The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 4

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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 4
An inn in Dunford.
In a small second-floor room, a young man stood gazing into a copper mirror.
The carefully pomaded hair swept back, the long brown locks once maintained with oil—both were gone now.
His hair had become a tangled mess like dog fur, and his jaw was shadowed with an unkempt beard.
He looked much like a vagrant.
The only difference, perhaps, was the peculiar brilliance that still flickered in his eyes.
“I look like hell.”
The young man muttered with a bitter smile.
He picked up the knife and scissors that lay beside the mirror.
Slowly he trimmed his hair, then set about grooming his beard.
After some time had passed, the mirror reflected a young man with a clean jaw and short-cropped hair.
“I begin again.”
The young man whispered softly to himself.
A life as Alexander Rosenbaum.
The prestige of being the Royal Medical Academy’s youngest professor.
The glittering circles of the Imperial Capital’s society.
The wealth he’d clutched so eagerly in his fists.
Now he saw it all for the illusion it was.
Before such overwhelming knowledge, he had finally set down his arrogance and become once again a humble human being.
‘Now it’s time to take off this mask too.’
The name Alexander.
The surname Rosenbaum.
He had despised grinding poverty so much that he’d wanted to flee from his past as Allen Wright.
He’d bought a surname from an impoverished old country nobleman, deliberately chosen a name that projected strength….
That was different now.
He understood that a person’s worth was not determined by their name, but arose from a solid inner core.
‘I am Allen Wright.’
Once a name he’d feared others might unearth, buried deep in shame.
But now it was his true name, one he could face with pride.
And so the man who had entered as Alexander Rosenbaum left the room as Allen Wright.
* * *
The first floor of the inn.
Allen took a seat and ordered stew.
The portly innkeeper brought the bowl and gave him a curious glance.
“First time here, friend?”
Allen smiled gently.
“I’m a traveler who arrived last night.”
“Ah! That long-haired fellow who said this was his hometown? I’d have walked right past you—you look completely different now!”
The innkeeper broke into a hearty laugh.
“The change looks much better on you.”
“Thank you.”
Allen lifted his spoon and tasted the stew.
The thick broth mingled with finely chopped vegetables, the flavor blooming across his tongue.
A smile spread across his face unbidden.
‘That very same taste.’
Memory bloomed with crystalline clarity, indifferent to the passage of time.
Eight years old. Shivering in a corner, waiting for someone to take him in.
So starving that he’d stumbled into the street without thought.
But hunger made his legs give way, and he’d collapsed against the inn’s wall.
He’d lain there, without even the strength left to cry, sorrow pressing down on him.
Then someone had placed a wooden bowl in his hands, steam rising from it in gentle wisps.
‘Eat it all. Don’t worry about anything.’
That boy, trembling as he’d taken the bowl, was now a young man sitting in this very place.
He finished every last drop of stew in silence, then rose from his seat and withdrew his wallet.
“For the meal….”
The innkeeper waved his hand dismissively.
“Go on now. It’s not every day I get to give a fellow townsman a warm meal from home again. That’s all I wanted to do.”
“This isn’t just payment for today’s meal.”
The innkeeper looked at him with a bewildered expression.
“I’m repaying an old debt from long ago. I should have settled it much sooner.”
With those words, Allen placed two gold coins on the counter and turned to leave.
He didn’t look back at the innkeeper’s bewildered face.
Stepping into the street, he felt the thick heat of midday wash over him.
Allen made his way through the dusty thoroughfare, first stopping at a clothing shop.
He bought a shirt, trousers, and a few other necessary items.
He kept the old woman’s clothes aside carefully.
He meant to have them laundered and return them to her someday.
‘Though I’ve already made sufficient amends,’ he thought as he walked.
He’d sent a hasty letter to an acquaintance nearby, explained the situation, borrowed money, and had thirty chickens’ worth of compensation sent to the old woman through a bank in the Imperial Capital.
That should have been more than adequate repayment.
His next destination was a flower shop.
After purchasing a basket of flowers, he walked slowly toward the Common Cemetery on the outskirts.
The sky was overcast, and a light drizzle had begun to fall.
Following the path, he came to a stop before a small headstone.
On the rough stone, worn by rain and wind, faint letters remained barely legible.

And beside it.

He knelt down and carefully set the flowers before the graves.
“Mother. Father.”
His voice was hoarse.
“It’s been far too long. Twenty years, has it been?”
He had left Dunford eighteen years ago.
He had lost his parents twenty years before that.
In those two years—the time he’d spent back in this city—he had not once visited the cemetery.
Why?
‘Was it to steel myself never to dwell on the past?’
Or had he simply been afraid that coming here would cause him to collapse?
One thing was certain: now it didn’t disturb him at all.
“I came because there were things I wanted to tell you about what happened in the meantime.”
He sat on the wet ground and continued slowly.
“After you were gone… no one wanted to take me in. Not your Guild associates, not our relatives—they all turned their backs. The title of Prodigy proved worthless against reality.”
Even as a young child in Dunford, he had been known as a prodigy.
But after losing both parents at eight years old, that reputation had helped him not at all.
No one wanted to take in a child who was nothing but a mouth to feed.
“So I spent two years in the Orphanage. From eight years old until I was ten. It was not an easy place. I won’t go into detail so as not to trouble you, but…”
He trailed off.
Life in the orphanage had been hell.
Meager food, uncomfortable bedding, lice and fleas everywhere, rats in every corner.
But the hardest part had been the jealousy of the other children.
He stood out at the orphanage’s weekend school and had even earned the favor of the head priest.
And of course, the children despised anyone who outshone them.
“Looking back now, I don’t understand why I tried so hard to stand out. Was it pride? Was it the desperation of thinking that if I lost even the title of Prodigy, I would be nothing at all?”
He questioned himself.
But he already knew the answer.
Study was the only way he could prove his worth.
And he had believed that through study, he could climb to greater heights.
“Fortunately, those efforts were not wasted. Marquis Ashford offered to sponsor me. That’s why I left this city at age ten.”
Marquis Ashford had happened to pass near Dunford and spoke with the head priest, asking to see the boy directly.
Allen had suppressed his fear and desperation, trying desperately to appear clever, capable, and earnest.
He had played the role of a prodigy carved from steel.
When he returned to his orphanage bed that night, the other children had urinated on straw and smeared it all over his sleeping place.
Shivering in a corner on a winter’s night, he prayed fervently for light to shine down upon him.
And the next day, the head priest told him that Marquis Ashford wished to sponsor him.
“Well, everything went smoothly after that. My studies progressed as expected—I matched and even surpassed the talents of renowned noble heirs. I was admitted to the Royal Medical Academy, served as a professor, even became a royal physician. As a doctor, I had accomplished everything possible.”
He had achieved so much at such a young age.
And the fall had been every bit as swift as the rise.
No—it was faster.

“But in the end, I was pushed out. Swept away in dirty political machinations. Or perhaps… perhaps it was my own inadequacy that sealed my fate.”
He fell silent for a moment.
Even before the graves of his parents, admitting his failure did not come easily.
“Back then, I believed everything I did was right. But I was wrong. Whether it was me or someone else, they would have been wrong too. A mistake is a mistake, after all.”
He recalled the young princess whose death had been the catalyst for his downfall.
That flushed face burning with fever.
The weakening pulse fading at death’s threshold.
His treatment had been flawless, and others had testified to his lack of error.
But isn’t life measured by its results alone?
He had not cured the princess of her fever, and that alone was sufficient cause for the imperial court to withdraw its favor.
Looking back now, everything about those days seemed wrong.
Those who defended him, those who condemned him—all of them were divorced from the truth.
“In any case, that’s how I came to this city. I harbor no particular affection for it, but I thought there was no better place to make a fresh start than this.”
A bitter smile crossed his lips.
“Mother, Father. I was a physician, yet I was no physician at all. I was no different from the charlatans I once despised, and yet I was arrogant enough to call myself learned.”
He paused to collect himself, then continued.
“So now, I intend to become a true physician.”
Ten days had passed since he awoke.
During that time, he had struggled endlessly with questions about his future. And he had reached a conclusion.
Though he would begin in his hometown, his path would be utterly different from before.
Shedding even the pretense of being a physician specializing in Internal Medicine.
“Rest well. Next time… when I return as a true physician, I shall pay my respects again.”
He bowed deeply before the graves and departed from the cemetery.
As he vanished, wind from somewhere swept gently across the two tombstones as though embracing them.
And as if bringing an end to a long vigil, a single ray of light pierced through the dark clouds, casting its warmth upon the place where he had stood.
* * *
The shop of Robert Pare, the apothecary in the Market District.
Inside, the air hung thick with the sharp scent of vinegar mingled with the acrid aroma of cloves.
Bundles of dried herbs and the hides of unidentifiable creatures hung from the ceiling, while a faded oak cabinet was crammed full of ceramic jars and glass bottles of medicines.
It was the picture of a typical apothecary’s shop.
Pare, the owner, moved between the bottles with a feather duster, diligently brushing away dust.
Then, with the jingle of a bell, the worn door swung open.
“Welcome.”
Pare threw out his habitual greeting, turning his head.
The customer was a young man with short-cropped brown hair and a gentle countenance.
“What do you need? Small as we are, we’ve got everything hard to find in this city. Mercury? Antimony? Lead compounds? Just ask. We’re well stocked with potent substances—the kind that can make the dying sit up straight.”
At that suggestion, Allen’s lips curved into what seemed an oddly bitter smile.
He glanced at the displayed bottle of lead compound, then spoke.
“I’ve come to ask you something.”
Recognizing that this was not a customer here to purchase, the apothecary’s genial demeanor shifted somewhat.
He set down the duster and crossed his arms.
“A question? Well, it’s not free, but I’m listening.”
“How many surgeons are there in this city?”
“Surgeons? Let me see. One, two, three, four, five… six. I’d say about six, though there could be more. But why do you ask?”
“Is there perhaps someone among them who might take on an apprentice?”
The apothecary studied him intently.
“You seem a bit old to be taking up an apprenticeship, if I may say so.”
“Does age matter when one seeks to learn?”
“As far as I know, there haven’t been any apprenticeship notices in the papers recently. Then again, who knows? If you go and ask, they might just take you on. There’s always a shortage of hands, isn’t there?”
Pare gestured vaguely, pinching his thumb and forefinger together.
“Of course, they’ll likely demand some ‘tuition fee’ or other.”
Apprenticeship contracts are usually arranged when a child of thirteen or fourteen years old enters into service with a master, their parents paying the tuition fee to secure the arrangement.
Allen pondered for a moment, then asked.
“Is there anyone in particular you would recommend?”
“Hmm. If I recommend one, the others will resent me, won’t they? They’re all valuable customers of mine—I can’t afford to make enemies.”
Pare shook his head from side to side, then leaned in and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“But I can tell you who you absolutely should not go to.”

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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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