Chapter 11: My Senior’s Family Is Rich [2]
Chapter 11: My Senior’s Family Is Rich [2]
The place we arrived at after following my senior was another section of the mansion.
I did not know whether section was the right word to use for a house, but I could not think of anything more fitting.
It was huge.
Absurdly huge.
Knock, knock.
Anyway, after walking along behind my senior, a door appeared.
When the butler knocked on the enormous door and stepped inside, a long dining table came into view.
It was not the kind of table that felt right to call merely long.
If I exaggerated a little, it felt as if, if you sat at one end, you would not be able to hold a conversation with the people at the other end.
“Oh, my son’s friends, huh?”
Anyway, when we went inside, there was a man sitting there who was clearly wearing a suit, but gave off the impression that he was wearing leather armor instead.
It was the sort of feeling that made me think if Robert Liston came by, he would shout, “Brother!”
He was not even that big, so how did he still give off that kind of presence?
What kind of life had he lived to turn out like that?
“Ah, yes. Hello, sir. My name is Joseph Lister, from Upton.”
“I am Taepyeong Kim, also from Upton. You can call me Pyeong.”
“Joseph, Pyeong. Right, good to meet you.”
After we introduced ourselves, he laughed heartily and patted my shoulder.
I did not know whether he had heard the whole story from start to finish, but it looked like he had at least heard the rough version.
His warrior-like eyes seemed to drift between me and my senior, and then he continued.
“So, you said you came from Joseon?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Joseon. I have never been there myself, but I have heard of it.”
“Ah...”
“Anyway... sit down. I heard you treated my son’s injury?”
“Yes.”
It was my first time seeing someone who knew about Joseon.
I had not met that many people since coming to Britain, but even if I met far more in the future, I did not think that fact would change.
At this time, aside from a handful of missionaries, Joseon was truly the edge of the world, a place hardly anyone had ever visited.
In the twenty-first century, we... made Squid Game and, huh? We had BTS too... huh?
If I said something like that now, what would I hear other than that I was insane?
So I stayed quiet and only answered what I was asked.
“Right, thank you. I have heard that among medical students... many end up dying. So I suppose there could be a link like that. Alfred, for now, do as this boy says.”
Ah, come to think of it, I had not even known my senior’s name.
Alfred.
It sounded like the name of an assistant or something.
“How is the food?”
As I sat there nodding, Alfred’s father asked about the food.
What was I supposed to say?
This really was...
It’s fucking terrible.
Still, it looked like they had grilled it with some effort, so I could not very well say that.
But British food already had a bad reputation even in the twenty-first century, so there was no way it would have been better in the nineteenth.
It was a complete disaster.
I was not exactly a connoisseur of food, but even so.
If you gave me these ingredients and enough time, I was confident I could make something tastier.
“Yes, it is truly excellent.”
Of course, since I had nearly maxed out my survival skills, I was able to tell such a blatant lie without even changing my expression.
It made me wish my parents had followed the priest to France instead.
But what could I do?
I had come to Britain.
“I also... have never had such wonderful food before.”
Joseph, on the other hand, was sincerely impressed.
Then again, this poor bastard had nearly fainted even after eating the sashimi I had clumsily put together back in Upton.
If the Thames had only been the slightest bit cleaner than it was now, I might have tried fishing in it.
But if I cast a line into it now, I was sure I would hook some creature fit for cosmic horror.
“Well, that is a relief. If I had more time, I would talk with you longer, but it has been a long time since I was last in London... I have a party to attend. It may not amount to much as a substitute, but stay and spend some time with my son.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Alfred’s father seemed like a very successful man.
That was only natural if he lived in a house like this, but it also seemed that many people were looking for him.
He barely seemed to eat before heading out again.
My senior—no, Alfred—pointed after him with his thumb and said, “He has a lot of ventures going on. He receives a lot of investments too... Whenever he comes here, there are all sorts of places he has to report to.”
“But where are your older brothers?”
His father had been fairly open-minded too, but for some reason I always felt a little uncomfortable whenever I was around white middle-aged men, so it was only after he left that I finally started speaking properly.
Thanks to that, I was only now able to ask what I had been curious about for some time.
“Ah, my brothers? They are probably at sea or in some foreign country. Trade is not exactly simple work.”
“Ah...”
So they were all abroad.
Then did that mean my senior was the one who usually handled this family’s enormous fortune?
No... no way.
It did not seem likely.
For one thing, the fact that he had cut his hand while dissecting meant he was rather dim, did it not?
Even if it was dangerous because he had not been wearing gloves, the knife had a perfectly good handle, and he still cut himself?
Now that I thought about it, his face looked a bit dim too.
“Ah, I have not shown you to your rooms yet. Follow me.”
“Ah, yes.”
Alfred led Joseph and me to another section of the mansion.
There was a guest room there, though calling it a guest room did not do it justice. It was basically a hotel.
From the furniture onward, there was not a single shabby thing in it.
It would be nice to live here.
I was thinking that when I called out to Alfred, who was about to leave after finishing the tour.
“Um...”
“Hm? What is it?”
“It is about that rubber from earlier. Could I take a closer look at it?”
“Rubber? Ah, that. Hmm... I do not think there would be any problem with that.”
“Then could you bring it to me?”
“Uh... why don’t you go get it yourself?”
“The house is so big, I feel like I would get lost on the way.”
I wondered if I was being too shameless toward him even if he was my senior.
But if I went out there right now, I would definitely get lost.
He seemed to think so too, and after nodding as if he had no choice, he disappeared.
Not long after, he came back holding some rubber.
It was different from the piece I had picked up earlier.
“There was a lot of it in the house. It is actually probably really cheap.”
“It is cheap? Why?”
“Because... well, it is not really useful for anything.”
“Uh... is that so?”
“Yeah. What would anyone even use it for?”
As I listened to Alfred, I thought about the rubber industry of the twenty-first century.
Even disposable gloves got used in huge quantities, did they not?
And what else was it used for a lot?
It felt like there should have been a ton of uses for it...
But when I tried to think of them on the spot, nothing came to mind.
Is it really just used for gloves?
If so, then what this dim senior of mine said was right.
Looking at me standing there holding the rubber, Alfred said, “You can keep it.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“No, well...”
Maybe I looked a little dim too, because Alfred gave me a somewhat pitying look before heading off to his room.
That left me alone with the rubber.
It is a lot... stiffer than I expected.
I picked up the rubber and turned it over in my hands.
Compared to the rubber I was used to seeing, meaning gloves, this was just...
How should I put it...
You could make armor out of this.
Maybe not compared to leather, but still, it was extremely stiff and sturdy.
If there was one major difference from leather, it was that it was waterproof.
Just to test it, I poured some water on it, and it simply ran right off.
If this could just be made thinner, it really could become gloves.
It was not some grand discovery.
Gloves were originally made of rubber, after all.
But how the hell are you supposed to make it thinner?
A method?
How would I know?
People might think doctors were basically scientists.
And we did think of ourselves that way too, but when it came to this sort of engineering problem, we knew absolutely nothing.
Even during research meetings, when the engineering professors came in, all we did was talk about our dreams.
We would go on and on so passionately, and they would sit quietly through it all, only to tell us after everything was over that it could not be made. That had happened more than once or twice.
Maybe I just need to throw an engineer into the grinder...
I got to my feet for a moment and looked out the window.
The window glass was clearer than I expected, so even though it was night, I could still see outside fairly well.
Of course, it was not bright like a city in the twenty-first century, so it was more just the feeling that something was visible.
Still, it was exactly the right level of light for sorting out my thoughts.
So I paced in front of the window and tried thinking harder.
But even then, not much came out of it.
The conclusion was that I needed an engineer.
But did I have any money to hire one?
If not for Joseph, I would have starved to death.
Hmm...
No money, no knowledge.
In the end, the only thing I could do was talk.
Someone might think, For a doctor, that is all you can do? But doctors actually did quite a lot of talking.
Especially if you wanted research funding, and above all if you wanted government research funding, you had to know how to talk.
“What exactly would I say?”
Even though I knew nothing and had no money, I wanted to make you spend your life thinning this rubber out.
Wow.
If I were the one hearing that, I would shoot me too.
Still, I had to think seriously about it.
More than anything, I needed gloves too badly.
I had vaguely thought that I wanted to become a surgeon, but I had never imagined I would be doing training and surgery without gloves.
Would surgical gloves make money?
Actually, if people’s awareness changed, it felt like they might.
You absolutely have to wear them!
If I pushed that line...
No.
No way.
If doing one surgery a day already counts as a lot... how would that make any money?
Even counting practical training, would they use as many as a hundred in a day across all of London?
If I ran a factory, it felt like it would take decades just to recover the cost of building it.
No, it was doubtful whether awareness would change at all in the first place.
They carried around blood-caked knives as if it were a mark of experience, so if I told them to wear gloves on their hands...
Something other than gloves... something that uses thin rubber... is there anything?
Whatever it was, all I needed was for someone to make the rubber thin and soft.
As for gloves, I could just have them specially made for me and Joseph...
Right, I was feeling generous, so I could include my senior too. Just the three of us.
The product could be something else entirely, something sold for profit.
A product that needed that technology.
What could it be?
Hmm...
As I kept thinking, the few lights outside began going out one after another before I knew it.
Then a strange sound came from a nearby building.
A moan.
It was not the kind of moan made by someone in pain.
“Mmm.”
If I counted my previous life too, I was over fifty.
But it was not as though I had died old in that previous life.
And right now I was at an age when hormones were raging.
When I came to my senses, I found that I had opened the window and was listening with all my passion and concentration.
What a piece of trash I was...
A pathetic bastard...
“Mmm?”
When I lowered my head because I felt so pathetic, another head lifting itself came into view.
And at the same time, something flashed through my mind like lightning.
Ah, this head was the one below.
Anyway...
“Uh... thin rubber?”
Soft, thin rubber...?
A Condom...?
Wouldn’t this... wouldn’t this be a massive success?
No, wait, did condoms already exist?
If they did, that would be fine too.
I could just use that same technology to make gloves.
Since it was a product that absolutely could not tear, its quality would already be guaranteed.
What a bastard I was...
Could I possibly be a genius?