Legendary Figure

Kraft had just lived through the busiest month of his life.

His old routine—teaching one class in the morning and writing two pages in the afternoon—had been violently and inexorably upended, careening out of control.

The first thing to change was his daily teaching load. It had jumped from one lecture to two: one on Human Anatomy, and another on general surgery to prepare the students for operations. Other lecturers attended the latter, too.

The change in his schedule had set off a whole chain of dominoes.

He now had to carve out some of the time he'd previously spent reviewing Anatomy in the afternoons and rack his brains over how to simplify surgical material into something he could teach.

His first major hurdle was aseptic technique. He had to think carefully about how to explain it to everyone.

The most straightforward approach was to say, "I believe there are living things all around us that are too small to see"—a simple, effective way to sum up the concept of microorganisms.

That raised another problem: after explaining it, he'd have to find a way to prove his point. He'd need a microscope.

High-quality glass had only recently become available in Dunling. The most feasible plan for now was to buy two pieces of clear natural crystal, then find someone to grind and assemble them. There was no guarantee they'd work, and it wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Speaking of equipment, he also needed a distillation setup to obtain relatively pure, high-concentration alcohol, so he could disinfect skin.

The many tangled needs spun off by one simple operation had left him exhausted in both body and mind. He couldn't find time to deal with most of them outside his classes and lesson preparation.

And those were just his affairs at the Academy. Worse, he'd discovered that he'd become part of the Medical School's outlandish rumors, and had, in a sense, temporarily lost the meal ticket he'd only just earned and barely had time to enjoy.

On the third day after the operation, he'd just stepped into the tavern when Gris greeted him with great enthusiasm.

The man called out to Kraft loudly, announcing to the whole room that this excellent doctor had saved his daughter's life. To celebrate, he declared that beer was on him for everyone there that day.

People from the other academies had already heard rumors that the Medical School had someone bold enough to cut open a living person for treatment. Now they all knew what he looked like: the young, blond Medical School lecturer was Kraft.

As luck would have it, Kraft's blond hair was as distinctive as Ryan's. Combined with his youth, it meant people from all the academies soon carried the news back with them. Every time he entered a tavern, students from other academies recognized him.

These curious students stared at him as if he were some exotic animal. The bolder ones came over to join his table and ask all sorts of strange questions.

After a few lunches, Kraft couldn't stand the atmosphere anymore. He had no choice but to change out of his black robe each day and eat at taverns farther from the Academy.

He soon discovered that, in an era starved for entertainment, sensational news with a touch of horror spread countless times faster than he'd expected—especially when a tavern owner could vouch for it.

That month, he'd heard seven different versions of the story in at least five taverns, and not one matched what had actually happened.

The least fantastical version claimed that Kraft came from a family with a long tradition of medical research, dating back to before the Norse Kingdom existed. He doubted his grandfather would appreciate that rumor.

The most outrageous version claimed that Kraft had made a deal with the devil to come up with such a terrifying treatment. Kraft listened as a drunk, barely coherent man shouted about it, then kicked the stool out from under him on his way out.

The rumors gave Kraft a headache in every possible way. But fame did bring him one benefit: patients began coming to him.

By then, Lis had reached the end of her two-week observation period, while Lucius had been under observation for a month. After one "no abnormalities" after another was written on their daily examination reports, Kraft's confidence had steadily grown.

Thanks to his growing reputation, people were actually willing to seek help at the Academy. Most of the unfortunates with upset stomachs were assigned to Lecturer Romolo, while Kraft selected three cases he wanted to handle himself.

At first, Kraft had thought about extending the observation period by another half month. But the patients had already arrived, and he'd completed their examinations.

Under the pressure of thinking that "not saving them means they die," Kraft performed three more operations. He also improved the conditions further, switching the surgical supplies to finer cotton cloth and having everyone in and around the operating area wear boiled linen caps, masks, and gowns.

With those precautions in place, he was willing to let a small number of people who weren't involved in the operations come in and observe.

It wasn't that he didn't want to use better, finer cloth. The cost simply limited his imagination. Wenden Port lay in the north, where the climate had nothing whatsoever to do with growing cotton.

All cotton goods had to be shipped in by sea. Even using them just for surgical supplies was already making the costs look grim.

Unfortunately, with their limited resources, all their precautions still weren't enough. One patient developed an infection at the surgical incision. Fortunately, it didn't spread into the abdominal cavity. In hindsight, Kraft suspected the trouble had come from not having anything suitable to disinfect the wound, or from someone touching it while changing the dressing.

The incident rang alarm bells for Kraft. He stayed up all night drafting a set of procedural guidelines and posted them on the wall, forbidding anyone who hadn't memorized them from touching patients. The issue of distilling alcohol was officially added to his list of priorities as well.

Liston, on the other hand, thought things were looking very promising. He suggested extending the guidelines and the "Clear Clarity" to amputations—the name he'd given the diluted solution.

Clear Clarity sounded pretty good. Liston said he'd named it that because he found the solution as clear as water, which struck him as remarkable.

Kraft and Lucius felt a little guilty, but didn't tell him that it really was almost all water. They approved the name and announced to the public that it was a new medicine developed by the Medical School. They naturally dropped the claim that it was a family secret medicine.

Amputations were Liston's specialty. He had his own clinic outside the Academy, and business was pretty good. In a port town like this, people were bound to hurt themselves doing something dangerous. To save money, they'd slap on a quick dressing and get back to work.

Constant exposure to seawater led to severe infections. Unidentified powders were smeared over the wounds, which quickly worsened until the only solution was a quick amputation. So he never lacked patients.

But as a lecturer specializing in Anatomy, his extensive knowledge rarely had much chance to help amid his patients' screams. All he could do was get the job done in a few minutes. Clear Clarity gave him hope.

After several failed attempts to persuade Kraft, Liston used the excuse that the new surgical method needed guidance before it could be applied to amputations. He brought Kraft to his clinic to observe several operations and successfully obtained permission to use Clear Clarity Potion.

Kraft strictly limited how much he could use. It was only to be used in more serious amputations, and only with careful consideration of each case. He also required Liston to record patient information, arrange regular follow-up examinations, and make follow-up visits for anyone who missed an appointment. Lucius would be responsible for checking his written reports.

But as it turned out, if something wasn't entirely under your control, it was bound to develop in unexpected ways.

In just half a month, Liston's clinic had used up almost half the small cup of diluted solution Kraft had given him. When Liston came to ask for a larger share, Lucius brought along twenty-three patient records.

They were all serious cases, to be sure. Even the milder ones involved a few rotting fingers, described as "blackened, foul-smelling, and numb." Kraft couldn't possibly accuse Liston of overusing Clear Clarity Potion for amputations that involved removing so much tissue.

The number of cases was far higher than he'd expected.

But the stack of papers was far thinner than he'd expected.

Kraft flipped through them quickly. Only twelve had records of a five-day postoperative checkup, and of those, just three had a follow-up recorded ten days later.

Of the remaining eleven, they'd managed to track down two during follow-up visits. As for the others, they didn't even have specific information about them—let alone know whether they were alive five days later.

Kraft wasn't angry. He was too busy to have the energy for anger. Being a legendary figure wasn't easy. Besides his doubled teaching load and writing assignments, he now had to see patients who came to ask for help. Some had heard the ridiculous rumors and came to make even more ridiculous requests.

"Lecturer Liston, I need an explanation." Kraft propped his head up from the pile of papers and looked wearily at the two men standing awkwardly in front of him.

Liston had expected a scolding, so Kraft's attitude only made him more uneasy. He might have felt better if Kraft had yelled at him, but the sight of Kraft's exhausted expression made him feel even guiltier.

The kindhearted Lucius stepped forward to explain the problem for him.

"It's like this. We'd never dealt with this sort of thing before. We thought the follow-up would be like it was after the intussusception operations—that the parents would bring their children back, or that their addresses would be easy to find, like Lis's." He glanced at Kraft, who had turned the page of one of the files on the desk.

"And?" Kraft nodded, indicating that he should continue.

"At first, we did a few amputations. Some patients were dockworkers, some were sailors. We told them to come back in five days for a free checkup."

"Right, that makes sense."

"But only one sailor and one dockworker came back. We went to the port to look for the sailors and ran into a problem." Seeing that Kraft wasn't as angry, Lucius began to speak more smoothly. "Most ships don't stay here that long, so..."

That was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Kraft had simply made assumptions, and he immediately admitted his mistake. "Sorry, that was my fault. The follow-up period is too long."

"But that still doesn't explain why there were so few follow-up visits, does it?"

"Uh, here's what happened." Liston picked up where Lucius had left off. "We made some improvements afterward and were careful to ask for their exact addresses. They gave them to us."

"Right. So why did you only manage two follow-up visits?" Kraft gave up trying to work it out and waited for an explanation.

"There were two problems. Some dockworkers don't have a permanent place to live. They stay wherever they find temporary work, then move on when the job's done. When we went to look for them five days later, we couldn't find them."

"The others have families and permanent homes, but they live in neighborhoods we don't usually visit." Liston admitted his failure with a downcast expression. "I don't know if you've ever been to the Salt Tide District. It's a filthy, disorderly place. The people who live there aren't always sure they can describe their own location correctly, and to outsiders, the place is a maze."

"Their work is unstable, and they don't have money to spare. Taking a whole day off for a checkup..."

"Knock, knock, knock." A series of knocks interrupted Liston's complaint.

"Is Lecturer Kraft here? Someone's looking for you."

"All right, I'll be right there." Kraft struggled to his feet, wondering what sort of strange patient or family member it would be this time.

"I'll come up with a new plan. If I have the time, I can give it to you tomorrow."