Chapter 4
I should start regaining the instincts I had in my past life.
It had been a long time since I started supplying quinine to the merchant guild.
During that time, I'd realized one thing.
That my instincts as a doctor were practically dead.
'As expected, even a little rest makes your skills rust.'
I realized that while researching quinine.
Making quinine itself had been fine.
The problem was when I was giving quinine intravenously to a malaria patient.
'A surgeon not finding a vein on the first try.'
At the time, I had to stick the clinical trial patient three times before I could finally find the vein.
That was a rather serious matter.
If I kept spending my childhood like this, I might lose all my dexterity by the time I turned twenty.
Realizing that, I started looking for a way to get patients right away.
Fortunately, places that needed a doctor weren't hard to find.
'I just need to go volunteer as a medic.'
Down there, in the slums, there would be patients waiting for a doctor in droves.
Once I'd decided, I acted quickly.
I immediately went to God'sfather's office to ask for permission.
“I've realized while researching quinine that many people need my help. For that reason, for the time being, I'd like to go to the slums-
“Go ahead.”
“?”
“As expected, blood will tell. I'll send an escort with you, so do whatever you want.”
But unexpectedly, the permission came through incredibly easily.
Come to think of it, Godfather's attitude toward me was a little odd.
In the old days, he looked at me like an inconvenient nephew who never came home.
These days, his gaze is, how should I put it, a little warm.
I get the sense that he feels proud of me and sorry for me at the same time.
And now he'd even let me go to the red-light district so easily.
'What is this? In this era, don't people care if a child goes somewhere like that?'
No way.
Even in a barbaric premodern age with almost no awareness of children's rights, there are still things you can and can't do.
This isn't such a garbage era that they'd let a ten-year-old go to a brothel, even if they were puffing away in a room with a child.
Then why did he give permission, that was the question...
'No way... the opening of a wastrel-noble story?!'
If that's it, everything is explained.
A young noble who loses his parents and has only middling talent going off the rails is a common thing.
Did Godfather think I was one of those cases?
I thought about where to start correcting the misunderstanding, then gave up.
When has a wastrel-noble story ever been solved with words?
Isn't it all whitewashed by overwhelming achievements in the end?
Thinking that it'd all be explained eventually, I decided to focus on what I had to do.
All right, then, let's head to the red-light district and get my instincts back.
***
From that day on, I started going to the red-light district diligently.
Of course, at first the people in the red-light district were suspicious of me.
- “A doctor? Ah, some kind of healer? What business does a healer like you have in a place like this?”
Maybe because this world didn't have the concept of volunteer medical work.
The residents there were suspicious of the kindness that had come out of nowhere.
But once I proved myself with overwhelming results, they gradually began to accept me.
- “Doctor. Thank you for saving our little sister last time.”
In an era when the leading cause of female death was puerperal fever after childbirth.
Just paying a little attention to hygiene made the survival rate of mothers skyrocket.
And so, a year of perfect attendance in the red-light district.
Before I knew it, the residents of that street had started coming to me when they had a baby, instead of the midwife.
To exaggerate a little, about half the children born in the red-light district last year had passed through my hands.
However, there was one problem.
'What is this. If I were the protagonist, shouldn't I have gotten a fateful encounter by now?'
One year in the slum red-light district.
Aside from my skill and reputation as a doctor improving, nothing dramatic had happened in my life.
There was no former archmage hiding in the slums, no former guild master of an assassin guild,
no polymorphed dragon or demon king out for a stroll, and
no future Sword Saint or hero in the making.
What. Where did my lucky encounters go?
'Grr. Or maybe one year just isn't enough at all.'
Once I'd started volunteering, I couldn't exactly stop going now.
In the end, all I'd gained was knowledge, technique, and a few clinical trial data points.
Ah, and a bit of fame, and a title too.
'Angel of the Red-Light District' is a little hard to advertise openly, though.
Ah, come to think of it, it wasn't as if I'd gotten nothing at all.
The slum residents had given me a proper clinic.
In effect, I'd ended up with a house in my name.
“All right, then, shall we head to work today too?”
Enough with the idle thoughts.
I packed my house-call bag and got out of bed for today's rounds.
It's December, so it's cold.
I put on a child's coat and grabbed the front door handle.
But today, the brass handle was so cold it stuck to my palm.
That different chill told me right away that something was wrong.
Whooosh!
And when I opened the door and the cold wind slapped me in the face, I knew that instinct had been right.
The moment I breathed in, my nose felt numb and frozen.
When I finally managed to open my eyes, the world had been flipped entirely white.
I couldn't even see the garden trees in front of the annex.
Naturally, I couldn't see what condition the buildings beyond the wall were in either.
I couldn't see anything, but I could tell for sure that if someone went into that blizzard, they'd be buried in no time.
“….”
Come to think of it, it was about time for the heavy snow season.
Since yesterday, snow had been hammering the windows all night with a nasty force.
Looking at the dirty blizzard that, despite its white appearance, was carrying smog, I did a quick estimate.
In novels, this is usually when a patient shows up.
At times like this, there's always some girl at death's door in some household somewhere.
Then is this the cue for a doctor house call through the blizzard?
Hmm…
'No matter how I look at it, that's not it, right?'
Even as a protagonist, there are adventures you can take and rash things you shouldn't do.
And an eleven-year-old kid going out through that blizzard is rashness.
More specifically, there's a good word for it: suicide.
'I'd end up disappearing before I even met the patient.'
Yeah, this doesn't seem like an event.
A misunderstanding protagonist isn't some invincible cheat, so today I'm taking the day off.
I put the house-call bag back in my room and threw myself onto the bed.
'Then what should I do today?'
That was when I was lazing around on the bed, making constructive use of my time.
The door was thrown open roughly, and the head butler burst into my room.
“Young master!”
Good grief. You scared me.
What if I'd been in the middle of a happy time? Why would you just barge in like that?
I got up from the bed and greeted the head butler.
Seeing the snow piled up on his shoulders, it looked like he'd run here from the main house.
Judging by the fact that he hadn't knocked, something serious must have happened.
“What is it?”
“The baby is coming!”
“Already?”
I didn't bother asking whose baby it was.
Godfather and Godmother had recently had a late-born child.
They already had a daughter, but after trying for eight years, they'd wanted one more son.
The problem was that, if I remembered right, the late-born child was 34 weeks along.
That meant this was a baby we were supposed to meet in six weeks.
“Why is that kid in such a hurry?”
“Is this really the time for jokes? Hurry! The midwife says she can't come because of the snow!”
“Oh, talk about bad timing.”
“Huh?!”
“Nothing. Of course I'm going.”
Somehow, the heavy snowfall had been a clue.
Turns out the event was at our house.
I immediately grabbed my house-call bag and put on my coat.
The blizzard was raging, but unless I had to go outside the wall, getting from the annex to the main house wasn't a problem.
It was time for the red-light district ace to shine.
...That wording sounds a little off, so let me correct it.
It was time for the Angel of the Red-Light District to shine.
...No matter what I tack on to it, it still sounds weird.
*
- Uuuuu... Aaaah!
When I got to the main house, screams were already coming from the end of the hallway.
When I opened the door, a wave of heat and an unpleasant smell stabbed at my nose.
The damp, sweaty air unique to a delivery room, mixed with amniotic fluid.
A smell I'd breathed in dozens of times in the red-light district.
Godmother was on the bed, screaming while clutching Godfather's hair.
Godfather was taking it all in stride.
I wondered if Godfather would go bald at this rate.
“Linnie! Hang in there a little longer! Yulian is coming!”
“Yulian? That child is... aaaah!”
It was obvious that active labor had begun.
I immediately got Godfather's permission and performed an internal exam on Godmother.
'Cervix dilated to 4 cm, station -2. Membranes ruptured, fetus in cephalic presentation, cord is... not palpable. Still okay.'
From what the maids said, only about ten minutes had passed since her water broke.
'We still have time.'
Thank goodness.
If she'd already been in full labor, I wouldn't have even had time to disinfect the room.
I quickly persuaded the head butler and Godfather to prepare the delivery room.
A suitably clean room. Freshly washed towels. Limewater for hand disinfection.
A fairly decent delivery room had been completed.
'This should do.'
If this had been a C-section, maybe not,
but for a natural birth, this was a perfectly sterile environment.
If only the baby hadn't been coming at 34 weeks, it would have been perfect.
A few hours later.
With Godmother's final scream, I caught the slippery baby in both hands as it emerged.
The process by which this child came into the world wasn't all that special compared with other babies.
After all, it was just pushing and breathing over and over, so there wasn't anything noteworthy about it.
The fortunate thing was that the situation never came to the point of attempting a C-section.
With no proper anesthesia technique, if that had happened, even I'd have been in trouble.
But the problem wasn't solved.
Rather, you could say the real problem had just begun.
'34 weeks... yikes. No matter how you look at it, that's a preemie.'
Will this baby even survive?
At 34 weeks, in 21st-century medicine, this would be plenty survivable.
But in this world, it's different.
Healing miracles can cure any wound, but they can't make immature organs grow.
So in this era, premature babies are in the category where all you can do is pray to God.
'Well, I'm different.'
But that's this era's problem, and since I'm a 21st-century soul in this body, I'm the exception.
34 weeks?
I can save it and then some.
'At this level, it's not even a hard case.'
Compared with the bizarre cases that abound in the red-light district, this is nothing.
'No meconium staining.'
No suctioning needed.
First, wipe the baby down and check its condition.
The baby wasn't crying.
So I tapped the baby's soles with my fingers.
With its soles stimulated, the baby let out a tiny cry: 'Waa... ah!'
'Okay. Breathing confirmed.'
Next, I slathered the prepared oil all over the baby's body.
The smell of oil covered the smell of blood, and I wrapped it in clean wool on top of that.
The wool felt a little heavier after soaking up the oil.
With no incubator, these were the measures to keep the baby's body temperature up instead.
“Godmother. You need to keep the baby skin-to-skin. You have to keep it warm. Ah, excuse me, but before you hold it, let me wipe your chest once.”
One last time before handing over the baby, I wiped Godmother's chest with a cloth soaked in limewater.
The smell of limewater rose from her damp skin. It probably wasn't good for her skin, but there was no helping it.
You can't trade a premature baby's life for beauty.
And just like that, the excellent incubator known as a mother's arms was complete.
Just doing that alone raises the survival rate exponentially.
Next, I said to the maids who'd been standing there staring blankly.
“I'm going to the annex to make the medicine. In the meantime, please take good care of Godmother. If I come back and find anyone caring for her without washing their hands in limewater, or if the towels are left dirty, I'll turn this place upside down.”
I won't bother explaining why.
I don't have time, and they wouldn't understand anyway.
No matter how much I scream about germs, miasma, and the like in the red-light district, they never listen.
So I decided to just strong-arm them with authority.
If I led the way, they'd probably follow on their own.
I made one last check of Godmother and the baby's condition.
I wiped the sweat from Godmother's forehead and checked the baby's chest through the wool.
Still okay. For now.
'Then I'd better go get the medicine from the annex.'
Then, just as I was about to leave the main house, I heard the head butler calling to me in a panic.
“Medicine? The main house has more than enough medicine!”
At that, I stopped halfway out and poked my head back through the doorway.
“Then do you have surfactant too?”
“Surfac... what?”
“Figured as much. I'll go to the annex.”
I hurried to the annex.
If my guess was right, today would be the make-or-break point, if not tomorrow.