The Immortal Duke’s Physician Is an Internist - Chapter 1

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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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Prologue.
“You’re fired.”
The silver-haired man across from me delivered the news without ceremony.
“I’m sorry—why?”
“Contract employees are convenient that way. I can manufacture a reason whenever I please. Surely you knew that?”
I’d assumed that being on contract meant unions were someone else’s problem.
“However, if you wish to remain as my personal physician, I could always hire you anew.”
While I was quietly running through protocols for dealing with unfair employment practices, my employer—the Duke of House Carseydo—slid a new contract across the table.
I took it with a start.
“This is a full-time employment contract. And the salary is increased by two hundred percent?”
A raise, a private clinic, paid leave, travel expenses covered—
I was reading through these perfect, gleaming conditions when one clause caught my eye and refused to budge.
“But what is this? ‘The Employee shall perform the duties of Duchess whenever the Employer deems necessary.'”
“As you know, I make it a point to announce my marriages to society at opportune moments. This generation demands it as well.”
It sounded insane, but for him it was perfectly natural.
He was an Immortal—one who did not die, did not age, and was currently impersonating generations upon generations of his own descendants.
“You mean you want me to play this fake wife?”
“Exactly. Whenever I need it, simply stand at my side and fulfill the role. Nothing more.”
I studied the contract, weighing my options.
‘Whenever I need it’ was troubling, admittedly. But losing my position entirely was worse.
Besides, I’d fled to this estate to escape a seventy-two-year-old earl who wouldn’t stop hounding me. Going home meant facing that again.
‘And the view isn’t terrible, either.’
Someone had once said that the Carseydo Estate’s greatest benefit was the Duke’s face.
I couldn’t have agreed more.
“So—do you sign, or not?”
“I’ll sign on one condition: use me for Duchess duties only within my nine-to-six work hours. Anything beyond that requires overtime pay.”
The Duke picked up his pen. A faint smile tugged at his lips.
“Gladly.”
1.
Illegitimate children in fairy tales were always unhappy in remarkably similar ways.
Seven-year-old Lionel, armed with nothing but her mother’s will, was no exception when she went searching for her baron father.
“Where did this beggar come from? Be grateful we’re keeping you at all. Don’t you dare call me Mother.”
Her new family worked her to the bone. Watching her own hands blister and crack, Lionel believed this misery would last forever.
It might have, if her stepmother Rabienne hadn’t suddenly collapsed one day, her face deathly pale.
“Wait—isn’t that hypoglycemia?”
At fifteen, Lionel’s body moved before her mind could think. In her past life, she’d been a second-year internal medicine resident who’d died in a traffic accident.
“Orange juice! Candy! Sugar! Anything! Hurry!!”
The despised illegitimate child became a lifesaver in an instant. Those who’d thrown rags in her face now sought her medical advice with anxious deference—and it was sweet.
From that moment on, Lionel began controlling everything about her stepmother’s and family’s lives.
“Mother, I’ve told you this before. Broccoli first, then eggs, then bread.”
By twenty, Lionel had become a tyrant. Five years was more than enough time for a girl to awaken as a devil’s drill sergeant.
Rabienne hurried to set down the rye bread. Baron Frencia, standing nearby, carefully interposed himself.
“Lionel, Rabienne’s fasting blood sugar was a hundred this morning. Surely you don’t need to be quite so strict—”
Lionel had been waiting for this. She drew a small device from her pocket—a measurement apparatus specially commissioned from the Magic Tower.
“Fasting glucose can be fudged. Hemoglobin A1c cannot. Shall we test it right now?”
“All right, all right.”
Rabienne put broccoli in her mouth and chewed obediently. Following Lionel’s instructions, she ate the eggs, and was just reaching for the rye bread when—
Snap!
Lionel’s hand shot out and caught Rabienne’s wrist. Something fell from Rabienne’s sleeve.
It was a packet of strawberry jam.
“Stop. Are you trying to cheat on me?”
“J-just a little wouldn’t hurt—”
“It absolutely would, Mother. Perhaps losing a finger to complications would make you pay attention?”
Luen, Lionel’s half-brother, said nothing but shook his head slowly at the spectacle. Rabienne’s fists trembled, and she quickly changed the subject.
“Lionel. You remember the promise you made? That if you couldn’t repay my medical school fees within a year of graduation, you’d marry? And now you’ve quit twice—it seems medicine was too demanding for you after all.”
Rabienne continued to needle her stepdaughter.
“Well, being a noble’s wife isn’t a terrible life. What’s wrong with an older man? They say love knows no age or borders.”
Older doesn’t even begin to cover it. You’d survive marrying a seventy-two-year-old decrepit fool?
Men like that are ancient and still slavering for breeding stock—they’d throw a fit demanding grandchildren!
“I’ll find a new position quickly so that Mother can focus on managing her blood sugar.”
Lionel answered quietly, her jaw clenched.
“Oh, ho ho ho! Yes, do find something soon! Not that it matters to me!”
The tense standoff between the blonde, middle-aged duchess and the dark-haired young lady reached its conclusion.
The baron, who had been silent until then, spotted an article and showed it to Lionel.
“Isn’t this the Saint Louis Hospital where you used to work? Says they were fined twenty million gold for violating fire safety codes. Did you know about it?”
“…Well, I’m not sure? Even when I worked there, people were throwing cigarette butts around carelessly.”
That was what she said, but Lionel knew far too much about that incident.
Of course she did.
Because she was the one who had reported the hospital to the fire department.
She had realized she’d been reborn, but Lionel had no idea which novel’s world she’d landed in.
At any rate, nothing had happened so far that would remind her of the original work, so she had decided to use her abilities and live well as a physician.
And at seventeen, she broached the subject of money with Rabienne for the first time.
This world required medical school enrollment to practice as a physician, just as in the modern era.
Rabienne, who managed the baron’s finances, was predictably stingy.
“Say I loan you the tuition. How would you repay it?”
“By earning money. I’ll even pay interest.”
“Do you really think finding work is that easy? Fine, here’s what we’ll do. If you can’t repay the tuition within a year of graduation, you’ll marry whoever I choose.”
In other words, she’d receive a bride price to settle the debt.
Lionel hesitated for a moment. But she desperately wanted to become a physician.
She needed the financial independence from her family, of course.
But more than that—she didn’t want to experience again what had happened with her mother, who was no longer by her side: watching someone precious vanish so meaninglessly.
“Very well. Let’s do it that way.”
So Lionel entered medical school with debt.
After completing the three-year regular curriculum, she graduated at the top of her class and secured a position.
But the problems began after she started work.
“How dare you try to form a union at your age? Do you think the world is so soft? You’re fired!”
She had wanted to establish a union to improve the dire working conditions of the hospital’s cafeteria workers. But she was discovered all too quickly.
“That’s all right. I’m not soft either.”
Lionel took photographs of doctors smoking in front of the emergency exit, sent them to the fire department, and resigned.
It was a week before her scheduled conversion to permanent employment status.
Her second position was as the exclusive physician to a viscount. On the first month’s payday, the viscountess handed her a ridiculously small amount.
“You don’t work all day, do you? So I calculated it as two and a half hours a day, five days a week. Of course, weekends were excluded.”
So split-shift employment really did exist!
Lionel immediately packed her things and left. The viscountess called out after her.
“You need to write a resignation letter, Doctor!”
“I never even signed an employment contract!”
And she sent registered mail containing all the flirtatious letters the viscount had given her. Included was a postscript mentioning that his study held all the stolen undergarments of the housemaids he’d collected.
In the end, what remained was Lionel—having left with a bang, though hardly with honor.
“…Is there nowhere left but here?”
After dinner with her family, Lionel picked up the Job Advertisement from the table.
It was the last resort she had kept in reserve.
<House of Carseydo—Physician Recruitment Notice>
・Duties: Health management and treatment for the Duke and household servants
・Annual Salary: To be determined at interview
Up to this point it was ordinary enough. But what made her eyes widen was what came below.
<Benefits>
・Room and board provided within the estate
・Housing loan of one million gold at zero interest (if commuting is desired)
・100% coverage of work-related expenses
・In-house beautician on standby at all times (free)
・One month paid leave for every three years of service
・Birthday bonus and condolence allowance
・Personal childcare support after childbirth
Despite the extraordinary conditions, there was a reason Lionel couldn’t bring herself to apply immediately.
And that reason was—
House of Carseydo, the guardian of the Empire, had a legend that every Duke throughout history boasted breathtaking beauty from birth until death.
The rumor for which they were famous was that they drank human blood to maintain their youth.
‘And meanwhile, the application says thirty-two applicants, thirty-two resignations… Doesn’t that basically mean they all ran away?’
No way. This is impossible. I can’t possibly go to a place like that. Lionel was about to toss the paper when she read through the contents one more time.
“⋯⋯No matter how squalid the place, it couldn’t be worse than marrying some perverted old man, could it?”
Right then. Let’s give it a shot. A lottery ticket never wins if you don’t buy one, after all!
With that resolve, Lionel pulled out her travel bag.
The benefits package was far too generous to refuse.

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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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