WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 15: The Blood Demon’s Illegitimate Child (4)

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There’ll be another fuss when she wakes up.

I sighed as I looked down at the unconscious Eri.

When we arrived at the mansion on Sanctum Hill, the maids took Eri to the annex.

I left everything after that to the head maid.

A bath, new clothes, food.

Meanwhile, I prepared fifty reasons this child needed to be raised in our family’s annex so I could persuade Father and Mother.

- She’s clever, she has talent as a mage, and so on...

They gave permission before I could even list them.

“Finally, Julian is acting spoiled...!”

I could thank Mother a hundred times and it still would not be enough for taking this as me acting spoiled.

* * *

The next morning, I received a report from the head maid.

“She woke up last night, ate, and went straight back to sleep.”

“She didn’t cause any trouble?”

“No. Though...”

“Though?”

“She kept rustling around, as if the blanket was uncomfortable.”

Ah.

It was probably her first time using a cotton comforter.

I had taken them for granted since birth, but even among commoners, only the wealthy middle class could afford something like that.

For Eri, an orphan who had lived in the Limbus Pit slums, it was probably the first blanket she had ever slept under.

“Shall I wake her, Young Master?”

“I’ll wake her myself.”

“Pardon?”

There it was again.

The head maid gave me that strange look again.

It was the same look the servants gave me whenever I appeared in the kitchen.

“I have something to explain to her early this morning. Oh, could you prepare my lunchbox today?”

“Ah... Yes...”

The head maid looked slightly confused.

The guy who always made his own lunchboxes was suddenly asking for one because he was busy. It must have caused a different kind of cognitive dissonance.

Leaving the bewildered head maid behind, I headed to the annex.

Hmm. My sweet home, after all this time.

Though that was technically in the past now, since I lived in the main house.

I opened the door to the room I used to use.

A cotton comforter, swollen like a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant, lay on the bed.

It wriggled, so Eri was probably tossing and turning inside.

Or perhaps the blanket was digesting her.

I pulled it back.

“Wake up.”

At my voice, Eri rubbed her eyes and lifted her head.

Then, the moment she saw me, her eyes widened.

“...Who are you?”

Eri glared at me irritably.

It was a natural reaction.

I was not wearing my crow mask right now.

Eri’s gaze swept over me.

Wariness appeared on her face.

She was sizing me up.

In the red-light district, it was important to judge who you could pick a fight with and who you could not. It was probably a habit ingrained in her.

“Hey.”

Having finished her assessment, Eri pulled the blanket closer and asked,

“How long have you been here?”

Apparently, she had concluded that I was either another person dragged here like her or a servant.

This damned power of misunderstanding always came out of nowhere.

She probably thought I was a senior who had been dragged here first and wanted to establish the hierarchy in advance.

‘Does she think Doctor Schnabel is some kind of orphan collector?’

It might have been fun to pretend to be a servant, but my schedule was packed today.

I did not have time to fool around, so I told her the truth right away.

“It’s me.”

“When have I ever seen you...”

“Didn’t I tell you yesterday that your mouth determines your worth? Be careful what you say and do. This is your last chance.”

“...”

Silence.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

“...Wha?”

Eri’s mouth fell open.

“N-No way. Doctor Schnabel is a gnome over a hundred and fifty years old. His face was burned after he was driven out of a ducal house...”

“Did you actually believe that?”

“Everyone says so.”

“I never admitted it.”

Eri’s eyes wavered.

[A gnome healer with 150 years of experience.]

[His face was seared after he failed a treatment at a ducal house, and he wears a crow mask to hide the scars.]

[Afterward, he was cast out to the red-light district, where he now lives a life of service.]

(+Lately, he has been riding around in a limousine that came down from Sanctum Hill.)

Still half-asleep, Eri needed time to accept that all of that backstory was a lie.

“...What? Doctor? Did you trick me?”

“I never lied to you.”

She looked like a child who had just been told Santa did not exist.

Somehow, I felt guilty even though I had done nothing wrong.

“How can this be... You’re my age... Aah! That makes no sense!”

Eri screamed and pulled the blanket over her head.

What kind of fantasy had she built up about me to react like that?

At that moment, the door opened and a maid entered.

“Young Master, breakfast is ready.”

Eri slowly turned her head toward the maid.

Then she looked back at me.

Me. The maid. Me. The maid.

“Y-Young Master...? You’re not the house physician...?”

Eri’s voice cracked.

Apparently, she had thought I was a guest of this baronial house or its house physician.

Well, what kind of young master would come down to Limbus Pit at this age to treat patients?

Logically, it made sense for her to think that way.

“You’re not the one being eaten...?”

“If we have to put it that way, I’m the one doing the eating.”

I sighed and pulled the blanket off Eri completely.

“Eat and get ready. It’s the weekend, so we’re going somewhere other than the clinic.”

“S-Somewhere else?”

“The trading company.”

“The... trading company...?”

Eri’s eyes lost focus.

Thinking she might faint again, I quickly clapped my hands in front of her face.

Clap!

“Good heavens!”

“Pull yourself together. Eat and come out.”

As I left the room, I instructed the maid.

“Dress her in clothes suitable for going out after breakfast, then bring her to the entrance.”

“Yes, Young Master.”

* * *

An hour later.

Eri appeared at the entrance looking like an entirely different person.

Her red hair was neatly brushed back. She wore a white blouse, a navy vest, a skirt that reached her knees, and leather shoes.

She no longer looked like a vagrant from the red-light district, but like the daughter of some merchant family.

“...This feels weird.”

Eri tugged uncomfortably at her collar.

“I didn’t know clothes could be this uncomfortable.”

“You’ll have to get used to them. They’re yours.”

“Wha? These are mine?”

I took the malfunctioning Eri outside.

A black sedan waited for us.

“Get in.”

Once we were in the car, Eri cautiously asked,

“...Where are we going? No, where are we going, sir?”

Her way of addressing me had changed.

Now that she knew I was a young master, speaking casually must have felt uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to speak formally. I’ll be wearing my mask outside anyway.”

“...Okay.”

The car set off.

On the way, Eri cautiously asked another question.

“But why do you wear a mask?”

“To protect me from evil energy.”

“Not to hide your identity?”

“I’ve never hidden it.”

My personal information security had not changed much since my days in twenty-first-century Korea.

If you gave a few coins to an information broker in the red-light district, they could probably dig up everything from my bare face to my identity.

Most people seemed to stop investigating as soon as they learned I was from Sanctum Hill.

There was also that rumor about a healer whose face had been burned by a ducal house. They were probably afraid of getting caught up in something like a succession dispute.

Well, to the poor, nobles were basically Celestial Dragons. I understood why.

‘Still, I won’t eat you just for knowing what I look like.’

The car continued onward.

Unlike yesterday, we were heading down instead of up.

Out of Sanctum Hill and into Civitas Square.

The white marble beyond the window gradually gave way to gray brick.

“This is... Civitas Square.”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t this the commoners’ district?”

“That’s right.”

“Why would you come to a place like... Ah.”

Remembering that I was a young master who went back and forth to Limbus Pit, Eri stopped speaking.

The car came to a halt.

We had arrived in front of a five-story building in the heart of the shopping district.

A brass sign was engraved on the front of the building.

[Merkuer Trading Company]

Eri stared out the window and murmured,

“...A trading company?”

Instead of answering, I opened the car door and got out.

Eri followed me.

The moment we entered the building, the employees in the lobby all bowed at once.

“...Director?”

She looked up at me.

“Wha?”

“You’ll get used to it.”

This treatment had made me uncomfortable at first, too, but I had grown used to it after several years.

“Let’s go.”

Eri followed, moving stiffly.

* * *

The trading company president’s office.

When I opened the door, a plump middle-aged man leapt to his feet.

His greasy face, gleaming eyes, and shining gold tooth gave him the appearance of a typical nouveau riche.

But unlike his appearance, I knew he was a pretty decent person.

He had nothing shady going on behind the scenes and handled transactions faithfully. He was an unusually conscientious trading company president for this world.

‘He was so honest that the company nearly went under before I brought him quinine and insulin.’

That was precisely why I had chosen him as a business partner.

Saving a merchant too kind for his own good was the duty of a protagonist, after all.

Still, after the company rapidly expanded thanks to those two medicines, the president had developed a taste for money. His image was becoming more and more like that of an unscrupulous nouveau riche.

His conduct contributed, but his looks played an even greater part.

He had not been this fat when we first met.

‘Should I try making a weight-loss medicine later?’

If I kept working hard on diabetes medicines, perhaps I would get lucky and make one.

I had heard something similar had happened in the world where I used to live.

Well, enough talk about the distant future.

“Oh! Young Master! Welcome!”

The president approached while rubbing his hands together.

“Would you like coffee?”

“I’m still twelve.”

“Ah, you said you would drink it at eighteen. I always forget! Ha ha! Then tea it is. We imported Darjeeling this year.”

“Thank you.”

The president signaled to his secretary.

While the secretary prepared tea, the president brought over a stack of documents from his desk.

He sat on the opposite sofa and handed me a copy.

“These are last quarter’s sales figures. Quinine sales rose twelve percent from the previous quarter due to increased military orders. Insulin sales rose fifteen percent after successful marketing among nobles with diabetes, while colchicine rose eight percent because gout patients had a high repurchase rate...”

The numbers poured out.

Eri probably could not understand them, but I handed her the documents I had already read, as if telling her to study them.

“One, two... Uh... Uhh...”

There were too many zeroes. I watched Eri count them on her fingers before giving up.

Once I was done checking the documents the president had given me, it was my turn.

I pulled out my research journal from a leather file.

“I have good news, President.”

“Oh? A new medicine?”

“If an improvement counts as a new medicine, then I suppose it is.”

The president’s eyes sparkled.

I opened the research journal and showed it to him.

“I succeeded in improving insulin purity. It is crystallized with zinc, and purity has increased by about thirty percent compared to the existing version.”

“Th-Thirty percent?!”

Even thirty percent was a conservative estimate.

I had studied medicine, not alchemy.

Perhaps that was why I still was not accustomed to this world’s technology.

Even I had improved it by thirty percent, so people familiar with alchemy would obviously achieve even better results.

Upon hearing that, the president shot to his feet.

“Th-Then the inflammation at injection sites...!”

“I believe it will be almost entirely resolved. The risk of hypoglycemic shock will also decrease greatly. Its duration of action will increase as well.”

I pointed to the conclusion of the research journal.

Zinc-crystallized insulin was absorbed more slowly, reducing the number of injections needed each day. In short, it was revolutionary.

The president’s hands trembled as he held the journal.

“Sniff... Young Master... No, Director, you truly are...! Sniff...!”

Unable to contain his swelling emotions, the president burst into tears.

It was a little unpleasant, but there was a reason for that reaction.

The existing insulin often caused severe swelling at the injection site due to impurities, or made patients collapse because the concentration was improperly controlled.

As a result, it had earned the disgraceful nickname, “medicine that kills a deadly disease by killing you.”

Despite being a revolutionary treatment for diabetes, those side effects had made the market response far more lukewarm than expected.

Nobles were extremely conservative people, after all.

But this improvement would solve most of those problems.

It would probably become as profitable as quinine.

Having tasted quinine’s success once, the president instinctively understood that, which was why he reacted like this.

“When can it be released to the market? A few months from now?”

At my question, the president, who had been holding a fist to his mouth, counted on his fingers.

“If we lock the factory doors and work the alchemists to the bone... five months... No, three months will be enough!”

“Set aside four months for development, then add another six.”

“Pardon?”

The president blinked.

Why should we delay releasing this lovely golden egg?

That resentful feeling was clearly visible in his eyes.

But there was a line I would not compromise on.

“That is for clinical trials. We need to administer it to at least fifty patients and collect side-effect data. It cannot be released before then.”

I did not want the medicine I made to go down in history as one that left behind harmful side effects.

I wanted to be the perfect protagonist of a misunderstanding story.

But unlike me, the president was not a man with such aspirations.

He was a man driven thoroughly by money, profit, and this world’s logic.

“Ah, Young Master. To be honest, other trading companies do not do that. Once a medicine is finished, it will sell out immediately...”

The president was right.

In this world, morality was honestly a luxury.

In my previous life, a pharmaceutical company could go bankrupt if a side-effect scandal broke out, but here, they could simply suppress and cover it up.

A patient suffered side effects? What patient?

How tragic! That witness took a wrong turn on the way here, wandered outside the walls, and disappeared.

How strange! Why are the missing person’s belongings outside the walls?

Our trading company was big enough to make that happen now.

But I did not want to do it.

That was not what a misunderstanding-story protagonist would do.

“I know. That is why we need to distinguish ourselves.”

Still, persuading people through morality took far too long in this world.

Even if they pretended to be persuaded, they often plotted something strange behind your back.

So I had to persuade him through the logic of money.

“President, who are insulin’s main customers? Ordinary people?”

“Of course not. Noble lords and ladies.”

“Exactly. They are suspicious people. They use even slaves to test anything that goes into their bodies.”

“Ah, could it be...!”

“We need to show them how much care we put into this, so the nobles will feel safe using the medicine. They will not complain even if we raise the price.”

I persuaded him with a kind of premium branding strategy.

This sort of performance worked even when the world changed.

“So that was your deeper intention...!”

The president clapped in admiration.

I gave him one final warning.

“But we cannot conduct careless trials. The moment the nobles think it is all a performance, it will backfire.”

“I will remember that, Young Master!”

The president bowed deeply.

I nodded and moved on to the next matter.

“And there is someone I would like to introduce.”

I pointed to Eri, who had sat like a bump on a log throughout the meeting.

“She is my personal assistant.”

“Huh. You are finally taking someone on.”

The president turned his gaze toward Eri.

A timid girl who still could not hide that she came from the slums.

A man like the president could probably guess her background.

The smell of Limbus Pit did not disappear overnight.

But the president did not show it.

“May I ask why you hired her?”

“She has mage talent, so I brought her in.”

“A mage! As expected, Young Master’s eye for talent is...!”

“...”

I gave him a look that told him to stop flattering me.

At this rate, he’d wear his tongue raw.

The president cleared his throat and adjusted his clothes.

Then he politely held out a hand to Eri.

“I am Gustav Mayer, president of the Merkuer Trading Company. I look forward to working with you, little miss.”

Eri only nodded blankly.

She still looked unable to grasp the situation.

Footnotes:

“Celestial Dragons” is a Korean slang reference to One Piece, used here to compare nobles to untouchably privileged elites.

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