Chapter 41
*
Blister plague. Scarlet fever. Black rot. Curse of decay. Bone rot.
Each of those is what this world calls smallpox, scarlet fever, the black death, leprosy, and bone tuberculosis.
In addition, malaria was called southern fever, and the cinchona tree was called the Tirun tree.
In this way, this world sometimes used different names for diseases I already knew.
After I realized that fact.
The first thing I did was translate the disease names of this world into the names I knew.
And in the process, I discovered a rather unusual disease.
Demon disease.
A disease that gets worse and worse the more healing magic it receives, instead of getting better.
It was an endgame-level illness of this era, one with no cure through healing magic or medicinal herbs, and only prayer to God could save it.
The moment I heard that, I confidently dug through the records.
‘As expected, it's probably cancer or some rare disease, right?’
Just as smallpox is blister plague, and the black death is black rot, I thought demon disease was just another name for some illness I already knew.
After gathering every recorded case of demon disease in history.
I fell into confusion.
‘What in the world is this.’
The first historical case I saw was the story of some marquis.
— A lump grew on his body. The lump got bigger the more healing magic he received.
At first, I thought demon disease was cancer.
But the next case that followed was strange.
— The fever was blazing hot. (estimated around 40°C)
‘Huh? A fever?’
Cancer does not normally come with fever.
Of course, there is such a thing as tumor fever, but that is a symptom that only rarely appears in stage-four cancer.
Cases above 40 degrees are very, very rare.
In other words, demon disease gave the contradictory result of a ‘tumor disease accompanied by whole-body high fever.’
The problem was that the symptoms of demon disease did not end there.
— Suddenly the heart stopped.
— The bleeding wouldn't stop.
— The whole body turned black.
.
.
.
Demon disease had no consistency from patient to patient, and every kind of symptom a human could experience was recorded under it.
Even after that, whenever I had time, I kept trying to unravel demon disease.
And the answer came comparatively recently.
— “Come to think of it, people used to confuse pus plague with the Curse of Decay back in the day. Though over time, the two did separate.”
As my master said, several hundred years ago,
people could not distinguish smallpox from leprosy, and called both of them the Curse of Decay.
But as time passed and healing science developed, it was revealed that the two were different diseases.
As a result, smallpox came to be called pus plague, and leprosy the Curse of Decay.
The moment I heard that historical fact, I could understand my misunderstanding about demon disease.
A world with less developed medicine.
A worldview where all medical standards are decided by healing magic.
Because it was such a worldview, they were calling all ‘diseases that only got worse when treated with healing magic’ demon disease.
In other words, demon disease was like a collective term for all unknown illnesses such as cancer, autoimmune disease, and genetic disorders.
So classifying those demon diseases one by one had recently become my interest…
‘At this timing, Freya has demon disease?’
Freya was showing symptoms that matched that demon disease.
‘Should I be happy about this or not.’
Looking back on my life, it had always been like that.
The moment I researched and completed quinine at age eight, Father came down with malaria.
After I went to the red-light district for experience and came back, Mother and Fried had almost been in danger.
And now that I was researching demon disease, Freya got demon disease.
By the grammar of a misunderstanding story, this is definitely right, but…
‘I didn't cause it, did I? Right?’
I must have just timed things well.
There's no way I'm some detective boy who brings death wherever he goes, right?
…Please say yes.
That's not the important thing right now.
‘First, I should classify this demon disease.’
As mentioned, demon disease is not a single illness.
Cancer, autoimmune disease, genetic disease.
Demon disease is the collective name for all illnesses that cannot be cured by healing magic.
Naturally, to cure a disease, the first step is to identify it.
So to treat demon disease, I have to figure out exactly what kind of illness this is.
‘Let's sort out Freya's symptoms.’
High fever, non-blanching erythema, conjunctival congestion, dry mucosa, splenomegaly.
And decisively, it got worse after the low-tier heal.
‘The principle of low-tier heal is to strengthen regeneration and immunity.’
A list of diseases that could worsen because of low-tier heal runs through my head.
Cancer, autoimmune disease, rheumatism, anaphylaxis…
From among them, I narrow it down to only those that can cause fevers above 41 degrees.
That alone narrowed the candidates greatly.
‘Taking into account her history of frequent colds, and the fact that she's a 14-year-old girl….’
Cytokine storm.
Yes. That was the most likely.
When the immune system fights a pathogen, the body raises its temperature to make the battlefield favorable to itself.
In this way, heat-sensitive germs cannot do much in a body whose temperature has risen, and they are wiped out one-sidedly.
— What, this is like some kind of game!
Even the brain, which normally keeps a limiter on body temperature, lifts that limiter at such times and allows the temperature to keep rising.
The problem occurs when the immune system fighting bacteria occasionally goes berserk.
— I am no longer under your control!
Normally, the immune system should raise the body temperature in moderation, but drunk on its own power, it keeps raising it endlessly.
The brain that should normally control it has already lifted the limiter.
Then the fever rises without knowing any limit.
As a result, the brain gets slow-cooked sous-vide and dies.
This phenomenon is called a cytokine storm.
‘It's like setting your house on fire just to catch one thief.’
Well, strictly speaking it's more complicated, but that's basically it.
‘In a situation like this, using low-tier heal only made the symptoms worse.’
By now, the pathogens inside Freya's body were probably all dead.
Along with the high temperature and two rounds of healing, they had probably vanished without a trace.
But in exchange, her temperature was now staring at 42 degrees.
We needed to lower her temperature right away.
After finishing my thoughts, I called the priestess who had been wiping away cold sweat with a handkerchief.
“Sister.”
“Y-yes!”
The priestess flinched her shoulders.
“Every time you cast heal, the child's condition clearly got worse. Is that right?”
“Y-yes….”
“Then why did you keep healing her?”
The priestess's face went pale.
“Th-that was… because the fever wouldn't go down… I thought it was because I didn't have enough divine power….”
“If divine power is insufficient, it has no effect. It doesn't backfire.”
“…Yes, that's right.”
“Then when the patient's condition worsens, you should stop and call a superior. Why did you keep trying by yourself?”
“I'm sorry….”
“Hmm. You must have learned about demon disease at school. Are you perhaps an apprentice priest?”
“I-I'm a low-ranking one.”
Damn.
As expected of a dark fantasy where romance still lives and breathes.
You'd even send a resident on a house call?
No, wait.
Come to think of it, they sent interns to local emergency rooms in the 21st century too.
…Damn. No matter the era, the troublesome work falls to the people below.
“It was late at night, and since it was a house call, they probably sent you because you heard it was just a cold patient.”
“Y-yes….”
She wasn't ignorant of demon disease.
It's just that, lacking practical experience, the knowledge doesn't come out when it should.
It was a common phenomenon in residents who had only recently been assigned to the field.
‘Tsk tsk. She must have come thinking it was just a cold case. How bewildering must it have been when it suddenly turned into demon disease.’
She probably has a blank mind right now.
In my past-life terms, it's like an intern on night duty alone when a patient who'd been stabbed in the heart suddenly rolls in pushing a cart.
The patient is dying, and the professor isn't answering the phone.
Then, when the heart stops, you just end up doing CPR.
On a patient with a hole in the chest, no less!
And on top of that, the patient was a prosecutor's family member.
Honestly, if I had been an intern too, I think I would've cried.
I actually did, too.
Tch. I really am a pathetic bastard.
Still, it's fortunate I managed to handle that properly back then.
Come to think of it, I got roped into thoracic surgery because of the professor who cleaned that up for me.
Why did I do that? I should've just gone into radiology and kept my work-life balance.
I keep going off on a tangent.
Anyway, what that low-ranking priestess did was a pretty huge accident.
A noble young lady, and one with demon disease at that, was hit with heal after heal without even being properly noticed.
Thanks to that, the demon disease got even worse.
“Sister.”
“I'm sorry. Please forgive me, sir. I still have daughters….”
Oh, so you even have daughters.
A working mom, huh.
From those wrinkles, you look like you have some age on you.
And yet you're still a low-ranking priestess…
‘A late bloomer, then.’
Well, that was a common sight in med school too.
There were even people who entered med school in their thirties.
“Understood.”
I soothed the tearful priestess.
As a family member, I wanted to get angry and ask a lot of things, but that wouldn't change anything.
Right now, Freya was the priority.
And to treat Freya, I needed the priestess.
‘If an emergency happens, I need to at least keep her alive by getting a heal on her.’
Even though heals made it worse, heal was still essential in emergencies.
Because it raises not only immunity, but also vitality and regenerative power, allowing multiorgan failure to be delayed.
The reason Freya was still holding on now was that, as the heal-boosted immune system rampaged, her life force was also being strengthened enough for her to somehow endure.
So this low-ranking priestess was basically Freya's life insurance.
“I was wrong… I was wrong….”
Still, in this state she didn't look like she'd even be useful as an assistant, so I needed to calm her down first.
Maybe I should loosen the mood with some small talk.
“Calm down. You said you have daughters; how old are the two of them?”
“They're 14 and 16… Both of them are smart and good-natured unlike me, and ah, the older one has recently entered puberty….”
“Yes. Good.”
I cut off the rambling priestess.
“Coincidentally, my younger sister is 14. Just think of Freya as your daughter and all you need to do is your best to treat her, isn't that right?”
“…Please, spare our daughters!”
No, how did that get translated?
I meant for her to squeeze out everything she'd learned so far in her head.
Did she think that if Freya died, her daughters wouldn't be safe either?
There's no way I'd do that.
…Though maybe my father would.
Hmm.
Come to think of it, I don't think this family would be safe if anything happened to Freya.
“Calm down. What I meant was, haven't you learned how to control the symptoms of a demon disease patient?”
The priestess shook her head vigorously.
I figured as much.
The demon disease treatment guideline I know is to just leave them be and pray.
Don't cast divine magic and make them suffer needlessly; just follow hospice procedures.
And if they don't die?
Then the prayer reached God.
‘I only asked just in case. Then there's no need to worry about appearances.’
From that moment on, the priestess became a heal totem.
Sorry for seeming to ignore the authority of an expert, but.
This is a matter of my family's lives.
I immediately thought through the procedure for treating Freya.
‘First, I had to suppress the immune system.’
The cause of cytokine storm is excessive inflammation.
So I needed to calm that inflammation down.
And there was a separate drug for that.
‘The steroids… are here.’
Luckily, I had steroids in my bag.
Steroids are anti-inflammatory drugs made by grinding pig adrenal glands.
However, there was a small problem with this steroid.
The yield from the adrenal glands was abysmally poor.
That is because, unlike insulin, steroids are not hormones stored in reserve.
They are hormones made on the spot whenever needed.
Because of that, even if you slice open a pig's belly, you won't get even a mouse's tail's worth of steroid.
To the point that if you grind about a ton of pig adrenal glands, you get 1 g of steroid.
Because of that horrific, despairing yield, steroids were precious medicine I had only a little of.
‘One gram.’
Think of this little ampoule as containing the concentrated essence of thousands of pigs.
No joke, this one vial held money equal to the research funds I donated to my master this year.
But,
‘What am I even thinking?’
There was no hesitation.
She's my one and only little sister.
Making money. Trying to get ahead by using a misunderstanding story.
In the end, it's all to make my family happy.
What else was I saving this medicine for now?
I took out the syringe.
Without delay, I tied a tourniquet around Freya's slender arm.
Along the bluish raised veins, the one-gram drug compressed from a ton slowly began seeping in.
‘Please hold on.’
Normally, steroids aren't given at one gram at a time.
The tablet allergy patients usually take is 10 mg, or 0.01 g.
So right now I was giving a dose 100 times what they take.
But there was a reason for that too.
‘I have to go with pulse therapy.’
It was a drastic treatment to forcibly shut down the rampaging immune system by slamming it with a massive dose of steroids all at once.
Originally, it was crazy enough to stop the heart.
But saving the brain came first, so it couldn't be helped.
‘If the heart stops, I can just give a heal or do CPR.’
But if the brain cooks, there's no answer.
So I had no choice but to take this gamble.
5 minutes.
10 minutes.
I administered all 1 g over 15 minutes.
Slowly, as slowly as possible, while controlling the speed with my own hand.
It was the final struggle to keep her heart as unburdened as possible.
‘Please….’
I pulled out the syringe and pressed a sterile cloth tightly against the injection mark left on Freya's arm.
“Sister.”
“Y-yes!”
“Please bring a towel soaked in cold water. And boiled then cooled water too. We can't let her get dehydrated.”
“Understood!”
The priestess, who had somehow become my assistant, rushed out of the room.
I placed my hand on Freya's forehead.
It was still hot.
‘Of course it was.’
Steroids are not magic.
Just pushing the syringe doesn't make the fever drop right away.
At least two hours—four if it took longer—before the effect starts to show.
I knew that rationally, but….
‘Please….’
My head was full of anxiety.
Then Freya's weak voice reached my ears.
“Big brother….”
“What is it?”
“Are you there?”
“Yeah. I'm here.”
I took my sweat-soaked little sister's hand.
The hand of a fourteen-year-old girl trembling violently.
It was an age old enough to know what death was, but too young to accept it.
“It's okay.”
I squeezed that hand tightly.
“Because I'm here.”
“….”
“What did I say when Fried was born and got sick last time?”
“…I trust you, big brother.”
“That's right.”
Freya's hand loosened a little at my answer.
An hour passed after that.
41.0 degrees. No change.
Two hours passed.
40.7 degrees.
A little lower.
Three hours passed.
41.0 degrees. Back up again.
‘Damn….’
There was no sign of the fever going down.
Was it because the steroid dose was insufficient?
Or was the immune system, rampaged by the heal, simply too strong?
I clicked my tongue and gave the priestess a new order.
“Sister. Do you know how to make holy water?”
“What? Ah, yes. I learned at seminary at least…. But here it's hard to make because there's not enough symbolism….”
“Then go outside and make it now. There's a prayer room in the annex, so it should be possible there.”
“Yes! I'll be back!”
The priestess hurried out of the room.
After sending the priestess away.
I looked down at my little sister, whose body was trembling all over.
Actually, besides steroids, I had one more card.
The problem was that it was a treatment with no clinical data at all.
Thinking about giving family an unverified treatment made it hard to pull that treatment out easily.
But… now I had no choice.
‘Tsk.’
I was bold when Fried was born.
How pathetic, becoming timid only after you've gotten inside the fence.
‘Pull yourself together, Julian.’
I am the protagonist of a misunderstanding story.
A protagonist who succeeds no matter what.
And a black-magic prodigy acknowledged by the Great Sage.
So there was no need to worry about anything.
‘What exactly had I been hesitating over all this time?’
It was already too late to keep hesitating.
With resolve, I firmly took Freya's hand.
I clasped both her hands and quietly started building the ritual.
The catalyst was the steroids flowing in her blood.
The ritual's grammar was a curse.
And the symbol I would use was….
‘…I'm sorry.’
The Y-shaped cross the priest had left behind.
I used that cross as the catalyst.
‘Apostle. If you carry the kind of symbolism I think you do….’
Please, sacrifice yourself once more this time too.
Clutching that cross tightly in both hands, I recited it like a chant.
“Expurgatio angeli custodis inepti atque fervidi.”
The moment the incantation ended, mana drained out of my body.
Just as I was worrying whether it had failed.
The brass cross in my hand melted away,
and soon Freya's fever began to fall rapidly.