Chapter 102
*
The process of proving the existence of microbes is by no means simple.
You think it's as simple as clicking a microscope on and being done with it?
If it were, I'd have found them long ago.
This is a world where microscopes exist, flaws and all.
There was a reason I kept putting off the discovery of bacteria in a world like this.
First of all, there were a lot of problems with microscopes themselves.
People living in the 21st century tend to picture microscope images at least in 1080p quality.
But in dark fantasy, you couldn't expect that level of technology.
The image quality of this age was still a problem—so bad it made curses rise from the depths of my core, at a miserable 240p resolution.
I couldn't tell if what I was seeing was bacteria, light bloom, or just a stain.
The second problem was staining.
You can't identify bacteria by their appearance.
Because bacteria are basically transparent.
Microscope images were already hard to see, and the bacteria were transparent on top of that.
Put those two together, and even I couldn't do bacteria research.
‘So I needed to find a way to improve microscope resolution and a staining method….’
Those conditions had only recently been met.
The answer was in the methods for observing the microorganisms I inherited from my parents.
‘To think they'd put on a feat of strength with magic without even using a microscope.’
Among divine spells, there is the ability to sense life force.
As shown by the paladins who used it while rescuing people in the overpass collapse incident,
it's a useful spell in many ways, from rescue operations to detecting assassins.
My parents tweaked that spell slightly and used it to detect the faint life force of microorganisms.
I planned to modify this divine spell.
I would use the spell to compensate for the poor resolution and light bloom, and observe the bacteria.
And for that, I called for my master.
“Master. I have a research topic for the first time in a while.”
Help me, Great Sage-emong.
“I want to convert divine magic into ordinary magic. I need your help for that, Master.”
I am an expert in black magic.
I'm completely clueless when it comes to other magic.
So I asked my master for help.
Before meeting me, he'd been poking and prodding divine magic from every angle, so I thought he'd readily agree.
“In the end, divine magic is just a spell built on your framework, isn't it? I'd like you to adapt it so mages and healers can use it.”
I held out the ginger biscuits my master liked and made my request.
But the reaction I got was completely different from what I expected.
“Hmm. I don't like it.”
“?!”
Good heavens.
Could it be because the topic I brought wasn't interesting enough?
Just as I was about to think that,
“Why research a five-hundred-year-old spell again?”
He made it clear that wasn't the problem.
“That line of magic has already been improved at the Tower of the Eleventh Month, so you'd know more about it than I do.”
The Tower of the Eleventh Month.
It's a tower that researches magic related to observation and communication.
I thought its main research topics were newspapers with moving pictures, long-distance communication crystal balls, telepathy spells, and the like.
“They have that kind of thing at the Tower of the Eleventh Month?”
“The spell priests use to sense life came from the <Eye of the Beast> sorcery that existed a thousand years ago. There's no need to copy it; this is the original.”
The Eye of the Beast wasn't simply a spell that mimicked animals' eyes.
Like a hawk picking out a rabbit from among countless creatures high in the sky.
It was closer to filtering, selecting a single target.
‘I didn't know one already existed.’
I didn't know that because it wasn't my field.
What I knew was the basics of magic and advanced black magic; it was only natural I didn't know the other areas.
“I'll connect you with your senior brother. Talk to him and adjust it into the spell you need.”
“Can it see things invisible to people, too?”
“You mean like a bee's eye or a bird's eye?”
Things worked out more simply than I expected.
And in a better direction than I had thought.
Animals can see what humans can't.
If magic could replace that, maybe an infrared microscope wouldn't just be a dream.
“Thank you, Master.”
“But listen….”
My master said, stroking his chin beard.
“The fact that you've suddenly taken interest in the lineage of Eye of the Beast magic means you've got something else you want to discover, doesn't it?”
I nodded.
I had even prepared a lie for this.
“I recently got the chance to recover my parents' research journal. In the process, I found something a little strange, so I want to look into it more closely.”
Just like with Viagra,
A natural discovery needs the right backstory.
Like making an aphrodisiac while trying to make heart medicine,
or making malaria medicine after witnessing the horrors in the south, and so on.
Discoveries and inventions always needed a fitting narrative.
So I had prepared a story for the discovery of bacteria as well.
“My parents' research journal recorded parasites in detail, but there were creatures that kept catching my eye, and they were strange to classify as parasites.”
This time, I decided to push the story that I'd stumbled upon bacteria while researching parasites.
“So I need those spells to observe the parasites more clearly.”
“Para… sites…?”
But my master's reaction was odd.
“You said you were checking for parasites?”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“Hm-hm, mm….”
My master let out a low hum and gave me a sidelong look.
After thinking deeply about something, my master shook his head.
“Right…. I said I'd believe you….”
He muttered something to himself, then soon lifted his head as if he had made up his mind and spoke.
“Originally, black magic had something called parasitic magic.”
“...existed, you say?”
“Yes. Now it has all but died out.”
The day the Tower of the Thirteenth Month was destroyed.
There were only three kinds of magic left in the world.
Curse magic that caused plagues and misfortune.
Hypnosis magic that controlled the mind.
Necromancy that controlled dead souls.
But originally, the Tower of the Thirteenth Month had a much wider variety of specialized disciplines than that.
“Parasitic magic is a form of magic that uses parasites as a catalyst. It was also a discipline newly established a few years before the Tower of the Thirteenth Month was destroyed.”
The research hadn't even properly gotten underway before my master wiped it out, so it was barely a field.
“But during that short history, parasitic magic caused a catastrophe incomparable to other black magics.”
“What kind of catastrophe?”
“Do you know about the destruction of the Knight Kingdom in the west three hundred years ago?”
“Yes. It was destroyed by Pale Walkers.”
Pale Walkers.
They're zombies from another world.
Yes, those zombies.
They run, infect people when they bite them, are surprisingly intelligent, and sometimes even mutants show up swinging tentacles around.
‘Come to think of it, if they run around, aren't they runners, not walkers?’
But that's not what's important right now.
Pale Walkers are obviously on a different level from ghouls.
Ghouls don't infect you when they bite.
They also don't often produce mutants.
And their upper limit isn't even in the same league as Pale Walkers.
So much so that if a ghoul appears in this city, the soldiers barely react,
but if even a single Pale Walker appears, the knights are deployed.
“It was parasitic magic that created those Pale Walkers.”
“What…?”
“It's a taboo art, so I didn't teach it to you.”
What the heck.
So these zombies here are infected by parasites, not viruses?
That was something I had no idea about.
Because the public believed Pale Walkers just occurred naturally like ghouls.
But in truth, they were anything but natural—they were human-made.
“It was the work of the Tower of the Thirteenth Month. Because of those bastards, the west is still a land of Pale Walkers and the undead. That's why I burned every trace of parasitic magic.”
It was a relatively new discipline at the time,
and there were only a handful of people who could be called successors, so it wasn't difficult to eliminate them.
“Even now, black mages are trying to revive the line of parasitic sorcerers, but it doesn't seem to be going well.”
“Is it that difficult?”
“Difficult and then some.”
My master nodded.
“Do you know what happened to the black mages who created the Pale Walkers?”
“Didn't you punish them, Master?”
“No. They lost control and became Pale Walkers themselves.”
Aha….
“Parasitic magic is magic that can't be controlled. Parasites have the instinct to spread themselves, so they attack casters who aren't infected by them.”
The moment I heard that, one solution flashed through my mind.
Then wouldn't it be enough if I got infected with parasites myself? I thought.
But I shook my head.
What good would it do if I died?
If there was any possibility at all,
‘Maybe drinking potions or regularly casting Heal on myself, enduring the parasites and going around spreading the infection.’
Of course, that wasn't something a person should do either.
Unless you're some kind of lunatic, there's no way.
“Beyond that, the only way to make parasites grow quickly is divine magic, but there's no way the priests would allow that. So in this age, parasitic sorcerers don't even have an environment in which they can research.”
The Tower of the Thirteenth Month was taboo.
Back then, parasitic sorcerers were said to have researched parasites with the cooperation of healing priests.
But now that it has become taboo.
There were almost no people who could research parasites without the healing priests noticing.
Right….
Except for healing priests, that is.
“I suppose so.”
“...”
I met my master's single remaining eye in silence.
From that alone, I could tell what he meant by saying it.
“My parents researched them in order to cure those parasites. I inherited that intention.”
“I know. Your parents said the same thing.”
“What?”
My parents had met my master, too?
“Researching parasites is research into black magic. Naturally, it had to be reported to the Magic Administration Office. I handled your parents' qualification review.”
My master nodded calmly.
“Come to think of it, your eyes resemble your father's.”
“…I often hear that I resemble my mother.”
“Ahem. I meet too many people, so I got confused.”
Apparently, in the Great Sage's memory, I was just one of countless geniuses, after all.
“I said the same thing then, too. You have to know a taboo if you want to avoid crossing it, don't you?”
“Those words are exactly right, Master.”
My master wasn't the type to block taboos outright.
If he'd been, the moment he heard my parents were researching parasites, he'd have dropped a meteor on them right then and there.
And he wouldn't have been so delighted when we were researching a vaccine that was itself basically a plague curse.
“Still, be careful. Those fellows fell because of the arrogance that they would stay pure forever.”
“I'll keep that in mind.”
“Good. As long as you remember that, continue your parasite research.”
“Thank you, Master. Then when should I contact my senior brother?”
“Do it the day after tomorrow. He probably still doesn't know you're his disciple, so treat him as the Black Saint.”
“Understood.”
My master really did take such good care of his disciple to the very end.
“And... if you discover something new, call me first.”
“I certainly will.”
I intended to do exactly that anyway.
Because what would ultimately be discovered wouldn't be parasites, but bacteria.
Once the bacteria research was done, the academic world would probably be turned upside down.
‘After all, plague curses that vaguely used dirty or ominous things as catalysts would suddenly shoot up, too.’
A plague sorcerer carrying microbes around in clear water….
Wow. How are you supposed to deal with that?
‘I should tell my master before I make the discovery.’
For now, it was a time when I had to not know about bacteria, so I had no choice but to stay silent.
When the time came, I'd tell my master first.
I didn't want to cause a misunderstanding and end up like the Tower of the Thirteenth Month.
*
Several days passed after that.
When I had lectures, I'd be at the academy.
When I didn't, I'd have Ferisia fill in for me and go as Shun Isa.
Days spent shuttling between the academy's domain and the capital, acting out two identities.
While I was busily researching staining reagents in Sector D-4,
Simeon spoke to me.
“Excuse me, Saint.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“Could we increase the dosage?”
“No, Brother.”
“Uuu….”
Simeon wilted at my firm refusal.
Simeon rubbed his stomach, as if his belly was starting to ache.
Simeon was currently receiving parasite treatment from me.
As expected of a pilgrim, I suppose.
He was harboring all kinds of parasites.
What kind of weird stuff had he been eating?
“The Schnabels used way more….”
“They used a lot, so it was highly toxic.”
My parents used male fern as one of their parasite medicines.
Male fern was effective.
The parasites were dropping dead left and right.
The only minor side effects were vision damage, coma, and reduced muscle strength.
‘What's more, even the dosage instructions were wrong.’
Maybe because divine magic could fix things in a few seconds.
In this world, there was no concept of treating someone slowly over several days.
If you used a potion, of course it had to be fixed within an hour, and if it took several days, people assumed you simply hadn't used enough potion to begin with.
‘The old boss didn't wolf down his gout medicine all at once for nothing.’
It wasn't for nothing that I made only trained healers handle the medicine.
Quinine, insulin, and every other medicine, too.
There were still far too many patients who thought it was normal to use up a week's worth of medicine in a single day once it was handed to them.
My parents were no exception to that common-sense rule.
‘When they said they'd use that much male fern, even I was shocked.’
The Schnabel couple's parasite treatment was simple.
1. Administer enough male fern to leave the person half-conscious.
2. Quickly cast Heal on the person with one foot in the grave.
3. The next day, pull out the dead parasites with a laxative potion, and voilà! Treatment complete!
‘They're my parents and all, but this is way too macho….’
It was basically the official treatment of cutting off an arm and regenerating it as quickly as possible.
My parents were pretty hardcore, too.
‘No wonder it never established itself as the official parasite treatment….’
If you walked that tightrope wrong, the patient would die on the spot.
One misstep, and it wasn't coma but a straight trip to the afterlife.
At that rate, healers who tried this treatment without learning from my parents would only have caught innocent patients in the crossfire,
and as those cases piled up, people would have started claiming it was total nonsense.
‘They weren't wrong, but... you were way too extreme….’
Quinine would kill a person outright if administered like that, too.
That said, the solution to that problem was surprisingly simple.
Split a day's dose into a week's worth and take it slowly.
You might ask who could fail to think of something that simple,
‘I'm curious too. Why hadn't I thought of this?’
Damage-control surgery, too.
Tapering therapy, too.
This age, where romance was alive and breathing, had far too many things out of step with modern common sense.
Enough digression.
“Simeon, it's been about a week now. Are parasites still coming out in your stool?”
“They're still coming out….”
“Those parasites are stubborn.”
The downside, though, was that the medicine was a little weak.
Apparently the male fern was so toxic that if you adjusted it to avoid harming people, it also became a little less effective on the parasites.
That's why a good medicine isn't a strong medicine, but one that selectively wrecks only the target you want.
‘Ah… I miss 21st-century parasite medicine….’
Those ones targeted only parasites and could cure you in three days.
Primitive parasite medicine was way too hard to control.
“Saint, I'm fine. If I just think of it as taking a little nap and waking up again, you can increase the dosage….”
“Simeon. Side effects aren't something you put up with; they're something you avoid.”
Ugh.
What a romantic dark fantasy.
They're treating a coma like it's just sleeping for a few days and waking up.
“Until I discover a new medicine, I'll keep treating you with male fern.”
Besides, the parasites aren't just that one kind.
Judging by the current symptoms, it looks like there are other parasites besides the ones in the intestines.
Simeon's body was, quite literally, a veritable nest of parasites.
“You lived far too dangerously outside the walls. It's a miracle you're still alive.”
“Haha….”
Simeon let out a dry laugh.
“I won't do that again from now on.”
“Good. I went to the trouble of treating you.”
Anyway, every time I think about it,
the people of this age are just way too different from me in terms of common sense.