WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
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◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 44: Mistaken for Daddy Long-Legs (3)
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* * *
An old, cramped residential district on the outskirts of the imperial capital, where commoners lived.
Civitas Square in the evening, as the sun slowly set.
A carriage carrying a lower-ranking priestess stopped in a cobbled alley.
“Thank you.”
Clutching a pouch of gold coins tightly to her chest, the priestess stepped down from the carriage and looked up at her home, bathed in the evening glow.
A narrow, tall, three-story red-brick building.
It was an old boarding house blackened by smog, the sort found anywhere in Civitas Square.
Her family rented a single room on the second floor of that narrow, steep building.
The priestess climbed the creaking wooden stairs and stopped before the tightly closed door.
Perhaps because she had just come from a grand mansion on Sanctum Hill.
Today, her home seemed especially old and shabby.
Creak.
The door opened on rusty hinges.
“Mom’s home.”
The priestess’s tired voice filled the cramped room.
Different answers came from the room that served as both a living room and bedroom, and from the kitchen beyond a single door.
“You’re back?”
In the corner of the living room, her eldest daughter lay facedown on an old sofa, reading a book. She answered indifferently without even looking up.
Her eldest daughter, Valeria.
Sixteen years old and in the middle of adolescence, she had grown noticeably blunt lately.
Meanwhile, a cheerful voice came from the kitchen.
“Mom! You’re back? You must be tired!”
A fourteen-year-old girl hurried over with quick little steps.
Her younger daughter, Ayla.
Unlike Valeria, Ayla showed not even the slightest sign of adolescence. She was kind, innocent, and carefree.
Ayla held a worn notebook stained with ink and a short pencil.
She must have been studying at the dining table until just before her mother came home.
Valeria had probably given up the table for her sister and studied on the sofa instead.
The thought made the priestess’s heart ache.
‘I’m sorry, girls...’
After her husband passed away, she had struggled desperately to survive.
During the day, she worked as a lower-ranking priestess at the church. At night, she drifted between street stalls in Civitas Square.
Then one day, she suddenly awakened divine power.
A priestess who awakened divine power could become a healing priestess and receive far better treatment.
Thanks to that, she had escaped her life as a street vendor.
But reality was still harsh.
She still could not even reach the edge of the middle class, drifting from one cramped rented room to another.
Of course, a lower-ranking priestess earned more than an ordinary middle-class worker.
One low-grade Heal could earn as much as a skilled craftsman made in a day.
But the rent was crushing, and so were her daughters’ education costs.
Within the walls, where land was limited, the right to live in safe Civitas Square was never cheap.
On top of that, unlike their mother, both daughters had awakened talents at an early age.
Her eldest daughter excelled at mathematics and had been able to enter the Imperial Academy’s middle school division.
Her younger daughter attended the junior division of a seminary because she might awaken divine power.
Paying their tuition while covering rent was difficult on a lower-ranking priestess’s income.
‘Still... we won’t have to worry about money for a while.’
The priestess tightened her grip on the pouch of gold coins.
It was payment for two low-grade Heals, along with money to buy her silence.
Thanks to that unexpected compensation, she could let her daughters focus on their studies without worrying about money for some time.
Thinking of that, she forced a bright expression.
“Mom got home late, didn’t she? You must be hungry. I’ll get dinner ready quickly.”
That was when it happened.
Thud.
Something slid through the gap beneath the front door she had just closed.
The priestess turned toward the sound.
A luxurious-looking envelope was poking through the gap under the old door.
She carefully picked it up.
The edges of the heavy, cream-colored parchment envelope were trimmed in gold.
A gold-foil crest had been embossed on the front.
‘Merkuer Trading Company...?’
The Merkuer Trading Company.
Any healer would know that company.
Every medicine it made was revolutionary.
Southern fever, diabetes, even the Pustule Plague.
The medicines produced by that company were saving countless lives.
Among healers, its medicines were practically essential.
“Oh? It’s from the Merkuer Trading Company?”
Her younger daughter, who hoped to become a healer, knew the company well too.
There was a reason the company had become so famous among healers.
When it had first risen to prominence, most healing priests had viewed it with suspicion and displeasure, calling it heretical.
They believed the company would take away their livelihood.
But that displeasure had not even lasted a year.
The company had declared that it would distribute its medicines only through healers.
“Medicine can become poison depending on how it is used. Therefore, our company promises to distribute medicine only through professionals.”
The company never sold medicine directly to ordinary people.
Instead, it entrusted all prescription and dispensing rights to healers.
It was an extraordinary declaration, something even healers had never considered.
In an age when anyone could make and sell unknown medicines.
An age when anyone could become a snake-oil salesman, and anyone could buy such medicine.
Exclusive prescription rights through healers were enough to shake the entire healing profession.
“Ugh... Mom, I hate this company.”
“Hmm? Why?”
“Their medicines are on the exam this time...”
The priestess gave a bitter smile at her younger daughter’s complaint.
Of course, there were little side effects like that.
Even so, the Merkuer Trading Company was something priests were grateful for.
There was a limit to how much Heal a priest could use each day.
But after the company gave them prescription rights, healers’ reputations and incomes had risen explosively beyond anything seen before.
The company’s decision had been so admirable that even the Holy King and Cardinals had wanted to consecrate insulin.
They consecrated vaccines immediately, no questions asked, before they had even been released.
‘But why would that company suddenly...?’
The priestess gently patted her younger daughter’s head once.
Then she carefully broke the gold-foil seal and opened the envelope.
The moment she unfolded the thick documents inside, her eyes widened as though she had seen something impossible.
======================
[Imperial Academy High School Division Admission Recommendation and Scholarship Certificate]
Recipient: Valeria
Support: Full high school tuition, monthly living expenses to maintain a respectable standard of living, full textbook costs
Special Provision: Five years of mandatory employment with the trading company after graduation
=======================
“G-Good heavens...”
Was this some new kind of scam?
The moment she read it, the priestess felt the strength leave her legs.
Meanwhile, her hands unconsciously opened the second envelope.
======================
[Special Scholarship Recommendation for the Seminary Directly Operated by the Church of the Sun Monastery]
Recipient: Ayla
Support: Full tuition and a free private room in a first-class dormitory
Special Provision: A fifteen-year exclusive contract for the trading company’s medicines after receiving holy orders
=======================
An elite path that the priestess could never have reached, no matter how hard she struggled throughout her life.
That opportunity was contained in these small envelopes.
Her heart began pounding wildly.
She prayed that this was not a dream.
But her excitement did not last long.
“...Ah.”
Once she regained a little composure, she realized what the letters meant.
‘They’re buying my silence.’
The timing was far too perfect.
Less than half a day after she witnessed the eldest son of a baronial house perform the miracle of curing demon disease, received a pouch of gold coins from the head of that house, and heard a chilling threat.
An offer so perfect that it was far beyond the common sense of a lower-ranking priestess had arrived.
It was too perfectly timed to dismiss as coincidence.
The priestess swallowed hard.
This was neither simple kindness nor a new kind of scam.
It was an extraordinary yet fitting carrot offered by someone powerful to purchase her silence.
‘No. Of course it is.’
She had not merely made a mistake. She had witnessed the secret of a noble house.
Something that could not be known to the world.
Even so, she had been allowed to keep her life.
Of course she had to pay an appropriate price.
But instead of taking her life, they demanded silence while opening a golden path for her two daughters.
There was no reason to refuse.
No, there was no way she could refuse.
How could she let her intelligent daughters continue studying at a cramped kitchen table and on an old sofa because they could not afford tuition?
‘If anything... it’s more than I deserve.’
The more tightly she kept her mouth shut, the brighter her daughters’ lives would be.
If she carried this secret to her grave, they could escape the cycle of poverty.
This was an opportunity, not a leash.
The priestess clenched the documents tightly in her trembling hands.
...Still, she could not stop her hands from shaking.
She was only a lower-ranking priestess who lived one day at a time.
Yet she had entered the sight of a noble house on Sanctum Hill and the Empire’s largest trading company.
The thought that someone would watch her for the rest of her life from a height she could not even imagine, where gold and power were intertwined, terrified her.
Even if that gaze was merciful.
No, it was even more frightening because it was merciful.
‘...It’s fine. I just have to keep my mouth shut.’
The more tightly she kept her mouth shut, the brighter her daughters’ lives would be.
If she let her mouth slip, all of this would vanish like a bubble.
That was all.
In exchange for becoming part of a great secret, she had been given a great opportunity.
This was not a curse. It was a blessing.
‘Yes... I should accept it gladly. No, I could spend my whole life being grateful, and it still would not be enough.’
The priestess even felt shameless for being afraid now.
So she bit her trembling lip and firmly steeled herself.
“Mom? What’s wrong? What is that?”
Her younger daughter’s voice cut into her thoughts.
Holding her old notebook and short pencil, Ayla tilted her head as she asked.
Valeria, who had been lying on the sofa, also cast a glance their way.
“Uh... well...”
The priestess panicked and tried to hide the documents behind her back.
Then she relaxed her stiff expression and forced a gentle smile.
“Well, it’s a letter from a place called a scholarship foundation.”
“A scholarship foundation? What does it do?”
“Um... I’m not sure?”
Valeria frowned at her mother’s vague answer.
In this world, nobles and major trading companies sometimes sponsored commoners.
But that was usually for the purpose of using them as private soldiers or taking them as concubines.
Even research donations were usually intended to monopolize the results of that research.
That was why the idea of a scholarship foundation, which offered support purely for education, was unfamiliar.
The priestess did not understand the foundation’s intentions either.
But her eldest daughter’s adolescent glare was so sharp that the priestess fumbled through an explanation, pretending to know more.
“R-Right. You two both study so hard and do so well in school... A wonderful trading company that noticed your talents says it will support all your tuition and living expenses.”
Surprisingly, that was the correct answer.
Valeria did not lose her suspicious look.
But Ayla, who had no suspicions at all, jumped up and down in delight.
“Wow! Really?! Then can I move into a dormitory now?!”
“Y-Yes.”
“Hmph. This has to be some scheme by the trading company. Don’t you know there’s no such thing as a free lunch?”
The sixteen-year-old girl lifted her chin, pretending to be cool and unconcerned.
But the corners of her mouth were already twitching.
She could not hide her hope that the hardship of giving up the kitchen table for her sister and studying on an old sofa might finally end.
“I’ll look through it. There could be some poisonous clause in there. I’m studying law for the entrance exam anyway.”
Putting on an adult act, Valeria smoothly took the recommendation letter from her mother’s hand.
Before the priestess could stop her, Valeria quickly scanned the document and tilted her head.
“Huh?”
“W-What is it, Valeria?”
The priestess’s heart sank.
What if there was some frightening sentence about an agreement to keep the secret?
But the part Valeria pointed out was completely different.
“There’s a strange condition here.”
“A condition?”
“Yeah. Maintaining grades in the top five, keeping a respectable appearance, and no disciplinary points at the Academy. Those are understandable requirements if you see this as an investment, but...”
Valeria’s finger pointed to the final line of the document.
“But what’s this final condition? It’s kind of strange.”
“T-The final condition?”
The priestess hurried over and examined the document.
A special provision written in small letters at the very bottom.
[Scholarship students of this foundation must have a meal with the foundation’s scholarship officer once every six months to review academic achievement and foster exchange.]
[Assigned Scholarship Officer: Director Schun.]
* * *
Meanwhile.
Julian, who had fallen asleep in the morning and woken in the evening, sat in a rocking chair, deeply lost in thought.
‘Scholarships out of nowhere...’
When he woke up, the trading company had contacted him.
It was about the scholarship foundation he had discussed with the trading company president before.
“Ah, Young Master. The first scholarship students have been selected, but...”
“Already?”
Julian asked, rubbing his eyes.
He had thought of the scholarship foundation while sending donations to his teacher.
Since he was supporting spellcasters anyway, he figured he might as well support other fields too.
‘That’s how the clichés in this genre usually work, after all.’
In web novels, the usual cliché was for a transmigrator to support talented diamonds in the rough from childhood.
There was just one small problem.
Julian had not read the original story, so he did not know exactly whom he should support.
So he decided to keep it simple.
‘If I don’t know who to support, I can just support people and hope I get lucky with one of them.’
That was why he established a scholarship foundation.
He figured that if he supported a few dozen people every year, one of them would probably work out.
It was a crude approach available only to Julian, who had money to burn.
And only a few days after the scholarship foundation was discussed.
The students who would receive scholarships had already been selected.
‘Let’s see...’
Numerous lists were piled on Julian’s desk.
Kal. Fifteen years old. Second-ranked student in the swordsmanship department of the Academy’s middle school division.
Eli. Seventeen years old. Top student in the alchemy department of the Academy’s high school division.
‘Hmm? These two seem more promising than the others.’
Valeria. Sixteen years old. Top student in the Department of Diplomatic Economics in the Academy’s middle school division.
Ayla. Fourteen years old. Awakened divine power. Honor student in the junior division of a seminary.
Julian made a mental note of the particularly noticeable students.
After reviewing the documents for several dozen students, he nodded.
“Good. Proceed as planned.”
“An excellent decision, Young Master.”
“Ah, before that, you added the condition I mentioned, right?”
“Pardon? Ah, you mean the special provision requiring them to have a meal with the scholarship officer once every six months?”
There was a trace of bewilderment in the trading company president’s voice through the communications device.
“Yes, we recorded it all under Director Schun’s name as you instructed, but... May I ask why you felt the need to include such an inconvenient provision?”
“Is it because of the cost?”
“No, not at all. Buying students a meal is nothing to the company. But you plan to personally meet dozens of students one by one and dine with them?”
It was a perfectly reasonable question.
Supporting them financially would have been enough, so why did Julian want to gather ordinary scholarship students he did not even know and regularly feed them?
The trading company president could not understand Julian’s intention to make extra work for himself despite being a noble.
But Julian dismissed the question.
“This is a project that spends my money. Is it wrong for me to personally check whom I invested in?”
“My apologies. It was a foolish question.”
The trading company president nodded, convinced by Julian’s answer.
This was Director Schnabel, who volunteered in Limbus Pit because he wanted to see what lay beneath his feet for himself.
It was understandable that someone like him would hold meals for that reason.
Besides, the trading company president was no longer in a position to say much to Julian anyway.
“Please get some proper rest now, Young Master.”
“Goodbye, President.”
After ending the call with the trading company president, Julian sank into thought again.
‘It’s just an extension of what I did in Limbus Pit.’
Find talented children and place them somewhere.
The so-called orphan gacha.
The name sounded strange, but it was something he had already been doing.
He had found Erika through orphan gacha.
That was why he believed in the power of orphan gacha.
‘Now I’m just doing it on a bigger scale.’
This time, his targets were not orphans but Academy students.
On a larger scale, with children who seemed to have even more potential.
However, the reason Julian added the dinner condition had nothing to do with talent gacha.
‘I wanted to try it at least once.’
There was a story about a boy who won a lottery and toured a chocolate factory.
Julian loved that story.
So he decided to imitate it this time.
It had nothing to do with him being the protagonist or following a cliché.
It just seemed fun.
He planned to stop later if it became troublesome.
‘Should I let them tour our pharmaceutical factory someday...?’
Then should he hire dancing dwarves somewhere?
Or should he just replace them with actual dwarves?
Thinking that, Julian rocked back and forth in his chair.
‘The dress code and restaurant for meeting the kids...’
Julian was already looking forward to meeting them.
Author’s Note
A little piece of trivia.
The concept of doctors having exclusive prescription and dispensing rights is more recent than you might think.
It only emerged after the victories of modern science, such as penicillin, vaccines, and anesthesia.
I do not know the details, but I believe it only emerged after World War II ended. Please let me know if I am wrong.
Footnotes:
“Gacha” refers to random-draw game mechanics. Julian jokingly calls his habit of finding and supporting talented children “orphan gacha.”
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