Chapter 11
*
=====================
Today's Patient Summary
Natural deliveries: 3 cases
- 2 first-time mothers, 1 multipara. One case needed suturing for a second-degree perineal tear.
Preterm delivery: 1 case
Estimated 35 weeks. Weight around 1,900 g. Admitted to the second-floor nursery.
Breech delivery: 1 case
A case the midwife had put off because she couldn't handle it. After an attempt at external cephalic version, vaginal delivery succeeded.
Suspected puerperal fever: 2 cases
Persistent high fever after delivery. Suspected endometritis. Disinfected with herbal decoction and observed.
Wound care: 4 cases
2 knife wounds (suspected fight), 1 burn (kerosene accident), 1 contusion
Sexually transmitted diseases: 3 cases
1 suspected primary syphilis, 2 gonorrhea symptoms. Prescribed antibiotics (test batch) and herbs.
Malnutrition and dehydration: 2 cases
Starvation cases that arose during the blizzard. Oral rehydration and nutritional treatment.
Gout follow-up: 1 case (Wangcho)
======================
Hm. As expected, another peaceful day in the red-light district.
For reference, I didn't record the last patient.
It was a patient who'd been fooling around in a brothel and got a foreign object stuck somewhere embarrassing, and I really didn't feel like recording that.
‘Yeah. This is the average in Limbus Pit.’
I lived too far up in the upper districts and had forgotten the endless depths of human depravity.
Though I did wonder whether someone as sheltered as me should be seeing this kind of thing.
I closed the medical log.
I set down my pen and rolled my neck, and a stiff ache came over me with a crackling sound.
It wasn't good to pick up habits like this at my age.
“Hoo….”
The consultations were over.
Only after I finished sorting today's patients did I suddenly remember all the things that had piled up over the past six weeks.
I had to go over the report Wangcho had handed me that afternoon, the one containing the things I'd asked him to look into.
More accurately, it was a scrap of notes that was almost too embarrassing to call a report.
I took out the paper I'd folded up and put in my pocket, and unfolded it.
And in my own way, I translated that memo into report format.
=====================
[Six-Week Mortality Report]
Freezing and starvation: 42 bodies
The blizzard sent heating costs skyrocketing. Three cases involved entire families freezing to death.
Infant deaths: 18 bodies
12 stillbirths, 4 congenital deformities, 2 abandoned immediately after birth.
Maternal deaths: 9 bodies
4 difficult labors, 3 cases of puerperal fever, 2 cases of excessive bleeding.
Accidents and others: 11 bodies
Factory gear entrapment (amputation followed by massive bleeding), sewer gas poisoning, knife attacks, suicide, etc.
= Total processed: 80 bodies =
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My fingertips trembled as I turned the paper over.
80 people in six weeks.
And that's only the number culled from within this clinic's sphere of influence, among the people under Wangcho's management.
There must have been many more corpses piling up where I couldn't see.
I folded the paper and put it back in my pocket.
If this were the 21st century, it would be the kind of disaster that would trigger emergency alerts, breaking news, and a parliamentary hearing.
But Wangcho's comment when he handed me that memo had exceeded my imagination.
- “We did pretty well.”
Wangcho added with a snicker.
- “The ground was frozen, so burial was a pain, but thanks to that the corpses didn't rot as much, so there was no smell. We were short on firewood, so we cremated a few bodies and used them to help heat the place. The living have to survive, after all.”
- “…You used them as firewood?”
- “Once you're dead, you're just a lump of meat anyway. The ones ground up by the gears were beyond recovery, so we just washed them down the sewer.”
- “… Wangcho.”
- “Yes, Doctor.”
- “Don't heat the place by burning corpses from now on. Breathing the smoke is bad for the lungs of the living too.”
- “Oh, you really are merciful, Doctor. Even the dead get your consideration.”
- “… ”
Every time I think about it, I just can't adapt to the morals of this world.
But I had no intention of adapting anyway.
After all, a protagonist doesn't fit himself to the world; he makes the world fit him.
Calmly finishing the record, I put the report into the safe.
“Ugh.”
With that, the medical work was done.
But my day wasn't over yet.
A protagonist always has plenty to do.
*
A year after I began selling quinine through my father's merchant caravan.
I introduced a new medicine to that caravan.
It was none other than insulin.
Thanks to that, the pharmaceutical caravan was preparing for a second boom after quinine.
“Wangcho. Is what I asked for ready?”
That was also why I ended up on such close terms with Wangcho.
Just as quinine requires tree bark, insulin requires pig pancreases.
What's interesting here is that slaughterhouses are considered undesirable facilities, so they're located in Limbus Pit.
And the one controlling that slaughter business was Wangcho.
‘So that's how this connects.’
Maybe that was only natural.
In the medieval era, undertakers or information guilds,
in the modern era, slaughterhouses or waste disposal,
in the present day, building materials or junkyards.
In every era, the dirty, cursed, but indispensable industries had all been the lifeblood of criminal organizations.
In that sense, Wangcho and I might have been destined to get along even without the gout.
“Wangcho. Are the pigs ready?”
“….”
“Wangcho?”
“….”
“Wangcho!!!”
“Hrrk!”
Wangcho, who had been nodding off by the entrance, jolted awake.
“Yes? Ah, yes! Of course. I set aside only the fattest ones' pancreases from today's catch.”
“As always, thank you. Let's go.”
Wangcho led me with a deferential attitude.
There wasn't a trace of the red-light district ruler's swagger in that look.
But considering the relationship between Wangcho and me, it was only natural.
Because right now, half of Wangcho's slaughterhouse sales were all being handled by our caravan.
“Hehe. Doctor. No, should I call you Director from this hour on?”
Once the time came, Wangcho spoke not as a patient to a doctor, but as a company director to the head of a partner firm.
But I shook my head.
“It's confusing, so just call me Doctor.”
“Understood, Doctor.”
That's how the underworld is.
No matter how terrifying it looks on the surface, in the end it's a structure that starves to death unless money flows in from the bright side.
Even if Wangcho owned a hundred slaughterhouses, without a caravan to buy the meat, they'd just be a heap of rotten flesh.
Wangcho knew that well, which was why he treated me so humbly.
“But, Doctor. It's been a year now, so maybe you could start speaking informally? Your polite speech to someone like me is far too much.”
“Wangcho isn't my subordinate, is he?”
But apart from that, I didn't talk down to Wangcho.
I have a persona I've been building since I was four.
If I were spouting casual speech like that, I'd look really tacky.
What I strive for is a dignified nobleman who gives off an air of mystery, not some nouveau riche drunk on power.
“And courtesy doesn't discriminate between people. I'll keep speaking politely, so please remember that.”
“Tsk. Talking to you makes me embarrassed all over.”
“Then let's go, Wangcho. You, me, and Otto should all be resting at night, shouldn't we?”
With Wangcho scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, we set off toward the slaughterhouse.
As we went out the back door of the clinic to head to the slaughterhouse, I saw Otto, my bodyguard and driver.
Otto was killing time leaning against the wall with his arms folded and his hat pulled low.
For the record, I thought there was no need for him to be outside in this cold weather, but he stubbornly insisted that a bodyguard should be like this, so I left him alone.
“Working hard, buddy.”
Wangcho greeted Otto with easy familiarity.
Otto acknowledged him with a slight nod.
With Wangcho in front, I followed behind him.
Otto followed us from far behind like a shadow.
“This way. Since the snow is melting, it'll smell a bit bad.”
Our destination was the slaughterhouse located next to the waste disposal yard.
The warehouse behind it.
The floor was slimy with a liquid I couldn't tell was rainwater or blood.
Splat.
Avoiding the puddle, I stepped under the eaves.
Faded scraps of red cloth danced under the eaves to welcome me.
‘No matter how many times I see it, I can't get used to it.’
Maybe because it was night, it felt really eerie.
Between those cloth strips was a blackened, rotting wooden sign.
< Slaughter (Do) >
The writing was soaked in blood and grease, making it hard to read, but it still gave a rough idea of what kind of place this was.
“Here it is, Doctor. It's night, so you probably can't see well. Watch your step so you don't trip on the threshold.”
“Thank you.”
On both sides of the doorway Wangcho guided me to, two pig heads skewered on hooks hung like gatekeepers.
They said it was a talisman for good fortune, but I still couldn't understand that aesthetic.
…Damn. It made eye contact.
I guess I'll have something other than pork for dinner tonight.
I walked past the pigs' hollow eye sockets and headed toward the warehouse.
The moment I opened the door, the fishy smell of blood and the stench of rotting guts punched through my mask.
Every time I come here, I think the same thing: if I didn't have a mask, I might've broken character and gagged.
In contrast, Wangcho only sniffed the air and showed no further reaction.
Wangcho strode ahead toward the inside.
Then he pointed at the drum barrel that should have been full of pancreases and said,
“They should still be warm… huh?”
Wangcho, who had been leading the way, suddenly froze.
“What's wrong?”
“No, it's just… hold on. Didn't you hear that, Doctor?”
“I didn't hear anything, though?”
I'm not a beastkin, just an ordinary human.
Not even someone who can use mana yet.
Then Wangcho made a shushing gesture and beckoned me over.
The direction he led me toward was the area where the blood troughs (血槽, blood-catching buckets) were kept.
As we got closer to the blood-trough area, I understood what he had been talking about.
Slap, splash, gulp.
I could hear something quenching its thirst.
Wangcho frowned and grabbed a torch hanging on the wall.
“What crazy beast bastard dares to mess with someone else's property…!”
As we got close enough to the source of the sound, Wangcho rolled up his sleeves, muttering a string of thick curses.
The torch he held split the darkness.
And at the sight that was revealed, I couldn't help but gasp.
“Huh.”
“Well, I'll be.”
What was guzzling the blood wasn't a beast.
It was a small child.
The child had their head plunged into a bucket of pig blood.
I did wonder whether a person with their face buried in a container of red liquid and greedily drinking rotten blood could still be called human.
Wangcho cried out in shock.
“T-this crazy bitch again!”
Startled by the shout, the child jerked their head out of the bucket.
Through the clumped red hair, ruby-red eyes were revealed.
In the torchlight, those eyes gleamed like a beast's, with no trace of reason in them.
“Kyaaa--!”
The child hissed and dashed toward the exit.
But with those skinny legs that had gone hungry for days, there was no way the child could outrun a sturdy adult man.
Especially not when the opponent was the beastkin who had pacified the red-light district with his fists.
In an instant, Wangcho grabbed the back of the child's neck.
“Got you, you bitch!”
“Let go! I said let go!”
The child struggled, trying to bite Wangcho's arm.
Wangcho, his face twisted in a savage expression, tried to throw the child to the floor.
Then, perhaps remembering I was watching, he put the bucket over her instead of hurling her down and forced the child to kneel.
“I'm sorry, Doctor! I said I'd lock the door, but I don't know how this unlucky thing crawled in…!”
“Do you know this child?”
“Yes. She's well known around these parts. A blood fiend's bastard child.”
“A blood fiend's bastard child?”
Blood fiend.
It was the term used for demons that took people's blood from beyond the walls.
Here, blood fiends weren't the kind who elegantly drank blood from wineglasses like vampire counts.
They were monsters with no trace of refinement, the sort that ripped open a person's chest, shoved their head in, and sucked out the blood.
Wangcho was saying this child was the bastard child of such monsters.
“Every night she sneaks in like this and steals beast blood to drink. On unlucky days, she gets caught trying to lick the wounds of drunks and gets beaten for it. She's a blood-crazed vampire bastard.”
- “At least that part was a misunderstanding!”
The child inside the bucket shouted.
In the meantime, the child clutched the bucket tightly with both arms, afraid even the blood left in it might be taken away, looking just like a starving stray dog guarding a bone.
“Shut up, you bitch!”
Wangcho raised his voice at the child and lifted his foot.
Even without seeing it, the child flinched.
At this point, the child instinctively knew a kick was coming.
“Wait.”
At that sight, I abandoned neutrality and stepped between the two of them.
An unmistakably unusual named character from the red-light district had appeared to break my routine.
No matter how I looked at it, this was an event.
Whether it was a companion event or a foreshadowing event.
In any case, I couldn't let this child keep getting hit.
“Wangcho, calm down. You're not going to hit a child in front of me, are you?”
“…Sorry, Doctor.”
Wangcho's foot lowered again.
I crouched down in front of the child.
Then I gently placed my hand over the child's hands, which were wrapped around the bucket.
Noticing I was about to remove the bucket, Wangcho hurriedly tried to stop me.
“It's dangerous, Doctor. That thing might be after your blood!”
“Dangerous? You don't really believe this child is truly a blood fiend's bastard child, do you?”
“Huh?”
“If this child were really a blood fiend's bastard child, you'd have killed them long ago. The fact that you haven't means you instinctively know they're actually human, don't you?”
“… ”
Wangcho fell silent.
Humans are such contradictory creatures.
Even when they know someone isn't a witch, they call them a witch just so they can throw stones,
and even when they know someone is human, they call them a monster just so they can hate them.
“I'll give you something tastier than blood, so how about taking the bucket off?”
The child's grip on the bucket slackened.
I moved the child's hands aside and gently removed the bucket.
The sudden light must have stung, because the child frowned.
I lowered myself to the child's eye level.
Though trembling with fear, the child was still licking pig blood from around the mouth.
It was a grotesque yet at the same time pity-inducing contradiction.
I put my hand in my pocket and approached the child.
The child flinched and lowered their head.
“I'm not going to hit you, so raise your face a little.”
“… ”
But since the child still didn't lift their head, I took a sugar candy out of my pocket and shook it in front of her.
It was my secret weapon for treating children.
In the 21st century, handing this to kids would get you teased for acting like the military, but in this world it worked remarkably well.
Suddenly, I'm craving hardtack and milk.
Anyway.
The child showed interest in the sugar candy and slowly lifted her head.
Taking advantage of the opening, I carefully examined the face revealed under the light.
The tousled bob, clumped with pig blood, made the original color hard to tell, but the strands lit by the torch showed a dark reddish hue.
The outfit was a beige shirt and brown overalls.
At a glance, it looked like a boy's outfit, but on closer inspection it was a girl.
I looked back at her face.
Beneath the blood, her skin was pale with no color at all. Her lips were bluish.
For now, check anemia.
“Let me see your eyes.”
I lifted the child's chin with my fingers and used my other hand to pull back her eyelids.
The whites of her eyes were tinged yellow.
Check for jaundice.
“I'm going to palpate here.”
Lastly, I moved my gaze to her abdomen.
Without waiting for permission, I felt along the child's left flank.
Before the child could twist away, my fingertips felt a hard mass.
An organ bulging out beneath her gaunt ribs.
It meant her spleen was swollen.
“That's enough.”
I withdrew my hand and put the sugar candy into the child's mouth.
“You.”
“Munch, munch… ”
“When you wake up in the morning and pee for the first time, what color is it?”
“… ”
The child didn't answer.
But that silence was already an answer.
“Just because your urine is black doesn't mean you're a monster, so don't worry.”
“….!!”
The child's breath caught.
“Cough, cough!”
She coughed and spat out the sugar candy.
She looked like she was about to pick it back up and eat it, so I kicked it away so she couldn't and handed her a fresh one.
“Don't eat that one; it's dirty. I'll give you a new one.”
I handed the child a handful of sugar candies and took her wrist.
“Before that, how about getting checked over first?”
***