Winter in Limbus Pit, Part 3
At the exact moment Julian was sliding the silver bullet into the chamber, Erika, collapsed on the floor, bit her lip hard against the cold floor pressing into her cheek. The metallic, bloody taste of iron filled her mouth. How pathetic.
She had wanted to be of help. To the only person in this garbage heap of a world who had ever acknowledged her. Of course, this situation wasn't her fault. She had done the absolute best she could for her age. Her opponent was simply too cruel. Yet, her young heart could not easily accept reality. Tears blurred Erika's vision. She couldn't bear the sight of her own red blood spilled on the floor, looking like useless filth. The blood dripping from her forearm. The revolver clattering to the ground. The white-painted face sneering down at her. Just as everything began to feel like a distant story from another world, a warm, gentle voice echoed in her ear.
—My child.
Do not let them steal what is most precious to you.
It was a woman's voice, carrying a strange nostalgia yet laced with an irresistible, overwhelming authority. The voice seemed to guide Erika. Following that sweet guidance as if possessed, Erika pressed her lips to her torn wrist. Lick. The fresh blood touching the tip of her tongue slid hotly down her esophagus. Her lips began to chant a phrase, entirely independent of her own will.
"...To the throne of white bones, white bones,"
"To the one who offers them, a replacement..."
"And thus, with my remains, I shall shatter their pillars."
Erika stumbled to her feet. The skin on the back of her hand bulged. Tearing through her flesh, white fragments erupted. They were too short to be claws, too blunt to be thorns. The white fragments molded themselves into a shape resembling brass knuckles. Julian's eyes widened at the sight. It was, without a doubt, a magical incantation.
Swish. She swung her fist, aiming straight for the left side of Kaski's neck. The white-faced clown, his attention entirely consumed by Julian's gun, was too slow to react to the ambush. The spikes on her knuckles tore across the clown's neck.
"Keu-heok...!" Kaski screamed, stumbling backward. He fumbled at his bleeding neck. Fortunately for him, the wound transferred to one of his subordinates. The clown let out a sigh of relief and sneered at Erika.
"Y-You startled me a bit. But with th-that kind of... ihihi... And besides, I still have my Claqueurs—"
Right then, Kaski's words began to slur.
"H-Huh...? My tongue... why is it... like this...? My sub-subor-dinates... are still here..."
His words leaked out as if he had been injected with an anesthetic. One side of his mouth, which had been pulled into a tight, creepy grin, lost all strength and drooped limply.
Only then did Kaski realize something was terribly wrong with his body. "M-My... my body... is s-strange..."
He hurriedly clawed at his face. The left side of his face was completely numb. Soon, the grip of his left hand, which held the jackknife, failed. Clatter. The knife fell to the floor.
Losing his balance, Kaski staggered and fell to one knee. "Uh... uh-buh...?" Drool leaking from his mouth, Kaski swayed like a broken doll. His terror-stricken eyes darted between his paralyzed body and Erika's weapon.
Erika, too, stared blankly down at her crumbling white knuckles. "Huh...?"
"It's magic," Julian said, patting Erika's head. He observed Kaski writhing on the floor, mentally cataloging the symptoms. Hemiplegia. Dysarthria. Facial palsy. The classic presentation of an acute cerebral infarction caused by an embolism. Julian knew of magic that could cause such a phenomenon.
"Magic that manipulates bone..." It was highly likely an esoteric spell. He didn't know which family's magic it belonged to, but its performance is absolutely vicious. From the way the knuckles crumbled despite not hitting anything solid, Julian could grasp the spell's true purpose. Judging by its durability, those knuckles weren't meant to clash with spears or swords. Rather, the spell was designed to collapse the moment it was formed. The crumbling knuckles, upon grazing an enemy's blood vessels, injected bone fragments and marrow directly into the bloodstream. And once those bone fragments and marrow entered the circulation, they acted as a horrific toxin that no antidote or healing magic could cure.
A spell that induces an embolism... Fat embolism syndrome. A condition where bone fragments or fat travel through blood vessels and block vital organs. Erika's magic artificially induced this exact pathology. Having finished his deduction, Julian turned his Crow Mask toward Erika, looking at her with concern.
"Erika. By any chance, did you perform Exception Handling?"
"Huh? Eh? Exception Handling?"
"I see." He pulled a syringe and a small vial from his coat. The vial, filled with a sloshing clear liquid, bore a label that read Heparin.
Julian pulled Erika's arm toward him and inserted the needle into her vein.
"Ow, that stings!"
"We'll need to administer Heparin regularly for a while. The fight isn't over yet, so there's a risk of bleeding, but in my eyes, your magic seems far more dangerous."
"Why? Did I... did I break imperial law?" Erika looked up at Julian, her face puckered as if about to cry. She still didn't understand what Julian was talking about. Julian chuckled at her cute reaction and shook his head.
"It's not that. It's because you didn't perform Exception Handling."
"Exception... Handling?"
"Magic only activates exactly as written in the formula. It doesn't have a built-in feature to automatically avoid harming you or your loved ones."
Every magic spell carries inherent side effects. Fire magic brings the risk of burns and elevated body temperature, while lightning magic carries the danger of electrocution and neurological disruption. Therefore, Exception Handling was a concept every mage had to master before casting their very first spell. It was the absolute basic of basics—writing conditions into the formula to exclude oneself or one's allies from the spell's target. In programming terms, it was the equivalent of learning conditional statements before inserting negation. However, there were always those who wielded magic without ever undergoing this foundational training.
"Novice mages without mentors don't know this. That's why they often suffer irreversible disabilities during their very first magical demonstration." Erika's magic harbored exactly that kind of danger. From the looks of it, she had no idea what Exception Handling was. Just as she had induced a stroke in Kaski, she was at risk of suffering a stroke herself.
"Then am I..."
"You don't need to worry. Didn't I just give you medicine?" Julian said, pressing down firmly on the injection site. The anxiety that had briefly clouded her face eased. As he was carefully examining Erika's condition, a voice called out.
"D-Doctol..." Drool leaked from the mouth of the white-faced clown as he called out to the Crow Doctor.
"S-Save me too..."
"..." The lenses of the Crow Mask stared down at the clown in silence.
"I-I'm a p-patient too..."
"...Very well." Julian nodded, filled a fresh syringe with medicine, and approached Kaski.
Just as he had done with Erika, Julian administered Heparin to the white-faced clown. Feeling a sharp prick in his right arm, the clown rejoiced inwardly. Of course. Any healer who descends into a gutter like this would act this way.
Kaski's boss, Narenkönig, used to say that healers with these kinds of convictions were the most profitable. Was it because of their naive beliefs? If you locked them in a room and only sent in patients, they would treat them without refusal. There was no need for threats or persuasion. You could kidnap them, chain them up, and they would move exactly as you wanted on their own.
Hehe. What should I make him do first? Kaski's thoughts raced. Should he have him fix the children who were accidentally ruined during the sculpting of "artworks"? Fixing up the broken ones before reselling them didn't sound bad either. Or perhaps dispatching him secretly to VIP nobles who wanted to keep their twisted hobbies strictly confidential. Ah, come to think of it, he had just healed that "artwork" from earlier in an instant. Since his knowledge in that area seemed vast, consulting him on how to construct the artworks wouldn't be a bad idea either.
"Th-Thank you... Doctol..." Kaski expressed his gratitude, drooling like an idiot. Once the paralysis lifted, he could drag this naive, foolish doctor back to H-Sector.
"But, Doctor... why would you save a person like that...?" Erika asked from behind Julian's shoulder, staring at Kaski with a look of utter dismay. The clown forced his facial muscles to move, sneering at her. "Ah-hihi..."
Whether Julian was aware of Kaski's inner thoughts or not, he looked down at him and whispered, "By the way, did you know?"
"...?"
"There is actually no research proving that Heparin is effective for fat embolism syndrome. In the past, it was administered out of desperation, like grasping at straws, but even that was removed from 21st-century guidelines."
"Wh-What do you mean by that...?"
"Heparin is a preventative measure, not a cure. To put it more simply, unlike Erika, time is your only medicine."
Having finished his explanation, Julian stood up. Kaski, with half of his brain hemisphere already paralyzed, couldn't fully comprehend Julian's words. Julian checked his watch. Then, looking out of the clinic, he continued.
"Of course, that is assuming you have any time left."
"Eh?"
Thud. Immediately after Julian's hand left, a heavy hand came down on Kaski's shoulder. It was a rough, violent grip, devoid of any politeness or grace.
"Hey. Even at the bottom of the barrel, there's such a thing as professional courtesy. Don't you think touching the clinic is crossing the line?"
It was a voice Kaski recognized. His head creaked as he forced it to turn backward.
"T-Tao... Chen..."
"Look at your pronunciation, you piece of shit."
The Slum Boss, Tao Chen. A cold sweat trickled down Kaski's forehead. Behind Kaski, the remaining thugs hurriedly raised their weapons. The Slum Boss swept his gaze over them.
"Drop it, you bastards. I'm tired."
Making no effort to hide his annoyance, he pulled a leather pouch from his coat and emptied it onto the floor.
Thud, thud, thud.
Eight blood-stained, blackened red clown noses rolled across the floor. That alone shattered the thugs' morale, and they lowered their weapons.
"Why the hell did you deploy so many clown bastards on my way here?"
"Hieeeek...!" Kaski's face turned deathly pale.
"H-How... so many men... so quickly...?"
"Hey. You think a Tier 1 is some neighborhood dog? Trying to hold me back with nothing but some cheap hardening enhancement and numbers is just shameless, don't you think?"
The Slum Boss grabbed Kaski by the scruff of his neck. Kaski thrashed wildly, but of course, the Slum Boss didn't budge an inch. In desperation, Kaski slipped a jackknife from his sleeve and swung it, aiming straight for the Slum Boss's neck. However, Tao Chen didn't even bother to dodge, letting the blade strike his neck directly.
"Ow, prick."
The knife bounced off uselessly. Confronted with a scene that defied common sense, Kaski lost his words.
"Th-This is... impossible..."
"Sigh. What do you mean, impossible? You think I won the title of D-Sector Boss in a raffle?"
The Slum Boss brushed the knife away as if it were a mere tickle and twisted Kaski's wrist.
"Aaargh!"
"Shut up, brat."
He then picked up the fallen knife and spoke to Otto, who was now leaning against the entrance, watching them.
"Hey, buddy. Thanks for helping clear the path. By the way, is this the bastard who did that to your face?"
Otto, gasping for breath, nodded with difficulty. The Slum Boss smirked and brought the knife to Kaski's mouth.
"Hey, clown. You already know how I do things, right?"
"Aaaah... aaaaargh!"
Splat. Fresh blood splattered against the clinic wall. Kaski thrashed violently in the Slum Boss's grip. He resisted about four times, but after the blood splattered for the fourth time, he stopped resisting on the fifth and went completely limp.
The Slum Boss tossed Kaski's motionless body aside and spoke.
"Forgive me for being late, Doctor. The clown bastards blocked the road on my way here."
"No, it is fine."
"I thought you would be fine since Otto was with you to escort you to the exit, but I was careless. I didn't expect these stray dogs to go this far... For now, please head to my restaurant. I will protect you until your safety is fully secured."
Only then did Julian release the cocked hammer of his gun and let out a sigh of relief. He slid the two silver bullets out of the revolver's cylinder and slipped them back into his pocket.
I'm glad I didn't have to use these.
The silver bullet. A bullet that could only be obtained from the Temple, capable of completely nullifying any magical miracle. Worth the price of eight entire houses per round, it was not something even Julian could fire lightly.
Honestly, the price tag makes hesitation inevitable.
No matter how precious a life was, if saving it meant intentionally crashing a Rolls-Royce, anyone would hesitate for at least a brief moment. Julian was no different. The silver bullet was a last resort he never wanted to employ.
Fortunately, thanks to the Slum Boss arriving just in time, Julian didn't have to pull a trigger worth eight houses. Feeling relieved, Julian closed the empty cylinder. Instead of a bullet, he pulled out a notebook with communication frequencies jotted down.
"Ah, by any chance, do you have a communication device I could borrow?"
The silver bullet wasn't the only special ammunition he possessed.