WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
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◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 94: Mistaken for a Suspicious Professor (1)
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* * *
Eri had failed the third-round written examination.
She had exhausted all her willpower during the second examination.
“Sorry, Doctor...”
“You don’t need to apologize. You must be more upset than I am.”
“But you and the head of the house cared so much about me...”
“I’m really fine. As for Father, I’ll speak to him.”
It was not as though she had neglected her studies or failed to work hard.
Falling asleep during the third examination was... not ideal.
But that was because she had worked too hard during the second examination.
And since she had ranked first in the second examination, perhaps there was room to defend her.
With that thought, I delivered the news to my parents.
However, their reaction far exceeded my expectations.
“Well done, Erika.”
“Pardon?”
Father looked proud upon hearing that Erika had failed.
Both Erika and I had question marks floating over our heads.
“I suppose blood will tell.”
“Father. Erika is, um...”
We had never adopted her.
Of course, Fried considered Erika his eldest sister, and Freya followed her almost as though she were her real older sister.
But House Nihirit had not adopted Erika yet.
Father must have remembered that as well, because he quickly corrected himself.
“Ah, right. I had forgotten.”
“So what do you mean, well done?”
“Well, I had an experience similar to Erika’s.”
“You did, Father?”
Father nodded.
“Julian, how much do you know about battle aura?”
“Not very much.”
My specialties were magic and divine power.
Battle aura was of no help to medicine whatsoever, so I had never looked into it closely.
The only thing I knew was that it was somewhat like internal energy.
“Then, Julian, what resources do magic and divine power each use?”
“Magic uses magical power and knowledge, while divine power uses faith.”
“And battle aura?”
“I heard it uses willpower.”
Battle aura could be activated with nothing more than strong willpower.
That made it vastly easier to learn than other supernatural abilities, and it had become an ability used by all kinds of common folk, including adventurers.
“Then do you know that battle aura can be maintained for far less time than magical power?”
“I do not.”
I felt as though I had heard that somewhere before.
But I had only heard it in passing, so I did not know the details.
“Then you do not know why.”
“No.”
“Then I shall begin there. It varies by Rank, but Rank 1 can maintain battle aura for about ten minutes per day on average. That is why battle-aura users must learn to use it briefly, only at the moments when they need it.”
Erika nodded beside me.
Only after hearing that explanation did I understand how Erika and Wangcho fought.
The two of them fought as though they were turning their battle aura on and off in brief bursts.
So that was why.
“Unlike faith or magical power, a person cannot tell how much willpower they have left. There are days when someone uses battle aura longer than usual in a crisis, while on poor days, they may be unable to maintain it even as long as they normally can. You can only roughly estimate it through long experience.”
Even Father, who was Rank 3, could not tell precisely.
“The problem is that when willpower is depleted, people have no choice but to fall asleep, just as Erika did.”
“Is it fatigue?”
“It is a somewhat different concept from fatigue. It is difficult to explain, but perhaps it feels as though you have drawn upon the will to do other things as well. Once you spend your will to fight, it feels as though you pull your other intentions into that place. And once even those are all spent, you can no longer think of doing anything at all.”
I thought I understood the feeling.
“So Erika was unable to take the examination because she used even her will to take the test while fighting the teaching assistant?”
“Most likely.”
Father nodded with satisfaction.
“Very few students know how to use battle aura before entering the Academy. Among those students, some exhaust their battle aura during the second examination and cannot properly take the third examination. Like I did.”
“You too, Father?”
“I did. I pushed myself too hard during the sparring match because I wanted to beat the teaching assistant, and as a result, I slept very well in the third examination hall.”
Father turned to Erika.
“Do not worry too much. The Academy will not wish to lose a talent like you. The notice says you are exempt from next year’s second examination, does it not?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Then this year’s score will carry over to next year. Prepare only for the third examination. You may even rank first overall.”
Erika’s expression brightened as she listened.
“Then... I...?”
“Yes. I am proud of you. Does this not mean you are that much of a genius? Something like this happens once every five years or so at the Academy, so do not be too disheartened. Starting a single year later in life causes no problem at all.”
Father carelessly tossed Erika’s failure notice into the corner of his desk.
“Forget this. Before you enroll, study for the examination and occasionally practice applying battle aura with me.”
“Yes, Head of House!”
Father roughly ruffled Erika’s hair.
Erika accepted the gesture as though it were only natural.
A pleased smile spread across Father’s face.
“Freya will be happy that she can attend with her older sister, too.”
It was unexpected.
Father was so sensitive about marriageable age,
yet he was this generous about education.
Perhaps I had been thinking too much like a twenty-first-century Korean.
When I thought about it, what was so special about taking another year to prepare?
The world would not end just because someone started a year later.
“Then let us have something delicious today to celebrate Erika taking first place in the sparring examination.”
Father said that and gave me a meaningful look.
Despite having a head chef, he was telling me to cook.
He seemed to like my cooking quite a bit.
Then Father suddenly remembered something and called to me.
“Come to think of it, Julian. Did you not say your fiancée would be entering the Academy this year as well?”
“Yes, I did.”
Charlotte had applied to the Academy this year too.
Originally, she had no intention of attending, saying there was nothing for her to learn there.
But she became interested the moment she heard that I would be teaching a black magic course.
She had even applied to the Hero Studies Department, though she had no intention of becoming a hero, just so she could take the black magic course.
‘Perhaps a marquis’s house does not need to worry about career paths. Or perhaps it does not matter which department she graduates from.’
Considering her talent, I wondered whether her department mattered much at all.
“I heard she ranked fourth in sparring and eighth in the written examination.”
The surprising part was that she had done well in sparring but had not taken first place in the written examination.
When I asked why,
“I learned some basic self-defense. Thanks to that, I was able to get a good score in sparring.”
“And the written examination?”
“I got many astronomy-related questions wrong. They were about the arrangement and cycles of the sun and stars. What would I even use that knowledge for?”
“...”
That was the reason.
Rather, it was impressive that she had still ranked eighth after abandoning all those questions.
“That does sound like her.”
Father nodded awkwardly.
Perhaps because he often sought Charlotte’s advice on unsolved cases.
Father seemed to have adapted to her personality now as well.
“Then next year, you will stand at the lectern while she attends your class.”
“There are only a few months left already.”
It was late autumn now.
Heavy snow would soon fall, the subjugation season would end, and the Academy would begin its term.
I would teach aspiring heroes about black magic.
There were not even six months left.
“Are you getting your affairs in order?”
“Yes. I have spoken properly with the Limbus Pit clinic and the trading company.”
I had told my master as well.
He did not seem particularly concerned.
After all, the entire Empire was within easy reach for him.
He said that if he wanted to see me, he could come immediately.
“Freya and Erika will be sad.”
“I will come home on weekends.”
I could travel back and forth by airship.
Of course, airship tickets were somewhat expensive.
But my finances were far too comfortable for that to concern me.
In any case, to maintain an alibi as Director Schun, I needed to come to the capital on weekends.
Director Schun would not appear at the Academy until two years later, after the healing center was completed.
Until then, I needed to come to the capital every weekend.
“Your cooking will be missed.”
“You will be able to have it once a week.”
“Only once a week.”
Father looked at me with mournful eyes.
“Julian.”
“Yes?”
“Could you cook for us more often before you leave?”
It was his roundabout way of saying that he wanted to spend more time with the family.
I readily agreed.
“Of course. We should drink tea more often too.”
“Thank you.”
“Since we are talking about it, may I have some tea before I go?”
“Wait just a little. I will finish my work quickly.”
Father signaled to the head butler.
Wilhelm left the room, saying he would prepare pumpkin tea.
That day,
I set my research aside for a while and spoke with Father until our teacups went cold.
* * *
After Erika’s admission results came out,
in order to spend even a little more time with my family and prepare to leave the capital,
I sharply reduced Julian’s public activities.
“Bring it up and activate it at once.”
“Like this?”
“You are cutting it too close. If your opponent deliberately approaches you, they will reach you before your battle aura has even formed.”
“Yes.”
Erika learned battle aura from Father at the training ground.
Freya also occasionally received training from Erika as she prepared for the entrance examination.
During that time, the leaves fell,
and the white natural disaster arrived in the capital as it always did.
The snowstorm passed, and the year changed.
The new year’s subjugation season proceeded somewhat cautiously because of the mutant magical beasts that had appeared last year.
Then the river thawed, the mud vanished from the carriage tracks on the roads, and notices announcing the end of the subjugation season were scattered throughout the capital.
“Have a safe trip.”
“Take care of yourself, dear.”
“Have a good trip, Brother.”
“Doctor, contact us often.”
“I will. Take care, everyone.”
Before I could even see new buds appear on the linden tree in the garden, I boarded an airship with the Nihirit family seeing me off.
Before the airship departed,
I headed for first class with Perisia, my elven bodyguard.
“You really did not need to arrange a first-class seat for me as well...”
“A bodyguard should stay beside the person they are guarding. Were you planning to run over from economy class if something happened?”
“I could do so aboard an airship...”
“Please, just make yourself comfortable.”
“Even so, this costs my entire monthly salary...”
“I am paying for it myself, so it is fine.”
Bickering with Perisia, who kept feeling burdened by it, I found my seat.
Right beside mine,
a passenger was reading a book spread open on their lap.
“Charlotte.”
“You are here, Julian?”
My fiancée closed the forensic medicine book I had written for her and smiled gently.
She looked at Perisia, who sat uncomfortably some distance away.
“Your bodyguard has changed.”
“Did I not tell you about Erika?”
“I took that to mean you had no bodyguard.”
“Does it make you uncomfortable?”
Charlotte’s gaze rested on Perisia for a moment.
“...No, it is fine.”
Vwoom!
At that moment, the airship rose, and a light pull of gravity settled over us.
Watching the scenery slowly sink below us, Charlotte spoke.
“Could you give me a quiz on the way there?”
“Of course.”
I had prepared quizzes for her the night before.
They were cases based on patients and my knowledge of forensic medicine, with clues tangled together in slightly complicated ways.
Charlotte and I sometimes played like this when we had nothing to do.
I gave her a case, and Charlotte solved it.
“Let us roll the dice for Observation checks.”
Of course, I added a few tricks.
If I gave her every clue, she would state the answer in mere seconds.
So I used dice for Observation checks.
It was a kind of tabletop role-playing game just for the two of us.
“Very well. Let us begin. This morning, you received a summons. The setting is a small clockmaker’s workshop nestled deep within an alley on Bergen Street, southeast of the imperial capital. The shop is called Schwarz Clock Shop.”
“A typical dwarven shop name.”
“On the workbench, you see a man who has collapsed as though asleep. He is not breathing. There are no obvious external injuries. What would you like to examine?”
“Since poisoning is possible, I will smell the body.”
“Roll the dice.”
Tap, tap, rattle...
17.
“The body smells of ripe apricots. However, there are no apricots anywhere.”
“Is the smell coming from around the mouth?”
“No?”
“Then poisoning by ingestion is unlikely...”
Charlotte rolled the dice several more times after that.
“I suspected poisoning because of the apricot smell, but it was not ingested. Could cyanide still be effective if someone were pricked by a clock hand?”
“No. Cyanide is highly effective only when ingested. Injecting it through a stab wound has almost no effect. Unless it were the size of a syringe, a clock hand could not deliver enough to cause death.”
“Then could it be a drug I do not know?”
“Who knows?”
Charlotte thought for a while.
Then her face suddenly brightened.
“Nitrobenzene! It was a dye! Leatherworkers often use that dye, so the culprit is either a leatherworker or someone with access to the dye! In other words, the culprit is the victim’s younger sibling!”
“That is correct, Charlotte.”
That was how it went.
Since it was not a real case, I sometimes found gaps in it along the way.
Still, it was enough to relieve Charlotte’s boredom.
And so we spent the whole flight enjoying our tabletop role-playing game.
“...Julian.”
“Yes, Charlotte?”
“Will you give problems like this during class too?”
“I have prepared even more interesting problems.”
“I knew it...”
Charlotte smiled brightly.
“I think I did well to follow you.”
“Then I should prepare a wider variety of cases at the Academy, so that Charlotte will not be disappointed.”
I smiled back at her.
Clunk.
Perisia’s chair seemed to jolt in the seat ahead.
I decided to assume it was just sleep talking.
Author’s Note
Dyes hold an important place in the history of medicine.
What kind of medicine it is... remains a secret for now.
Footnotes:
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