Unlocking a New Skill Tree?
Lunchtime at the clinic.
The morning rush of patients had swept through like a storm, leaving a brief, precious window of peace in its wake. I filled a cup with water and snapped my fingers.
Crackle. Bubble, bubble.
Using a matchstick on the table as a catalyst, a tiny spark flared to life, and the water boiled in an instant. Even if it wasn't combat-grade magic, basic household magic could be cast by anyone with a catalyst. Even without any innate magical sensitivity, you could force these crude little miracles to manifest if you just shoved enough mana into them.
Of course, it goes without saying that casting magic this way didn't make you a proper Mage. It wasn't as if you could wave a matchstick in front of a magic beast and expect to survive.
Once the water reached a rolling boil, I poured in some instant mix coffee—no, wait, herbal powder—and stirred it. In a world without electric kettles, magic made for an excellent home appliance substitute.
"Mm."
I took a sip, and it tasted absolutely dreadful. Was it because I used a matchstick as the catalyst? The heat control was nonexistent, and the whole process lacked any semblance of elegance. No wonder the nobility insisted on expensive tea sets and dedicated tea-brewing butlers. Having tried it once, I resolved never to brew tea this way again.
"Whoa..."
Still, the spell wasn't a complete failure. Across the table, Eri was staring at me with wide, round eyes, a half-eaten sandwich stuffed in her mouth.
Heh. Who am I? A genius who mastered the basics of magic in just three months at the age of twelve. From the perspective of showing off, this performance was a resounding success.
"Doctor, was that magic just now? The fire thing."
"Yes. It's called household magic."
"Can I learn that too?"
Eri's eyes sparkled as she dragged her chair closer. Seeing her enthusiastic reaction, the corners of my mouth twitched upward. Yes, that was more like it. As my assistant, she shouldn't let her slum origins hold her back; she needed to be proactive.
"If I can do that, I won't need matches anymore, and walking at night will be so much easier! Just snap my fingers, and bam! Light!"
Her explanation, complete with dramatic hand gestures, was incredibly passionate. It offered a glimpse of a teenage girl's pure curiosity and starry-eyed admiration. A warm, proud smile naturally formed on my face.
If I were a master in a typical fantasy novel, I would have said, 'Ah, I see talent in you,' and taught her some basic breathing techniques. But in this world, that was out of the question.
"No."
"Eh? Why?"
"Eri. How old are you?"
"My birthday hasn't passed yet, so eleven."
She was only a few months younger than me.
"That is exactly why you can't. Ask me again after your birthday."
Eri pouted.
"What does age have to do with it? I'm smart too."
"It's not a matter of intelligence."
I set down my cup. I had been forcing myself to drink it to maintain my composure, but it really was terribly bitter.
"You cannot learn magic before the age of twelve. It is strictly forbidden by law."
"Buh? What kind of law is that?"
"The law of this Empire."
It was a real law. In fact, if you broke it, terrifying enforcers from the Imperial family would descend to drag you away.
"You're not just saying that because you're too lazy to teach me, right?"
"I am not. Learning magic before twelve is genuinely dangerous."
"What's so dangerous about it?"
"If you aren't careful, you can ruin your body and lose the ability to cast magic forever."
Eri set her sandwich down, her full attention now locked onto my words.
"Really? How does that work?"
"To cast magic, your mana circuits must be fully matured. There are individual differences, but twelve is generally considered the safe age where everyone's circuits have finished growing."
"Maybe I grow faster than other people."
"Perhaps. But you could also grow slower."
There was no way to check if someone's mana circuits were fully formed. Through centuries of trial and error, twelve had simply been established as the safe threshold. It was a painful lesson carved into the Empire's long history of mistakes.
"Magicians are rare, and Mages are rarer still. The Empire has no desire to lose precious talent to such foolish mistakes."
Hence, the legal ban. It was a law that applied to everyone without exception—slum dwellers, commoners, nobles, and even the Imperial family itself.
"So, unless there is an extraordinary exception, no one can learn magic before twelve."
"What kind of exceptions?"
"Awakening magic on your own without any instruction, or being in a life-or-death situation where magic is the only way to survive... There are a few others, but none of them apply to you right now."
"Could we just do it in secret...?"
"Don't even dream of it."
Did she think the Imperial family, which had maintained its absolute grip on power for a thousand years in this grim dark fantasy world, was a joke? If you broke that law, those terrifying enforcers would sniff you out like bloodhounds. When they deployed, even a count's house—let alone a baron's—had to prepare for total ruin. Erasing a slum district like this from the map would be child's play for them.
"So, wait one more year."
"Can I learn it then?"
"Probably."
To be honest, even I was skeptical. I wasn't sure if the Central Magic Bureau would grant her permission. Magic in this world was treated much like firearms; you had to register the moment you began learning. Once you finished, you had to register as an official Magician or Mage. Depending on the type of magic, criminal history, and social background, they would flat-out deny permits to anyone deemed a risk.
Consequently, permits were rarely granted to those from the slums. The restrictions had grown even tighter after some lunatic from the slums went on a rampage in Sanctum Hill about a century ago.
'If I sponsor her as her guardian, they might let it slide, though.'
Well, that was a bridge to cross when we got there.
"Alright, now that we've finished our brunch, let's prepare for the next patient. We're only doing morning consultations today before leaving early, so we'll be busy."
"What was the afternoon schedule again?"
"We have some experiments to run at Wangcho's slaughterhouse. We're heading there."
"Okaay~"
When we arrived at the slaughterhouse, Wangcho's subordinates were in the middle of butchering pigs.
They carefully extracted lungs to be used for newborn surfactants and meticulously separated pancreases for insulin production. Recently, a new step had been added to the process: harvesting the small intestines and scraping their inner linings.
Standing beside me as I wore my Crow Mask, Eri pinched her nose.
"Ugh, it smells like poop. Please tell me you're not making medicine out of poop, Doctor."
"We're not. We're using the inner lining of the intestines."
We were going to extract Heparin from those pig intestines—a medication used to dissolve blood clots. It was a ultimate-tier weapon in the field of internal medicine.
'With this alone, I could probably start a cult.'
In this world, strokes and myocardial infarctions caused by blood clots were fatal conditions that even divine magic couldn't cure. If I administered Heparin to a dying patient and brought them back to life, it would look like a divine miracle—the second coming of a saint. If I threw in a dramatic line like 'Arise and walk,' boom, I'd be the Jesus of this fantasy world.
Of course, I had no intention of starting a cult. Even in a misunderstanding-themed story, a protagonist who intentionally cons people into a cult is bound to lose their protagonist armor. Unless the genre was a picaresque or a cultivation novel, it was best to avoid such villainous deeds.
"But Doctor," Eri asked, peering into a bucket filled with washed small intestines, "is this medicine really that important?"
"Incredibly so."
"Hmm..."
Eri tilted her head. In a world that didn't even understand the concept of blood clots, let alone the pathology of a stroke, it was hard for her to grasp why we needed to dissolve them.
"Well, if you say it's important, then it must be."
I quietly watched Eri as she shrugged.
In truth, I was making this medicine specifically for her. The PNH (Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria) she suffered from carried an extremely high risk of stroke due to thrombosis. She was fine for now, but once she crossed into her twenties, that risk would skyrocket exponentially. Since I couldn't cure her PNH, I had to prepare Heparin in advance to protect her from a potential stroke.
'And thanks to magic, controlling the enzyme temperature has become much easier.'
To extract Heparin, the enzymes required a precise temperature of 37 to 40 degrees Celsius to function properly. Previously, I lacked the technology to maintain such a delicate temperature range, but magic had solved that hurdle.
'Yes. This was definitely a sign to pursue the alchemy route.'
As a bonus, this endeavor gave me a clear direction on how to develop my magic moving forward.
"Hey, you useless bastard!"
A sudden shout shattered my train of thought. It was Wangcho. The middle-aged beastman, wearing a blood-stained apron, was clutching a young rookie by the collar.
"Do you have any idea how much one of these intestines costs?! Huh?!"
"I-I'm sorry!"
"The value of this small intestine is more than your own..."
Wangcho's eyes met mine. A brief silence fell over the room. When he spoke again, his voice was noticeably quieter.
"...not that it's worth more than your life, of course... but still, be careful! If you tear it like this, we can't deliver it!"
"I'm sorry..."
"Sigh. I'll just dock a little from your pay. I was going to charge you for the full damage, but since you have to keep working here, I'll only dock one day's worth. Any complaints?"
"What? No, sir!"
The rookie scrambled to gather the torn pieces of intestine from the floor and fled as fast as his legs could carry him.
Watching the scene, Eri murmured in admiration, "Wow, Wangcho has really softened up."
"..."
What on earth do you do when I'm not around to make her judge you like that...?
His employee education finished, Wangcho let out a heavy sigh and walked over to us.
"You've arrived, Dr. Schnabel."
"Wangcho. You've been busy."
"The small intestines are being prepared smoothly. However..." Wangcho scratched his head. "While the yield is good... sigh, we've been getting some complaints."
"Complaints?"
"From the butchers. They're complaining that the casings are being delivered too late. They say they don't have enough casing to make sausages and are threatening to close shop tomorrow. Worthless bastards... I can't exactly go and bury them over this."
Ah, I see. Sausages were indeed a grave matter. As someone who personally stuffed casings to make sausages when I cooked, I could deeply sympathize.
"Is the dissatisfaction that severe?"
"It's terrible. Just this morning, three butcher shop owners came by and caused a massive scene. Doctor, is there any way we can speed things up?"
"Hmm." I rested my chin in my hand, thinking. "How are you currently processing them?"
"Pardon? Well, exactly as you ordered. We split them open and scrape the inside with a spoon as hard as we can without tearing them..."
There lay the bottleneck. Scraping that many intestines with a spoon was bound to take forever. Because the intestines were valuable, they were trying to be as delicate as possible, which naturally delayed the delivery of the casings. Ironically, scraping them with a spoon actually made them more prone to tearing.
"Don't do it that way. Try this instead."
I picked up an unprocessed small intestine. I grabbed a discarded beer bottle from the corner of the slaughterhouse, broke it so only the neck remained, and fashioned it into a crude funnel. I pushed the intestine through the neck and looked at Eri.
"Pull it."
"Ugh... it's so slimy."
Eri grabbed the other end of the intestine and pulled. As it squeezed through the narrow opening of the bottle neck, the inner mucosa was scraped off and came pouring out of the entrance in a wet clump.
Splat. Plop.
On the other side, a clean, transparent, and thin membrane emerged. It was a perfect sausage casing.
Seeing how effortlessly the process was completed, Wangcho's jaw dropped.
"...Is it really alright to do it like this? I thought we had to scrape them delicately since we're using them for medicine?"
"The mucosa doesn't need to be scraped with extreme care. Even a rough extraction is perfectly fine for making the medicine."
"And the casing?"
"This method actually causes less damage to the casing than a spoon. And it will be much faster."
"Aigoo... they say if you're ignorant, your body suffers. I guess I'm destined to never leave Limbus Pit."
Afterward, I discussed with Wangcho how to replace the broken beer bottle with a proper tool. Since the mechanism was simple, we decided to commission a blacksmith to make custom metal funnels. The separated casings would go to the butchers, and the remaining mucosa would go to me. It was a perfect win-win scenario.
"Thank you, Doctor."
"I will take the mucosa with me."
I handed the bucket of mucosa to Eri. Some might call it cruel to make a young girl carry such a heavy load, but that was exactly why I had hired her as my assistant. Besides, after feeding her well over the past few months, I had realized something: she was actually stronger than me. Perhaps it was due to her potential as a Mage.
...Though it did hurt my pride a little.
"Let's have lunch at Civitas Square today," I told Eri, who was effortlessly carrying the bucket of mucosa beside me. Normally, we would eat packed lunches due to the afternoon clinic, but today we had to go up to the upper district for research. I needed to borrow the merchant guild's laboratory to process the medicine.
"Really? Can we go to a buffet?"
"Of course."
We ended up at a buffet for lunch. Even after spending the morning at a slaughterhouse, she devoured the meat without a single complaint. Her stomach was truly made of steel.
A few months passed.
The Heparin extraction was proceeding smoothly, and the clinic remained as busy as ever. Winter in the Red-Light District was harsh, and the influx of patients never ceased. It was no different from previous years.
'Is this my second year in the Red-Light District already?'
Around this time last year, I was frantic trying to deliver my youngest sister. Soon, the heavy snow season would begin.
'I should stock up on medicine in advance.'
Too many people had died during last year's blizzard. While I couldn't stay here to treat everyone personally, I could leave enough medicine with Wangcho so those in need could receive it.
'And I'll tell him not to punish anyone if they steal food from the clinic.'
You never knew. There might be a Jean Valjean out there desperately needing help this winter. In a world like this, there ought to be at least one kind priest for someone like him. Ah, was it a bishop, not a priest? Whichever.
That day, after finishing the morning consultations, I headed to Fleischhof, the meat restaurant run by Wangcho.
"Erika, walk slowly. You'll fall."
Arising at the restaurant, I looked up. Below the curved eaves of the roof, a sign written in the Imperial script hung proudly. Beneath it, a gold-leafed inscription in the ancient beastman script was engraved.
It translated to 'The Grand Mansion of Wealth and Longevity.' Below the sign, grease-stained red lanterns swayed gently on either side of the circular entrance.
"Doctor! I heard Fleischhof got a fresh shipment of sausages today. Should we have that for lunch?"
"Let's see what meat they received yesterday before we decide."
Stepping inside, we were greeted by a spacious, two-story layout that was open all the way to the ceiling. Dozens of square wooden tables were packed tightly in the central hall, with Wangcho's female employees—towels draped over their shoulders—hustling back and forth carrying plates of meat.
I wasn't deeply familiar with wuxia novels, but I knew enough to recognize this layout as a traditional tavern, and those waitresses as tavern staff. Yet, the menu they served was distinctly Western.
'I will never get used to this.'
I didn't even know where to begin pointing out the contradictions, but I had long since decided to chalk it up to Wangcho's unique aesthetic and ignore it.
As we made our way to our reserved private room in this bizarre, hybrid establishment, Wangcho, who had been waiting outside with his arms crossed, called out to me.
"Doctor. Do you have a moment?"
The usually jovial beastman looked incredibly serious. He wore the exact same expression as the emergency medicine professor who used to wait for me on my way to lunch in my past life. My appetite vanished instantly.
"...What is it, Wangcho?"
"Would you consider heading up to the upper districts a bit earlier this year?"
Wangcho was suggesting that I leave the slums before the snow began to fall.
"The atmosphere in the H-Sector has been highly unusual lately. Those bastards must have lost their minds; they're crawling up into our D-Sector."
"They must be losing their minds because of the impending blizzard," Eri chimed in from beside me. "It's the season where everyone cuts each other's throats to grab one more trash bag before the heavy snow hits."
"Eri. Watch your language."
"Hmph."
It was a bit jarring to hear an eleven-year-old talk about cutting throats, but her point was clear. It was similar to wild animals venturing down into human settlements as hibernation season approached.
"I understand. When should we leave?"
"Ideally, today."
Wangcho looked around cautiously before leaning in to whisper.
"During the snow season, we trash are going to have to do some cleaning among ourselves. It won't be a pleasant sight for someone like you, Doctor. Take Erika and head up to the upper district. I'll contact you once things are settled."