"It''s just a contraceptive."


    I stood there for some time as the implication of her words finally hit me. At first, I thought she was joking, but then I considered it further. There was no shortage of ves making out with each other here, but I haven''t even seen a single child.


    So what she said made sense. The ves had ess to contraceptives, perhaps the masters gave them, considering pregnancy would drop the rate at which the ves mine considerably. Not to mention, no ve would like to give birth to a kid in such terrible circumstances.


    I didn''t waste more time contemting that and joined Cameron on the back.


    "Cam," I asked him in a whisper. "So this ce isn''tpletely under the earthlings?"


    Cameron wasn''t too familiar with this ce to know that, though I think he got the same hints as me so far.


    "Earthlings?" the dark-skinned woman smiled in scorn, hearing me even though I whispered. "Earthlings have nothing here. As for the location? No one has it under their thumb for now. Well, most of us here were summoned. Did you just consider they summon only from earth?"


    That made me curious. So it seemed the huge giant man I saw earlier wasn''t a native of thisnd, buting from somewhere else. Some other than earth.


    "Hmm," I hummed, considering. "Has there been any other creatures than humans that got here through the summons?"


    "Probably. Now don''t waste time. We have arrived."


    We entered a stone room like any other, though it was a lot more spacious than most. There was only an elderly man and a woman in her mid-twenties there. So the doctor and his assistant. Or the doctor and her assistant. I think the chances were higher for the former, as there was no point keeping an old fellow as an assistant if he barely had any skill.


    And this old man, he seemed to have one leg in the grave for some time now.


    "Uncle Phillip, do you have energy left to treat another patient?" Number 197 asked as we came forward. She was clearly addressing the older man who seemed to be drained of all his lifespan and energy for today. While the other woman seemed more vibrant than most ves, I discovered here.


    "You came at a bad time, Imani," said the assistant.


    She was fairly skinned, though longer exposure to the heat hadn''t been any bit kinder to herpared with the other ves. She wasn''t tall like number 197—whose real name turned out to be Imani—and more on the delicate side, though not as pretty as Imani, either. Well, as much as living as a ve could leave her. Not much, but she did seem like the courtly type.


    Both the doctor and patient had ve cors on their necks, and it seemed like both of them understood English.


    "What happened?" Imani asked.


    "Uncle Phillips had to treat a few troublesome patients," the assistant woman said. "Most difficult had been the A''caen. It seemed he decided to have a go with the guards today. Imani, have you seen his wounds? Dear Lord, he was broken up and. . ."


    A look of worry shed in Imani''s eyes, though it was easily reced by tiredness.


    "A''caen?" I repeated. "That tall dude that thrashed four guards on his own? Was he one of the summons?"


    The assistant turned to gaze at me for the first time. She only inspected me with her eyes and left the others to answer for her. Imani shook her head after a while.


    "The A''caen is a man of his own. He can decide what to do by himself," Imani said atst. "I just wanted Uncle to look at something. There''s no need to disturb your vital energy, though."<novelnext></novelnext>


    ? "I guess I can see one more patient for the day," the elderly man, full of wrinkles, said, straightening on his seat. The assistant helped him sitfortably.


    Imani instructed me. "Show him your injured hand."


    I did as I was told. I unwrapped the ragged clothes off the injured palm. I couldn''t help but scan the thin spiral mark again. It wasn''t the first time I was seeing it for the day, and like the other time, I didn''t know if there was any change to it or not.


    "Uncle Phillip," Imani intoned,ing closer to the doctor and his patient. "Do you see the spiral mark?"


    She didn''t have to tell him. Doctor Phillip was watching it closely, his wrinkled face lit with interest. "How did it happen?"


    I answered, which was basically a rundown version of what happened after I got here, but none of that exined the mark in my palm. Well, the only suspicious part was about Ol'' Theodore feeding me potion and nothing else.


    "This is peculiar," Doctor Phillip said, using his other palm to clutch the sses that were hanging from his neck. He put it in his nose and squinted his eyes. The sses had one of its sses shattered, so the doctor had to make it with just one eye.


    "Is this one of those tattoos the guards have?" asked 197 for the first time.


    "I can''t be sure even if you leave me with one of those tattoos topare," Doctor Phillip answered without considering. "That''s howplicated those fate marks were."


    "Fate mark?" I repeated, but nobody seemed to be in any mood to answer my question. Cameron looked as lost as me.


    "Hmm," Doctor Phillip hummed in alert, drawing his palm away from mine suddenly.


    I blinked. What was that about?


    "Did you notice something, Doc?" I asked, easing my tone.


    "Weird," the elderly man said, turning towards Imani, even though I asked the question.


    Man, I had no respect in this ce. Even the other ves didn''t regard me with anything.


    "I drew a little vital energy to see if there would be any reaction."


    "And there was a reaction," Imani said, putting two and two together easily.


    "Yes, but not something I anticipated." The doctor swallowed his breath and clutched a water jar from the sides. He started to drink it slowly, leaving us with high anticipation.


    "Uncle, are you alright?"


    "The mark," the doctor said atst, relieving his sore throat, "it swallowed my vital energy."