The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 36

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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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Chapter 36
The heart of Haveln bore no resemblance to Dunford.
Finely dressed stone buildings lined the streets, and between them moved well-attired pedestrians and carriages in steady flow.
Allen walked through this bustle at an unhurried pace.
In his hand he carried Gabriel’s Petition for Leniency.
In the end, he’d never even had the chance to unfold the paper once.
‘Edwin Bennings.’
A faint memory surfaced—three years ago in Kalden, he’d made a house call to the man’s wife.
She’d been merely one patient among countless others he’d seen in passing.
And yet here he was, seated at the Judge’s Seat in Haveln itself.
The very seat from which he would pronounce judgment on Allen.
‘Such coincidences do exist.’
The world seemed vast, yet small.
These past few days, he’d felt that truth acutely.
Gabriel’s stern face surfaced in his mind unbidden.
The Orphanage director who had taken notice of him twenty years ago—though Allen himself had never known it then.
That face had knocked on the door of the clinic mere days ago.
And today, another fragment of his past sat at the Judge’s Seat, extending an unsolicited hand to pull him from the abyss.
‘A strange affair indeed.’
Traces of his discarded past were converging by chance.
A connection from his days as an orphan. A connection from his days as an Internal Medicine Doctor.
This time, that connection had saved his life.
But he would not always be so fortunate.
Archibold Halloway.
That enmity, too, would pursue him.
He remained far too weak to face that man head-on.
‘Not something to dwell on now.’
The past that followed was not theirs alone.
Allen turned and glanced behind him.
About five paces back.
Robinson hurried along with his head bowed low, his face bearing the look of a ox being dragged toward the slaughterhouse.
When their eyes met, Robinson flinched and forced a hollow smile onto his face.
‘It’s finished. I’m finished.’
Robinson’s mind was a chaos of panic.
An Imperial Physician.
The judge’s benefactor.
And he—he had tried to drag such a man into court with his own hands.
The more he thought back on it, the more cold sweat beaded down his spine.
What’s more, this man was now casually strolling through the streets, leading the very person who had framed him and dragged him into court, as if they were simply taking in the sights of the city.
It made no sense whatsoever.
Robinson would have felt more at ease if Allen had cursed him or even grabbed him by the collar.
“That building must be Haveln City Hall,” Allen remarked absently, gesturing toward a stone structure.
Robinson started as though the pointing finger were a death sentence.
“Y-yes, that’s right! Truly… a magnificent structure!”
“…It’s just a building.”
“Yes! Just a building, that’s all! Of course!”
Robinson bobbed his head vigorously.
Allen regarded him in silence for a moment, then resumed walking.
After some distance, he turned into a narrow side street.
A street lined with taverns and restaurants.
Before one of them, he stopped.
“Robinson.”
At Allen’s call, Robinson jumped.
“Y-yes!”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Not at all…”
Robinson opened his mouth, then awareness returned to him in an instant.
“Actually, I believe I am.”
“Then let’s have a meal.”

The two of them entered the restaurant.
Allen claimed a table in a corner, and ordered something simple to eat.
Robinson, however, had lost his appetite entirely—he felt as though he might be sick.
While the food was being prepared, Allen regarded Robinson in silence.
Robinson shifted uncomfortably and looked away.
It was torture.
“Robinson. Why did you prosecute me?”
At last, the question came.
Robinson shut his eyes tightly.
He lowered his head and, with great difficulty, opened his mouth.
“…I made a terrible mistake about your status. I thought you were a quack.”
“No. That’s not what I’m asking. Have I ever done you any harm?”
……
“Besides, I’m only an apprentice surgeon, am I not? I’ve never posed as a surgeon myself. And what difference does it make if I was a quack?”
There was nothing to say.
“Be honest with me. Tell me why you prosecuted me. Then there might be room for mitigation.”
“It, it was…….”
Robinson faltered.
But he could not know what would happen if he tried to save face here.
Though Allen’s tone was measured, his eyes were so sharp that Robinson felt he might be cut by them.
“…It’s just that the Edward Clinic seems to be thriving because of you, and I… I felt bitter about it.”
“How honest of you.”
“I’m truly sorry.”
“Aren’t you curious why I came to Dunford?”
“I, I am curious. Why would an internal medicine doctor come to such a shabby place…….”
“Because it’s my hometown.”
Allen answered simply.
“I lived here when I was young. Nine or ten years old, if I recall. Until then. After that, I went to the city to study.”
……
“The city hasn’t changed. Neither have the people. Least of all you.”
At those words, Robinson’s body went rigid.
“…Have you… have you met me before?”
“Of course.”
Allen raised his wine glass and took a sip.
Robinson’s mouth, by contrast, had gone completely dry.
“Robinson, do you remember a man named Peter Wright?”
Robinson scrambled desperately to remember.
He had to remember!
His life depended on it!
But no face came to mind.
At last, he hung his head.
“…I’m sorry.”
“What’s there to be sorry about? To you, he was just one more patient who passed through your practice.”
Robinson’s face turned ashen.
“He was a dock worker. He labored near the river close to Dunford. One day he cut his leg. It was nothing serious—just a graze. It was ignored and forgotten. Then, a few days later, fever suddenly set in and his leg began to swell.”
……
“Pus oozed from the wound and his leg swelled like an elephant’s. Anyone could see it had to be amputated. So he went to find a surgeon. There was one who had his practice near the market district back then.”
While Robinson’s face grew dark, Allen’s tone remained calm.
“The surgeon cut off his leg. Above the knee. He took five silver coins for the operation and sent the patient home.”
Robinson clamped his eyes shut.
“But the next day, the fever returned and the surgical site began to rot. The stench of the pus was unbearable. So the only child in that household rushed to the surgeon’s clinic door and knocked.”
……
“The surgeon who came out looked at the child with displeasure and said that since the surgery was done, it was now in God’s hands—that death was inevitable, unavoidable. He said many people died like that.”
Robinson’s hands began to tremble so violently he could not control them.
He fought hard to suppress the wave of nausea rising in his throat.
“Yes. Just as the surgeon said, four days later that man died. Pus spreading throughout his entire body. And a few weeks later, his wife also passed away. She had suffered from chronic illness, and the shock of her husband’s death was the final blow.”
Allen swirled his wine glass and looked at Robinson.
“No relative would take the child. So he was sent to the Orphanage. There, in a moldy corner room, he grew up resenting the world.”
Robinson could no longer contain himself.
He bolted from his seat and fell to his knees beside the table.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir!”
He pressed his forehead hard against the floor.
Allen looked down at him with cold eyes.
“Sorry for what, exactly?”
“For—for not monitoring my patients properly. For failing to take responsibility for the person I operated on. Or rather, for not performing the surgery well in the first place. It’s all my fault.”
Robinson’s forehead struck the floor with a dull thud, again and again.
The other diners began whispering at the sight.
“Get up, Robinson.”
Allen spoke quietly.
“What does it matter, hitting your head on the floor here? You don’t even know anyone watching.”
……
The words had struck home.
The truth was, Robinson hadn’t failed to consider that very thing while he was striking his head.
Yet Robinson remained on his knees, prostrate on the floor.
To rise now would only make things worse.
“Thinking all sorts of things right now, aren’t you?”
Allen’s words jabbed at Robinson like needles.
It was true.
A physician of such standing—even an Imperial Physician—returns to the countryside and takes revenge on the doctor who killed his father.
What a plausible story it made.
And perhaps even this petition he was about to file had been calculated into the man’s plans all along.
The thought made his skin crawl.
“I’m not the sort of man who schemes that deeply, so you can set your mind at ease.”
……
“To be frank: you’re an unremarkable physician, that much is true. But that doesn’t make you a charlatan either, for all that.”
In Allen’s estimation, the physicians of this age were little better than imbeciles—they inflicted harm upon their patients in the name of treatment without a shred of guilt, and then insisted with the utmost confidence that an elephant was a pillar after having felt only one of its legs.
But was he himself any different?
No. He was not.
He mustn’t grow complacent, thinking he’d been fortunate enough to obtain some great fortune.
Medicine had always been thus.
It was a tedious and painstaking discipline—feeling one’s way along the elephant’s form, slowly grasping its true shape.
As for his father’s death, he harbored no great resentment about it.
Robinson had merely done what any physician of that era might have done.
The fact that he’d never once come to pay respects—that was galling, certainly.
But it had been twenty years ago, after all.
If he took revenge on Robinson, then the relatives of Robinson’s other patients would be justified in taking revenge on him.
That would be only fair.
Yet he had no wish to release Robinson without consequence, acquitting him freely.
In any case, the man had caused him trouble and filed a trumped-up charge out of jealousy.
“Come to the Edward Clinic tomorrow.”
Allen rose slowly, speaking as he did.
“I’ll decide what to do with you then.”
And with that, he left.
Robinson remained on the floor, prostrate.
Oblivious to the murmurs of those around him, he lay there for a long time.
* * *
The next morning.
Robinson stood woodenly outside the Edward Clinic.
A long line of patients had already formed at the clinic door.
All of them pale and gaunt-faced, waiting their turn.
‘Damn it. I’ve actually come to this.’
Remembering the humiliation he’d endured in Haveln the day before, heat flooded his face.
He’d pleaded on his knees, striking his head against the dining room floor, but all he’d gotten in return was a single command: come.
‘If he means to ruin me, then I’m finished—my reputation, my hospital, everything……’
Yet even as that thought consumed him, another concern crept into the back of his mind.
What would he tell his wife?
Robinson bit his lip.
Best to slip inside before anyone recognized him.
He pulled his hat down low and hurried toward the door.
At that moment, the waiting patients all turned their heads at once and cried out.
“Get back in line! No cutting ahead!”
“You think you’re the only one in a hurry? I’m desperate too!”
“No, I was just—”
Robinson raised his hands in alarm, only to provoke them further.
“So you wear fine clothes and put on airs? Get to the back of the line, sir. Back!”
Robinson was shoved to the very end of the queue.
Head bowed, he dreaded the thought of any acquaintance witnessing this humiliation.
Robinson of Greenhills waiting outside the Edward Clinic—he could already see how the rumor would spread and twist.
The line moved with agonizing slowness.
After standing nearly half an hour, he finally stepped through the entrance.
He was glancing around cautiously, hoping to find a seat in the waiting room, when a man across from him suddenly called out as if they were old friends.
“Aren’t you Robinson, the surgeon from Greenhills?”
The man’s voice carried across the entire waiting room.
Robinson went rigid.
He wanted nothing more than to flee on the spot, but every patient in the room had already turned their gaze toward him. He managed a stiff nod.
“Yes, that’s correct, but… could you perhaps keep your voice down?”
“Well now, a renowned surgeon comes seeking out the Edward Clinic’s miraculous skill—just as rumored! The doctors here are truly remarkable, I must say.”
Shame burned through him to the bone.
A thousand flames raged inside him, but he forced his mouth into a smile and sat down.
After enduring what felt like an eternity on that bed of nails, Robinson was finally shown into the clinic.
Edward sat behind the consultation desk, with William and Allen standing at his sides.
The moment his eyes met Allen’s, Robinson felt the blood drain from his entire body.
His fingertips began to tremble.

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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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