A Flower Blooming in the Pestilence, Part 5
A long time ago—back when I was just a young man who had freshly graduated from medical school in twenty-first-century South Korea—I went on a graduation camping trip with a few close classmates. During that trip, one of them said something incredibly stupid.
"I think this fire steel is defective. It won't spark a fire."
"You idiot. Who tries to light a fresh, green branch?"
"What do you mean? We're camping, of course we have to light wood. What else would we light?"
"Kyung-jun, do you really think a branch you just snapped off a tree is going to catch fire? If it were that easy, why do you think firebreaks even exist?"
"What's a firebreak?"
"Sigh, forget it. Seriously, how did this guy even pass the medical licensing exam?"
The guy in charge of the fire had brought nothing but branches he'd snapped off a tree in his front yard that very morning. Naturally, fresh, green wood wasn't going to catch fire. Thanks to that one idiot, our group almost missed out on eating the meat we'd brought. Fortunately, a generous newlywed couple at the neighboring campsite took pity on us and traded some of their charcoal for our meat.
The most absurd part was that his family actually owned a barbecue restaurant.
It was a truly ridiculous memory. The reason it suddenly came to mind was because our current situation was highly analogous to it.
Magic, in the end, is not so different from science. The fewer the conditions or symbols present, the more mana is required to cast a spell. It is just like how casting a fire spell in a damp, humid environment demands far more mana.
Curses are no different. The higher the target's mana, or the more sacred their status, the amount of mana required to curse them increases exponentially. This is closely related to why warlocks favor plague curses. Just as disease strikes both the highborn and the lowborn without discrimination, a plague curse is unaffected by the target's social or spiritual standing.
Of course, this is only because the concept of immunity has yet to be discovered in this world.
Considering their abysmal grasp of basic hygiene, it was only natural. It seemed Belgian, a Tier 2 mage, had specifically chosen a plague curse for this very reason. He likely feared that my title, the "Angel of the Red-Light District," might act as a form of sacred status and shield me.
Furthermore, using smallpox as the catalyst for his plague was an incredibly efficient choice. Even in my past life, smallpox was a disease so vicious it had been weaponized as a biological agent. The only problem was that he had no idea we were already immune to it.
Because I had secretly vaccinated everyone.
The very first thing I did upon opening my clinic was administer smallpox vaccinations. In modern medicine, eradicating smallpox is the baseline before you can even begin to discuss other treatments. The method I used was the Cowpox Vaccination. Whenever a patient visited, I would secretly smear cowpox pus onto their arms. As for why I did it in secret—well, in a world like this, explaining the mechanics of cowpox vaccination would immediately get me branded as a warlock and burned at the stake. They say it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I'll ask for their permission once I become more famous.
And Eri and Wangcho had also acquired immunity to smallpox through this exact method.
I had always wondered how a plague curse would affect someone with immunity, but I never expected to find out like this.
I thought to myself as I looked down at my skin, which remained perfectly smooth—unbelievable for someone who had just been struck by a curse. Just to be absolutely sure, I had Eri double-check me.
"Do you feel anything strange coming from me?"
"No? You look perfectly healthy."
Okay. So there wasn't even an incubation period. Only after receiving this confirmation did I lock eyes with the dark mage, who was currently staggering in the distance from mana sickness. Panic was written all over Belgian's face.
"What on earth did you do...!"
"Who knows."
"Please, I beg of you, tell me! How did you Dispel my magic?!"
Dispel. In this world, it referred to a phenomenon where a spell failed to manifest, consuming only mana, because a conditional clause in the formula was incorrect. Take fire magic, for example. To cast it, one must precisely input the environmental humidity and temperature into the spell formula. If the margin of error is too wide, the mana is spent, but no fire ignites. This is what they call a dispel.
In battles between mages, there existed a technique to neutralize an opponent's magic by exploiting this very phenomenon. By disrupting the conditions or environmental variables the opponent had overlooked, one could prevent their spell from ever activating in the first place.
"Tell me, Mr. Schnabel! Do you possess some forbidden knowledge of dark magic that I am unaware of?!"
Belgian seemed utterly convinced that I had executed a high-level dispel. In reality, a single new variable—immunity—had simply been introduced to the equation.
"Please—"
"Wangcho. Shoot him."
Ignoring Belgian's pleas, I handed the gun to Wangcho. Without a moment's hesitation, Wangcho pulled the trigger.
Bang! A flash of blue flame erupted from the revolver's muzzle. The Silver Bullet tore through the night air, leaving a brilliant blue trail as it sped toward Belgian.
"Gah!" Belgian's body was thrown backward, crashing into the far end of the alleyway. A crimson flower of blood blossomed on his shoulder as he collapsed.
"Ah, I missed. My apologies. I'm not very accustomed to handguns."
"It's fine, Wangcho."
The reason I had asked Wangcho to shoot instead of Otto was because our opponent was a Tier 2 mage. Since we didn't know what kind of defensive measures a Tier 2 mage might have up his sleeve, it was safer to have Wangcho, who possessed Tier 1 aura, pull the trigger.
"Besides, I never expected you to take him down in a single shot anyway."
Indeed, Wangcho's role wasn't to finish Belgian off. It was to severely weaken him.
"Otto."
Bang! A finishing blow was fired immediately. Once again, a blue streak of light sliced through the darkness toward Belgian. However, this second bullet never reached its target.
Splat! A jet of black liquid erupted like a fountain from Belgian's shadow, swallowing the bullet whole. The liquid then enveloped Belgian himself, sinking back down and vanishing into the city's shadows.
"Damn it!" Wangcho clicked his tongue in frustration. "They say even a lion must be taken down in one shot. Letting a Tier 2 mage escape leaves a bad taste in my mouth..."
"It should be fine," I said, reassuring the anxious beastman. "We managed to land one hit, so there's no need to feel too disappointed."
"But he's still alive, isn't he?"
"Even a Tier 4, count-level powerhouse would be permanently crippled if hit by that bullet. Even if he survives, he will no longer pose a threat to us."
The power of the Silver Bullet wasn't limited to merely neutralizing magic. If it struck a mage, it injected Holy Power directly into their mana circuits. This holy energy would linger in the mage's mana pathways like a blood clot, permanently disrupting their ability to cast spells for the rest of their life. Since holy power could not be naturally expelled, the only way to remove it was to join the Temple and learn holy magic. The problem, of course, was that the Temple would never teach holy magic to a warlock. In other words, Belgian's body was now practically incapable of casting magic.
"For all intents and purposes, his life as a mage is over."
He might still be able to study magic in some dusty, secluded room, but fighting on the front lines or in the back alleys was out of the question. Therefore, I was confident that Belgian, who had fled into the dark, would no longer be a threat to us.
"Well, if you say so." Wangcho smacked his lips, still looking a bit regretful. He handed the empty revolver back to me. I pocketed the weapon and walked over to where Belgian had been standing moments ago. On the muddy ground where the black liquid had swallowed him, a worn, thick leather notebook lay abandoned. I squatted down and picked up the notebook, which was stained with mud and blood.
"Huh? What's that?" Eri, who had toddled over behind me, tilted her head as she stared at the notebook.
"It's a Grimoire."
"What's that?"
"A mage's cheat sheet. You have one too."
"This?" Eri pulled a crumpled scrap of paper from her pocket. It was covered in dense, tiny handwriting—notes she had taken to memorize Exception Handling. I nodded as I looked at it.
"I suppose you could call that a grimoire, in a sense."
"Then what's written in that mister's grimoire? Is it filled with forbidden knowledge or something...?"
"Nothing like that."
Just because it belonged to a warlock didn't mean a grimoire contained anything particularly unholy compared to other mages' books. It simply contained their personal shortcuts for memorizing incantations. It was like the mnemonic devices students used to memorize the periodic table back in my world.
"On top of that, it probably contains the research findings Belgian has accumulated over the years."
"Huh? Then why would he carry something so precious around with him? Wouldn't it be safer to leave it at home?"
It was Wangcho, not me, who answered Eri's question. "Listen to this brat. You call yourself a magic student and you're asking such naive questions?"
"What did I do?"
"Hey, no matter how brilliant a Tier 2 mage is, how do you expect them to cram all those complex conditional clauses and incantations into their head? A single formula can have dozens of variables." Wangcho pointed at Eri's scrap of paper. "You can't even memorize yours."
"Well... that's true."
"Tsk. You really take magic for granted, don't you?" Wangcho pulled a pipe from his coat and placed it between his lips. He didn't light it, merely chewing on the stem.
"Most magic-users only memorize one or two spells they're most confident in. For the rest, they carry a book under their arm and read it to refresh their memory whenever they need to cast. That's why those who can cast dozens of spells without a book are called archmages. How can an aspiring mage not even know that?"
Eri tilted her head at Wangcho's explanation. Then, she suddenly whipped her head toward me and pointed a finger. "Huh? But my teacher writes them all down on the blackboard from memory without looking at any books!"
"Well, maybe five or so is possible if you're a genius..."
"It was thirty! And he told me I had to memorize that many too!"
At Eri's revelation, Wangcho's gaze slowly drifted toward me. I shrugged and nodded. Who was I? A genius who had crammed a three-year curriculum into three months. Remembering this fact, Wangcho's expression soured.
"Fuck. Having that face and that brain is just cheating. Please let him be three centimeters down there."
"...?"
"It's nothing."
What was that? I felt like I had just heard a terrible insult. Wangcho awkwardly averted his eyes. Instead, he wrapped up the conversation by giving Eri a light noogie with his thick fist.
"Ouch!"
"Kid, they don't call someone a genius for nothing."
Wangcho cleared his throat, bringing his explanation to an end. I turned my attention back to the notebook in my hand. It was the precious research journal of a Tier 2 warlock. It would be a lie to say I wasn't curious. However, reviewing its contents would have to wait.
"Let's head home first." Lately, it felt like I was getting off work later and later. I broke up the bickering between Wangcho and Eri and urged everyone to move. "Otto, get ready to head up..."
It was then. Cough! Otto suddenly began to cough repeatedly. Cough! Cough! His body trembled like a leaf in the wind. Seeing him suddenly break out in a coughing fit, Eri and Wangcho instinctively took a few steps back.
"No way..."
"The curse..."
I immediately put their anxieties to rest. "That's impossible..." Otto had definitely been vaccinated by me. There was no way he could have caught the curse... Ah.
"Otto."
"Yes, cough."
"Take some sick leave for the time being."
"Pardon?"
"I'm telling you to go home and rest."
Come to think of it, Otto's vaccination had been delayed. Insisting that he was my bodyguard, he had kept putting off his checkup, and I recalled only barely managing to vaccinate him a few days ago. When he returned after recovering from his torn face, I had used a routine checkup as an excuse to secretly administer it. That was roughly four days ago. In other words, he was the only one in our group who hadn't fully developed immunity to smallpox yet.
"Is it... the curse...?"
"No, it's likely just a severe cold."
Because he had encountered the curse before his immunity could fully establish itself, he was showing some mild symptoms. It would be far less severe than what an unvaccinated person would experience. It wouldn't be life-threatening, but he would still suffer through something akin to a bad flu. Considering it was a curse from a Tier 2 mage, it might even be slightly worse than that. Naturally, in a case like this, there was no cure other than letting it run its course. That was why I prescribed sick leave.
However, Otto didn't seem to appreciate my prescription. "I am... fi..." Thud. He collapsed before he could finish his sentence. I sighed as I looked down at my bodyguard-slash-driver splayed out on the cold stone floor.
"Wangcho."
"Yes, boss. I'll lend you a communication artifact. Why don't you rest in the diner in the meantime?"
Sigh. I really had to wonder who was guarding whom here. A few hours later, after the Nihilite family butler came down to meet us upon receiving our call, we were finally able to return home.