Chapter 19: The Leech

The half-elf Kelandir was the most renowned physician in Derin Town, with considerable expertise in alchemy and pharmacology as well. Adventurers from distant lands often came specifically to consult Mr. Kelandir—either seeking his medical aid or to sell him rare medicinal herbs gathered during their journeys in exchange for a commission.

The materials Mr. Kelandir purchased were varied and priced according to their efficacy. Among the strangest was the leech—a single specimen meeting his standards could be exchanged for a copper coin.

Three days ago, after personally witnessing the little treant Myra in the forest, Joan gave up his plan to fell black oaks for sale to the lumber mill. This decision tightened his finances further, making it necessary for him to seek odd jobs to pay his tuition. After careful consideration, Joan concluded that catching leeches for Mr. Kelandir was a sensible choice. The income seemed paltry at first glance, but with enough leeches, the commission would rise proportionally.

By early February, the great marsh was already showing signs of spring, and the rotting mud was teeming with countless leeches. By rights, this should have been a much sought-after business, yet the reality was more complicated.

Mr. Kelandir, with the elves’ penchant for perfection, demanded that all leeches brought to him be alive and completely unharmed. Leeches are slippery and difficult to catch; those who tried often ended up being bitten themselves. Add to this the dangers of the swamp, and few were willing to take on such a grueling task.

Joan had initially hesitated to accept this job, and was even more puzzled as to what Mr. Kelandir could possibly want with so many leeches. It was only after asking him this morning that Joan learned these soft, sticky, repulsive bloodsuckers actually held great medicinal value.

In Joan’s era, medicine and theology were virtually inseparable. Clerics skilled in divine arts could heal the sick directly through magic. Yet clerics were a rare elite within the church and seldom resided in remote villages like Derin Town. The sick had to rely on local doctors.

Ordinary physicians, lacking magical abilities, mostly used herbs and surgical techniques to alleviate pain. The quality of medical care varied widely, and superstition played a large role. It was often unclear whether patients truly recovered because of the doctor’s remedies or simply due to their own immune systems; sometimes the treatments provided little more than psychological comfort.

For example, in Joan’s homeland of Alfheim, the most widespread and systematic medical theory of the current century was “bloodletting.” This theory held that illness arose mainly from tainted blood, and to regain health, one must remove some of it.

The tools used for bloodletting were as varied as the doctors themselves. Some were crude, employing knives or daggers; more fastidious practitioners used steel needles. The more cautious would disinfect their instruments with strong spirits or heat them over a flame before proceeding. Traveling quacks dispensed with all such niceties; some even doubled as barbers, switching from shaving beards to bleeding patients with the same razor.

Such reckless methods would naturally arouse skepticism among the educated. Joan himself had dismissed bloodletting as nonsense when he first heard of it. Yet, over the years, he had witnessed enough cases to realize that, barbaric as it seemed, bloodletting was not entirely superstition or farce. Though it hardly cured every ailment as the charlatans claimed, it did prove effective for certain symptoms—otherwise it would not have endured for generations as a medical classic.

Mr. Kelandir of Derin Town was also well-versed in bloodletting. Unlike his rougher colleagues who prescribed it indiscriminately, he was much more prudent, employing it only in cases of severe pain and always in moderation—yet it invariably relieved suffering.

Another hallmark of Kelandir’s practice was his choice of instrument: neither lancet nor needle, but a freshly washed leech, placed directly upon the afflicted area to draw blood.

To Kelandir’s mind, leeches were not merely substitutes for traditional tools; they offered numerous advantages unavailable to steel. Not only could they remove stagnant blood and reduce swelling, but years of practice had convinced him that a leech’s saliva possessed remarkable anesthetic properties.

That morning, as Joan listened to Mr. Kelandir describe these wonders in his clinic, he was both enlightened and reminded of his own experiences. Often, when wading through the rice fields in summer, Joan had been bitten by leeches, but the wounds rarely hurt—instead, he’d felt a numbing sensation. Only after Kelandir’s explanation did he learn that leech saliva contained anesthetics, so that neither people nor animals felt the bite; by the time the leech had finished feeding and slipped away, its victim remained oblivious.

Leeches had yet another distinction compared to other blood-sucking insects. When bitten by poisonous creatures, the site often became infected, inflamed, and even ulcerated, causing great pain. Leeches, though parasitic, caused no such harm; their bites rarely led to infection.

Mr. Kelandir had devoted years to studying this phenomenon, and his preliminary conclusion was that leech saliva contained a marvelous substance capable of disinfecting and preventing wound infection. To test his theory, he had, in recent years, bought leeches in large quantities to extract their medicinal components. After repeated refinement, he succeeded in creating two innovative medicines based on leech saliva: an anesthetic and an anti-inflammatory agent. Clinical trials proved both to be highly effective, and his order books were now overflowing.

With sales booming, Mr. Kelandir intended to expand production of his new drugs. Sadly, the raw material was scarce: leeches produced only minute quantities of saliva, and it took at least a thousand leeches to make a single vial. This drove the price of the medicine sky-high, yet demand far outstripped supply. To secure a steadier source, Kelandir dug a pond behind his clinic to breed medical leeches, and posted a notice on the town hall bulletin board offering to buy unlimited quantities of live leeches at one copper coin apiece.

Joan had been puzzling over ways to earn money for some time. Passing through the town square that morning, he had spotted the notice by chance and hurried to the clinic to take up the job. Pulling on his long boots for rainy days, he set out for the marsh, eager to “pick up money.”

He soon discovered it was far from easy. The mud was indeed filled with leeches, but these tiny creatures, mostly brownish-yellow, blended perfectly with their muddy surroundings and were hard to distinguish. Even when he managed to spot one, the leech’s slippery coating made it nearly impossible to grasp; at best, it escaped, at worst, it retaliated with a bite.

After half an hour at the marsh’s edge, his hands covered in mud, his back aching and his legs sore, Joan had been bitten several times by mosquitoes and collected only a pitiful handful of leeches—not enough, even if all survived the trip to the clinic, to fetch two silver coins.

“It seems I need to change tactics.”

Joan made up his mind: next, he would try using the “Mage Hand” spell to scoop up leeches from afar, sparing his own hands the trouble.