🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 05
Mikel Brillian was one of the kingdom’s top five elite physicians.
One week earlier.
He had made a grave mistake.
“They say there’s an epidemic spreading among the servants.”
“Y-yes?”
The duke spoke without taking his eyes off the papers on his desk.
Still, the physician who had been hauled in and now stood trembling before the duke was visibly unnerved, darting his eyes everywhere.
“…Ah, y-yes, y-yes! The symptoms are mostly abdominal pain, vomiting, and chills.”
“There’s no response to treatment?”
“Well… normally bloodletting takes three to four days before you see improvement.”
The duke’s eyes narrowed.
“The cause?”
“That… is still—”
“The treatment is certain, right?”
“Of course! I’m treating them with the bloodletting method that’s the most acclaimed in scholarly circles right now!”
As the duke lowered his gaze and gestured him away, the physician gripped his hands so tightly he could hide the tremor in his fingertips.
‘If they catch on, I’ll be dead.’
This incident had begun with the duke’s wife’s bloodletting treatment.
When there was no sign of improvement, news reached him that the duke was planning to bring in a new physician.
“They say you must take out the bad blood! What do you know… No improvement? How dare you… dare you treat me like that?”
If he were driven out now, it would be obvious he was an incompetent doctor.
“I need a way… some kind of method…”
As he muttered, his eyes fell on the liquid that had leaked from a bottle he’d thrown to the floor. Arsenic.
He had brought it ostensibly for medicinal purposes, but arsenic is a colorless, odorless poison. Mikel’s eyes gleamed.
He took the arsenic and poured it into the servants’ well.
“It’s done. It’s done.”
Not a lethal dose. But in a few days the servants would complain of stomach pain and develop fevers—just like an infectious disease!
If he could then “save” them, no one would think him an incompetent physician. Even if the duke’s wife died, they’d say it was a disease no competent doctor could cure.
That was the plan… or so he thought.
A few days passed.
‘Why… why aren’t they getting better?’
Mikel grew anxious. Even though he’d been drawing blood from the poisoned servants—only as much as to not kill them—there was no sign of improvement at all.
“Just two more days! Please wait two more days! Normally bodily fluids take time to regenerate. I stake my honor as a physician on this. I can cure them—without fail!”
Mikel knew that when backed into a corner, you had to be brazen. He hid the arsenic carefully and appealed to the duke with the righteousness of a physician.
And after the duke ordered the antidote, he even put a cot in the infirmary and said he’d pull an all-nighter—just to appear devoted and self-sacrificing.
But despite the plausible performance, Mikel’s head was filled with a single thought.
‘I must get out of here fast!’
Somehow the duke had found out that the well had been poisoned; it’d become an emergency. Mikel, citing a need to fetch medicine, went back to his room and hastily tied a letter to the ankle of a messenger pigeon.
[Brother, I’m in danger. Help me flee before I’m unjustly executed. Send a carriage so I can head south. The sooner the better.]
“Gu, gu—”
“Shut up, you’ll scare it off!”
“Gu—”
Fortunately, a reply came the next day.
[Two nights from now at midnight, outside the north gate of the estate. A carriage.]
“Yes!!! It’s set!!! God is on my side, after all. Hahahaha!”
The reply was exactly what he’d hoped for.
“I should have somewhere to hide prepared before I arrive….”
Either way, being branded an incompetent doctor seemed inevitable.
And if anyone found he’d poisoned the well, it would be immediate death. The Bertier Order of Knights, skilled at tracking, had already started investigating the well, which made him all the more anxious.
Mikel valued his life far more than the lives of his patients.
Two days later, on the promised night.
Under cover of darkness, Mikel slipped out of the castle wearing his cloak pulled tight every time he encountered someone.
After a while, he reached the north gate and saw the promised carriage painted jet-black waiting for him.
The carriage set off as soon as he climbed aboard.
‘Finally, this wretched north is over.’
Only after traveling a long way along the mountain road did he relax. He leaned his head back and let himself ease.
Then—
Clatter!
The carriage braked suddenly; the horses snorted and stamped. The jolt rattled the carriage so violently Mikel gripped the handle.
‘A wild animal? Or a monster?’
When things quieted, he peered out the carriage window. He saw neither horses nor driver.
‘Did they all run off?’
If wild beasts or monsters had been nearby, staying there would have been fatal. Mikel leapt out of the tilted carriage to run.
“Look at that!”
But what he met outside the carriage wasn’t a beast or a monster.
“I told you I would escape.”
Looking down at him with an even grimmer expression was the Duke Bertier himself—and beside him, a small boy wearing an expression like a pleased devil.
“D-Duke… th-that is, um—”
Cold sweat poured down Mikel’s back.
“Why did you flee?”
“D-Duke! It’s a misunderstanding!”
“A misunderstanding?”
The physician forced words out through his nervousness, sweating profusely.
“I— I mean! It was that brat! That demon child! He brought skimapul that was poisonous. I thought if the patients kept dying I’d be suspected, so I ran away!” he blurted.
“Pfft.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Look at him! That wicked laugh… It must have been that brat who poisoned the well.”
“Me?”
Kneeling and glaring up at me, the physician’s eyes shot daggers.
“Can you take responsibility for that claim? That there’s poison in the skimapul.” I lowered myself so we were eye-level.
The doctor nodded vigorously as if challenged.
I immediately shoved a sprig of skimapul into my mouth. Crunch, crunch. I swallowed it, then opened my mouth wide to show the physician.
“See? I ate it. If it were poisonous, I couldn’t have eaten it like that.”
The physician clamped his mouth shut at my words. This wasn’t something people could easily deny—the staff here had seen skimapul enough to know it.
“There was a poison bottle found in your room.”
The duke thrust the arsenic bottle at the physician and popped the lid himself.
“Can you prove it isn’t poisonous? Like that child did.”
The physician turned ashen.
“T-The bottle is— I mean… I don’t know anything about that!”
“Vermont Medical College’s Pharmacology Lab. The seal on the glass bottle is genuine. The letter of recommendation you produced—didn’t the dean of Vermont Medical College sign it?” the duke continued.
“I— did I… put it in the well? Do you have evidence? Do you have proof?” The physician, cornered, started shouting.
A glance behind him caught the steward emerging from the upended carriage.
“We found a diary!”
The steward announced and the physician’s eyes widened.
“It contains a confession detailing the motive and the process of the crime. The handwriting in the diary matches everything—your reports, the diary entries you’ve submitted, the letter you sent to your brother to arrange your escape.”
With the steward’s definitive words, the physician fell silent.
“No more excuses left, eh?”
The duke stepped close and whispered to him.
“You’ll have plenty of excuses to practice on the way. My knights are adept at interrogation.”
The threat was small, barely a whisper, but to me it rang clearly. Seeing the terrified doctor, the duke said in a cold tone,
“Take him away.”
“Yes!”
If the duke’s claim that his knights were skilled torturers was not idle boast, those knights quickly gagged and bound the physician.
As they dragged him away, a hand swept over my eyes.
“I’ll cover your eyes.”
The duke said this as if it were a kindness—an awkward, rough sort of courtesy that made me feel flattered. I didn’t know how to behave.
“Will the doctor die?”
To match the duke’s mercy, I acted like an ordinary frightened child.
“No, I won’t kill him.”
“Please don’t kill him. Okay?”
We had to see whether there was an accomplice to the crime; they would squeeze him for information.
“Promise.”n
Kneeling to match my height, the duke extended his pinkie and I hooked mine with it, giving a wide grin.
“Oh, right! A wish in return for my help!”
The duke nodded slowly, and then, as if remembering something, I demanded the reward I’d been dreaming of for two days straight.
