The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint - Chapter 22

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 22: Winter in Limbus Pit (3)

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* * *

At the very moment Julian slid a silver bullet into the chamber, Erika lay on the floor, biting her lip at the cold sensation against her cheek.

The metallic taste of iron filled her mouth.

‘Pathetic.’

She had wanted to be useful.

To the only person who had acknowledged her in this trash heap of a world.

Of course, this situation was not her fault.

She had done the best she could for someone her age.

Her opponent had simply been too much.

But her young heart could not easily accept that reality.

Tears blurred Erika’s vision.

She could not bear to see her own red blood spilled across the floor, like useless filth.

Blood trickling down her forearm.

The revolver falling to the floor.

The sneer of the white face looking down at her.

For a moment, everything felt like it belonged to another world.

Then a warm, gentle voice sounded in her ear.

- [Child.]

It was a woman’s voice, somehow wistful yet carrying an authority she could not defy.

- [Do not let them take what is most precious to you.]

The voice seemed to guide Erika.

Following its sweet guidance as though possessed, Erika brought her lips to her torn wrist.

Lick.

The fresh blood on her tongue burned as it ran down her throat.

Her lips began reciting words against her will.

“「Bones upon the Throne of Bones,」”

Erika staggered to her feet.

The skin on the back of her hand swelled.

It tore open, and white fragments burst forth.

“「To the one who offers them, recompense...」”

Too short to be claws, too blunt to be spikes.

The white fragments formed into something closer to knuckle dusters.

Julian’s eyes widened at the sight.

It was unmistakably a magic incantation.

“「Thus, with my remains, I shall break their pillars.」”

Swish.

She swung her fist at the left side of Kaski’s neck.

The white-faced clown was too focused on Julian’s gun to react in time.

The spikes on her knuckles tore through his neck.

“Urk...!”

Kaski cried out and stumbled back.

He touched his wounded neck.

Fortunately for him, if it could be called fortunate, the wound had transferred to one of his subordinates.

The clown sighed in relief and sneered at Erika.

“Th-that startled me. But th-that won’t... Hee hee... And I still have clacqueurs....”

Then Kaski’s words began to tangle.

“Uh... Huh...? My tongue... What’s wrong with it...? My subordinates are still heere....”

His speech slurred as though he had been injected with anesthetic.

One corner of his tightly drawn mouth lost strength and drooped.

Only then did Kaski realize that something was wrong with his body.

“M-my bo... dy is... weir....”

He frantically touched his face.

He could not feel the left side of it.

Then the grip in his left hand loosened around the jackknife.

Clack. The knife fell to the floor.

Losing his balance, Kaski staggered and dropped to one knee.

“Wh... what...?”

Drool streamed from Kaski’s mouth as he swayed like a broken doll.

His terrified eyes moved between his paralyzed body and Erika’s weapon.

Erika also stared blankly at the pure-white knuckle dusters crumbling from her hand.

“Uh...?”

“It’s magic.”

Julian patted Erika’s head.

Looking at Kaski rolling on the floor, he pieced together the symptoms.

Hemiplegia. Dysarthria. Facial paralysis.

Typical symptoms of acute cerebral infarction caused by an embolism.

Julian knew of magic that could produce such an effect.

“Magic that manipulates bone....”

There was a high chance it was arcane magic.

He did not know which family’s magic it was.

‘The performance is vicious, though.’

Watching the knuckle dusters crumble without even striking anything, Julian understood the spell’s purpose.

Judging by their durability, those knuckles had not been meant to face spears or swords.

Rather, they had been designed to crumble the moment they were created.

When the crumbling knuckles cut through an enemy’s blood vessels, they sent bone fragments and marrow into them.

Once those fragments and marrow entered the bloodstream, they became a vicious poison that no antidote or healing magic could cure.

‘Magic that causes an embolism....’

Fat embolism.

A disease in which bone fragments or fat travel through the bloodstream and block vital organs.

Erika’s magic artificially caused that very disease.

Having reached that conclusion, Julian looked at Erika with concern from behind his crow mask.

“Erika, did you use exception handling?”

“Huh? Exception handling?”

“I see.”

He took a syringe and a small vial from his pocket.

The vial, filled with a clear liquid, bore a label reading [Heparin].

Julian pulled Erika’s arm toward him and inserted the needle into her vein.

“Ah, that stings!”

“You’ll need regular heparin injections for a while. There’s a risk of bleeding while the fight is still going on, but your magic looks far more dangerous to me.”

“Why? Did I break imperial law or something?”

Erika looked at Julian with tears in her eyes.

She still did not understand what he meant.

Julian gave a small amused laugh at her adorable reaction and shook his head.

“No. It’s because you didn’t use exception handling.”

“Exception... handling?”

“Magic activates exactly as written in its formula. It has no function that automatically avoids you and the people precious to you.”

Every spell could have accompanying side effects.

Fire magic carried the risks of burns and elevated body temperature. Lightning magic carried the risks of electrocution and nervous-system disruption.

That was why <exception handling> was a concept every mage had to learn before casting magic for the first time.

It was the most basic principle: writing conditions into a formula that excluded oneself or one’s allies as targets.

In coding terms, it was like learning conditionals before learning to insert negation.

But some people practiced magic without going through that basic process.

“Beginner mages without teachers don’t know that. That’s why many suffer irreversible disabilities during their first demonstration of magic.”

Erika’s magic carried that same danger.

From the look of it, she did not understand exception handling either.

Just as she had caused Kaski to suffer a stroke, she too was at risk of suffering one.

“Then I....”

“You don’t need to worry. I gave you medicine.”

Julian pressed down on the injection site as he spoke.

The concern that had briefly clouded Erika’s face eased.

As he carefully checked Erika’s condition, Kaski called out.

“D-Doctor....”

The white-faced clown called out to the crow doctor, drool running from his mouth.

“S-save me too....”

“...”

The lenses of the crow mask stared silently at the clown.

“I-I’m a p-patient too....”

“...Very well.”

Julian nodded, filled a new syringe with medicine, and approached Kaski.

* * *

Just as he had done for Erika, Julian administered heparin to the white-faced clown.

Feeling the stinging pain in his right arm, the clown rejoiced inwardly.

‘Just as I thought. A healer who comes down into a gutter like this would be like that.’

According to Kaski’s boss, the King of Fools, healers with convictions like this were the most profitable.

Perhaps it was because of those naïve convictions.

Lock them in a room and send patients in, and they would treat them without refusing.

There was no need to threaten or persuade them.

Kidnap them, put them in shackles, and they would do whatever was wanted of them.

‘Hee hee. What should I make him do first?’

Kaski gave it serious thought.

Should he have the doctor fix the ones they had accidentally ruined while sculpting artworks?

Fixing the ones who had been resold after being ruined did not sound bad either.

Or he could secretly dispatch him to VIP nobles who never wanted their vile tastes discovered.

Ah, now that he thought about it, the doctor had repaired the artwork from earlier in an instant.

He seemed knowledgeable in that field, so consulting him on how to create artworks would not be a bad idea either.

“Th-thank you... Doct....”

Kaski thanked Julian through a mouthful of drool.

Once the paralysis wore off, he could take this innocent, foolish doctor back to H Sector.

“Doctor... Why would you treat someone like that....”

Beyond Julian’s shoulder, Erika stared at Kaski in disbelief.

The clown forced his facial muscles to move and sneered at her.

“Aheehee....”

Whether he knew what Kaski was thinking or not, Julian looked down at him and whispered.

“By the way, did you know?”

“...?”

“There is actually no research showing that heparin works for fat embolism syndrome. In the past, it was given as a desperate measure, but it was even removed from twenty-first-century guidelines.”

“What does that mean?”

“Heparin is for prevention, not treatment. To put it more simply, unlike Erika, time is your medicine.”

After explaining, Julian rose to his feet.

With one hemisphere of his brain still paralyzed, Kaski could not properly understand Julian’s words.

Julian checked his watch.

Then he looked outside the clinic and continued.

“Of course, that is only if you have any time left.”

“Huh?”

Thud.

The moment Julian’s hand left him, a heavy hand settled on Kaski’s shoulder.

It was a rough, powerful grip with no trace of manners or refinement.

“Hey. Even scum has business ethics. Don’t you think attacking a clinic crosses a line?”

It was a voice Kaski knew.

His head creaked as it turned behind him.

“Tao... Chen....”

“Listen to that pronunciation, bastard.”

Wangcho, Tao Chen.

A cold bead of sweat ran down Kaski’s forehead.

The remaining clacqueurs behind Kaski urgently raised their weapons.

Wangcho swept his gaze over them.

“Cut it out, you lot. I’m tired.”

Making no effort to hide his annoyance, he pulled a leather pouch from inside his clothes and shook it out onto the floor.

Thududud.

Eight red noses, blackened and dead, slick with fresh blood, rolled across the floor.

That alone broke the clacqueurs’ morale, and they lowered their weapons.

“Why the hell did you station so many clowns along the way here?”

“Eek...!”

Kaski’s face also turned pale.

“H-how did you defeat that many so quickly?”

“Hey. What do you think Rank 1 is, the name of some mutt? Isn’t it shameless to think some durability enhancements and numbers would be enough to hold me back?”

Wangcho grabbed Kaski by the nape.

Kaski struggled.

Naturally, Wangcho did not budge.

Kaski then pulled a jackknife from his sleeve and swung it.

It was aimed at Wangcho’s neck.

But Wangcho did not even avoid the jackknife. He let it strike his neck.

“Ah, that stings.”

The knife bounced off helplessly.

Kaski was rendered speechless by the impossible sight.

“Th-that makes no sense....”

“Ugh. What do you mean, it makes no sense? You think I became the D Sector boss by drawing lots?”

As if the knife merely tickled, Wangcho brushed it aside and twisted Kaski’s wrist.

“Argh!”

“Shut up.”

Then Wangcho picked up the knife from the floor and spoke to Otto, who was leaning against the entrance and watching them.

“Mister, thanks for helping clear the way. And this bastard did that to your face, right?”

Otto, breathing heavily, nodded with difficulty.

Wangcho smirked and brought the knife to Kaski’s mouth.

“Hey, clown. My methods are famous enough that I don’t need to explain them, right?”

“Ah... Aah!”

Splatter.

Fresh blood sprayed across the clinic wall.

Kaski struggled in Wangcho’s grip.

He resisted about four times. After blood sprayed four times, he stopped resisting on the fifth and went limp.

Wangcho tossed aside Kaski, who could no longer move.

“Sorry I was late, Doctor. The clown bastards wouldn’t clear the way.”

“No, it’s all right.”

“I thought it would be fine not to escort you to the exit with Otto here, but I was too careless. I didn’t expect those stray dogs to go this far. Please stay at my restaurant for now. I’ll protect you until we secure the area.”

Only then did Julian lower the hammer he had cocked and let out a sigh of relief.

He removed two silver bullets from the revolver’s cylinder and put them back in his pocket.

‘It’s a relief I didn’t need to use these.’

Silver bullets.

Bullets available only from temples, capable of nullifying all magical miracles.

Each one cost as much as eight houses. Even Julian could not fire them lightly.

‘Honestly, that price makes it impossible not to hesitate.’

No matter how valuable a life was, if saving it meant crashing a Rolls-Royce, anyone would hesitate for a moment.

Julian was no different.

Silver bullets were a means he never wanted to use.

Fortunately, Wangcho had arrived in time, so Julian did not need to pull a trigger worth eight houses.

Sighing inwardly in relief, Julian closed the empty cylinder.