Chapter 14: Bastard of a Bloodfiend (3) |
*
The morning at the clinic starts early.
“Huh? Teacher, why are you here so early?”
Erika, still half-asleep, greeted me as she walked out of the on-call room.
Tsk, tsk.
What use is an employee who's lazier than the president?
“The clinic always opens at this time. And you know what they say, the early bird gets the worm.”
“If you sleep longer, you're less hungry, so you don't have to catch as many worms, right?”
Oh.
But I was the protagonist, so I couldn't agree with that logic.
Of course, I've made a decent amount of money now, and I'd like to be moderately lazy.
But if I do that, I have no idea what kind of snowball effect it might cause later.
So, unfortunately, I had no choice but to be an early bird.
“I can save one more person in that time, so I can't do that. I'm sorry, but you'll have to follow my lead.”
“Hmph.”
Erika staggered, her eyes swollen.
I heard she'd only been active at night until now, avoiding people's eyes.
Perhaps because of that, she seemed unused to the morning.
But she can't be like that anymore.
After I went to the trouble of giving her a blood transfusion.
Shouldn't she start living like a normal girl in the morning, not the Bastard of a Bloodfiend?
Erika returned after washing her face with cold water.
I held out a note to her.
“These are your errands for today. Pick up medicine, contact patients, and do some cleaning sometimes. Can you do it?”
“Is that all? I thought this was in exchange for my treatment fee.”
Eri's eyes widened.
Judging by her reaction, it seemed she'd steeled herself for some tough errands in exchange for her treatment.
But what was written on the paper were errands that a child her age could easily handle.
“This is too little work.”
“Yes. That's your daily quota, so if you finish early, you can rest.”
But there's something she's completely misunderstanding.
I don't need an errand runner named Erika right now.
I want to find out what kind of talent she has.
I have to buy low now while she knows nothing, so I can freeload off that connection later in life, right?
But Erika, who had no way of knowing my inner thoughts, instead sent me a suspicious glance.
“You're lying. There's no way that's all.”
Erika shook her head, glaring at me.
“That alchemist mister in D-4 Block said so. He said my limbs are so skinny that even if you skinned me, you wouldn't get 10 Mar. I know your treatment is more expensive than that.”
“What would I do with your skin?”
“If you have some ulterior motive, just say it. I'd rather just give you a-”
Whack!
It looked like words that shouldn't come from a child's mouth were about to, so I cut her off with a chop.
“Ouch!”
I am prepared for the fact that the darkness of Limbus Pit will always easily surpass my imagination.
But still.
Shouldn't words like that come out of a teenage girl's mouth?
'Is there a reason to call for Podori and the FBI in another world?'
The underbelly of this city was much more of a gutter than I had expected.
“Erika.”
At the call of her name, Eri flinched.
I got up from my chair and met Eri's eyes at her level.
“Listen carefully. Your mouth is an organ for savoring delicious food or for expressing a person's worth.”
“But- Mph!”
I blocked Eri's mouth with a star candy as she tried to retort.
“Keep in mind that the sentence that was about to come out of your mouth could make you into something more worthless than the cheapest scrap in this city.”
Eri's mouth, which had been munching on the star candy, stopped.
She stared at my mask with a dazed look.
Then, with a short spit- sound, she spat the star candy into her hand.
“But this way, the deal doesn't hold.”
“Right, right. You and I are making a deal right now. That I'll provide you with the basic necessities and treatment in exchange for you running my errands.”
I admonished Eri, consciously using a stern voice.
“But a deal is about each party offering what they can, not what they shouldn't. If you propose something like that, what will happen to my face?”
“...Sorry.”
I wasn't asking for an apology.
It somehow ended up looking like I was scolding her.
I snapped my fingers to clear the air.
“So? Your answer?”
“I'll... do the errands.”
“Good.”
I tore a piece from the white paper on my desk to make a memo pad.
Eri gasped Hah! at just the paper, finding it a waste.
I scribbled a memo on that torn piece of paper.
“Here, your first errand.”
I wrote down the medicinal ingredients on the paper.
“Go get these medicines from the alchemist. They're things I've already ordered. The money's been paid, so you don't have to pay. If they ask if I sent you, show them this signature on the back. It goes without saying, but don't lose this memo pad on the way.”
Eri folded the paper carefully and tucked it away.
As if that paper were her very lifeline.
I'm not the emperor. There's no need for her to feel such a sense of duty over a single memo.
“I'll be back.”
“Ah, and.”
Before she left, I remembered something I'd forgotten and called out to stop her.
“...What.”
“Let's sort out your form of address for me too. Will it be Teacher Schnabel, or Doc?”
“...I'll go with Teacher.”
Leaving those words behind, Eri crossed the threshold and disappeared into the smog-filled morning street.
It might have just been my imagination, but her retreating figure seemed strangely tense.
***
A week had passed since Eri became an errand runner.
To be honest, she did better than I expected.
“Teacher. I went to the D-4 Block Apothecary. Here's the change.”
Clink.
A few coins were placed precisely on the desk.
As expected of someone who knew the ins and outs of the back alleys, her errand speed was considerable.
It meant that not only did she have a head for geography, but also considerable stamina.
“Well done.”
But what was even more satisfying than her speed was her honesty.
The people Wangcho sent, or Erika's predecessors, would sometimes pocket the change after an errand.
I guess they thought that since I make good money and the consultation room is always busy, I wouldn't notice a few missing coins. They don't even know what a ledger is for.
I overlooked it, considering it a tip.
But Erika, unlike them, didn't pocket a single coin.
'Perhaps this could also be called a talent, in its own way.'
Because this isn't an environment where one could possibly keep their hands clean.
Therefore, maintaining honesty in such an environment meant that Erika had a talent for being honest.
I organized Erika's talents in my mind and handed her a few coins.
“This is a tip. Use it for snacking or something.”
“Then I'll start cleaning now.”
“Just do the bathroom today.”
Her cleaning skills and ability to handle other chores were also satisfactory in many ways.
No one had taught her, but she was cleaning to a standard higher than I had requested.
Smart and highly trustworthy...
'She'd be recommendable for a bank, bodyguard work, or maybe even as a knight.'
This time, it's pretty good.
In the sense that it isn't a talent that brings a bakery to mind.
And so, a satisfying week passed.
“Next patient.”
The door opened, and a patient on a stretcher was brought in.
It was one of Wangcho's subordinates.
The patient had gotten his arm caught in a cogwheel during a fistfight at a factory.
The wound was a problem, but what was more urgent was the blood.
The bleeding was severe.
“Have you ever made a Blood Registry entry for this man?”
To my question, his colleague answered.
“Sometime last fall, we made one here under Boss Wangcho's order.”
“Then things will be quick.”
I opened a leather file that had a strong vintage feel.
[Propositum : Matrix Sanguinis]
Literally translated, it's [Project: Blood Genealogy].
In this era, there's no way to safely store blood.
If you draw it, it clots within a few hours, and transfusing clotted blood will kill the patient.
There are magic tools like refrigerators and I have enough capital, but I still don't know how to make preservation fluid, so there's nothing I can do about this.
I should have studied transfusion medicine harder if I knew it would be like this.
Moving on.
Anyway, that's why I came up with an alternative.
Whenever I have time, I test people's blood types and record them in a notebook.
So that I can call someone immediately to draw blood in an emergency.
For the record, the reason I wrote it in Latin is just for style.
Why? Latin is cool, isn't it?
“What's the patient's name?”
“It's Donovan.”
“Donovan... Type B.”
The noteworthy thing about this file is that all of Wangcho's organization, his gang members, have their blood types recorded in it.
Because they are people for whom stabbings are a daily occurrence.
Therefore, this Blood Registry also served as a kind of health insurance for them.
“Type B... If anyone I call is nearby, please answer.”
Locke, Heinz, Lewen...
“Heinz! At this hour, he should be at the pub over there!”
“A drinker is no good.”
Emil, Roddy...
“I'm Roddy!”
One of the colleagues who came along raised his hand.
I briefly examined the man.
Before the transfusion, I checked if this person had syphilis, or any cold symptoms...
The conclusion was that he was healthy.
Then it's decided. Roddy it is.
Eri prepared the tools for the blood transfusion.
Meanwhile, I began to perform hemostasis on the patient's wound.
It's not like hemostasis is anything special.
Just a repetition of finding blood vessels to tie off and stuffing cotton into large holes?
In the meantime, the transfusion preparations were complete.
“Ready, Teacher.”
I immediately got ready to connect them, arm to arm.
The name of the treatment I was preparing was Direct transfusion.
It's a method of directly transfusing fresh, raw blood.
It was a dangerous method, so in my previous life, it was a method to be avoided if possible.
However.
'Please, just don't let there be any side effects.'
I prayed to the power of the Misunderstanding Genre and prepared for the transfusion.
Drip, drip, drip-
Blood flowed from the donor's arm into the bucket.
It was then.
“Teacher.”
Eri, who was cleaning up the trash nearby, suddenly spoke to me.
“What is it, Eri? Is the tube twisted?”
“No, it's hard to explain, but I think this person's arm is strange.”
“?”
At those words, I turned towards Eri.
Eri frowned and tapped Roddy's forearm with her finger.
“It's kind of... disgusting? Noisy? Something feels strange when I look at this person.”
“Noisy?”
“Yeah. The inside is squirming. It's like tens of thousands of bugs are crawling around.”
At those words, I turned towards Eri.
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“Something's... boiling inside? It's the same feeling I got from the sick pigs at the slaughterhouse.”
“...?”
At those words, I paused the transfusion for a moment.
Because a certain hypothesis had suddenly flashed through my mind.
Bastard of a Bloodfiend.
Her nickname.
I had thought it was just an anachronistic expression of hatred.
But in this fantasy world, I started to think that perhaps her being given that nickname was no coincidence.
The fact that she compared it to a 'sick pig' in particular rang my internal alarm bells even louder.
I looked at Roddy again.
And I discovered something I had missed because the situation was so urgent.
“...Your eyes are a little yellow. Since when have they been like this?”
“Ah, they weren't like this yesterday.”
Then did they just turn yellow?
Of course, considering that jaundice isn't a symptom that progresses rapidly, it might just be my imagination.
It could be the lighting, or just my mood.
Before that, it was so faintly yellow that it was embarrassing to even call it jaundice.
Nevertheless, what Eri said bothered me.
So I checked one more time.
“Mister Roddy. Have you been anywhere recently?”
“Uh...”
Roddy bent his fingers, retracing his past.
“A few weeks ago, I went outside the wall.”
“Why?”
“To pick up some goods the boss was trading. It was near a swamp.”
“And you were bitten by mosquitoes there?”
“Yes.”
Damn it.
All the circumstantial evidence pointed to one thing.
Malaria.
The incubation period, where the symptoms aren't severe yet.
This blood cannot be transfused.
“The transfusion is canceled. Let's find someone else.”
“Why?”
“You have malaria. If we put this in him, it'll be a disaster.”
Afterward, I hurriedly found another donor.
Fortunately, the transfusion was a success.
The patient passed the critical stage, and the man whose malaria was discovered by chance was prescribed Quinine.
*
An hour later.
I called to Eri, who was wringing out a rag in the corner.
“Eri.”
“Hm? Why?”
“Could you come over here for a second?”
I placed three glass vials on the desk.
Inside each was a small, cut piece of a blood-soaked bandage.
“What's this?”
Eri approached, wiping her wet hands on her apron.
“A quiz.”
“...A quiz?”
“If you get it right, I'll raise your weekly wage and give you better meals.”
At those words, Eri's eyes sparkled with motivation.
“What is it? What is it?”
“Hold these vials. And pick the quietest one.”
I pointed to the three glass vials.
A was from the mother in childbirth who came in this morning with puerperal fever.
B was from Donovan, the one who got caught in the cogwheel earlier.
C was from Roddy, the one we were about to use for the transfusion.
They were the bone marrow of a sepsis, a normal, and a malaria patient, respectively.
However, I didn't tell her what they were.
“The quiet one?”
“Yes. Pick the 'marrow' that feels the quietest to you.”
“...What's that supposed to mean?”
Damn. It was my master-stroke joke, but it didn't land.
Eri, though puzzled by my quiz, reached for the vials.
A
“Ugh! Disgusting.”
She recoiled from the sepsis patient's bone marrow, pulling her hand away.
B
“Hmm... just so-so?”
She didn't find anything unusual in the normal patient's bone marrow.
C
“Ugh! This one's disgusting too.”
She chose vial B as the one that was at least the most okay.
I silently removed B and pushed A and C forward.
They were the bone marrow of the sepsis and malaria patients, respectively.
“What's the difference between these two?”
“Ummm... they're both the same?”
“...”
I was a little disappointed.
“Why? Why!? Was it the wrong answer?!”
Eri stomped her feet in disappointment.
I shook my head.
“No. It's a perfect answer.”
It was the right answer the moment she chose B, anyway.
It would have been the icing on the cake if she could have distinguished between A and C, but.
I reached a conclusion.
'Eri can distinguish the activation level of bone marrow by sense.'
'A binary classification at the level of 'disgusting' or 'not disgusting'.'
She can't distinguish whether it's malaria or a bacterial infection, let alone what kind of bacteria.
'It's a bit of a shame.'
Though, to be honest, it would have been perfect if she could have distinguished even the strain of bacteria.
Of course, I know this is being greedy.
It's only natural that one can't determine such things from bone marrow as if it were a blood culture.
And there are actually advantages to it being a talent related to bone marrow rather than blood.
'You can just routinely screen bone marrow? And non-invasively at that? Man, this would have caused an uproar in the 21st century.'
I can guarantee it.
Even without graduating from medical school, whether in the Infectious Diseases Department, Rheumatology, or the Hematology Department.
They would have given her a professor position and had her just screen patients at the emergency room entrance.
And her annual salary would have easily passed 400 million.
Even setting aside the medical perspective, it was a very excellent talent.
Because this kind of talent was one of a Mage's talents.
'Jackpot.'
One year into my rain-making ritual.
My efforts finally paid off.
In my mind, I moved Eri's tier list ranking from Tier 3 to Tier 1.
“Eri.”
“What.”
“You don't have to run errands starting tomorrow.”
Eri's shoulders flinched.
She seemed to think she was fired.
Her gaze wavered for a moment. The fear of being kicked out after just barely settling in flashed through her.
Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.
Seeing that, I hurriedly continued.
“From now on, I'll have someone else run the errands, and you'll work by my side. With me, during consultations.”
“H-Huh...?”
“Not as an errand runner. You're my assistant now.”
A beat later, Eri's mouth fell open.
“Why? I can't even read.”
“I can just teach you how to read.”
I wiped the tears welling in her eyes with a handkerchief.
“From now on, your job is to find sick people with that sense of yours. It's a very important mission.”
“...Is it that big of a deal?”
“Yeah. It's something only you can do.”
As I said that, I wrote down the monthly salary she would receive in my notebook.
The zeroes kept increasing. One, two, three, four...
“Eek!? 40... 400,000 Mar?!”
400,000 Mar is the level of a skilled worker's monthly salary in Uppertown.
It's no wonder she's surprised, since a back-alley orphan suddenly skyrocketed to the level of an artisan.
“C-Can I receive this?”
“You're worth that much.”
To recruit her, I have to make this level of expenditure.
If I think of it as bringing in an MRI machine, this is a bargain.
“One, two, three, four...”
Erika kept counting the zeroes, as if she couldn't believe this reality.
Why is she so surprised? If she sticks by my side and builds up seniority, it'll increase by 10 times that.
I finished writing today's clinical log, put the record in the warehouse, and said.
“And one more thing.”
Eri looked up.
“What is it?”
“You're an assistant now, so you'll commute with me too.”
“Commute?”
“I mean don't sleep here. Commute from where I live.”
This isn't just because she's my fortuitous encounter.
The talent of a Mage is rare.
To what extent? To the point that even nobles steeped in their sense of entitlement would try to adopt one if they found them.
On top of that, if she's reasonably smart, it's no exaggeration to say she's an SSR item as a potential Mage.
So, both as a Misunderstanding Genre protagonist and as the young master of a baronial family.
I had a duty to take her to my home.
Of course, Erika, who couldn't possibly know this background, seemed unable to believe the sudden, exceptional treatment.
“...From your house, Teacher?”
“The annex, to be precise. I'll give you a room.”
“A house with an annex??”
Erika stared at me with a blank expression.
“Let's go for now. I'll explain on the way.”
I opened the clinic door and stepped outside.
Erika hurriedly followed.
In front of the clinic.
A black sedan was waiting.
A smooth sheen. Brass trim. It was a limousine that made even the smog reflected in its windows look luxurious.
Erika froze.
“...What's that?”
“A car.”
“You think I'm asking because I don't know that? Why is a car here?”
“Can't it be?”
“It's not a carriage, so why is an automobile...”
Ignoring the dumbfounded, muttering Eri.
I opened the door and pushed her inside.
Eri tumbled onto the leather seat.
I sat next to her and closed the door.
“Let's depart.”
Beyond the rear-view mirror, the chauffeur, Otto, looked at me with eyes that said, 'what have you picked up now?'
From that gaze, I recalled Otto's position.
He is my chauffeur and bodyguard. And before being my man, he was the head butler's man.
Recalling that and looking again, the atmosphere was such that he wouldn't press the pedal unless I explained about Eri.
So I persuaded him briefly.
“Please contact the Head Butler. Tell him to prepare a room in the annex. I've found a child with the talent of a Mage, so tell him to prepare it befitting her status.”
“Understood, Young Master.”
The chauffeur's gaze changed.
Recruiting a Mage is an understandable reason.
Only then did the car start to move.
Eri's eyes were wide as she fiddled with the leather seat.
“I-Is this real leather?”
“Yes.”
“Sniff sniff. The smell...”
“Could you show a little restraint inside the car?”
Eri buried her nose in the seat and inhaled the scent.
In the Red-Light District, 'leather' usually just means leftover scraps from tanning, patched together, so her reaction was understandable.
Eri, having adapted to the smell like a cat, leaned back carefully.
And she looked out the window.
The black slate buildings of Limbus Pit flew by.
“...Where are we going?”
I just told her to be quiet and watch.
The car continued to ascend.
It left Limbus Pit and crossed Civitas Square.
But the car kept going up.
Finally, around the time the car passed through the Sanctum Hill security checkpoint without being stopped.
“Huh? Huh?”
“This is where you'll be living from now on.”
“...Gurgle.”
Eri's head drooped.
It seems her brain chose to shutdown because too much information came in at once.
I understand.
It's as if she was promoted from a brothel district orphan to the right-hand man of a Celestial Dragon.
“...”
I looked at the fainted Eri with satisfaction.
'This was the reaction I was hoping for.'
It seems I've gotten an assistant with great reactions.
