The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 25
A few weeks had passed.
When the weekend arrived, Allen made his customary trip to the Orphanage.
William followed along.
“You’re fond of the children, then? You look exhausted, yet you keep coming.”
Allen glanced back at William as he spoke.
William offered a faint smile.
“Ha.”
He was dead tired.
Over the past few weeks, he had dissected no fewer than eight dogs.
For the Pancreatic Removal Experiment.
Three had died from shock; five had survived.
Yet not a single one had developed symptoms of diabetes.
Even as he removed the pancreas from the eighth dog yesterday, he had harbored no more hope.
‘It’s not the pancreas.’
That certainty only grew with each attempt.
Yet he had not told Allen.
Upon entering the Orphanage, they were greeted by Michael, the assistant priest.
His expression was deeply troubled.
“Doctor. Grace is…….”
Allen followed Michael into a room.
It served as a makeshift ward.
Grace lay in the bed.
To any observer, she might have seemed merely asleep—her repose was that peaceful.
“She said she was tired and went to bed early last evening, and she hasn’t woken since. No matter how much I try to rouse her, there’s no response.”
Michael explained.
Allen knelt beside the child and pressed his fingers to her wrist.
The pulse was faint.
He pressed his lips tightly together.
‘Diabetic Coma.’
To be precise, Diabetic Ketoacidosis.
A condition in which glucose metabolism becomes impossible, so the body uses fat as an energy source, and in that process ketone acids accumulate, turning the blood acidic.
It was the very reason children with Type 1 Diabetes found themselves living on borrowed time.
Outside the door stood Sarah, her face darkened.
“Doctor. Will Grace be all right?”
Allen did not answer immediately.
The girl continued anxiously.
“For the past few days she’s been wasting away. Her breath smells like rotting fruit. Her eyes are growing dim…….”
“Grace has fallen ill. It’s a sickness we cannot treat now.”
At Allen’s words, Sarah clenched her fists.
“Over these past weeks—has Grace been happy?”
“…Yes.”
Sarah wiped away her tears.
“She used to eat only rice gruel, and suddenly she got to eat meat. She was so pleased. And you gave her toys, showed her so many things. She was happy.”
“Then that is enough.”
Allen smiled faintly and turned away.
Sarah wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
William stood beside her, his head bowed low.
It was unlike him.
The two moved to the Priest’s Office.
The priest settled into his seat with a long, weary sigh.
“So this day has come at last. I’ve seen many children die of illness, but this is the first time I’ve witnessed one who seemed perfectly well suddenly slip away like falling asleep.”
The priest’s face was heavy with melancholy.
Just as Allen was about to speak, William suddenly interjected.
“We must perform an Autopsy.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The priest looked taken aback.
William spoke again, precisely and without hesitation.
“An Autopsy. The child will die soon. The moment she passes, we must conduct an immediate autopsy and clarify the cause of this disease. This is a Rare Disease. If we let this opportunity slip, who knows when we’ll see another patient.”
The priest seemed flustered by the blunt words.
Allen listened quietly for a moment, then added softly, “You’re not wrong. As a physician, autopsy is necessary. It’s our way of honoring the dead—so that death doesn’t simply end in death.”

The priest fell silent, considering, then turned to face Allen.
“Sir. If we perform an autopsy and find the cause, can we cure this child’s illness?”
Allen paused, gathering his thoughts before answering.
“No.”
“Then what’s the point of an autopsy?”
“We learn how the human body changes when such a disease takes hold. Knowledge accumulates. Perhaps not today, but someday, someone may read those records and be able to treat the next patient.”
The priest bowed his head deeply.
After a long struggle with himself, he finally shook his head.
“…I’m afraid I cannot permit an autopsy.”
Allen was about to nod in acceptance.
But suddenly William sprang to his feet beside him.
“How can you say such a thing!”
William’s face trembled with barely contained rage.
He pointed an accusing finger at the priest.
“This is complicity—this is murder of another person. If we treat illness as merely Divine Providence and do nothing, those children will die again. From the same disease. Only by exposing the disease’s true nature, piece by piece, can we prevent other victims from suffering the same fate!”
Allen reached out and grasped William’s sleeve.
“Calm yourself, William.”
“Sir! This makes no sense. This is a rare disease, isn’t it? How often will we encounter another patient like this? To let this slip away is unconscionable!”
William’s eyes blazed with fervor.
The priest recoiled slightly, startled by the young man’s intensity.
“Autopsy! Autopsy is the only true memorial. What good is dressing the body in a shroud and chanting prayers for days? It’s just a corpse anyway! The child’s spirit has already departed! So if we want to save the spirit of another suffering child, shouldn’t we perform the autopsy?”
William’s voice rose, spittle flying as he shouted.
Allen closed his eyes for a moment.
Then, with far greater force than before, he pulled William back down by his sleeve.
“I said sit, William. Lower your voice.”
The words were quiet, but each one cut like steel.
Even in his fury, William could not withstand that cold authority.
He settled back into his seat, still trembling with suppressed rage.
Allen turned back to the priest and asked, “Autopsy is for future treatment, not for present care. Will you permit it?”

The priest’s lips moved soundlessly.
But he was, after all, a priest of a conservative religious order.
Such a decision was not his alone to make, and he knew well the temperament of those above him.
“I’m sorry.”
He lowered his head as he spoke.
Allen nodded without a word, accepting the refusal.
But William could not contain his anger; he clenched his fists so hard his knuckles went white.
The examination and instruction that day ended without resolution.
On the walk back, William’s fury had not diminished one bit.
“Why didn’t you push harder?”
William demanded, his tone accusatory as he fixed on Allen’s back ahead of him.
Allen maintained his pace, answering in an even tone, “Asking and demanding are not the same thing, you understand. Autopsy must always be performed with the family’s voluntary consent.”

“But the answers might lie in that body. The pancreas is the organ that decays most rapidly after death. If we could examine it while still fresh, immediately after death, we might find traces of something else entirely.”
“William. To be honest with you, even if we performed an autopsy now, you would find nothing.”
William stopped dead in his tracks.
Allen continued walking ahead without hesitation.
William stared at his retreating form for a moment, then followed.
‘Even if I looked, I would find nothing.’
The words gnawed at him.
There was something strange in the phrasing.
It sounded less like speculation and more like certainty.
“Sir, I must confess something. I’ve actually conducted some experiments of my own.”
William spoke slowly, his voice subdued and heavy with confession.
Allen’s pace seemed to falter ever so slightly.
Or perhaps it was only his imagination.
“I used several dogs. I removed a substantial portion of their pancreas while they were still alive. A few of them survived without complication.”
……
“But nothing happened. The urine never sweetened, and not a single symptom of the disease appeared.”
Silence stretched between them.
“Your hypothesis was wrong, sir. The pancreas has nothing to do with this illness.”
“Which is precisely why I said it would be useless for me to look.”
The reply came swiftly. William’s brow furrowed deeply.
“What do you mean by that?”
“It means this isn’t a disease where you can see the pancreas’s structure collapsing with the naked eye. So even if you were to open Grace’s abdomen and peer inside, the organs would be perfectly intact—just like the dogs in your laboratory.”
“…Then how can you possibly say the pancreas is the cause?”
“Because the problem isn’t the pancreas itself, but something that organ should be producing—and isn’t.”
William fell silent.
A low, bitter laugh escaped him.
“Sir, didn’t you yourself say it was merely a hypothesis?”
“I did.”
“Then how can you be so certain? You have clear evidence against it right in front of you.”
Allen walked on without answering for a long moment.
The alley was quiet as twilight settled in.
In the distance, thin smoke rose from a cottage chimney as someone prepared the evening meal.
“There was a blind man, I’m told.”
It was an abrupt shift.
William’s eyes narrowed.
“Born without sight—never saw a thing in his life. But one day, as if by miracle, his eyes opened for just a moment. Only once. And it happened that an elephant stood right before him.”
“…….”
“His blindness returned soon after, but he remembered the elephant’s form clearly. So if he touched the elephant’s leg while blind again, he would know it wasn’t a pillar—it was an elephant. Touch the trunk, the ear, whatever—he couldn’t prove its full shape to others, but he would unmistakably recognize it as part of the elephant.”
William’s eyes tightened.
It was obvious who the blind man in this parable was, and what the elephant meant.
“…Are you saying you saw that elephant yourself, sir?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Allen stopped walking for a moment, then resumed with the same calm pace.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. And it’s a method no one else in this world could replicate.”
That was all.
William turned Allen’s words over in his mind as he walked.
He could find no rebuttal.
In truth, rebuttal itself was pointless.
It was, ultimately, a declaration that every physician in the world—himself included—was nothing but a blind man, and only he had ever been fortunate enough to open his eyes even once.
‘Arrogant. Utterly arrogant.’
But alongside his resistance came doubt.
What Allen had just said wasn’t vanity about superior ability.
It was closer to a confession of ‘having stumbled upon’ the fortune of sight by mere chance.
Not the kind of thing a scholar who’d spent decades building an independent theoretical framework would say.
It sounded almost like a mystical confession.
‘What is he, really? What is he hiding?’
Questions piled upon questions as William tried to fathom Allen’s inexplicable bearing.
They walked in silence down the street, their backs to the setting sun that deepened into dusk.
When they reached the alley to the Clinic, both men stopped.
Edward stood outside the door, pacing with uncharacteristic agitation.
His expression was rigid, harder than William had ever seen it.
“William. I believe you have something to explain to me.”
Edward, his hands planted on his hips, fixed William with a sharp stare.
William flinched.
Had Edward found out?
“…What is this about, sir?”
“Come with me.”
Edward strode forward with long steps.
William glanced back at Allen, who merely shrugged.
William followed with sagging shoulders until his steps halted before the Warehouse.
The stray dog inside cowered and whimpered the moment its eyes met William’s.
Edward glared at William.
“Well? Can you explain yourself?”
“…….”
William wet his dry lips.
If he could not avoid it, he resolved at least to present a rational defense of dissection.
“Actually…….”
“Didn’t I tell you not to keep animals hidden away down here!”
Edward’s sharp rebuke made William’s eyes widen.
“Pardon?”
“Look at this poor creature! I’ll grant you credit for nursing it back to health. But a ruptured belly—imagine the agony it must have endured!”
“…….”
William found himself without words.
Edward pressed on.
“But to keep it tethered like this! No matter how endearing they are, that’s simply cruel. These creatures need to roam the fields freely!”
Beside them, Allen let out a quiet laugh.
William stammered out a reply.
“Y-yes, of course, sir. You’re quite right.”
“Look here! See how the poor thing has soiled itself from the distress of being bound? It must have been unbearable!”
William’s gaze dropped to the floor.
The ground was filthy with the dog’s urine.
At that very moment, the dog trembled and released another stream across the stones.
Ants swarmed thick over the dried urine stains on the floor.
“Free it at once! These creatures are…….”
Without warning, William rushed toward the dog.
The dog recoiled in alarm, but William paid it no mind.
He dipped his finger into the pooled urine and brought it straight to his lips.
“What on earth are you doing!”
Edward cried out in horror, but William heard nothing.
“…Sweet.”
His eyes flew open.
It was unmistakably sweet.
Combined with the excessive urination and the relentless thirst—everything aligned.
“The urine is sweet.”
William murmured vacantly.
Edward furrowed his brow, then glanced down cautiously at the ground.
At the swarm of ants crawling over the viscous urine stains.
“…Ah. So this creature suffers from Diabetes as well? It seems the affliction can befall animals too.”
But William’s gaze was fixed solely on Allen.
His eyes gleamed with awe even as they trembled violently with remorse—the sting of misunderstanding truth all this time.
‘The pancreas. It was the pancreas.’
He could now dimly perceive why he had failed until now.
All the dogs he had experimented on previously had undergone only partial pancreatic removal.
But this dog was the first to have undergone complete pancreatic removal.
From this, William could immediately form a hypothesis.
‘Diabetes does not develop even when part of the pancreas remains. But should it vanish entirely, the disease will inevitably arise.’
The face of his younger sister rose in his mind.
The disease that had driven Mary to death.
The very affliction whose nature he had burned to know, even if it meant opening his sister’s abdomen.
He had finally proved it.
With his own hands, he had verified it directly.
Emotion welled up within William, and his body began to tremble.
Edward, alarmed, spoke to him gently.
“…Were you caring for it because it had fallen ill? I’m sorry—I seem to have misunderstood…….”
Yet tears flowed endlessly from William’s eyes.
A wail followed, joy and sorrow mingled together without distinction.
Allen watched the scene in silence.
Though he could not know the full story, he sensed that those tears carried a profound and bitter ache.

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