Lunchtime at the clinic. The morning’s consultations stormed by, and a brief peace arrived.
I filled a cup with water and snapped my fingers.
Crackle. Bubble bubble.
Using a matchstick placed nearby as a catalyst, a small flame ignited and the water boiled in an instant.
Even if it’s not combat magic, everyday magic can be used with just a catalyst. Even without magical sensitivity, such crude miracles can be forced by pouring out mana.
As a side note, obviously, performing magic this way doesn’t count as being a magician. After all, you wouldn’t go waving a matchstick in front of demonic beasts.
When the water was suitably boiling, I added herb powder—not instant coffee—and stirred it around.
In a world without electric kettles, magic was an excellent substitute for appliances.
“Mmm.”
I took a sip, and it tasted bloody awful.
Maybe it’s because I used a matchstick as a catalyst.
Not only can’t I control the heat, but there’s no elegance either.
No wonder nobles use expensive tea sets or specialized tea butlers.
Having tried this once, I doubt I’ll make tea like this again.
“Wow…”
Still, this magic wasn’t a complete failure.
Because Eri, who had been nibbling a sandwich across from me, was now staring wide-eyed.
Hoho. Who am I?
A genius who mastered the basics of magic in three months at age twelve.
From the perspective of a show-off performance, this magic was a success.
“Teacher, that was magic, right? The fire-lighting thing.”
“Yes, it’s called everyday magic.”
“Can I learn that too?”
Eri’s eyes sparkled as she pulled up a chair and sat down.
Seeing her enthusiasm, a smirk naturally crept up my lips.
Yes.
If she’s my assistant, she should be like that and not be timid.
Not give up just because she’s from Limpurs Pit.
“With that, you wouldn’t need matches, and it’d be handy when walking at night. Just snap your fingers! and fire whoosh!”
Her explanation, complete with hand gestures, was quite passionate, revealing a teenage girl’s pure curiosity and sparkling admiration.
It brought a satisfied smile to my face.
If this were a typical fantasy novel, the master would say, ‘Alright, I see talent in you,’ and teach her basic breathing techniques.
But in this world, that wasn’t possible.
“No.”
“Eh, why?”
“Eri, how old are you?”
“I haven’t had my birthday yet, so eleven.”
She’s a few months younger than me.
“That’s why you can’t. Ask me again after your birthday at least.”
Eri pouted.
“What does age matter? I’m smart too.”
“It’s not a matter of brains.”
I set down the tea I’d been drinking, just for the image.
It’s disgustingly awful.
“Learning magic before the age of twelve is forbidden. It’s against the law.”
“Eh? Where’s that law?”
“Here, in the Empire.”
It really exists.
And if you don’t comply, scary uncles from the royal family come down to get you.
“You’re not just saying that because you’re too lazy to teach, right?”
“No. It’s actually dangerous to learn magic before twelve.”
“What’s dangerous about it?”
“If you’re unlucky, your body could be ruined, and you might never use magic again.”
Eri put down her sandwich and focused on my words.
“Really? What’s the principle?”
“To use magic, your mana circuits must mature. There are individual differences, but they allow a generous margin until age twelve for the circuits to fully develop.”
“But I could be faster in growth.”
“True. But you could also be slower.”
There’s no way to tell if the mana circuits are complete.
It’s just a rule of thumb: by twelve, they are judged to be safely mature.
And this is a painful lesson learned from the Empire’s long history of trial and error.
“Magicians are precious, and mages even more so. The Empire doesn’t want to lose talent for such absurd reasons.”
So they made it law.
This applies without exception to outcasts, commoners, aristocrats, even royalty.
“So unless there’s a special exception, you can’t learn magic before twelve.”
“What are those exceptions?”
“If you’ve awakened magic on your own without being taught, or if you might die if you don’t learn magic… Well, there are various others, but none of them apply to you right now.”
“Maybe in secret…”
“Don’t even dream of it.”
In this dark fantasy world without dreams or hope, do you think the royal family that has held power for a thousand years is a joke?
If you break that rule, they somehow find out like ghosts, and those uncles come.
Once they’re dispatched, not just baron families but even count families must be prepared for annihilation.
Of course, erasing this slum street from the map would be nothing for them.
“So wait one year.”
“Then I can learn?”
“Maybe.”
Honestly, I’m not entirely sure.
I don’t know if the Central Magic Administration will grant permission.
In this world, magic is practically treated like firearms; you have to register it from the moment you learn.
After learning, you even have to register as a magician or mage.
And depending on the type of magic, criminal record, and origin, they might even deny permission if they deem it dangerous.
So, permits for magic are rarely given to those from the slums.
It’s been worse since some crazy slum-dweller went on a rampage in Sanctum Hill a hundred years ago.
‘If I say I’ll take responsibility, they might grant it.’
Well, that’s something to think about later.
“Now, if you’re finished with brunch, let’s prepare for the next patient. We’re only doing morning consultations today and need to leave early, so it’ll be a bit busy.”
“What’s the afternoon schedule?”
“I have an experiment at Wangcho’s slaughterhouse. We’ll go there.”
“Okay~”
***
When we arrived at the slaughterhouse, Wangcho’s men were in the middle of dismantling pigs.
They were carefully separating the lungs for surfactant for newborns, and cautiously extracting the pancreas without damage for insulin.
Recently, the process of separating the small intestine and scraping its interior had been added.
Beside me, wearing a crow mask, Eri pinched her nose.
“Ugh, it smells like poop. You’re not making medicine from that poop, are you?”
“No. I’m making it from the intestines.”
I was going to make ‘heparin’ from those pig small intestines.
It’s a drug that dissolves blood clots, a kind of ultimate weapon for internal medicine.
‘With just this, I could probably start a cult.’
Even in this world, strokes or myocardial infarctions caused by blood clots are the worst diseases that not even holy magic can cure.
If you administer heparin to such a person and they wake up, that’s nothing short of a divine miracle and the second coming of a saint.
Add a line like ‘Rise and walk,’ and wow, you’ve got an otherworldly Jesus.
Of course, I have no intention of starting a cult.
Even for a delusional protagonist, if you deliberately deceive people by creating a cult, the protagonist plot armor wears off.
Unless the genre is picaresque or xianxia, it’s best to avoid such evil deeds.
“But, teacher.”
Eri peered into the bucket containing the washed small intestines and asked,
“Is this medicine really necessary?”
“Absolutely.”
“Hmm…”
Eri tilted her head.
In a world where the concept of blood clots isn’t even properly grasped, let alone the mechanism of stroke, it must be hard to understand why it needs to be dissolved.
“Well, if you need it, then it’s necessary.”
I quietly watched Eri shrug her shoulders.
Actually, I’m making this medicine because of her.
The PNH (paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria) she suffers from has a high risk of strokes caused by blood clots.
She’s fine now, but once she’s past twenty, the danger will increase exponentially.
So if I can’t cure PNH, I need to at least produce heparin in advance to prepare for possible strokes.
‘Thanks to magic, controlling enzyme temperature has become easy now.’
And recently, I’ve become able to control temperature with magic.
To make heparin, the water must be maintained between 37 and 40 degrees for the enzymes to work properly, but before, I didn’t have the technique to precisely adjust this temperature.
Using magic, I’ve solved it to a degree.
‘As expected. This was an event telling me to go the alchemy route.’
And from this, I gained confidence in which direction to develop my magic, which was a bonus.
“Hey, you bastard!”
Suddenly, a shout cut through my thoughts from nearby.
It was Wangcho.
The middle-aged man in an apron was grabbing a young man who looked like a newbie by the collar.
“Do you know how much this organ is worth? Huh?!”
“S-sorry!”
“This one intestine is worth more than your own…”
Wangcho, who had been yelling, met my eyes.
A brief pause.
Then he continued, his voice slightly lowered.
“…well, not more, but still, be careful! If it gets damaged like this, we can’t deliver it!”
“Sorry…”
“Sigh. Let’s just dock your pay a bit. Originally I’d deduct for the full damage, but since you’ll keep working here, I’ll only dock a day’s pay. No complaints?”
“Huh? Yes, sir!”
The newbie hurriedly gathered the scattered intestine pieces from the floor and then scurried off like he was fleeing.
Eri watched this and marveled,
“Wow, Wangcho’s temper has really rounded out.”
“…”
Just what have you been doing when I’m not looking for the kid to evaluate you like this…
Wangcho, having finished disciplining the employee, let out a deep sigh and walked over.
“You’ve arrived, Mr. Schnabel.”
“Wangcho, you’re working hard.”
“The small intestines are being prepared smoothly. However…”
Wangcho scratched his head.
“The process yield is good, but… sigh, we’ve been getting some complaints.”
“Complaints?”
“It’s the butchers. The intestine skins are being delivered too late; they’re making a fuss about not having casings for sausages. They’re whining that they’ll have to close shop tomorrow. Those worthless bastards… But we can’t just bury them.”
Ah, that’s a problem.
Sausages are a serious matter.
As someone who makes sausages by stuffing the casings myself when cooking, I can relate.
“Are there many complaints?”
“A ton. Just this morning, three butchers came and raised hell. Mr. Schnabel, isn’t there something we can do?”
“Hmm.”
I rested my chin and thought.
“How are you doing the processing?”
“Huh? Well, as you instructed. We split the belly and scrape with a spoon as carefully as possible to avoid damage…”
That’s the problem.
How are they going to scrape all those intestines with spoons?
It seems they’re trying to be delicate because the intestines are precious, but that only delays casing delivery.
Besides, scraping with a spoon actually tears them more easily.
“Let’s do it this way instead.”
I picked up an unprocessed small intestine.
Taking a beer bottle that was lying around in the corner of the slaughterhouse, I broke it to leave only the mouth, shaping it like a funnel.
I pushed the intestine into it and said to Eri,
“Pull it through.”
“Ugh… it’s slimy.”
Eri grabbed the other end of the intestine and pulled.
As it passed through the narrow opening of the bottle, the mucosa inside the intestine was pushed out and gushed toward the mouth.
Splatter. Plop.
From the other end, a clean, transparent, thin membrane came out, with the mucosa completely removed.
A perfect sausage casing.
At this incredibly easy process, Wangcho’s jaw dropped.
“…Is this really okay? Shouldn’t we be scraping it carefully since it’s for medicine?”
“The mucosa doesn’t need to be scraped delicately. Even a rough scrape is fine for the medicine.”
“Then the skins…”
“This method actually damages the skins less than the spoon. And the processing speed will be faster too.”
“Oh my… They say ignorance makes the body suffer. I must be fated to never escape Limpurs Pit.”
After that, I discussed with Wangcho a funnel to replace the beer bottle.
The principle was simple, so we decided to have it custom-made by a blacksmith.
The separated skins would go to the butchers, and the remaining mucosa to me.
Isn’t this killing two birds with one stone?
“Thank you, Mr. Schnabel.”
“I’ll take the mucosa.”
I made Eri carry the container with the mucosa.
One might say, what am I doing making a girl do that, but I hired her as an assistant for a reason.
And recently, after feeding her a lot, I came to realize—this kid is stronger than me.
I guess it’s because she has the potential of a mage.
…Still, it kind of stings my pride.
“Let’s grab lunch at Civitas Square today.”
I said to Eri, who was hauling a bucket of membranes beside me.
Normally, I’d just have a packed meal because of afternoon consultations, but today I had to head up for some afternoon research.
I needed to borrow the upper-floor lab to make medicine.
“Really? Does that mean we can do the buffet?”
“We can and we will.”
That day’s lunch was a buffet.
The fact that she could happily eat meat right after coming back from the slaughterhouse—her stomach really must be made of iron.
***
A few months passed like that.
The heparin extraction went smoothly, and the clinic stayed just as busy as ever.
Winter in the red-light district was cold, and there were plenty of patients.
It was about the same as any other year.
‘So it’s my second year in the red-light district, huh?’
Around this time last year, I was in a frenzy because our youngest sibling had just come out.
Looks like the heavy snow season is about to start soon, too.
‘I’d better make the medicine in advance.’
During the heavy snow season last year, far too many people died.
I won’t be able to stay here for them, but I at least need to make sure those who need it can get the medicine from Wangcho at the front.
‘If it comes down to it, I’ll just say not to punish anyone even if they steal from the clinic stores.’
You never know.
There might be one Jean Valjean in need of help this winter.
In a world like this, there should be at least one priest for a person like that.
Ah, wait—bishop, wasn’t it?
Anyway.
That day, after finishing the morning consultations, I headed to Fleischhof, the meat restaurant run by Wangcho.
“Erika, slow down. You’re going to trip.”
Arriving at the restaurant, I looked up.
Above the roof with its upturned eaves, an Imperial-language sign hung prominently.
And beneath those Imperial letters, Suin tribe script—resembling an ancient language of the East—was engraved in gold leaf: 富來壽 豪府 (Fulai Shou Haofu).
When I lowered my gaze, oil-stained red lanterns dangled on either side of the round doorframe.
“Teacher! I heard they got some sausages in at Fleischhof today—want that for lunch?”
“First, let’s see what kind of meat they got in yesterday before we decide.”
When I pushed the door open, a duplex interior opened all the way up to the ceiling.
In the central hall, dozens of square wooden tables were crammed tightly together, and Wangcho’s waitresses, each with a towel over her shoulder, bustled between them carrying plates of meat.
I might not know much about martial arts novels, but I know enough to recognize this layout as an inn and those waitresses as serving girls.
The menu, though, came with a Western twist.
‘I just can’t get used to it, no matter how many times I see it.’
I couldn’t figure out where to start criticizing it, but by now I’ve decided to chalk it up to Wangcho’s unique taste and let it go.
I was just passing through the entrance of that strange hybrid place, on my way to the reserved room, when Wangcho, who had been waiting by the door with his arms crossed, stopped me.
“Teacher. Do you have a moment?”
The grinning man called out to me with a dead-serious face.
It was an exact match for the expression the emergency medicine professor used to wear in my past life when he’d be waiting for me to come out for lunch.
My appetite dropped right through the floor.
“…What’s the matter, Wangcho?”
“Wouldn’t you consider heading up a little earlier this year?”
What Wangcho proposed was, simply put, that I leave before the snow arrived.
“The atmosphere over in Sector H has been unusual lately. Those bastards must have eaten something wrong, because they’ve gone rabid and started crawling up into our Sector D.”
“It’s because heavy snow season is coming, so they’ve lost their minds.”
Eri chimed in from beside me.
“It’s the season where people choke each other out just to grab one more trash bag before the blizzards hit.”
“Eri. Gentle words.”
“Hmph.”
What kind of twelve-year-old uses the phrase ‘choke each other out’?
Still, the meaning was clear enough.
It was the sort of story where wild animals start encroaching on human settlements because their hibernation period is approaching.
“Understood. When should I go up?”
“If you can, I’d say it’s best you go up today.”
Wangcho glanced around, then leaned in to whisper to me.
“During the heavy snow season, us trash have got to have our own little scuffle. It won’t be a pretty sight for someone like you, Teacher, so please take the Erika kid and head up. I’ll contact you once the situation is under control.”