Black Iron's Glory

Claude didn’t put the matter of the Kefnie and her sister on his mind after he left the jetty, nor did he look at them too intently. Part of it was because he was shy to stare at them for too long. He recalled that Kefnie was a really pretty girl with a decent figure, and her sister seemed to be even prettier and sported a more impressive figure. She was also quite brave in that she called out his name even though she didn’t know him well.

Eriksson had told him that Kefnie’s sister, Kesline, was a barmaid at a tavern near the docks. It was no wonder she would check him out so openly just now. Kefnie herself was much more shy and would even blush while she was speaking with him. But soon enough, Claude put the two sisters at the back of his mind as he had arrived at the apothecary.

The coachman helped Claude into the building before leaving as he wanted to take a better look at the crocodile at the jetty. The herbalist ing there was an old man sporting a long goatee. He inspected Claude’s swelling left ankle and told Claude solemnly that the only way to treat it was bloodletting or it wouldn’t heal properly.

He had no better choice. Given that he was no more than an accomplished ‘player’ in his past life, he didn’t have any medical skills. Apart from some health seminars he occasionally saw on TV, he didn’t know much more. He came from the information age after all when anything he wanted to know could be accessed at his fingertips. Everyone was a keyboard expert and only searched for things on a need-based basis.

Bloodletting it is then. Claude had no choice but to agree. So, the herbalist handed him a wooden branch and instructed, “Bite it.”

Bite it for what? Claude soon understood why he was instructed to do so: the excruciating pain. Making an incision in his ankle was one thing, putting a wooden stick inside and moving it around was far worse. The old man intended to force the blood out with that way.

Claude paled completely as sweat gathered on his forehead. The wooden branch almost broke apart from his biting. He had asked the old man why he didn’t use anesthetic, to which the reply was anesthetic was poisonous and would leave side effects such as drooling or impaired speech. That was because anesthetic of that age was collected from venomous snakes and the dosage was hard to control.

However, there was a safer method to make him unconscious. The old man took out a large wooden stick and waved it towards the back of Claude’s head. He instantly understood what it meant and instantly said no to it.

As a result, he bit down on two wooden branches in total and laid weakly on the bed like a girl who had been ravaged by 18 burly men. Apart from the pain he couldn’t find words to describe, the herbalist’s techniques were quite good. After letting out the blood and realigning the bone properly, he applied some healing potion to Claude’s wound and covered the whole ankle with a greenish paste. It was said that the paste could accelerate the recovery of joints and bones.

In the end, the old man wrapped up Claude’s ankle with lots of plaster, almost covering half of his entire lower leg. Claude had hurt his ankle joint, so he wouldn’t be able to move as he pleased during the recovery. The caste would prevent any movement. He had to visit the herbalist three days later for another check and might have to do bloodletting once more to ensure optimal recovery.

By the time Claude got back home, it was rather late. He was carried back to his house in a very embarrassing princess-carry pose by the burly coachman, much to the shock of others. Had it not been for Claude insisting that only his ankle was hurt, his mother would’ve cried out loud. She was under the impression that he had his whole left leg bitten off by the crocodile and would become a cripple for life.

Claude had no choice but to describe the treatment of his left ankle and he insisted that the reason he felt feeble was because of all the blood let out. That finally calmed his mother down and spurred her to make something to restore him.

Morssen didn’t say anything and only continued to smoke. He had also seen the carcass of the niros crocodile during the evening at the Altronis’ private jetty. As the others kept praising him for having such a brave son, he was contemplating whether buying him that gun was the correct choice. If Claude didn’t have that gun, he wouldn’t have gone water bird hunting and wouldn’t have encountered the niros crocodile.

At the end of the day, he was a father who loved his children and he didn’t want Claude to be in that kind of danger. He had thought that it he were in his son’s shoes, apart from panicking from seeing such a terrifyingly huge crocodile, he wouldn’t even have the courage to run, let alone shoot at it.

Even though Borkal and Eriksson exaggerated their acts of courage during the fight with the crocodile, they didn’t dare to change the crucial detail that Claude and Welikro were the ones who contributed the most in the fight. Naturally, they didn’t go into too much detail in those parts, simply saying that Welikro attracted the crocodile’s attention by nudging it with the punt pole, allowing Claude to get a clean shot from close range and kill it in one shot. The showed off the bullet hole in the crocodile’s right eye by lifting up its head.

Morssen didn’t know where Claude found that courage to fire at the crocodile from so close. Even though it was nothing more than a carcass, even he felt a sense of fear standing next to it.

I’m starting to understand my son less and less and don’t know how to educate him anymore, thought Morssen dejectedly. Arbeit is my eldest son and an academic stream student. Even though he’s physically weak, he has good grades. I set him up for the path of a bureaucrat and rely on my personal experiences to guide him. But Claude is going to join the military… Even though my plans for him seem fine, is it really the best fit for him? He seems to be even better than his elder brother…

So, Morssen didn’t rebuke Claude for getting injured. Being able to take down a niros crocodile while suffering nothing more than a simple ankle sprain was nothing short of a miracle. However, morssen still steeled himself and gave Claude a lecture, saying that he shouldn’t have gone to hunt birds near Swamp Kemda. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have encountered such trouble. Even though they managed to become crocodile-hunting heroes this time around, that didn’t mean they would come to have the same luck the next time. So, for the time being, Claude was to stay home to study and recover instead of messing around outdoors.

Claude nodded obediently and agreed, humbly accepting the lesson his father taught him. At that moment, his mother brought him a bowl of duck soup, some grilled steak and a piece of toast. He was so hungry that he couldn’t help but wolf the food down.

When Claude finished, his mother asked him why Welikro brought over so many whitescale fish even though they didn’t have any livestock at home.

Even though they caught more than a hundred fish this time around, more than 30 of them were whitescales, the common palm-sized fish found in the lake. Though they wanted to throw them back to the lake, Claude said that he wanted them and they brought it back in the livewell.

“They sent those things here already? What else was there?” asked Claude.

“Some beef, mutton, three longtail swordfish and one duck. The rest is nothing but whitescales.”

Looks like Borkal sold all the fish apart from the whitescales. The meat are from the leftover ingredients which I bought, so no surprise they’d give them back to me.

“I told them I wanted the whitescales,” Claude said, “They taste great when fried. The bones will turn crispy after frying and we won’t have to worry about being pricked by them. The scales don’t have to be removed either. Only their organs have to be removed and they can be breaded and fried until they’re golden brown.”

His mother didn’t say anything else, knowing that anything Claude suggested would taste great. So, she got Angelina to help with preparing the whitescales and soon, a distinctive fragrance could be smelled coming from the kitchen. Unlike the other households that were really tight on using oil, Claude often used half a wok of oil to make fries for his siblings as snacks. He had wanted to make youtiao, a kind of Chinese fried dough snack, for them but failed when they formed with an odd shape. Regardless, his siblings finished them all anyway. Claude was reprimanded for wasting oil by his mother after that.

Morssen continued smoking as he asked about the details during the encounter with the crocodile. Claude’s account of the event was far plainer than Borkal and Eriksson’s. He only briefly went through what happened, but Morssen could still tell the danger he must’ve gone through.

It wasn’t that Claude and the others didn’t want to escape back then. Their boat was trapped in the wetlands and couldn’t speed away. They had no choice but to watch as the crocodile approached and engage in a death battle with it. Fortunately, the crocodile was stuck inside the hole it made in the boat, giving Claude the opportunity to make the fatal shot.

Thinking back at the damaged boat he saw at the jetty, Morssen couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of almost losing his son.

He put down his pipe and made a decision. He told Claude strictly that he wasn’t to join his friends in adventures to areas so dangerous any longer. He could go hunt animals in the outskirts of town, but Swamp Kemda and Egret was off limits. After all, he always encountered dangers in such places and worried his family because of it.

Claude could only nod and agree. At the very least, he wouldn’t be able to leave anyway comma before the injury on his leg recovered.

His mother brought over a plate of fried whitescale fishes, eating one in her own mouth. his siblings also enjoyed it greatly comma with their faces full of oil.

“Anything Brother makes is delicious,” said Bloweyk. The little snowhound was tugging at his shirt, wanting to try some of the fish as well. But the boy held the fish up high and didn’t let the dog eat it, causing it to whimper anxiously.

Madam Ferd knocked Bloweyk on the head with dissatisfaction. “I was the one who fried the fish. All your brother did was suggest it.”

Angelina split the fish in her hand into two and gave the head part to the snowhound. The pup finally let go of Bloweyk.

Morssen ate one of them and said, “There’s too much oil, but it still tastes decent.”

Claude only ate two before he bid his family farewell and prepared to return to his attic.

Morssen asked, “Do you need help?”

Claude shook his head. “No, I can go up alone.”

After that, he took one step after another with his right hand while he held onto the railing as the others watched.

He washed up simply in the washroom on the first floor before skipping up the attic on one leg before lying on his bed with relief. He had wanted to do some Hexagram Meditation, but the pain coming from his ankle stopped him from gathering his focus. Before long, he drifted into sleep.

The next day, he skipped down the stairs like before. But Morssen said during breakfast that he would send Claude to school. He drove one carriage home from the town hall and also prepared a walking stick for him.

Claude was rather disappointed. He had wanted to use his injury as an excuse for rest at home and didn’t think his father would be so well prepared for it. Even so, this was an act of a father who loved his child, so he held back his tears and thanked him.

Morssen said sternly, “Your studies can’t stop, especially your academic classes in the morning. That is something you need to become a cultured and refined person in the future. As for your afternoon physical classes, you may ask for an early leave since you won’t be able to participate in your current state anyway.”

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