Chapter 63
‘It’s more effective than I expected.’
Viagra’s popularity far exceeded my imagination.
Maybe because, in this world, an heir is directly tied to a title.
Even after a month since its release, Viagra’s popularity showed no sign of dying down.
It had become so popular that, within a month of release, it had already caught up to a year’s worth of insulin sales.
‘As expected of Viagra. Good thing I memorized it separately.’
Quinine, aspirin, heparin.
Unlike drugs like these, which are extracted from nature, Viagra wasn’t easy to reproduce just by knowing the raw materials or its history.
First of all, its component doesn’t exist in nature, so extraction is impossible.
Would you believe me if I said that, if you traced Viagra’s ingredients back far enough, you’d end up at petroleum?
As such, the difficulty of making Viagra was on par with creation itself.
Even so, there was one reason I was able to make Viagra.
I had memorized the manufacturing method separately during my medical school days.
‘I never thought what I memorized instead of soap would end up being useful like this.’
If you look at all those stories, don’t the would-be reincarnators always memorize a soap recipe?
Back when I was a medical student, unlike those would-be reincarnators, I memorized the formulas for a few slightly unusual things.
They were the three fully synthetic drugs that defined an era.
‘On days when there were no patients and I had nothing to do, I used to look up papers on those drugs by myself.’
Trauma surgery has long stretches of downtime.
There’s nothing to do until the ER calls you in.
I spent that time looking up papers on those drugs.
A simple internet search brought up all the papers.
Back then, I never imagined I’d be reincarnated and put them to such good use.
And now.
Viagra was bringing me wealth beyond anything I had imagined.
Is this what money tastes like?
Once you’ve tasted the feeling of your bank account’s leading digit changing every time you blink, it’s hard to keep your head straight.
‘I should make the other two as well once I get the ingredients and the know-how.’
I hadn’t been greedy to begin with.
But they say a late-blooming obsession is scary; before long, I wanted to make the other two drugs as soon as possible.
Anyway.
Up to this point, everything could be called smooth sailing.
But then,
“Julian.”
“Yes, Master.”
My master’s reaction when I visited him after a long time was a little different from what I expected.
The Great Sage Louis Edelhardt.
The empire’s greatest mage and my master frowned, holding the Viagra vial in his hand.
“Back around this time two years ago, you clearly wanted to reveal Shun Isa’s identity to the world. Because of that damn marriage issue.”
“Yes. I certainly did. I had realized I lacked the means to shoulder Shun Isa’s renown.”
“Then is that still the case now?”
I shook my head.
Back then, I’d made Viagra to reveal my identity because of the title issue and the live-in son-in-law issue.
By now, though, both of those were no longer problems since I was engaged to Charlotte.
“I see. I heard you got engaged to the marquess’s daughter. Then there’s no need to reveal Isa’s identity anymore, I suppose.”
I nodded.
“Then why did you make this drug?”
“By the time I got engaged, the drug had already been made and testing had already begun. I never expected to meet Miss Charlotte where I had gone with my father.”
“Grr.... So I really should have met her earlier?”
“Since when do human relationships go the way we want?”
....
My master seemed to have something to say, half-opened his lips, then closed them again.
Then he nodded and said,
“Yes. Fate is indeed endlessly changeable, but even so... you clearly said you were making a heart medicine then.”
“Yes. That was certainly my intention as well.”
Before making Viagra, I had definitely told my master that as well.
“So where did the heart medicine go, and why is some aphrodisiac wandering around the empire?”
“I’m still wondering how things ended up like that myself.”
But the result, as you can see,
It wasn’t the heart, but some strange other part that sprang to life.
Of course, this was the result I intended.
If Shun Isa had openly set out from the start to make an erectile dysfunction treatment, the character would fall apart.
So I told everyone around me that I was making a heart medicine, then disguised it as an unexpected side effect that had been discovered.
But from my master’s perspective, who knew none of my private circumstances, it could only seem ridiculous.
“Ahem. Great discoveries often do come from mistakes, after all. The mana stone refining method was like that, and so was the distillation method in alchemy.”
“That’s right, Master.”
“...But I’m not sure whether this can really be called great.”
My master’s face was tinged with mixed feelings.
He picked up the blue diamond-shaped pill and held it up before one eye.
“Don’t misunderstand, Julian. I’m not saying your efforts are vulgar. The knowledge contained in this little pill can certainly be called great.”
After staring at it for a long moment, he carefully set the pill down.
“Thanks to this medicine, erectile dysfunction has been seen less as a stigma and more as a curable temporary ailment. That is certainly admirable. But... .”
My master cleared his throat.
Then he quietly averted his gaze.
“Maybe because I’m human too.... Hearing that it’s a medicine that acts on that area makes it hard to feel scholarly reverence. In other words, I’m not saying this drug isn’t amazing. I simply... don’t feel reverence for it.”
I understood.
Honestly, Viagra’s image is kind of funny.
Of course, judged by objective facts alone, it is indeed a great medicine.
But this is, well... a little awkward.
That’s why I’d made an alibi that I’d discovered it by chance.
“It’s all right, Master. I was bewildered myself when I first discovered this effect.”
“I’m sorry. This must be a drug into which you poured everything you had with the sole determination to make a heart medicine. I never meant to insult you.”
This was why misunderstanding stories were great.
No matter what I did, it would always be interpreted in a favorable light.
I was sorry for deceiving my respected master, but I’d take this misunderstanding to my grave.
My master wiped the hand that had picked up the pill with a handkerchief and lifted his teacup.
“But if one strips away that embarrassing side effect, the essence of this medicine is truly astonishing.”
My master took a sip, wetting his lips.
Ahem, he cleared his throat and took a thick bundle of parchment from within his robes.
It was the paper I had sent him on my failed ‘heart medicine’—that is, the manufacturing method and mechanism of action of Viagra’s prototype.
Tapping the paper with a finger, my master said in admiration,
“I’ll be frank. The depth of knowledge you handle has now long surpassed the realm this old man can hope to approach.”
“You flatter me.”
“It’s no exaggeration. To design a drug that precisely inhibits only a specific enzyme in the body in order to widen blood vessels—there’s no one in this age who could have designed such a medicine except you.”
“Though it widened different blood vessels than the ones I was aiming for.”
My master gave a bitter smile at my joke.
“Even so, it remains a magnificent design. In the distant future, other alchemists will surely use your blueprint to create countless medicines. You may as well have opened a new horizon for alchemy.”
My master placed a hand on the paper.
“But for the world to catch up to your design, it will take decades, perhaps even a hundred years.”
“Will it really take that long?”
“How many alchemists in the empire do you think can fully understand the knowledge written in this paper? Even I only managed to grasp the outline after reading it three times.”
It seemed the principles behind Viagra’s manufacturing method were more of a burden for my master than I had expected.
If the Great Sage, who had lived for a thousand years and spent his life pursuing knowledge, said that much, then ordinary alchemists would probably take even longer.
“Have you made this paper public?”
“No. I’ve only made it accessible to the alchemists at our company.”
“Did they understand it?”
I shook my head.
They couldn’t understand it at all.
So right now, Viagra is being made by dividing up the process so each alchemist handles only the step they individually understand.
Thanks to that, security had unintentionally been strengthened as well.
“Yes, that makes sense. Even if you published this paper, you’d likely be the only one capable of actually synthesizing and improving the drug.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Where money gathers, thieves naturally gather as well. But with this drug being as difficult as it is, no one will be able to imitate it.”
I found it hard to agree.
The people in this world lack knowledge, not intelligence.
I memorized papers myself back when I was a medical student.
It didn’t seem like people here were incapable of doing the same.
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Yes. Since you made it, you wouldn’t understand why it’s difficult.”
My master shook his head back and forth.
“Anyway. What I wanted to say is that this medicine’s popularity won’t be a passing fad. At this rate, you’ll gather more wealth than you ever hoped for.”
It meant enough wealth would accumulate.
That was good news.
It meant I now had the strength to bear the name of Shun Isa.
Of course, I didn’t want to go around shouting that I was Shun Isa.
It was just that constantly having to hide my identity was a little tiring.
So I wanted to reveal it to the people close to me.
Charlotte and the scholarship students, for instance.
“Then can I start telling people around me that I’m Shun Isa?”
But my master’s reaction was different from what I expected.
“I’m not sure...”
I’d thought he would nod readily.
Instead, he set down his teacup and looked at me steadily.
“Julian, do you know why I still haven’t introduced you even to the other tower masters?”
“I don’t know.”
I shook my head.
Honestly, that part had puzzled me too.
Normally, the youngest disciple would at least be introduced to the senior brothers and sisters.
My master did seem especially reluctant to do that.
Still, it seemed like my master had some reason, so I hadn’t asked.
“I’ll tell you. Fame brings threats with it, and power brings grudges with it—that’s just the way the world works.”
“So if my senior brothers and sisters know me, I could be in danger?”
“Yes.”
My master gave a bitter smile.
“There is no small amount of enmity and obligation tangled up between me and the tower masters. The path of a mage is like that. Each time one person proves themselves right, someone else’s life is denied.”
I understood what he meant.
Surely, once you reach the level of the Great Sage or a tower master, the web of grudges and obligations becomes complicated.
The more they cared for me, the more likely it was that those who hated them would target me.
So my master had only informed my senior brothers and sisters of my existence, without introducing me.
Having heard only this much, I somehow felt like I knew what my master was trying to say.
“...So now I’m no longer the one who gets protected, but the one who has to protect others.”
“Yes.”
My master’s one eye moved from my face to the blue pill on the table.
“If you seize tremendous wealth with this drug and your scale grows larger, countless interests and grudges will become tangled around you without your even realizing it. Even if you don’t intend it.”
At first, I was going to say there was no way that would happen.
It was hard to imagine someone resenting me because of Viagra.
Vaccines were plenty enough reason for black mages to hate me, and the other drugs were enough to make nobles jealous, but still.
Hmm. Was there even anyone who’d lose out from Viagra?
So just as I was about to say my master’s worry was needless,
one fact came to mind.
‘Right. I’m the protagonist of a misunderstanding story.’
Damn. I can’t exactly deny that.
As a misunderstanding-story protagonist, there was a high chance things would go in directions I couldn’t even foresee.
It had been that way so far, and I’d taken advantage of it myself.
I didn’t know in what way, but as my master said, I couldn’t rule out Viagra tangling things up in complicated ways.
“The longer you live and the higher you rise, the more complicated grudges become. That’s just how the world works.”
“But didn’t you clearly say that once wealth accumulated to the point where even a ducal house couldn’t ignore it, then... .”
“What I mentioned then was a necessary condition. Not a sufficient one.”
My master cut me off firmly.
“In fact, information about the imperial family is never fully disclosed. They’re the emperor’s children, after all. And yet even who is which in the birth order, and what they do or where they are, remains shrouded in secrecy.”
Now that he mentioned it, that was true.
Even though they are imperial family, most people only know roughly how many there are; the exact members are often unknown.
Unless they make a name for themselves on some battlefield like Edmund, information about the imperial family is basically classified.
“The same goes for the secret disciples tower masters sometimes keep hidden away, only for them to suddenly pop out one day. If you check whether that was voluntary each time, it’s usually the latter.”
That was true as well.
I was the example myself, after all.
“If you’re not living in this world as a lone-wolf maverick, then things are even less likely to go your way. If there are people you have to protect by your side, there will be that much more you need to hide.”
At those words, the faces of my family, Freya, Charlotte, and Eri naturally flashed through my mind.
If I revealed that I was Shun Isa, the blades of those who targeted me might turn toward them.
My master’s concern was extremely realistic and accurate.
Damn it.
Things in this world never go the way you want.
“Sooner or later, you too will come to understand what this old man means.”
At my master’s meaningful words, I quietly nodded.
As expected, it was right to hold off on any rash outing.
For the time being, it might be better to keep enjoying the perks behind the shield called Shun Isa.
In the meantime, my master tucked the Viagra paper into his robes and changed the subject.
“Now then, let’s set aside worries about the complicated future for the moment. Rather than the future that hasn’t arrived yet, it’s better to focus on what you can do right now.”
“If it’s something I can do...”
“Yes. I’ll help you finish the black-magic reverse-tracing review practice we left off last time. In the end, if you want to protect your body and the people around you, money matters, but your magic skill will be your most reliable weapon.”
I nodded.
That day, I succeeded in reverse-tracing my master’s black magic eight times out of ten.
*
“By the way, Julian.”
“Yes, Master.”
“By any chance, do you plan to make a contraceptive drug?”
“Pardon?”
Out of the blue?
Then my master wordlessly pointed at the blue pill on the table.
Ah.
“...I hadn’t considered that.”
“Since it wasn’t made for that purpose, that makes sense. I only gained this insight from living a long time. So, do you have a plan?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know much about medicine, but I can think of one contraceptive device.”
“You’d do well to release it quickly.”
“Thank you, Master.”
One month later.
As a bundled product with Viagra, rubber balloons began to be sold.
For the record, I somehow handled the rubber rings by making it look like the merchant guild master had been the one to bring up the idea first, not me.