Chapter 32
*
A few days had passed since the sudden encounter with a second-rank black mage and the strange meeting with an old mage named Pitz.
Nothing special had happened after that.
I went down to Limbus Pit with Eri and treated people there.
“Parabam parabam~”
There, I shattered even my calm persona and hummed a ridiculous little tune.
Because my patient right now was an eight-month-old baby.
“Bibbidi bobbidi boo….”
The doctor's greatest natural enemy is a baby.
Because no conversation or compromise works on them.
— You're the world's best doctor, a Harvard Med graduate? Yeah. I'm crying.
All a doctor's skills and knowledge are useless in front of a baby.
Babies are invincible gods to doctors.
So when dealing with them, you have to set aside your dignity and authority.
“Lillili lalala….”
And this song is a skill pediatric specialists invented to give babies shots.
First, you distract the child with a song or toy, then give the injection without the child noticing.
For the record, I didn't think this skill broke my lofty persona.
By all rights, a doctor should be willing to clown around for a patient, bash their head against the hospital corridor floor, and throw a tantrum in front of politicians.
That's what I was taught, at least.
Though the classmates from my own era were all too stiff-necked.
“Doctor….”
Fortunately, all this effort didn't lead to Julian's calm persona collapsing.
Rather, I could feel that both Eri and the baby's mother were looking at me with admiring eyes.
...Those are admiring eyes, right?
They're not looking at me with pity, are they?
“Ethan, look at this. What's this?”
“Bububba!”
Anyway.
After about fifteen minutes of effort, the baby's guard finally broke down.
The baby's gaze fixed on the beak of my mask.
While the baby's attention was on my mask, I jabbed a 3x3 grid of needles into its thigh.
It was a vaccine that weakened the virus by mixing cow pus with diluted holy water.
Strictly speaking, it was a little different, but for convenience I called it the cowpox method.
Poke.
A tiny dot remained on the baby's thigh.
Realizing it had been tricked, the baby blinked, but the injection was already done.
“Ethan is healthy. I don't think you need to worry about syphilis.”
“Oh, thank you, doctor.”
The baby's mother let out a breath of relief.
I pinched the baby's cheek as it stared at my beak with bright, alert eyes.
“By the way, doctor. What did you just do to Ethan's thigh?”
“It's like a spell that makes him healthier. You could call it an enhancement sigil.”
“Ah, I see.”
Ethan's guardian nodded.
It was still a little too early to spread the concept of vaccines to the world.
So babies at one, three, six, and twelve months were brought in periodically on the pretext that they might have syphilis, and secretly given vaccinations.
If I slipped up, I might get burned at the stake... but well, wouldn't the power of a misunderstanding story take care of that somehow?
“Please go in, ma'am.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
After sending off that eventful eight-month-old pediatric patient.
As I was putting away the needles, Eri said to me.
“By the way, doctor. Was that really an enhancement sigil just now?”
“Yeah.”
It is an enhancement sigil, after all.
Because it even grants immunity to several plague-type curses.
Nobles even walk around covered head to toe in holy relics to protect themselves from the plague curse.
If you think about it, couldn't vaccination be called an enhancement sigil?
“Were you a sigil carver too, doctor?”
“Not a sigil carver, but I have studied that field.”
A sigil carver is the term for people who perform inscriptions.
For the record, despite the "doctor" in the name, they weren't medical professionals.
They were closer to tattoo artists who inked designs onto people's bodies.
Not knowing that, and seeing "doctor" at the end of the word, I studied that field diligently too.
By the time I realized it halfway through, it was already too late, so I just studied it to the end.
“So this is what real geniuses do for fun—they study….”
But that study wasn't a total waste.
Because it added another misunderstanding Eri had about me.
Well, if you think of it as something that strengthens my character, maybe it's not all that bad.
That was when I was preparing to receive the next patient.
As Eri was organizing the records of Ethan's visit, she clacked her pen and spoke.
“By the way, doctor. And I'm asking seriously, but wouldn't it be better to just take off that mask instead of going all out with those antics?”
“….”
“Honestly, I think the reason kids start crying the moment they see you is because of that.”
I silently touched the beak of my plague doctor mask.
And shook my head.
“Seems like taking it off wouldn't change anything.”
The proof was our youngest, Fried.
That kid kept looking like he was about to cry whenever he saw me.
This face really did look awfully gloomy.
“Fried didn't seem to like my face much either.”
“I heard that from Freya, but she said it's because you jab Fried's thigh with a needle whenever you see him.”
“….”
I ignored Eri's words and turned toward the entrance.
“Next patient, please.”
***
After the consultation ended.
For the first time in a while, I headed to Wangcho's restaurant for research.
“Wangcho, I'm here.”
“You're here, doctor? But what kind of research are you doing this time that you're buying up so many eggs? And only fertile eggs, too.”
“They'll all be useful.”
This time, the research I was obsessed with was vaccines.
The reason was none other than the grimoire of the black mage Belgian.
The grimoire he left behind contained detailed notes on ghoul-type magic and plague-curse-type magic.
What caught my attention was the plague-curse side of it.
‘Biological immunity nullified magical curses.’
Then couldn't the reverse also be possible?
That was the starting point of the research.
The biggest reason vaccines couldn't originally be made in this world was that there was no way to control viruses or bacteria.
The smallpox vaccine at least had the cowpox method, but the others didn't.
In that situation, the plague curse Belgian left behind was an exceedingly welcome guest.
At last, I had a way to control viruses or bacteria however I wanted.
‘Of course, I obviously couldn't just cast this directly on people.’
Existing curses don't have the concept of adjustment.
It was made for killing in the first place—there was no way its power could be adjusted.
If I went around casting this on people and calling it vaccination, I'd become not a protagonist but the Hitler of another world.
So I decided to refer to the method used to make vaccines in the 21st century.
‘Fertile egg culture method’
It was the most common and traditional method used in modern medicine for mass-producing flu vaccines and the like.
Literally, it was a technique that cultivated viruses by injecting them into fertile eggs before they hatched.
With this method, I didn't have to do the insane thing of directly casting curses on people.
My plan was to cast the plague curse on the eggs, then later extract and purify only the weakened virus from them.
“Doctor. You're really unable to tell me?”
“No. It's confidential.”
Of course, I was carrying out this entire line of research in secret, all by myself.
Black magic itself wasn't taboo.
If you asked which was more cruel—burning someone to death or letting them die of disease—it would be hard to say one was clearly worse.
Likewise, as long as black magic wasn't used directly for crime, research into it as a field wasn't completely banned by the church or the empire.
But considering the primal disgust and rejection people in this world felt toward black magic, it was hard to be looked upon kindly, even in a back alley like this.
Besides, in a world that didn't even have the concept of vaccines, I couldn't exactly say outright that I planned to inject curses into people's bodies.
Of course, that wasn't the only reason.
In the first place, safety is the top priority in any research dealing with viruses or bacteria.
But in this world, where even the concept of hygiene was lacking, finding people who could follow all those safety protocols was no easy task.
So for safety's sake as well, I was carrying out this research alone.
“Tsk… understood.”
Whether my sincerity got through to him or not, Wangcho nodded reluctantly.
But he still didn't look fully convinced, so I lowered my voice as much as I could and said.
“I'm sorry, Wangcho. This is a research project that could put everyone involved at risk if things go wrong.”
The color drained from Wangcho's face in an instant.
“Hiiik!”
But contrary to my intention, Wangcho seemed to have misunderstood in a different direction.
“Understood. I won't let anyone, absolutely no one, linger around the lab. And I won't let anyone peek at your research.”
“There's no need to go that far….”
Tsk.
The moment the misunderstanding that I had no burn scars was cleared up, a new misunderstanding got added.
I considered explaining again, but decided to leave it alone.
From the Belgian incident last time, I learned that misunderstandings can't be resolved by words alone.
Once the research was over, the misunderstanding would naturally clear up. And if it didn't, that was fine too.
Too lazy to explain myself any further, I nodded vaguely.
In fact, that sort of misunderstanding might even help with security quite a bit.
“Eri. Grab the eggs. We're going to the clinic's storage room.”
“Are you going to use all of these for research?”
“...I'll cook the unfertilized ones separately, so don't feel bad about it.”
“Then I want an omelet.”
“Sure.”
The excited Eri picked up a basket full of fertile eggs with both hands.
Her strength was growing stronger by the day, to the point where I was no match for her anymore.
We headed to my small private lab set up behind the clinic.
My private lab in Limbus Pit had been built by remodeling a storage room.
“Eri. You can head out.”
“Yeees~”
After confirming that Eri had left the lab.
Left alone, I firmly locked the door and began preparing for the experiment in earnest.
‘First, Belgian's grimoire.’
I turned the safe's dial and took out the cow pus and Belgian's grimoire stored inside.
Then I opened the lid of the bottle and spread Belgian's notebook beside it.
[Sanio et Putro. (O pus, O decay.)]
I felt magic power draining from my body.
I couldn't cast magic anywhere else, but in the lab I could cast suitable magic.
The reason I couldn't become a mage in the first place was that in uncontrolled environments, I lacked the talent to grasp the state of variables.
In other words, if the conditions were controlled, even I could cast magic just fine.
‘I might not be a mage anywhere else, but at least I could call myself a spellcaster.’
Most research-type mages who never quite became full mages are basically the same type as me.
Everyone can cast magic to some extent inside their own lab or workshop.
Even that only works under very finicky conditions—like if a cleaner comes through once, it won't work the next day.
[Morde Cuten Eos (Gnaw away at their skin)]
As the incantation continued, a whitish smoke rose from the bottle of pus.
It was a smoke of a different color from Belgian's black smoke.
It was only the catalyst that was slightly different, but I didn't really know why it produced such a different result.
That was something I'd have to figure out gradually.
[Efflora, Morbiflos (Bloom, O plague flower.)]
Before long, the incantation ended.
White mist, following the ritual values I had set, wrapped around a tray of eggs on the worktable.
I studied the eggs carefully and picked out ten of them.
“Twenty were duds….”
Since I had changed a curse originally meant for people into one used on eggs, the failure rate was quite high.
I soaked those ten eggs in holy water.
No matter how much the ritual weakened its power, it was still a curse fundamentally designed to kill people.
For eggs to withstand such a curse, they needed the help of holy water.
‘It was like making a vaccine with a biochemical bomb.’
Usually, the order would be the other way around.
With a self-mocking smile, I put the remaining ten eggs into an incubator box.
I wrote today's date on the box and shoved it into a corner of the lab.
Then I took out the box that had originally been there, the one marked with the date from four days ago.
Four days earlier, I had injected curses into those eggs the same way and suppressed their power with diluted holy water before putting them in the incubator.
“Now, let's see.”
There were six eggs in the box.
With a little anticipation and tension, I brought the eggs under the lamp.
If it had worked, shining light through the egg would reveal a chick embryo wriggling inside.
‘Let's start with the first one….’
The inside of the egg that the light passed through was clouded over in a deep dark-brown color, like sewer water.
Come to think of it, it had looked strange even before I shone the light through it.
It had fine cracks all over the shell, as if it were rotten.
With a bitter smile, I tossed the first egg into the waste bin.
“Next….”
The second egg.
At first glance, it had a pretty shell.
But when I shone light through it, all I could see inside was pus—no embryo at all.
It was a failure.
“Next.”
The third… the fourth…
And the sixth.
“So it failed again….”
I let out a despondent sigh and rubbed my forehead.
Not a single one of the six fertile eggs survived.
They had all either rotted black, burst with pus and stank, or dried up.
‘Either I set the curse's power too strong, or the holy water's suppressive power was too weak.’
But I couldn't just use too much holy water either.
That would end up killing the curse instead.
‘There are too many things to fine-tune.’
First, I needed to modify the ritual so it worked better on chicks, find a way to lower its power even further, and balance it against the holy water.
‘Phew….’
It had been a long time since I last felt this at a loss—since quinine.
I'd once thought the liquid itself was the raw material and fussed over it endlessly, only to later discover that in this world, it was the shell that was the ingredient.
‘Well, that's what research is like.’
Magic research was especially like that.
Unlike science, failure didn't give you feedback.
When magic fails, it only takes your mana, and gives you no clue why it failed.
This was written in detail even in the grimoire handed to me by the mage named 'Pitz.'
‘Even that old man failed his research on holy water thousands of times.’
The grimoire he gave me detailed the journey to discovering magic with holy water as a medium.
In the research log, which still seemed to be ongoing, the last entry was numbered 5,214.
‘Compared to that, I'm only on my fifteenth failure.’
Isn't scholarship, after all, just a record of failure?
So even if I failed today, I wasn't particularly impatient.
I was only twelve years old, and I still had far too much life ahead of me.
‘Above all, I'm the protagonist of a misunderstanding story.’
I snorted a laugh and tidied up the boxes.
And then I added today's experimental results and future improvements to the research log.