episode_0112
by fnovelpia
112. Anesthesia
The highest council chamber of Jarmark.
I had come to a general store located nearby.
It was a place that sold all sorts of miscellaneous items.
Being a city nestled along trade routes and a wealthy one at that, the variety of goods was even more diverse.
There were numerous items on display that could easily tempt me to open my wallet as I passed by.
But what caught my eye the most was…
“Oh, what in the world is this…?”
“You mean this?”
A beautiful elf shop assistant.
She answered for me and showed me the item I had picked up.
“It’s a moving dragon figurine. It even breathes fire—though it’s not hot!”
I absolutely had to buy this.
A moving dragon toy? This thing perfectly targets a man’s heart!
And it breathes fire that isn’t hot?! It also precisely hits the heart of a science enthusiast…
“Take my mo— Ouch!”
“Hey, you fool!”
Adela suddenly smacked the back of my head.
Smoking heavily indoors, she scolded me.
Her expression seemed to ask what the hell I was doing.
“Aren’t you going to save that person? Huh?”
“I will. But how can I resist… resist this?”
As she raised her fist threateningly…
I demonstrated self-restraint and gave up on the moving dragon figurine.
Though I was filled with immense regret, Adela wasn’t wrong.
It was a lingering regret, but it was just an unnecessary luxury.
A pretty but useless piece of trash with no practical value or research purpose…
Sigh… A moving dragon figurine that breathes non-hot fire…
Despite my reluctance, I eventually abandoned the dragon and wandered the store with Adela.
But perhaps because I was browsing eagerly without buying anything, she grew frustrated and asked:
“So what exactly are you trying to buy?”
“Narcotics.”
“…What’s that?”
Adela questioned me back.
Clearly, the concept of narcotics didn’t exist in this era.
They have glasses and sunglasses, but this is a really strange world.
If the concept of narcotics doesn’t exist, I had no choice but to explain it directly.
“Henbane, belladonna, mandrake, alcohol…”
“W-Wait! Are you serious?”
Adela crossed her arms and glared at me.
Her expression was like that of a mother scolding a misbehaving child.
For some reason, her sharp gaze made me shrink back.
“Henbane, belladonna… mandrake—those are all illegal hallucinogenic plants?!”
“Uh… well…”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know? Once you get hooked on that stuff, you end up a mindless wreck.”
Adela was furious.
She must have assumed I intended to use them for myself rather than for a patient.
But I quickly clarified the misunderstanding.
“If you dilute the toxicity and turn it into a liquid to apply on the skin, it numbs the pain!”
“How would you even… Well, fine…”
Adela seemed to decide to let it go for now.
Then she told me something I didn’t know about narcotic ingredients.
In the past, during the reign of the second Pendleton Emperor.
Unlike the recently deceased emperor, he was quite intelligent and had good judgment.
But he suffered from chronic headaches and found relief in belladonna and alcohol.
The moment he took them, his headaches vanished, and he began using them frequently.
The result, of course, was drug addiction.
His judgment deteriorated, and he became a tyrant who carried out purges left and right…
That’s why his son, the recently deceased emperor, issued a ban on narcotics.
“Because of that, it’ll be hard to get your hands on them.”
“This is a problem…”
I thought it’d be easy to obtain in this medieval setting…
Just as I was starting to worry, Adela smirked and said:
“I said it’d be hard, not impossible.”
“Huh? But the emperor banned it?!”
“You think humans would just give up on something profitable like that?”
She had a point.
Historically, even when prohibition laws were enacted, humans always found ways to make and drink alcohol.
This time was no different.
Just as people couldn’t give up tobacco, it seemed they couldn’t give up narcotics either.
Of course, Jarmark being a trade city probably made it easier.
But still…
“Like I said, it’s extremely difficult to get. Just because there’s an unspoken agreement doesn’t mean it doesn’t skirt the law.”
“That makes sense.”
Would Adela even deal with narcotics?
It wasn’t a field she had any interest in before I brought it up.
No matter how much of a Jarmark native she was, obtaining them would be incredibly tough.
I briefly considered going to Marcus Capone, but…
“Didn’t I tell you? He’s a man of principle and fairness… Why do you think his voice was so small before our lord stepped in?”
“Like Count Erika, he must have hated corruption. That’s why he was disliked.”
“Bingo.”
So even a reliable backer was out of the question.
Even if I went to the black market, I’d only be able to get a small amount.
Not enough for experiments or extra batches in case of unexpected variables.
And I didn’t even know where the black market was.
Anyway, my carefully devised plan was shattered.
Just as I sighed and was about to enter the highest council chamber building of Jarmark…
“P-Please, just let me talk to him!”
“That’s not possible.”
“I’m a doctor! Doctor Frenburg! If you just let me speak to the heaven-sent genius, he’ll understand!”
“A lowly doctor like you has no business entering this noble building.”
A loud commotion at the grand mansion’s entrance.
A fleeting glimmer of hope passed through me.
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I was lost in thought.
The burly man who had suddenly interrupted the surgical show.
He had said these words to me:
“Why? Aren’t you thinking of a better way?”
I muttered his exact words without missing a syllable.
As if he had posed the question to me, I was now asking it of myself.
And my answer was…
“Because I needed money… Because there was no other way…”
A show of amputating limbs in front of a crowd.
A cruel spectacle disguised as surgery.
An act of brutality carried out with chilling ease.
But if I hadn’t done even that, the patients wouldn’t have survived.
The situation was so desperate that I had to resort to this incomplete torture show with a 45% survival rate.
But.
“You were watching me.”
I later learned that he was a man called the heaven-sent genius.
He wasn’t watching the cruel, sensational patient—he was watching me.
As if he knew my true feelings.
So I gave him the answer I couldn’t say in front of the audience.
With complete sincerity.
“I can’t do it.”
I am not my master.
Even my master had failed surgeries at times.
But that wasn’t due to a lack of skill.
Cutting off the limbs of a conscious person with a saw.
Most people writhe in agony and shock, struggling violently.
We tried blindfolding them or knocking them unconscious, but it never worked.
Their thrashing from the pain made the failure rate too high.
Many later died from bleeding or infection, but…
Was there really no other way?
None at all?
“There isn’t.”
No answer came to mind.
I turned my gaze to the large axe mounted on the wall.
An executioner’s axe.
My ugly, stench-filled past.
I carried out executions in front of crowds and followed orders to conduct torture.
That was how I became so knowledgeable about human anatomy.
Eventually, the stress became too much, and I quit.
I spent time setting bones and performing basic treatments until I met my master.
A woman with snow-white hair and pale eyes, like an immortal.
She was exceptionally skilled in acupuncture, incisions, and sutures.
When I begged her to take me as her disciple…
What would that version of me say if they saw me now?
Wanting to save people…
That past me, filled with the desire to help rather than kill.
“Move.”
That’s what they would have said.
A chance encounter with a wandering healer who helped people in small ways.
My master, Sana, the eccentric doctor renowned across the empire.
And the self-loathing I felt, no different from my days as an executioner, performing shows for nobles.
Now, in this moment, a second chance had arrived.
The heaven-sent genius.
If I had ignored Master Sana back then and lived on…
If I ignored the heaven-sent genius now…
“I have to find a better way.”
Words Master Sana often said like a habit.
I stood up and headed to where he was staying.
A place an ordinary commoner could never hope to enter.
The building where Jarmark’s highest council convened.
Of course, they wouldn’t let a lowly doctor like me in.
Even if I said I needed to speak to the heaven-sent genius, they wouldn’t believe me.
But I didn’t give up.
Shamefully—no, unashamedly.
I knelt before the knights.
On both knees.
“Please, just let me talk to him…!”
“This guy, I swear…!”
I bowed my head and pleaded.
I couldn’t let this chance slip away.
And I couldn’t bear the thought of being no different from my executioner self.
To become even slightly better.
To find a better way.
A voice so desperate it felt humiliating escaped my lips.
“Please…”
But the one making this final plea wasn’t me…
Not the clown who performed shows for nobles’ amusement.
It was the me who first met Master Sana.
The past me, who genuinely wanted to save people, was begging.
“Please—tell me a better way!!”
I repeated the plea I had made to Master Sana.
Discarding all pride, I bowed my head.
I didn’t care that my expensive, elegant suit was getting dirty.
All that mattered was now.
I wanted to do my best as a doctor.
And beyond the seemingly insurmountable gate…
“Doctor Frenburg?”
The heaven-sent genius came into view.
Reaching out from beyond the impassable wall, telling me to rise…
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