Our Family Has Fallen

「Hamlet, sanatorium.」

The sanatorium’s thick brick walls and airtight, peculiar structure blocked out the sunlight from the outside world, but they also isolated the summer’s heat. Even in such hot weather, entering the sanatorium brought a palpable chill—a discomforting cold, not mere shade. The upper levels were like this, and the subterranean level was even more frigid. This environment was ideal for temporarily preserving bodies, which was why it was used as a dissection room.

Lance had simply dumped the Pigmen corpses here without a care, but Paracelsus needed to deal with them as soon as possible. Dissection is an ancient discipline, but its origins were not within the Empire. It was passed down from regions outside the Empire, such as Kemet, Misri, and Levant. After all, under the Church’s influence, dissecting corpses was considered a desecration that warranted judgment. Only in Totnes, with its strong commercial atmosphere, frequent interaction with other parts of the world, and relative openness, was there even a little space for its development.

The medical school where Paracelsus studied did offer dissection courses, but even in Totnes, this was considered quite bold and avant-garde. Consequently, even the schools struggled to find cadavers for their classes. To advance her research, she had to resort to all sorts of questionable activities. Fortunately, the Outer City of Totnes never lacked for corpses. Therefore, in both theory and practice, Paracelsus believed herself far superior to most physicians in the Empire.

But after encountering the Lord, she was significantly influenced. All sorts of bizarre elemental theories were overturned, replaced by the theory of biological systems, which classified the functions of the human body by system. In anatomical terms, the human body consists of eight major systems: the musculoskeletal, digestive, respiratory, urinary, reproductive, endocrine, nervous, and circulatory systems.

What was even stranger was that many of these new theories obtained from the Lord found concrete evidence in her research, completing a logical loop. This, in turn, called into question the elemental theories and other strange ideas taught in school. She had begun to doubt early in her research, and even because of these things… Paracelsus snapped back to attention, focusing on the corpse before her.

Following the custom of progressing from simple to complex, the more commonly used dissection procedure was: abdominal cavity → pelvic cavity → thoracic cavity → neck → cranial cavity. Local dissection served as a complement to systemic dissection. It generally involved dissecting specific local areas, typically the reproductive organs, spinal cord, lower back, buttocks, and limbs. There were also several incision rituals, mainly the linear incision ritual, T-shaped incision ritual, Y-shaped incision ritual, and inverted Y-shaped incision ritual.

These methods had no inherent superiority over one another; they simply existed to deal with the different conditions of a corpse. However, they were all designed for humans. Thus, when facing non-humanoid bodies, adjustments had to be made based on experience. These Pigmen, although unusually structured, posed little difficulty for the experienced Paracelsus, so she directly chose the linear incision method. The greatest advantages of this dissection method were its convenience and speed, allowing it to handle the majority of corpse dissections.

She positioned the sharp scalpel at the midline of the Pigman’s lower jaw edge and made an incision along the midline of the neck, chest, and abdomen down to the superior edge of the pubic symphysis, cutting through the skin and subcutaneous tissue. Beneath the incised skin lay the subcutaneous soft tissue, namely fat and muscle. It was here that Paracelsus discovered something interesting.

Obviously, one couldn’t start experimenting on humans right away. Her dissection studies had also begun with small animals like frogs and mice. In fact, before studying humans, she had researched the physiological structure of pigs. One of the most visually distinct differences between pigs and humans is that pig fat is white, while human fat is yellow. Upon cutting it open, she saw that the creature—this pig-headed monster—had yellow subcutaneous fat. Its internal organ distribution also bore many similarities to humans, yet it exuded an uncanny strangeness.

This discovery excited Paracelsus even more, and she became even more engrossed in her work. The dissection process was incredibly tedious. Naturally, the tools weren’t limited to just a scalpel; there were also tweezers, forceps, saws, and so on. To separate the underlying soft tissue and muscle layers, she used forceps to lift the peritoneum and made a small cut. Then, with a scalpel, she carefully incised the lifted peritoneum. This required tools to keep the abdominal wall retracted, preventing damage to the organs within. She then cut along the costal margin, detaching the muscles connected to the lower edge of the rib cage to fully expose the abdominal cavity. At this point, the abdominal cavity was considered open.

Next, she observed the positional relationships and surface conditions of each organ in the abdominal cavity, checked for any effusions or hematomas, and examined the structure of each internal organ one by one. What Paracelsus found intriguing was that this set of internal organs was remarkably similar to human organs, yet the proportions were slightly off. Were these Pigmen more human or more pig in their makeup? But it felt more like a fusion of the two. She recalled the Lord mentioning that these Pigmen were the product of cruel and inhumane experiments by the Ascension Sect.

Pigs were chosen precisely because their anatomy was similar to humans. Paracelsus wasn’t squeamish in the least; she reached directly into the cavity to examine the structure, size, and position of the internal organs. They were exceptionally well preserved, with no signs of damage. With the abdominal cavity fully dissected, she prepared to move on to the thoracic cavity.