WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
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◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 23: Winter in Limbus Pit (4)
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The VIP room of Fleischhof, the finest restaurant and inn in D Sector.
An incongruous sound echoed through the inn beneath its swaying red lanterns.
Slurp!
“Ahh!”
Wangcho greedily devoured broth-soaked pasta with chopsticks.
I had plenty to say about the sight, but decided to hold it in.
‘At least replace the pasta with noodles... Please...’
If I kept watching Wangcho any longer, I felt like I would suffer qi deviation, so I turned away.
Eri was there, dozing against my shoulder.
As I looked at the girl sleeping soundly, I went over everything that had happened today.
‘It certainly was an eventful day.’
My mental age had already passed forty, so I was fine. But it had been a little too much for young Eri to handle.
‘She worked hard trying to act more grown-up than a child should.’
From firing a gun without hesitation to protect me to somehow managing to activate magic.
It had been far too cruel a day for a child.
Just then, Tao Chen, having finished every last bite of his pasta, picked at his fangs with a toothpick.
“Doctor, did they say someone was coming from up there?”
“Yes. With Otto in this condition, the House said they would send someone to pick us up.”
Limbus Pit and Sanctum Hill were not within walking distance of each other.
Taking public transportation in this situation would have been insane, so we decided to wait quietly at the restaurant until the House sent someone.
However, Wangcho seemed to have interpreted the news differently.
“Um... May I ask where you stand within the House?”
“Hmm. Let’s just say I cured the head of the House when he was at death’s door with a fever.”
“Eek...!”
Wangcho still did not know my bare face, my House, or my identity.
By now, I was curious how long this misunderstanding would last, so I didn’t bother correcting him.
‘Strictly speaking, it isn’t even a misunderstanding.’
Was I a noble? Yes.
Was I the House physician? Yes.
Did I have deep ties to the House? Yes.
Aside from the fact that I was a young master, most of it wasn’t wrong.
Aside from the false rumor that the noble house was a ducal house, the rumors were almost entirely true.
“Uh... Hmm...”
Wangcho’s eyes darted about.
It was because of the weight carried by the word noble.
Even a baronial house, said to be the most pathetic among nobles, was a disaster in Limbus Pit.
Titles were determined by rank in this world, so a baron was at least Rank 2.
In these back alleys, where Wangcho alone dominated at Rank 1, there was no point in counting any higher than Rank 2.
It was like how civilians did not need to distinguish between a nuclear bomb and a gun. If either struck them while they were unprotected, they were dead.
“Um... Are there any rules of etiquette I should observe in front of them...?”
Before Wangcho could finish.
Jingle.
With the sound of a cheap doorbell, the atmosphere in the inn changed.
An old man with neatly combed-back white hair and a tailcoat without a single crease entered the inn.
It was Wilhelm, the head butler of our House.
The dignified butler transformed the atmosphere of the restaurant, which had never quite shed its barbaric air, simply by appearing.
“That must be the head butler.”
“What?!”
“As for manners... Well, as long as you don’t swear, you’ll be fine.”
The head butler I knew was not a rigid person.
He was strict during Eri’s etiquette lessons, but only during those lessons.
Normally, he even let Eri speak casually to me.
...Though he sometimes teared up and said that I had finally made a friend, which suggested he had a slightly unpleasant misunderstanding.
Anyway.
‘Besides, he isn’t some scary old man from a cliché in another story.’
At first, I thought Wilhelm was an old man hiding his strength.
He looked like he had swung a sword in his day.
Or perhaps he was good with wires.
But after asking Father, I learned that the head butler had not earned his position through martial prowess.
Apparently, he had originally been a newspaper boy in the slums, but rose to that position by helping Father with all sorts of work.
Rather than the usual white-haired master from fiction, he was simply exceptionally capable at practical work.
So there was nothing for Wangcho to worry about.
If anything, the head butler would probably take a liking to Wangcho’s amiable personality.
“You don’t need to be so afraid. Let’s go.”
Supporting Eri, I headed toward the head butler.
* * *
When Julian approached the head butler with Erika supported at his side, Wilhelm’s eyes widened.
But only for a moment.
With a smile, the butler led Julian toward the car.
“Doctor Schnabel. Please get in first. I’ll speak with this gentleman briefly before we depart.”
Wink.
The head butler winked where Wangcho could not see.
It meant that he would play along with Julian’s act.
Julian marveled at how the man immediately understood the situation without being told.
A butler’s perceptiveness, honed over decades, was not to be underestimated.
Julian and Erika got into the car.
“Otto, you’ve worked hard. We’ll go up first and find a healer for you. As for the scar... Huh.”
The head butler admired the wound on Otto’s face.
“...Was this treatment the Doctor’s work? You moved tissue over from another area.”
“You can tell just by looking?”
“Ha ha. It’s a paltry talent. More importantly, the treatment is artistic. At this level, even a low-level Heal will leave no scar.”
Heh.
Julian swelled with pride at the butler’s praise.
As expected, you could only appreciate what you understood.
‘No one had recognized it until now. I was almost disappointed.’
While Julian happily got into the car at the head butler’s praise, Wilhelm settled Otto into the passenger seat.
Then he turned to Wangcho.
The butler addressed the boss of the red-light district in a gentle manner.
“You are Tao Chen, the boss of D Sector?”
“...Yes, sir.”
Wangcho quickly assessed the head butler.
It was an ingrained skill needed to survive in this cesspit.
‘Rank 0. Close to Rank 1, and no augmentation treatment...’
He was a powerless old man whose neck Wangcho could snap within five seconds if a fight broke out.
Even the lean muscles beneath his tailcoat were nothing special. He was just an ordinary old man who was somewhat healthier than his age suggested.
But Wangcho did not make the mistake of judging Wilhelm solely by what he could see.
‘He’s the head butler of a noble house. I can consider him the head’s representative.’
The world was not all about strength.
Money, power, connections, political influence, intelligence...
The world was not easy enough for someone to act as though they owned the place with only the power of a Rank 1 superhuman.
So Wangcho placed the head butler slightly above Doctor Schnabel.
Unless Doctor Schnabel was a blood relative of the head of the House, even an honored guest could not outrank the head butler.
“I don’t know what to say, sir. I’m honored that you know someone like me.”
“Hmm.”
The head butler examined Tao Chen.
After observing him for several minutes, he pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it over.
“This is a small token of our gratitude for protecting our House’s honored guest.”
Tap.
The envelope was too thin to contain much gratitude.
Maybe there was a single gold coin inside.
Thinking it was stingy for a noble, Wangcho took a quick look at the contents.
Then his eyes widened at the number of zeroes written on the check inside.
“...!”
Holy shit.
This was a small token of gratitude? They really lived in a different world.
...The words rose to his throat.
Naturally, his neck was precious to him, so he did not say them aloud.
“Th-thank you.”
“Excellent. Most people from this area would first grow suspicious and refuse such a favor. Since you didn’t reject it and accepted it immediately, you’re someone who understands etiquette.”
That’s right.
Those words rose to Wangcho’s throat.
After all, he only knew that etiquette because he had been scolded for it while trading with Doctor Schnabel’s company.
What had they said at the time?
If he suspected such a thing, it would insult the other party, and depending on who they were, he had to be prepared to lose his head.
“Please continue to take good care of the Doctor.”
Leaving those words behind, the butler turned away.
Then Tao Chen swallowed hard and called after him.
“W-will the noble lords themselves come over this matter? Or will they send knights?”
The head butler, who had been heading toward the driver’s seat, stopped.
He turned his head slightly and met Wangcho’s eyes.
A faint smile, almost fond, rested on the old butler’s lips.
“Have you ever seen a noble send knights because a rat bit them?”
“Th-then will you overlook this matter...?”
“A noble’s sword and honor are not so light. But we cannot simply stay still when rats offend us. When catching rats, one should leave it to the cleaners.”
The old butler looked up at the sky.
Snow had begun to fall.
A sign of a coming blizzard.
Wiping the fine snow from his glasses, the head butler spoke.
“Ah, now that I think of it, this old man has taken on such work for the first time in a while and made a mistake. Normally, I should have prepared someone to guide the cleaners, but I forgot.”
After finishing cleaning his glasses, the old butler pointed to the envelope Tao Chen held.
“Could I ask you to guide those cleaners? If you complete the task successfully, I will give you the same amount.”
Fuck. I took the bait. Had this been the plan from the beginning?
That thought filled Tao Chen’s mind.
The old man had not mishandled anything.
He had intended this from the start.
But he could no longer refuse.
“Ah, all right.”
“Thank you.”
Click.
The head butler shut the driver’s door.
Wangcho blankly watched their vehicle pull away.
Then, an hour later.
The cleaners arrived.
“Haah... This is why they say never mess with nobles...”
The moment he saw who the cleaners were, Tao Chen let out a deep sigh.
* * *
Clack. Clack.
The sound of military boots crushing snow spread through H Sector.
Tao Chen glanced sideways at the black-clad group following behind him.
‘The Merkuer Trading Company Special Operations Department, the Ironclad Special Operations Team... Was that what they were called?’
They were an alien presence completely unsuited to H Sector’s disorderly streets.
Black leather trench coats that reached their knees.
Fedoras pulled low and goggles to block the blizzard.
Gas masks connected to packs on their backs.
And distinctive magitech weapons and firearms clutched to their chests.
‘How much does all that equipment cost?’
Tao Chen unconsciously sniffed.
It was a habit that surfaced whenever expensive things were in front of him.
Perhaps because the costly equipment was maintained with costly oil, a pleasant scent tickled his nose.
The more he calculated the worth of those scents, the more Tao Chen felt how unfair this world was.
‘It’s been a while since I last saw a trading company’s private army tear through Limbus Pit.’
In this country, military power belonged exclusively to nobles and royalty.
Those who knew power came from the tip of a blade would never let anyone other than themselves grip its hilt.
Yet even nobles could not actively make use of their knights and private soldiers.
Swords and armor bearing a house crest were not things they could send just anywhere.
If they dispatched knights because someone had been bitten by a stray dog, the knights’ status would be reduced to that level.
And it was far too unprofitable.
But mercenaries who knew neither honor nor loyalty could not be trusted, either.
To scratch that itch, capitalists began providing nobles with gray-area services.
‘I remember some H Sector bastard messed with a noble before, and that led to a huge mess... Sigh. Did these idiots learn nothing then?’
Hitmen, special task forces, security divisions, external special operations teams...
Their names varied wildly depending on the trading company.
But their essence as the trading companies’ hunting dogs never changed.
They had two major roles.
The first was handling work too dirty for knights and too dangerous to entrust to mercenaries. In other words, dealing with the troublesome matters nobles disliked.
The second was cleaning up the trading company’s dirty secrets while that noble protected them in return.
And the reason private soldiers had been mobilized this time fell under the first category.
‘This is why I keep telling them not to mess with nobles... Damn cesspit bastards.’
Tao Chen looked up at the sky.
Heavy snow was pouring down, as though trying to cover all the filth in the world.
Yet beneath that white sky, the black procession crushed its way through the snow.
‘Come to think of it, wasn’t it only recently that the Merkuer Trading Company grew enough to hire private soldiers? They made monsters like this in just two years?’
Building an organization of private soldiers with high loyalty and training took a great deal of time and money.
Naturally.
They would learn the trading company’s secrets while handling all kinds of dirty work. If their loyalty was low, those secrets would leak.
That was why only Grade 2 trading companies or higher, with abundant capital and infrastructure, possessed private soldiers.
Most such companies had decades of tradition behind them.
Yet the Merkuer Trading Company, despite being a new company, had raised private soldiers who did not fall behind them.
In only two years, at that.
‘Doctor... What exactly have you raised? Did you brainwash them or something?’
Wangcho recalled the bloodlust that had poured over him just before leaving the restaurant.
The moment they heard that Director Schnabel had been attacked, their vermilion goggles had darkened red.
Thanks to that, Wangcho had felt a chill down his spine for the first time in a while.
‘They are not individually Rank 1, but considering their magitech equipment and training...’
Wangcho would probably win a hard-fought battle against one of them.
But two could slit his throat.
And those monsters were currently sweeping through H Sector in unit formation.
“Um... Aren’t you cold?”
Tao Chen muttered, his breath turning white.
But the men following behind him did not even reply.
There was no casual chatter, no tension before battle, no excitement at the prospect of killing.
They simply watched ahead through their goggles with impassive gazes.
Only the spare magazines and grenades on the armor over their chests occasionally rattled and broke the silence.
“Hold.”
Then the captain at the front suddenly gave a hand signal.
The twelve members following him stopped at once.
Without taking his eyes from ahead, the captain asked the air.
“The guards?”
“Handled.”
The answer came from a side alley.
‘Damn, that startled me.’
A detached unit emerged without a sound, dragging limp red-nosed clowns behind them.
Bloodied daggers were gripped in reverse in their other hands.
“Then we continue.”
Joining the detached unit, the force now numbering twenty continued through the snow.
As they headed toward the theater, curtains were drawn over the windows lining the street.
Before long, they arrived at their destination.
“We’re here. That is the theater of those lunatics desperate to laugh.”
Tao Chen said as he adjusted the hand axe over his shoulder.
Though he had been assigned as a guide, Wangcho had no intention of standing idly by.
He had been attacked. He needed to strike back to set an example.
The matter had already been discussed with the unit, so the captain had nothing to say about it.
“21:58. Two minutes ahead of schedule. Your guidance was clean. I will report it to headquarters. There will be additional compensation.”
“Uh, thank you...”
Clack.
As though they had agreed beforehand, the sound of magitech shotguns being pumped rang through the blizzard simultaneously.
At the end of their gazes stood a massive, worn-down building.
[Rahenden Grand Guignol]
It was a theater supposedly provided by a noble who had enjoyed artwork delivered by the Rahenden Carnival in the past.
The captain silently stared at the theater’s faded sign.
“...”
“Captain?”
“...It is nothing. The objective is extermination. No prisoners.”
The captain’s voice echoed from inside the gas mask.
The two figures standing beside the captain nodded and headed for the entrance.
Bang!
There was no warning shot or demand for surrender.
The heads of the two trembling clowns at the entrance were crushed like tomatoes.
“Drop operational concealment and move in.”
Hissss!
At those words, the mana furnaces on their backs began to spew steam violently.
Powerful magical inscriptions generally had terrible fuel efficiency.
The Ironclad Special Operations Team resolved that flaw by carrying mana furnaces on their backs.
Steam released from their backs flowed through tubes and into their breathing apparatuses.
The captain took the lead, thick steam hissing from the exhaust vent near his mouth.
“Eisen vergisst nicht.” (Iron does not forget.)
“Eisen vergisst nicht.”
With that chant, countless red lenses stormed into the dark theater.
Footnotes:
Qi deviation: A cultivation-fiction term for a dangerous loss of control while training internal energy.
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