The yellow cotton-textured papers in Dimitry’s hand flapped as a robust gale blew in from beyond the market square, carrying the scent of burnt iron. A fitting smell for a district of Malten referred to as Smithen street—a section of the city housing blacksmiths and their shops.

As Dimitry advanced along the busy road, the overpowering stench of molten metal grew thicker and suffocating. It couldn’t have been healthy. If cigarette smoke was cancerous, how dangerous would exhaust leaking from the mouth of a burning forge be?

There was no choice but to trudge through it.

Dimitry was desperate to find a craftsman who could turn the schematics in his hands into reality. Surgical tools that would change the world. From hemostat clamps to scissors to debridement spoons, his meticulously drawn designs could push medicine several centuries into the future. Hopefully, the era of surgeons using table knives to hack away at patients would end once they discovered the superiority of a proper number ten scalpel blade.

Not that Dimitry expected to have modern tools made. There was no way for medieval blacksmiths to produce stainless steel, let alone precision surgical instruments. However, for now, he needed something. Anything.

Every wasted moment saw another patient’s final breaths.

Not all of them were plague victims. Some were knights, squires, and militiamen who fought against small but endless waves of heathens. Although the beast’s numbers were fewer than on nights of repentance, their assaults were daily. Hourly. A constant nuisance.

As the number of able-bodied soldiers dwindled, so did security in Malten—Dimitry’s last remaining safe haven. The former Gestalt Empire’s southern territories would eventually fall to plague-ridden refugees, and the Church had a strong presence in other countries. There was nowhere else to go.

He couldn’t afford to lose his new home. Especially one that provided him a castle guest room complete with varied meals, maintained baths, and warm beds.

Dimitry stopped a few meters away from an open-air forge whose fiery breath brought sensation to his cold-numbed fingers and face. A giant man stood in front, hammer in hand. His instrument clanged against the edge of a box-shaped object.

The blacksmith’s head shot to the right. “Boy! More water and charcoal!”

“Yessir!” A lanky boy carrying an empty bowl shuffled through an alleyway towards some unknown destination.

Despite spending over a month in this medievalesque world, the foreign culture continued to shock and amaze. The sight of a genuine blacksmith smashing their hammer against a red-hot object, his clanging joining that of a dozen other nearby craftsmen like an immaculate chorus, brought a sense of wonder to Dimitry’s life-or-death predicament.

“Hello,” Dimitry said, approaching the blacksmith. “I’m looking to get some specialist hardware made.”

The man rubbed a sweaty arm against their sooty brown apron before looking up. His eyes were red. Was it the result of staring at a near-molten object without eye protection? “What kind of hardware?”

“Surgical tools.” Dimitry flattened the woven fabric papers in his hand against the blacksmith’s counter.

The man glanced at the sketches but quickly turned away. “Sorry, pal. I’ve got my hands full.”

“I’m willing to pay a high price for each one you make, and I’ll continue to purchase them in the future.”

The blacksmith continued to hammer away at the cube-shaped block on his anvil, shaping what appeared to be a sharp edge. “I wouldn’t mind a change of pace, but these damn rock hammers her majesty ordered are eating up all my time,” he shouted over his own clanging.

A barrel stood beside the craftsman’s counter, holding several long and cylindrical wooden sticks. One of them had a metal head attached, similar to what the blacksmith forged. The assembled tool could pass for the overgrown lovechild of a mailbox and a pickaxe.

As a hobby geologist, every rock hammer Dimitry used fit in his hand. These, however, were taller than basketball players. Were they designed for something other than splitting stone? Perhaps combating heathens? A sharpened and weighty mass at the end of a long shaft made it the perfect weapon to puncture the spherical cores of towering crawling devils from a safe distance.

Although killing heathens was urgent, so was tending to injured guards.

Dimitry leaned forward. “If I don’t get these tools made, I won’t be able to operate on soldiers. They’ll die, and no one will be around to purchase your hammers.”

The blacksmith stopped his work and rolled his shoulders. “Look, I really want to help, but if I don’t get these made and delivered to the barracks before tonight, I’ll be screwed.” He pointed a meaty finger down Smithen street. “Look for a stall owned by a guy named Elias Shmitz. You’ll know you’ve found it when you see an assortment of random shit on display.”

“Would he be able to help?”

The man smirked. “He may be strange, but if you give him a good enough challenge, that crazy bastard might even do it for free. Being guildmaster sure must be comfy…” his voice trailed off as he continued hammering away.

“Thanks.” Following the blacksmith’s guidance, Dimitry advanced further down the road. Despite the vast number of operating furnaces, something was missing: open shops. Most counters were empty, devoid of goods.

But the one the blacksmith mentioned wasn’t. An assortment including knives, iron pipes, and blunt arrow tips lay arranged on its surface. All had carefully polished blades and edges—signs of a perfectionist craftsman. Also, there was something else: a tool identical to the voltech rifle Angelika carried strapped to her back.

It was a long and straight metal barrel with a handle resembling Dimitry’s snoozia canister at one end. Two wooden blocks engraved with blue lines embedded themselves into the grip’s side. Did the rifle operate on vol?

“Yo!” a voice called out from inside the shop. A man who hadn’t discovered the benefits of wearing a shirt stumbled out shortly after. With only a blue apron and a pair of shorts and boots, his muscular physique braved the winter’s chill. “Appreciating my art?”

“It sure is impressive,” Dimitry said. “Are you Elias Shmitz?”

“You’ve found me!” The bald and musclebound man leaned over his counter. “Looking for something interesting?”

The acrid stench of wine radiating from Elias’s mouth with every word forced Dimitry to pull back. “I need some things made. Unusual, specialty equipment.”

“Oho? Tell me more.”

Dimitry dropped his stack of blueprints onto the table. “Take a look. If they’re confusing, I can answer any questions you have.”

Elias lifted a yellow page and held it in front of his face. While massaging his bald head with a giant hand, his gaze whizzed up and down and side to side. His eyebrows furrowed. “What are these?” He slammed the paper back onto the counter and jabbed his sooty finger at one of the four tools depicted on the page. “Why do you need silly flat-mouthed scissors?”

“That’s a needle holder. It’s a surgical tool used for sewing lacerated skin.”

“A surgeon, huh?” Elias’s finger slid across the page to another sketch. “Then what are those? They look exactly the same.”

“Those are hemostatic forceps.” Dimitry pointed at the tool’s uneven serrated jaws. “See those uneven edges?”

“Hmm.” Elias nodded emphatically.

“They’re meant to clamp down on arteries to prevent blood from leaking out.”

“Arteries? I’m not a surgeon like you. Keep it simple.”

“They stop people from bleeding to death when I cut them open.”

Elias leaned against a metal pillar, his eyes traveling up and down the yellow sheet. His concentration gradually waned. Then, he started to get distracted by passersby.

Was he disinterested? Dimitry needed to bring the musclebound man’s short attention span back. If what the other blacksmith said was true, framing the request as a challenge would work best. “You don’t have to make them if you think it’d be too difficult.”

“Too difficult?”

“There are just so many small and complicated components like locking mechanisms.” Dimitry shrugged. “I’d understand if you just gave up halfway and—”

Elias’s expression stiffened. “Gave up?”

“Yeah. The other blacksmith down the street said it would be impossible to—”

“Impossible!?” Elias’s breathing became audible as he flipped through the blueprints.

Dimitry nodded. “That’s what I was told.”

“Get inside.” The giant man pointed into his shop’s open door. “You said you’ll answer my questions, and it turns out I have a whole lot.” Elias dashed ahead, then stopped to look back. “Do you surgeons like to waste time or something? Come on!”

“I am a surgeon, but I’d prefer if you called me Dimitry.”

After an afternoon spent describing the functionalities and intricacies of surgical tools to an overzealous blacksmith, Dimitry stopped by the hospital cellar to check if the rats fared any better since their preservia treatments.

The results were inconclusive.

One specimen was healthier in terms of energy, but experienced severe bowel problems. The others sat still or trudged along in depressive circles. Hopefully, their fatigue came from fighting off the remnants of an infection following successful treatment and not from worsening plague symptoms. Dimitry would check again tomorrow morning before confirming the efficacy of modified magic.

For now, there were better ways to spend his dwindling time. Like tending to hospital patients like a proper physician—something Dimitry could now do in good conscience with the hospital’s rapidly improving sanitary conditions. Before, he worried that diseased corpses and buckets of filth would contaminate wounds, spreading illnesses further. An issue no longer.

With the hired help of several refugees, Dimitry cleared the hospital of excess bodily fluids and the deceased. Among many other improvements, he also erected curtains to segregate plagued patients from those with treatable injuries, had two mobile instrument stands assembled with planks and scrap metal, and converted a storage trunk into a warming cabinet via incendia enchantments.

His best decision by far, however, was hiring Claricia and Clewin. The mopey woman provided boiled bedclothes and towels while her husband stacked bottles of distilled ethanol in the cellar. Although the alcohol wasn’t pure, it was sufficient for sterilization.

The combination of those factors allowed Dimitry to feel comfortable treating a squire wounded in a recent battle against a crawling devil. He used it as an opportunity to teach the hospital staff about hygiene. Without their edification, his ambitions of curing the plague would never come to fruition.

Yet there were few eager ears. Of the dozen nurses, only three lent Dimitry their time. Expressions dubious, as if answering calls from overseas tech support scammers, they watched Dimitry treat a giant gash traveling down the warrior’s left quadriceps.

The injury looked like a mixture between a cut and a burn. Dimitry guessed that heathen’s blood liquefied the man’s flesh but was flushed out before he arrived at the hospital.

“The first thing we do,” Dimitry said, soaking the tip of a fresh cloth into a small pot of distilled ethanol, “is disinfect the area around the wound with alcohol. But since it can hurt exposed flesh, never apply it directly.”

Hands curled to her chest, the tallest of the three nurses sucked in air through gritted teeth. “It smells of ale. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“My methods may appear odd, but they work.”

“Where are your charts?” a skittish nurse asked.

“Ethanol does its job even without astronomy. We use it to kill germs—the things that cause plague and most other diseases.”

Lili—the youngest of the nurses—nodded, her orange ponytail bouncing with every movement. Then, as if realizing a profound truth, her eyes widened. “So we cure diseases by killing the germs?”

“Exactly.” Grateful to have a co-worker quick on her feet, Dimitry smiled. “Not all diseases are caused by germs, but many are. You have to strike at the heart of the problem before people get infected. Prevention is the best cure.”

“How do we find germs?” Lili leaned in. “What are we looking for?”

“They’re impossible to see with your naked eye, but as long as you follow procedures, you’ll kill almost all of them.”

The two other nurses shared disbelieving glances.

An amused chortle came from across the hospital. It belonged to Josef. Without looking up from his doomed patient, the lanky man sliced blisters and packed the resulting gashes with spices. For a medieval surgeon to resist antiseptic theory made sense, but Josef’s demeanor befitted a spiteful competitor more than a disagreeable professional.

Dimitry’s suspicions grew. He yearned to question Josef about the severed head—a threat a surgeon might have delivered to his foe—but now was a bad time. Launching accusations in front of the nurses and patients would further divide an already fractured hospital. Internal discord would thwart any chance of curing the plague, sentencing thousands to their deaths.

Opting for a better opportunity, Dimitry exhaled a calming breath and reached for a ceramic bottle. “To clean the inside of wounds, always use freshly boiled water instead of alcohol.”

Lili pressed a finger to her lower lip. “Boiled like for tea?”

“Boiling water isn’t just for tea.” Dimitry generously poured the contents into the squire’s gash. “The high heat kills all the germs, which makes it safe for wound irrigation.”

After a silent moment, the skittish nurse spoke. “Surgeon?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t wanna sound rude, but I have to ask.”

“You’re not being rude,” Dimitry said. “Questions are good. I prefer if you speak up whenever you’re unsure of anything at all.”

“… is it true you’re here to rob patients and escape to The Holy Kingdom after the plague kills everyone?”

“What?”

“Some people say you started the plague just so you can come to Malten and fix it,” the tall nurse said. “The girls have been talking about it.”

Lili looked away. “I heard the same.”

Dimitry clenched his fist. So that was why the nurses have been avoiding him. Some prick was spreading vindictive rumors, and he had a good idea of who that prick was.

Josef glanced over with a hollowed expression. After staring for what felt like an eternity, savoring Dimitry’s response, he tossed his bloody, rusted saw onto a tray and rushed out of the hospital.