WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 29: A Flower Blooming Amid Plague (4)

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“I am Belgian. I came to make a most interesting proposal to someone who, like me, deals in death.”

The fallen noble, Belgian, bowed elegantly.

Only once he stepped closer could I see his face.

Under the red lantern, the right side of his face was covered by a mask.

“Judging by that crow mask, I assume you are the one called Doctor Schnabel. Have I come to the wrong place?”

“No. You found the right person.”

At my answer, the man named Belgian smiled.

My brow furrowed at the sight.

Not that he could see it through the mask.

“Good. Then let us begin again. I have heard much of what you have accomplished in this filthy hole.”

“I was fortunate.”

“Ha ha! Have you rolled around in this sewer for so long that you have forgotten your nobility? Humility is a virtue flaunted by lowborn wretches with nothing to boast of. Have you ever seen a splendid peacock hide with its tail folded away? Even standing in mud like this, those of noble birth should gladly spread their wings if they possess strength worth displaying.”

Eri’s face stiffened as the man rambled on about his beliefs.

“Ugh. What a nouveau riche.”

She muttered quietly enough that only we could hear.

I agreed with her completely.

“Ah, I have gone on too long by myself. A bad habit of mine. My apologies.”

“It is fine. So what is the story with the ghoul you sent me?”

“Hmm... Where should I begin explaining my grand design so that you can understand it easily...?”

Belgian smoothly stroked his intact left jaw before speaking again.

“Yes, let us begin here. I intended to teach order to the beasts of that uncivilized H Sector. I needed to unite that chaotic garbage dump completely beneath my feet.”

“For a nouveau riche, his dreams are a little too big... Mmph!”

Wangcho’s rough hand covered Eri’s mouth.

Then he brought his face close to her ear and whispered loudly enough for me to hear.

“Watch what you say, brat. That bastard is Rank 2.”

“What?! Why is someone at Rank 2 here?”

“How should I know? Still, someone like him could unite H Sector easily.”

Ah.

So he was Rank 2.

I could only sense up to Rank 1.

Normally, a person could only detect those one rank above them.

A Rank 0 could sense only up to Rank 1, while a Rank 1 could sense only up to Rank 2.

Because of that, even if someone at Rank 1 encountered a Rank 7, they might mistake them for Rank 2.

“So for now, focus on keeping him happy, brat.”

At Wangcho’s warning, Eri swallowed dryly.

Fortunately, Belgian did not seem to hear her muttering.

He was still beneath the red lantern, continuing with exaggerated gestures like a stage actor.

“However, to achieve my goal, I required an army to labor for this body. Fortunately, the perfect time to carry out my great undertaking arrived.”

I could guess what he meant without him saying it.

For a black mage to create a ghoul from nothing required a considerable amount of mana.

Since this was not a world where every individual possessed abundant mana, creating ghouls that way allowed for one at most each day.

That was why black mages sought out places steeped in unclean symbols and accumulated mana whenever possible.

Finding a good spot let them make their mana go dozens of times farther.

It was like looking for a dry place to start a fire.

And naturally, it was easier to build a fire where there was already a spark than to start one from nothing.

It seemed this black mage had taken advantage of that.

“Did you wait for ghouls to arise naturally?”

“Hmm. Do you know magic as well? Excellent.”

But not everyone here could follow our conversation.

“Mages really do speak in difficult ways. Brat, you have been studying magic lately. Did you understand any of that?”

“I have not even finished the basics yet. What about you, Wangcho?”

“Hmm. I reached Rank 1 through something other than magic.”

At their whispered conversation, Belgian’s brow creased.

But only for a moment.

He suddenly smoothed out the wrinkles and spoke with an air of superiority.

“If enlightening ignorant inferiors is the duty of those who stand above them, then so be it.”

Tap. Tap.

Belgian struck the floor twice with his cane.

The shadow at his feet stretched out and seeped into the headless corpse of the King of Fools lying in the mud.

Crack! Creak!

“Eek!”

Eri squeaked and hid behind Wangcho.

The massive body, which had been limp only moments ago, rose unsteadily to its feet with grotesque cracking sounds.

Dark red blood dripped from the severed neck, yet the corpse stood tall beside Belgian.

Belgian tapped the headless clown’s shoulder with his cane and spoke arrogantly.

“Raising a beast from the beginning is difficult, but putting a leash on one is not so hard. To put it more simply, because it arose naturally as a ghoul, a little lead was all I needed, you lowborn wretches.”

Lead symbolized the metal that imprisoned souls.

I had no idea why.

That was simply how the laws of this world worked.

Because of this, black mages sometimes drove lead into the heads or necks of corpses and used it like an antenna to control them.

As an aside, that was why the standard advice for dealing with undead was to smash their heads first.

“Fate aided me as well. This winter, I found such a fine corpse. It made preparing for my great undertaking much easier.”

Belgian tapped the headless clown’s knee with his cane.

“However, Rank 1 corpses have excessively strong egos. I never expected it to break free of my control the moment it discovered the person who killed it. I sent it to escort you, originally.”

An escort by ghoul.

That alone told me he was not in his right mind.

“Ordinarily, I should demand compensation for you ruining my precious collection. But...”

Belgian looked up at the headless corpse.

His eyes turned cold.

“But instead, I have committed a discourtesy. I never imagined this creature had a score to settle with you. Since I sent it as a messenger, allow me to apologize.”

Snap!

At the snap of his fingers, the clown’s body swelled as if it had filled with gas.

Pop!

Then, with the sound of air escaping, the body vanished.

Only sloshing liquid remained where the clown had stood, seeping into Belgian’s shadow.

“My apologies. I swear I had no idea this creature was entangled in a grudge with you.”

“It is fine. So why were you looking for me?”

“Ah, that.”

Belgian clapped his hands and smiled brightly.

“I heard that you healed people using only thread and needles, without divine magic.”

“...”

“That technique of stitching missing skin together with other skin! Surely you are also skilled in creating chimeras. Am I wrong?”

“Hmm...”

I could not exactly deny it.

When I was seriously studying magic, I had thought I could probably manage it if I tried.

I had even learned the basics of limb transplantation while training in America in my previous life.

Of course, I had never considered attempting it.

I had no desire to see something like, “Big Brother Julian... Let’s play...”

But Belgian seemed to take my silence as confirmation.

“That is why I wish to make you an offer. Why not join me? Embarrassing as it is to admit, my knowledge of black magic is self-taught. If we combine my army with your chimera techniques, conquering this sewer will be child’s play.”

“I refuse.”

It was not even worth hearing out.

Why would I ever need to join hands with a braggart like him?

I had no hobby of boarding sinking ships.

I had not read the original novel, but I could tell without seeing it that this black mage was fated to fall.

People who played around with human beings like that never had good endings.

More importantly, I was the protagonist.

There was not one reason for me to join hands with a villain.

“I will say it as many times as necessary. I am not interested, Mr. Belgian.”

“Hmm. Was my proposal insufficient? Then I shall offer better terms.”

He extended the hand not holding his cane toward me.

“Once I rule H Sector, I will provide you with research materials regularly. There are people in H Sector who have dared to rebel against my rule. I shall hand their surviving families over to you.”

“... Would that include children?”

“Oh, do you need them? I can prepare as many as you wish. This place is overflowing with children who do nothing but consume food.”

Eri’s shoulders flinched at his words.

Between Belgian’s answer and Eri’s reaction, I could make my decision.

‘Belgian. You cannot be with me.’

People say that murder is not a disqualifying trait for a companion in web novels these days, but even murderers do not go after their victims’ families.

Even I could not whitewash that.

“I am sorry.”

As I said that, I secretly pressed a silver bullet into Otto’s hand.

I could shoot him myself, but he was a Rank 2 superhuman.

Otto had a far better chance of hitting him.

I was not worried that it would fail against a superhuman.

This was the very bullet famous for having been used in the Count assassination incident long ago.

But Belgian did not realize I had made up my mind. He only kept clinging to me.

“Why? Are you not someone whose goal is revenge against those above you as well?”

“What makes you think that?”

“You need not hide it. I am in the same situation as you.”

Belgian removed his mask.

The porcelain covering the right side of his face and forehead came off, revealing a face twisted by burns beneath it.

“Like you, I was framed. There was once a time when I worked myself to the bone, believing my father would acknowledge me as his son if I performed well enough. But this is what became of me.”

He moved the exposed bone of his right jaw, where the flesh had been burned away.

Then he pointed to his forehead.

“Look! This glorious curse! The elders of my house called me a stain and branded me with this filthy mark. You must bear wounds like mine as well, must you not?”

“...”

Now I understood.

He had not come looking for me simply because he wanted my techniques.

He must have heard the rumors about me spreading through Limbus Pit.

Something about a healer who had worked in the upper district failing to heal someone from a ducal house and so on.

That kind of rumor.

“Tell me the name of the house you wish to avenge yourself upon. Once I have completed my revenge, I shall help you with yours. Just say the word. House Rotmund? House Eifenbein? Or the Church?”

He held out his hand again.

Desperation seemed to seep from it.

“Please, do not reject this hand. I am naturally a compassionate person, so I cannot bear to leave people like you behind.”

“...”

I was beginning to get tired of listening.

Misunderstanding stories were all well and good, but the villains misunderstood me too.

This was not the sort of misunderstanding I wanted to use, so I reached for my mask to correct Belgian’s mistake.

Quietly, I raised my hand and undid the mask’s chin strap.

Belgian realized I was about to remove it. A faint flush rose on his face as he rejoiced.

“Yes! That is it!”

Wangcho’s gaze fixed on my face as well.

He always kept his distance, saying he did not care to know my identity, but apparently he had been curious after all.

I removed my mask beneath everyone’s gaze.

“I am sorry, but... I have never acknowledged those rumors.”

Click.

The beaked mask fell away from my face.

Under the red lantern’s light, my bare face was revealed.

A perfectly ordinary face, clean enough to seem pale.

Without a monster’s mark, rotting skin, or grotesque wounds.

Belgian’s expression froze at once.

Chirp. Chirp.

Only the sound of sewer crickets filled the alley.

I was the one who broke the awkward silence.

“Cough...!”

Damn it.

I started coughing the moment I took my mask off.

The air in the lower district really was too foul.

Only after hearing that cough did Wangcho let out a hollow laugh.

“Ha... Doctor. Have you been hiding that face all this time?”

“What is wrong with my face?”

“With a face like that, you could marry into any noble house as a son-in-law and live in luxury for the rest of your life. Why would you come all the way down to a sewer like this and hide it? No, wait. With a face like that in the red-light district, perhaps you do need a mask.”

Eri, still behind Wangcho, timidly poked her head out.

“Exactly. I never understood why you always wore a mask whenever you went out.”

“Brat, you already knew, didn’t you?”

“That is why I understand it even less.”

Even Otto nodded.

“...”

What was with this atmosphere?

Hmm. Was it really that much?

After thinking for a moment, I shook my head.

‘No matter how I think about it, it is not that much.’

Half of appearance came down to skin.

And half of skin came down to hygiene.

In a world where people did not even wash themselves properly with soap, skin like mine, cleaned and cared for with soap every day, had to look heavenly.

On top of that, I spent almost every day indoors and kept harsh air off my skin with a mask.

I could accept that my skin looked nice.

But being handsome...

Well, I was not so sure.

‘What is supposed to be attractive about a face that looks this gloomy?’

I agreed that I looked delicate, but the rest was difficult to accept.

There were plenty of upper-district nobles more handsome than I was.

Even Belgian, supposedly an illegitimate child, had a strikingly handsome half-face.

“So much praise will not get you anything from me.”

“No, I mean it. Doctor, do you never look in a mirror?”

“Eri. That is enough.”

But it seemed my clean appearance was a more terrible insult than anything else to someone.

Especially to a fallen illegitimate child who looked as though he had not washed in years.

“Lies...”

Belgian’s lips trembled.

His eyes, once full of camaraderie, delight, and expectation, began to shake.

Before long, they twisted with uncontrollable betrayal and inferiority.

“It is a lie...! You... You cannot possibly be different from me!”

Black energy began to rise from beneath his feet.

“Did you... deceive me...?”

His trembling hand gripped his cane tightly.

Mana began swirling around him, making the surrounding air tremble.

“How dare you deceive me by pretending to be noble, pretending to be wounded?! You are no different from those stupid fools in the end! You wanted to mock me! You wanted to turn my pain into a spectacle!!”

He raised his cane and screamed.

Hmm.

I had tried to clear up a misunderstanding, but he had misunderstood in an entirely different direction.

Perhaps that was just how misunderstanding stories worked.

Next time, it might be better to avoid correcting misunderstandings at all.

“You deceiver! I will tear off that precious skin of yours and make you into a true monster!!”

Boooom!

With Belgian’s shout, black mana exploded from the tip of his cane.

He pulled something from inside his clothes.

It was a small glass vial.

“Sanio et Putro! (Pus! Rot!)”

I immediately listened closely to the contents of the chant.

A chant was a negotiation with the world.

It was a negotiation saying that I understood these conditions, so the world should take less of my mana and permit the spell to activate.

In other words, if one understood a chant well enough, they could roughly predict the spell their opponent would cast.

“Morde Cuten Eos! (Gnaw at their skin!)”

He threw the glass vial onto the floor.

With a crash, bright yellow liquid flowed from it.

It looked like wound exudate, and I had a good idea what magic he was trying to use.

An ordinary chant took around a minute, so we still had time to react.

“It is a plague curse!”

I upended the bag in my hand and spilled its contents.

It did not protect as well as my gas mask, but I remembered packing some masks.

Of course, since this was a curse from a Rank 2, ordinary masks would not block it perfectly.

But they could turn a fatal curse into merely a painful one.

However, before I could take out a mask, Belgian suddenly completed his chant.

“Efflora, Morbiflos! (Bloom, flower of plague!)”

Startled, I met his eyes.

He was looking at me with a sinister smile.

“Did you think I would give a potential business partner time to react? How unfortunate. I do not underestimate you.”

Belgian staggered.

He must have lost a huge amount of mana as the price of shortening a chant that should have taken a minute.

But in exchange, he could activate the spell without giving us any time to react.

Black mist swallowed us.

A sweet yet disgusting stench of rot stabbed into my nose.

I hurriedly put on my gas mask and shouted at the others.

“Hold your breath, at least!”

When the black mist finally faded and everyone came into view, I immediately checked their conditions.

“Everyone, if you have a fever or feel sick, report your symptoms immediately...”

“Huh? Nothing happened.”

But contrary to my expectations, no one was sick.

Eri sniffed the air and tilted her head, while Wangcho only patted himself down without complaining of any symptoms.

Belgian’s face twisted as he staggered from severe mana exhaustion.

“That cannot be. Did it fail to activate?”

He took out another glass vial, threw it onto the ground, and created another cloud of black mist.

This time, there was no chant.

“Urgh...”

Though the immense mana drain made him stagger, perhaps due to his pride, he forced himself to cast without chanting.

The mist rose once more, then faded again.

“... Is that guy just a fraud?”

Eri muttered as she emerged completely unharmed.

This time, Belgian seemed to hear her.

“You vulgar wench... Urgh...!”

But perhaps because he had exhausted all his mana, even leaning on his cane looked difficult for him.

“This makes no sense... Why is it not working? And why does it require so much mana?!”

Belgian’s unsteady gaze swept over the ground.

Then it stopped on the objects scattered from my bag.

More precisely, on a glass vial that looked similar to the one Belgian had been holding.

“Do not tell me...!”

Belgian’s eyes widened.

“You had a catalyst as well...!”

At that sight, I asked him just in case.

“Did you use smallpox pus as your catalyst?”

Belgian’s shoulders flinched.

That was as good as an answer.

Only then did I think I understood what plague he had tried to use for the curse.

‘Of all curses, he tried to use a smallpox curse?’

Of course it would not work.

D Sector, including everyone here, had already been secretly vaccinated by me.

It was like trying to light wet firewood.

Even pouring oil on it would not help much, yet he had cast without chanting on top of that. There was no way his mana could survive.

Furthermore, his chant and spell formula had failed to account for immunity as a variable, so the failed negotiation had increased the mana cost even further.

‘Poor thing. Of all curses, why did it have to be smallpox...?’

As I watched Belgian panic and inspect his mana, I thought to myself.

As expected.

No matter how hard one worked, the luck of a misunderstanding story was far more important.

Author’s Note

Everyone,

You may call me a terrible author...

I apologize for being late because I spent the last few days agonizing over changing the title.

I will not change the title again, so please forgive me...

Also, after gathering your opinions about the serialization-time poll, I decided on 9 PM. I may post slightly earlier than that.

Footnotes:

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