Spiritual Vision, he found only a few dozen Gold Coins’ worth of treasure in the captain’s quarters. Such a small amount of money was indeed too little for a Pirate in charge of a ship.

Indeed, for a Pirate, any money acquired was meant to be spent immediately. Who knew if they would live to see the next sunrise? Naturally, they chose to live as comfortably as possible, one day at a time.

However, he did find some valuable items. Besides the swift ship itself—which, though old and dirty, was still serviceable after a clean-up—there was a navigation chart of the nearby waters, very useful for him to understand the surrounding maritime area. He also found a nautical logbook, apparently handwritten by the captain; one could hardly be a competent Pirate without literacy.

A quick flip through the logbook revealed it mostly contained records of events that had occurred on the ship. In fact, its primary function seemed to be as a ledger. It also included navigation plans and recorded bearings. This was vital information, unless one wished to get lost at sea.

Hearing a noise behind him, Lance turned to see the doctor approaching.

"Are the wounded taken care of?"

"The other three have only minor injuries that don’t even need stitches. A simple cleaning and application of medicine will suffice," the doctor replied, removing her mask. Then, she suddenly asked a very strange question, "Why did you say that earlier?"

Lance closed the logbook with a slight smile and explained, "Because they need confidence."

Even if she was a prodigy and had dissected many corpses, there was a vast difference between rigid, rotting flesh and a living human body, not to mention the various other factors involved. So, it was clear the surgery earlier had failed. That was why she hadn’t spoken when she met the family member’s gaze.

But why had Lance dared to let her proceed? Because he could easily heal such physical trauma. If she couldn’t manage it, he would directly intervene and snatch the patient back from Death’s grip. He planned to heal the lung condition internally but leave the external injuries for others to see. If he wanted to promote new medical practices, the public needed to understand them and have confidence. Otherwise, people with ossified thinking, bound by tradition, would find it very difficult to accept something new. It was already a testament to his standing that they hadn’t burned the doctor as a Witch. Lance wasn’t just considering one person’s life but the overall impact. Therefore, this surgery had to succeed, and it definitely would.

For the truth-seeking doctor, however, what Lance had done felt like academic fraud, forcing undeserved honor upon herself.

"I’m giving you those corpses to practice autopsies. Those captives are your experimental subjects. You can use them to test medicines, or even to conduct live dissections to study the human body. But you need to quickly develop a set of surgical procedures for me, because I’m going to start training medical staff," Lance said. He was, of course, aware of her unspoken objections. Some things can be smoothed over, he thought.

Sure enough, his words rendered the doctor silent. By rights, I should argue my case, she thought. But with so many experimental subjects at my disposal, many of my previous ideas now have a chance to be realized.

It was difficult for her to say much more in the face of this opportunity. She tacitly accepted. I just have to focus on my own work.

However, she suddenly realized that not all of them were corpses; some were still alive. How could he speak of them as if they were mere lab rats?

At this thought, the doctor frowned, noticing a stark difference between his current words and the demeanor he usually presented to others.

"Research ultimately comes at a price," Lance said, handing her the logbook. "Moreover, those fellows are only human in appearance. In reality, they are no longer truly human. To bestow mercy upon them would be an insult to mercy itself."

Puzzled, the doctor took the logbook. As she briefly perused it, reading the accounts of madness recorded in their own handwriting, she began to understand what these Pirates truly were.

"I understand now..." she murmured.