WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 51: Entering High Society (4)

──────

* * *

After deciding to bring out one of the Three Sacred Treasures, the days that followed were no different from usual.

On weekdays, I saw patients at the clinic, gave Eri blood transfusions now and then, attended my master's lessons occasionally, and secretly prepared dinner almost every evening.

They were repetitive but rewarding days.

And so, winter passed.

When more patients began coming to the clinic after falling icicles split their heads open, I finally started to feel that spring had arrived.

My birthday had passed during that time as well.

Sixteen.

The age Father had spoken of.

"When you turn sixteen, you either help with your parents' work or make a name for yourself fighting beyond the wall."

Back then, I had chosen to help Father with his work, and Father had promised to call for me once he was certain it was safe.

My first day at work was decided one morning, when the first spring rain began to fall.

That morning, Freya yawned beside me, still half asleep.

She brought a piece of bread without butter to her mouth.

She had been eating bread without butter lately because she was trying to lose weight.

It had to taste awful.

"Julian."

Father, seated across from me, spoke while buttering his bread.

"Yes, Father."

"A case has come up today that I will take you to."

His hand never stopped spreading butter across the bread.

"What kind of case?"

"Between last winter and this spring, five newborns from noble households have died. The cases occurred among the families of two counts and three viscounts."

Freya stopped chewing.

When I looked beside me, Freya was staring at Father with sleep completely gone from her eyes.

Father took a bite of buttered bread and swallowed a sip of coffee before continuing.

"According to the parents' testimony, the children who died had something in common. At first, they cried inconsolably. Then they began vomiting, their whole bodies went limp, and they started trembling."

"Could it just be an illness?"

"Five children having the same symptoms would be far too strange for that. More importantly, all five families currently belong to Prince Auguste's faction."

Oh. I could smell something suspicious the moment I heard that.

A noble child dying in this era?

That could happen.

Five children dying one after another around the same time?

That could rarely happen if there was an epidemic.

But all of them belonging to nobles from the same faction could never be a coincidence.

In cases like this, it would be reasonable to suspect that a hostile faction had cast a curse.

Now that I thought about it, this seemed like a very large-scale case.

Was this really safe?

What if we dug too deeply and put ourselves in danger?

"It has not yet been confirmed whether it is a curse. But the court only hears what it wishes to hear. Likely because the image of factional conflict has already been drawn in their minds. That is why I was chosen for dispatch."

"Don't you belong to a faction, Father?"

"No."

Father calmly finished breakfast by sipping the rest of his coffee.

"An inspector will also be dispatched. Since this case involves an imperial faction, they do not intend to leave a magistrate alone."

An inspector.

The moment I heard that, I felt relieved.

An inspector was an official who uncovered noble corruption.

Part of an inspector's duty was also to prevent competition for the throne from becoming too heated.

In other words, the dispatch of an inspector meant this was practically a warning from the Emperor not to cross the line any further.

"Once it was decided that an inspector would be dispatched, I became certain this case was safe. So come to work with me starting today."

"Understood, Father. I'll prepare the medicine."

I rose from my seat and headed to my room to pack my medical bag.

IV fluids, an emergency trauma kit, heparin, diluted cocaine solution...

I also packed every medicine I could think of that might be needed.

Once I had packed everything and left the study, I ran into Eri at the end of the corridor.

"Teacher, be careful."

Normally, I might have brought her along.

But I could not forget the purpose of this visit.

I was accompanying Father as his child.

Bringing Eri along in this situation would leave far too much room for trouble.

"I'll be back, Eri."

I brushed back Eri's red hair once before heading downstairs.

Father was already standing in the entrance hall with his coat on.

When the butler opened the door, a car was waiting outside.

But instead of the head butler standing beside it as usual, someone else was there.

'That person is...'

Father's assistant.

His name was Heinz.

I had seen his face a few times when he came to visit Father over work.

Heinz's complexion as he waited by the car was far from good.

"Magistrate Hendel."

Heinz bowed and held out a sealed document envelope.

"An urgent report came in at dawn today."

"What happened?"

"The sixth."

Father's hand stopped briefly as he took the papers from the envelope.

But Father did not show it. He pulled out the documents and checked their contents.

It took less than ten seconds to skim through them.

"The symptoms are... the same. Was this one from the same faction as well?"

"Yes. House Bellheim, a count's family belonging to His Highness Prince Auguste's faction."

"When did it happen?"

"One hour ago."

"Then is the baby alive?"

"...For now, yes."

Father folded the document and slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat.

Then he turned his head toward me over his shoulder.

"You heard that, Julian."

I nodded without hesitation.

"If we hurry, we can save the baby."

"All right. Let us go at once."

* * *

House Bellheim's estate was just over ten minutes away by car from our home.

As the roadside trees of Sanctum Hill rushed past, I placed my medical bag on my lap and checked the medicines once more.

'Putting the baby's symptoms together...'

After preparing in the car for several minutes, the car came to a stop.

When the gate opened, I saw a garden glowing with fresh greenery.

It was an exceptionally well-kept garden, something rarely seen within these walls.

Our house did not have a garden like this, even though we had money, because nobody particularly enjoyed gardening...

Ah, what was I thinking about in a situation like this?

I tore my gaze away from the garden and looked toward the entrance.

People had gathered in front of it.

Two servants, one maid, and a healer priest in black robes.

None of them looked well.

Father got out first.

When he displayed his magistrate's seal, the servants stepped aside.

"Where is the child?"

"On the second floor, Magistrate. The lady is holding the child."

"Lead the way."

"But that child is..."

The adults' gazes all turned toward me.

Father dismissed their doubtful stares with a single statement.

"He is an excellent healer. There is no time to explain, so lead the way."

"Understood, my lord."

Father strode up the stairs after the servant.

I followed behind.

At the end of the second-floor corridor, crying could be heard through an open door.

It was far too mature a cry to belong to a child.

It was the cry of mothers who had lost their babies, something I often heard at the Limbus Pit clinic.

When I entered the room where the crying came from, I saw a lady sitting on the bed.

A woman who looked barely over twenty was sobbing.

A limp baby lay in her arms.

I quickly examined the baby's condition.

'Not a tonic-clonic seizure. But not an absence seizure, either.'

A list of illnesses capable of causing convulsions was rapidly crossed out in my mind.

What the child was showing was repeated intermittent tonic episodes.

The whole body stiffened like a board, relaxed for several seconds, then stiffened again. The underlying mechanism was different from a seizure.

'Horizontal nystagmus confirmed.'

The baby's eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs trembled faintly from side to side.

It meant there was a problem with the cerebellum or brainstem.

Intermittent tonic episodes, horizontal nystagmus, dilated pupils, hypertonia.

The differential diagnoses ran through my head.

Hypocalcemia?

It was common in newborns, but the nystagmus would not be this pronounced.

Intracranial hemorrhage?

Possible if the birth had been difficult, but at two months old, the possibility was far too low.

A congenital metabolic disorder?

I could suspect it in an isolated case.

But unless all six houses were the Habsburg royal family, there was no way they all had the same genetic disease at once.

That left...

'An exogenous cause.'

And a candidate substance capable of causing these symptoms naturally came to mind.

'If it's that...'

I had clearly come here to treat the child.

Yet I had ended up deducing the culprit as well.

If I wanted to, I could put on a deduction show right here.

But saving the child was the urgent matter.

'First, stop the convulsions.'

While convulsions continued, the body began consuming an enormous amount of oxygen compared to normal.

As a result, respiration could not keep up with the rate of consumption. If this continued, the brain would be deprived of oxygen.

And there was no need to explain what would happen to a brain deprived of oxygen.

I took my eyes off the child and looked at the lady holding the baby.

"Please let me examine the child."

The lady lifted her head.

Bloodshot eyes looked up at me.

The man standing behind her, who was probably Count Bellheim, stepped in front of me.

He glared at Father rather than me as he spoke.

"Who is this child, Magistrate?"

"My son. He is also a healer."

"A healer? At his age?"

A gaze full of suspicion fixed itself on my face.

I did not react to it.

Strictly speaking, I was not a healer, but there was nothing to gain by revealing that in this situation.

The count's gaze sharpened slightly when I did not answer.

"Three healer priests have already performed curse-breaking rituals, and none of it worked."

"Because it was not a curse."

The room fell silent at my response.

The count's eyes narrowed, but I did not care.

"How can you be so certain it is not a curse?"

"Then let me ask you the reverse. What curse causes symptoms like these in a baby?"

"...I do not know much about black magic."

"Few things are more irresponsible than using 'a curse' as a catchall for what one does not understand. Can a hunter draw a bow in a fog so thick they cannot see the target and expect to catch their prey?"

The count stared at me as though he intended to bore through me.

"Then can you see beyond that fog?"

"I am only human, so I cannot. But diagnosis is ultimately a repeated act of shooting arrows at the most likely target. I know roughly where the target most likely to be hit is."

The count closed his mouth.

After a brief silence, he spoke again.

"...Please, save my first child."

The count stepped aside.

At that moment, the child's body stiffened once more.

The small back arched like a bow in the lady's arms.

I did not wait any longer.

"Madam. You need to put the child down."

The lady's fingers were tightly gripping the baby's undershirt.

It was a sight I often saw in pediatric emergency rooms and Limbus Pit.

It was not that they did not trust the doctor.

They were afraid that the warmth they felt now might be the last they ever felt.

I knew what to say to mothers like that.

"Do not worry. It is not a serious illness."

The lady's eyes wavered.

Of course, I knew my words sounded contradictory.

If it was not serious, how could the other babies with similar symptoms have died?

But simply seeing a doctor act this calmly could bring patients enormous relief.

And this time was no different.

After hesitating for a moment, the lady handed the baby over to me.

I took the child and laid the baby on the bed.

When I was twelve, it had been difficult even to carry a baby alone.

Now that I was sixteen, I had no problem doing it by myself.

Thanks to that, there was one more procedure I could perform.

'Judging by the weight... around two months old. About four kilograms.'

I checked the convulsion pattern again before treatment.

Ten seconds of tonic phase, five seconds of relaxation. Nystagmus continuing. Pale skin, but no cyanosis yet.

No head trauma. Breathing was still holding on.

'There is time.'

I immediately opened my medical bag and took out a vial.

It held transparent crystals.

It was an anticonvulsant I had accidentally made while trying to create an anesthetic in the past.

When I opened the cap, its distinctive pungent smell stung my nose.

'As expected. Good thing I brought this when I heard about the convulsions.'

I took out a vial of distilled water, a syringe, and a thin rubber tube from my medical bag.

I scooped up the crystals with the tip of the syringe and dissolved them in the distilled water.

The transparent crystals slowly melted into the water.

"What are you doing, Julian?"

I did not answer Father's question.

Instead, I checked the concentration of the solution by eye.

Four kilograms.

Taking rectal absorption into account, I calculated the proper dosage.

...That calculation was right, wasn't it?

Tch. Pediatrics was not my specialty, so I was not good at this.

But there was nobody here who could confirm whether I was right.

In the end, I entrusted myself to the power of the misunderstanding genre, filled the syringe with the solution, and attached the rubber tube.

Then I lifted the child's lower body.

"Wait, what are you..."

The count took a step closer.

Before he could stop me, I coated the end of the rubber tube with lubricant and carefully inserted it into the baby's anus.

The room froze.

Everyone except me gaped.

At the center of their stares, I pressed down on the syringe plunger.

"The baby will be all right in five minutes."

I spoke while pointing at the clock on the wall.

In the meantime, I began searching for the child's vein.

A baby's veins were already tiny and faint.

With the convulsions on top of that, it was not easy work.

But there were babies in Limbus Pit in much worse condition, so it was not that difficult either.

After securing an IV line and administering fluids in five minutes, I placed the back of my hand against the baby's forehead.

It was also to check the baby's temperature.

Then it happened.

The five fingers that had been clenched tight and white until just moments ago slowly opened and grasped my finger.

At the same time, the baby's breathing began to return.

The convulsions had stopped.

"The convulsions...!"

"Oh my God..."

Only after touching the baby's body to check the other reflexes did I turn toward the count and countess.

"Our baby is safe now. Ah, I'm a little late asking, but what is our baby's name?"

I turned toward the count and countess with a smile.

They froze.

Then the count answered, his voice trembling slightly.

"...Tina. Tina Bellheim."

"Tina. That is a lovely name."

Behind the count and countess, Father nodded with a proud expression.

Author's Note

This time, I brought in a rather unusual case.

I thought deducing the medicine and disease would probably be difficult... but most of you just figured it out.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried