Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 761

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 761
The three of us headed toward the Mireuk temple.
Strangely, not a single person was visible at the temple, so I sent Hwang-gu to search the surrounding area.
“No commoners, no Mireuk followers—just no one at all.”
Jasi also muttered something toward the sky before reaching his conclusion.
“I don’t sense even a trace of sorcerous power.”
“Surely not.”
“Did something occur to you, Hyeong?”
I felt slightly flustered by the hopeful gleam in his eyes.
Why did everyone assume that simply because I was from the Jegallim Family, I could unravel every mystery under heaven?
‘That’s something my Master can do. I’m just someone peddling modern knowledge.’
Feeling a bit embarrassed, I scratched my cheek.
“They might have simply left after finishing their business here.”
“True. That’s common enough in Gangho.”
At Yeo Ha-ryun’s words, Jasi’s face crumpled dramatically.
“I’ll chase them to the very depths of hell and tear those bastards to shreds!”
Jasi conjured a massive wolf from wolf pelts once more.
“Should I leave their temple standing?!”
Just as he was about to destroy everything without leaving a single blade of grass, a scream pierced the air from somewhere.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
With my mastery of sound transmission, I immediately pinpointed the source of that voice.
A youthful cry. It was the Lord’s Son.
At my signal, Hwang-gu bounded to the child’s side and wagged his tail. But the boy was so terrified he’d collapsed where he stood.
“D-don’t eat me! Don’t eat me!”
At my glance, Jasi finally transformed the wolf back into pelts.
Meanwhile, I slowly approached the child.
After all, he was the Lord’s son, and he’d been caught snooping around.
If I spoke to him as casually as I might to some neighborhood child like last time, things could escalate dangerously.
The boy was already terrified.
I spread both hands to show I meant no harm.
Then I spoke as respectfully as possible.
“Greetings. We meet again. Please be at ease. That was just something my companion created—a sort of… puppet, if you will.”
Once the wolf vanished, the boy finally caught his breath.
“H-hic. Hic.”
Was he crying now?
I quickly pulled out a dalgona candy from my pocket.
I’d procured sugar beforehand—it was something I’d made in Namtsu.
High calories, high sugar content.
Perfect to pop into your mouth after a battle.
“Even if people here aren’t starving, they can still appreciate flavor. Um… would you like to try this?”
After crying for a while, the sweet aroma caught my attention, and my eyes rolled back into focus.
Reluctantly, I popped it into my mouth, and my eyes widened.
“Wow, wow wow wow!”
Sugar is expensive even in the Central Plains and requires considerable labor to produce.
Someone once said that the Divine gave people potatoes so they wouldn’t starve, but the devil fried them.
It’s the same with this. The Divine sent soda ash so people could make toothpaste, but the devil dissolved it in sugar water and simmered it.
Dalgona.
Yeo Ha-ryun spoke.
[Just moments ago he was trembling with fear, and now his expression changes over a single piece of food. Is it really that easy to change?]
[Ha-ryun. He’s just a child.]
[The Demonic Sect never makes excuses for children.]
[Right. That’s precisely why it’s the Demonic Sect.]
Cheon Sal-seong’s sensitivity, and the Demonic Sect.
I spoke to Yeo Ha-ryun.
[At the same time, that’s also what makes Gangho impossible.]
How many assassins disguised as children existed out there?
I understood why Yeo Ha-ryun remained vigilant.
The child grabbed another piece of dalgona before finally speaking.
“I warned you like that, but you didn’t run away after all. You’re all going to die now.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because the Rakshasa kill everyone. All the outsiders. The Rakshasa ate them.”
“I see… So that’s why you told us to leave?”
The child spoke up with courage.
“Yeah. Otherwise you’ll die! Uncle Hopper, Aunt Tika—they all became Rakshasa. All the good people, all my friends became Rakshasa.”
This child had witnessed people he knew transform into monsters one by one.
“Hmm~ Shall we go somewhere else? It doesn’t seem appropriate to talk here…”
At those words, the young man nodded.
“Follow me.”
With that, he brushed off his bottom and led the way.
Inside the temple, behind the most dilapidated Buddha statue, a secret passage lay hidden.
When the child touched the stone lantern, the passage opened with a grinding sound.
I quietly followed the child into the passage.
How long did we walk?
Suddenly, I lifted my head toward the moonlight filtering through the brick gaps, and the garden inside the fortress came into view.
‘Impressive.’
Thus our group returned into the fortress and arrived directly at the original guest quarters.
“It’s safe here.”
The young man seemed to frequent this place often.
I retrieved more sweets from my supplies for the child.
The child accepted candies, dried fruits, and every snack imaginable, stuffing them all into his mouth at once.
‘This child feels hunger differently from others.’
Looking at his body, fortunately he didn’t seem to be starving.
Being the Lord’s Son, it would be even less likely.
“Dried vegetables taste awful. Dried mutton loses its flavor too. Since everyone stopped eating rice, even the food tastes bland.”
This was why the mutton stew I received after the banquet had been so tasteless.
Sweetness made people happy.
But for this boy, sweetness was an anesthetic.
An anesthetic to forget reality.
“During the great famine, plague spread everywhere. Everyone died. After the Mireuk Church came, people stopped dying, but now whenever night falls, they transform into Rakshasa.”
“Are the people themselves aware of this fact?”
“No. Not at all. Mother and Father don’t seem to know anything about when they become Rakshasa. Even though they devoured people, they just said they were glad they weren’t hungry.”
“….”
“During the day, Father is truly a good man. He wouldn’t kill a single person carelessly. In the first place, he accepted his role as Governor because he didn’t want anyone to starve.”
But wasn’t the price for that far too cruel?
The boy continued speaking.
“When other villages offered people as tribute, Father alone searched for a way to avoid it.”
Seeking to embrace all commoners, he searched desperately for a way.
And the ‘paradise’ he found that way.
That answer was far too cruel.
And the boy who witnessed it… lived in hell, guilty for being the only one who couldn’t become Rakshasa.
It was a burden no child could bear.
“You’re strong.”
“Speak comfortably with me. Even though I’m called the Lord’s Son, this isn’t even a proper city anyway. I….”
Tears welled up in the child’s eyes again.
“I’ve… always been alone….”
For the first time, someone appeared who would listen to him.
Frightening emotions, sorrowful emotions overflowed his chest and spilled from his eyes.
The heart was truly strange.
When he was alone, it didn’t hurt so much.
Just something cold and hard settled in his chest.
He simply lived day by day with a constant feeling of indigestion.
But now that someone appeared before him for the first time to listen, only then did he realize how much it hurt and how frightening it was.
Kyiing-
Hwang-gu burrowed into my embrace.
The distinctive scent of fur, rapid breathing, and body heat higher than ordinary humans spread through my underarms.
The child rubbed his face against Hwang-gu and wept for a long time.
Thus Hwang-gu silently stayed with the child until he calmed down.
* * *
“Why did you come all the way there?”
Following the child’s request, Jin Cheon-hee spoke casually.
That seemed to be what felt more comfortable for him.
He spoke like an older brother from the neighborhood.
The child seemed pleased and broke into a bright smile.
“I wondered if there was anything I could do, so I looked for it. Strangely, Rakshasa… they don’t harm only me.”
“Hmm.”
“That’s what makes it even more frightening.”
It was a strange thing.
“The poison?”
“Mother didn’t give it to me, Father didn’t give it to me, the castle people didn’t give it to me—no one gave the poison only to me.”
It was a strange thing.
Especially since no one properly explained the reason why.
“I wish I had eaten it too and become the same as them…”
After saying that, tears welled up again and he began to cry loudly.
‘Yes. That’s how it is.’
Having one good cry and completely purging one’s emotions—that only happens in movies or dramas.
Reality is crying. Continuous crying.
Whether someone parts ways, gets severely injured, or loses something.
Until exhaustion sets in, until oblivion eases the pain, humans continue to cry.
I held the child and patted him several times.
After some time had passed, he grew so tired that he fell asleep.
“That must have been difficult.”
Yeo Ha-ryun nodded at my words.
Meanwhile, Jasi only sighed quietly and said nothing.
Probably because he was thinking of the dead Usha.
I spoke.
“According to what the child said, it might actually be better to investigate during the day. What do you think?”
“I agree. It’s better to move when reason has returned.”
Jasi asked.
“But there might be things we can only discover at night?”
“We’ll have to improvise and handle that as it comes.”
Saying so, I stroked the child’s crown.
From crying so much, the top of his head was soaked with tears.
“Well then, let’s get some rest too. That way we can move around during the day.”
* * *
When dawn broke, sure enough, everyone returned to their usual places.
The guards patrolled as always, and the servants moved bedding.
“Looking at this peaceful scene makes me feel disgusted.”
At Jasi’s words, I simply smiled without speaking.
That was the way of life. Whether people were killed at night and their flesh consumed or not, the morning sun still rises and work continues.
Within this endless cycle of daily life, humans simply live on, and on.
I summoned a servant and informed them that the Lord’s Son was here visiting and sleeping.
I suggested we leave him be since it would be awkward to wake him.
The servant thanked me and departed.
How long had I waited?
A servant brought word that the Governor had summoned me.
‘Hmm, the important negotiations should be wrapped up by now?’
Thinking thus, I went to meet the Governor, and what he produced was a glass vial containing a milky white liquid.
“It is the Divine Elixir of Mireuk.”
“Why are you giving this to me?”
At my words, the Governor smiled brightly.
“Ordinarily, this is never permitted to outsiders, but the followers of Mireuk have made a special exception. It speaks to the great karmic merit accumulated by the Divine Physician.”
At those words, Yeo Ha-ryun’s eyebrows twitched.
[Ha-ryun. Compose your expression.]
At my words, Yeo Ha-ryun struggled to forcibly relax the furrow between his brows.
[Suppress your killing intent.]
He drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
[Well done, brother.]
I leveraged my appearance to offer the most graceful smile I could muster.
“I hardly know how to respond to such generosity…”
“How delighted I am to present this to the Divine Physician. Would you care to try it now?”
There was no deception in the Governor’s manner.
He seemed genuinely pleased to be able to offer me this precious elixir.
‘If I were to consume this here…’
Could the Five Elements Toxin Technique detoxify such an elixir?
[Brother, don’t do anything insane.]
[Even I won’t conduct such experiments on my own body.]
[You do it sometimes.]
The moment I uncork it, I sense the resolve to smash the vial to pieces, diplomacy be damned.
I lifted my head.
“I appreciate the gesture, but I am currently observing a separate spiritual discipline that prevents me from consuming items of religious significance.”
I offered a religious reason.
After all, saying I wouldn’t drink it because the elixir seemed suspicious would essentially be a declaration of war.
As expected.
“Is that so? What a pity.”
In a region where religion held such importance, my refusal was well-received.
The Governor did not press further and relented.
“Very well then.”
“Still, do accept it. Should you find yourself in need someday, you may use it.”
“Thank you.”
I placed the vial of medicine into my robes.
“Then, since our transaction is concluded, you’ll be departing?”
“I’d like to tour the mines first. And I’m thinking of resting here for a few days before returning.”
“Ah, in that case, I’ll make special arrangements at the mines for you. Please, rest well.”
The Governor’s benevolent smile returned.
Looking at this alone, he seemed a virtuous ruler who cared for his people.
And indeed, that was what he had truly pursued.
Paradise—where no one went hungry or died.
A veritable heaven on earth.
‘As if such a thing could exist.’

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————