WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 34: The Firefly Prince (4)

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* * *

It had been thirty-four days since I began vaccine research.

By Korean age, I was now thirteen.

Eri continued learning magic from Captain Shen as usual, while I spent my days accumulating countless cases at the clinic.

Nngh.

I stretched by myself inside the clinic.

It had already been three years since I began treating patients in Limbus Pit.

At some point, my patient base had widened.

Patients now came here from other sectors, not just the prostitutes of D Sector.

As a result, I had become busy lately too.

‘Ah, I could really use some three-minute consultations.’

Naturally, I thought of my past life.

Twenty-first-century South Korea had the wonderful culture of three-minute consultations.

I could do that here too.

I would organize the previous day’s test results, quickly cycle through returning patients, and have first-time patients fill out questionnaires in the waiting room.

Ta-da.

Factory-style three-minute consultations, complete.

“...No. Even so, that would be wrong.”

The more I thought about it, the less right it seemed.

I had not opened this clinic to make money in the first place.

I opened it to regain the skills of my past life and build a reputation.

Besides, I owed the people of Limbus Pit.

There were all kinds of experimental treatments I was not yet used to, or that had not been properly proven in this world.

I had been liberally using those near-gamble treatments on the residents here.

Wouldn’t it be shameless to see patients for only three minutes just for my own convenience?

“Doctor! Thank you, thank you so much! I thought I’d have to live as a one-armed cripple for the rest of my life...!”

My thoughts were shattered by the deep sobbing of a man loud enough to shake the consultation room.

A gaunt young man was crying across from me.

He was the patient whose wrist had been severed in a paper mill cutter.

Come to think of it, today was the day for his final dressing change and bandage removal.

His right wrist trembled as he gripped my hand tightly.

“Just like you said, Doctor. I can move my fingers now...!”

A ring of stitching scars ran around his right wrist.

Whenever I saw that ugly scar, I felt proud.

As expected, a surgeon needed to be skilled with thread, not a scalpel.

“Doctor, I can work again now, right?”

“It hasn’t fully healed yet. Don’t lift anything heavy for a while, and rehabilitate it every day by clenching and opening your hand in warm water so blood can circulate properly through your fingers.”

After reattachment surgery, blood flow was the most important thing after hygiene.

In the end, the prognosis depended on how many tiny blood vessels survived.

Of course, it would be harder for this patient to have a bad prognosis.

I had poured that much potion on him. How could it possibly fail to reattach?

If it did fail, that would not be my problem. It would be the Alchemists’ Guild’s problem.

“Yes! Yes! I’ll remember that!”

“And come back if your fingertips turn black.”

“Yes! I’ll never forget this kindness for the rest of my life, Healer!”

I’m a doctor, not a healer, for goodness’ sake.

After repeatedly bowing so deeply his head nearly struck the floor, the man left the consultation room.

As soon as he was gone, I looked over the bill beside the chart.

Normally, handling the payment was Eri’s job too.

But Eri had left the clinic to train in magic.

That meant I had to organize the accounts myself.

‘Let’s see.’

The patient had paid thirty silver coins.

And the potions used to reattach his wrist had cost three gold coins.

Hmm.

Another loss today.

Still, that level of loss was something I could cover just by breathing for ten minutes, so I did not care.

‘My sense of money really is getting worse.’

Well, I would probably never lack money for the rest of my life. Wasn’t that fine?

I brushed the thought aside and picked up the next chart.

The next patient was visiting for the first time.

“Next patient, please.”

Creak.

The door opened, and an old man slowly entered.

He was a white-haired old man with a slightly bent back.

In his worn coat and battered hat, he looked like any ordinary old man commonly seen in Limbus Pit.

“Please sit down, sir. Is the consultation room not too cold?”

“Whew. The waiting room was warm enough. You must have plenty of money, Healer.”

“For the sake of expectant mothers, it can’t be helped.”

“Ha ha. That is true. Ah, I apologize if my words offended you.”

“Not at all, sir. What brings you here?”

“Ha ha. My hands have been weak lately.”

The old man held out his hand.

“I roll cigars for a living, but my hands won’t do what I tell them. I can’t work.”

“Ah, then you must be from E Sector.”

E Sector mainly processed tobacco and medicinal herbs.

Add narcotics to the mix, and that was E Sector’s entire livelihood.

The old man before me appeared to be a cigar craftsman from that sector.

“E Sector? Ah, yes. I came from E Sector.”

“When did this begin?”

“About a month ago, perhaps?”

“Do you usually smoke cigars?”

“A little. Shouldn’t I personally check the flavor of the goods I make?”

“Have there been times recently when you could not smoke?”

“No, never.”

Then the hand tremors were not caused by withdrawal.

The next likely candidate was carpal tunnel syndrome.

It was a disease common among craftsmen who spent all day pulling and rolling tobacco leaves.

“May I examine your hands?”

After getting the old man’s permission, I inspected his fingertips.

His skin was dry, but there were few calluses.

I examined each finger.

I wanted to check for nicotine stains.

Excessive nicotine absorption through the skin could cause hand tremors like this.

But there were no traces of nicotine on his fingers.

Instead, several faint horizontal lines ran across his nails.

‘Why would those be here?’

Mees’ lines.

A finding that appeared after chronic exposure to heavy metals.

It was not something normally seen in a tobacco craftsman.

“...Could you raise your wrist for me?”

Though puzzled, the old man lifted his wrist.

But he could not hold it up for long before it drooped.

A textbook case of wrist drop.

It was a symptom caused by nerve paralysis that prevented someone from lifting their wrist.

There was one representative heavy metal that caused this.

Lead.

It was not something a cigar craftsman should ever come into contact with.

Much less a poor old man in Limbus Pit.

I stared at his hand for a while.

After some thought, I asked him, “Are cigars slang among spellcasters that I don’t know about, sir?”

Silence filled the consultation room.

I raised my head and met the old man’s eyes.

Those blurry, tired-looking eyes had regained their sharpness as they stared at me.

At last, the old man broke the silence.

“Ha ha ha.”

His bent back straightened.

“How did you know?”

“Alchemists and spellcasters are the only professions that handle lead to this extent.”

“Oh dear. Should I have introduced myself as an alchemist rather than a cigar craftsman?”

As expected.

The old man before me was a spellcaster.

Lead was never a cheap material.

Because of its symbolic resonance with containing souls, it was widely used as a catalyst in various forms of magic.

Not only black mages, but other mages used it often as well.

Lead was especially essential when commanding familiars or forming contracts with fairies and spirits.

That was why lead was not a material an old man rolling tobacco in E Sector could easily access.

From that, I could deduce that he was hiding his profession.

The old man stroked his beard.

“Did I ever say that I handled lead?”

“The traces were left on your hands.”

“My hands?”

Tilting his head, the old man raised his hands to examine them.

“This is the first I’ve heard that lead leaves traces on the hands. How did you discover that?”

“Ruined spellcasters who worked with lead naturally tend to gather in the slums. I learned it from them.”

Limbus Pit was such a convenient excuse.

If I said I learned something while treating patients, everyone accepted it on their own.

The old man before me did too.

Perhaps because of the power of a misunderstanding story, he accepted it immediately without a boring, pedantic explanation.

“Certainly. Down below, one sometimes sees things that cannot be seen above.”

The old man nodded.

“We have met only twice, yet your ideas have given me much inspiration, Junior.”

“Have they?”

“Hm? You’re not surprised?”

“The only spellcasters who would come looking for me are black mages or you, sir.”

I also knew that this person was the old mage I had met before.

Mages were busy creatures by nature.

They divided their time into seconds for research. There was no reason for them to suddenly seek me out for no reason.

So the only spellcasters who would come looking for me were Belgian or that old mage.

Naturally, Belgian was not the sort of character who would go through such a troublesome method to find me, leaving only this old man by elimination.

And even setting deduction aside, this was the right time for the old man to appear by the rules of the genre.

“So, what brings you here?”

I took out refreshments and placed them before the old man.

I had prepared them a month ago because I did not know when he might come.

At the combination of tea and cookies, rarely seen in Limbus Pit, the old mage’s eyes widened slightly.

“Did you prepare this in advance too?”

“Yes. They say opportunities come only to those who are prepared.”

It was also a bonus line to show off my competence.

The mage stared intently at my mask.

There was something unusual in his gaze.

I had never seen that look before, so I could not be sure, but it felt like the gaze of someone who had found prey.

“Preparation...”

The old man muttered to himself, and his face blurred.

His blurred face scattered like mist, revealing the face of the old mage I had met before.

“If my junior is prepared, then as his senior, it is only right that I give him an opportunity.”

His left eye, uncovered by his eyepatch, looked at me.

“Before that, I have one more question. Why are you currently researching black magic?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Julian Schnabel. They say lying is a virtue when dealing with mages, but do not make the mistake of applying the virtues of ordinary spellcasters to me.”

Tch.

It seemed playing dumb would not work.

Come to think of it, pretending before someone who knew my name despite my never introducing myself was rather ridiculous.

I did not even ask how he knew what I was researching.

Perhaps he had used clairvoyance or some other magic.

That was all I could vaguely guess.

Instead, I corrected his misunderstanding slightly.

“I am not researching black magic.”

“Hm? Did you not use black magic?”

“In the end, what I intend to do is alchemy.”

Alchemy in this world was not magic.

At first, when I heard there was alchemy, I thought I could directly alter elemental arrangements with magical power like in a famous manga.

I thought developing quinine would be easy.

But when I actually gathered alchemists, all they showed me was hard labor, throwing this and that into a cauldron and boiling it down.

The only difference was whether they lit the fire with magic or a magical tool.

Fundamentally, alchemists were little different from chemists.

They simply had this world’s unique chemical laws and new materials added to the mix.

‘No wonder there was no mage tower for alchemy.’

In any case.

Alchemy was a term encompassing every kind of technology that changed the properties of matter.

That was why I called my research alchemy when speaking with this old mage.

“Black magic is only a means to me. What I want to make is neither a magical tool nor a magical phenomenon.”

“Then that was alchemy?”

“Yes.”

The difference between magical research and alchemy was simple.

You could distinguish them by whether the completed object or phenomenon required mana.

If it did not need mana after being made, it was alchemy.

If it required mana after being made, it was a magical tool or magic.

That was why I said I would pursue alchemy rather than become a mage.

Alchemy did not require even a trace of mage talent.

“Ha ha... I thought you were a junior... but you were an alchemist.”

The old mage’s eyes narrowed.

That reminded me that mages despised alchemists.

A chill ran down my spine.

It felt like déjà vu.

‘Don’t tell me this is going to be like Belgian again?’

Was he about to get angry, saying I had deceived him again?

That would be bad.

Belgian was only Rank 2 (?) and an ordinary fellow steeped in inferiority, so I could overcome him somehow.

But the old man before me radiated an aura that seemed far beyond Rank 2 at a glance.

If I became his enemy, I might not even be left with my bones intact.

‘Even for a misunderstanding story, isn’t this way too unfair?’

As I broke out in a cold sweat, I opened my mouth to correct the old man’s misunderstanding.

“Sir... I never intended to deceive you...”

The old man cut me off and asked in a cold voice, “Then what do you intend to use that curse for? Surely you do not intend to spread it?”

“No. It is the opposite.”

“The opposite?”

“While fighting a black mage recently, I happened to discover that if you overcome a curse, you become less susceptible to that same curse afterward.”

“Hmm. That is true.”

It was a fact somewhat known among spellcasters as well.

Once you overcame a curse, you gained some resistance to the same curse.

Because of that, curse casters did not use curses unless they could kill their target with certainty.

And when they did, they cast them intending to kill.

The old mage seemed to recall that fact and nodded.

“But what of it?”

“While treating patients here, I learned something. Patients who survived curses often came through outbreaks of plague without any trouble.”

“Hm? Is that true?”

I nodded.

Who could prove me wrong if I said that was what I had observed?

“Yes. So I thought that if we gave people a weakened curse beforehand, we might save them from the plagues that return regularly.”

“...”

The old mage closed his mouth.

He toyed with the teacup on the table, sinking into deep thought.

His single eye raked over me again and again.

How much time had passed?

By the time the steam rising from the teacup had faded, the old man finally spoke.

“For the past month, you have thoroughly stirred my curiosity.”

“...Pardon?”

“After I gave you the grimoire, I did a little background check on you.”

The old man rested his chin on his hand and continued leisurely.

“At first, I thought you were merely a young nobleman playing healer in the slums. But the more I dug, the more astonishing facts I found.”

One by one, the traces I had left began to spill from the old man’s mouth.

“You made medicine to save soldiers from the bark of a tree growing wild in the Demon Realm and sold it for half price.”

“...”

“You extracted a miraculous medicine from the entrails of beasts and saved those dying of diabetes.”

“...”

“They were all miracles of alchemy.”

The old man gave a bitter smile and touched his eyepatch.

“I apologize, Junior. When a person stands high, there are many things they need to verify. Perhaps I’ve grown paranoid after living so long.”

The old mage scratched his chin.

“First, I respect your boldness in serving tea without even asking my name. To offer an apology as well, I think I can reveal my real name to you.”

The old man rose from his chair.

“My name is Louis Edelhardt.”

At that moment, the contents of a history book I had read to better understand this world flashed through my mind.

Louis Edelhardt.

The Father of Magic.

The grand master of the Empire’s thirteen mage towers, the only living eighth-Rank mage.

And one who had stood alongside the Empire’s history.

While I carefully chose my words at the appearance of someone so unexpected, Louis smiled at me and held out his hand.

“Julian Schnabel. Will you become my disciple?”

As I looked at the Father of Magic holding out his hand to me, only one thought filled my mind.

‘What is this? This is terrifying...’

Where had this snowball started rolling?

I thought I could vaguely understand why protagonists in misunderstanding stories tried to run away.

Footnotes:

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