Chapter 147
***
The eldest daughter of House Nihirit, Freyja Nihirit.
She had been in a rather foul mood lately.
Because she had belatedly come face-to-face with the gap between ideals and reality—something she had never even experienced during adolescence.
“Sister! No matter how I think about it, this just doesn't make sense!”
Inside the clan building (clubroom) of the (future) great hero party Sisters (Valkyries).
Freyja, the vanguard of the hero party, slammed her hand on the desk and said.
“A plea bargain? A plea bargain for a dark mage?!”
What had made her angry was none other than the pardon of the dark mages.
A few days earlier, on the day her brother interrogated the dark mages.
They provided detailed information about the Round Table of 13, including the dark mages who had infiltrated the Academy.
In exchange, dark mages—especially those who had cooperated with the Round Table of 13—would normally have been executed without question,
but the sentences of the dark mages captured this time had been reduced to life imprisonment.
A copy of the official document lay spread across the clubroom table where the party members sat.
— Life imprisonment imposed on four dark mages.
— Detention facility: Security Level 2.
Freyja was even dissatisfied with the prison where they would serve their life sentences.
A Level 1 prison was a tower-like place in the middle of a dead winter sea, where not a single ray of sunlight entered.
By contrast, a Level 2 prison was moldy, but at least allowed in sunlight scattered through the smog.
Dark mages normally rotted away in Level 1 prisons, of course, but these had been confined in Level 2.
Freyja was displeased that these dark mages were enjoying such luxury.
“Aren't you angry, Sister?”
“Why should I be angry?”
“Those bad people aren't paying for their crimes!”
“This is enough for justice to be served.”
But unlike Freyja, Erica's reaction was lukewarm.
Having grown up in Limbus Pit as a child, she considered even this sufficient justice.
Before Yulian came to Limbus Pit, there had been a man who sold drugs to children to make money.
The old man had lived out his natural life and died before Wangcho changed the rules because of Yulian.
What about the slave hunters who had tried to sell Erica?
And what about Erica's biological mother and father, who had abandoned her in Limbus Pit?
Compared to those, this incident was practically civilized.
The dark mages had lost body parts and been imprisoned, after all.
At least compared to Limbus Pit, where even people's deaths had been met with indifference, this was nothing.
“It might be a major incident in Sanctum Hill, but down below, this is reality, Freyja.”
“…….”
Freyja couldn't refute Erica, hardened by countless real battles and the harshness of reality, and bit her lower lip.
In the midst of this, Jenny, the party's only healer and priest, stepped in as if to mediate.
“Underclassman Freyja, I understand how you feel too. But they say it couldn't be helped. They also say the information they provided was worth that much.”
The military placed a high value on the information provided by the dark mages captured this time.
Until now, dark mages had never opened their mouths despite all manner of torture and enticements.
Even when facing death, they never despaired and betrayed the Round Table.
“They say it's the first time dark mages have provided such detailed information about the Round Table. That shows how effective Professor Yulian's interrogation was.”
Every piece of information they provided was something the military had had no way of discovering.
The aliases of the dark mages belonging to the Round Table.
The methods and strategies they used.
Their hideouts and meeting places.
As well as the true identities of some dark mages, their collaborators, and so on.
They were all things the military had been unable to uncover no matter how hard it tried.
“Apparently, dark mages never opened their mouths no matter what torture or interrogation they underwent, so even when they were captured, the military couldn't learn anything about the Round Table. But thanks to what happened this time, they say we'll finally be able to seriously hunt down the Round Table.”
Dark mages never opened their mouths.
But it wasn't because of loyalty.
There was one reason they had never betrayed their organization.
The existence of necromantic magic within the Round Table.
Dark mages knew better than anyone that death was not the end.
How the soul of a traitor to the organization would suffer.
How the corpse of someone who betrayed the Round Table would suffer.
They knew that better than anyone, which was why they did not betray it.
In other words, fear was what had kept their mouths shut all this time.
And what had opened them was a fear greater than the Round Table, along with the relief of escaping that fear.
"Besides, they provided that much information because they felt reassured that the military cooperating with Professor Yulian would be able to protect them. They were put in a Level 2 prison because there are more dark mages in Level 1 prisons, making them dangerous."
At the time, Yulian had made several promises to them.
Most concerned what would happen after death.
He would take measures to ensure that even if they died, their souls would not suffer,
and have their bodies cremated properly so they would not be defiled in any way,
and ensure that their names would not end up on anyone's dinner table.
There had been one awkward incident when the dark mages cried and begged after Yulian showed mild displeasure and asked why that last clause was even necessary.
That was the gist of it.
“Underclassman Freyja, I don't think those people are afraid of death, are they? If that's the case, wouldn't it be better simply to sentence them to life imprisonment?”
“But……”
Even so, Freyja didn't look convinced.
“But these are dark mages who infiltrated the Academy itself. There were actual victims, too……. And, and…… How can that be a life sentence?! More importantly!”
Bang!
Once again, the surface of the water in the teacup on the desk rippled faintly.
“More importantly, one of them was given a special pardon and even became my brother's assistant!”
“That person……”
Jenny was at a loss for words at that criticism.
She could somehow understand the life sentences.
Even for practical reasons, the military's choice could encourage divisions among the opposition.
The hope (?) that betraying the Round Table and providing information could earn them life imprisonment instead of execution.
That hope was a powerful weapon for tearing away the Round Table's firmly sealed veil.
That was why the dark mages captured this time were being treated so generously.
But there was only one.
Even Jenny found Belgian's pardon difficult to accept.
“……Professor said it was because he could save more people than the harm he had caused.”
Jenny was dissatisfied with Yulian's actions as well.
But because Yulian had put it that way, she couldn't bring herself to press him any further and could only keep silent, her anger left to smolder.
In the end, Jenny reached only one conclusion about this matter.
“Underclassman Freyja, once you become a hero, you'll face even greater absurdities.”
“The hero I wanted to become wasn't supposed to be like this…….”
The reason Freyja had become a hero.
It was to protect people.
As a child, she had admired her father, a magistrate who upheld justice, and dreamed of becoming one herself.
But magistrates were not people who protected others before an incident occurred.
They merely moved after something had happened.
That was why she dreamed of becoming a hero.
She thought preventing incidents before they happened would be ideal, and stopping them before more victims appeared would be the next best thing.
That was why she had become a hero, but…….
“This isn't the justice I wanted.”
“Didn't you know much about plea bargains, Underclassman Freyja?”
“I did. But…… this is the first time I've seen one happen in real life.”
Freyja hung her head dejectedly.
Jenny looked down at her junior's crown with sympathy.
Though Jenny's ideals differed from Freyja's, she could understand the pain of realizing the gap between ideals and reality.
Erica pitied Freyja as well.
“Tsk. Sorry. I didn't realize.”
Erica scratched her head, smacking her lips.
It wasn't that she sympathized with Freyja's theory of justice.
To begin with, being a hero was merely a means of rising in the world for Erica; justice was outside her concerns.
She only felt a little sorry to see her younger sister struggling like this.
“It's okay, Sister. I'm sorry for throwing a tantrum.”
But Freyja's sulking did not last long.
She knew well that the hero party was not a place where she could impose her beliefs.
An organization needed direction, but imposing one's own on it was a way to make the organization sick.
Freyja had studied this through organizational theory during her upper-school years.
That was why she was accustomed to suppressing her own sense of justice.
“It's regrettable, but I suppose I have to accept it.”
Freyja murmured that and picked up her teacup.
She swept down the indignation rising in her chest with a sip of tea.
And that day.
“Brother!”
Despite that effort,
her indignation finally burst out at dinner.
***
Freyja and Erica lived as tenants in Yulian's mansion.
It wasn't that they couldn't find rooms.
Their family already lived in the Academy territory, and there were even spare rooms,
so they simply saw no need to find another boardinghouse.
Besides, they knew about Yulian's dual identity.
In exchange, Yulian was collecting their rent without fail.
It was the bare minimum measure to prevent controversy over a professor favoring students because they were related by blood.
Of course, Yulian was the only one in the Academy territory to distinguish public and private affairs so strictly.
Still, even Yulian made an exception to accommodate Erica and Freyja at one particular time.
Dinner.
Other students either ate school meals prepared from military provisions or went to restaurants with their pocket money,
but Erica and Freyja enjoyed a lavish dinner cooked by Yulian at his mansion every day.
Of course, Yulian explained it this way.
— As a professor, I merely shared dinner with students while advising them on their futures. In fact, I offered every student who attended my lectures the opportunity to join me for dinner.
Put that way, it caused no controversy.
Countless students had accepted his dinner invitations with all sorts of motives,
but no one other than Charlotte had come back for his dinner more than once.
As a result, most students never grew jealous of the lavish dinners Erica and Freyja enjoyed every day.
They merely found it amazing and wondered how they endured it.
And today, as always, Yulian shared a cozy dinner with Freyja and Erica.
“……”
“……”
“Mnyang.”
There was one difference today, however.
Erica devouring the food with gusto was no different from usual.
The problem was Freyja.
“Freyja.”
“……”
“Do you perhaps not like today's dish?”
Today's menu was confit.
Made from the legs of a frog magical beast.
But since the webbing and smooth skin that would identify it as a frog had been removed,
if one didn't consider that it was frog meat, it looked like an ordinary duck.
Erica had even judged that it tasted like duck.
Freyja, however, was having trouble eating the dish today.
Yulian, who had been watching her worriedly, apologized.
“I'm sorry. I made something too adventurous.”
Before serving the dish, Yulian had clearly asked for her consent.
He'd said he would make duck instead if she disliked frogs.
And Freyja had replied that it was fine.
But even if the diner had given permission, if they disliked the dish, then it was a failed dish.
With that conviction, Yulian sincerely apologized to her.
“I have some duck confit because of Pericia, so if you really can't eat it, I'll give you that instead……”
“Brother.”
Clatter.
At that moment, Freyja, who had been eating the meat little by little, opened her mouth.
“I… I think I want to stop learning from Count Barlotte after all.”
“……”
At the name she brought up, Yulian had no choice but to set down his utensils.
Count Barlotte.
A former collaborator of the dark mages who had been pardoned through a plea bargain in exchange for a reduction in rank.
There were several reasons he had been pardoned.
One was providing information on the dark mages.
The other was passing on a secret magic to House Nihirit, a magic as vital to the family as its life.
Through these two things, he had been pardoned for his crimes.
Publicly, the reason given for his demotion was “failing to properly protect Academy security as a marquis.”
Freyja had believed that until just moments ago.
But she learned the truth through her conversation with Yulian before the meal.
— “Freyja, a letter came from Father. Since it's summer vacation now, he says it would be good for you to learn secret magic at Count Barlotte's mansion during the break.”
— “What? Why is the count suddenly passing secret magic on to me?”
— “That is……”
Secret magic was more important than anything to an aristocratic family.
Some families even regarded their members merely as means of passing down secret magic.
Freyja understood the duties of nobility as well.
That was why she understood her parents sending her there for the summer vacation.
Her father lacked the ability to learn secret magic, and her mother was not particularly skilled in combat.
She understood the logic behind sending her in their place.
But what she could not understand was why Count Barlotte was teaching this to House Nihirit.
He wasn't a vassal, and she knew he even had an heir.
They weren't even related.
Why was he suddenly doing this?
Yulian's explanation resolved that question.
— “We made a plea bargain.”
A plea bargain.
It was another plea bargain.
The subject Freyja had argued with her sister about that afternoon.
That subject had come up again.
— “He committed that offense.”
And the moment she heard that explanation from the brother she admired.
The indignation she had been holding back began to surge,
and soon burst out during the meal.
“Brother. I can't study under someone like that.”
She couldn't accept it.
“Even if he didn't kill innocent people, it's still the same. Some of my seniors were left disabled. How can…… how can the count get off this easily?”
Freyja shook her head in disgust.
“I can't do it. I don't want to. I…… I…….”
She chewed over her words for a while.
Then she finally voiced the words she had kept in her heart all this time.
In the end, she spoke them aloud.
“I believe that if a person commits a crime, they have to pay the price for it.”
“……”
“To be honest, this is just too hypocritical.”
“……”
Before they knew it, the clatter of utensils echoing through the dining room had stopped.
Erica had stopped eating as well.
But Erica's gaze was not directed at Freyja; it was directed at Yulian.
Yulian was not looking at Freyja.
He merely kept his gaze on the plate of confit and let out a deep sigh.
“……Hypocrisy.”
“……”
“Yes. You're right. Freyja. I am a hypocrite.”
“No, Brother, that's not what I meant…….”
Who would dare call this saint a hypocrite?
Who would dare point a finger at this man?
Freyja, who had grown up watching Yulian's deeds, had never dared think of him as a hypocrite.
That was why the word “hypocrite” she had uttered was aimed not at her brother, but at the Empire.
“I wasn't talking about you, Brother. I meant reality……”
“I know.”
“What?”
“I know you didn't mean it that way.”
Yulian smiled bitterly.
“But the fact is, I'm hypocritical too, not just reality itself.”
“Who would dare say something like that about you!?”
“I would.”
For a moment, Freyja's breath stopped.
Yulian's gaze turned toward the ceiling.
Instead of counting unseen stars, he counted the chandelier's candle flames and murmured,
“Freyja. Are you unhappy that this is all that will come of Count Barlotte's crimes against people?”
“……Yes.”
“And I suppose you're not happy about the dark mages being pardoned either.”
“That's right.”
Yulian slowly closed his eyes.
“Then do you think everyone who has killed people to acquire knowledge should be punished?”
“……Yes.”
“Then I, too, am a sinner.”
“……What?”
Freyja was flustered.
But Yulian continued without concern.
“In Limbus Pit, I wasn't skilled at every kind of surgery from the beginning.”
Yulian recalled the time when he had first headed to Sector D.
He was a doctor specializing in general and thoracic surgery.
Obstetrics and pediatrics were not his fields.
His knowledge of obstetrics had remained at the level of a medical student and was far from that of a specialist.
Even so, he now possessed more advanced skill in obstetrics and pediatrics than anyone else in this world.
There was only one reason.
“Even knowing that people would die by my hand, I used them as material to improve my own skills.”
Because he had gained experience.
The surgical techniques and knowledge of human anatomy he possessed came from trauma surgery.
On that foundation, he had performed obstetric surgeries.
He had used them as experimental material, rationalizing it by telling himself that if he didn't help them, no one else would reach out to help them.
“A great many people died under my hands.”
Mothers died when he failed to stop their bleeding.
There were mothers whose legs had been paralyzed because he cut the wrong nerves.
There were also people who had been given the wrong blood transfusions, hovered between life and death, and suffered permanent disabilities.
His worst memory was that he had once dissected the body of a dead child in an attempt to master pediatric surgical techniques.
He had rationalized it as much as he could.
But he was aware that what he had done was utterly far from absolute good.
“When I heard that the dark mages had killed dozens of people, my heart felt heavy.”
The people he had killed or left disabled in this way numbered more than a dozen.
Even so, he had not stopped.
Because he knew there was no other way to acquire knowledge.
No matter how many times he simulated procedures on cadavers beforehand and then put them into practice.
The first patients he treated in each type of surgery were all, in one sense, no different from his test subjects.
“Even craniotomies are a skill I acquired this way.”
He was not a neurosurgeon.
That was why his proficiency in craniotomies had been at a rudimentary level.
Even so, the reason he could now perform them routinely was that there had been many “test subject” patients he had failed to save.
A laborer who slipped on a construction site.
An old man who slipped on the stairs.
A gang member caught up in a factional fight.
Even knowing that his level of skill might kill them, he had no choice but to go ahead.
Because in this world, he had no seniors, supervising professors, or system to serve as a safety net.
“Countless clinical trials are conducted in the upper districts. In reality, some people die from their side effects. Even knowing that, I prescribe those drugs.”
The same was true not only of surgery, but of medicine.
No matter how many precautions he took or how careful he was, it couldn't be helped.
In the end, trial drugs were bound to produce unexpected side effects.
Some side effects had to be carried for the rest of one's life.
“Many people have died because of the vaccines I made.”
Vaccines weighed especially heavily on his heart.
From a utilitarian perspective, vaccines are modern medicines administered despite the side effects they may cause.
All doctors know vaccines can have side effects, but the moment they take those into account, they have to fear an even worse pandemic,
so the essence of vaccination is to disregard those side effects and administer an uncertain treatment every time.
Although the smallpox vaccine of the present day had become much safer through continual improvements,
side effects were still occasionally reported at a probability of 0.1 percent.
That was why he thought:
Inexpert surgery, untested new drugs, and vaccines.
He had saved tens of millions of people,
but had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of strangers whose faces he did not even know.
If all of that were taken into account, the number of people he had killed or left disabled was incomparable to that of ordinary dark mages.
Even if good intentions lay at the foundation of it all,
he never looked away from the gates of hell beneath those good intentions.
“So, Freyja, as you said, I really am a hypocritical person.”
He had never once thought of himself as a saint.
A saint, after all, had to embody absolute good.
And the number of people he had knowingly killed was far too high for him ever to be pardoned.
In the first place, a doctor could never be a saint.
Doctors inevitably go through an inexperienced period, and no matter how much support they receive from a skilled professor, they are bound to show their inexperience.
And at some point, every surgeon performs their first operation.
In a sense, that first patient is a victim of the doctor.
‘This is why doctors in life-and-death specialties turn to alcohol and cigarettes so often.’
An inexperienced internist who failed to detect colon cancer smoked.
A surgeon who touched the wrong nerve reached for alcohol.
Perhaps this sense of indebtedness was the chain that bound them to their departments.
His mentor had once said that, and Yulian finally understood it now.
“That's why I consider myself a hypocrite.”
Saying that, Yulian took out a notebook.
Just as Freyja wondered if it might be Yulian's grimoire, he began reciting the names written in the notebook one by one.
“Regen. Atsuka. Tom. Ainell……. A patient with demon disease came in today. I resected the patient's colon to reduce their demon disease symptoms.”
The patient had Crohn's disease.
It was end-stage Crohn's disease.
“Having had so much of the colon removed, that patient probably won't live long.”
He calculated the patient's life expectancy in his head.
He was an elderly patient who had had completely uncontrolled Crohn's disease for decades, without steroids.
Given how much of the intestine had been removed, Yulian estimated that at most five years remained.
That didn't mean leaving it untouched had been an option.
If left alone, it would turn into colon cancer.
“I killed someone again today. To ease that guilt, I record it in this notebook.”
“Brother…… Brother, you…… that's…….”
Freyja was confused.
Because she didn't know what to say.
Was this hypocrisy too?
In the end, she hurriedly defended him, blurting out whatever came to mind.
“But Brother…… you ultimately saved so many more people.”
“That's right. That's why I am called a saint and pardoned.”
He let out a deep sigh.
“And that's why those who committed those crimes were pardoned.”
“……Ah.”
“They can save more people than the number of people they harmed. So I couldn't bring myself to abandon them—I had to try to save them.”
Yulian smiled self-deprecatingly.
Yulian thought.
If someone has the ability and will to atone, they should be given the opportunity.
Because that was what he had received.
When he was inexperienced.
Just as those who died because of his mistakes, inexperience, and errors had forgiven him.
Just as he had been able to grow amid that compassion and opportunity.
He thought that opportunity should be given to others as well.
Because he knew better than anyone that otherwise, his own existence could never be justified.
“I projected myself onto those people. Because I'm a hypocrite. That's why I'm saving them.”
Yulian looked at the piece of confit on his plate.
Alongside it, countless dishes he had cooked flashed through his mind.
Heart tartare steak.
Shark eyeball arani soup.
Ostrich liver steak.
He challenged himself with all sorts of bizarre ingredients.
At one point, he had dressed it up as an endgame challenge for a veteran player.
But in a corner of his heart, he had realized the truth about himself.
Hearts. Eyeballs. Livers. Things no one touched.
He liked seeing things that deserved to be discarded become something else over the fire.
As if pardoning them.
As if trying to prove that they, too, had value by transforming their “disgustingness” into flavor.
Perhaps this too was part of his self-rationalization.
The frog-leg confit was the same.
It was his own ritual and proof, meant to confirm that he was not wrong.
“Freyja. So let me make this clear.”
He couldn't bring himself to raise his head.
He didn't have the courage to look at his younger sister, who admired her father and held fast to her integrity.
He was far too ashamed of himself to do so.
“I'm not the great man people think I am.”
That was why he thought:
He was by no means a saint,
and should not be called one.