WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 27: A Flower Blooming Amid Plague (2)

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* * *

The blizzard gradually began to subside.

By the time the heaps of snow had melted in the magical lamp-oil vapor and flowed into the sewers...

“You were trying to learn the concept of exception handling in just two weeks?”

Schmitt, the tutor of the Nihirit baronial family, adjusted his monocle as he spoke.

“Young Lady Freya. Young Master Julian was only able to do that because he was Young Master Julian.”

Schmitt shook his head.

Although exception handling was a basic concept, it was hardly an easy one.

There were thirty formulas alone.

It normally took a full month just to commit them to memory so thoroughly that one could recite them after a jab in the ribs.

But the real difficulty began after learning the formulas.

“Let me ask a question to see how well you understand the concept. Your ally is fighting an enemy, their swords clashing. You are about forty-five paces away from them. If you were to cast fire magic in this situation, which exception-handling formula would you use?”

“Huh? Um... Wouldn't I use Formula 4, the one that sets the range?”

“If you use Formula 4, it will fail if the enemy hides behind your ally.”

“Then... um...”

That was the real problem.

Memorizing formulas and understanding the concept were completely different matters.

It took about a month to memorize formulas to some extent, but learning which formula to use in actual combat took much longer.

“If I add Formula 4 to Formula 1...”

“Your casting time would double, and the two conditions would contradict each other, so the spell would fail.”

“Uwah...”

Freya's eyes spun at Schmitt's firm rejection of her answer.

It was far too harsh a question for a girl who had only just turned twelve.

“Haah...”

The tutor let out a deep sigh.

“Please don't be too discouraged. Even those called prodigies need three months before they can barely take their first steps in this field.”

“B-but my brother did this in four days...”

“Let's treat him as an exception.”

Schmitt smiled bitterly as he remembered his former student.

“There's no need to imitate Young Master Julian. In the end, reaching the finish matters more than getting there quickly.”

Julian.

He was a particular source of regret for Schmitt as well.

A genius who completed a three-year course in three months, one who would not have been out of place beside a Great Sage.

What would have happened if he had possessed mage talent as well?

Even a year later, Schmitt still thought God had a cruel sense of humor.

If only He had not granted Julian even a firefly-like talent, it would have been less regrettable.

“So, Young Lady.”

Schmitt adjusted his crooked monocle and gently reassured Freya.

“If you push yourself too hard already, you may become exhausted later. Your current pace is no less impressive than that of any prodigy, so there is no need to be so impatient.”

“But I want to be able to use magic soon too.”

“Why is that? Is there a special reason?”

“It isn't anything special. I just wanted to follow my brother, like my sister does...”

“Pardon?”

“Ah, it's nothing.”

She wanted to go down to Limbus Pit after Julian.

The way he went down there to help people in need felt like the stories of heroes she admired.

More than anything, she enjoyed learning something new by his side every day.

But she remembered her mother's words and stopped herself.

“Freya. Please keep it secret from the other houses that Brother Julian goes down there.”

“Why?”

“I think they may point fingers at him.”

“Why would they point fingers at him for doing something good? Are they jealous?”

“Hmm... Jealousy... Perhaps you could see it that way.”

Freya looked up at her tutor.

She had heard that Schmitt was the third son of some count's household.

Of course, Freya did not think Schmitt would point fingers at Julian. Still, word might spread among the nobles because of him.

So Freya hurriedly changed her answer.

“I just thought that if my brother could do it, maybe I could too.”

Schmitt smiled fondly at Freya's reply.

The competitive spirit expected of a twelve-year-old seemed adorable to him.

“It's all right, Young Lady. You are Young Master Julian's younger sister. If you don't rush, I'm sure you will catch up to him.”

For a moment, Freya remembered that she and Julian did not share a single drop of blood.

But she did not say so aloud.

It was not important right now.

“Now, shall we begin?”

“Yes, Teacher!”

Freya nodded bravely and tightened her grip on her quill.

Even if they were unrelated by blood, Julian was a more wonderful and admirable brother to her than anyone else in the world.

* * *

While Freya was enjoying her lesson with Teacher Schmitt,

I had returned to Limbus Pit after a long time and spent a hectic day.

Perhaps because the blizzard had just ended, all the patients who had been waiting came flooding in at once.

‘Still, it's better than last year. Thanks to Eri.’

In situations like this, Eri was a tremendous help.

It was far easier when she first sorted out who had problems with their bone marrow.

Once the morning consultations were over,

we took a short lunch break.

“Si jaco ∈ {socii}, tunc damnum → 0... No, what was it again? Does Si jaco come first, or objectum...?”

In a private room at Fleischhof, Eri stared at a scrap of paper and muttered while waiting for the food to arrive.

“Si objectum.signum = protectum... No, was there a comma here? Or wasn't there? Ugh, I don't know!”

Having reached her limit, Eri tore at her hair and collapsed onto the table.

“I only just learned to read. Why am I supposed to memorize thirty formulas?!”

Over the past two weeks, Freya had memorized all thirty formulas to some degree, while Eri had only learned fifteen.

Partly because she had not been literate for long, but more importantly because she had yet to develop the habit of sitting still for extended periods.

“Ugh, I don't know! I'm taking a break! Teacher, I have deliveries...”

“You aren't an errand runner anymore. As my assistant, go back to the duty room and study.”

“Whoa! Teacher, when did you get here?”

“Back when you called Si Jactor Si jaco.”

Even those fifteen formulas had only been learned because I had forced her to sit down and study.

I glanced at the scrap of paper in Eri's hand.

Sure enough, they were formulas I had already memorized but still never wanted to look at.

But as the protagonist whose whole thing was being a genius, there was something I absolutely had to say.

“Is that really difficult...?”

“I'm not a genius like you, Teacher!”

Eri let go of the hair she had been pulling and complained.

Ignoring her, I sipped my pre-meal tea while correcting the typos on her study notes.

Creak.

Then the door of the private room opened with the sound of rusty hinges.

“Teacher. I heard you had come for a meal, so I came to greet you.”

“It's been a while, Wangcho. How is your toe?”

“Hehe... I suffered a bit while the blizzard was coming down.”

“I told you to cut down on alcohol and meat.”

Eri cut in between us.

“Wangcho is hyena beastfolk. Does it make sense for hyena beastfolk not to eat meat, Teacher?”

“I clearly told him he could replace it with rabbit meat or duck eggs, and that he could drink distilled beer.”

It was not as if I had failed to consider that.

Eri, who had been about to defend Wangcho, closed her mouth.

Embarrassed, Wangcho blatantly changed the subject.

“Oh, buddy. Did your face heal up?”

He waved at Otto, who had been sitting silently in the corner of the room as though he were not there.

Otto's face, covered in scars until just before he left Limbus Pit, was now spotless.

“Wow, the priests in the upper district are impressive too. I thought scars like that would last forever. There's not even a trace left.”

“It is all thanks to Doctor Schnabel.”

Otto glanced my way.

“They said the emergency treatment had been done well. Thanks to that, even a basic Heal was enough to treat it.”

Heh.

Of course it was.

As fitting for a world where magic was complicated, the principles behind divine magic were complicated as well.

The deeper and dirtier a wound was, and the less properly it had been treated, the more divine power was needed and the greater the difficulty of healing it.

But in Otto's case, I had treated his wounds artistically, so he could recover without any issue.

‘I'm a trauma surgeon, after all.’

In obstetrics, pediatrics, and internal medicine, I was borrowing the power of a misunderstanding story, but trauma surgery was where my actual skill lay.

The healer-priests had treated Otto, but I figured I deserved about thirty percent of the credit.

...Tsk.

It would be nice if I could use Heal too.

The problem was my lack of faith.

Anyway.

“Wow, buddy. I think that's the first time I've heard you say so much.”

“...”

“Look at you, clamming up again.”

Wangcho joked as he patted Otto on the shoulder.

Otto did not brush off his hand as though it annoyed him, but merely stared out the window with his usual expressionless face.

“Enough joking around.”

Wangcho plopped down in the chair across from me, his usual sly smile fading slightly.

My expression hardened as well.

It was meaningless while I was wearing a crow mask, though.

“Teacher. You should be careful when walking around these streets for a while.”

“Did something happen?”

“This year happens to be ghoul season again.”

Ah, come to think of it, that was right.

Limbus Pit had one unusual season.

Once every three or four years, just after a blizzard fell and the snow melted,

the natural occurrence rate of undead rose exponentially in Limbus Pit.

And since the reason behind it was related to something Eri needed to know, I asked her a question.

“Eri. Do you know why ghouls run rampant in Limbus Pit once every four years?”

“They're already miserable from starving, then they croak from the cold...”

“Eri, watch your language.”

Words were a mage's lifeblood.

Scientific knowledge was important, but vocabulary mattered just as much.

“...They say the resentful spirits of people who starved to death or froze to death are particularly strong. Isn't that why?”

“That's how ordinary people see it. You're becoming a mage now.”

Mage.

Wangcho's eyes widened as he looked at Eri, but I continued without paying attention.

“Can you explain it magically?”

“...I haven't learned that.”

“You mean you don't remember it.”

I roughly ruffled Eri's hair and reminded her of the lesson.

“Now, Eri. What are the five elements needed to activate magic?”

“A spell formula, a chant, a catalyst, mana, and... Um... What was the last one?”

“Symbolism.”

Symbolism was extremely important in magic.

Of course, the other four were necessary too, but that was not what mattered right now.

“A ghoul absolutely requires the symbolic resonance of ‘a death beyond God's gaze.’ That is why ghouls do not naturally arise from corpses in cemeteries where funerals or rites for the dead have been held.”

Unless some deranged black mage performed a ritual that desecrated death, that was.

“For this reason, ghouls often arise in slums or on battlefields. No one mourns or prays for the dead there.”

That was also why ghoul season came to Limbus Pit once every four years, just after a blizzard.

“The accumulated symbolic resonance of desecration erupts. The frozen corpses act as catalysts, reacting with the mana pooled in the city's fog to create ghouls.”

Even so, four years was an improvement.

Before I came here, ghoul season had arrived once every two years.

After I arrived, the mortality rate had fallen exponentially, so it only came to D Sector once every four years.

I heard that ghouls still ran rampant once every two years in the other sectors, causing endless trouble.

“But Teacher, there's something strange.”

“Go ahead.”

“Then why do they naturally arise without a spell formula or chant?”

“Spell formulas and chants are not actually essential for magic to activate.”

A spell formula was a sort of framework that allowed people to use magic in the form they wanted and at the time they wanted.

So the absence of a spell formula did not mean magic would not activate.

It simply meant the magic would activate however it pleased.

The same was true of chants.

Chants were not essential for magic either.

You could think of a chant as the process of bargaining with the world to make up for lacking symbolic resonance, catalysts, and mana.

Therefore, if there was sufficient symbolic resonance, catalysts, and mana, neither chants nor spell formulas were necessary.

“Of course, both are ultimately essential if a person wants to activate magic.”

Unlike vast nature, where everything overflowed, people lacked mana, symbolic resonance, and catalysts. So those two were practically indispensable.

“Now, do you understand?”

“More or less.”

“I don't understand at all.”

I ignored Wangcho, who shrugged.

In any case, Wangcho's point was that ghoul season had returned to D Sector after four years.

‘Tsk. If I had done just a little better, I think I could have stretched it to five years.’

As I thought that to myself, Otto, who had been silent, spoke to Wangcho.

“...Do we not need to go up this time?”

“Oh, buddy. Don't tell me you're scared because of what happened last time?”

Click.

Otto silently cocked the hammer of his revolver.

Wangcho recoiled in disgust as he answered.

“You really can't take a joke.”

“...”

“Fine. I'll just answer what you asked. You wanted to know if we need to go up, right?”

Nod.

“No need. How strong can ghouls really be? They starved to death and froze to death. How strong could they possibly be after getting back up?”

Wangcho was right.

Unlike battlefield ghouls, slum ghouls were frail.

Even if a whole horde came, Otto could simply run them over with the car.

“The bodies they came from were too weak. Unless a superhuman happened to die and their corpse became a ghoul, they aren't that dangerous. So relax and eat, buddy.”

“...”

The moment I heard Wangcho say that, I thought:

Now that's a fucking reassuring thing to hear.

Author's Note

I changed the title.

Footnotes:

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