# Karma (3)
*
The Academy is governed by its Chancellor.
However, the Chancellor's authority extends only to matters of academics and education—the administration of the Academy Territory falls entirely outside his jurisdiction.
So who, in this harsh world, stands guard over the Academy Territory's walls?
The answer is four Marquises.
Lords who, by rights, ought to be governing their own proper territories. Four such individuals, each a force capable of commanding an entire domain, had gathered here solely to protect one Academy Territory—and so it was that even as countless territories had vanished and been recaptured over the course of hundreds of years, the Academy Territory's tradition had never once been broken.
And Marquis Barlot was one of those four guardians.
[Do not respond—simply listen. He is Marquis Barlot of Foresight. His arcane magic is publicly known to be of the precognition type, and his fighting aura is approximately 5th Rank.]
I quietly listened to Perisia's telepathy reaching me from a distance.
[However, even the Board of Inspection has been unable to obtain detailed information on individuals at the Marquis level or above. Even the information on his precognition ability belongs to the previous head of the family—we have no way of knowing how it may have been modified by the current generation.]
That made sense.
Arcane magic was a territory even the Board of Inspection found uncomfortable to probe.
It was, after all, the secret family recipe that made nobles into nobles—poke at it carelessly and both sides would only end up with bruised feelings.
And so the Board of Inspection made it a practice to leave arcane magic well alone, unless there was a particular problem to be addressed.
The one exception—the single occasion on which they would verify it—was during the succession of a family head.
Since they needed to evaluate whether the family was qualified to inherit its noble title, they naturally obtained information about the arcane magic at that time.
But even then, it was only the previous generation's arcane magic. How the current head might have modified it was something even the Board of Inspection didn't know.
[If Marquis Barlot used that precognition ability to arrive at the detention center at exactly the right moment, this situation is explained. But that raises a question that doesn't get explained: why did he leave the Investigation Bureau Director untouched until then?]
Yes.
That was the problem.
If he had precognition, then what exactly had he been doing while the shapeshifter was running its ploy on the airship?
And so I couldn't bring myself to trust the Marquis who had appeared so suddenly.
[I'll maintain my distance and follow while keeping contact. Unlike me, Lord Yulian will find it difficult to conceal your magical power when responding to communications—so please don't answer me unless you need help.]
The one saving grace was that my bodyguard Perisia was guaranteeing my safety.
Perhaps because she was affiliated with the Board of Inspection—so far, it seemed the Marquis hadn't detected her presence.
Perisia had said: even if the Marquis suddenly snapped and came at me, she had the means to protect me.
So for now, I could follow the Marquis without undue worry.
*
The estate I arrived at, guided by the Marquis, was quite large.
Roughly three times the size of our home.
Ah, though we were moving soon, now that we'd become a Viscount Family—so perhaps two times.
But for all its size, the atmosphere the estate gave off was far removed from grandeur.
'...Eerie.'
It was large, certainly—but the more fitting word for the estate itself was dead.
Almost no servants were visible, even though some ought to have been working into the late hours. Not a flicker of candlelight from patrols along the corridors.
The fountain had gone long enough without water that it was cloaked in moss, and the garden had been pruned with the air of something done merely to keep up appearances.
'Is the mistress of the house... occupied with other things?'
In most households like this, the management fell to the wife. In homes where the wife worked outside, it became the husband's responsibility instead.
Since Marquis Barlot was the one working outside the home, it would naturally have been the wife's role to manage the estate.
And yet there was no trace of any mistress of the house in evidence here.
"This way."
At the Marquis's voice, I set my idle thoughts aside and looked up.
I stepped through the front door he had opened.
As I'd predicted from outside, a wide corridor greeted me.
But that was all.
In the corridor too, there was no trace of a mistress's touch.
'Come to think of it, no head butler or servants in sight either.'
It's standard for the head butler to handle the greeting—practically a cliché.
In many respects, this was a strangely un-noble-like estate.
I was following the family head's guidance toward the guest room when it happened.
Creak—squeak—
At the moment I had just entered the second-floor corridor from the hall,
the sound of wheels reached me from somewhere along the passage.
A familiar sound.
The sound of an old wheelchair rolling across carpet.
My gaze drifted naturally in that direction.
'A child?'
Seated in the wheelchair was a boy.
He looked to be around sixteen or seventeen, and his appearance was emaciated.
Marquis Barlot's eyes widened when he spotted him.
"Adrian. What were you doing up at this hour without sleeping?"
Hesitantly, the boy produced a book from inside his arms.
"I wanted to read the next book... It was too late to wake my maid..."
"Wake her regardless. That's what she was hired for."
"I understand, Father..."
The Marquis paused briefly.
He seemed to be weighing something, then introduced the boy to me.
"Lord Yulian. My son. The one treasure in the world I have."
The Marquis moved slowly around behind the boy's wheelchair.
"After an accident—a fall from a horse when he was young—he ended up this way. He'll need to be attending social events soon, and I'm worried to no small degree."
At his words, my gaze naturally traveled to the boy's knees.
Unfortunately, long trousers made it impossible to read any information from them.
"Young Master Adrian. How do you do—I'm Yulian Nihilrit."
"N-nice to meet you. You're the one teaching the Black Magic Defense Arts course, aren't you..."
"Oh, you know of it?"
"Hehe... I've always dreamed of getting into the Hero Department someday..."
Young Master Adrian smiled, a little bashfully.
But it didn't last.
His expression clouded abruptly, and he dropped his gaze to his own knees.
The Marquis caught the meaning in that look too, and pressed his lips together.
I watched the father and son in silence and considered.
'...I should try treating him.'
There was the physician's instinct, of course—but there was another reason too.
At present, I had no way of knowing whether the Marquis was a safe man.
And yet the look in that same uncertain Marquis's eyes as he gazed at his son was absolutely dripping with adoration.
In a situation like this, if I were to cure the son—
'I could secure my own safety to a certain degree.'
Even the most beast in human clothing of black sorcerers wouldn't easily sacrifice someone who had healed a beloved son.
And from what I could see, this wasn't a condition that would be cured overnight either.
In other words—for as long as I was treating the son, the Marquis might be unable to touch me.
Having completed that calculation, I broke the silence and addressed the Marquis.
"Forgive me for asking—have the healing priests perhaps..."
"I was told there was no remedy."
Mm.
First point noted: this wasn't a walking disability caused by physical trauma.
If a broken bone or severed nerve were the problem, a Greater Heal would have fixed it. The fact that it hadn't meant something else was at work.
'Conditions that can cause a walking disability for reasons other than physical trauma...'
Diagnoses lined up in my mind in quick succession.
I picked out the most common cause from among them.
'Perhaps...'
"Would you allow me to take a look?"
"Please do. If it's you—the one who resolved the trouble with the princely couple—perhaps there's a way I haven't considered."
Marquis Barlot gave his ready consent.
Young Master Adrian, by contrast, appeared flustered.
"Fa-Father?!"
"Show him."
"..."
Hesitatingly, Adrian lifted his leg.
Bruises covered it entirely, and his knee was swollen a dark red, on the verge of bursting.
'Hemarthrosis?'
Good heavens.
In all my life, I had never seen a hematoma this severe.
Hemarthrosis is, essentially, the condition where blood escapes the blood vessels and floods the interior of a joint.
The pooled blood collects there and presses on the nerves, bones, ligaments, and other structures—causing pain with every movement, and in severe cases, rendering the patient unable to walk.
"How long has your knee been like this?"
"About three years. Until a few years ago he could still walk, but he's been relying on the wheelchair for the past year."
At that duration, the nerves and muscles could be considered essentially dead.
With Heal, there was a way to treat it somehow—but it would be a long time before he walked again.
"So right now—is it pain that prevents you from moving, or is movement itself difficult?"
"Before it was the pain. Now it just won't move."
As expected—the situation was bad in multiple respects.
This called for immediate treatment.
I produced a syringe from inside my coat.
"...Why is that coming from there?"
"I carry them as a basic matter of habit, like a pen."
For a surgeon, there are an extraordinary number of things you can do with an empty syringe.
It had simply become habit to keep a couple on me at all times.
Tap, tap.
While I removed the cap and checked the needle, I confirmed a few additional matters.
"Young Master Adrian. Do you brush your teeth regularly?"
"About once a day, yes."
"Do your gums bleed often?"
"Yes. They do."
"Have you had any teeth pulled?"
"Of course."
"And there was quite a commotion when the bleeding wouldn't stop afterward?"
"That... how do you know..."
Having asked that much, the answer was already as good as found.
"Lord Barlot. I believe I know Young Master Adrian's illness."
"Truly?"
The Marquis's face lit up visibly.
I gave him a nod.
Bruise-covered legs, hemarthrosis, blood that wouldn't stop—and a pallid boy.
Gather those clues and the answer was practically self-evident.
'Similar to Eri's case—and yet different.'
The type of disease was similar to Eri's.
The management approach, too.
I held the syringe up before the two of them and said,
"Young Master Adrian. Have you ever had an injection?"
"Hm? Ah, yes... I've had vaccines. Will this leg be treated with needles too?"
"Yes. It will hurt a little."
"How much?"
"Not terribly much. Roughly fifteen times the pain of a vaccine injection."
"...?"
Young Master Adrian stared at me as though he hadn't heard correctly.
I pressed on without giving his brain time to process the words.
"Just a little sting. I'll put it in on a count of five."
"Huh? Oh... yes..."
"One..."
Two.
Prick.
The needle went in at the superolateral aspect of the patella.
"Mm-!"
Adrian's leg trembled in shock.
I paid it no mind and, holding the knee steady, drew blood through the needle.
'That's quite a lot.'
"Tell me if it hurts."
"A-a-a-aah..."
"Yes. Almost done."
The Marquis, watching from behind me, muttered with an air of disbelief.
"If you're going to ask him to say so, why ask in the first place?"
"..."
I didn't answer.
It was a mystery stretching back to the time of Hippocrates—I didn't know either.
I continued from there—superiomedial, anteromedial, lateral.
In total, I inserted the needle from four directions around the knee, drawing out the pooled blood.
I bent the needle and tossed it into my pocket.
Then I spent a long moment staring at the blood inside the syringe.
"What are you doing?"
"The blood isn't clotting well."
Confirmed.
I capped the syringe and tossed it into my pocket.
I turned to address them both.
"To confirm—Young Master Adrian. Are you currently taking any kind of painkiller?"
"Yes."
"Do you know the components of that painkiller?"
"It's a potion brewed from ependule leaves."
Ependule leaves?
A plant I'd never heard of.
"How long have you been taking it?"
"Since the fall from the horse, three years ago..."
"It would be best if you stopped taking that painkiller going forward."
"Pardon?"
I hadn't yet researched the components of those ependule leaves, so I couldn't say for certain.
But as a general rule, painkillers are contraindicated for patients with hemarthrosis.
Not every painkiller—but approximately seven out of ten non-narcotic painkillers are bad for patients with hemarthrosis.
Aspirin included: most painkillers have the effect of inhibiting blood clotting.
That was the same reason I had prohibited pain relief potions for Eri.
Easy to forget, but she was a girl with the same blood condition as this Young Master Adrian.
"Most pain relief potions have the effect of causing heavier bleeding."
"Does that relate to my current condition?"
"Of course."
I gestured to Adrian's bruise-covered legs.
"These bruises are a symptom caused by your blood not clotting as well as other people's."
"Bruises?"
"Yes."
People really didn't realize this, it turned out.
Bruises form when capillaries rupture beneath the skin.
In other words, if bruises appear without having bumped into anything, it can be a sign of a bleeding disorder.
"And you're feeling somewhat dizzy and weak as well?"
"Yes, exactly!"
Adrian was now staring at me very nearly the way one might stare at a prophet.
"I can introduce you to someone who can prescribe the appropriate medicine and diet for those symptoms."
"You won't be treating me yourself, Lord Yulian?"
"There is someone more skilled in this area than I am."
An elf obsessed with bloodletting.
There was now someone who surpassed even me when it came to matters of blood.
But Adrian's reaction was strange.
"Ah... w-well, that..."
He glanced anxiously at his father.
The Marquis placed both hands on his son's shoulders and said,
"Thank you for your concern."
"I've drained the blood that had pooled in the knee, so you should be able to move it."
Following my words, Adrian tested moving his leg while still seated in the wheelchair.
His face tightened slightly with pain, but compared to moments ago, it moved remarkably well.
"It was because the pooled blood was preventing Heal from working. Now that I've drained it, you should be able to walk again."
"Thank you..."
The reaction, however, was considerably less enthusiastic than I'd anticipated.
In my long experience, making someone who couldn't walk get up and walk again didn't usually end with this sort of response.
'Normally they'd be weeping and crying out like the Second Coming...'
Adrian's and the Marquis's reactions were lukewarm.
Then, all at once, the reason for their muted response came to me.
'Could it be...'
"Lord Barlot."
"Mm?"
"I'd like to speak with you privately about Young Master Adrian's follow-up treatment—do you have a moment?"
"It's late. Can't it wait until morning?"
"The matter is of some importance."
If tonight passes, I suspect I won't get another chance.
The Marquis looked at me in silence.
The good-natured smile was gone without a trace, replaced by an expression entirely cold.
Young Master Adrian, sensing something in that look, cast nervous glances back and forth between us.
Finally, the Marquis spoke.
"Very well. We'll speak in my office."
He turned his head toward his son in the wheelchair.
"Adrian. Go on ahead."
"Father..."
"Sleep well."
Peck.
He pressed his lips to the brow of his fully-grown son, then turned and walked down the opposite corridor toward his office.
It was quite a striking thing to witness.
I had never seen a family head greet a grown child that way.
"What are you standing there for? Come along."
Already far ahead, standing before the office door, the Marquis called to me.
I quickened my pace and followed.
[Be careful, Lord Yulian.]
Perisia's warning reached me from somewhere I couldn't place.
But I let it pass through one ear and out the other.
The certainty that the Marquis would never harm me had taken root the moment I saw that farewell exchange with his son.
And so, having entered the Marquis's office, I sat down across from him and got straight to the point.
"Young Master Adrian's condition is a disease called hemophilia."
"Hemophilia? Is it curable?"
"If we're asking whether it's possible or not... yes. It is."
I produced the syringe containing Adrian's blood in front of the Marquis.
I removed the cap and let a drop of blood fall onto the table before us.
And then—
Snap!
I flicked my finger, and the dark red blood clotted.
Basic blood magic.
Not quite to the level of hanging out a mage's shingle—
but in the course of teaching Eri, I'd become reasonably capable of controlling blood clotting to some degree.
"With this magic, it should be possible."
Seeing it, the Marquis's expression brightened considerably.
He looked far more energized by the sight of me clotting the blood than he had by the news that his son's leg could move again.
"In that case—"
With that, the last puzzle piece snapped into place.
"What a pity."
"?"
"You could have concealed it so well until the very end. You must have let your guard down when the finish line came into view."
"..."
"Or perhaps I should attribute it to the fact that your love for your son runs so deep that even acting cannot conceal it. That interpretation seems more persuasive. Because it would be that very love that drove you to attempt something as reckless as this."
The smile that had spread across the Marquis's face developed a crack.