Chapter 102: Reassembly of Faith (1) |
***
Simeon returned a week later.
"I have come back, Young Master."
"Simeon. Have you finished your pilgrimage?"
"Yes."
Just the two of us, alone in the room.
The man with squinted eyes smiled.
"Thanks to the Lord Saint, I was able to end my long wandering. This foolish prodigal son has finally returned to the side of the gods."
The Simeon I met again wore a white robe—the kind worn by healing priests—in place of his shabby black cassock.
On one side of the old, yellowed paper was stamped a blue seal.
It was the certificate given to priests who had completed their pilgrimage.
— [Pilgrim Simeon Ronald, having washed away all impurity, is proven to stand before the gods again.]
"It seems Brother will have to start paying taxes again."
"In exchange, I may once again enjoy the rights of a healing priest."
Pilgrims paid no taxes.
They could pass through any city gate without stopping at a security checkpoint, and held the right to spend a night at any temple.
In exchange, they could not enjoy the rights of a healing priest—things like obtaining catalysts for divine magic at virtually no cost, or purchasing holy relics at greatly reduced prices.
This parchment was the certificate proving that he had returned from his status as a pilgrim to that of a healing priest once more.
"Very well, Simeon. This is the same question I asked you before, but let me ask it once more. You wish for me to take you in?"
"That is correct. I humbly ask that you grant me the honor of serving at your side, Young Master."
The man with squinted eyes bowed his head.
An acolyte priest.
A position not unlike that of a secretary or adjutant to a high-ranking clergyman.
As one could see from Archbishop Raylick and Gregor, even a high-ranking priest typically had one or two acolyte priests in attendance.
Under ordinary circumstances, I too—being a saint—ought to have had at least one acolyte priest by my side.
But my dual identity had been the problem, and so I had gone without a single one until now.
'Taking Simeon on as my acolyte priest, is it...'
He was well suited for the role, in every respect.
For one, he had history as both a disciple and acolyte to my parents.
And since he already knew of my double life, having him close at hand would be perfectly fitting.
There was one thing that gave me pause, however.
"Simeon. You are the person who witnessed my parents' wishes from closest at hand. And I am the child who has inherited those wishes."
"..."
"In that case, might it not be fair to say that Simeon and I stand on the same generational rank?"
In short, I was asking whether Simeon might be considered my senior.
Simeon was my parents' disciple.
Treating him as my subordinate felt, in many ways, uncomfortable.
"If Simeon is agreeable, I would like to treat you as someone of equal standing—"
"That must not be."
But Simeon's response was firm.
"How could I, a sinner such as myself, dare to stand alongside Young Master—no, the Lord Saint? That must not be."
Simeon bowed his head.
"I was the sole successor to Masters Schnabel's wishes. The hands and hearts of those two remained within this foolish man's chest as a single faint lamp. Yet how great an honor that was—I did not know until now."
"..."
"Far from treating it as a responsibility, I had the audacity to view it as a right I possessed. Whether the world was worthy of receiving those two's wishes. Whether that person deserved their love. I had the temerity to take up such a measuring rod and pass judgment on humanity in their name. I even went so far as to put the Young Master to a test."
His shoulders trembled once.
"That was arrogance. I am the very embodiment of an arrogant and truly hideous sinner. And that is not all. Lowly priest that I am, I dared to put the gods themselves to trial."
Thud. Thud.
Simeon struck his own chest.
"I do not believe there is any path by which I could dare be pardoned for those sins. For someone such as me to stand on the same level as the Lord Saint—it would be smearing mud on the sun."
"I am no sun—but if I were to answer that, the sun would not mind."
"Perhaps not. You are not someone whose light could be dimmed by the likes of me. Yet I am filled with too much shame. So I ask that you grant me the chance to begin again from the lowest place, that I might atone."
Bow.
Simeon lowered his head.
I looked down at the crown of his head in silence for a moment, then opened my mouth.
"Brother Simeon."
"Yes, Young Master."
"If doing so will allow you to unburden even a little of what weighs on your heart, then by all means."
It would have been unseemly to keep pulling at someone who wanted to atone.
What could I do?
If he wanted to start over from his first year as a resident—who was I to stop him?
'It's a little awkward, but there's nothing for it.'
To me, Simeon was something like an uncle.
Having someone like that become my secretary was a touch embarrassing—but that was something only I had to endure.
"Very well. Then before you become my acolyte priest, there is something that must be done."
Clunk.
I set the box down on the desk.
When I opened it, a brass cross appeared inside.
The graduation gift my parents had once prepared for Simeon—the brass cross.
"It has taken twenty years to deliver this to you. I, at least, had believed all this time that Simeon was alive."
Truthfully, I had completely forgotten this keepsake even existed.
But regardless—I had kept it safe and waited until Simeon came, so in that sense, I suppose I had believed.
"Congratulations on your graduation, Simeon, Low-rank Healing Priest. May the God of Mercy walk with you upon the path ahead."
"..."
The man carefully picked up the brass cross.
And without a word, his head bowed, his shoulders trembled in small, quiet shudders.
*
"Simeon. Would you tell me about my parents?"
It began after Simeon had formally become my acolyte priest.
After he joined, I asked him to tell me in detail about my parents' accomplishments—the ones I hadn't known.
They were people who had never made a grimoire to keep at home, preferring to carry their work with them everywhere.
Which meant their research records had not remained in my possession.
On top of that, I had been hearing plenty about my parents' accomplishments, yet their actual research findings were rarely to be seen in the field of healing arts.
"Simeon, you're familiar with the research my parents conducted, aren't you? Do you happen to remember which parasites they were studying?"
"As for that—when my teachers sent me away, they sent their research records along with me."
According to Simeon:
When the two of them gave up the two spots on the teleportation circle at the end, Simeon and a box of their research records had gone up in their place.
"I tried to show these research records to the Order, but... certain priests attempted to claim these accomplishments as their own. So I took them back and kept them in my possession."
Honestly. Those old geezers.
With my parents dead and gone, it seemed they had tried to quietly absorb the as-yet-unpublished discoveries and pass them off as their own work.
Simeon said he simply couldn't bring himself to hand the research records over to priests like that, so he had kept them himself.
"Then might I take a look at them?"
"In all this world, only the Young Master is worthy to view them. If you wish, you may even erase my memo—"
"That's going too far, Simeon."
After reining in Simeon's sudden outburst—
I was able to receive my parents' research records through him.
The research records were heavy enough that both hands were needed to carry them.
Dozens of notebooks bound together with old leather straps.
Bundles of loose pages stitched through, excerpts pasted together with glue, and over a hundred hand-drawn diagrams.
The edges of the paper were stained with mud and grass.
I had the whole collection sent by parcel, then returned to my laboratory at the Academy.
After that, I spent every spare moment—even cutting into mealtimes—poring over my parents' records.
In the process, I discovered something.
'They weren't parasite specialists...'
Well, to be precise, they were specialists in parasites.
They simply weren't specialists in parasites alone.
'My parents seem to have been less like doctors and more like ecology researchers.'
Something had seemed off from the very first page.
— [Imperial South, Swamp Mosquito Collection Log]
— [Demonic Realm Outskirts. Black Silver Grass Sample Collection Report]
— [Baekgakryeong Cave, Bat Feces Collection Record]
"..."
Remarkable people, in every sense.
Unlike a coward like me, hiding away inside the Wall—
They had gone out to study the ecosystem directly in the Demonic Realm beyond the Wall, all to understand the ecology of parasites.
'No wonder all the other disciples dropped out, except for Simeon...'
Really.
Quite the unusual pair, in every way.
In any case, the records my parents had left behind from their explorations across the southern and northern reaches of the Empire were wide-ranging.
Though in the process, one could find a fair number of small errors here and there as well.
[A parasitic organism that swims up through the nasal passage of a swimmer and devours the gray matter of the brain — temporarily named the Sosa Worm]
This organism was the most notable example.
It was some kind of amoeba, to be precise...
A Naegleria amoeba? A Fowler amoeba?
I couldn't quite remember, but it was a record of that particular amoeba—famous as a brain-eating amoeba.
My parents had classified this amoeba as a parasite.
'This isn't a parasite—it's a protozoan.'
They had also recorded fungi as plant-based parasites.
Likely because this world lacked the relevant concepts to know otherwise.
In many ways, these research notebooks called for re-triage.
And yet—
'Remarkable.'
Those minor errors did nothing whatsoever to diminish the value of these notebooks.
On the contrary, the more I examined them, the more I found myself struck, again and again, by how extraordinary my parents had been.
'It wasn't empty words when the Godfather used to praise my biological parents all those years.'
The Godfather had always said this.
My parents had truly been remarkable people.
I had simply assumed it was because they had gone to the Southern Front to do medical volunteering, and that was what made them so admired.
But reading the research records, I thought differently now.
'Not an artificial genius like me—a real one...'
I was not someone who made new discoveries.
I was someone who drew on memories from a previous life.
Strictly speaking, I was closer to an imitation of a genius than the real thing.
But my parents were different.
To have made discoveries like these, without any memories of a past life—
They say the hardest step is going from zero to one.
Perhaps, had my parents lived longer, they might have become authorities in infectiology.
'Looking at these research records, I can understand why those priests were blinded enough to try claiming them as their own.'
It was Simeon who was remarkable, if anything.
To have kept these hidden for twenty years, never once turning them to his own credit—
That spoke to how singular his respect for my parents had been, and how profound his faith in the gods.
'This really ought to be cleaned up a little, then published as the accomplishment of Simeon and the Schnabel couple.'
Publishing it as my own work would have been far too graceless an act.
Taking credit for merely doing a bit of classification—that would be unconscionable.
Instead, what I stood to gain from these research records came down to two things.
The first was the techniques my parents had devised in order to study these tiny microorganisms.
'Using magic in place of a microscope—who would have thought.'
And the second—
'The ecology of fungi is recorded here in detail. With this...'
I could now cultivate fungi deliberately.
The process, of course, would be a bit grueling and time-consuming, much like it had been with the vaccine.
I would have to create black magic that didn't yet exist.
Like with the mosquito control magic, it would probably take a few years.
'It wouldn't be strange if it took decades.'
Even so, just being able to see the path ahead was enough to make me feel a flutter of excitement.
The moment I decided, I summoned my Teacher right away.
It was magic we'd be creating, after all—I had a feeling my Teacher would be pleased as well.
'He was delighted when we made the vaccine last time, and again with the mosquito control magic—I wonder if he'll be pleased this time too.'
There was, however, one part that would require some care in how I presented it.
Black magic using fungi as a catalyst could, if used well, bring down an overpass.
But if a disciple suddenly came to him saying, 'Teacher, I want to create fungi mass proliferation magic!'—
How would he react?
— "Are you dreaming of reviving the Magic Tower of the 13th Month?"
Being treated like an isekai Nazi right then and there, and I'd have nothing to say in my defense.
Black magic, after all, was the kind of thing where, if you really set your mind to it, collapsing a few fortresses was no great feat.
'Tch. It seems I'll need to prove the effects of the blue mold before I even think about creating fungal proliferation magic.'
There was always a proper order to things.
If I got carried away and skipped the steps, I couldn't exactly complain about being misunderstood.
'One step at a time.'
For now, it was gradually becoming necessary to convince the healers of the existence of germs.
There had been one reason I had put this off until now.
To do it, I'd have to reveal that healers had been killing patients by not washing their hands—and there was no way they would accept that gracefully.
So I had held my tongue.
Had I put forward the germ theory with insufficient authority and insufficient evidence, there was a real chance I would have been socially ostracized for it.
But there was no longer any need for that.
I now had a means to prove the existence of germs.
I now had the authority to put the theory forward.
'I can't keep putting this off forever.'
At last, I could take my first steps.
Thanks to my parents.
Thinking that, I closed the book.
