WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 38: The Firefly Prince (8)
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A few days after completing the vaccine, at the clinic.
“Master, you have been taking your supplements properly, right?”
As always, the clinic was stiflingly warm from the heating.
My daily life had not yet changed dramatically.
No matter how remarkable an invention was, it took time for the world to recognize it.
Even quinine and insulin, which had shaken the Empire, had taken a full year to become widespread among the public.
A vaccine, moreover, was not a medicine with an immediate, noticeable effect. It was preventive medicine that kept people from getting sick.
It would take at least two years to prove its true value.
‘Until then, I’ll just keep living the same way.’
Still, I knew better than anyone that this peaceful life would not last forever.
Even more than Master, who had made such a fuss on the day the vaccine was completed.
‘It’s a vaccine, for goodness’ sake.’
If someone asked for the GOAT of medical history, vaccines were a miracle of human history, an invention that always stood shoulder to shoulder with antibiotics.
The moment the world properly learned of this vaccine’s existence and value, I would no longer be able to remain a small local doctor tucked away in a corner of Limbus Pit.
The imperial family, the Magic Tower, the great nobles.
It was obvious that someone would rush to put a leash on me.
‘Even if the world changes, I guess I’ll still be a wage earner...’
Still, until then, I would treat as many people as possible in Limbus Pit before leaving.
I would build up as many cases as I could, hand over as much as possible, and visit whenever I could.
With that resolve in mind, I focused on today’s patient.
“Master, I’ve been giving you regular dimercaprol injections. I’m asking whether you have been taking the other two supplements I gave you without skipping any.”
At my persistent questioning, Great Sage Louis Edelhardt furrowed his brow.
“Yes. I have been taking those medicines properly.”
“No. Why do you think I specifically asked whether you were taking both of them properly? You haven’t been skipping the others, have you?”
“Argh! Of course I took them! Why are you nagging so much?”
Master raised his voice.
“How many times have you asked me this? You check every week. I’m not senile yet!”
“It’s important, so I’ll keep asking.”
“I’ve heard it so often that not only have calluses formed in my ears, mushrooms are about to sprout from them. Stop asking already.”
“I can’t.”
I knew I might be overdoing it.
But this was one matter I could not compromise on.
“If you receive only dimercaprol injections for chronic lead poisoning, something terrible could happen.”
Medicine and poison were separated by the thinnest of margins.
If the method or dosage was even slightly wrong, a person could die in an instant.
Dimercaprol, a treatment for lead poisoning, was especially like that.
“Master, lead has accumulated in your bones for a thousand years. This isn’t something that will be cured after a month or two of injections.”
Dimercaprol.
The treatment I had given Master, made from eggs and garlic.
This medicine, made with the sulfur abundant in eggs and garlic, had a strong affinity for lead.
When dimercaprol entered the body, it drew the lead accumulated in the bones into the bloodstream.
Then, carrying the lead with it, dimercaprol left the body through urine.
That was how dimercaprol treated lead poisoning.
The problem was that it did not carry lead only into the urine.
“Unlike other medicines, dimercaprol can enter the brain as well.”
Dimercaprol had an affinity for the brain, too.
So sometimes, instead of leaving through urine, it carried lead straight into the brain.
That could create a fatal situation where all the lead stored in the bones flowed into the brain.
To prevent that, I had prescribed two additional medicines.
“That’s why it could be dangerous if you don’t take this sour medicine and those pills together.”
Citric acid and bear bile.
These two medicines helped dimercaprol go straight to the urine and liver instead of the brain.
Because of them, dimercaprol could act as medicine rather than poison.
“So please make sure you take them. Even if you stop the dimercaprol injections, you must take these two.”
“Urgh... I’ve already heard this thirty times.”
“I’ll keep saying it anyway.”
I answered Master firmly as he tried to negotiate.
This was the most dangerous time.
People said they acted differently when entering a restroom and when leaving one. Patients were the same.
Right after becoming ill and right after receiving treatment, they took their medicine properly.
But once their condition improved a little, or once they thought they knew enough, they gradually began taking their medicine carelessly.
Then, when their condition became worse than before, even medicine stopped working, and it became impossible to turn things around.
That was why I troubled Master this much.
Chronic lead poisoning could cause irreversible side effects if handled carelessly.
“This is where I draw the line. Please respect that.”
“Urgh. I took in a stubborn youngest disciple in my final years...”
Master grumbled, but he still gathered up the medicines.
“Fine. So you’re saying I must never skip these two?”
“Yes. You must never take only the foul-smelling medicine.”
“Understood. It feels as though my mother, who died a thousand years ago, has come back to life.”
Master snickered as he pocketed the medicines.
Only after confirming that they had properly gone into his pocket did I speak again.
“And aside from the medication, there are your daily habits...”
“Lead can seep through the skin, so I must always wear gloves and a mask when using it. I should avoid breathing in lead fumes whenever possible.”
“And?”
“If my hands begin shaking, my speech becomes slurred, or I lose strength in my body, I need to call a healer first or have you come.”
“You know it well.”
I smiled brightly.
All that nagging every time we met had paid off.
You could not spit at a smiling face. Master chuckled helplessly and shook his head.
Master slowly rose from his seat.
I quickly checked his hand tremors.
‘He’s fine when picking things up now.’
The hand holding his cane moved naturally.
It was proof that his lead poisoning had improved considerably.
“I’ll be going now. So please don’t appear in my dreams to nag me as well.”
“I’ll try.”
Master opened the clinic door and left.
I watched the door through which he had departed for a moment, then began organizing the charts on the table.
* * *
At the highest spire of Sanctum Hill.
Returning to his laboratory, Louis placed the medicine bottles on his desk.
“Let’s see...”
“Make sure you take the other two as well.”
Remembering his disciple’s nagging, he picked up one of the bottles.
He mixed the sour powder from the bottle with water and drank it, then swallowed every last bitter bear-bile pill.
He gave the empty bottles a rough rinse.
The used glass bottles were meant to be reused.
Of course, considering Julian’s wealth, there was no real need to save them.
But the Great Sage, always short on research funds, had developed a habit of saving even a single glass bottle.
Tap.
The washed bottles landed on the desk.
Beside them lay the experimental mask and gloves Julian had made for him.
Louis looked at the items his disciple had prepared, then left the workshop with a satisfied smile.
The faint lights of the magical tools went out one by one, and deep darkness settled over the workshop.
After leaving his laboratory, he headed for his bedroom next door.
“Yawn.”
The Great Sage let out a small yawn and lay down on his bed.
He removed his eyepatch, closed his remaining eye, and his consciousness gradually sank into darkness.
* * *
“It has been a while.”
When Great Sage Louis opened his eyes again, he realized he was drifting through a dream.
Dreams were naturally like mirages. Once people returned to reality, they scattered beyond the reaches of the unconscious.
But after hearing that prophets who followed the paths of stars glimpsed the future amid those scattered fragments of dreams, the Great Sage began researching dreams.
As a result, he discovered how to capture the brief moment when, while shallow human reason slept, the soul touched the world’s chain of cause and effect.
Put simply, he had learned how to glimpse the future or parallel worlds through dreams.
And after several decades, the opportunity had come to Louis again.
“Qudo oculus vadent, moria tenet.”
Louis moved his stiff lips.
The instant the chant ended, the hazy sea of unconsciousness stirred.
Before long, the vague dreamscape took on a clear form.
“Hmm.”
Louis nodded in satisfaction.
Dreams of this kind did not come simply because he wanted them.
That was why the Great Sage had researched not how to have prophetic dreams, but how to remember them.
This magic was the result.
Soon, the scenery began to flow little by little.
To glimpse the future, Louis naturally entrusted himself to the current that guided the dream.
As his vision gradually cleared, a familiar yet unfamiliar sight unfolded.
The imperial palace’s splendid reception room spread out before him.
Louis was sitting on a sofa in that reception room.
And a young man stood across from him.
“Great Sage, it is time for your examination.”
A calm and polite voice.
Louis’s single eye turned toward the young man’s face.
‘Oh.’
Louis could not help admiring him inwardly.
The young man was Julian.
Not the youthful fifteen-year-old boy from reality, but Julian as a young man in his mid-twenties.
His hair was neatly swept back, and he wore the immaculate uniform of a first-rate alchemist.
More than anything, there were those handsome, mature features that strangely drew the eye.
‘So that’s what the boy will look like when he grows up. Tsk, tsk. He’ll make quite a few noble young ladies of the Empire cry. He might even end up visiting the princess’s bedchamber.’
As his teacher, Louis felt sorry to think it, but he was once again relieved that Julian did not possess a talent for hypnosis.
Dream-Julian was very courteous and devoted.
He was no different from the Julian of reality.
Julian approached Louis, took his pulse, and held out a luxurious silver tray with gentle hands.
“You look well again today. It’s time for your medicine.”
“Yes. You must be busy, yet you come all the way to the imperial palace every time. You work hard, Doctor.”
Dream-Louis laughed as he accepted the medicine the young man offered.
Apparently, they did not share the close bond of master and disciple in this world.
Even so, Julian was sincere toward his patient.
‘Then...’
But.
Something was strange.
His instincts, honed over a thousand years, were sounding an alarm.
The young man in front of him was certainly Julian.
His appearance, voice, and manner of speech.
Everything was the same as his beloved disciple’s.
Yet the Great Sage could not feel any resonance from the young man before him.
Still, Louis suppressed the rising sense of unease and decided to follow the flow of the dream.
He intended to watch until the end and see where the causality of this strange parallel world would lead.
“Ha ha, no matter how often I drink it, I can’t get used to this foul smell.”
“Good medicine is bitter, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The doctor is right in every way.”
Dream-Louis laughed and drained the brown dimercaprol potion from the silver tray in a single gulp.
Not long after the medicine passed down his throat.
“Ugh...”
Strength began to leave Dream-Louis’s limbs.
It was a strange feeling.
Louis’s mind, the one observing, remained clear, but his dream-self seemed to be in an abnormal state.
Then, at that very moment.
“...”
The atmosphere around the young man, so kind and devoted moments ago, changed completely.
The agreeable doctor from before was nowhere to be seen. Something that seemed incapable of human emotion looked down at the Great Sage.
The young man slowly placed a hand over the Great Sage’s head as he swayed dazedly.
A low, ominous black magical power flowed from his fingertips.
The magical power began engraving a grotesque spell formula into the Great Sage’s brain.
The single eye of the real Louis, watching from a step back, filled with shock.
‘Is he using necromancy to control the mind of the living...!’
Lead was a catalyst commonly used to control naturally occurring undead.
Its symbolic resonance of imprisoning souls allowed the caster to seize hold of their souls.
And Dream-Julian was using it on the Great Sage.
‘How is this possible?’
The Great Sage’s mental barrier was stronger than anything in the world.
Even an exceptional black mage would find it nearly impossible to cast hypnosis or domination magic directly on the Great Sage’s brain.
Yet Dream-Julian was accomplishing it with absurd ease.
Louis immediately found the principle behind it.
‘...The lead.’
Dream-Julian was using the years the Great Sage had lived.
The lead that had accumulated in his body over a thousand years.
He was saturating the Great Sage’s brain with that lead, then casting black magic on him.
This was the worst possible result of taking only dimercaprol, the primary medicine, while skipping the supplements, exactly as Julian had warned him about in reality.
‘So this is why Julian told me to take the supplements with it.’
Louis was once again amazed by the endless knowledge of both the real Julian and Dream-Julian.
Dream-Louis muttered through his fading consciousness.
“Doctor...”
“Yes, Great Sage. Please speak.”
The Dream-Great Sage, his brain saturated with lead, muttered like an elderly man in delirium.
“How long... has it been since we met?”
It was a question closer to a rambling remark.
To Louis’s question, young Julian answered without withdrawing the black magic flowing from his hand.
His voice was completely calm and emotionless, without the slightest agitation.
“About ten years.”
Ten years.
The time it would take for a thirteen-year-old child in reality to become a young man in his mid-twenties.
This young man had been steadily eroding the Great Sage’s brain over that long span of time.
All while applying the knowledge he already possessed.
‘So this was the extent of this child’s talent for black magic.’
Still, there was one question.
Julian and Louis in this world did not seem to have a master-disciple relationship.
Even so, the black magic the young man displayed was no less precise than that of the real Julian, perhaps even more so.
Then where had this Dream-Julian learned such intricate black magic?
As if mocking Louis’s question, young Julian whispered softly.
“Thanks to you, it has been a most enlightening time, Great Sage.”
Louis’s single eye widened in shock.
Surely not...
For the long span of ten years, this Dream-Julian had steadily stolen the Great Sage’s knowledge.
Using the connection lead had forged between them, naturally and secretly.
‘Good heavens... No. Perhaps, for this child, it should be expected.’
Louis had seen the miracle that occurred when talent was directed along the proper path.
Then he should naturally assume the opposite was possible as well.
At his disciple’s overwhelmingly frightening talent, Louis felt not revulsion, but a chilling thrill.
As though he had read Louis’s feelings, Dream-Julian whispered.
“Even a thousand years of wisdom becomes this helpless once it is trapped inside a decaying body. The years you spent accumulating knowledge have become your leash in the end.”
“...”
If he had arrogantly mocked him like some third-rate villain, Louis might have found him pathetic.
But that Julian merely stated the Great Sage’s future in an even voice.
As if this, too, were part of his grand blueprint.
“I will put the Great Sage’s body to good use. The body of an eighth-Rank mage who has lived for a thousand years. What better vessel could there be?”
At the instant that black magical power was finally about to consume even the Great Sage’s remaining self.
“...”
The eyes of Louis, who had silently observed the situation, turned cold.
The madness and talent displayed by his disciple from a parallel world were certainly interesting.
But that did not give him the right to humiliate the mind of a great mage who had reigned for a thousand years.
More than anything, he could not tolerate the insolent intent behind this dream.
The dream ended here.
“———!”
A brief chant.
At that moment, cracks began spreading through the reception room that had maintained its solid form.
“Foolish mirage.”
Louis’s voice echoed through the collapsing dream world.
“The possibility you have shown is truly remarkable and terrifying. But did you think you could dare confuse me with such a pathetic variable?”
Long ago, when he was young and arrogant, Louis had craved knowledge and the future.
He had obsessed over shallow glimpses of the future in the hope of grasping all the causality of the world in his hands, and the price had been his right eye.
And in exchange for losing the light, he had gained insight.
“One cannot speak of the end of the sea after seeing a single curling wave.”
“...”
“Arrogant being. The world’s ending will never remain confined to the shallow page you have read.”
Crack!
With a sound like a massive window shattering, the space and time of the false parallel world began to break apart.
Just before his consciousness rose back into reality, the Great Sage spoke to the man looking at him calmly.
“You are only a construct of a dream, so you will not hear this, but I’ll say it anyway.”
“...”
“You are nothing more than the prince of fireflies.”
Then, thinking of a certain boy, the Great Sage said,
“You will never become a star.”
Crack!
With those final words, the Great Sage’s dream shattered into pieces.
* * *
“Whew...”
Louis slowly sat up and let out a hollow laugh.
The face of a truly fascinating and horrifying monster remained vivid in his mind.
Louis turned his head toward the desk.
There lay the three empty medicine bottles Julian had prepared, along with a crude but thoughtful mask and leather gloves.
“You must never take only the foul-smelling medicine.”
“If your hands shake, your speech becomes slurred, or you lose strength in your body, you must immediately call a healer or come see me.”
Under the crude magic lamps of Limbus Pit.
The young face of his disciple, wearing an awkward smile, came to mind.
Remembering that face, the Great Sage shook off his thoughts of the monster from his dream.
He vowed never again to arrogantly believe he could judge the sea by a river.
* * *
The following week, at the clinic.
“Master, you skipped your supplements three times this week.”
At Julian’s gentle question as he flipped through the chart, the Empire’s Great Sage, seated across from him, cleared his throat and discreetly averted his gaze.
The great mage’s face visibly reddened under his disciple’s soft questioning.
“Well... I’ve been very busy lately...”
“Ah, so you forgot.”
The instant he heard those words, Julian felt the back of his neck grow hot.
He put down his pen and smiled brightly.
“I’ve been staying up for nights on end amid piles of foul-smelling rotten eggs and garlic to extract medicine so I can fix your hand tremors. I’m even going through the trouble of processing bear liver. Yet it seems my efforts mean very little to you, Master.”
“Umm, no, that’s not what I meant...”
“Well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t take them.”
He picked up the chart again and added indifferently.
“You’re the one who will fail to get rid of the lead poisoning and spend the rest of your life with shaking hands because you didn’t take your medicine. I have nothing to regret. It’s not even my body. If you truly hate taking them, you can spend the rest of your life trembling around with a cane.”
“Ahem! I’m sorry. I won’t forget, and I’ll take them regularly. Please forgive me.”
The Great Sage of the Empire bowed before his disciple, showing the top of his head.
If other mages saw it, they would surely foam at the mouth and call it an outrageous insult to the Father of Magic.
But Julian felt no guilt whatsoever as he accepted his master’s apology.
“Very well. I’ll prescribe them again, so make sure you take the supplements according to the schedule.”
“Urgh... I’m certainly the master...”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. It was nothing.”
Julian rearranged his master’s overdue medication schedule.
This was a fantasy world with flying magical ships and great mages.
But no matter how drastically the world changed, one truth remained unchanged.
Before a doctor, even a Great Sage who had lived for a thousand years was merely an ordinary patient who had to listen to nagging.
Footnotes:
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