Chapter 100: God's Dilemma (2) |
*
"Then... if the wicked who have clearly defied God's will are punished by means that clearly defy God's will, how would the gods regard that? Would they first commend the punishment of evil, or would they first condemn the act of blasphemy?"
"..."
"Answer me, please. Which do the gods hold more dear, good and evil, or the Doctrine?"
The dilemma Simeon had thrown down.
It was both his grievance and his reproach directed at the gods.
'Going by that dilemma, divine punishment falling is a problem, and divine punishment not falling is also a problem.'
What if no divine punishment fell upon such an act?
That would amount to an answer that the gods prioritize good and evil.
Why, then, had they kept silent when the Schnabel couple, my parents, died?
And what if divine punishment did fall upon such an act?
'In that case, the gods would be beings who prioritize their own authority over good and evil.'
Then the Order's foundational doctrine would be wrong from its very premise.
That foundational doctrine which teaches that the gods love humanity.
If that were so, would such gods still be worth humans serving?
One might fear them, yes, but would there be any reason to truly revere them?
"..."
It wasn't a question I could answer easily.
After all, this would be a deeply important question for him.
The very reason a healing priest, and a disciple of the Schnabel couple at that, had come to wander as a pilgrim.
'The problem is that I'm a doctor.'
Not a philosopher.
Since I'd never once given this question any thought before, there was no chance an answer would come right away.
In the end, after much deliberation, the answer I offered was this.
"Might I... defer my answer a little? I'll need time to give it serious thought."
It was too heavy a question to answer lightly.
One that could, if mishandled, turn his wandering into corruption.
So a measure of caution was warranted.
Simeon's narrow eyes widened slightly.
"You are the first to take this question seriously, Lord Saint. Other priests would always rebuke me, calling it impiety."
"Impiety? To avoid committing a taboo, one must first know what the taboo is. How could questioning, in a desire to understand the gods' will more deeply, ever become blasphemy against the gods?"
Just as one must dissect a corpse to learn how to save the living.
To know the will of the gods, one has no choice but to throw out some rather bold questions.
Medicine and theology alike.
This is how they have advanced.
"That said, given how weighty the question is, I'd be cautious about answering on the spot, here and now."
"Then when might I hear your answer?"
"Tomorrow morning, let us meet again at the entrance. I'll share my thoughts then."
*
The next day.
As promised, I met Simeon again at the entrance to the Necropolis.
I hadn't been able to tell well when I'd seen him underground yesterday.
But seen beneath the morning sunlight filtered through smog, he had a somewhat gloomy impression about him.
"Oh, you've come, Lord Saint."
"Good day, Brother Simeon."
People's gazes converged on us.
With the Black Saint and a giant cleric standing together, it was impossible not to draw attention.
Glancing around at our surroundings, I spoke to Simeon.
"There are many eyes on us. I'd like to move somewhere else before giving you my answer."
"May I ask where you intend to go?"
"Limbus Pit, D-Sector."
His narrow eyes twitched.
"You, Lord Saint... mean to go there?"
"Surely a healer must look upon even the lowest places without turning away?"
"..."
Simeon stared at me intently.
It was hard to tell with those narrow eyes.
But he was clearly looking at me, that much was certain.
"...Understood. Let us go."
The giant of a priest followed behind me.
I slid into the car first, and Simeon crammed himself in after me.
Tilt.
Gregor alone was already considerable in weight.
With Simeon added, it felt as though the car sank down a notch.
And so, while the car carrying us made its way toward Limbus Pit—
I looked at the book Simeon, seated across from me in the limousine, held in his arms.
"...Today it's the Scripture of Abundance."
"I have not devoted myself to any single sect, so I am one who serves all 12 Deities. Yesterday I offered prayers to the Moon Goddess, so today I mean to offer prayers to the Goddess of Abundance."
He was a quite excellent believer.
Most people tend to offer prayers centered on their own sect.
Simeon, by contrast, was effectively saying he would serve all 13 Gods, the 12 deities and the Sun God too.
'As I thought, a person like this...'
While I was thinking that—
the car reached its destination.
The place we'd arrived was the D-4 Clinic.
The infection specialization clinic.
When we stepped inside, the sight of numerous low-rank healers bustling about, diligently carrying various things, came into view.
Simeon looked around the clinic as though fascinated.
"So this is the Lord Saint's clinic I've only ever heard about."
"Is this your first time here?"
"Haha. Being a pilgrim, I'm often outside the Wall, and I spend a great deal of time down in the most remote corners as well."
"I see."
The Merkur Clinic had established itself throughout all of Civitas Square and most of the sectors of Limbus Pit.
Excepting F-Sector, the sewer district, and H-Sector, the ruined district.
It seemed Simeon's main areas of activity were those two places.
'Pilgrims are the sort who go to such places, after all.'
It made sense that he wasn't familiar with the clinic.
"Then while you're here, might I take a moment to show you around the clinic? I think it may help with my answer to your question."
"For the Lord Saint himself to guide a lowly pilgrim such as me, the honor could not be greater."
"In that case, let us first move this way."
In the infection clinic, every room is separated by barriers.
It could be called this other world's first infection isolation ward, or negative pressure ward.
Naturally, it was a place that devoured an enormous amount of money.
From the catalysts used for the barriers every single day, to the wages of the mages.
This was the very money pit that turned the stomachs of the Merkur board of directors.
Of course, I wouldn't be explaining this background to a guest.
"This is the syphilis treatment room."
I stopped before one of the rooms.
Syphilis.
A disease the Red-Light District could never be rid of.
"You... treat syphilis?"
Simeon's eyes went wide.
Like malaria, syphilis is a disease that has tormented humanity for ages.
The reason was singular.
"Could it be... that you've discovered a catalyst that can treat syphilis with divine magic, like the Southern Fever?"
It was because no usable catalyst had ever been found.
Divine magic, too, is a kind of magic.
Which means that to maximize a spell's effect and conserve divine power, a catalyst must exist.
The reason a common cold or certain infectious diseases could be cured even without such a catalyst was that those illnesses heal naturally.
The white blood cells within the body act as the catalyst on their own.
But for diseases like syphilis or malaria, where natural healing can hardly be expected, the story is different.
To cure these, one had no choice but to pour out an overwhelming amount of divine power, or else hope the infected person was someone with a strong constitution.
What changed that landscape was Quinine.
Malaria could be cured using Quinine alone, but if you added divine magic on top of that, the effect was dramatic.
And Simeon was referring to this background.
"A treatment method for syphilis... when did you create it?"
"I conceived of it eight years ago, and I made it safe last week."
The treatment method for syphilis had been in my head from long ago.
The problem was that every method was the sort that could kill the patient as well.
'Syphilis can normally be dealt with using arsenic, after all.'
Salvarsan, extracted from arsenic.
Make this drug, and you can eliminate syphilis.
I'd been reluctant to use it because of the trifling problem that one slip eliminates the patient along with it.
So the method I developed was the second one.
"A few days ago, I succeeded in cultivating a demonic beast capable of deliberately inducing malaria."
"...What?"
"Ah, for the record, I've obtained permission from the Imperial Court and the Order, so there's no need to worry."
Among treatment methods for syphilis, there is one that makes use of malaria.
1. Infect the syphilis patient with malaria.
2. The fever from the malaria burns all the syphilis germs to death.
3. Treat that malaria with Quinine.
4. Ta-da! Syphilis treatment complete!
Surprisingly, this is a legitimate treatment method.
One that humanity used before penicillin was created.
It even won a Nobel Prize, so it's a proven treatment.
That said, there was a reason I'd only begun this treatment method as of last week.
"This is the method: infect the patient with malaria via an insect demonic beast controlled through black magic, then treat them with Quinine afterward."
"Good heavens..."
There had been no way to deliberately infect someone with malaria.
In the world I'd lived in, as I recall, they transfused the blood of a malaria patient.
In this world, that was a touch dangerous.
As could be inferred from the fact that this world's malaria nearly killed my father, who had been a Rank 3 superhuman—
among malaria parasites, too, there were demonic beast variants.
Since one slip and the patient would be a goner, I needed a way to stabilize it.
So I borrowed a little of black magic's power.
"Isn't that an insect-type demonic beast from the Southern Front?"
"Yes. I succeeded in controlling it with the Imperial Court's help."
To be precise, it wasn't the Imperial Court but the Great Sage.
Controlling that mosquito demonic beast was a task in itself.
A generation that wouldn't proliferate madly, yet would carry a safe malaria parasite, while not transmitting any other serious germs.
Because of that, my teacher and I struggled for quite a while, churning through several generations of mosquitoes.
'With no genetic modification technology, it was pure manual labor.'
No genetic modification technology?
Then you substitute it with overwhelming time and volume.
In any case, thanks to that, a safe malaria mosquito (?) was created.
"Hoo..."
Simeon could scarcely keep his mouth shut.
I took him toward the research lab located in the clinic's basement.
Unlike the ground floor, which was full of healers, inside were numerous alchemists administering something to rats and pigs.
"This is where we research new medicine."
Inside the research lab, where the cries of countless rats and pigs could be heard.
The alchemists were carrying some red substance and diligently testing something.
— "Failure. This drug kills the pig."
— "That one's a failure too. Hey, youngest, burn it properly."
Simeon's gaze fixed on the red substance.
"This is...?"
"Dyes."
"Dyes, you say?"
"There's no way I can make everything myself, so we're researching whether there's anything usable among things that already exist."
The body is one, and time is limited.
So these days, rather than only creating new things, I entrust the research of discovering existing things to other alchemists.
"Is there a particular reason it's specifically red dye?"
"It was because it's the most common."
A lie.
I do it because I know the answer lies in red dye.
"Then may I ask what it is you're trying to make?"
"...A poison that kills 'only' the disease."
"What?"
"For now, I'm thinking of calling that poison an antibiotic."
*
An antibiotic.
A doctor's friend.
A doctor's beloved.
A doctor's lord.
Honestly, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that without antibiotics, the very word "doctor" doesn't hold up.
And for a surgeon, all the more so!
'I managed to make all the other drugs, yet this one antibiotic is just so hard.'
To a 21st-century modern person, antibiotics are a familiar drug.
Honestly, there's probably no modern person who's never used an antibiotic in their life.
But setting aside the impression of how common they are, in the history of medicine, they're a drug on the level of endgame content.
Anesthesia came out before antibiotics, you know?
'Even if I want to freeload a little, the world just won't let me.'
At first, I thought I could make it easily if I just knew the penicillin recipe.
Bread with blue mold growing on it.
Doesn't everyone know the origin of penicillin?
Having even memorized the Viagra formula separately, I figured the penicillin manufacturing method wouldn't be difficult.
But it turned out otherwise.
'I don't know the technique to make blue mold grow at will...!'
Not all blue mold is the same blue mold.
There's a specific mold that produces penicillin.
What's more, to mass-produce penicillin, you need an even more special blue mold.
That's why, even after more than twenty years, penicillin still couldn't be made.
So I reached for a different antibiotic first.
'I just need to discover the dye.'
Prontosil, the 'first clinical' antibiotic, made from red dye.
A sulfonamide-class antibiotic, this fellow is penicillin's senior.
In terms of the discovery itself, penicillin came first.
The problem was that, for several years, no method was found to manufacture penicillin in quantities sufficient to administer to hundreds of people, so it lost the first-in-clinic title to Prontosil.
In other words, the first antibiotic in clinical practice was Prontosil.
'Discovering just this fellow would give me some breathing room.'
So I scoured every market in the world, and put out word to the alchemists that anything red dye would do, hunting them down indiscriminately.
And those dyes were being tested on diseased rats and pigs.
In a "let one of them stick" sort of way.
So far, I hadn't yet discovered the antibiotic I wanted.
The reason was singular.
"Mr. Simeon. Among poisons, there are poisons that kill disease. But most such poisons kill people as well. That's why I want to find a poison that kills 'only' the disease."
Red chemical substances that kill germs and people alike were a dime a dozen,
but finding an antibiotic that leaves the person untouched while killing only the germs was a considerably difficult thing.
"...What is your reason for showing me all this?"
Inside my office, located in the basement research lab.
I was sitting face to face with Simeon, a teacup between us.
For the record, Gregor was waiting outside the office.
"Does this, by chance, have to do with the question I posed yesterday?"
"It has everything to do with it."
I went to lift the teacup out of habit, then stopped, recalling I was wearing the mask, and barely managed to set my hand back down.
"First, before I answer, there's a need to define divine punishment and move on from there. What is the divine punishment that you envision, Lord Simeon?"
"It would be the wicked at last meeting their retribution."
"In the manner of lightning striking down?"
"Even if not that, I think it encompasses all such misfortunes, like one who rose by the sword falling by the sword, or falling ill."
In other words, he was saying that every outcome by which a villain comes to misfortune might possibly be divine punishment.
"Though no one can ever know whether it truly is divine punishment."
"Of course. In the end, we are human, after all."
In any case, divine punishment had now been defined.
"Then, Lord Simeon, you asked whether divine punishment falls upon evil, did you not?"
"Yes, that's right."
"I gave that some thought, and..."
I tilted the crow's beak toward the far side of the closed office.
"I believe divine punishment is something like an antibiotic."
"An antibiotic...?"
"The gods, too, surely have many weapons with which to punish humans."
It's written in the scriptures as well.
The era when the gods actively communicated with humanity.
The gods punished those who defied their words with floods and earthquakes and the like.
That said, divine punishment on such a massive scale was the sort of thing that only happened to a ruined city that would put Sodom and Gomorrah to shame.
"If every human were evil, the gods would have an easy way to punish them. But if good people exist among them, the gods would have no choice but to agonize over the method."
Use arsenic on a syphilis patient and you'll deal with the syphilis, sure.
Along with all the normal cells too.
Throw any old red dye into a sepsis patient and it'll deal with the germs.
If not for the trifling problem of the patient dying steeped in poison.
It's because of problems like this that medicine wrings its whole body out searching for other treatment methods.
Perhaps that's the very reason the world is in this sorry state too?
"The gods are so overwhelmingly mighty that they may be cautious about intervening in human affairs. That's why divine punishment is late, or in some cases appears as though nothing happens at all."
Honestly speaking.
I don't know whether this is the correct answer.
If the gods loved humanity, would it make sense for the world to be this much of a mess?
If the gods truly loved them, shouldn't the genre be romance fantasy rather than dark fantasy?
Still, compared to the 21st century I lived in, the gods of this world don't seem to be entirely silent.
Pray, and divine power gets handed down as a kind of subcontract.
Or, rarely, an oracle is bestowed upon the Holy King.
Seeing things like this, you can at least say the gods definitely exist.
Unlike my previous life, whose very existence is uncertain.
Since their existence can't be denied, I interpret it this way, fitting the pieces together.
What if I'm wrong?
Then that's a shame.
I'm not a religious person but a medical professional.
Honestly, I don't think anything's going to happen just because I got that wrong.
"Is that your answer, Lord Saint? That the reason they stay silent is because divine punishment is still coming slowly?"
But to Simeon, it seemed an utterly disappointing answer.
Naturally.
The focus of his question wasn't divine punishment alone.
Because I knew that too, I continued.
"No. This is, at most, an answer to Brother Simeon's fixation on divine punishment. It is not the answer to your question."
"...What?"
"The gist of your question at the time was: why did the Schnabel couple have to die. Was it not?"
"..."
Why must good people always suffer and vanish into nothing.
This was a question I'd thrown out a fair number of times myself.
And I haven't yet reached a conclusion on it either.
But—
"At the very least, I think I can be certain that the gods did not abandon that couple."
"That..."
It was then.
Simeon's narrow eyes parted, and he glared at my crow mask.
"Can you take responsibility for those words?"
"..."
"Even for the Lord Saint, you would do well to choose your words with care."
"Yes. I can take responsibility."
This answer cannot represent the cases of all good people.
But at the very least, I think it can explain, even just a little, the case of my biological parents.
"At the very least, those two did not pass into nothing."
Crack.
"Their will has been severed, and the future generation who would enjoy the fruits of the good deeds they accumulated is nowhere to be seen."
It was a side effect of Perception Alteration.
Severing every trace of the Schnabel couple's child—
this was how a person left to wander like this had come to be.
"Where on this earth could their will possibly remain?"
"No, it remains."
I'd gone home yesterday and given it careful thought.
And the moment I reached my conclusion, I sought one permission from my father-in-law at the Board of Inspection.
A single person.
To end that one person's wandering, might I make a small scratch in the Perception Alteration?
The answer that came back was—
— "If you believe that person can be trusted like family and is tight-lipped enough, you may reveal it. Though the aftermath is entirely your burden."
It was permission to do it if I dared.
And now.
I was facing Simeon.
"Is it not right here. The one who carries on the will of those two, and enjoys the fruits the two of them achieved."
I pointed to myself.
I gave it careful thought, and it seemed my existence was the correct answer.
Since I'm happy, and strangely fortunate, and living on while carrying on the will of those two—
their deaths weren't meaningless, were they?
Well, I'm not a philosopher, so—
"...You. Your arrogance goes too far. Even for a saint, there are things one must never dare to say."
Dense magical power surged out from Simeon.
At his bearing, as though he'd blast a spell into my face the instant I uttered one more word,
I had no choice but to wear a bitter smile inside the crow mask.
'Tsk.'
I really need to study my way of speaking more.
I'd originally meant to persuade him slowly and then reveal it.
Instead, it seemed I'd only rubbed him the wrong way.
Sensing that talking any further would become a problem,
I lifted the mask to my forehead instead of speaking.
Simeon froze on the spot.
"That hair color... those eyes... could it be..."
"What you're thinking is likely correct. Believe it or not, I'm often told by my godfather that I take after my father in the face, and my mother in the eyes and hair color."
Clunk.
I set two cross necklaces down on the desk.
The Schnabel couple's final mementos, engraved with the names of the two clerics.
Their trace, which only one single person could rightfully possess.
"I don't know whether this will serve as an answer, but I hope it can be an answer that ends your wandering."
"Haaah..."
Simeon's two narrow eyes grew as large as full moons, and tears flowed down from his sanpaku eyes.
And then.
"Haaaagh...!"
"...?"
"Hagh...! Haaaagh...!"
"Brother Simeon?"
"Kuh... kuh...!"
"Brother! Breathe! You must breathe slowly! Trap your breath in this envelope! Gregor! Take him up to the ground floor, quickly!"
Gasping for breath with symptoms of hyperventilation and clutching his chest,
he collapsed backward, his face steeped in ecstasy.
