The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint - Chapter 10

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 10: Limbus Pit Ecology Report (2)

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Cough.

On my way to the clinic, I cleared my throat inside my mask.

Since being born as Julian, I had never particularly thought of myself as frail.

But the air and stench of Limbus Pit were a little much for the lungs of a delicate young master from Sanctum Hill.

'When will I finally be able to take this mask off here?'

As I headed for the clinic, coughing repeatedly at the foul smell I had not encountered in a while, I met the eyes of a man smoking across the street.

Half-lidded golden eyes lazily swept over me.

"Hm?"

Those half-open eyes, which had been sizing me up, widened as round as a full moon.

"Oh! You've returned, Doctor Schnabel!"

A hyena beastman tossed his cigarette into the road and swaggered toward me.

As he drew closer, I saw the scar cutting across one eyebrow and his half-severed ear.

He wore a burgundy Mandarin-collar shirt beneath a black silk vest embroidered with gold-thread arabesques.

Like the buildings of the red-light district, his clothes made his origins clear.

"Mr. Wangcho."

Wangcho.

He was the boss of the Scarred Hyenas, the criminal organization that ruled this red-light district.

Wangcho was a nickname, and his real name was Tao Chen.

Still, I just called him Wangcho.

He had asked me to.

"It has been a while, Wangcho. Have you been well?"

"Ha ha. I'm always in good health. Did anything happen to you during the heavy snow?"

"I rested well somewhere warm."

"That's a relief. Whenever you came here, you never got any warmth. You only wore yourself out. Surely you deserve to rest comfortably for a month out of the year."

He rubbed his hands together with a genial smile.

He had the kind of friendly manner that made me expect him to ask, "So, how much did you have in mind?"

But appearances could be deceiving.

For all his manner, he was the undisputed king of this gutter, the king of the red-light district.

...Come to think of it, his nickname did not sound particularly intimidating either.

"Still, I was honestly surprised when I received your letter saying you would not be able to come for six weeks."

"I thought I wrote that I probably could not come because of the heavy snow. Did I not?"

"Oh, I naturally saw that. But that is not what I meant."

Wangcho glanced around before leaning toward my ear.

Then he whispered.

"I thought you had been taken away by some duke's household."

"...Out of nowhere?"

"Come on, there is no need to pretend you do not know in front of me. I know too. You are... well... in Sanctum Hill..."

Wangcho gave me a meaningful look.

As though I should understand after he had said that much.

Only then did I understand what Wangcho was trying to say.

"I understand what you mean, but all of that is merely rumor."

One rumor about Schnabel, the crow doctor, had spread through the red-light district.

It said I had been a healing slave in some duke's household, but failed a treatment and had my face burned.

That I started wearing a mask to hide the scar.

And that I had later been driven into the red-light district, where I now lived a life of service as an eccentric gnome with over 150 years of experience.

All because of this mask.

I wore it because the slum air was hard on a body accustomed to Sanctum Hill, and to prevent secondary infections.

But to people who did not understand the concept of infection, refusing to take off a crow mask must have suggested some hidden story.

After people's imaginations embellished that guess again and again, the rumor above was born.

People's imaginations really were impressive, writing an entire novel from a single mask.

"I have no connection to any duke's household."

"What? But did you not just get out of a car? Did you not come from Sanctum Hill?"

Cars belonged exclusively to nobles.

The magic-stone kerosene that powered them, the garages where they were stored, and even their maintenance.

In this city, simply keeping machinery running was power.

'With all that mana-saturated smog, machines break down at the slightest thing.'

The more delicate the machine, the more the cost of operating and maintaining it soared.

Naturally, vehicles such as cars and airships stood at the very top.

So it was not unreasonable for Wangcho to see me arriving at work in one and recall rumors that I was connected to nobles.

I waved a hand to correct his misunderstanding.

"There was a patient there who needed me."

"Do not tell me that duke's household called for you again!"

"...Not every noble is a duke."

"Then you are connected to some noble, even if they are not a duke...?"

"..."

"Could it be... that noble gave you the car as thanks...?"

I could not say anything.

It was not even entirely wrong, so I was at a loss over where to begin correcting his misunderstanding.

Then a realization suddenly crossed my mind.

I had seen this pattern somewhere before.

That was right.

This was exactly how a misunderstanding story went.

No matter what I said, it did not seem like the misunderstanding would clear up.

Having realized that too late, I chose silence.

"..."

Come to think of it, it was not a lie.

I did come from a baron's family, but I was still noble-born.

That made me about 0.01 of a duke.

That was a higher percentage than the strawberries in strawberry milk, so I was definitely not committing fraud.

"Do... Doctor?"

"..."

"...I will not pry any further."

Wangcho interpreted my silence on his own.

As though he did not want to get tangled up in the affairs of nobles, he blatantly changed the subject.

"Ah, right. As you asked, I looked after the clinic while it was empty."

Wangcho handed me the key.

The reason I had left the clinic in Wangcho's care was simple.

In this red-light district, the lock on an ownerless building was synonymous with a prostitute's virginity.

No matter how expensive the lock, someone would eventually force it open.

It was much safer to ask someone to look after the building.

"Are you going to start seeing patients right away?"

"What other reason would a doctor have for coming to work?"

"Ha ha. That is true. What a foolish question."

Jingle.

Holding the ring of keys, I stood before the clinic.

A roof with slightly upturned eaves, faded red pillars, and an old lantern hanging above the door.

Apparently, it had once been a boarding house run by an elderly shaman who had been the beastfolk's only healer.

Eight years before I came to the red-light district, she died of pneumonia, and I took over the empty building.

The lantern carved with a panda that had once guarded the entrance had now been replaced by a sign bearing a crow mask.

Click.

I opened the door and stepped inside.

"It has been a while."

First came the narrow waiting room.

There was a partition at the back, and beyond it lay the examination room.

An examination table barely large enough for one person to lie on. A creaking wooden chair. Cabinets full of medicine.

Beyond a closed door deeper inside the examination room was a delivery room for mothers, while upstairs was a room for newborns.

This was my clinic.

Since it was a converted boarding house, I could hardly expect an interior like a twenty-first-century hospital.

Still, it was a remarkably good clinic for what it was.

"You cleaned as well."

It still smelled like the red-light district, but there was no musty smell of dust. It seemed Wangcho had cleaned it regularly.

First, I placed a container of herbs near the entrance to neutralize the smell.

Then I checked the medicines inside the shelves.

Wangcho approached and rubbed beneath his nose.

"I inspected the medicines every day. They may be my subordinates, but their hands are too sticky to trust."

"I would not have minded if they took one or two."

"How could I allow that? Even an animal knows gratitude toward whoever saved it. I may not be an upright man, but I am no animal."

"Thank you, Wangcho."

All the medicines were still there.

Though I would have to throw out a few that had expired.

Lastly, I picked up the magic-stone lamp from the shelf beside the examination table.

It was a palm-sized brass case. When I wound the small spring set into its base, a warm orange light filled the room.

Incidentally, this magic-stone lamp was the third most expensive item in the clinic.

A light source that did not produce oil grime or soot was extremely precious in this world.

It was also indispensable in an examination room where hygiene was essential.

"Come to think of it, Doctor Schnabel, the medicine you gave me is nearly gone..."

"Did I not give you plenty? Have you had ten gout attacks in six weeks?"

"Ha ha..."

"Come inside. I will examine you and prescribe some medicine."

On the day my clinic opened again after a long absence, Wangcho was my first patient.

* * *

The first patient at the clinic after six weeks away was Wangcho.

Wangcho sat on the small bed and took off his sock.

"Urgh... Please bear with the smell."

The joint around his big toe was swollen reddish.

The skin was stretched taut and shone as though it might burst at any moment.

Gout.

The disease of nobles and kings, said to hurt even when the wind brushed against it.

People in this world also knew it as a disease in which uric acid crystals accumulated in the joints after excessive consumption of protein, especially meat and alcohol rich in purines.

They knew it through experience.

'Though in the twenty-first century, many studies said genes and kidneys mattered more.'

By the twenty-first century, the balance had tilted somewhat toward metabolic problems rather than diet.

Still, diet could not be excluded as a factor in gout.

And the patient before me, befitting his reputation as the ruler of the red-light district, indulged heavily in meat and alcohol.

At least in this man's case, it was definitely his diet.

He drank so much beer that it would overwhelm even healthy kidneys and give him gout.

"You have not cut back on meat or alcohol at all."

"Ha ha ha... You can tell just by looking?"

"The nodules have grown larger. Of course I can."

With a sigh, I lightly pressed the affected area.

"Urgh! Ah, ngh...!"

Wangcho shrieked and pulled his foot back.

The man who ruled the red-light district was sweating cold sweat because someone pressed one toe.

Even a first-rank superhuman was helpless before gout.

"Look at this. Both the nodules and the pain have gotten worse. At this rate, you will damage your kidneys too."

"Life is hard enough. Without alcohol, what pleasure would I have left? Ha ha..."

"If you keep looking for pleasure like that, you will find the road to the afterlife first."

Even as I rebuked him, I turned toward the shelf.

Clink, rattle.

I unlocked it and took out a familiar medicine bottle.

A brown bottle labeled [Colchicum autumnale] in Latin.

It contained colchicine extracted from autumn crocus bulbs.

"Ah, Doctor, it has become quite difficult to bring in crocuses from beyond the walls lately. The potion makers buy them all up."

"It is probably because it is the hibernation season. Potion demand is high at this time."

The period immediately after the heavy snow ended was called the hibernation season.

It was also called the subjugation season.

It was the time when magic beasts, not yet fully awake from their sleep, could be subjugated relatively easily.

If people did not reduce their numbers now, autumn would be difficult later, so they tried to cull as many as possible, even if it meant pushing themselves.

"But why do those damned potion makers put this in potions? Every time I drink one, my backside leaks the next day. It makes a man hesitate out of embarrassment even when he needs one to survive."

"It cannot be helped. Otherwise, you would suffer even more from something else."

Potions did not merely heal.

They also contained trace toxins, which could accumulate if they remained in the body too long.

Autumn crocus was used to induce diarrhea and expel those toxins quickly.

In other words, that was not a side effect of potions. It was an intended effect.

When I explained this, Wangcho clapped his hands.

"No wonder. So when my sphincter loosened after taking this medicine last time, that was an intended effect too."

"That happened because you did not follow the dosage."

Wangcho's words reminded me of our first meeting.

My connection with Wangcho began when I diagnosed the cause of his limp and treated his gout.

The problem was that I had underestimated this world's common sense at the time.

People here believed that the more medicine they took, the better.

So on the first day I prescribed medicine, this man swallowed four pills at once and had such violent diarrhea that he nearly expelled his insides.

It was an unprecedented incident where the ruler of the red-light district, a first-rank superhuman, nearly crossed the River Jordan from dehydration.

I gave him water, then potions, then porridge...

It was utter chaos.

Anyway.

Wangcho accepted the medicine packet with a broad smile.

"Ha ha. What does a little diarrhea matter? This medicine is truly something else. I used to consider cutting off my toe, but take this and the pain is gone by the next day as if it had been washed away."

"What use is medicine if your habits remain the same? Have you no intention of cutting back on meat and alcohol?"

"Ha ha ha..."

Wangcho gave a dry laugh as he accepted the packet containing five pills.

Incidentally, I only gave him a small amount at a time because I did not trust him.

The man had a miraculous method of calculation where the more medicine he had left, the safer he felt drinking even more alcohol.

Wangcho stuffed the packet I had given him into his inner pocket.

As he rose from the bed, I spoke to him.

"I will see you again next month. If the attacks become severe, come sooner."

"Thank you, Doctor."

Wangcho put on his sock and stood.

Then, as though he remembered something, he snapped his fingers and paused by the door.

"Ah, Doctor."

"Yes?"

"Patients have piled up over the past six weeks. You have trained midwives, but they cannot replace you, can they? I have arranged them in order of urgency. Shall I send them over?"

That was how he had become Wangcho.

To the state, Limbus Pit was no more than a meat shield not worth protecting.

Wangcho was the one who looked after the slum residents who received none of that administrative protection.

That was why most of this clinic's patients and mothers were people Wangcho sent to me.

"Please do."

"Understood. Then I will be on my way."

After Wangcho left, I looked around the empty examination room for a while.

It was quiet now, but who knew?

Before half a day passed, it was obvious that it would be full of midwives' cries and babies' wails.

Considering the six weeks of patients who had piled up, the clinic would likely be a madhouse for some time.

There was a reason people spoke of the calm before the storm.

'Haa... Should I rest while I can?'