The Immortal Duke’s Physician Is an Internist - Chapter 32

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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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Late night.
I opened the First Aid Kit that had been sitting in the corner of the Medical Office. Everain, seated across from me, hung his head in what looked like profound shame.
I held a Disinfectant Swab with tweezers and called to him.
“Everain. I can’t treat you if you keep your face bowed like that.”
“……It’s fine. You don’t need to treat me.”
His voice came out thin and apologetic, at odds with his tall frame. I exhaled a long sigh.
“This just makes it harder for me. Let’s finish this quickly.”
Everain reluctantly lifted his face. Seeing the cuts scattered across his handsome features, I clicked my tongue.
“Goodness, and such a good-looking face too. This is why you need to be more careful.”
Every time I dabbed with the Disinfectant Swab, Everain’s shoulders flinched. He turned his gaze away, then eventually closed his eyes.
“Doctor. The distance is too close.”
“Oh! I’m sorry. I got caught up in the work.”
His face flushed red at the awkwardness, then gradually cooled. He cleared his throat several times before speaking again.
“Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“I’m truly…… sorry. I did something I shouldn’t have done.”
Everain bowed his head deeply until his forehead nearly touched the floor.
This was his apology for attempting to drug me with a sedative. I waved it off smoothly.
“It’s fine. You ended up taking it yourself, after all.”
“That’s true, but…….”
“Come on, hurry up! Let’s finish the treatment! You think you’re the only one impatient here?”
Only after I scolded him did Everain finally lift his head. At last I was able to finish the treatment.
“Well, everyone’s been waiting quite long.”
Kaeylun entered with perfect timing. He wiped the blood-stained Abacus with a cloth and gave his report.
“The Dark Magic user is completely finished.”
The casual phrasing prompted me to ask for clarification.
“Finished how, exactly?”
“His Core was located in the very part of his head that you struck with the Abacus. He’s completely lost his mind now.”
Ah—so the Abacus I’d swung had happened to strike just the right spot. Or rather, from our perspective, the best spot.
After finishing with the Abacus, Kaeylun asked me with evident curiosity.
“That said, Doctor…… Have you been training in martial arts? How were you able to deliver such a devastating blow to shatter a mage’s Core in a single strike? A mage’s Core shouldn’t be that fragile.”
“I suppose in an emergency, superhuman strength just came out of nowhere.”
“I see……?”
He didn’t fully understand, but Kaeylun let it go. We had more pressing matters at hand than this question.
“Everyone, please sit down.”
At the Duke’s words, we took our seats on the sofa as if on cue.
Everain, sitting beside me, maintained his usual rigid posture.
Yet to me, he looked as though he were clinging desperately to his consciousness, as if he might collapse at any moment.
“Shall we look at this first?”
I retrieved some photographs from the desk drawer and laid them out naturally, then began my explanation, showing pictures of Everain from childhood.
“Everain. Is there any photo here where your sister might appear?”
Everain went through the photographs one by one, but in the end, he shook his head.
“There isn’t.”
“Right. There wouldn’t be. Because from the start, you entered the Orphanage alone. Your sister’s photograph isn’t missing—there simply was no such person to begin with.”
“Then, Doctor. Are you saying I’ve been……?”
Everain couldn’t finish his sentence and swallowed hard. I waited quietly for him to continue.
“……seeing a phantom of my sister?”
“Probably.”
Everain gripped his head in his hands. His whole body trembled.
“That can’t be.”
“People who see phantoms usually say that.”
“After my mother passed away, I brought my sister to the Orphanage to survive. But once we entered, Shailos contracted White Sand Sickness, and so I went to find medicine…….”
The account he was now laying bare aligned with the backstory presented in the original work.
However, since the novel was only narrated from the heroine’s perspective,
I had never suspected such a hidden truth existed.
“……Your Grace.”
I addressed the Duke, who had remained silent until now.
“From here on, you should tell him everything you know. It’s time Everain learned the truth as well.”
The Duke exhaled a long breath. It was a sign that he’d realized there was no more room to hide.
“I don’t know what happened to Everain before we met. So keep in mind—everything I’m about to tell you is only what I’ve seen and heard myself.”
Everain nodded. The duke glanced at him once more, then continued.
“Not long after Everain came to House of Karseido, he said his younger sister, who was ill, was still at the Orphanage. I went to fetch her myself, intending to bring her to the estate and see she received proper treatment.”
* * *
“Welcome, Duke Blashion. We are honored by your visit.”
The Orphanage Director bowed formally to Blashion, who had arrived bearing a generous donation.
“Thank you as well for taking in Everain. When he disappeared so suddenly, we were deeply worried.”
“We’re both busy people—let’s attend to business. I’m taking Everain’s sister with me. Bring any documents that need signing.”
The Director’s cheerful expression hardened abruptly. He glanced around, then lowered his voice.
“Did Everain say his sister was still here?”
“Yes. A girl named Shailos, with White Sand Sickness. He said she was still here.”
“……Everain was always worried about his sick sister. One day he said he would find medicine for her and disappeared. However—”
The Director released a deep sigh, then retrieved something from his desk drawer and copied it onto paper.
“What I can say with certainty is that Everain came to this Orphanage ‘alone.'”
“Alone?”
“Yes. He said his mother had died, and asked us to take him in. Which means there was no girl named Shailos.”
“…….”
“This is the address of the house where he lived before, he told us. If you visit that place, you may learn something.”
With that, the conversation with the Director ended. Blashion examined the address on the note.
What was written was less an address than a set of coordinates.
This was how the addresses of slums not officially registered with government agencies were typically marked.
‘The Mahara Region……A place whose population has dropped below half due to recent desertification.’
As they exited the Orphanage, Everain, who had been crouching in a corner, jumped to his feet.
“Your Grace, what has become of Shailos?”
Blashion hesitated for a moment before answering.
“Your sister has gone back to her homeland, they say.”
“……Her homeland, you mean?”
“Yes. The Mahara Region. Isn’t that your hometown?”
“I……it would seem so, perhaps. I apologize. My memory is not clear on the matter.”
The uncertain answer gave Blashion cause for further suspicion.
‘No matter how young a child is, how could he not remember his own birthplace?’
Questions multiplied, but there was nothing for it now but to visit the Mahara Region.
“We’ll take a Warp to the south and travel to the Mahara Region from there.”
Everain nodded immediately. The boy’s eyes sparkled with the hope of meeting his sister.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The Mahara Region, reached by Warp, was undergoing severe desertification.
Though there were still people eking out an existence in that barren landscape, the population was far smaller than when Blashion had last visited two hundred years ago.
At the village entrance, Blashion unwound the turban he had been wearing.
“……It’s grave.”
The empty streets were devoid of anyone. It was evidence that the villagers had abandoned this land.
“Everain. Show me to your house.”
Everain led the way with the familiarity of one who had walked this path before. Soon he stood before a Shack that looked as though it might collapse at any moment.
“If you go down the stairs here……that’s where I lived.”
This Shack itself looked ready to crumble, and yet there was something deeper below?
Blashion descended the stairs slowly. In an atmosphere so barren that even the faintest hope would flee, he opened the door at the bottom of the stairs.
And there he stopped.
Someone was in the Basement. But they weren’t standing on the ground—they were suspended in midair.
“…….”
It looked less like a human being than like an ancient doll.
But the Ribbon wound around the neck was a vivid red, as though it had been tied yesterday.
Having lived over seven hundred years, Blashion momentarily forgot the presence that had been following him as this sudden reality struck.
“……Mother.”
“……!”
Just as Blashion turned around in shock.
Thud!
Everain collapsed where he stood.

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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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