WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈

Chapter 78: Good Healer (6)

──────

* * *

I took Ayla to the diabetes testing room.

“Director, what illness does this examination room treat?”

“It’s a little early for you to learn about that illness, Miss Ayla, so I won’t introduce it today.”

On the way to the diabetes testing room, there was an examination room with a suspiciously frequent stream of male patients.

I passed it by without comment.

The diabetes testing room was tucked away at the end of the corridor.

When I opened the door, two healers stood before a long table.

One healer with round glasses was arranging glass cups.

The other was diligently writing something down.

“Ah, Director. Welcome.”

The healer with round glasses gave me a slight bow.

His name was Kou Gomikawa.

He was a diabetes specialist I had trained myself.

He was in his late thirties.

A former low-ranking priest, his skill with Heal was nothing special.

Instead, he had a deep understanding of alchemy.

Originally, he had dreamed of becoming an alchemist.

But because alchemists had fewer career options than healers, he had ultimately chosen the path of a healer.

Then, after I started the insulin boom, he gave up divine magic and returned to alchemy.

“Mr. Kou, I brought my student today.”

“Oh! Has the Director finally taken on a disciple?”

Behind his round frames, Kou’s eyes went round as moons.

“There have been rumors all over the Merkuer clinics lately. They say the Director has finally brought in a student.”

Ordinary healers taught their own students at the clinics where they worked.

They hoped those students would one day carry on their work.

The healer quietly helping Kou with the examinations was also his student.

If I remembered correctly, they had entered the Healing Studies Department last year.

“Say hello, Yutsuki.”

“Hello, senior. I’m Ayla.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Ayla. I’m Yutsuki.”

The healer who had been writing greeted Ayla.

I guided Ayla forward so Kou could get a good look at her.

“Mr. Kou, Ayla hasn’t entered the Healing Studies Department yet. Would you mind giving her a simple explanation of diabetes testing today? Do you have time?”

Kou readily nodded.

“We just finished the morning batch. We were preparing the afternoon batch, so you can watch with us.”

The timing was good.

I gestured for Ayla to come farther inside.

Twelve glass cups were lined up on the table.

Each contained a yellow liquid, with a label attached.

Healer Kou explained to Ayla.

“These are all urine samples from patients suspected of having diabetes.”

“What?”

Ayla’s expression filled with horror.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because urine is a mirror that shows the body’s condition.”

As Kou answered, he dropped a blue liquid into each cup of urine.

The blue liquid was Benedict’s reagent.

It was a reagent used to detect sugar.

Next, Kou heated the liquid mixed with urine and reagent.

Most cups only bubbled, remaining yellow.

But several cups changed from yellow to red.

Kou’s student recorded each change.

[Crane Hoyer, male, 62 years old, positive.]

[James Miller, male, 55 years old, positive.]

Once the student finished writing, I took the record sheet and showed it to Ayla.

“Now, Student Ayla. Can you explain what diabetes is, based on what you know?”

“It’s an illness where you keep getting thirsty and drink a lot of water, but it all comes out again as urine.”

“That’s right. You studied well, Student Ayla.”

Excessive drinking, thirst, and frequent urination.

They were the three major symptoms of diabetes.

“Diabetes is a frightening illness in which excessive sugar flows through the blood, making it sticky. The sticky blood causes blood vessels to become clogged, leading to all kinds of diseases.”

I omitted the principles of diabetes, such as pancreatic function and how sugar accumulated in blood cells.

That was something she would learn in the Academic Division.

“Normally, sugar should not come out in urine. But when there is too much sugar in the blood, it begins to pass into the urine.”

“Did you discover that, Director?”

“No. Another healer discovered that fact. I only made medicine based on it.”

The diagnostic criteria for diabetes had already been known before I made insulin.

Long ago, a healer had discovered that sugar appeared in the urine of diabetes patients.

“The diagnostic criteria for diabetes were discovered forty years ago.”

“Ah.”

Of course, even after that discovery, they had not found a treatment.

They could identify diabetes patients sooner and regulate their diets,

but it did not lead to treatment for patients who already had diabetes.

Not until I introduced the technique for extracting insulin from pig pancreases.

“How much do you know about insulin, Miss Ayla?”

“I heard it’s a miraculous medicine essential for diabetes patients.”

“That’s right. But it still has many shortcomings for something called a miraculous medicine.”

First, there was the issue of purity.

I had succeeded in increasing its purity by introducing the zinc purification method, but it was still far below the standards of my old world.

“That’s why we need to conduct improvement research using the information collected at these clinics.”

This was why I said the clinics were important.

Every medicine I had introduced to this world was little more than a prototype.

Insulin, quinine, colchicine, vaccines.

All of them needed improvement.

But I did not know how to improve those medicines.

After all, it was knowledge I had gotten for free from another world.

And beyond that point, it was the domain of biochemistry, not medicine.

So after developing the medicines, I left all improvement research to the alchemists.

Perhaps because alchemists in this world had always made derivative potions whenever a new potion appeared,

once I gave them a little explanation of the principles, some funding, and clinic data,

they enthusiastically began pouring out all kinds of derivative medicines.

“Data from a thousand patients? This is the kind of scale we could never touch unless we worked for a lord or the Imperial Family!”

“The budget is... What? This much? And the time? What? Unlimited? Would you happen to be offering a lifetime contract right now?”

If research was not progressing, perhaps one should reconsider whether it lacked sufficient funding and time.

The trading company’s alchemists were proving that truth firsthand.

“Mr. Kou here recently succeeded in improving insulin’s duration of action. This is why clinics are necessary.”

I pointed to Kou and his student, who were diligently recording the results.

I did not know much about alchemy.

Nor was I particularly knowledgeable about biochemistry.

My knowledge was nothing more than spreading out an answer sheet and pretending I had solved the problem myself.

It was not real skill.

But alchemists were different.

They started with nothing and built their knowledge and ability with their own hands.

Perhaps that was why.

Whenever I casually threw them a few clues, they established the direction of improvement on their own.

Was this the automated production line of a misunderstanding story?

Thanks to them, I was fully enjoying the privileges of a misunderstanding-story protagonist.

“Haha, Director. If you put it that way, won’t the student get the wrong idea? You taught us all the principles. We only rode your coattails. And didn’t we conclude that the new medicine I made had no clinical significance?”

“Still, it is meaningful that you improved it.”

I turned toward Ayla.

“If you have any questions about insulin or diabetes, ask Mr. Kou. In this field, he has already surpassed me.”

“Director! It isn’t to that extent!”

I ignored Healer Kou’s protest.

In truth, alchemists had already surpassed me in the fields of diabetes and insulin.

I was not particularly upset about it.

There was no reason to be.

After all, diabetes was hardly the only field I needed to work on.

There was no need to cling to the title of greatest diabetes expert.

Besides, I was the one who had trained and supported these alchemists in the first place.

The more famous they became, the more my own reputation would naturally rise.

That was why I acknowledged Mr. Kou as the best.

“Student Ayla. Do you have any questions?”

Ayla had quietly listened to my words.

She looked over the record sheet, then cautiously opened her mouth.

“What are these numbers?”

[Crane Hoyer, male, 62 years old, positive. 5/12: 200]

Ayla’s finger pointed to a line on the sheet.

The date, and the number written beside it.

Kou pushed up his glasses and looked at the record sheet.

“Ah, that is the blood glucose level. We cannot verify a medicine’s effectiveness simply by confirming that sugar is present in urine, so we quantify the concentration of sugar in the blood.”

Ayla tilted her head.

“How do you find that out?”

“That’s a good question.”

Kou took another record sheet from the table drawer.

It was densely filled with numbers by date. Each patient had numbers recorded over several months.

“Our trading company commissions mages.”

Kou explained.

“Among mages, there are occasionally those with a talent for instinctively sensing the concentration of components dissolved in blood. They analyze the patient’s drawn blood and quantify the concentration of sugar.”

It was not difficult work for a mage.

Mages were the sort who possessed incomprehensible talents, such as sensing humidity or melancholy through their skin, or feeling the degree of activation in bone marrow.

So whenever we found mages with useful talents besides Eri, we hired them through the trading company and used them as diagnostic tools like this.

Unfortunately, we had yet to find a mage whose talent stood out as much as Eri’s.

In any case, with the help of those mages, it was possible to quantify sugar levels in urine or blood.

But Ayla did not seem able to believe it easily.

“There are mages with talents like that? I’ve never heard of such a talent.”

Perhaps because she hoped to become a healer, she seemed to have some knowledge of mage talent.

Healing magic ultimately operated on principles similar to ordinary magic.

Aside from replacing a talent for sensing one’s surroundings with faith, and mana with divine power, healers were not all that different from mages.

That was likely why she thought Kou was joking.

“Talents like that really exist?”

At Ayla’s reaction, Healer Kou gave a small laugh.

Then his expression slowly changed.

His smile disappeared, replaced by a gloomy face that seemed to carry regret.

Kou set down the record sheet and slowly raised his head.

“Student Ayla.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know why diabetes is called diabetes?”

“Because sugar comes out in the urine...”

“Because the urine tastes sweet.”

“...”

Ah.

Ayla let out a small gasp.

“No way...”

She could not finish her sentence.

There were plenty of mages who understood their surroundings not through their eyes or noses, but with their tongues.

She seemed to have remembered that.

“Do not worry, Student Ayla. It is a diagnostic method neither you nor Yutsuki needs to know.”

As he spoke, Kou was still looking at the ceiling.

Behind his round glasses, his eyes stared into the distance.

“It reminds me of my days as an apprentice. You said the diagnostic method for diabetes was discovered forty years ago, right?”

“...”

“Benedict’s reagent has not existed for very long. It is a reagent Director Schun made together with insulin.”

I quietly nodded.

If I was going to make medicine, should I not make a diagnostic method as well?

So I made one.

I really did not want to take a little taste of patients’ urine.

Of course, when I developed this reagent, healers cheered for an entirely different reason.

Kou quietly called to me.

“Director Schun.”

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t you have made it three years earlier?”

For reference, Kou had obtained his healer’s license ten years ago.

That meant three years before I made the reagent.

“I’m sorry. I was making quinine at the time as well.”

“...No. I spoke out of turn. Thank you very much for making it.”

The low-ranking healer’s expression looked deeply sad.

* * *

Several months had passed since I took Ayla on as a student.

Ayla’s education had progressed smoothly.

‘It may be about time to move on to the next stage.’

The speed at which Ayla absorbed knowledge was extraordinary.

As if the title of top student at the seminary was not merely for show.

She had already reached a level where she could enter the Healing Studies Department without issue.

At this rate, I thought it would be fine to give her a little advance study before enrollment.

However, I decided to put it off for a while.

‘The snow is coming down hard again this year.’

It was almost that season.

As always, the world was preparing to turn white.

It was the time when every household prepared to endure the harshest season.

Ayla was especially busy as well, so I postponed our lessons.

And during my free time, I handled something I never missed each year.

‘It should be arriving soon.’

Before the heavy snowfall began, I sent winter drafts to the scholarship students.

Heating costs, book expenses, food costs, and so on.

I sent them every year.

Then, around this time, letters of thanks from the scholarship students would arrive.

Knock, knock.

Right then, the head butler knocked on my door.

“Young master, letters have arrived.”

“Come in.”

Wilhelm, the head butler, entered my room carrying a silver tray.

I checked the envelopes on the tray.

“Thank you.”

I accepted the letters and read their contents.

There was nothing particularly remarkable in them.

Kal from the Swordsmanship Department wrote that all his injuries had healed.

Eli from the Alchemy Department wrote that once the snow stopped, she would return to school and study again.

Valeria wrote that she had done well on the graduation examinations, making it easier for her to enter the Hero Studies Department in the Academic Division.

‘Come to think of it, Valeria will be twenty once the snow stops.’

It felt like only yesterday that I had promised to support her application to the Hero Studies Department.

Time truly passed quickly.

As I continued turning through the letters, one letter remained.

A familiar envelope sealed with string rather than wax.

[Sender: Ayla.]

I carefully untied the string.

This time, a pressed flower slipped out with the letter.

Small purple petals.

A violet.

‘She grows flowers even in winter now.’

Violets were flowers that bloomed in spring.

To make them bloom in winter.

It had gone beyond surprising. It was almost wondrous.

How on earth did she grow them?

I tucked the violet between the pages of a book, then unfolded the letter.

=======================

To Director Schun,

Hello, Director. This is Ayla.

Thanks to what you sent again this year, I am spending the winter warmly. Mother also asked me to thank you.

The flower enclosed with this letter is a violet.

Thanks to the magic-stone lamp you sent me, I can make flowers other than sunflowers bloom now.

Thank you so much.

Director, I have been studying a lot lately.

I have been reviewing the clinics you showed me.

I have also not neglected the theology studies you told me to keep up with.

You said healers need faith and patience.

Mother said your words were right too.

She said that, in the end, the time one spends praying is proportional to one’s faith and patience.

I can only manage ten minutes now, but someday I will be able to concentrate for four hours like Mother, right?

I still have a long way to go, but I will work hard.

Oh, and my friends at the seminary are jealous of me.

Usually, the Healing Studies Department only teaches theoretical classes.

So students without a healer teacher or family member can only gain practical experience after graduating and finding work.

But I have been visiting clinics before enrolling, so my friends are very jealous.

So, if it is not too much to ask,

would it be all right if I visited the clinics with friends from the seminary who also hope to become healers?

I am truly sorry if this is too much to ask.

I have more I would like to say, but there is not enough room in the letter, so I will stop here.

I really want to see you once the snow stops.

I want to show you the things I have newly learned at the clinics.

Until then, please stay healthy too, Director!

From Ayla

==========================

‘How cute.’

She wanted to bring her friends.

There was no reason to refuse.

It would be even better if this gave Ayla a chance to grow closer to her friends.

I immediately picked up my fountain pen and began writing a reply.

I wrote that I would positively consider her friends’ visit.

I also added a promise that, once the snow stopped, I would show her something more difficult this year.

I folded the letter, melted sealing wax over a candle, and sealed it.

* * *

Then winter passed, and the snow stopped.

At dawn that day,

I went to the D-1 Clinic for the first time in a while.

Before Ayla and her friends arrived, I prepared for the morning’s work.

I was writing that day’s schedule in my notebook with a fountain pen, preparing for the various emergency patients that would arise immediately after the heavy snowfall.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

Someone urgently pounded on the clinic entrance.

“Teacher! Are you there, Teacher?”

It was Wangcho.

‘At this hour?’

I closed my notebook and headed to the entrance.

When I opened the door, Wangcho was standing there.

Ice fragments clung to the shoulders of his khaki long coat, and cold sweat glistened on his sideburns.

“There is a problem, Teacher.”

Wangcho spoke while catching his breath.

“B Sector is in chaos.”

“B Sector?”

“Isn’t this the cooperative subjugation season right after the heavy snowfall ends?”

That was right.

The period immediately after a heavy snowfall was the cooperative subjugation season for magical beasts.

It took advantage of the time when magical beasts had not fully awakened from hibernation and remained sluggish.

During this season, mercenaries, knight orders, and nobles worked together to reduce their numbers.

It was an Imperial cooperative event to manage the density of magical beasts in the Demon Realm beyond the Brass Wall.

But what could have happened there to make Wangcho react like this?

“A mutant appeared. They say a mutated bird burst out of a nest the subjugation party was trying to wake, and that bastard woke the entire nest from hibernation.”

“What about the casualties?”

“Not just the mercenaries. The knights and nobles who went in with them are seriously injured too. It would not be an exaggeration to call it a nearly devastating blow.”

Wangcho rubbed his hands together.

“The mercenary guilds and clans are in B Sector, right? All the injured have gathered there. That is why the boss over there asked us for support.”

The head of B Sector was close with Wangcho.

Adventurers often made the long trip to D Sector for treatment in the first place.

As I treated them often, B Sector had somehow formed friendly ties with D Sector.

“That man is practically crying, begging me to bring you there, Teacher.”

“Understood.”

I grabbed my coat.

“I will contact the healers assigned to the clinic. Let us leave first.”

Just then, I saw a car carrying Ayla approaching the clinic in the distance.

I hesitated for a moment before adding to Wangcho,

“I will bring Student Ayla as well, so please look after her carefully, Wangcho.”

“Yes, sir. Naturally.”

Author’s Note

Did you know?

Diabetes itself is a very old disease, mentioned repeatedly in ancient Egypt and Eastern history.

It was called Diabetes, or wasting thirst disease, because patients suddenly drank a great deal of water, urinated frequently, and gradually wasted away.

The name diabetes mellitus came into use in the seventeenth century, when people discovered that urine tasted sweet.

A brilliant physician named Thomas Willis was responsible for diabetes finally being properly diagnosed from the medieval period onward. For reference, I cannot tell the Middle Ages from the modern era. If the seventeenth century is already the modern era, I apologize in advance to anyone offended.

That was several centuries before Benedict’s reagent was made in 1900.

So how was it diagnosed before then?

Did I not tell you?

It was called diabetes mellitus because the urine tasted sweet.

Footnotes:

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