Chapter 4: Deep in Thoughts of Their Own
“YOU there. Young master Vigant.”
After splitting off from the others, Henrik heard someone speaking to him and turned around. Bralle was standing there. Professor Fair and Square himself. Henrik struggled to keep a neutral expression, looking up evenly at the professor.
“Was there something you needed me for?”
“It’s about the future aspirations questionnaire you submitted the other day. I was wondering if I could convince you to reconsider.”
Unable to keep up his poker face, Henrik found himself frowning.
The questionnaire was distributed soon after the commencement of second year. Medical students were to choose one of three options for their future. The first was to remain at the Academy as a physician-scientist. The second, to work as a physician at a major hospital. And the third, to work as a private physician at one of the free city clinics.
Since the upcoming curriculum directly correlated to these three choices, they needed to work out student numbers for the upcoming classes.
Henrik had put down that he planned to become a physician-scientist.
He’d been expecting there to be pushback against his choice, but not this soon. And he had hardly expected the pushback to be coming from Bralle.
“Why?”
It was a simple enough question, though quietly spoken. Bralle paused for a second before answering.
“You’re an outstanding student. After all, your family runs the Grantz public medical clinic.”
“…What of it?”
The Grantz Free Clinic was the largest free clinic in Isea’s metropolis, located on land that once belonged to the capital of Radius. It was as large as the kingdom’s own Royal Clinic and held just as much authority.
Henrik’s father was a respected doctor, on friendly terms with even the royal family. He was very well connected and respected in select circles.
So everyone who knew anything on the subject assumed Henrik was at the Academy to one day inherit his father’s medical business. But that wasn’t Henrik’s intention at all.
“Your family runs a public clinic, so I’d recommend working in a private practice or hospital. Do your residency elsewhere for the experience, and then take over the family clinic.”
“Why are you trying to counsel me right now?”
Henrik’s tone was thick with suspicion.
He’d been expecting resistance from his father. But to hear the same lecture from a stranger…
Bralle simply smiled.
“Your father and I are old friends. Perhaps he never told you? We were classmates here at the Academy.”
Bralle seemed about to embark on a nostalgia trip, but Henrik cut him short.
“Oh, I get it. So Father’s having me monitored, is he?”
“No, not at all. I’ve just taken a personal interest in you. That area of the country needs doctors.”
Why doesn’t his smile reach his eyes? Henrik thought to himself.
“You said you’re old friends? In that case, you should know all about the bad blood between my father and me.”
Bralle raised one eyebrow.
“Which is all the more reason I refuse to choose the path that would most please my father.”
And with that parting remark, Henrik turned to leave. His poker-face smile was back, but it resembled Bralle’s. It didn’t reach Henrik’s eyes, either.
✦ ✦ ✦
THE following day, Mia was sitting in Pharmacology class.
It seems obvious, but the content of the second-year classes was much more difficult than the first year. Education was cumulative, and students were expected to use the skills and know-how they’d built in the first year to advance their studies at a more rapid pace in the second.
Struggling over textbooks during first year would come back to bite you in the butt and hold you back in the second.
Mia sighed, facing off against her newly acquired textbook.
Rueger was standing behind the teacher’s lectern, writing on the blackboard with chalk. With Einz gone, the other teachers had to cover the extra workload, but not without a good deal of grumbling.
There hadn’t been enough time to hire a new teacher for the start of the new school year. Besides, background checks for potential teachers had gotten a lot more stringent after that horrible business with Einz.
The topic of today’s class was “Radius Fever.”
“Put our best foot forward, eh?” Mia muttered under her breath as she stared at the back of Rueger’s head.
She was still hung up on what Rueger had said to them the previous day.
Mia wasn’t feeling so confident in her own abilities these days. Her sense of pride over the medicinal know-how she’d accrued so far seemed to be crumbling.
She also had no idea how to go about making a new drug, armed with nothing but her knowledge of current drug effects.
The steps towards creating a new drug were also far more difficult than Mia had ever imagined.
First, they had to start by discovering the source of the drug’s components, identify the cause of the disease, and think of how to support the body’s internal workings through the drug’s application.
All medicines really are, after all, are tools to support the body’s natural healing systems.
Take the common cold, for example. It’s impossible to destroy the source of a cold. All we can do is control the symptoms and wait for the immune system to clear the virus.
“But back to what I was saying about Radius fever… Custer, care to enlighten us?”
Mia’s classmate, Custer, jumped to his feet in a panic. Flipping through the textbook in front of him, he cleared his throat.
“Um…Radius fever is a kind of cold virus that spreads in the winter season…unlike a cold, however, it’s terribly infectious…”
Relieved to be done answering, Custer sat back down with a plop, unfortunately missing the chair completely. One of his friends snorted with laughter.
Custer always seemed to be in a nervous tizzy about something. Every now and then, he’d let out a high-pitched squeal in class, irritating his professors. Secretly, Mia thought he was even more of a weirdo than she apparently was.
Rueger sighed with a put-upon air.
“Radius Fever is unbelievably contagious and known throughout the world. Ten years ago, it ripped through the land, taking countless lives.”
Mia knew all about Radius Fever.
The disease ravaged the weaker immune systems of the elderly and children, stealing away their lives. The name had an interesting origin, too. Long ago, the disease tore through the Isea Kingdom’s royal family, cutting the bloodlines short. With the scars of war still fresh in everyone’s minds, blame turned to the citizens of Radius Kingdom. People claimed the disease was a curse on the Isea royal family, sent by Radius.
Of course, there was no scientific basis for this. But you could almost understand the thinking there.
“Is there any treatment?”
Another student posed that question.
“No,” said Rueger shortly. “Only palliative measures exist.”
Mia was still intimidated by Rueger’s severe personality, but most of the class seemed to have gotten used to him by now. Maybe it was just his harsh expression that freaked her out the most…
“As there’s no real treatment, the government enacted laws to curb the spread of the disease.”
At the first signs of a spread, the public was banned from large gatherings, and wearing a face mask was made mandatory. Noncompliance was punishable by law. These were the most effective measures for preventing wide-scale infection.
Rueger wrote those details on the board, and Mia jotted them down in her notebook.
“A cure is being sought globally, not just here in Isea. Research is ongoing, both at home and abroad. Baumann, how long does it take for a cure to be developed for a given disease, generally?”
Mia leaped to her feet. Darn it, she’d been zonking out at her desk.
“The minimum development period is generally ten years… Ten years until practical application is possible.”
“Right, which is why a cure won’t help if we’ve already reached widespread infection rates. That’s why we need preventative and palliative measures.”
Rueger went on to list the palliative measures available on the board, but Mia had ceased taking notes.
Those are the same methods we used to handle the disease back at the clinic…
Mia was disappointed. She’d hoped to learn about cutting-edge medicine by coming to the Academy.
She felt like she was getting nowhere at all. As she sighed, Rueger turned and shot her a grin.
“The laws were enacted to cover for the delay in medical advancement. The health of the people isn’t the responsibility of medical science alone, you see. But it’s no good to rely on the government to maintain the public health over the long term, now is it?”
It was faint, but a hint of expectation was visible in Rueger’s gaze.
“Are you going to lose faith and give up?”
She had the feeling that’s what he was asking her. Mia sat up straight and lifted her chin. She didn’t have time to wallow in despair.