Expulsion of Impurities
Clop, clop. The thunder of countless hooves followed in my wake. Every so often came the wet squelch of boots trampling blood.
"Ughhh..."
"You bastard Louis!!!"
Bang!Slash!
Glancing up at the sky, I saw thick black smoke rising from spots where cannon fire had set blazes. The darkness stood out starkly against the clear blue heavens. Beyond the horizon, layer upon layer of clouds rolled in.
I reined in my white steed to tally the rebel rabble.
"133, 134, 135."
"Your Majesty, that's a corpse with its head split in two. It's 134, not 135."
"Nearly miscounted there. My thanks."
A throng trailed in my path: Swiss mercenaries marching with bayonets fixed to finish off any surviving insurgents, officials noting casualty counts, and National Intelligence Agency agents from the rear verifying identities.
"Remarkable that you're still alive."
"Hngh... hngh..."
I-Myeonghun slumped against a mound of shattered bones from Les Innocents Cemetery. Shrapnel had peppered him, leaving a patchwork of bluish bruises beneath his skin. He scooped a handful of white powder from his pocket and snorted it.
"Haaah... much better."
"Cocaine?"
"Nah, way more complex than lead or whatever."
I instinctively covered my nose with my sleeve.
"Don't worry, it won't get you hooked."
Drugs, then.
"Oh, right—Your Majesty, wanna see something cool?"
Hallucinations glazing his eyes, I-Myeonghun launched into a rundown of every contraption in his crossbag.
"Voltaic pile. No clue what that means, huh? Just think of it as taming lightning."
The handle of what he called a Voltaic pile was rubber-wrapped, linked by copper wire with a gold electrode to stacked plates of different metals separated by cloth.
Crackle! "How 'bout that? Cool, right? Wooaaah, so cool! Scream like a monkey!"
He gripped the connected rods like drumsticks and clashed them wildly.
"Huh? Not impressed? The nobles all flipped out..."
"No different from a cult leader bewitching the faithful. Probably some Galvanism trick to hoodwink folks. That's why religious conservatives are no good."
I-Myeonghun ignored me, pulling another gadget from his waistbag.
"You sure that's wise?"
"You wouldn't get it. Ever heard of penicillin—or blue mold?"
From the bag came a chunk of black cheese teeming with what looked like wriggling bacteria.
"Penicillium? Of course. A chemist spotted it under a microscope messing with cheese early this year, even published a paper. You've read it too, I take it."
"Not that."
"If not that, what? Speak plainly. Roquefort? Brie? Camembert? Which cheese's Penicillium is it?"
"Ugh, no use talking to you."
He scraped black powder from the moldy cheese with his dagger and dusted it over his shrapnel wounds.
"Ignorance breeds boldness, they say."
"You're just clueless. It'll all get better. It's an antibiotic."
"Not removing the shards?"
But contrary to I-Myeonghun's hopes, nothing happened. If anything, the skin around the mold turned red and inflamed. Realizing something was wrong, he dug out another lump from the bag.
"This isn't cheese—it's called meju, made from beans."
Whatever it was, it wasn't meju: a cubic lump of rotten bean mash crawling with black mold. He smeared it over his mangled, shrapnel-ridden flesh.
"I-Myeonghun, don't debase yourself like this."
"What bullshit."
I pulled a snuffbox from my breast pocket and offered it.
"What's this?"
"Rhinoceros horn powder."
Unpleasant to offer an impurity, but as France's merciful king, I'd extend this grace once. If I-Myeonghun became French, I'd protect him—wash him clean with chlorinated lime and bleach water, sterilize with alcohol, extract every shard. So please, I-Myeonghun, just say no.
"The hell? Probably some Chinese quack remedy. Know what meds were like back then? Folks dosed themselves with lead, arsenic, mercury—poison peddled as cures."
Good. Nearly let an impurity in.
"I know. But no alternatives, are there? This is the best for now."
"Looking for better options?"
"Aren't I doing that now?"
"Is this really the best?"
True to form, his thoughts were impure. No amalgam for plating, no lead for bullets.
"I-Myeonghun, is this the end of your inventions?"
"Of course not. Some I can't recall perfectly, but all are undergrad-level stuff."
"Can you prove them? Like when we first met, showing Leibniz and L'Hôpital's proofs."
"You wouldn't get it anyway."
"Then it's delusion."
As I said before, wheels don't just get invented. People wash mold off cheese before eating because mold-eaters died. Unproven, it's fantasy.
"Director Levin, resume impurity cleanup."
I ordered Levin to handle the aftermath.
Bang!
"Danger!"
Coward that he was, I-Myeonghun fired at my back the instant I turned my horse. Levin lunged to shield me—thank God—but it was perilously close. Must be more cautious henceforth. I am France's king, after all.
"He's got a gun! Shoot that bastard now!"
"The foreigner set Paris ablaze!!!"
Rat-tat-tat!
"Gah! Germans murdering folk!!!"
Rat-tat-tat!
"Heh heh... Italians trying to rape women!!!!"
Slash!
"Your Majesty, forgive me. My sloppiness endangered you. Punish me as you see fit."
"No. You fulfilled your duty admirably. The wound all right?"
"Stings."
Levin had taken a bullet to the small of his back. Medics arriving at the shot rushed over, laid him prone, flushed the wound with strong spirits, and yanked the slug with forceps. The lead ball from Levin's back was in four fragments—pointed, like a minié ball.
"As rumored, Swiss mercenaries are valiant souls. Once this is done, I'll contact the Papal States myself. No worries for the future."
"I am grateful for Your Majesty's grace."
I-Myeonghun had stirred up all sorts of trouble since dropping into this world, yet proved nothing solid. Bullets half-formed, antibiotics raw, electricity primitive.
"Oh? Still kicking?"
Yet here he clung to life—what attachment to this world?
"Throat too damaged to speak, so my turn, it seems."
Blood trickled slowly from I-Myeonghun's neck. I spared him no final words.
"What more is there to say to an impurity? Director Levin, treat this one as dead and move to the next."
"Yes, sir."
Through the Paris uprising, France purged 1,083 impurities from its midst. And yet the nation knew peace. Nay, only after filtering them out did true peace descend.
After the revolt, Louis XVI declared urban reconstruction to repair the devastation. The Tuileries eastern district was razed entirely—even untouched zones—and rebuilt from scratch.
New buildings rose as French-style apartments, pillars and foundations of reinforced concrete. This method had spread among architects nationwide, infused with Romantic flair from experimental designs.
Roads followed suit: wide enough for three carriages abreast, flanked by pedestrian sidewalks. Between them ran sewers linking to suburban organic fertilizer fermenters.
Where eight straight boulevards crossed stood fountains. Their water trickled through shallow underground channels into the sewers, keeping flow constant.
Not that the fountain water was foul. Drawn from the Seine and Marne, disinfected with bleach, it wasn't potable but fine for laundry and chores.
Better yet, the perpetual dilute bleach solution flowing through ensured hygienic streets.
The now-glowing eastern Tuileries became the elite quarter. Middle-upper classes shifted west to the old upper-class zones; the true elite moved east.
They strolled the Louvre boulevards in leisure. Crossroads with fountains always hosted someone awaiting another.
Parisians occasionally savored intellectual diversions in salons on Rousseau or Voltaire streets, or pursued faith at Notre-Dame Cathedral.
Encounters on Saint-Germain streets birthed business partners; those on the Champs-Élysées, lovers.