Falma de Médicis was the second-born son of Archduke Bruno.
Unlike Pilule who was the eldest son and the heir to the de Médicis family, Falma would become the household Royal Court Apothecary in the future. So his father, Bruno, raised him in a very strict manner since childhood. It was so that Falma could withstand the heavy responsibilities of a full-fledged Royal Court Apothecary with sense of fulfillment.
He was allowed to handle dangerous medical herbs, and be in situations where he could get burned.
Falma would get so exhausted from his training in Divine Arts, that lasted from morning to evening, he ended up crying because he wanted to play.
It reached the point where he was already afraid to look straight into his father’s eye.
It was not a whip of love anymore, Bruno inadvertently became very strict to his own son. Therefore, his father stopped guiding Falma directly and left the training for pharmacology and Divine Arts to Eleonore Bonnefoy, Bruno’s most reliable and excellent disciple. Eleonore seemed to have trained him well. For the past several years, Bruno wasn’t able to directly keep an eye to Falma’s growth.
An apothecary tended to be close to the lives of their patient. Since it was most necessary for an apothecary to have an empathizing heart than skills.
It was the sincere face to face interaction with the patient that granted belief. Bruno neglected to make any effort to understand his son’s heart. Even in regards to his son’s thoughts or dreams.
Bruno didn’t know Falma very well.
Though, he still realized that the boy in front of him wasn’t the Falma he knew.
Bruno couldn’t remember when the change happened. He was deeply ashamed of it.
Bruno took out a notebook from Falma’s bag which was beside him. He flipped through the pages. Falma was separated by a wall of ice so he couldn’t stop his father from checking his notebook.
Bruno went pale.
Falma wrote down his notes in Japanese so nobody could read it. He regretted his blunder that his notes in the process of examining stained samples were unexpectedly snatched away.. Though, it didn’t change anything as his father couldn’t read Japanese. He also began to take all kinds of records of this world like the medical records of the servants he examined and the medication records. He also graphed a lot of examination data. Mathematical and chemical structural formulas would look like a cipher that resembles some kind of magic in his father’s eye.
“I will say it again. Who are you!”
In this world, there was a legend of a Changeling (child that was swapped).There was something like an evil spirit that will stealthily swap children. The swapped child was considered to be a child of a monster and not of a human. He suspected that Falma was a changeling because of the strange characters that was written and the use of Divine Arts without a wand. There was also a legend that if a changeling was discovered by a human, it would disappear into thin air.
He thought about risking his son’s life, but it wasn’t his son anymore that would disappear.
“This writing, what is it? this, and this, and this! Where did you learn this!”
“I acquired this knowledge of medicine in a dream I saw, on the day I was struck by the lightning, as well as the written characters.”
Falma cooked up an explanation, and his father bought it. It wasn’t necessarily a lie if he described his previous life as an event in a dream. If Falma didn’t explain, it would be troublesome if he was asked where he learned it, or what book it was written in as those could be searched.
“It was during the lightning strike huh?”
“Yes it was.”
In the dim compounding room, Falma took off his coat in order to show the scars on both arms. His father clearly saw it through the transparent ice wall.
“……The medicine god dwells in you.”
“This is……”
How did this happen? what kind of person was he? Falma doesn’t even know if he was still human. Because Falma had become silent since then, it indirectly transmitted to his father, and he affirmed it.
“I see.”
Unlike the father who had been striving day and night on the way of medicine, the son was blessed by the medicine god. His father didn’t have any choice but to follow the will of the guardian deity whom he couldn’t stop to love and respect.
“Dear father, please use this potion for her majesty. This is special medicine.”
If it was said that Bruno compounded the potion and the treatment succeeded, his honor would be maintained. He would also keep his position as the Royal Court Apothecary and would gain the favor of the Empress. Even if Falma didn’t meddle, it was better for his father to do so.
“You administer the medicine you made, Falma.”
His father shook his head a little bit to decline and solemnly told him.
“That is the pride and responsibility of an apothecary. The patient believed you because you staked your life for the medicine that they receive.”
Falma thought that his father was a true Apothecary. He truly realized how immature he had been.
“I understand.”
Falma cancelled the ice wall with his right hand, held the potion, and went past his father out of the compounding room. He left a word to his father when passing by.
“Please leave it to me, father. I’m going to save you and her Majesty.”
This kind of tone was something his father had never heard from Falma before.
It was not the words of an arrogant boy, but he heard it like it was the words of a god.
Bruno bowed his head in silence, then fell down on his knees.
How could he stop Falma anyway?
Falma, with the potion in hand, appeared before the empress.
The empress was sitting up impatiently waiting for Falma to return. She held great expectations. She mustered her last drop of energy to return from the edge of death back to the land of the living.
“You’re late, her Majesty had been waiting. What happened to your father? Did he run away?”
The chief court physician, Claude, tattled. Claude thought that because Bruno wasn’t able to make a proper medicine, he didn’t consider the boy capable of any better. This was not child’s play. Claude was irritated that Bruno didn’t come back immediately and euthanize the Empress.
“I don’t mind that it took time, come closer.”
The Empress called Falma to come close. Since Falma was wearing a mask, he was spared from airborne infection. He approached without hesitation.
“For your information, my father did not run away. My father and I compounded this medicine for her Majesty. This is a new medicine, your Majesty.”
Falma had honored the work my father had done as an Apothecary until now, that was what I had conveyed to them.
Unsteadily walking over, Bruno appeared at that moment. The group of physicians looked at him with contempt for his inability to remonstrate his son’s intrusion but Bruno no longer wanted to stop Falma.
Besides, there was no way for him to stop Falma anyway.
Whatever Falma did with his hands from now on, Bruno would engrave it into his memory.
“Before I explain the efficacy of the new medicine, I want to show something to your Majesty. Will you cooperate for a moment?”
Falma held out a palm-sized metal tool respectfully before the Empress.
“What… is this?”
The Empress picked it up while ruminating. It was a small metal instrument. Falma once again took a sample of the Empress’ phlegm and stained it on the glass plate, he then set it on the metal plate of the instrument.
“Please observe the bodily fluids that I took from your Majesty with the instrument. Then, please look at the hole from a bright place… Like this.”
He opened the needle sized hole on the instrument and urged the Empress to bring her eyes close to it and peep through. Falma asked the chamberlain to open the window for ventilation and bring a lamp. The lamp was then placed below the instrument to guarantee some light.
The Empress was skeptical as she peeped.
“What is that? Are you mocking her Majesty!?”
The Chief Court Physician, Claude, shook his voice in anger.
“Wait, don’t be so noisy.”
The Chief Court Physician kept his mouth shut. The Empress’ attention was already absorbed on the small instrument…
And then.
“I see something visible.”
Falma could magnify his view with the [Diagnosis Eye], but it lacked details on the object.
Science could prove the existence of tuberculosis bacteria.
He had invited the Empress to the micro-world which no one from this world had seen yet.
What Falma had presented was a simple microscope with the simplest structure that had a pinhole, a glass ball, and piece of metal. The single lens microscope was the invention of Leeuwenhoek, it had sufficient performance even if it doesn’t have a good lens. An electrical system was not necessary at all, there are no lens tube as it was just a lens on a metal plate with a specimen holder, it was simple and very small at 5 cm.
Don’t underestimate the power of antiques. During Falma’s previous life, he was able to identify disease causing germs in countries without electricity, the microscope had about 200x resolution. You couldn’t say that the magnification was sufficient, but it had minimum performance.
The image that the simple mechanism showed unveiled the clear truth.
“Your majesty, do you know that rod like thing that keeps wriggling?”
Falma drew its shape in the air with his finger.
It was the mycobacterium tuberculosis.
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