Chapter 39
*
[Julian. Are you free right now.]
I was in the clinic, in the middle of sorting out my tools.
Then, out of nowhere, a voice rang in my head.
'It's Master.'
It was Master's telepathy.
Just like when we first met, Master would sometimes speak directly into my mind like this.
At first, it really startled me.
I even worried that maybe I couldn't survive this grim world setting and had gone insane.
Fortunately, my mind was fine.
"Yes. I have a bit of free time right now. What is it, Master."
[I'm contacting you because it's that time of year.]
"That time of year...?"
I thought for a moment.
Before long, I realized what Master was trying to say.
"It's already that time of year, then."
[That's right. The autumn academic conference is right around the corner.]
As expected.
On both sides, big academic conferences were always held in the fall.
Summer is too hot,
winter is too cold,
and spring feels like it comes too early.
So they're usually held in autumn.
Besides, that season also has an abundance of seasonal ingredients, so it's the best time to lavishly entertain guests.
And during this period, Master could never come down to Limbus Pit.
[There are just too many recommendation letters again this year....]
"That sounds rough, Master."
In this world, magic is directly tied to powerful military weapons.
Because of that, the Empire's autumn academic conference is not just a place for exchanging knowledge.
It's a place where young magic scholars dreaming of success (average age: 40s) try to get selected as imperial court mages,
and also a place where each magic tower throws everything it has into proving the results of the research grants it burned through last year.
And the one who oversees all of it is Master.
As the supreme advisor and final examiner,
he assesses how academically valuable the work of countless magic towers is, and at the same time how useful it is militarily.
That was why Master became so busy during this period.
[I'm nearly blind from reviewing the budgets and papers submitted by tower lords from all over the Empire. And this year there are quite a few promising talents the Imperial House is keeping an eye on, so there are more than a few places where this old man has to sit in the judging seat and show his face.]
I could feel a deep weariness in the telepathy.
[They take a theory from fifty years ago, twist it a little, and pass it off as their own, or dig up an experiment that already failed three hundred years ago and label it an 'innovative reinterpretation'... I can't find a single thing in ten papers that makes my eyes light up....]
Before I knew it, Master had started grumbling.
Once he got going like this, there was no end to it.
At times like this, he didn't even need a response.
So I listened to the complaints in one ear and let them out the other while I took my next patient.
[In the end, I told that kid where the old archive was and sent him back. Told him to go look it up and read it for himself. You should've seen the look on his face—utterly crestfallen.]
After finishing his grumbling, Master's voice felt much lighter.
After prescribing medicine to the patient, I focused on the telepathy again.
[If I have to stay in this boring academic conference, I'd rather do research with you. So, Julian, can you think of any new research topics?]
Looks like he's still obsessed with that vaccine research from last time.
Unfortunately, nothing came to mind right now.
"I'm sorry, Master."
[I wasn't asking for an apology. Instead, Julian, would you maybe come to the conference with me this year?]
"No."
[Ehh. Tsk. It's your master's invitation; the least you could do is pretend to think about it for a moment....]
"Just as you dislike the academic conference, I dislike it for the same reason."
There's nothing for me to learn at the conference.
The magic of this world has developed toward killing things.
In other words, it's called an academic conference, but in practice it's little more than a military expo.
Naturally, there would be nothing there for someone like me, whose mission is to save people, to learn.
Besides, there was another reason.
"There is no Black Magic Tower."
Out of the thirteen kinds of magic classified by the Grand Sage, only black magic has no magic tower.
Of course, academically speaking, black magic is unquestionably a branch of magic.
But there was a reason black magic alone had no tower.
"You wiped out that tower yourself, Master. What would I even have to look at there?"
In the past, the Black Magic Tower was personally erased by the Grand Sage.
He had called for mages to gather to protect humanity, only for them to start planning mass slaughter instead.
It was a problem caused by black magic being more specialized in killing people than monsters.
Since that incident, there has been no Black Magic Tower in the Empire.
Not only is there no Black Magic Tower, even gatherings of black mages themselves are completely forbidden by law.
For that reason, black magic alone came to follow a one-master, one-disciple succession system.
Anyway.
Because of that history, I had no desire to go to the autumn academic conference.
"Or is there something I absolutely need to see?"
[Well. There might be new encounters or things to see, isn't there?]
"Are there more patients there than at Limbus Pit?"
[Grr.... No, that's not it.]
"Then I won't go."
[I see....]
The telepathy sounded strangely dejected.
He really did seem determined to take me with him this year.
[Then even if you can't come to the conference, can you at least send the scholarship fund under my name again this year?]
"How much?"
[I'm embarrassed to ask, but even fifty million mar would still be a huge sum.]
The total budget shared by the magic towers is broadly made up of three parts.
One is imperial support money.
One is scholarships from senior mages.
And the remaining one is outside donations.
Each and every one of them was important money that let the towers barely get through the year.
"Would fifty million mar be enough?"
[How could I, as your master, take any more from my youngest disciple?]
"I should be the richest one among my senior brothers and sisters."
[Ahem.]
The Grand Sage's direct disciples—my senior brothers and sisters—are mostly tower lords or elders.
But being a tower lord is basically just an honorary title.
In the first place, a magic tower is basically a gallery for mages.
And their head, the tower lord, is basically just the top dog.
So my senior brothers and sisters don't have all that much money.
In the first place, those people are not the type who donate to research—they're the ones who receive donations.
"Please say it properly. Then I can send it properly."
[Seventy million...]
"Would it really be enough to send just that?"
[Then please make it one hundred million mar.]
"I'll send it to you."
One hundred million mar.
Roughly the annual income of a baron's house.
But now that vaccine profits were slowly trickling in.
I had more than enough money to give to Master.
[I've really done well for myself in old age, taking in a disciple like you.]
"It makes me a little embarrassed when you get sentimental over things like this."
[Ahem.]
That probably accounted for a fair share of why Master liked me.
He practically always said how nice it was not to have to think about money when researching with me.
[Understood. Then let's meet in winter.]
"Please go ahead, Master."
[Right.]
For a moment, silence fell.
Just as the telepathy was about to cut out,
[Julian.]
"Yes."
[Come to think of it, this year's academic conference may not be a completely meaningless period.]
"...Pardon?"
[No, never mind. It's just an old man's rambling, so don't worry about it. I'll contact you first in the winter.]
"Yes. Goodbye, Master."
With that, the telepathy cut off.
*
After my telepathy with Master ended.
As usual, I finished seeing patients that day and closed the clinic door.
Then, when I went out the back door, I came face-to-face with a young man wearing a hat pulled low.
"Otto. You've been waiting?"
Otto.
Our frail escort and driver.
Even after collapsing last time, he was still my escort.
The reason was simple.
Ironically, because he had collapsed, I ended up making a connection with Master.
At the time, Otto alone hadn't developed much immunity yet and came down with Belzian's curse.
Because of that, I had to take him to the clinic, and that's where I met Master.
So I decided to keep Otto on as my escort.
I wasn't sure whether it had anything to do with the conventions of a misunderstanding story, but Otto felt like my lucky charm.
On the way home from work.
As Otto and I walked side by side, I suddenly remembered something.
"Right. It was about time to renew the escort contract, wasn't it?"
"Yes, that's right."
"I'll raise your salary this year too."
"...What did I do?"
So from that day on, I've been raising Otto's salary by 10 percent every year.
Just because it felt like tossing money into a donation box when the new year rolled around.
Of course, that wasn't the only reason.
'Otto is the kind of escort who's hard to find.'
For an escort, the most important thing isn't strength, but loyalty.
No matter how strong an escort is, if he's only thinking about cutting my throat, then he's not an escort—he's an assassin.
In that sense, Otto was too good an asset to cut loose over a mistake that small.
He's tight-lipped and highly loyal.
On top of that, I'd even done him a favor, so by genre logic he was all the more trustworthy.
"Or is it that you don't have the confidence to live up to my expectations?"
"...No, that's not it."
"Good."
I nodded calmly.
"Then, Otto. After getting the beef from Big Boss, let's take Eri and head back up."
"Yes, sir."
I left the clinic, with the reluctant driver walking ahead of me.
*
Picking up Eri, who had been training with Chief Shen at Civitas Square,
I returned to the Sanctum Hill mansion and had the servants unload the beef from the car.
While the servants bustled about, the head butler approached me.
"Oh? What kind of beef is it this time?"
"It was a gift from down below. Big Boss said he had a hard time getting it."
"What a precious thing. I suppose I should send that friend a bottle of wine later."
While we were talking, the huge slab of beef was stored in our mansion's freezer.
"I'll bring the rest tomorrow and the day after. The meat was too big to fit it all in the car."
"Understood. I'll let the cook know."
After that short conversation with the head butler.
I passed the suddenly busy servants,
and naturally headed toward the dining room.
"Y-Young Master?!"
"Shh. I'm here to cook again today."
I put a finger to my lips at the cook, who was still startled even after all these years.
Before I knew it, cooking had become my hobby.
I started it to flesh out the character Julian.
But once I got into it, I found it fun.
So I would often sneak into the kitchen without Mother knowing.
Of course, most of the time I got caught later and was scolded.
I tied on my apron and rolled up my shirt sleeves with practiced ease.
Then I explained today's menu to the cook.
"Today's menu is steak tartare."
"What?"
I pushed aside the horrified cook and took over the cutting board.
When I was twelve, I needed a footstool.
Now I was tall enough to stand at the cutting board without one.
"A fresh cow just came in. So I want to cook it myself."
Beef is meat that's hard to come by, even at Big Boss's slaughterhouse.
So whenever beef came in like this, I would sometimes take the kitchen knife myself.
"The lean meat can wait a little longer, so let's handle the innards first."
The cook frowned at the word innards.
In the first place, in the world I came from, it wasn't that long ago that innards had been elevated under the name of 'special cuts.'
Even foie gras, the symbol of luxury cuisine, only really became upscale in the late 19th century.
That's because special cuts spoil quickly, are a pain to process, and even after taking on all that trouble, they still don't taste all that great.
Because of that, in a world like this, they naturally carried the image of food that only the lower classes would scavenge.
But that's when culinary techniques are underdeveloped and special cuts are cooked badly.
'If it's delicious, that's cuisine; if it's beautiful, that's art.'
Even if you make it from innards, if it tastes good and the plating is nice, it becomes fine dining.
So I never threw away the innards and always used them in cooking.
"Today I'm using the cow's heart and marrow."
Actually, while the beef was being unloaded from the car, I'd secretly set aside the heart and bones.
I gave the cook, who wouldn't dare interfere across the class divide, a wink, and wiped the kitchen knife once with a cloth.
On the cutting board lay a heart with a deep, dark reddish-brown color.
And beside it was a cow leg bone split lengthwise in half.
'First, shall I deal with the blood vessels?'
Blood vessels were tough and tasteless parts.
No matter how much you processed them, they would never taste good.
Especially in a cow's heart, there were many tough and fatty spots, so they needed careful handling.
'Remove all the coronary arteries and veins....'
I slid the blade in along the path of the aorta.
The tip of the knife separated the two coronary arteries from the heart.
As a surgeon, knowing anatomy was a considerable advantage in cooking.
Because I knew how to treat it, I also knew how to remove the blood vessels neatly.
'Remove the fat and connective tissue too.'
I cut the remaining lump of muscle, the heart, in half.
Then I cut it in half once more, slicing the heart into four thin pieces.
Keeping the rhythm, I minced it with the back of the knife.
'Next, shall I roast the bone?'
I slid the vertically split cow leg bone into the hot oven.
Before long, the marrow inside the bones in the oven began to bubble.
Marrow gives off a butter-like aroma when heated, so it could be used like this.
I scraped out the browned marrow, now soft as pudding, and placed it over the finely chopped heart meat.
Next, I prepared the seasoning.
Capers, finely chopped shallots, ground whole-grain mustard, a drop of black vinegar, and olive oil.
After mixing them well with the heart, I seasoned it with rock salt and black pepper.
That made the steak tartare complete.
'If I just called it blanched yukhoe... would that sound a little plain?'
Back when I was training in the U.S.
It was a French dish the professor there bought for me.
When I ate it then, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was just French yukhoe.
No, wait.
Yukhoe is a luxury dish too.
What's wrong with Korean food?
'...Let's just pay attention to the plating.'
As originally planned, I decided to use the bones as plates.
After scooping out the marrow, I carefully filled the hollow bones with the heart tartare.
And beside it, I neatly arranged some young herb leaves with a pleasantly bitter taste.
That gave me a total of six completed plates.
I chose one of them and gave it a quick sauté in the pan.
'Frid might still have trouble digesting raw meat.'
My youngest brother was turning four this year.
He eats meat well, but even so, raw slices like this would probably be a bit too hard for him.
So I gave Frid's portion one last quick sauté and plated it again.
And with that, tonight's dinner was ready.
"Done."
"Young Master? What on earth is this dish...?"
"Tartare de cœur à la moelle."
I smiled at the flustered cook, and wiped my hands with the cloth.
I hung up the apron and headed for the dining room exit.
"I'm going upstairs. If Mother asks for me, please say I was never here. I'm sure you'll handle the dish explanation well."
"Y-Young Master?!"
"If you'd like to add anything, please feel free to add it as you see fit."
Leaving the frantic cook behind, I hurried toward the dining room.
It was to create an alibi before Mother caught me.
'...I was organizing something in the lab....'
But that scheme of mine ended in failure.
"Julian."
A cold voice came from behind me.
I slowly turned around.
And there, the matriarch of the Nihirit family was standing.
"Julian. Will you tell me what happened?"
"I'm sorry."
"Haah...."
Julian Schnabel Nihirit.
Caught by Mother in front of the kitchen.
Today marked the monumental 1,000th time.