Chapter 11: Penicillin (2)
My steps felt noticeably lighter after confirming the blue mold, and I headed back to the infirmary—
"…Hm?"
A familiar face was waiting inside the infirmary.
It was the teacher from the Magic Tower, the one I'd met not so long ago.
Is this woman some kind of house-call specialist?
Last time she'd been dispatched on the Emperor's orders to teach magic; this time, apparently summoned by Rüdiger, she had come bounding up to the North all over again. Does the Magic Tower normally run like a staffing agency?
I was still nursing that idle thought as I stepped into the room when the teacher, seated in a chair with her legs crossed, greeted me first.
"Oh, you're back?"
"That was a very quick reunion."
She gave me a slow once-over, then asked with a glint of interest in her eyes.
"I read the Grand Duke's commission. He's after a sleep spell that puts a person deep under, isn't he?"
"That is the most important piece, yes."
If I couldn't put the patient under, the surgery couldn't even begin. Without sleep magic, I'd have no choice but to reach for primitive narcotics as an anesthetic.
The teacher leaned her upper body toward me and fired off her next question.
"But do you really only need the sleep magic? That's it?"
"……"
The answer didn't come easily. If it were at all possible, I did want magic's help during the penicillin production process too—
Just as that worry was still churning, her true desire popped out of her mouth.
"From what I heard out of the Grand Duke, you're planning to bore into the patient's skull and lay hands on his brain directly."
"……"
"Last time it was the Knight Commander's heart you went stabbing into, and now you're cracking open the head butler's skull?"
"…That is the plan."
"Then this whole business of saving him—while you're doing that, can't I just stand beside you and watch? Only watch?"
"Would that really be acceptable?"
"Why wouldn't it? Is the problem that I'd be in the way? I'll cast phase magic and keep perfectly quiet. Just watching, I promise."
"It's not that…"
You don't know the first thing about surgical etiquette. Hygiene was my number-one worry as it stood; there was no way I could bring an outsider into the operating room.
"The pay's peanuts for one spell, and I only accepted this commission so I could watch… and you're really telling me no? Really?"
"Naturally the answer is n—"
…No. Wait just a moment.
"You'd like to watch, you say?"
"Of course I would!"
Hearing her out, it seemed the teacher had come strictly to cast the sleep spell—that was why she'd grumbled about the pay, too. Under normal circumstances, asking for magic beyond the commission would be out of line, but…
What if I dangle the chance to watch and borrow some of her power?
Through a legitimate trade, help beyond the scope of the commission was fair game.
"If you assist me in a number of ways, I'll consider it."
"What more do I have to do?"
"To start… I'll name the spells I need one by one. Just tell me which ones are possible."
At that, the teacher crossed her arms as if her pride had been pricked, though her eyes glinted with intrigue.
"Asking me for a list of what I can and can't do stings a little, you know. Fine—go ahead. What is it?"
Not a shred of doubt in that answer.
Sorting through the problems that needed solving right away, I opened my mouth.
The first was selective filtration. It wasn't as though only pretty blue mold flourished on the bread I'd prepared; an invisible swarm of stray bacteria and toxic molds would be jumbled in among it. Picking out just the blue mold from that mess was close to impossible.
"Could you teleport a specific fine powder—only the one I want—somewhere else?"
"Hm… that's tricky, but if the coordinates register properly, it's not impossible."
At her yes, I moved straight on to the next requirement.
Penicillin is what the blue mold excretes once it finishes its meal and starts going hungry—waste scraped together from the dregs of its body and dumped in order to poison its rivals in the struggle for survival. And the time each mold took to do its business varied wildly. Which meant that for someone racing the clock like me, what I needed was—
"Then how about accelerating time in a defined space?"
Time Acceleration magic.
"Time acceleration? That's a heavy lift, but for a very cramped space I could manage. Hmm… about the size of a fist, give or take?"
I shook my head inwardly at her answer. A fist-sized space wouldn't cut it. To obtain even a single dose of penicillin, I'd need to control a space at least two meters across.
Time acceleration: rejected.
Regrettable as it was, waiting for the blue mold to do its business was unavoidable. Then the next item—
Could I get help with the purification stage? With refining the dung the mold would leave behind after polishing off the culture broth. That stage was about separating pure penicillin molecules from the impurities. Without magic I'd planned to make do with charcoal, but—
If magic can do the job, take it. No question.
"From a liquid laced with impurities, could you filter out one specific substance—precisely the one I want—and nothing else? Selectively passing a single material, I mean."
"That's alchemical filtration. Well, it happens to be one of my fields."
What a relief. I was nodding along in satisfaction when the teacher narrowed her brow and threw out a question.
"By the way, where on earth did you learn all this?"
"Sorry?"
When I echoed it back, she propped her chin on her hand and studied me up and down.
"Honestly, your everyday manner and etiquette aren't exactly polished, but…"
"Both just now and before… listening to what you ask of me, you give off the feeling of someone trained somewhere, and trained thoroughly."
Hm. I think I follow.
She must have sensed something odd about the way I pinpointed the exact processes needed to solve a problem, then broke them down logically and requested help piece by piece.
It's true—no ordinary butler could pull that off.
The teacher went on staring at me as though I were a fascinating specimen.
"Is this also thanks to that knowledge you claim to have?"
"That's right."
"Can I ask where you learned it?"
"Even if I told you, you wouldn't understand."
I cut her off, flat and final, and she scratched her head, looking a touch sheepish.
With that, we rose from our seats and made for the Penicillin Room in the main building—the butlers lugging the staggering fifty liters of culture broth trailing along behind us.
After the teacher's magic had scattered the blue mold across the surface of the broth, I returned to the infirmary.
All that remained now was for the mold to devour the broth and vent out its metabolic byproduct: penicillin.
From here on out, time is the enemy…
Thankfully, Gilbert's condition wasn't terribly dire for the moment. One thing, though—I couldn't afford to relax on that account. Brain disease was precisely the sort of thing that could look perfectly stable today and kill a man tomorrow. I had to produce penicillin as quickly as possible.
And the moment I succeeded in making a usable batch—
"We go straight into surgery."
The plan had barely finished forming in my head before a sigh escaped. When it came down to actually operating, a mountain of necessities still stood in the way. The operating room's sanitation had to be dealt with somehow, and above all I absolutely needed an assistant to work at my side.
Open the skull, and the brain sits exposed to open air. Left like that, the risk of it drying out or taking damage was enormous. Physiological saline had to be sprinkled over the brain continuously from the first incision to the last stitch—which meant a pair of hands to keep air and brain from touching was non-negotiable.
"…Now that I think of it, I have to make the saline, too."
Shit.
…No, hold on. The curse had slipped out of me, but saline was hardly a towering obstacle. Physiological saline is just saltwater matched to the concentration of the body's own fluids. Fetch a precision scale, compute the ratio, mix salt into water—nothing about it was difficult.
The real problem, once again, was the assistant.
Who on earth was I supposed to drag into a brain surgery? Someone who could watch a skull being cracked open and a brain touched—horrifying beyond words—without fainting on the spot, and who would pour saline exactly on my cue, every single time.
As I stacked those conditions one atop another, one person's face drifted naturally through my mind.
"You know what? I should just make the teacher my assistant."
No matter how I turned it over, performing this operation alone was physically impossible. Granted, she was nominally a mage dispatched from the Imperial Magic Tower; making her handle sleep magic, purification magic, and surgical assistance on top of it felt like squeezing her dry without a shred of conscience. But her eyes had lit up at the mere mention of watching my surgery. Offer her not a front-row seat but a role in the operation itself, and those lips would curl upward in delight—I'd have bet anything on it.
"Phew…"
As my thoughts settled into place, the sighs I'd been holding came flooding out. The teacher had slipped outside the estate, saying she wanted a look around the North, so I could hardly ask her to be my assistant this instant. I asked the other butlers to send her to the infirmary the moment she returned, then went back and let the plan unfold in my head.
This surgery, from head to toe, rested entirely on my judgment. Which meant I could not afford a single elementary mistake. What's more, this would be a blind surgery—my only guide was my own sense of touch.
The weight of responsibility settled onto my shoulders, and just as the air began to feel heavy with it, the infirmary door swung open and a soft, warm fragrance filled the room.
"Busy?"
It was Selen—day three of the Dried Persimmon Delivery Challenge.
"Not at all."
I was busy, in truth. But I'd been about to take a short break anyway; wringing my brain in its current state wasn't going to produce anything worthwhile.
Last time, and now this time too. Selen had a gift for arriving at the infirmary at exactly the right moment. You might say she had a knack for catching the air just when it needed freshening.
"I'm glad you came to see me, my lady."
Until yesterday, those words had been nothing but flattery. Today they were the honest truth. Trading words with a bright, guileless child instead of dour adults was, without question, a tremendous refresher.
"First… here's a persimmon for you."
As ever, Selen drew a dried persimmon from the pouch clutched in her hand. Watching her, so endearingly earnest, a faint smile spread across my face before I could stop it.
Anyone who could look at this and keep a straight face is a psychopath.
Selen liked Jian.
To be sure, this fell under human fondness rather than romantic feeling. But that she liked him was an unchanging fact—and that was why every conversation with him was so wonderfully pleasant. Admittedly, the two of them shared no common interests, but Jian's brilliant way with words never failed to entertain. More than that, he was unfailingly gentle. He spared no praise for her whenever a spare moment allowed, and even to her young eyes it was plainly visible how sincerely he tried to treat her well.
…So this is what a friend is.
Selen turned over a word she'd only ever seen in books. And at the same time, a hope budded alongside it: if the two of them went on just like this, might they someday trade letters the way friends did in stories, or step out into the garden on a fine day and share a picnic?
Just as that contented smile was climbing onto Selen's face—
Creeeak—
The infirmary door swung open without warning. The uninvited guest who barged in mid-conversation was the teacher from the Magic Tower.
"They said you were looking for me? What's this ab—"
She was already diving into business when she spotted Selen and immediately ducked her head.
"Good day, my lady. I hadn't realized you were here."
A light, courteous bow. Selen gave a small nod in return—and then Jian rose from his seat.
"We'll step out for our talk."
With the young lady of the house sitting before him, Jian judged it improper to trade grim talk of surgery.
Before stepping out, he bowed slightly toward Selen and said, gently: "Our chat was a little short today, wasn't it? Once the head butler's surgery is safely behind us, we'll talk for as long as you like. Head on back first."
With a voice as soft as one soothing a child, the two of them slipped away, and Selen was left alone in the infirmary.
"……"
She sat motionless in her chair, staring at the closed door. It wasn't sadness, and no tears welled up, no gloom settled in. Her face was simply hardening, bit by bit.
I only get twenty minutes to talk with Jian… Today, they had managed barely seven. Her precious time had been shredded—more than halved—by that woman who had barged in out of nowhere.
She was angry. She wanted to kick the door open and demand answers from that mage. How dare she butt into a conversation and steal her time? The utter rudeness of it.
But…
…If I throw a tantrum, it will cost Jian. He seemed to be about to ask that mage for something important. If Selen stepped in and made a scene now, the request might collapse, and Jian would inevitably be the one left in a bind. Worse, the woman was that famous red-haired mage of the Magic Tower; venting her anger at someone of her standing was a poor choice, and she knew it. Which left her no option but to swallow it down.
Selen clenched her small fists tight and crushed the irritation boiling up inside her. Jian had promised they would talk at length once the surgery was over. She chewed on that promise to keep her temper leashed.
It turned out a first friend was someone who could make you smother even your fiercest rage.