The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 33

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

Chapter 33
Dunford Church, Chief Priest’s Office.
Morning light streamed long and thin through the window lattice.
Gabriel sat with a scripture open across his desk.
‘There is no clear doctrinal basis for a blanket prohibition on variolation. Therefore, the decision to perform it rests with each diocese and the conscience of individual believers. However, it is imperative that we inform and ensure awareness that variolation may, in reality, pose fatal risks to vulnerable patients.’
It was the reply he had received from the higher diocese the day before.
In the end, it was nothing but doctrinal evasion—a shifting of responsibility onto the shoulders of the diocesan head.
Because of it, he had been combing through the scripture again and again.
‘If an act undertaken with good intent produces an evil result, and that result is even foreseeable, can the beginning truly be justified as a good act?’
Cough, cough!
A sudden fit of coughing seized him.
In an instant, the room spun, and his chest tightened as his breath came short.
He quickly reached for the herbal tea steeped in medicinal roots that sat at the edge of his desk.
Yet the fatigue crushing his body refused to lift.
‘Has my strength failed with age, or have I fallen into serious illness?’
Gabriel gazed at his own pale, withered hands.
For years now, the symptoms had grown unusually severe.
Knock, knock.
A sound came at the office door.
Soon after, Michael, the assistant priest, entered with a formal bow.
Gabriel set down his pen and asked him curtly.
“What is it?”
“Father, another child has come down with smallpox.”
Gabriel went still for a moment.
“Is the condition grave?”
“Relatively mild for now, but we’ve placed the child in isolation as a precaution.”
“And the children who fell ill before?”
“One remains in a comatose state with high fever, and the other’s condition is gradually improving. However…… the child is crying, saying he cannot see.”
Smallpox.
Congregated facilities like orphanages had always been vulnerable to epidemic.
It was the inevitable curse of communal living.
Disease always came like a catastrophe.
“And…… Leman and Saram, the children under restriction, have asked earnestly whether they might, as a sign of repenting their sins and performing their penance, tend to the sick in the isolation ward.”
“Those foolish children? I distinctly told them to keep to themselves and remain confined.”
“Today happens to be the day their restriction period ends, Father.”
Leman and Saram.
A boy and girl, both twelve years old.
Both having lost their parents around the age of five, they had entered this orphanage together—essentially the only blood kin each had in this world.
“We have no certainty whatsoever whether those children possess immunity. I cannot possibly permit it.”
“They believe firmly, Father. They say they will absolutely not contract smallpox.”
“How foolish. Epidemic cannot be avoided by blind faith alone—”
Gabriel’s words caught as another wave of vertigo struck him; he gripped the edge of the desk.
Michael, alarmed, hurried forward to steady him.
“Are you well, Father?”
“It’s an old affliction. A moment to catch my breath and I’ll be fine. Don’t concern yourself.”
He waved him off, then breathed deeply.
“Those foolish, foolish children. Taken in by a doctor’s honeyed words and submitting to such a dangerous procedure. Introducing cattle pus, of all things—such an impossible, unthinkable act……”
“Father. Those children maintain they underwent the procedure of their own free will, not under compulsion.”
“They dared say as much before me too. But what would unthinking children understand? An adult must have deceived them.”
Gabriel spoke with certainty, yet his tone carried no conviction.
Unbidden, a memory from a week prior flickered through his mind.
The night the surgeon Robinson had come to him.
‘Father. I have come upon hearing rumors that within this sacred diocesan orphanage, unlawful and perilous medical practices that defy God’s will are being carried out.’
Robinson was a man of considerable standing in the Greenhills District.
Gabriel had listened to his accusation in silence, then felt rage rise to the crown of his head.
‘So that wretch has finally done it!’
The apprentice from Edward’s Clinic who had been visiting the orphanage under the pretense of ‘medical volunteering.’
If Robinson’s accusation was to be believed, the man was nothing but a charlatan quack of dubious origin.
Moreover, Gabriel had explicitly forbidden cowpox inoculation, and instructed that variolation be postponed until the doctrinal interpretation was settled—yet this man had deceived the children and forced the procedure ahead anyway.
Gabriel had flared into fury and summoned Leman and Saram to his office on the spot.
The children brought in bore clear marks of pustules scarring their arms.
Their faces had gone pale with fear.
The stern and forbidding Chief Priest was a figure of terror to every child in the orphanage.
‘Answer me with absolute honesty—not a shred of falsehood. Did that man Alan Right forcibly inflict these unholy marks upon your bodies?’
Gabriel fixed them with a terrible gaze as he spoke.
The children trembled with dread and whimpered, yet their voices remained steady enough as they replied.
‘No, Father.’
‘We asked Master Right ourselves, most earnestly.’
Gabriel felt only a greater surge of rage at their answer.
How could these orphans understand the true harm of such a procedure?
That cunning creature must have poisoned their minds and seduced their reason with his honeyed tongue.
‘Swear before God—that charlatan doctor surely called you into some private chamber and deceived you with honeyed words. Is that not so?’
Still trembling with terror, tears streaming down their faces, the children shook their heads firmly.
No matter how many times he pressed them, they gave the same answer: they had requested it themselves.
After the children had been dismissed, Robinson, who had stood watching at his side, clicked his tongue sympathetically.
‘Father, those poor lambs have clearly been thoroughly brainwashed by that charlatan. With such wicked powers of persuasion, it’s no wonder he can drift from city to city, evading the law through unlicensed practice.’
Gabriel agreed with him.
He promptly signed the petition to be submitted to the court, as Robinson requested.
To eradicate that dangerous man who committed unlicensed medical practice and illegal human experimentation.
That had been a week ago.
Gabriel had sentenced Leman and Saram to confinement for violating the rules, and the children had been locked away in a damp basement cell the entire time.
Occasionally doubt had flickered—a small discomfort at the thought of whether he’d been too harsh—but he’d convinced himself it was the right judgment for a priest tasked with protecting the children’s souls and the Church’s order.
But then.
“Chief Priest. Forgive my presumption, but… I have spoken with those children during their confinement, and I found that they understand this medical matter far more specifically than one might expect.”
“Young ones merely parrot back the absurd words an adult has stuffed into their heads.”
“Two of them are quite brilliant. Among the dozens of children in our orphanage, they are always among the top two….”
“So? Are you daring to defend those children before me now?”
Gabriel’s words came sharp as a blade.
Michael flinched involuntarily, his shoulders hunching.
“No, Father. That doctor—or rather, apprentice. And the children—yes, it was wrong of them to defy your will and engage in such dangerous acts.”
“Then?”
“Only that I believe their actions were motivated not by malice, but by good intentions.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“Good intentions? You mean inserting animal pus into a child’s arm through deception is good intention?”
“Father, I have observed this Alan Right for several months now. He is truly an admirable man. When he was with the children, he cared for them with genuine sincerity and never treated them carelessly. And he gained nothing from it.”
“If his purpose was to win their favor as subjects for human experimentation, that’s hardly implausible hypocrisy. He may well have conducted far more experiments beyond your sight.”
“If—if by some chance all of this were mere deception as you say, Father, then I would renounce my priesthood and leave this Church.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened in shock at this unexpected declaration.
His fingertips trembled from the impact.
“Have you lost your mind? What does that charlatan mean to you that you dare wager your priesthood before me like this?”
“It is not that this man is precious to me, Father. If your words are true, then it means my judgment of human nature is fundamentally corrupt.”
……
“How could one so easily deceived by the devil’s hypocrisy ever guide God’s flock according to His Word?”
Michael finished speaking and slowly rose from his seat.
He bowed deeply before Gabriel, who sat stunned, offering a formal farewell.
“Forgive my disrespect. I shall now withdraw to fulfill my duties, Father.”
With that, Michael opened the office door and stepped outside.
Gabriel remained alone in the study chair, sitting numb.
A wave of betrayal and fury rose within him.
How dare he conduct himself so boldly before him.
Yet soon, the cold clarity of his priesthood forced his head to cool.
Michael was the type to be perhaps overly obedient and stubbornly upright.
If such a man was determined enough to renounce his priesthood and spoke with such unyielding firmness, it could never be mere impulse or a hasty resolve.
“…Presumptuous fool.”
He muttered this and returned his gaze to the scripture on his desk.
Nothing entered his sight.
Eventually he rose slowly and stood before the glass window.
Looking out at the sprawling vista of Dunford beyond, he found himself repeating a name in his mind.
‘Alan Right.’
It was not Michael alone who bore this weight.
Whether servant or orphan, everyone at the orphanage trusted him.
At first, she’d dismissed it as the natural charisma of a con artist, but the stories she’d heard painted a different picture entirely.
He wasn’t talkative, and his manner wasn’t particularly warm, yet people said they could feel sincerity in every action he took.
‘Have I fallen into self-righteousness?’
‘Or are they all blind together?’
There was only one way to find out.
* * *
That evening. Edward’s Clinic.
The visitor who appeared at dusk startled Edward.
‘Gabriel, the Chief Priest!’
The very same rigid priest he saw every Sunday at Mass was standing right at his door.
But Edward felt confusion more than joy.
The rumor spreading through the streets was that this fastidious priest had lent his weight to Alan Right’s accusation against him.
“May I come in?”
Gabriel asked.
Edward nodded.
“…Are you here for treatment, perhaps?”
“Indeed. But there’s one thing I’d ask.”
“What is that?”
“Could I receive treatment from your apprentice?”
Alan emerged from the back then.
He studied Gabriel quietly, and for a long moment their gazes locked in the air between them, taut as a wire.
“…You wish to be treated by me? Edward is the proprietor of this clinic, surely.”
“True. I’d prefer it be you. It’s not that I mistrust Edward, so I hope you won’t think it discourteous.”
Alan regarded him for a moment, then nodded slowly.
“Come with me.”
The two sat facing each other in the examination room.
The priest, settled in his chair, paused to catch his breath.
Alan across from him watched in silence.
A heavy quiet stretched between them. It was Alan who broke it first.
“What troubles you?”

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