WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 87: Mistaken for a Criminal (2)
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* * *
To start with the conclusion, Wangcho recovered well.
For one thing, he had not drunk bleach. He had eaten meat treated with bleach, and he had washed it fairly thoroughly.
It did not develop into the serious situation I had feared.
“Didn’t you say last time that drinking milk would make an upset stomach worse?”
“That time, I suspected gallstones. This time, bleach is the problem. They are different illnesses.”
“Urgh... I definitely washed it well before eating it.”
There were moments when I wanted to hit Wangcho.
Still, I neutralized it with milk and had him drink diluted potion regularly in case of intestinal perforation, a hole in the intestine.
Perhaps it was because he was a Rank 1 superhuman.
He was already much better the next day.
“Wangcho. If this happens again, I may have to open your abdomen.”
“Are you joking?”
“If you don’t believe me, I can show you photos of intestinal-perforation repair surgeries on patients who drank bleach.”
“No. I’ll never do this again.”
It really could have reached the point where I needed to open his abdomen.
“Come to think of it, if something like this happens later, should I throw up...?”
“Absolutely not.”
It was a common misconception.
Many patients believed they should vomit immediately after swallowing poison.
But it was the opposite.
Vomiting after ingesting poison only hastened their trip to the underworld.
The poison in the stomach would rise through the esophagus and burn that too.
Meanwhile, it did not even remove 40 percent of the toxin.
For similar reasons, modern emergency toxicology did not perform gastric lavage unless necessary.
Unless someone had swallowed poison in large quantities, gastric lavage was not particularly effective either.
The toxicology approach in my time had developed toward safely expelling poison with laxatives or activated charcoal.
Like Wangcho was doing now.
“Doctor... how long do I have to keep drinking this potion? The potion is making everything leak out the back.”
“Keep drinking it until the day after tomorrow.”
Potions contained crocus, which caused diarrhea.
The same medicinal herb used in colchicine.
Apparently, it was added to potions like a staple ingredient to preserve their restorative effects while quickly expelling toxins.
That side effect made potions perfect for patients who had consumed bleach.
They not only restored damaged intestinal mucosa and provided a slight neutralizing effect,
but also induced diarrhea to expel the poison quickly.
“Urgh... the bathroom...!”
“Go ahead.”
It came with the minor drawback of making daily life inconvenient.
Still, if eating bleach only ended in diarrhea, he should count himself lucky.
Wanting more than that would be shameless.
Scurry!
Wangcho burst through the door in a half-crouched posture.
A moment later, the bathroom door at the end of the hallway slammed shut.
“...”
Watching him go, a thought suddenly came to me.
This time, it had been an accident.
But bleach could certainly be misused.
‘Especially if black mages abused it, the damage could become impossible to contain.’
One of the most horrific weapons of mass slaughter in human history had also been made from bleach, in a broad sense.
It seemed necessary to warn people before anyone could abuse it.
After some thought, I decided to write a paper on that as well.
Bleach was a substance I had spread.
If black mages misused it, it could badly tarnish my reputation.
So it was right to prevent that in advance.
It would ease my guilt too.
‘Julian should write the paper, not Director Schun.’
It had occurred to me when I was asked to take the position of Black Magic Defense professor.
When I thought about it, the work was similar to preventive medicine.
So Julian should be the one to warn people about substances like bleach and propose regulations.
‘I should try writing it after I finish the lead-poisoning paper.’
I decided to keep the bleach paper secret from my master.
It would be a kind of surprise.
* * *
Empire Year 1049.
The entire world had been unusually restless since the beginning of the year.
Immediately after the heavy snow ended,
humanity had suffered devastating losses with the emergence of mutant magical beasts.
Fortunately, the Empire had not suffered too badly thanks to the saint and saintess.
But the losses suffered by other fortresses and kingdoms without them were by no means small.
Having lost too much fighting strength, humanity shut its gates even more tightly.
Exchange between fortresses also fell sharply.
The number of airships taking flight was cut in half, and most of those were military supply lines.
Yet even in this atmosphere, one form of exchange continued without interruption.
The Arcane Olympiad.
The spellcasters’ Olympics, where they displayed the scholarly accomplishments of their lifetimes.
Even amid humanity’s tragedy, spellcasters never stopped exchanging knowledge.
No, perhaps they had been even more passionate this year.
To carry on the will of fallen colleagues.
To remember humanity’s forgotten position.
Through chance discoveries amid tragedy.
For their own reasons, spellcasters burned with passion as they submitted papers for the Autumn Symposium.
The papers submitted by countless spellcasters passed the first selection at each Mage Association branch, then the second selection at the Magic Towers.
Only the final review by Astrolabium, the panel of mage tower masters and great mages, remained.
“Duke Baspelt, are you still at war with Duke Eisenherz through letters?”
“Yes. Last year, we fought like that over ownership of spirits. This year, it is over measuring underwater mana flows. In this day and age, they still insist on using lead sinkers...”
“And as I was saying, the alloy circuit we discovered this time has increased conductivity by a full 1 percent.”
“That is only an increase from 98 to 99...”
“Gah! Look at it the other way around. Inefficiency has fallen from 2 to 1! How can a mage tower master fail to understand how remarkable that is?”
“Well, I am not interested in metals. Our school has no use for metal as a catalyst in the first place.”
Before the formal review began, mage tower masters and great mages representing their nations exchanged remarks.
Every topic concerned their own school’s achievements.
Naturally.
The scale of research funding granted to their Magic Tower or magic knight order depended on the accomplishments presented at this symposium.
That was why they took every opportunity to boast about their organizations before the review began.
Reviewers were people too.
Even when they read the same content, their impressions could differ depending on the submitting organization.
“I have not forgotten how your disciple plagiarized my disciple’s paper last year.”
“It was a misunderstanding. The Grandmaster himself said that research topics could overlap sometimes.”
“That cost my disciple four years. Would you dare say that to my disciple’s face?”
“I truly am sorry about that...”
Countless words passed among the nineteen reviewers in the conference room.
Then.
Thud.
The enormous conference-room doors were thrown open, and an old man entered.
“Sorry I’m late.”
The old man strode across the conference room, then naturally took the most ornate chair.
As he sat down, he grumbled.
“Honestly... I don’t need all this gaudy decoration. A wooden chair would do.”
“If the Grandmaster sat in an ordinary chair, we would have to kneel on the floor.”
“Ah, then that won’t do.”
The one-eyed old man chuckled and casually pushed the nameplate before him toward the front edge of the table.
It read:
<Chief Reviewer Louis Edelhardt>
“All right, we have no time, so let us begin at once. I would like to ask how everyone has been, but we will never finish on time if we do. Is everyone all right with that?”
At the Great Sage’s question, the mage tower masters and great mages nodded.
Snap!
The Great Sage snapped his fingers, and every window and door in the conference room shut.
At the same time, stacks of papers landed before each reviewer with a thud.
“Now then, let us decide who will pass this year and make a presentation.”
“Then the first paper. Submitted by the Magic Tower of February. ‘A Proposal for a Three-Layer Model of Underwater Mana Flows.’”
“Hm. A theory that, because ocean currents are divided into three layers, magical-power efficiency increases if one accounts for that when using magic that affects the sea. They managed to discover something like that.”
Magic was understanding.
The more deeply one understood an object, the less magical power was wasted and the more one could accomplish.
That was why magical symposiums never rejected any field of study.
“‘Magical Reproduction of a Detonation Reaction.’ Is this from the Magic Tower of July?”
“No. It is from May. They were trying to reproduce the sound of an explosion and ended up uncovering the principles behind detonation.”
“I was merely surprised that such an unexpected topic came from the Magic Tower of May. So the explosion fanatics were not the ones who discovered it.”
“Haha...”
And so, the papers were reviewed one by one as they went clockwise around the round table, as though weighing their worth.
Alloy circuits, expanded bandwidth for long-distance letter magic, error convergence in weather-control spells...
Most were improvements to existing magic, though truly innovative ideas appeared from time to time.
But none of them relieved the Great Sage’s boredom.
‘In the end, they cannot escape the framework I created.’
There had been no major change from the applications of magic he had disclosed a thousand years ago.
Magical-power management had improved. Things had become cleaner, quieter, and more precise.
But they remained far from the interesting ideas the Great Sage wanted.
‘The Magic Towers are the same as ever this year.’
He wanted to close his eyes and sleep.
He did that every year.
But this year was different.
‘Still, Julian submitted a paper this year.’
Just thinking about the paper Julian had submitted made his heart race.
What could it possibly be about?
Before long, the introductions to the papers selected by each Magic Tower and magic knight order seated at the round table had ended.
Finally, it was time to review papers selected by the Imperial Magic Knight Order.
The spellcaster representing the Imperial family began reading the title of the paper they had brought.
<Theoretical Feasibility Assessment of Large-Scale Black-Magic Brainwashing Mediated by a Population of Spellcasters with Chronic Lead Exposure>
“Cough!”
“Grandmaster?!”
“It is nothing. It merely went down the wrong way.”
The Great Sage barely managed to stop himself from spraying the tea he had been drinking.
The other mage tower masters and great mages did not react much differently.
“Black-magic research?!”
“So it was true that the Imperial military has finally begun formally researching black magic?”
“Brainwashing? What is this...”
Several spellcasters murmured as they saw the security classification printed at the top of the paper.
“Security Classification Grade 1?”
“When was the last time a Grade 1 paper was reviewed?”
“The first since the paper on lightning bombardment through weather manipulation. So, five years ago.”
“Good heavens.”
Magic could enrich the world and give humanity the power to defend itself from magical beasts.
But it could also harm other humans.
That was why every magic-related paper had to pass the initial examination of each Mage Association ethics committee before submission.
The meaning of each classification was as follows.
Grade 3.
Magic safe for public disclosure, or magic already widely known.
Most papers received this classification.
Grade 2.
Knowledge for specialized spellcasters or arcane spellcasters. It could only be accessed with permission from the Spellcaster Administration.
It was somewhat dangerous, but spellcasters with a certain degree of social recognition were permitted to view it.
And finally, Grade 1.
Matters that needed academic discussion,
but could seriously harm the public interest or lead to grave crimes.
Only people with the social trust afforded to great mages could view them.
In addition, any spellcaster granted access to that classification had to undergo a confidentiality-contract spell.
“...Who in the world wrote something like this?”
“Let us see. Julian... Julian Nihirit?”
“...”
Amid the murmuring spellcasters, the Great Sage silently read through the paper.
Abstract
[This study epidemiologically reconstructs lead-exposure conditions across the Empire and theoretically examines the potential usefulness of chronic exposure as a medium catalyst for black-magic rites.
Based on existing literature concerning lead’s effect on neural magical-power conductivity, it estimates the technical feasibility, required magical-power scale, and identifiable epidemiological traces of a large-scale population-brainwashing scenario, and presents public-health and counterintelligence recommendations.]
‘I have read it several times, but Julian truly writes a clean paper. It would have been nice if only the topic were ordinary.’
The abstract was clean.
Unlike its grim title.
Somewhat relieved, the Great Sage began reading the paper in detail.
[Lead poisoning has been classified as an occupational disease among spellcasters and upper-tier superhumans.]
That was true.
It was common knowledge that lead harmed the body.
But there was no magical catalyst as useful as lead.
That was why the more a person handled magic, the closer they had to keep lead.
Spellcasters lived with lead poisoning as though it were an occupational disease.
But the paper’s next contents directly contradicted that common belief.
[During the epidemiological reconstruction of 4,312 blood-lead-level measurements collected in the Imperial capital area over the past three years, this researcher confirmed that the above premise can no longer be maintained.]
“?”
The Great Sage’s eyebrow twitched.
Four thousand people.
The scale of the research alone was exceptional.
But something else drew even more attention.
[Lead poisoning is no longer a rare occupational disease, but a chronic disease affecting Sanctum Hill citizens as a whole.]
Julian was saying that lead poisoning was not a disease of spellcasters, but one afflicting the nobles and knights of Sanctum Hill.
The reason the paper reached that conclusion was simple.
A comparative analysis of blood-lead levels in 8,000 Limbus Pit residents and 4,000 Sanctum Hill residents showed that Sanctum Hill’s blood-lead levels were vastly higher.
And the paper had successfully traced the cause.
[The likely cause is the lead used as an activation catalyst in leaded magic-stone kerosene.
To prove this, bodies buried before leaded magic-stone kerosene was introduced twenty years ago were purchased, and lead levels in their bones were measured.]
‘Wait... Julian exhumed corpses...?’
[The lead levels accumulated in bones from twenty years ago were markedly lower than those in bones buried afterward.]
The Great Sage found himself wanting to applaud.
There was no flaw in the logic.
Sanctum Hill was usually the area that consumed the most magic-stone kerosene.
The logic that its people had therefore been exposed to more lead fit the causal relationship perfectly.
He even found it admirable.
While everyone else had dismissed it as a problem for spellcasters alone,
Julian had found hidden patients as well.
But there were two problems.
First, trading companies and nobles would be extremely displeased with this paper.
And second...
‘Wait. If not only spellcasters, but most Sanctum Hill citizens had been exposed to lead...’
The Great Sage hurriedly flipped through the half of the paper that remained.
[Chapter 7. Potential for Black-Magic Misuse: Threat Assessment]
[Dimercaprol, sold by the Merkuer Trading Company, is currently widely prescribed to spellcasters.]
[When dimercaprol is consumed without a specialized supplement, numerous cases have reported blood lead rising sharply and reaching the brain.]
[If this were applied through black magic...]
“...”
What followed was utterly absurd.
If lead lodged in the brain, it could serve as an excellent catalyst for brainwashing magic.
And by using it, one could likely quietly control more than half of Sanctum Hill’s nobles and spellcasters.
Long-term control would be difficult because of resistance.
But its uses were endless, from leaving targets defenseless for assassination to framing them for crimes.
And the paper introduced every scenario in painstaking detail.
[Results of military-cooperation wargames based on the above: possible lockdown of southern Sanctum Hill through large-scale riots.]
[Results of an Imperial Palace siege wargame: possible temporary capture through the magic knight order’s self-destruction.]
[Reviewing the possibility of activating cultist gatherings.]
“...”
The Great Sage stared silently at the paper.
For a moment, Julian from his dreams overlapped with the image before him.
Then the mage tower master of January, beside the Great Sage, let out a low groan.
“How was this not given a forbidden classification?”
Other mage tower masters joined in.
“The person who wrote this paper... seems somewhat dangerous.”
“I fully understand the public-interest purpose... but this cannot be presented.”
“As of this moment, everyone in our Magic Tower of September will be required to receive lead-poisoning treatment regularly. We should not tell them why, though.”
The Great Sage had nothing to say either.
“So this person will be handling Black Magic Defense... That is reassuring, but also a little worrying.”
“...”
“Julian Nihirit... I do not know where he learned black magic, but it seems his master chose to teach him only dangerous things.”
‘No. That was me.’
The Great Sage swallowed those words and organized the paper.
“Then, what does everyone think of this paper?”
“It cannot be officially presented, but there is no doubt that he has sufficient ability to publish a paper in the Arcane Olympiad.”
“I agree.”
“I agree as well.”
Normally, in cases like this, they announced only that the spellcaster had published a paper in the Arcane Olympiad without releasing the paper itself.
The spellcaster would be remembered in academic circles as the person who submitted a paper on an unidentified Grade 1 dangerous magic.
“Good. Then Julian Nihirit will have his name inscribed in the Hall of Scholarship as well.”
Feigning calm, the Great Sage put Julian’s paper away.
“Then... next...”
“The next paper is from the military as well.”
“?”
“The classification is... forbidden. The author is... Julian Nihirit again.”
“?”
‘I hadn’t heard Julian was submitting two papers.’
With growing unease, the Great Sage checked the paper’s title.
<Theoretical Review of Structural Vulnerabilities in the Imperial Capital’s Water and Sewer Chlorination Infrastructure and Wide-Area Biochemical Attack Scenarios Employing Sodium Hypochlorite>
“...”
For a long while, the Great Sage stared silently down at the paper.
As he carefully considered whether he had done anything recently to upset Julian.
A Word from the Author
I am truly, truly sorry for being late.
An unexpected hospital issue delayed this upload.
I am very sorry.
+
The papers above are papers that actually existed in history.
There was once a time when lead was put into all fuel. It was called leaded gasoline.
At the time, the United States, which primarily used leaded gasoline, had an enormous concentration of lead in the air.
That was because lead byproducts produced by burning leaded gasoline floated through the air.
A chemist named Claire Patterson identified leaded gasoline as the culprit, and putting lead into gasoline was later banned.
There are more warning papers and reports about chlorine-related dangers than one might expect.
There have even been several terrorist attacks that used them.
Even modern society continues to remain wary of attacks on chlorine-related infrastructure, so all chlorine-related facilities are strictly managed.
Footnotes:
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