Chapter 5
*
What do people live for?
Money? Food? Honor?
No.
‘What else? You have to breathe to live.’
First you need to breathe before you can even talk about body temperature, infection, or nutrition.
Newborns are no different.
At 34 weeks, for a child born prematurely into the world, the most important thing is spontaneous breathing.
If a baby comes too early, the lungs are still immature and breathing difficulty can occur.
So I came to the annex to prepare in advance for respiratory distress.
‘Well, at 34 weeks, the lungs might just barely be mature enough.’
Maybe this preparation won't even be necessary.
‘Then that's the best-case scenario.’
If it all ends up being my needless overreaction, everyone will be happy.
— #. You Have to Grease Your Mouth to Get By in Life —
I returned to the main building carrying a pile of medicines and instruments the baby might need.
The first thing I did after coming back was inspect the maids' hygiene.
‘Please, let them be washing properly.'
There are always one or two who try to cut corners when you're not watching.
Honestly, I can't really blame the people of this world for being ignorant.
In an age with no concept of germs, how absurd must it sound to tell someone to wash their hands?
Besides, limewater is genuinely harsh. With a bit of exaggeration, you could compare it to bleach.
My own hands are already a mess; I can't imagine how much worse it is for the midwives and maids.
Being women, their skin must be far more sensitive; no wonder they grumble when asked to put up with it and wash anyway.
I understand. I truly do.
‘Still, this is unacceptable.’
But a midwife who was handling cow dung on a ranch and came to receive a baby without even washing her hands is a bit much, isn't it?
Even if they don't know about germs, isn't it common sense that you shouldn't touch a baby with hands covered in dung?
The problem is that the midwives of this era don't see anything wrong with it.
After experiencing similar incidents, I resolved not to invoke common sense in this world.
‘So if someone won't wash their hands just because it dries out their skin, I'll have to come down hard on them.’
I don't think the people of this age are uncivilized, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to compromise.
You can't respect the era at the expense of the mother's and child's lives.
“I’m here. Everyone washed their hands, right?”
Checking whether they've washed is easy.
Limewater stinks horribly. So if they've washed, their hands are bound to reek of it.
Sniff, sniff.
Fortunately, none of the maids tried any tricks.
Even though I'm not their biological son but merely the godson, I'm still a young master, so they seem to have followed my instructions to the letter.
This is why authority is the best.
“What about the towels?”
“As ordered, we've prepared only towels and blankets that have been boiled.”
Everything had been replaced with towels and blankets boiled clean and white.
Good. They followed instructions well.
“Then everyone except the head butler and the lord, please leave.”
“???”
At my order to get lost, question marks seemed to pop up over the maids' heads.
I said to the maids in a threatening tone.
“From today on, I'll be taking care of the godmother and the baby. Does anyone have any objections?”
“You, young master?”
“I'm the doctor, and the patient is my family. Of course I should be the one looking after them. If not me, then who? Now please all leave.”
Right after a baby is born, it's best to keep the number of people coming and going to a minimum.
In an age where sterilization and infection prevention are difficult, it would be far better to leave only the mother and baby in the room, crude as that sounds; it would help the survival rate far more.
I chased out all the maids who kept trying to argue.
The head butler and my godfather were no exceptions.
After driving everyone out by brute force like that,
I stopped my godfather at the doorway and explained the prognosis for the godmother and the baby.
“Godfather. The godmother can rest easy now. She should recover some of her strength in two days.”
When I handled the afterbirth and examined her, there were no signs to worry about bleeding, and nothing noteworthy in the amniotic fluid either.
There was also no particular event that suggested an infection risk.
So the godmother will probably be fine.
She'll probably sleep all day for two days, but that's not illness; childbirth is just that exhausting, so it can't be helped.
“The problem is our young master... ah, have you decided on a name for the child?”
“… Frid.”
“You're going with a 'Fr' theme like Freya?”
I joked, thinking of my godfather's only daughter.
I didn't know they reused initials in the West, too.
Well, that's not what matters right now.
“Godfather. You may need to prepare yourself mentally. Frid will probably reach the critical point tonight.”
“What? What do you mean by that!?”
“Frid wanted to see his father quickly, so he came into the world too early. His lungs are too weak for breathing.”
A common cause of death in premature infants is "neonatal respiratory distress syndrome."
To put it simply, it means the lungs are immature because the baby was born early, so he can't breathe.
“Let me explain in more detail. Human lungs are normally coated with a thin film of oil.”
Thanks to that oily film, the tiny air sacs in the lungs don't stick together even as they repeatedly contract and expand.
But premature babies are born before that oil coating is fully formed.
Without the oil coating, the air sacs can cling together like wet balloons and fail to re-expand.
And as time passes, more and more of those air sacs fail to open, and the baby is unable to breathe.
“You understand up to here, right?”
“…How do you know that?”
“I think I've butchered about a hundred pigs at the red-light district slaughterhouse. That's where I learned it.”
Of course, I'd already known it from my previous life before I ever cut open a pig,
but I knew the information and had also cut open pigs, so by syllogism, I was telling the truth.
“So if our Frid can't breathe by any chance, I'll put the oil in from the outside so he can breathe.”
“Then what are you doing? Instead of wasting time explaining, hurry up and put it in!”
“No, I was just letting you know in advance that this measure may be necessary if he can't breathe. I'm not saying he needs it right now. The treatment may look a little rough, so I'm asking for your understanding beforehand.”
“Yulian, I trust you completely. So do whatever you must—just save Frid and Linie the way you saved me.”
My godfather clung to me desperately.
No, judging by his reaction, it sounds like I miraculously saved my godfather by committing some outrageous taboo.
When it was just a quick quinine shot that saved him.
In any case, I had my godfather's permission.
I approached the godmother, who was holding the baby soaked in sweat.
“I'll be by your side and watch over you for the next week, godmother.”
The godmother looked at me with some suspicion.
Unlike my godfather, the godmother didn't particularly like me.
I knew the reason.
My mother was my godfather's former fiancée.
The fact that I was the son of her husband's former fiancée made her uncomfortable.
Perhaps because of that, she used her position as the lady of the house to quietly foster an atmosphere of exclusion toward me in this mansion.
But that has nothing to do with me.
A protagonist is supposed to take petty grudges like this in stride.
And it would be ridiculous for someone who will become the empire's greatest doctor to react pettishly over something like this.
“Godmother. Please get some rest for now.”
The godmother looked at me with dazed eyes, then
reluctantly nodded and closed her eyes.
***
The baroness of the Nihlrit family, Linie Nihlrit, had one worry.
It was her godson.
‘What kind of child did that woman leave behind, exactly?’
Yulian Schnabel.
The child left behind by her husband's former fiancée, his first love.
Baroness Nihlrit found the boy uncomfortable to be around.
Because she felt as though she could see that woman's shadow in Yulian.
Of course, her husband always whispered that his wife was his final love and showed it through his actions, so that discomfort never turned into jealousy.
But she couldn't erase the unease lurking in the corner of her heart.
She had begun to worry that he might pass the family line to Yulian instead of to their biological child.
Then one day, Linie heard something unexpected from Yulian's tutor.
- [The young master is excellent at arithmetic, but... I'm a little worried about everything else.]
The tutor continued cautiously.
- [Especially in philosophy and theology. How should I put it? It's as if he's been seized by some strange common sense.]
- [Strange common sense?]
- [It feels like he rejects the knowledge I'm teaching him. He memorizes it in his head, but he doesn't accept it in his heart.]
The tutor sighed.
- [If a noble child can't even accept the basics of theology... I'm worried about his future.]
The moment she heard that, relief welled up in a corner of Linie's heart.
He learns slowly.
He can't absorb knowledge.
That meant that, while he might do as a scholar or mage, he would have a hard time rising high in noble society.
It also meant he wouldn't threaten Freya's place or the positions of the children yet to be born.
‘...Thank goodness.’
The moment that thought crossed her mind, Linie felt infinitely vile.
To feel relieved at the shortcomings of a mere ten-year-old child.
And at the posthumous child of her husband's dearly treasured dead friend, no less.
But that guilt didn't last long.
Rather, she began to justify that relief.
‘If he's a slow learner anyway... maybe letting go of ambition would be better for him.’
Perhaps that was why.
She gradually pushed the child toward the edge of the household.
*
One year passed like that.
She was saved by that child.
‘What have I done...’
In the dead of night.
Suddenly thirsty, she woke from a dream she couldn't tell was a memory.
Turning her head, she saw a boy reading a book beside her.
The boy, absorbed in his studies late at night, lifted his head and met her eyes.
“Godmother? Are you cold? Should I turn up the heat?”
“…I'm thirsty.”
“Ah, water. Here you go. Drink carefully so you don't choke.”
While Yulian had been away at the annex, the lord had told her what Yulian had been up to.
That he went to the red-light district to treat people.
Just as Yulian's parents had.
The moment she heard that, Linie felt as if she had become unbearably small.
Only until yesterday, she had been gossiping to the maids that Yulian was a "precocious wastrel who haunts the red-light district."
‘What have I done...’
Would this child not know that?
No way.
A boy this perceptive would have noticed more than enough.
And yet Yulian was doing his utmost for her and the baby.
“…I'm sorry for making you go to so much trouble.”
Guilt seemed to crush her heart.
Whether he knew it or not, Yulian smiled and handed her the glass of water.
“It's nothing compared to the love you've given me, godmother.”
She wanted to say no, but cowardly as it was, her lips wouldn't part.
Linie could say nothing and simply quenched her thirst.
Then,
“…Godmother. Could you entrust Frid to me for a moment?”
Yulian suddenly looked at the baby with a rather grave expression.
“What is it?”
“There won't be any problem, so leave him to me.”
It did not sound reassuring in the slightest.
In that instant, she recalled the conversation Yulian and her husband had had earlier that day.
The explanation that Frid might not be able to breathe.
As soon as she remembered that explanation, anxiety washed over her.
“Don't tell me Frid...”
“What we've already anticipated and prepared for is no longer a problem, godmother. Please trust me.”
But Yulian reassured her with a voice full of confidence.
He was only a boy just over ten, so how could his voice be so reassuring?
With trembling hands, Linie handed the baby to Yulian.
“Thank you for trusting me.”
Yulian took the baby in his small arms and laid him on the warm sheet he had preheated.
His gaze went to the child's chest.
A recessed chest is proof that the child can't breathe.
His skin was a little blue too, and faint groaning could be heard.
The feared neonatal respiratory distress syndrome had occurred.
Yulian quickly diagnosed the baby's condition and took out the medicines and instruments he had prepared.
From the bag came some kind of long, thin tube.
It had a bluntly cut tip, something Linie had never seen before.
“Yulian, what's that?”
“It's a tube made by processing a goose's quill. I'll use this to pour in the oil.”
Without hesitation, Yulian shoved his pinky deep into the baby's throat.
Warm, damp mucosa wrapped around his finger.
He brushed past the baby's palate, over the base of the tongue, and pushed his fingertip behind the uvula.
One finger joint, then two.
There was no gagging. If anything, the opposite.
The baby's swallowing reflex tightened around his finger.
Ignoring that resistance, he pushed deeper.
It was a finger-palpation technique for locating the airway opening.
‘Found it.’
His fingertip felt a soft piece of cartilage—the epiglottis.
He slid the quill alongside his finger.
As an aside, the "goose" that owned that quill was slang for a somewhat large avian-type magical beast.
Yulian had never seen that beast himself, but the feathers circulating in the market looked useful, so he processed them into tubes and made regular use of them.
The quill entered the baby's airway.
Next came the oil.
Oil obtained by squeezing pig lungs and working the alchemists to the bone.
The exact name of this oil was surfactant.
The oil flowed through the tube into the baby's lungs.
Immediately after, the baby's chest gave a small twitch.
Yulian pulled the quill out of the throat. Mucus and oil mixed together and gleamed on the tip.
Yulian looked down quietly at Frid.
One breath. Two. Three.
He silently counted and watched Frid.
A few minutes later.
The sunken chest gradually began to swell outward.
The baby's skin visibly regained its pink color.
When the whining stopped and only even breathing remained, Linie let out a sigh of relief.
Yulian also exhaled and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
He had been anxious, too.
When everything was over, Yulian relaxed and joked lightly.
“Phew. I couldn't sleep all night because of our youngest little brother... what a hardship.”
Linie was speechless at those old-man-like words.
Was he really only eleven?
But at the same time, she felt relieved.
That shameless joke suggested just how safe Frid was.
“Yulian... thank you so much.”
Tears gathered at the corners of Linie's eyes.
They were tears made of both guilt and gratitude.
At that, Yulian wore a briefly triumphant expression.
But only for a moment. He hardened his expression and bowed politely.
“Sometimes God steps away from His post. As a doctor, I only struggled to fill that gap for a little while.”
Instead of simply reveling in praise, Yulian showed humility.
It almost seemed as if he felt he shouldn't be happy about this, as though some sense of duty were driving him.
Seeing that, Linie's heart ached.
Just how,
just how much had this child sacrificed at his age?
How much had he sacrificed that he couldn't even accept words of thanks so easily?
Linie barely held back the tears threatening to spill and clasped both of Yulian's hands tightly.
‘At the very least.’
She wanted to make up for whatever this child lacked.
It was an adult's duty, and
a penance for the way she had mistreated the child until now.
*
At that moment, Yulian thought.
‘Wow. He actually lived.’
He had not forgotten his own identity.
He was a trauma surgeon.
Not a pediatrician or an obstetrician.
And he never overestimated himself.
‘Cases involving mothers and newborns are always nerve-racking, no matter how many times I see them.’
So at least in this field, he considered his skill to be about on par with a specialist in that discipline.
No, he thought he might even be one level below.
In his view, every treatment and procedure he'd succeeded at since starting work in the red-light district had been thanks to luck, not skill.
And this time was no different.
‘Even if I pull it off with a blind technique, nothing goes wrong. Misunderstanding stories really are the best.’
At least, that's what he thought.