Chapter 306 - 238: Killing Two Birds with One Stone

Chapter 306: Chapter 238: Killing Two Birds with One Stone

Loading Zog’s memories...

’This is the downside of having such a large memory capacity. The read time is a bit long when I try to recall something.’

’Probably stored on the ROM.’

「More than ten seconds later.」

Zog’s memory access complete!

He remembered who this doctor in the bird-beak mask standing at the headquarters entrance was.

It was the Doctor!

And Zog wasn’t just stating the obvious.

The doctor had genuinely never given his name. Everyone just called him ’Doctor’.

The last time he saw him was more than two years ago, during the filming of "Holy Mountain Journey".

He had taken some of the actors who played zombies in "Shadow of Evil"—and were afflicted with a bizarre disease—to Dragon Island to research a cure.

Though a lot of time had passed and Twin Tower City had seen more changes than in the last twenty years, the slums were still the same as ever.

Filthy, dilapidated, and lifeless.

The advancements in technology and Magic seemed to have forgotten them.

Furin had once launched a project within the Zog Group to aid the sick, aiming to reduce their suffering in the final stages of life.

Quite a few people from the Group took part in it.

However, it had little effect.

The number of new patients had been gradually decreasing recently. This wasn’t because the "Curse of the Steam Engine" had been resolved, but because more Steam Engine manufacturers had started cooperating with the Church.

These Church-affiliated manufacturers were easy to spot. Their signs featured an additional, small Church emblem. Depending on the size of the operation, these partner factories would have Church-appointed Priests, a Priest Corps, or even a small chapel built right on site.

These dispatched Priests weren’t there to provide psychological counseling; they held a certain degree of influence on the corporate board of directors.

To put it simply, the Steam Engine was on the verge of becoming another "blessing" from the Magic Goddess.

However, since the inventor of the Steam Engine was still alive and wasn’t a member of the Church, they couldn’t outright claim the Goddess had created it.

Instead, they had begun to hint in various scriptures that the inventor had created the Steam Engine only after receiving a divine revelation.

The inventor himself was even named an honorary Archbishop, a rank higher than the former Bishop of the Twin Towers City.

For situations like this, the Church had an incredibly useful, foolproof excuse.

A long time ago, the Church’s sages had collaborated to compile something akin to an encyclopedia, called the "Encyclopedia of Goddess Holy Studies".

Zog had some recollection of this collection. It was mostly filled with theology, Church history, hagiographies of saints, and prophecies.

The trouble was the prophecies.

The entire collection was lost during a war, and ever since, its loss has served as a universal excuse.

Whenever a new invention needed to be framed as divinely inspired...

...presto, a Church historian would "accidentally" discover, or dig up from some random place, a lost fragment from the "Encyclopedia of Goddess Holy Studies" that just so happened to contain a relevant prophecy.

They used to pull this trick frequently, but over time, their standards grew laughably lax.

Sometimes, the "centuries-old" fragments they dug up were so poorly faked they couldn’t even get the artificial aging right.

You could find more convincing forgeries at a flea market.

They overused this trick to the point that, while no one said it aloud, people couldn’t help but be suspicious.

So the Church cut back on its use, reserving the tactic for when it was absolutely necessary.

Clearly, the Steam Engine fell into that "necessary" category.

’Still,’ Zog thought, ’the Church is getting antsy. If you ask me, they should have waited. The internal combustion engine is already showing promise.’

’Humanity was about to take a break from "boiling water" and switch to burning fuel instead.’

Many people suspected that the curse of the Steam Engine was inextricably linked to the Church, but there was no proof.

Zog was one of them.

"Doctor, it’s good to see you again. I trust you’re bringing good news?"

Zog said as he walked toward the doctor.

’There were only two possible outcomes,’ Zog thought. ’Either the patients he took were to remain on Dragon Island forever, or he had found a cure.’

’Even if there was a cure, it would be tricky for me to handle. Publicly, I’m cooperating with the Church. If I just started promoting a treatment plan, wouldn’t that be pulling the rug out from under them?’

"Thank you for your assistance. Of the patients we took before, three have survived and are fully cured," the doctor replied.

"Right. I suppose that’s good news," Zog said, though he didn’t look particularly happy. "Let’s talk inside. We can’t just stand around out here."

This incident was one of the Zog Group’s earliest and most secret affairs; the fewer people who knew about it, the better.

「Upstairs, in Zog’s office.」

"I never thought the Zog Group would develop to such an extent in such a short time," the doctor remarked first.

"A short time? To me, it feels like it’s been ages," Zog said as he poured a cup of tea.

’He did it on purpose, just to see if the doctor would take off his mask to drink the tea.’

’Doctors wearing bird-beak masks was a practice from the era before last. It was hard to say why he still dressed this way.’

’Maybe he was hiding a face that was just plain hideous.’

’According to the reports from Dragon Island, the doctor before him wore his mask even when he slept and would shut himself in a small room to eat.’

’It was hard to tell if he was channeling a Tauren Warrior or a Mandalorian.’

The doctor glanced at the teacup but didn’t pick it up.

’A disappointment.’

Zog continued, "Is your method for curing those patients easy to replicate? And what about the cost?"

’Zog’s thinking was that if he could get it past the Church, he needed to start thinking about how to turn the treatment into a revenue stream.’

’The medical industry needs to make money, too. You can’t always expect people to be motivated by noble professional ethics and a spirit of selfless dedication.’

’Money is the most effective motivator.’

’But if the costs were too high, that wouldn’t work either. The price of treatment couldn’t be brought down, and the patients in the slums wouldn’t be able to afford it.’

’The Sutton Kingdom didn’t have health insurance.’