When she wakes up, there’ll be another uproar.
I sighed as I looked down at the unconscious Eri.
When we arrived at the mansion in Sanctum Hill, the maids took Eri and moved her to the annex.
I left the rest to the head maid.
Bathe her, dress her in new clothes, feed her.
In the meantime, in order to persuade Father and Mother, I prepared fifty reasons why this child had to be raised in our family’s annex.
— The child is intelligent, her talent as a mage is this and that…
Though they gave permission before I could even list the reasons.
— “At last, Yulian is acting spoiled…!”
I could thank Mother a hundred times over for taking this as childish indulgence, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
*
And so the next morning came.
I received a report from the head maid.
“She woke up last night, ate, and went right back to sleep.”
“She didn’t make a fuss?”
“No. However…”
“However?”
“She seemed uncomfortable with the blanket and kept rustling around.”
Ah.
It was probably because it was her first time with a cotton blanket.
To me, it was something I’d taken for granted since birth, but normally, even among commoners, only the wealthy middle class got to touch such things.
For Eri, an orphan and pauper from Limbus Pit, it was probably the first blanket of its kind she had ever slept under.
“Shall I wake her, young master?”
“I’ll wake her myself.”
“Pardon?”
There it is again.
The head maid was looking at me strangely again.
It was the same look the servants gave me whenever I appeared in the kitchen.
“I have something to explain to her early this morning. Ah, could I ask you to prepare lunch for me today?”
“Ah… yes…”
The head maid looked slightly confused.
The guy who made his own packed lunch every day was asking her because he was busy today, so perhaps she was experiencing a different kind of cognitive dissonance.
Leaving the confused head maid behind, I headed for the annex.
Hmm. My sweet home, which I hadn’t seen in a while.
Though since I lived in the main building now, I suppose that was past tense.
I opened the door to the room I used to use.
I saw a cotton blanket puffed up like a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant.
It was wriggling, so Eri must have been tossing and turning inside.
Or perhaps the blanket was in the middle of digesting Eri.
I pulled back the blanket and said,
“Wake up.”
At my voice, Eri rubbed her eyes and lifted her head.
And the moment she saw me, her eyes went round.
“…Who are you?”
Eri glared at me irritably.
It was a natural reaction.
Right now, I wasn’t wearing the crow mask.
Eri’s gaze swept over me.
Wariness appeared on her face.
She was appraising me.
In the red-light district, it was important to judge who you could pick a fight with and who you couldn’t, so it must have been a habit ingrained in her.
“Hey.”
Having finished her calculations, Eri pulled the blanket toward herself and asked,
“How long have you been here?”
It seemed the result of her calculations was that I was either someone like her who had been dragged here, or a servant.
This damn authority of misconception really does barge in at any given moment.
She probably thought I was some senior who had been dragged here too, and was trying to establish the pecking order in advance.
‘Does she think Teacher Schnabel is some kind of orphan collector?’
It would be amusing to keep acting like a servant, but unfortunately, my schedule was packed today.
I had no time to play around, so I told her the truth right away.
“It’s me.”
“When have I ever seen you—”
“Didn’t I tell you yesterday that your mouth is the window through which your value is judged? Be careful with your words and actions. This is your last chance.”
“…”
Silence.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
“…Bwe?”
Eri’s mouth fell open.
“L-Liar. Teacher Schnabel is a gnome over a hundred and fifty years old. He was driven out of a ducal family and had his face burned…”
“You actually believed that?”
“Everyone said so.”
“I never acknowledged it.”
Eri’s pupils wavered.
[A gnome healer with a hundred and fifty years of experience.]
[He failed a treatment at a ducal family, had his face seared, and wears a crow mask to hide the scars.]
[Afterward, he was driven to the red-light district and now lives a life of service.]
(+These days, that person rides around in a limousine that comes down from Sanctum Hill.)
Still half-asleep, Eri needed some time to accept the reality that all of that setting had been false.
“…Huh? Teacher? You tricked me?”
“I’ve never lied.”
It was the face of a child who had just been told Santa didn’t exist.
Somehow, I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet I felt guilty.
“No way… You were my age… Uwaaa!! That makes no sense!”
Eri pulled the blanket over her head and screamed.
Just what kind of fantasy had she built up about me to react like that?
Just then, the door opened and a maid entered.
“Young master, breakfast is ready.”
Eri’s head slowly turned toward the maid.
Then she looked back at me.
Me. The maid. Me. The maid.
“Y-Young master…? Not the family doctor…?”
Eri’s voice cracked.
Apparently, she had thought I was a guest or the physician of this baronial family.
Well, what sort of young master in the world would come all the way down to Limbus Pit at this age to see patients?
Common sense said thinking the way she did was right.
“So you’re not on the side that gets eaten…?”
“If I had to say, I’m more on the side that does the eating.”
I sighed and pulled Eri’s blanket off completely.
“Eat and get ready. It’s the weekend, so we’re going somewhere else instead of the clinic.”
“S-Somewhere else?”
“The merchant company.”
“The… merchant company…?”
Eri’s eyes lost focus.
Thinking she might faint again, I quickly clapped my hands right in front of her face.
Clap.
“Mother!”
“Get a hold of yourself. Eat and come out.”
I left the room and instructed the maid.
“After she eats, dress her in outdoor clothes and bring her to the entrance.”
“Yes, young master.”
***
An hour later.
Eri appeared at the entrance looking like a completely different person.
Cleanly brushed red hair. A white blouse and navy vest. A skirt that came down to her knees and leather shoes.
She didn’t look like a vagrant from the red-light district, but the daughter of some merchant family.
“…It feels weird.”
Eri tugged at her collar as if uncomfortable.
“I didn’t know clothes could be this uncomfortable.”
“You’ll have to get used to it. They’re your clothes.”
“Hweh? These are mine?”
I took the broken Eri outside with me.
A black sedan was waiting.
“Get in.”
Once we were in the car, Eri asked cautiously,
“…Where are we going? No, where are we going, sir?”
Her manner of address had changed.
Now that she knew I was a young master, casual speech seemed to have become uncomfortable for her.
“You don’t have to speak politely. I’ll be wearing the mask outside anyway.”
“…All right.”
The car set off.
On the way, Eri asked cautiously,
“But why do you wear the mask?”
“To protect myself from bad energy.”
“Not to hide your identity?”
“I’ve never hidden it.”
The level of security around my personal information hadn’t changed much since my days in twenty-first-century Korea.
If you slipped a few coins to an information broker in the red-light district, they’d probably tell you my bare face and identity right away.
Though most people seemed to stop investigating the moment they learned I was from Sanctum Hill.
Since there were even rumors about a healer whose face had been burned by a ducal family, they were probably afraid of getting dragged into something like a succession dispute.
Well, to the poor, nobles were basically Celestial Dragons, so I understood.
‘Still, I won’t eat them just for finding out what my bare face looks like.’
Meanwhile, the car kept moving.
Unlike yesterday, we weren’t going up, but down.
Leaving Sanctum Hill and heading to Civitas Square.
The white marble outside the window gradually changed into gray brick.
“This is… Civitas Square.”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t this the commoners’ district?”
“That’s right.”
“Why would Teacher come to a place like this… Ah.”
Remembering that I was a young master who even came and went from Limbus Pit, Eri stopped talking.
In the meantime, the car came to a stop.
We had arrived in front of a five-story building in the middle of the downtown area.
On the front of the building was a sign engraved in brass.
[Mercure Merchant Company]
Eri looked out the window and murmured,
“…A merchant company?”
Instead of answering, I opened the car door and got out.
Eri followed me.
The moment we stepped into the building entrance, the employees in the lobby all bowed at once.
“…Director?”
She looked up at me.
“Bwe?”
“Get used to it.”
At first, this treatment had been burdensome to me too, but after a few years, I got used to it.
“Let’s go in.”
Eri followed after me, creaking stiffly.
*
The company head’s office.
When I opened the door, a plump middle-aged man sprang to his feet.
An oily face, gleaming eyes, shining gold teeth.
He had the impression of a typical nouveau riche.
But I knew that, unlike his appearance, he was a fairly decent person.
Rather, he was a company head with an almost unworldly abundance of conscience, with no shady dealings behind the scenes and who handled transactions faithfully.
‘He was so conscientious that the company almost went under right before I brought him quinine and insulin.’
Well, that point was precisely what I liked about him and why I chose him as a business partner.
After all, saving a merchant who was kind to the point of foolishness was the protagonist’s duty.
However, after the company grew rapidly thanks to those two medicines, the image of the company head, who had gotten a taste for money, was turning more and more into that of a wicked nouveau riche by the day.
His words and actions were part of it, but his physiognomy had a greater influence.
Still, when we first met, he hadn’t been this fat.
‘Maybe I should try making a weight-loss drug later.’
If I keep making diabetes medicine diligently, I might just get lucky and make one.
I heard that in the world I used to live in, it was made that way too.
Well, let’s set aside talk of the distant future.
“Ooh! Young master! Welcome!”
The company head approached, rubbing his hands together.
“Shall I bring you coffee?”
“I’m still twelve.”
“Ah, you said you’d drink it when you turned eighteen. I forget every time! Haha! Then I’ll prepare tea. We have Darjeeling brought in this year.”
“Thank you.”
The company head glanced at his secretary.
While the secretary prepared the tea, the company head brought over a bundle of documents from his desk.
Sitting on the sofa opposite me, he handed me a copy.
“These are last quarter’s sales. Quinine rose by twelve percent compared to the previous quarter due to increased military supply volume, insulin rose fifteen percent thanks to successful marketing among diabetic nobles, colchicine rose eight percent due to the high repurchase rate among gout patients…”
Numbers poured out.
I didn’t think she would understand, but I passed the documents I had finished reading to Eri as if telling her to study.
“One, two… Uh… uhh…”
There were too many zeros, and I saw Eri give up after trying to count them on her fingers.
Once I finished checking the documents the company head had handed over, it was my turn.
I took a research journal out of a leather file.
“I have good news, Company Head.”
“Ooh? A new medicine?”
“If you call an improvement a new medicine, then it is a new medicine.”
The company head’s eyes sparkled.
I opened the research journal and showed it to him.
“I succeeded in improving the purity of insulin. It’s a crystallization method using zinc. The purity has increased by about thirty percent compared to the existing product.”
“Th-Thirty percent?!”
Thirty percent was a conservative estimate.
My major was medicine, not alchemy.
Perhaps because of that, I still wasn’t used to this world’s technology.
Even I managed to improve it by thirty percent, so if people familiar with alchemy did it, the results would obviously be even better.
When the company head heard that, he sprang to his feet.
“Th-Then the inflammation at the injection site…!”
“I think it’ll be almost resolved. The risk of hypoglycemic shock should decrease significantly too. The duration of action will increase as well.”
I pointed to the conclusion section of the research journal as I spoke.
Zinc-crystallized insulin had a slower absorption rate, so the number of injections needed per day could be reduced as well… In any case, it was simply an innovation.
The company head’s hands trembled as he held the journal.
“Uheuheuk…! Young master… No, Director, you truly are…! Huuup…!”
At last, unable to hold back his overflowing emotions, the company head burst into tears.
It was a little gross, but there was a reason for a reaction like this.
Existing insulin, because of impurities, often caused the injection site to swell up badly, or patients collapsed due to failed concentration control.
Thanks to that, it had earned the disgraceful nickname of “a deadly medicine for a deadly disease.”
And because of the aforementioned side effects, even though it was an innovative drug that treated diabetes, the market’s reaction had been cooler than expected.
Nobles were extremely conservative people, after all.
But with this improvement, most of those problems would be resolved.
Perhaps it would now become a flagship product standing side by side with quinine.
Having once tasted the glory of quinine, the company head must have sensed that too, hence his reaction.
“When do you think it can hit the market?”
At my question, the head of the merchant company, who had been holding a fist to his mouth, began counting on his fingers.
“If we lock the factory doors and work the alchemists to the bone… five months… no, three months will be enough!”
“Set the development period at four months, then add another six on top of that.”
“Pardon?”
The company head blinked.
Why delay the hatching of this lovely golden goose?
That resentful emotion was conveyed plainly through his eyes.
But I had a line I could not compromise on.
“That’s the clinical trial period. We need to administer it to at least fifty patients and gather data on side effects. It cannot be released to the market before then.”
I don’t want the medicine I created to go down in history as a drug that left behind terrible side effects.
What I want is to be the perfect protagonist of a misunderstanding story.
But unlike me, the company head was not a man with such ambitions.
He was a man who moved strictly according to money, profit, and the logic of this world.
“Ah, well… Young Master. If I may be frank, the other merchant companies don’t do that sort of thing. Once the medicine is complete, we could sell it immediately, and even then there wouldn’t be enough to go around…”
He was right.
In this world, morality was honestly a luxury.
In my previous life, a pharmaceutical company could collapse if a side-effect scandal broke badly, but in this world, such things could be hushed up and buried.
A patient suffering from side effects? What patient?
Oh dear! The witness took a wrong turn on the way here and disappeared beyond the Wall?
Good heavens! Why would the belongings of the missing person be outside the Wall?
Even with our merchant company’s current weight, that much had become possible.
But I don’t want to do that.
Because that is not something a misunderstanding-story protagonist would do.
“I know. That’s why I’m saying we should differentiate ourselves.”
However, persuading people in this world with morality takes far too long.
Even worse, they often pretend to be persuaded and then pull some strange trick behind your back.
So I had to persuade him with the logic of money.
“Guildmaster. Who are the main customers for insulin? Commoners?”
“No. The noble lords.”
“Yes. And those people are deeply suspicious. They’re the sort who will even use slaves to verify anything that goes into their bodies.”
“Ah, surely…!”
“We need to show them that we are putting this much care into it so the nobles can feel reassured when administering the medicine. Then even if we raise the price, they won’t complain.”
I persuaded him with a kind of premium-branding strategy.
Because even if the world changes, this kind of show still works.
“To think there was such a profound intention…!”
The company head clapped his hands and exclaimed in admiration.
I gave him one final warning.
“However, you must not conduct the trials carelessly. The moment the nobles think this is just for show, it will have the opposite effect.”
“I will keep that in mind, Young Master!”
The company head bowed deeply.
I nodded and moved on to the next matter.
“And there is someone I’d like to introduce.”
I pointed to Eri, who had been sitting there like a sack of borrowed barley throughout the meeting.
“She is my personal assistant.”
“Ho. So you are finally taking someone on.”
The company head’s gaze turned to Eri.
A hesitant girl who had not yet shed the air of someone from the slums.
Someone of the company head’s caliber would be able to roughly guess her origins.
After all, the smell of Limbus Pit doesn’t disappear overnight.
But the company head did not let it show.
“May I ask what led you to hire her?”
“I brought her because she has talent as a mage.”
“A mage! As expected of your discerning eye, Young Master…!”
“…”
I sent him a look telling him to stop with the flattery.
Keep licking like that and you’ll wear it raw.
The company head cleared his throat and straightened his clothes.
Then he politely extended his hand to Eri.
“I am Gustav Meyer, head of the Mercure Merchant Company. I look forward to working with you, little miss.”
Eri merely nodded blankly.
Her face said she still had no idea what was going on.