Chapter 38
A few days after the vaccine was completed. The clinic.
“Master. You are taking your supplements regularly, right?”
The clinic was as warm as ever from the heating.
My everyday life still hadn't changed.
No matter how brilliant an invention is, it takes time before the world recognizes it.
Even quinine and insulin, which shook the Empire, took a full year to spread widely among the public.
Let alone a vaccine, which is not a medicine that shows an obvious healing effect immediately, but a preventive drug that keeps you from getting sick.
To prove its true worth, we'd need at least two years.
‘Until then, life would probably just keep repeating as it is now.’
Still, no one knew better than I did that this peaceful everyday life would not last forever.
On the day the vaccine was completed.
Even more than Master, who had made a huge fuss over it.
‘A vaccine, of all things.’
If you had to name the GOAT of medical history, this invention would always stand shoulder to shoulder with antibiotics as one of the miracles of human history.
The moment the existence and value of this vaccine became properly known to the world, I would no longer be able to remain a lowly clinic doctor tucked away in this corner of Limbus Pit.
Whether the Imperial Family, the Magic Tower, or the great nobles.
It was obvious that someone would rush to put a leash on me first.
‘So even if the world changes, salaried work is still salaried work, huh....’
Still, until then, I would keep treating more people here in Limbus Pit.
I’d build up as many cases as I could, hand over whatever I could, and if possible, even stop by from time to time.
With that resolve in mind, I focused on today's patient.
“Master. I already give you dimercaprol regularly, right? I’m asking whether you’ve been taking both of the supplements I gave you without skipping either one.”
At my relentless questioning, the Great Sage Louis Edelhart furrowed his brow.
“Yeah. I’m taking that medicine properly.”
“No, why would I ask whether you were taking the ‘two’ properly? You’re not skipping the rest, are you?”
“Hey! Of course I’m taking it! Why so much nagging!”
Master raised his voice.
“How many times has this question come up now? You check every week, every single time. I’m not senile yet!”
“It’s important, so I’m going to keep asking.”
“My ears are so callused they’re practically growing mushrooms on the scabs. Stop asking already.”
“Nope.”
Of course, I did think I might be going overboard.
But this was one thing I could not compromise on.
“In treating chronic lead poisoning, if you only give dimercaprol, something terrible could happen.”
Medicine and poison are separated by the thinnest of lines.
If the dosage or instructions are even slightly wrong, a person can die in an instant.
That was especially true for dimercaprol, the lead-poisoning treatment.
“Master’s been accumulating lead in his bones for a full thousand years. This isn’t something that can be cured with just a month or two of medication.”
Dimercaprol.
A remedy made from eggs and garlic that I gave to my master.
Made from the sulfur abundant in eggs and garlic, this medicine has a strong affinity for lead.
So when dimercaprol enters the body, it draws the lead accumulated in the bones into the bloodstream.
Once it pulls the lead out, dimercaprol carries it away in the urine.
This is how dimercaprol treats lead poisoning.
The problem is that this medicine does not go out only through the urine while carrying lead.
“Unlike other medicines, dimercaprol is also a drug that flows into the brain.” Dimercaprol has an affinity for the brain as well.
So sometimes, instead of being flushed out in the urine, it goes into the brain while carrying lead.
As a result, all the lead stored in the bones can flow into the brain, creating a fatal situation.
So to prevent that, I prescribed two additional medicines.
“So I’m saying something terrible could happen if you don’t take this sour medicine and the pills together.”
Citric acid and bear bile.
These two medicines help dimercaprol go straight to the urine and liver instead of the brain.
Because of these two, dimercaprol can work as a medicine rather than a poison.
“So please make sure you take them. Rather than skip dimercaprol treatment, you absolutely have to take these two.”
“Ugh…. And this is the thirtieth time I’ve heard this story.”
“I’ll keep doing it anyway.”
I gave Master a firm answer, refusing to compromise.
This was the most dangerous moment.
As the saying goes, people change between entering and leaving the bathroom; patients are the same.
Right after they get sick, and right after they’re cured, they take their medicine properly.
But once their condition improves a little, or they think they know better, at some point they start taking their medicine carelessly.
Then, if their condition gets worse than before, the medicine stops working well, and things reach a point of no return.
That’s why I go this far to pester Master.
Because chronic lead poisoning can cause side effects that may never be reversible.
“This is my hard line. Please respect it.”
“Ugh. I picked up a stubborn youngest disciple in my old age....”
Though he grumbled, Master still took his medicines.
“All right. So these two absolutely must not be skipped, correct?”
“Yes. You absolutely cannot just take the stinky medicine.”
“Understood. It’s almost like my mother, who passed away a thousand years ago, came back to life.”
Master chuckled and gathered up the medicine.
Only after confirming the medicines had gone properly into his pocket did I open my mouth again.
“And as for lifestyle habits, aside from the medicine....”
“When you use lead, wear gloves because it soaks into the skin too, and wear a mask. Try not to breathe in lead fumes either.”
“And?”
“If your hands start shaking, your speech gets slurred, or your strength leaves your body, call a healer first—or come find me.”
“You know a lot.”
I smiled brightly.
It had been worth nagging him every time we met.
You can’t spit at a smiling face, so Master just laughed helplessly and shook his head.
Master slowly rose from his seat.
I quickly checked Master’s hand tremors.
‘He’s fine when he’s holding something.’
The hand that held the staff moved naturally.
It was proof that his lead poisoning had improved considerably.
“I’ll be going for today. So please don’t show up in my dreams just to lecture me, all right?”
“I’ll try.”
Master opened the clinic door and stepped out.
I watched the door Master had left through for a moment, then started organizing the charts on the table.
***
The highest spire of Sanctum Hill.
Back in his laboratory, Louis set the medicine bottles on the desk.
“Let’s see....”
— “You must absolutely take the other two as well.”
He picked up one bottle, remembering his disciple’s nagging.
He mixed the sour powder he took out of the bottle into water and drank it, then swallowed the bitter bear bile pills without leaving a single one behind.
He rinsed the empty bottles roughly.
It was to reuse the glass bottles.
Of course, given Yulian’s wealth, there was no need to be frugal.
But the Great Sage, who was always short on research funds, had developed the habit of saving even something as small as a glass bottle.
Click.
The washed glass bottle was set on the desk.
Next to the bottle were the experimental mask and gloves neatly laid out, both made by Yulian.
Louis looked at the items his disciple had prepared for a moment, then left the workshop with a satisfied smile.
The soft lights of the magical tools dimmed one by one, and thick darkness settled over the workshop.
The place he headed after leaving the laboratory was his bedroom right next door.
“Haaah.”
The Great Sage gave a light yawn and lay down on the bed.
He removed his eyepatch, and as he closed his remaining eye, his consciousness gradually sank into the darkness.
***
“It’s been a while.”
When the Great Sage Louis opened his eyes again, he realized he was drifting through a dream.
Dreams are like mirages; once you return to reality, they scatter into the far side of the subconscious.
But after hearing that prophets who followed the orbit of the stars could glimpse the future in these scattering fragments of dreams, the Great Sage began studying dreams.
As a result, he learned how to catch the moment when the soul touches the world’s causality while a human being’s shallow reason sleeps.
In simpler terms, he learned how to glimpse the future or a parallel world through dreams.
And after several decades, the opportunity finally came to Louis.
“Qudo oculus vadent, moria tenet.”
Louis moved his lips stiffly.
No sooner had the incantation ended than the blurry sea of the subconscious began to roil.
Soon, the hazy dreamscape took on clear form.
“Hm.”
Louis nodded in satisfaction.
Dreams of this sort did not come just because he wanted them to.
So the Great Sage studied not how to have prophetic dreams, but how to remember them.
This was the result of that magic.
Before long, the scenery began to flow little by little.
To glimpse the future, Louis naturally let himself drift with the flow the dream guided him along.
His field of view gradually sharpened, and a familiar yet unfamiliar scene spread out before him.
The magnificent reception hall of the Imperial Palace appeared before his eyes.
Louis was seated on the sofa in that reception hall.
And across from him stood a young man.
“Great Sage, sir. It’s time for your appointment.”
A calm and polite voice.
Louis’s one eye turned toward the young man standing opposite him.
‘Oh.’
Louis could not help but marvel inwardly.
The young man was Yulian.
Not the fifteen-year-old boy from reality, but Yulian grown into a young man in his mid-twenties.
His hair was neatly swept back, and he wore the immaculate uniform of a top-tier alchemist.
Above all, those handsome, mature features that somehow drew the eye.
‘So that’s what that brat will look like when he grows up. Tsk, he’ll probably make a lot of imperial noble ladies cry. He might even end up sneaking into the princess’s bedchamber.’
As his master, Louis felt sorry, but at the same time he was relieved once again that the boy had no talent for hypnosis.
The Yulian in the dream was extremely courteous and devoted.
Just like the Yulian in reality.
Yulian approached Louis, took his pulse, and gently held out a dazzling silver tray.
“Your complexion is excellent again today. Now, it’s time to take your medicine.”
“Very well. You’re busy, so it must be a hassle to come all the way to the Imperial Palace every time, doctor.”
Louis in the dream chuckled and accepted the medicine the young man offered.
It seemed there was no deep master-disciple bond in this version.
Even so, Yulian was sincere toward his patient.
‘Then....’
But.
Something was strange.
His instincts, honed over a thousand years, were sounding the alarm.
The young man before him was indeed Yulian.
His appearance, voice, and tone.
Everything was the same as his lovely disciple’s.
Yet the Great Sage could not easily feel any resonance from the young man before him.
Still, the Great Sage suppressed the rising sense of wrongness and decided to let himself naturally drift with the flow of the dream.
He intended to watch until the end, to see where the causality of this bizarre parallel world would lead.
“Heh, no matter how many times I breathe it in, I still can’t get used to this awful smell.”
“A good medicine is always bitter, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The doctor is right, as always.”
In the dream, Louis chuckled and gulped down the brown potion—dimercaprol—on the silver tray in one go.
And not long after the medicine slid down his esophagus.
“Mmm....”
The dream-Louis’s limbs began to lose strength.
It was a strange sensation.
Louis’s reason as the observer was clear, but his dream-self was somehow in an odd state.
At that very moment.
“...”
The atmosphere of the young man who had been so gentle and devoted just moments ago changed completely.
The dutiful doctor from a moment ago was nowhere to be seen, and something utterly devoid of human emotion looked down at the Great Sage.
The young man slowly placed a hand atop the Great Sage’s head, which was still swaying dizzily.
A low, eerie black mana flowed from his fingertips.
The mana began carving a grotesque spell into the Great Sage’s brain.
The real Louis, watching from a step back, was stunned.
‘Is he using necromancy to control the mind of a living person...!’
Lead is a catalyst commonly used to control naturally born undead.
Because of its symbolism as a prison for souls, it allows the caster to seize their souls.
And the Yulian in the dream was using it on the Great Sage.
‘How is something like this possible?’
Normally, the Great Sage’s mental barriers were firmer than anything in the world.
No matter how skilled the black mage, directly casting hypnosis or domination magic into the Great Sage’s brain was nearly impossible.
But the Yulian in the dream was accomplishing it far too easily.
Louis quickly figured out the principle.
‘...Lead.’
The Yulian in the dream was making use of the Great Sage’s accumulated years.
The lead that had accumulated in his body over a thousand years.
He was soaking the Great Sage’s brain in that lead, then casting black magic.
The side effect that the real Yulian had warned him about so strongly.
This was the worst-case result of taking only the main medicine, dimercaprol, and skipping the supplements.
‘So this is why Yulian told me to take the supplements together.’
Louis once again marveled at the endless knowledge of both the real Yulian and the one in the dream.
Dream-Louis muttered in his fading consciousness.
“Doctor... sir.”
“Yes, Great Sage. Please speak.”
The dream Great Sage, his brain soaked with lead, muttered like a delirious old man.
“How long... has it been since we met?”
A question that was almost a ramble.
To Louis’s question, the young Yulian replied without withdrawing the black magic flowing from his hand.
In an utterly calm and emotionless voice, with not the slightest ripple.
“About ten years, I’d say.”
Ten years.
The span of time it took a thirteen-year-old child in reality to become a young man in his mid-twenties.
This young man had been steadily gnawing away at the Great Sage’s brain throughout those long years.
By applying the knowledge he already possessed.
‘So this is the level of that child’s talent for black magic.’
But one question remained.
In this version, Yulian and Louis did not seem to have a master-disciple relationship.
Even so, the black magic displayed by the young man before him was no less refined than the real Yulian’s—no, perhaps even more so.
Then where, exactly, had this dream-Yulian learned such precise black magic?
As if mocking Louis’s doubt, the young Yulian whispered softly.
“Thanks to you, it was a very fruitful time, Great Sage.”
Louis’s one eye widened in shock.
“No way...”
This Yulian in the dream had been steadily stealing the Great Sage’s knowledge for ten long years.
Using the bond forged by lead, in a very natural and stealthy way.
‘Goodness... no, perhaps that would only be natural for a child like him.’
He had seen the miracle that occurs when talent is directed the right way.
Then, naturally, the opposite must also be possible.
The disciple’s eerily overwhelming talent sent a chill through Louis that was more awe than disgust.
As if reading Louis’s feelings, the Yulian in the dream whispered.
“Even a thousand years of wisdom becomes powerless once trapped in a decaying body. The years you spent gathering wisdom have, in the end, become your leash.”
“...”
If he had at least laughed arrogantly like a third-rate villain, it might have been easier to dismiss.
But that Yulian simply stated the Great Sage’s future in a calm voice.
As if this, too, were merely part of his grand design.
“I’ll make good use of the Great Sage’s body. A body belonging to an 8th-circle mage who has lived for a thousand years—what better vessel could there be?”
Just as the black mana was about to completely devour the Great Sage’s remaining self.
“...”
Louis’s gaze, which had been quietly observing the situation as a spectator, turned cold.
The mad talent displayed by his counterpart in the parallel world was certainly interesting.
But that was no reason to humiliate the mind of a grand mage who had reigned for a thousand years.
Above all, the intent behind this ‘dream’ was so insolent that he couldn’t stand it.
This was as far as the dream went.
“———!”
A single, brief incantation.
At that moment, the scene of the reception hall, which had been maintaining its solid form, began to crack with a sharp creak.
“You foolish mirage.”
Louis’s voice echoed through the entire collapsing dream world.
“Your potential is truly astonishing, and horrifying. But did you really think that petty little variable could deceive me?”
In the past, when Louis was young and arrogant, he had hungered for wisdom and the future.
He had clung to shallow futures in order to seize all the world’s causality, and the price he paid was his right eye.
And in exchange for losing his sight, he gained insight.
“Just because you’ve seen one swirling wave doesn’t mean you can speak of the ocean’s end.”
“...”
“Arrogant creature. The end of the world will never remain on that flimsy page you read.”
Crash—!
With a sound like a giant window shattering, the false parallel world’s spacetime began to break apart into pieces.
Just before the Great Sage’s consciousness surfaced back into reality.
He spoke to the man who was calmly looking at him.
“I doubt you can hear this, since you’re merely a creation of the dream, but I’ll tell you anyway.”
“...”
“At best, you’re only the prince of glowworms.”
And then the Great Sage thought of a certain boy and said,
“You will never become a star.”
Crash!
With that final line, the Great Sage’s dream shattered into fragments.
*
“Phew....”
Louis slowly sat up and let out a hollow laugh.
The face of that truly mesmerizing and horrifying monster remained vivid in his mind.
Louis turned his head and looked at the desk.
There, the three empty medicine bottles Yulian had prepared, the crude but carefully made mask, and the leather gloves were all laid out neatly.
— “You absolutely cannot just take the stinky medicine.”
— “If your hands start shaking, your speech gets slurred, or your strength leaves your body, you should go straight to a healer or come to me.”
Under the dim magical lamp of Limbus Pit.
The young face of his disciple, smiling awkwardly there, rose in his mind.
With that face in mind, the Great Sage shook off his thoughts of the monster from the dream.
He vowed never again to arrogantly think he could judge the ocean by a river’s current.
***
The following week, the clinic.
“Master. You skipped your supplements three times this week.”
At Yulian’s softly spoken question as he flipped through the chart, the Great Sage of the Empire seated opposite him coughed and averted his gaze.
At his disciple’s gentle probing, the grand mage’s face visibly reddened.
“Well... I’ve just been very busy lately....”
“Ah, so you forgot.”
The moment he heard that line, Yulian felt the back of his neck heat up.
He set down his pen and smiled brightly.
“I spent several nights staying up in that reeking pile of rotten eggs and garlic just to extract your medicine and process bear liver for you, Master. I guess all that work meant very little to you.”
“Uh, no, that’s not what I meant....”
“Well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t take them.”
He picked up the chart again and added indifferently.
“If you don’t take the medicine and clear the lead poisoning from your system, you’ll be the one spending the rest of your life with shaking hands, not me. After all, it’s not my body. If you really don’t want to take it, then go ahead and live the rest of your life leaning on a staff and trembling.”
“Khhm! I’m sorry. I’ll make sure I don’t forget and keep taking them diligently. So please forgive me.”
The Empire’s Great Sage bowed to his disciple, showing the top of his head.
If other mages saw this, they’d foam at the mouth and cry that it was a disgrace to magic itself.
But Yulian felt no guilt whatsoever and accepted his master’s apology.
“Understood. Then I’ll rewrite your prescription, so please make sure you take the supplements according to it.”
“Ugh... I’m definitely the master here....”
“Did you say something?”
“No, nothing.”
Yulian once again rescheduled his master’s delayed medication regimen.
A fantasy world with flying magecraft ships and great mages.
No matter how drastically the world changes, one truth never changes.
Even a thousand-year-old Great Sage is, before a doctor, just an ordinary patient who has to endure nagging.
notes":"Aligned title to nearby English chapter naming as Glowworm Prince 8; kept named references (Louis/Yulian/the Great Sage) where dream-context pronouns could be ambiguous, and smoothed a few awkward/redundant phrasings in the later clinic scene."}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]}]},{