WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 100: God's Dilemma (3)
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* * *
“Are you awake?”
Simeon regained consciousness an hour later.
He opened his eyes, then collapsed again.
He got back up, then fainted again.
Only after repeating that around eight times did Simeon finally calm down.
“May I call you Young Master?”
“It’s fine when we’re alone, but please address me as you did before when we’re outside.”
“Is there a reason for that?”
“Following in my parents’ footsteps has led me to do various things, and I have unintentionally accumulated quite a few debts of gratitude and resentment. So please keep it a secret for my sake.”
After that, we took some time to clear up Simeon’s misunderstandings.
“You said earlier that there was no one to carry on my parents’ work. What did you mean by that?”
“I knew my masters had a child. But no matter how much I searched, I could not find where you were, Young Master.”
As expected of the Inspectorate.
They had made it impossible to find me even for someone determined to search.
It seemed the fact that the Schnabels’ child had been adopted had effectively been erased.
“Then why did you come to the Necropolis?”
“I wandered for a long time. I traveled between the swamps and the Holy City, and only recently learned that my masters’ remains had been laid to rest in the Imperial Capital Necropolis. But I did not know where, so whenever I had time, I searched the Necropolis’s fifth level and asked people about them.”
According to Simeon, he had assumed my parents would be buried on the fifth level, where those who had served the nation were laid to rest.
As a result, he had kept missing people who knew something about me or other traces left by the Schnabel couple.
“Yesterday, while I was heading aboveground, I happened to run into you.”
“The gods must have been moved by Brother Simeon’s devotion and guided you here.”
Well, it could have been coincidence.
Still, it sounded better when put that way.
But Simeon seemed to think differently.
“Th-the gods? Why would they guide someone as insignificant as me?”
“Do they not always have mercy on us? Perhaps that is why.”
“I am not worthy of their mercy.”
“Have I not said so? The gods have mercy on all things. Whether we deserve it is not for humans to decide.”
“Then... do you know what the gods want from me, Young Master?”
“No. How could I dare speak for their will?”
True saints and saintesses who communicated directly with the gods and received revelations might know.
But I was only someone whose medical skills had been mistaken for miracles. I had no such ability.
That was why I could never speak for the gods.
Nor should I.
“Still, as one person to another, there is something I wish to tell you.”
I thought about it.
Why had someone who respected my parents this deeply continued wandering on a pilgrimage all this time?
And I reached one conclusion.
“You do not have to wander any longer.”
He had been wandering.
Beyond the wall, in the slums.
He must have constantly denied reality while retracing my parents’ ideals.
I wanted to stop that wandering.
That was why I had revealed my greatest secret.
Of course, I knew it was dangerous.
The more people knew a secret, the less it remained a secret.
But if it could save one person’s life, was that not a risk worth taking?
“As it happens, I also need someone to tell me about what my parents left behind.”
I had heard that the Schnabel couple was quietly famous in healing circles.
They were authorities on parasites and infections.
Unfortunately, after they died, healing magic for parasitic diseases had apparently regressed considerably.
‘Simeon must remember some of my parents’ techniques.’
That was why Simeon ending his wandering was something I needed as well.
If nothing else, I knew almost as little about parasites as I did about psychiatry.
Trauma surgeons did not spend much time dealing with parasites.
“Will you help me carry on my parents’ work, Simeon?”
“...”
The narrow-eyed man silently looked down at his legs.
Then he spoke.
“It seems the time has come to end my long pilgrimage. There are people I must thank and bid farewell to. Will you wait for me?”
“I will gladly wait. Once you have settled everything, please come to the Merkuer Trading Company headquarters.”
Simeon rose from the bed.
As I handed him his only possession, his scripture, I said,
“On the day you arrive, I plan to hold a small welcoming feast. Is there any food you particularly enjoy?”
“... I personally like potato soup.”
“Then I will prepare dishes that go well with potato soup.”
Simeon rose to his feet and left the clinic without hesitation.
He promised to finish his pilgrimage as quickly as possible and return to me.
And when Simeon’s shadow, stretched long by the setting sun, disappeared beyond the horizon, Gregor finally spoke.
“By the way, Saint.”
“What is it?”
“Yesterday, I asked the Church about this Brother Simeon.”
Unease made me ask before he could continue.
“Was he not a priest?”
“That is not it. He is officially registered as a pilgrim. However...”
Gregor stroked his beard.
“According to the Church records, he should be a Rank 1 cleric...”
“...?”
“Hm... Why does the Rank I sense from him feel higher than mine?”
“What?”
I had not known.
As someone at Rank 0, all I could sense was Rank 1.
But Gregor, who was Rank 4, seemed to have felt something different.
“I thought he was Rank 1 as well. But while the two of you were speaking in the room just now, he felt like Rank 5 for a moment. Perhaps even higher.”
At least count-level.
But I shook my head.
“That cannot be. Why would someone of that Rank become a lower priest?”
“That is true.”
Even at Rank 4, one could become a high holy knight like Gregor.
At Rank 5, one would be qualified to become a margrave or commander of the Imperial Guard Knights.
Would someone like that turn down such positions to become a lower priest?
‘It makes no sense.’
There were many people mad with faith.
But surely no one could be that mad.
“It must be your imagination.”
“I suppose so.”
Gregor scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
Yes. It had to be a misunderstanding.
Why would someone worthy of becoming a marquis wander around the Southern Front as an intermediate priest’s disciple?
They would have to be insane.
* * *
Simeon.
Simon Aleynos.
He had once been a towering figure among spellcasters.
Through magical achievement, he had reached Rank 5.
His place as the next mage tower master was secure, and he might even have received teachings from the Great Sage.
But one day, he suddenly abandoned his position, fame, and Rank to join the Church.
Divine power and magical power could not coexist.
They interfered with one another by nature.
For that reason, spellcasters who awakened divine power would usually seek help from a temple to drain out their divine power, then refrain from praying so it would not recover.
But Simon made a different choice.
He drained all his magical power and filled its place with divine power.
He abandoned the realm of a Rank 5 spellcaster and became a Rank 1 priest.
“The gods have chosen me.”
The Magic Tower was thrown into an uproar by his choice.
How could he do that?
Did he not regret losing that realm?
But Simon, no, Simeon Ronald, answered them like this.
“I began studying magic to save more people. But from what I can see, a Rank 1 healer can save more people than a Rank 5 spellcaster.”
After he said that, the other spellcasters trying to stop him had nothing more to say.
Several decades passed.
Many things changed over time.
While Simeon’s story faded from people’s memories, many connections passed through the life of Simeon, a half-blood of a long-lived race and a human.
Throughout that time, Simeon’s Rank remained at 1, and his divine power did not grow.
But Simeon did not mind.
This, too, was the will of the gods.
Or perhaps it was because his faith was lacking.
Without questioning his lack of progress even once, he spent his days healing people.
Then one day,
“There is a healer who cured demon disease with only lower-grade healing magic?”
An interesting rumor reached Simeon’s ears.
There were several illnesses that had been called demon diseases until then.
A couple had discovered treatments for some of them.
The Schnabel couple.
“My goodness... parasites were mixed in with demon diseases?”
The history of parasites themselves was long.
They had been plainly visible in excrement and on skin since ancient times, so it was not as though no one knew they existed.
But no one had thought those worms caused disease.
And the thought that divine magic actually aided the worms’ growth was even more unimaginable.
The Schnabel couple had uncovered that.
“I see. If you administer an insecticide and a laxative first, then use divine magic after all the intestinal parasites have been expelled, it should be safe. Why did no one think of this after figuring out how to sever and reattach limbs?”
The couple’s treatment was somewhat aggressive, but its effectiveness was clear.
Not every demon disease patient was cured.
But they were able to save many patients suffering from parasitic infections.
Healing circles were thrown into an uproar as well.
<Divine magic was completed as a field of study three hundred years ago.>
That had long been the consensus in healing circles.
It was understandable.
When a top-tier healer laid their hands on someone, a severed arm could be reattached.
As long as there was enough divine power, even a patient whose heart had been removed could sometimes be saved.
What more was there to improve in such magic?
To them, miracles were already complete.
- The problem is not technique, but supply.
- It is time to study how to train even one more high-level healer.
Afterward, healing circles devoted themselves not to improving treatments, but to raising the average ability of priests.
But the Schnabel couple shattered that paradigm.
“Demon diseases... can be cured?”
That was when healing circles, once focused only on training, shifted toward researching demon diseases.
And Simeon, who stood at that turning point in history,
“Please accept me as your disciple!”
went straight to the couple.
The reason was simple.
Their methods did not require high-level healing magic.
Even a lower priest like him could make a difference.
So Simeon sought out the couple and begged them to accept him as their disciple.
“But we only go to dangerous places. Others have also asked to become our disciples, but most of them left.”
“That is all right! Even if the place is more dangerous, I wish to follow you and learn!”
“Very well, then...”
Let us go to the Southern Front.
That was how Simeon became the couple’s disciple.
* * *
Three years.
For three years, Simeon traveled across the Southern Front with the couple.
The reason was, naturally, parasites.
Unlike the cold north and dry west,
parasites ran rampant in the south and east.
For a couple who were authorities on parasites, it was an ideal environment for research.
Simeon was able to learn much there as well.
“Most people leave us within half a year, but you have stayed with us for a long time, Simeon.”
“I think it is because I am so busy learning from my masters that I do not feel the hardship.”
“Oh my, are you flirting with my husband right now?”
“N-no, Master! How could I possibly dare?”
The time he spent with the two of them was incredibly joyful.
He could not count the number of times his life had been in danger while traveling through the Demon Realm outside the Southern Fortress.
But Elia Schnabel, reserved yet warm.
Arian Schnabel, witty and full of mischief.
As he watched the couple, perfect for one another, and witnessed the devotion and miracles performed by their hands, Simeon sometimes wondered if this was the will of the gods.
“Come to think of it, where was Master Arian for that year? Were you researching in the east?”
“Hehe. It is a secret. But you taught Simeon plenty while I was gone, right? You did not just make him run errands because I was not around, did you?”
“Answer carefully, Simeon.”
“Of course, I learned a great deal from Master Elia, Master.”
“Good. Then during this swamp expedition, I will see just how much Simeon has learned.”
No, he was certain.
In his long life, he had never met people so noble and devoted.
They were Simeon’s saintess and saint.
And as their disciple and companion, he must have been the happiest cleric in the world.
But that happiness came to an abrupt end one day.
“A new species of magical beast!”
A mutant magical beast that appeared for the first time in ten years.
After it appeared, the fire magic used against insect magical beasts suddenly stopped working properly.
To make matters worse, Southern fever suddenly spread through the army.
The countless methods humanity had developed to fight magical beasts became useless, and numerous talented people raised over decades died in vain.
“Masters! The fortress is surrounded. It will be taken within days. Fortunately, I hear a teleportation circle has been prepared for evacuation to the rear.”
Fortunately, the Church and the Empire had prepared a teleportation circle to evacuate healers and heroes.
However, the number of people it could send was limited, so those allowed to escape were determined by social standing.
The Schnabel couple was among those given priority.
“If everyone leaves, who will save these people before sending them away?”
“Anyway, no one...”
“Simeon, healers should not say ‘anyway.’”
The couple chose to remain at the fortress.
“Simeon, you will take the teleportation circle.”
“What?”
“We will give our places to you. You followed us here.”
“No, Masters! Then I will regain my realm as a spellcaster!”
It would only take a few days.
If he drained out his divine power and spent a few days recovering...
“Simeon. You know that will not work. It will take months for your realm to return.”
“This is not a request. It is an order. Someone must inherit our knowledge, must they not?”
With those words, the couple placed a handkerchief in his hand and pushed him into the teleportation circle.
For a brief moment, they wore sad expressions.
“I do not think we are good parents.”
Those were the last words Simeon heard from them.
* * *
After escaping, Simeon spent a long time going in and out of confessionals.
If only he had not abandoned his Rank as a spellcaster.
No, if only he had not stubbornly insisted on becoming their disciple.
There would have been one more place in the teleportation circle, at least.
As he struggled with guilt and visited the confessional without fail every day, he heard a rumor.
- “Have all the bodies of those at the fortress been recovered?”
- “Yes.”
- “They defended the fortress to the end. See that they are given proper funerals.”
The priests of the Holy City had been busy for some time as well.
After the fortress invasion ended,
when winter had subdued the activity of insect magical beasts,
the Church and the Empire managed to recover only the bodies from the fortress during that brief period.
Naturally, Simeon believed his masters would be among them.
But,
“The Schnabel couple? I did not see them.”
They were not there.
Had the insect magical beasts eaten them?
The thought had barely crossed his mind when he heard lower priests whispering nearby.
- “All the bodies of those who remained at the fortress were recovered. Was it even true that the couple stayed behind?”
- “Did they not meet their end wandering outside the fortress for one of those pointless expeditions again?”
- “Tsk. They are lucky. The fortress happened to be taken at the time, so their deaths can be dressed up as honorable.”
Priests who had applied to become the couple’s disciples but been rejected.
Priests who had followed the couple but given up because it was too hard.
Those priests began making all sorts of disrespectful assumptions about the Schnabel couple’s disappearance.
Even at Simeon’s request,
the Church refused to canonize the deceased couple.
- “It is against Church tradition.”
That was not all.
- “The side effects of insecticides are too severe. That treatment must be banned.”
Priests who envied the couple disparaged them by pointing out flaws in their treatments.
- “An authority on parasites died? What does that have to do with me? Were parasites ever an important field to begin with?”
The public did not even mourn them, knowing nothing of the Schnabel couple’s achievements.
- “Come work at our clinic. Now that the couple is dead, are you not the authority on parasites? As for your treatment allowance... how does this sound?”
The clinics showed not a trace of grief. They only thought about how to make money from the couple’s achievements through Simeon.
After witnessing all of that,
anger and disgust settled in Simeon’s heart.
‘Is it really right for people like this to receive treatment?’
He knew they were a small minority who could not represent humanity.
But if such trash was not punished, did that not make the world and the gods responsible as well?
That was when Simeon began his pilgrimage, defying his masters’ wishes, returning to magic, and refusing to pass on his knowledge of parasites to healing circles.
First, he shut himself in a workshop and spent years studying black magic.
After attaining the power of a black mage, he killed black mages through black magic rituals that most insulted the gods, endlessly asking them questions.
Was it truly right to pass on his masters’ knowledge for gods who allowed evil to go unpunished?
If this was a world where good people could vanish so meaninglessly, would it not be better for it to perish entirely?
For more than ten years, he continued like that.
Before long, black mages in the underworld began calling him this.
<Seeker of Blasphemy>
It was a derisive name for the man who sacrificed only black mages through black magic while remaining a kind pilgrim in public.
A few years later,
he accepted an offer from a black mage who claimed they could find his masters’ bodies through necromancy, and joined an organization.
The Ophiuchus Round Table.
It was a gathering of black mages seeking to revive the Magic Tower of the Thirteenth Month.
* * *
Inside a fortune-telling shop in G Sector, where the sewage treatment facility stood, a gaunt old man in a hooded robe greeted Simeon.
“You are back?”
“Well? How does it feel to find the bodies you sought for so long?”
“Yes. I doubted necromancy could find them, but fortunately, it did.”
Simeon slowly sank into a chair.
His posture was distinctly arrogant, nothing like the manner he had shown Julian.
“... But there is something I wish to ask you now.”
“Hmm?”
“The secret art you taught me is certainly valuable magic. But having to work for you for ten years merely to locate one soul seems like an unprofitable deal.”
The old man clicked his tongue as if the question were absurd.
“Did you have a body? Did you have a clue? All you could say was that they died somewhere in the south. And what about the date of death and the constellation on that day?”
“...”
“You even refused to reveal their names, calling it disrespectful. Do you think it makes sense to ask us to tell you where a soul was buried under those conditions? It is a miracle that the Fifth Elder agreed to grant such a request.”
The old man tapped the floor once with the tip of his cane.
“Under those conditions, we could have worked you for thirty years, not ten. If not for your knowledge of black magic, we would have made you work even longer.”
“...”
“And one more thing.”
The old man narrowed his eyes.
“If you had simply brought us sacrifices regularly like the other black mages, you would have built up enough contributions to learn that secret art long ago. Why have you not brought in a single living person after ten years? I truly do not understand.”
“I hate humanity. But I must observe humanity without disturbing it as much as possible before I can determine whether it deserves my devotion.”
The old man watched Simeon silently for a long time, then finally let out a hollow laugh.
“Then what was that about regularly selecting only the Round Table’s black mages and offering them as sacrifices? Were they not human too?”
“Those were necessary sacrifices for my question. They were never the humanity I would devote myself to.”
“Hah.”
The old man eventually shook his head.
“If you had at least left them alone, your contributions would have been reduced less. You would have learned that secret art long ago.”
Simeon gave a brief smile.
He stood and adjusted the hem of his robe.
“I have been indebted to you for a long time.”
“Hmm?”
“I have no more business with the Round Table. Let us part ways here.”
“... Is that so?”
The old man only gave a short reply. He did not try to stop Simeon.
They were not close enough for that.
Simeon’s realm was tempting even to the Round Table.
They would gladly give him one of the elders’ seats to keep a spellcaster of that level.
But no one wanted to make a killer who regularly held rituals using black mages an elder.
That was why Simeon had remained only a guest.
Simeon turned his back and headed for the door.
The old floorboards creaked and dragged beneath each step.
Then it happened.
A small black crystal ball on the old man’s desk flickered.
It was a magical communication tool bearing the Council of Elders’ seal.
When the old man brushed the crystal ball with a familiar gesture, an image appeared in the air.
A short letter.
And a portrait of a young man.
“Hmm? This is...”
The old man adjusted his glasses.
“Ah, it is that new target everyone has been talking about.”
The corner of his mouth curled upward.
“Julian Nihirit... I have heard the name, but this is the first time I have seen his face.”
The crystal ball’s light deepened the old man’s wrinkles.
“Ah, so this is what he looks like. Such a pretty face. Tsk, tsk.”
The old man clicked his tongue in a familiar manner.
“Why go stirring things up at such a young age...”
Tap. Tap-tap.
The old man began operating the telegraph.
His role was to announce the Round Table’s decisions to the underworld or connect people from the underworld to the Round Table.
As always,
he created a wanted poster with the young man’s name and face.
[Julian Nihirit]
[This mage has insulted the authority of the Round Table and black mages. I order that he pay the proper price.]
[Curse: 300 million mar]
[Death: 500 million mar + a black magic grimoire of Rank 3 or below]
[Capture alive: 1 billion mar + a black magic grimoire of Rank 5 or below]
Tap-tap. Tap.
Once the old man finished typing, he hung the wanted poster on the wall.
Several black mages sitting in the corner of the fortune-telling shop picked it up.
“Whew. What a pretty face. The name is...”
“Julian Nihirit?”
“Unlike Director Schun, his face and connections seem to have been exposed. Forget killing him, would it not be worth cursing him?”
“Hmm... Would academy students work?”
“I doubt he cares about them that much.”
Step.
Simeon, who had been walking toward the door, stopped.
“Hm? Why are you not leaving? Have you become interested in the bounty?”
“...”
“Well, you probably already know, but it is a young man named Julian Nihirit. People have been talking about him for months, and it seems the Round Table has made a decision. Looking at his face, he is quite handsome. It is my first time seeing the picture too.”
Upon hearing the old man’s words, Simeon slowly began turning his head.
Little by little.
Little by little.
Even once his head had turned to an angle impossible for a human neck, it continued turning.
A black mage who had surpassed the limits of human ability could perform feats impossible for humans.
Then,
the Rank 6 black mage, his head turned one hundred and eighty degrees, opened the eyes hidden behind his narrow lids wide.
He looked at everyone in the fortune-telling shop.
“You people...”
“?”
“You are the ones who need to repent at once.”
The Author's Note
An interesting history of parasites.
Parasites themselves have existed since ancient times.
But parasite medicine only began in the seventeenth century.
What were the ingredients back then?
Poisonous plants, heavy-metal extracts, and metal salts.
They say poison will not kill you if used in moderation, or something like that.
In any case, the parasites die.
Footnotes:
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