Petty criminals.
You shouldn't think of these as the kind of petty criminals you'd imagine in 21st century South Korea. This isn't the level of public urination or loud noise complaints on the streets.
First of all, for it to be a crime, someone had to get hurt. Or they had to pull off a major fraud.
But since Ponzi schemes haven't even appeared yet, there aren't that many fraud cases. Moreover, fraud isn't really possible in a slum. I mean, you need to have something to scam people, right?
"Their faces look quite promising, don't they?"
Before administering the injections to the brought-in prisoners, we first collected their urine.
Some of those bastards not only had diabetes but also seemed to have STDs, judging by their urine...
Just looking at it made me lose my appetite.
Well, it's a bit funny to talk about not wanting to drink it after collecting urine.
Anyway, I stood before the poor petty criminals, alongside Liston, holding the collected urine with any thick sediment removed.
They were called petty criminals, but they were actually quite impressive thugs.
Just as Liston said, their faces were very promising.
"Kheuk."
However, when it comes to faces, our side wasn't exactly lacking either.
Liston...
How many people would dare to look this man in the eye, known as the Sword Saint, Sword Master, or Enthusiast of Severing?
Maybe if they were real gangsters who had killed a few people, it'd be different, but these small-time punks who've probably just broken a few noses... well...
"Now, now. It's not for anything bad, so wipe those scowls off."
"Here, take one of these each."
Thinking about it that way, it really wasn't a big deal.
You have to kill at least one or two people to think, 'Ah, this guy disregards the law a bit'...
In fact, this level of assault was almost a matter of bad luck.
"What is this..."
"Do I need to know what it is?"
"No, no, sir."
"Haha, just joking. I'm a doctor! And you all are patients."
"Eek!"
Liston patted one of them on the shoulder, koong koong.
Perhaps because of that, the word 'patient' probably sounded like a threat – that if they didn't listen, they would become patients.
The one whose shoulder was patted turned pale from the pain, and the others also became pale.
"This is... a special juice made by Doctor Pyeong."
"P-please spare us."
"Please, at least spare our lives..."
Anyway, to get a proper report, some explanation was necessary, right?
Though it ended up being more of a lie than an explanation.
So I called it juice, which made them turn even paler.
"What's wrong? I said I made this juice?"
"T-that's why..."
"Isn't this how you get cholera...?"
"Aren't we going to suffocate and die?"
These bastards...
I don't even want to know what rumors they've heard.
I unconsciously frowned and continued speaking.
"No, no. This is a panacea."
"How can that be..."
It was still useless.
Then Liston stepped in again.
"What are you going to do if you don't believe it? Didn't we agree to settle things roughly with this?"
"W-we didn't know we could die. We'd rather be in a cell..."
"You don't seem to understand. If you don't drink this, you can't leave here."
"Ah."
Only after his words did the petty criminals realize their fate.
Their vision probably broadened, and their surroundings came into view.
Then they would realize this is the backyard of the dissection lab.
They would also realize that the figures lying sparsely beyond the blurry windows are corpses.
They might even start thinking that if they cause trouble, they might end up lying there too.
Of course, it's an absurd imagination, but...
'Not entirely, though.'
An unlucky person could really end up like that.
Not that it would happen today, but in this era, if you live long enough, you might end up lying in a dissection lab against your will, that kind of thing.
"W-we'll drink it."
"Good. Drink it and tell me how it tastes."
"Y-yes, sir. Eugh... huh?"
"Keup... eh?"
The terror-stricken guys soon competitively started drinking the urine.
They drank with grimacing faces, then started tilting their heads in confusion.
It must be because it was sweet.
"It's gone?"
"So it wasn't poison."
"Phew... Well, this is a hospital... No matter how much of a Mad Doctor Pyeong he is..."
I thought I heard something strange in the middle, but anyway, they all said it was sweet.
"All sweet? I thought the aftertaste was a bit bitter..."
Except for one guy.
He was the one who drank the cup that had contained the thick sediment.
I tried to remove it, but I guess it wasn't very effective.
Anyway...
It wasn't over in one go.
"Now, rate the sweetness of what you just drank on a scale of 1 to 10. Now try drinking this too."
"Uh... Yes. Well, okay."
There's no way each prisoner has the same blood sugar level.
I'm not sure if this will work, but I became curious about investigating just how sweet or not sweet it was.
So I arranged for each petty criminal to drink a little bit of every prisoner's urine.
The nickname 'Mad Doctor' is starting to feel less unfair...
It can't be helped.
I'm doing this out of necessity.
It's absolutely not just because I'm simply curious.
If I could find out blood sugar or urine sugar through tests, I would have done that.
But that's... well, it's possible, but it's too complicated and expensive, isn't it?
I have to try everything simple that I can.
It's not like you'll die from drinking urine, right?
"Now, we're going to make another juice, so wait here."
"Ah, yes."
"Is that one for drinking too? I kinda want more of this."
We put the petty criminals in another lecture hall, leaving them in the backyard.
Some, perhaps because they were thirsty, clamored that they wanted more.
Venerable Wonhyo...
The water from the skull is indeed the truth.
They're making such a fuss to drink urine.
"You guys, go this way!"
"Yes, yes."
"But, um, the injection site is a bit itchy."
"Let me see. It's fine, you won't die."
We put the other prisoners in the farthest room.
If they saw the state of the urine cups, they'd probably catch on immediately.
It's not like I'm doing anything wrong, but it strangely feels awkward.
After completing the isolation process, I had a conversation with my students, Blundell, and Liston.
"So we need to try different concentrations for each prisoner, right?"
"Yes. Diabetes isn't all the same severity, right?"
"Well... even the guy who used to drink dog urine said each dog tasted a bit different. But, you know."
"Yes."
"You're not just doing this to watch them drink urine... are you?"
"Of course not. I'm doing it all out of necessity. Why would you suspect that?"
"You've been at it so long... Sir Jamie might be dying as we speak."
"Even though diabetes is a scary disease, it takes about a year. Compared to that, why don't you try giving that pancreatic fluid at a higher concentration? You saw the dog, right?"
"I suppose."
That dog is in the backyard now.
Not on the ground, but under it.
"But what if we get caught?"
Alfred chimed in with a worried look.
"Why?"
Even if we get caught, most of them probably won't get out.
Ah... they will get out.
But there's a high chance they'll see it on that desk.
Aren't they locked up in a London jail?
You don't have to be a death row inmate to die.
If you're locked up for about a month, half of them die.
Some kill each other, but most die due to the environment.
When I asked nonchalantly, Alfred flinched a bit and spoke again.
"This makes us look like real gangsters. You're not... actually practicing sorcery at night... are you?"
"Of course not!"
"Okay, I'll trust you on that. Anyway, looking at those guys earlier, many had tattoos. There were even some my father told me about. If their subordinates or colleagues find out..."
"Ah."
If the guys outside find out about this...
Find out we made them drink urine...
"Don't worry. The治安 of London is in the hands of us policemen."
At those words, the policeman chuckled, and I became even more uneasy.
Aren't these the very guys who go to saunas and eat meals with gangsters?
"These guys here are directly under the Commissioner. They're also managed by Sir Jamie. Don't worry."
As if reading my mind, Liston chuckled.
"Well, if anyone tries to start something, it's a good opportunity, isn't it? We can just arrest them all."
Then he added this.
Strangely, it's reassuring.
Huhu.
Yes, it's Liston, not the police.
Thus emboldened, I gradually increased the concentration of insulin and fed the increasingly bitter urine to the petty criminals.
That's how I roughly determined the safe and dangerous doses for humans as well.
Since humans are larger than dogs, the injections would probably be uncomfortable.
It would be better if we could remove more water and administer it...
'Boil it? Then the insulin would be destroyed. Waiting for evaporation... we don't know what will happen over time...'
It would be nice if there was a way to extract just this, but how would I know?
If I knew that, I would have become a chemist.
And if I had come... I would have suffered more, wouldn't I?
Maybe I would have died immediately upon getting hurt.
But because I became a doctor, I've survived this long and gained this much fame and money.
"At this point, we should be able to use it on Sir Jamie, right?"
"Yeah, I actually got a call from Sir Damian too."
"Shall we call him then?"
"Aren't you going?"
"Shouldn't we produce it here and examine him immediately? It can't be helped. It's not like he's a Duke or someone even higher..."
"I suppose so. Alright, he'll probably understand. Especially Sir Jamie, if no one else."
Anyway, the experiment was completed.
The petty criminals wondered why the juice tasted worse the more it was 'improved', but they probably thought there was nothing good about staying here any longer, so they quickly disappeared.
As for the prisoners...
They actually liked the injections.
Come to think of it, I made it sound like a bad injection, but that's not the case.
Diabetes isn't completely asymptomatic even when it's completely unmanaged.
So they probably felt their condition improving somewhat.
"We want to stay longer!"
"Please!"
Or...
Maybe they just didn't want to go back to the hellish jail cell.
If it were the 21st century, I might have provided continuous treatment, but here, it's impossible.
It requires too much effort and is too expensive.
Such medicine is already in short supply for the good people living righteously in this harsh world.
"Hmm. Is this... that medicine?"
"Yes, it's a diabetes treatment."
"Well, I'll be."
Sir Jamie came almost immediately after being called.
He probably hasn't been engaging in much social activity lately.
Well, he says he has very important matters, but for someone of Duke status, no matter how important, I doubt he handles everything himself.
That's what I think.
How would I know? I've never been that high up.
"To think that a treatment is available so soon after finding out I have diabetes... Looking at you, my thoughts keep wavering."
"What thoughts are you referring to?"
"Ah, it's nothing."
Sir Jamie looked somewhat suspicious for a moment, then lifted his shirt.
His belly fat jiggled.
Considering that all the prisoners I saw until recently were skin and bones, it's clear that being a Duke is indeed good.
Anyway, I filled the syringe with the pancreatic fluid.
In the meantime, Joseph, panting, wiped Sir Jamie's belly.
"Ouch, that hurts!"
"It has to hurt to be proper disinfection."
"What nonsense."
"Please understand. The boy is obsessed with disinfection. But it's not entirely wrong."
I inserted the syringe into the now-clean belly.
We start with the safe dose.
"I don't know if this alone will make you better or not. It will take some time to find the proper dosage."
"That's fine. But do I have to stay here?"
"Yes."
"Then I suppose I'll have to hold my meetings here. Understood."
The long-awaited diabetes treatment begins.