WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 28: A Flower Blooming Amid Plague (3)

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* * *

“Ugh... My head feels all hot...”

The hectic day had finally come to an end.

After spending all day feeling people’s bone marrow(?), Erika had melted across her desk.

“Doctor, I can hear strange noises inside my body. Do you think I caught a cold too?”

“That’s your stomach, Eri.”

Over the course of the day, Eri had examined several dozen people and identified about four infected patients.

Most had latent syphilis or latent tuberculosis.

“Eri, you should be proud. You saved eight people today.”

At present, latent syphilis was a disease I had no way to diagnose.

In an era with such limited equipment and technology, even I couldn’t diagnose it without symptoms.

But since Eri became my assistant, I could now diagnose latent diseases with no outward symptoms.

Her ability to detect abnormalities in bone marrow through mana was that useful.

“Eight people?”

“That includes their children.”

“Ahh.”

“And your magical proficiency probably improved a lot today, too.”

On top of that, I could expect Eri’s magical ability to improve.

After examining several dozen people, her senses had grown slightly sharper.

They say even one’s sense of smell becomes keener with training, after all.

It seemed to work on roughly the same principle.

“Huh? This was training?”

“That’s right.”

“Ahh. If that was the case, you should’ve told me earlier.”

The moment Eri learned that what she had been doing was training rather than simple repetitive work, she pushed herself up from the desk.

Perhaps because she was so ambitious, a little motivation like this always made her recover quickly.

“Man. If I’d known it was training, I would’ve looked harder. Oh, how about we see patients at night too, Doctor?”

“There’s tomorrow and the day after. Don’t wear yourself out already.”

After calming Eri, who had suddenly become motivated, I packed my things to leave work.

Creak. Creak.

Just then, Wangcho came down from the second floor, where the mothers were staying.

“Doctor, I’ll take care of the mothers, so you should head home now.”

“Ah, thank you, Wangcho.”

“But, Doctor, may I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“What are those white powders you gave the mothers?”

“Ah, those?”

Pointing to the drawer where the white powder Wangcho mentioned was stored, I answered.

“It’s medicine made from seaweed and ash from burnt wood.”

Its proper name was potassium iodide.

It was a medicine that suppressed syphilis to some extent.

Syphilis should be treated with penicillin, but since I still couldn’t make it, this was what I used instead.

‘I know blue mold is the material, but I don’t know what comes after that.’

That wasn’t important right now, though.

The moment Wangcho heard what the medicine was made from, he looked deeply unconvinced.

“Does that actually work? Wouldn’t exposing them to mercury be better?”

“There are children in their wombs. What are you talking about?”

“Well, becoming disabled is still better than dying, isn’t it?”

“If they take the white powder, nobody needs to die, and the child doesn’t need to be born with a disability. So don’t say things like that.”

“Tsk... Understood. You’ve never been wrong before, Doctor.”

Good grief.

Maybe because this was such a harsh dark fantasy world, people here casually said things that made my heart drop.

“But, Wangcho.”

Eri, who had been quietly listening, joined the conversation.

“Wangcho, you’re the boss. Why are you so devoted to the prostitutes?”

At Eri’s blunt question, Wangcho’s thick eyebrows twitched.

With an uncomfortable look on his face, he muttered, “Why are you asking pointless questions, kid? The mothers are people from my nest. They’re assets who make money at my brothel, so of course I need to look after them.”

“Huh? Your old boss wasn’t like that, was he? He used them up and threw them away...”

“I’m different from that bastard.”

Wangcho continued unnaturally, clearing his throat halfway through.

I knew why Wangcho reacted like that.

‘He said he had several mothers.’

Wangcho had grown up without his birth mother. She had died giving birth to him.

The people who raised Wangcho were the many prostitutes of this district.

Beastfolk culture had a concept of communal child-rearing.

That was why Wangcho valued the prostitutes.

One of them might even have nursed him.

For the record, I knew this because Wangcho was my patient.

It was something I had naturally learned while asking about his family history.

‘Well, I shouldn’t tell anyone.’

Remembering a doctor’s duty of confidentiality, I kept my itching mouth shut.

Wangcho himself didn’t seem to want to announce why he protected the prostitutes, either.

Pretending not to know, I smiled and fastened my briefcase.

“Anyway, you worked hard. Please keep giving them that powdered medicine for the time being.”

“Understood, Doctor. Ah, right.”

Just as Wangcho was about to turn away, he pulled a small glass vial from inside his thick coat, as if he had suddenly remembered something.

He held it out to me without hiding the disgusted expression of someone carrying a bag of food waste.

“Is this what you asked for, Doctor?”

“What’s that?”

Eri’s eyes gleamed with curiosity at the sight of the vial.

She naturally reached for it.

Wangcho recoiled and pulled the vial away from her hand.

“Don’t touch it, kid. What’s inside isn’t clean.”

“Now I’m curious because you said that. Will knowing get me hurt?”

Wangcho glanced at me.

It was a signal asking whether he could tell Eri.

I nodded. Or rather, I nodded my beak. It wasn’t exactly a secret.

With my permission, Wangcho revealed what was in the vial.

“Pus from a cow’s udder.”

“...What?”

“Doctor’s been asking me to get it since he first came down here. Whenever a sick cow gets thrown out at the slaughterhouse, I bring some to him.”

Eri looked at me in horror.

“Why do you need pus?”

“I have a use for it.”

“Don’t tell me...”

Eri trailed off for a moment before continuing.

“...Doctor, are you a black mage?”

Thwack!

This time, it wasn’t me.

“Hey! What kind of nonsense is that to say about the angel of our brothel district, kid?”

“Ow! Doctor said getting hit in the head too much makes you stupid! What are you doing to this precious head that’s going to become a mage?”

“If your head gets worse from one little hit, it was bad from the beginning.”

“Ugh...”

Eri rubbed her head and turned toward me.

Wangcho’s hand must have hurt, because tears pooled in her eyes.

“But what are you really going to use that for, Doctor?”

Carefully putting the vial into my bag, I replied, “I have somewhere to use it.”

“So where is that somewhere?”

“Do you think I’d use something like this for anything besides medicine?”

At those words, Eri narrowed her eyes.

After thinking deeply about something, she lowered her gaze to her own arm.

There was an injection mark there.

“...Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“The medicine I get injected with doesn’t have something like that in it, does it?”

“...”

“...It doesn’t, right?”

I snickered and nodded.

“You watched the process of making heparin right beside me.”

“Ah, right.”

Eri sighed in relief.

I quietly looked away from her.

‘I didn’t use it in an injection. Not in an injection...’

There had been a time when I secretly applied it for a vaccination long ago.

Anyway, I hadn’t lied.

* * *

We had packed everything.

At last, we started on our way home.

“You worked hard today too, Eri.”

“You too, Doctor.”

Eri, Otto, and I left the clinic side by side.

“Ah, and you too, Mr. Otto.”

Bow.

Otto, his coat draped over his shoulders like a cape, silently bowed his head.

“Do I not get a greeting?”

Wangcho joined us as well.

The reason Wangcho accompanied us home wasn’t because his house was in the upper district, but because of the previous incident.

After I had left Otto alone to guard me last time and the guard had been breached so easily, Wangcho had begun volunteering to escort me home.

“If Doctor gets even a scratch, my head might roll.”

Judging by Wangcho’s behavior, it seemed Wilhelm had given him an additional request as well.

It appeared Otto had lost some of Head Butler Wilhelm’s trust after the last incident.

Still, it wasn’t as though he could find a Rank 1 superhuman anywhere, so the head butler seemed to have chosen Wangcho.

Tsk, tsk.

How had Otto ended up being treated like this?

Anyway, that was why Wangcho accompanied us home.

“Ah, I’m hungry. I want to eat soon.”

“Is there anything you want to eat?”

“Everything you make is delicious, Doctor.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

We chatted as we headed toward the upper district, where the car was parked.

Since the roads were somewhat icy after the blizzard had melted, it had been difficult for Otto to bring the car all the way to the clinic.

Limbus Pit was especially bleak after night fell.

In this district, which had been left behind by welfare and administration, there were no mana gas lamps to be found.

Usually, the red lanterns hanging from the eaves took the place of those lamps.

“But, Doctor, don’t there seem to be a lot more gas lamps out than usual today?”

“...”

“Is it because of the blizzard? Maybe they won’t light properly?”

Eri tilted her head.

Her gaze was fixed on the dark end of the street.

Then it happened.

Crackle.

One of the red lanterns ahead lit up.

Blink.

The lantern flickered off and on once.

“...?”

Something appeared at the end of the alley.

“What is that?”

It was too far away, and the light was too dim to see clearly, but it had a human shape.

Blink.

When the light flickered once, the figure was ten steps closer.

Only then did I notice what it was wearing.

‘A clown?’

A worn and tattered robe. A scepter with bells. A stomach bulging beneath the robe.

A massive clown, easily over two meters tall, was holding a ballet pose.

‘What the hell?’

Blink.

The fat clown angled its body, crossed its feet, and came ten steps closer.

Blink.

It extended one leg straight and touched the ground with its toe as it came ten steps closer.

Blink.

This time, it balanced on one leg, lifted the other high behind it, and bent its upper body deeply forward.

“I know that! It’s an arabesque!”

You didn’t need to explain it, Eri.

I was already wondering whether someone as sheltered as I was should even be watching something like that.

After that, the fat clown kept approaching whenever the light went out, showing off an unnecessarily flexible body.

By the time I could see the face that looked as though it had been stitched together from scraps, I had a rough idea of what it was.

‘The Clown King?’

I remembered a photograph in a report filed by the Ironclad Special Operations Team after they had completed their mission.

Its face had been mangled beyond recognition, but its clothing and the scepter in its hand were clues.

‘I heard its head was blown to pieces.’

Had it disarmed the bomb somehow?

But that couldn’t be.

I wasn’t some third-rate villain who threw someone off a cliff and relaxed. I had ordered them to confirm the corpse.

The clown let out a bubbling laugh.

“Ho... ho... ho...”

Black fluid dripped from between its torn lips as its mouth opened.

Only then did I understand.

“Doctor. That...”

“It’s a ghoul.”

The ghoulified Clown King continued dancing like a ballerina as he approached.

However, his gaze was fixed on one person.

“Damn it. I made eye contact.”

Wangcho spat phlegm.

The Clown King’s gaze was fixed on Wangcho’s face.

“Doctor, just to make sure, that thing came to see me, right?”

I nodded in confirmation.

Here is a small piece of trivia.

For naturally occurring undead, the cause of death greatly influenced their behavior.

Undead who drowned tried to drown the living.

Undead who starved tried to devour the living.

Undead who froze to death craved warm blood.

And vengeful spirits usually sought out the object of their resentment first.

“Tao Che...”

The Clown King transformed his scepter into a mace and approached.

But before the ghoul could finish his muttering, Wangcho vanished into the darkness.

Blink.

When the red lantern flickered once, Wangcho appeared above the Clown King’s head.

“Huh?”

Wangcho’s hand axe lodged itself in the clown’s neck.

Blue energy flickered around the axe, which had buried itself halfway into the Clown King’s neck.

“Gurgle?!”

Wangcho twisted the hand axe embedded in the clown’s neck.

Crunch!

With a horrific sound, the King of Fools’ neck snapped.

After separating the clown’s head from his enormous body, Wangcho landed on the ground and spoke.

“Do you think you’re on my level, you little bastard?”

It was an obvious result.

His opponent was the boss of one of H Sector’s many small cells.

Wangcho, on the other hand, was a superhuman who had unified D Sector.

Considering that H Sector wasn’t frightening because it was strong, but because it was full of lunatics, a gap this wide was only natural.

“But this bastard is persistent. Did he walk all the way here from there?”

Wangcho poked at the headless body.

However, the massive corpse, which should have been dead, convulsed grotesquely and flailed its thick arms in an attempt to grab Wangcho’s ankle.

The head buried in the muddy ground was the same.

The two eyes revealed beneath the clown’s heavy makeup had completely lost their reason and rolled white.

His unfocused gaze was aimed solely at Wangcho.

“Kyaaaaah! Hehehe... Meeeeat...!”

Its jaw dislocated, the head vomited black blood and chattered its teeth like a wild beast.

“What the hell? Is a ghoul that used to be Rank 1 somehow different?”

“Kyaaah!”

“You’re making an ugly scene in front of Doctor. Let’s end this bad blood here.”

Wangcho clicked his tongue and raised his hand axe to smash the noisy head completely.

Then, from behind the alley, a calm voice interrupted the King of Fools’ shriek.

“I intended to send a knight worthy of greeting my guest, but it seems the lowborn cannot understand nobility even after death.”

“Hm? What’s that?”

Our gazes turned toward the darkness.

The voice had come from an alley untouched even by the red lanterns’ light.

Click. Click. Tap.

The sound of shoes striking wet stone approached us.

Between the footsteps came the sound of a cane tapping against the stone ground.

At last, the figure slowly emerged beneath a red lantern.

“A Rank 1 specimen is difficult to acquire, so I decided to use it. Still, it seems it was not an appropriate choice for entertaining a guest.”

The person who emerged from the darkness was a man dressed in an old frock coat and a dented silk hat.

He looked like the stereotype of a fallen noble.

The man slightly lifted his silk hat and spoke to me.

“My apologies, Doctor Schnabel. This wasn’t how I originally intended things to go.”

The man in the silk hat placed his hat over his chest and offered a courteous greeting.

“My name is Belgian. I came because I wished to offer an exceedingly interesting proposal to you, who deal with death as I do.”

Looking at the man, I thought to myself.

Misunderstandings were all well and good, but attracting people like this was a downside.

Author’s Note

Following an internal discussion, the illustrator told me not to change the title, so I’ll just change it back to the old one... Hehe....

Footnotes:

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