Chapter 240 - Pointless Thoughts

“You only needed to heal him, yet you even used precious tonics to extend his life. How very merciful of you.”

“Can it truly be called mercy to give him that much longer to experience suffering and regret?”

“Plenty of people would give their entire fortune to experience that suffering and regret a little longer.”

“Hmph. You certainly have a way with words.”

Limon spoke without a hint of embarrassment, while Maia gave a cynical snort. Watching the two converse calmly, as though this were nothing remarkable at all, Hermann found himself asking in a daze:

“... Is it really possible to artificially extend a person's lifespan?”

“Of course it is.”

Limon chuckled.

Originally, the average human lifespan had not even reached fifty years. That was not merely because people frequently lost their lives to wars, bandits, natural disasters, and other calamities.

Epidemics, food poisoning, parasites—all manner of illnesses ate away at their lifespans. Even pneumonia, now easily treated with antibiotics, had once been a dreaded disease with a mortality rate exceeding thirty percent, leaving severe aftereffects even in those who recovered.

In that sense, medicine and medical practice were the very history of humanity's struggle against the natural limits of its lifespan. Asking now whether life could be artificially prolonged was a question thousands of years too late.

Above all, Limon had another reason he could only laugh at the question.

“Listen, Mr. Sculptor. Who do you think just treated you?”

“...”

Only then did Hermann understand.

This cynical, pessimistic woman stood at the pinnacle of the clan that had always led the advancement of human medicine, from the Bronze Age to the present. She was the mistress of birth, aging, sickness, and death, still unsurpassed in making medicine and treating disease—the Green Dragon Princess, whose title as the World's Greatest Physician had been passed down through the generations for hundreds of years.

Maia sneered as she watched Hermann tremble, grasping that truth not with his head but with his heart.

“There is no need to be so delighted. As I said earlier, his treatment is not finished.”

“Hmm... You mean the illness itself still hasn't been cured?”

“Correct.”

He only felt cured because his extended lifespan had alleviated his condition enough that the symptoms no longer showed. There was no telling yet how many lingering effects the illness had left behind.

Listening to Maia's cold explanation, Limon smiled.

“Then we should find out.”

“I have already arranged a thorough examination without needing you to tell me.”

“Is a thorough examination really necessary?”

Limon shook his head. Then he turned to Hermann, who still looked dazed, and spoke with a knowing expression.

“There's a better way to check a sculptor's health. Isn't there, Mr. Sculptor?”

A little later, Hermann swallowed hard as he gazed at the deep-gold carving knife inside its glass case. He glanced once between Limon, who had set the case out with a broad grin, and Maia, who watched him with sharp eyes.

Steeling himself, he picked up the knife.

■ => ●

Τέλεια μπάλα

(Perfect sphere).

The golden radiance flowing from the carving knife displayed the same words and the same task. Hermann reached without hesitation toward the challenge he had failed midway through before, the one he had not even dared attempt again.

CRUNCH, CRUNCH!

Light fell away beneath the blade, and the rectangular block rapidly became a sphere. He felt none of the pain that had always plagued him. Even without forcibly suppressing the tremors, his hands did not shake, nor did the carving knife stray.

To a healthy person, that would have been so natural as to evoke no emotion at all. But to Hermann, who had spent the past several years ill, that simple normality was profoundly moving and exhilarating.

His hands moved.

The sculpture took shape beneath his blade.

Exactly as he willed it.

With his own two hands, he brought the perfect image in his mind into reality. As the sculpture drew closer to his ideal, a proud sense of accomplishment welled up inside him.

Sweeter than wine aged for over a century, more euphoric than any drug, that joy drew him into his carving as though he were intoxicated.

And at last, the moment the image in his imagination aligned perfectly with the sphere of light—

PA-PA-PAM!

“... Whew.”

With a dazzling burst of light like exploding fireworks, the two luminous spheres floating in the air spun around and dispersed. Unlike the shattering that had marked his failure, this was unmistakably a sign of success.

Only then did Hermann emerge from his absorption, looking pleased yet reluctant to stop.

But Maia's gaze remained cold as she watched, and Limon was equally composed.

“At least he appears capable of sculpting without difficulty.”

“We won't know for certain until we've watched at least the next stage.”

“Hmph. There is no need to state the obvious.”

As Hermann wondered at Maia's dispassionate gaze, as though she were observing a laboratory animal, and Limon's suggestive words, the scattered golden radiance gathered in the air once more, forming new shapes and words.

■ => ♀

πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος.

(Man is the measure of all things)

“...!”

The instant Hermann saw it, his eyes widened. He had already known that the carving knife's test had a second stage, and that it would be far more difficult than the first.

But the challenge that appeared after the perfect sphere surpassed his imagination.

'The Venus de Milo (Αφροδίτη της Μήλου)...!'

The essence of ancient Greek aesthetics, one of the greatest sculptures, said to express the golden ratio with utmost perfection.

What truly stunned Hermann was that this Venus had both arms intact.

The surviving Venus de Milo had no arms. Its fame was all the greater for the praise that their absence made it even more beautiful, and Hermann had always shared that opinion. Only very occasionally had he imagined what it might have looked like with both arms.

Yet the sight of the Venus de Milo with its arms intact far surpassed anything he had imagined.

How could he describe this sculpture?

Beautiful? Noble? Divine?

Unfortunately, he rejected every word the moment it occurred to him. Describing this Venus with such paltry words felt like an insult.

And so, after thinking of and discarding countless words, Hermann was left with only one.

Perfection.

This Venus possessed an absolute beauty that could be expressed by that word alone.

'I'm supposed to carve this?'

Even the first stage, the perfect sphere, had demanded a flawless sculpture without so much as a dust mote's worth of deviation. Carving a full-length statue to that same standard alone raised the difficulty beyond imagination.

And what if the statue he had to carve was this perfect?

'... Now I understand why Senaf and Ming gave up.'

Hermann murmured inwardly.

He had never understood why his former rivals had recommended him, but now he did. This test would make even a world-class sculptor despair... No, it was precisely because they were world-class sculptors that it would make them despair all the more.

Indeed, Hermann's own mouth was already parched with tension.

But he refused to yield. Compared with the despair he had felt while ill, this was nothing.

Above all, his blazing passion for a challenge and his ambition as a sculptor used even that despair as fuel, stoking his determination. His eyes gleaming like a challenger tackling a formidable task, Hermann slowly began moving the carving knife.

* * *

After gazing quietly at the flower beds for a long while from her jade throne in the artificial garden on Quetzalcoatl's lowest level, Maia suddenly asked:

“How do you feel?”

“About what, exactly?”

“About the sculptor for whose treatment you went so far as to sell yourself into slavery failing to accomplish what you wanted.”

A cold sneer played about Maia's lips, as though she were mocking him for selling his dignity for an unattainable hope.

Limon's answer was simple.

“I'm feeling hopeful.”

“... About what?”

They had just watched Hermann throw himself passionately into carving, only to fail at completing the Venus because his fingertips ultimately began to tremble. Why speak of hope rather than regret and disappointment?

When Maia asked with a furrowed brow, Limon replied without the slightest embarrassment.

“He managed to carve that well before he's even fully recovered. Doesn't it make you eager to see what he can do once he's completely cured?”

“Hmph. Do you believe he can be completely cured?”

“Well, mistress, you were the one who said that sculptor's treatment wasn't finished yet.”

“Have you forgotten that I also said I could not guarantee his full recovery?”

“But you never said you couldn't cure him, either.”

If he could not trust the World's Greatest Physician after entrusting a patient to her, who could he trust?

Maia watched Limon say this so brazenly in silence for a moment, then sneered.

“It is good to take a positive view of life, but you would do well to remember that the greater your hope, the greater your despair.”

Even confronted with a pessimism utterly unbecoming of a physician practicing the art of saving lives, Limon remained unruffled. He merely smiled and answered:

“It's still better than having no hope.”

Perhaps she disliked his brazen attitude. After watching him for a moment with her already sharp eyes narrowed still further, Maia spoke curtly.

“You may leave for today.”

“If that is your wish, mistress, then gladly.”

Limon even offered a courteous farewell before leaving the artificial garden, as though a slave could hardly refuse his mistress's command.

Maia stared steadily after him. Only long after he had disappeared did she murmur to herself:

'In how impossible he is to read, he truly does resemble the Black Dragon Clan.'

Maia knew those looks—the resentment and distrust patients and their guardians directed at her when she could not cure an illness, or when the results of treatment fell short of their expectations.

Hermann himself was a perfect example. At first, merely being able to sculpt again had made him almost leap for joy. Yet once his trembling hands caused him to fail at carving the statue, he had sunk into despair as though that earlier joy had never existed.

'Even apart from his psionics, he is a truly strange man.'

But Limon had shown no disappointment at all. This was not resignation or surrender, the absence of disappointment that came from never expecting anything in the first place. Nor did he seem to have deliberately concealed his disappointment to flatter her or be polite.

There was an inexplicable trust in him, as though he believed Maia alone could cure Hermann, and if even she could do nothing, then it had been impossible from the start. Coupled with his composure, as though they could simply look for another way if all else failed, it felt utterly unfamiliar to her.

'Why isn't he afraid of me?'

Strangest of all were his eyes.

Being shunned even within the Seven Dragons Society was only the beginning. Not just her fellow Green Dragon Clan members, but even her close attendants Barbara and Arbella, looked at her with fear, however much reverence and loyalty they offered.

Yet there was not the slightest trace of such fear in Limon's eyes.

As though he were watching a child throwing a tantrum. Or dealing with a wounded animal.

His gaze was always calm and unhurried, with only a hint of sly playfulness.

'Is he merely an excellent actor?'

'Or...?'

There had only ever been one person with that look. Reminded of someone she had last seen long ago, Maia unconsciously took on a wistful expression.

But it lasted only a moment.

“... What pointless thoughts.”

Maia sneered, as though mocking herself for entertaining futile thoughts even after speaking of hope's emptiness.

Whether Limon truly knew no fear or merely concealed it, nothing would change.

She was the Green Dragon Princess. Among the Seven Dragons Society's seven princesses, alone from the moment they hatched from their eggs, she was the loneliest—the Princess of Death, who must remain so.

As she always had, she kept others at a distance and quietly closed her eyes amid the garden of countless medicinal herbs and poisonous plants.