The Immortal Duke’s Physician Is an Internist - Chapter 46

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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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The Duke entered the Examination Room slowly. He gazed at the photographs laid out before him for a long moment, then turned to ask me a question.
“When did you take my box?”
Fortunately, he didn’t sound particularly angry. I lowered my head respectfully.
“I’m sorry for taking it without permission. But honestly, I thought this was far more important than the Previous Duke’s funeral.”
I had brought a bouquet of chrysanthemum flowers prepared beforehand in one corner of the room. I held out a single chrysanthemum to the Duke, who still seemed off-balance.
“All this time, you’ve kept the people you missed sealed away forever inside that box, taking it out again and again to look at them. In a way, I think you’ve been avoiding saying goodbye to them.”
But one cannot spend a lifetime avoiding and nothing else.
The Duke needed to learn this too.
How to say farewell to the past. How to transform memories of beloved people into cherished recollections.
“So from now on, let’s spend this time mourning together. Only then can you let them go and move forward.”
“……I’ve lived 720 years. Do I really need to move forward? It seems I’ve already lived long enough.”
He spoke with apparent composure, yet remained trapped in the past—and I found that heartbreaking.
I pressed a single chrysanthemum into his hand.
“Duke. Do you remember what I told you when William was here? I said ‘dying well ultimately means living well.'”
“…….”
“If you truly wish for a peaceful death, all the more reason you must learn to live well. So today, let’s send off the people you miss together. If the heavy stone of sorrow piles up, you can never live freely.”
The Duke gazed at the chrysanthemum in his hand for a long time.
For just a moment, I worried he might rebuke me for doing something pointless. But I quickly cast that thought aside.
‘The Duke will understand what I mean. I’m sure of it.’
I knew the Duke’s true nature—the side the original work had never shown.
A man who thrust his hand into flames without hesitation, who willingly embraced the villain’s role for others’ sake, and who knew how to wipe away tears.
Because he was such a man, I waited for him to prepare his heart.
The silence stretched on…….
At last, the Duke lifted his head.
“What do I do? Should I offer this flower in front of each portrait?”
I smiled softly and answered.
“There’s no set way. Do whatever feels right to you.”
“Understood.”
The Duke said this and took my hand.
Somewhat startled, I found myself standing beside him in front of the first portrait. From the description I’d heard before, I recognized the figure in the frame at once.
“Hans, who liked dogs?”
“That’s right. Every morning he’d walk with the dog and buy eggs—that was his routine. He was always cooking eggs for me too, even though eggs were scarce back then.”
“What was your position at that time, Duke?”
“A poor art school graduate scraping by on portrait commissions.”
“Ha, you really do look destitute in this.”
The Duke placed a single chrysanthemum beside Hans’s portrait. Candlelight flickered across his forlorn face.
“……He died fighting off a robber who broke into the house. If I’d noticed just a little sooner, he might have lived longer.”
“I see.”
After gazing at the portrait for a while, he moved on. The next frame held a woman dressed in a maid’s uniform.
“Is this the head maid?”
“Head Maid Lilia. Back then I was working as a stable hand. My trousers tore and I was in a fix, and she quickly repaired them for me. That’s how we became close. She said men should know how to do these things, and she taught me how to sew.”
The head maid’s cause of death was excessive bleeding during childbirth. Indeed, in the portrait, she appeared to be pregnant.
The way she cradled her belly looked so happy, yet in the end, both mother and child had died.
“This portrait will need two flowers.”
I held out two chrysanthemums. The Duke lowered the flowers beside the portrait and bowed his head.
“Then, the child next to this one—who is that?”
“That child was from a lodging I stayed at during a visit to the Southern Region, long ago. It was a place where many different travelers came and went, so the child was naturally affectionate.”
What sort of picture did an Immortal and a child make? The Duke gently poked the child’s round cheeks in the frame.
“This child had heard from the visitors about the existence of Aurora. But at that time, the place where Aurora could be seen had been closed to visitors because of war. That place didn’t open again for a hundred years.”
“Did you go to see Aurora after that, Duke?”
“No. I never went.”
I could guess the reason without him needing to say it.
Why else would the child’s eyes be that green, like Aurora itself? I held out another chrysanthemum, and the Duke placed it before the child’s portrait.
Our funeral rite continued endlessly on.
Each person in the frames had been kind in their own way, and each memory became a stone in the Duke’s pocket.
After we had gone through countless portraits, when only one chrysanthemum remained, we stood before the final portrait.
It was the Knight he had mentioned before—the one who had served him during the Second Holy War.
“This one was a Knight who participated in the holy war dressed as a man, no less.”
“Dressed as a man?”
Her hair was short, but her features were finely drawn. Without the dress, she would have been unmistakably a lady.
“There were no female knights in those days. But for some reason, she dressed as a man and always stayed at the front lines.”
Like something out of an old animation—had she enlisted in place of a sickly father?
While I pondered this, the Duke’s reminiscence continued.
“On the battlefield, it was difficult to completely hide the fact that I’m an Immortal. My wounds healed at an impossible speed. But she knew that and kept my secret anyway. So I never revealed her true identity until she retired.”
“You said she was severely injured and left service, didn’t you?”
“That’s right. Normally, I never seek out someone once we’ve parted. But I was so curious about how she was doing that I visited her hometown. But when I arrived, she was already… dead from complications of her wounds.”
Though it had been three hundred years ago, the Duke said he still regretted not finding her sooner.
And this experience became the turning point that led him to settle in one place.
“After wandering the entire world long enough to witness countless deaths, I decided I had to stop this nomadic life. So I sought out the Imperial Family, pledged my loyalty, and was granted the castle of Carseido. By living in a mansion and regularly sending out servants, I thought I might at least keep death at a greater distance.”
I quietly extended the chrysanthemum flowers.
The cross-dressing comrade had clearly remained deeply in his heart, for the Duke hesitated to accept the flowers. I urged him on.
“Your senses may have dulled, but we humans have always lived alongside death. In the end, life—no one escapes it alive.”
The Duke let out a soft laugh, as if bewildered. I pressed the flowers into his hand.
“I will find a way for you to die, Your Grace. I promise. So now, please let the Knight rest.”
Perhaps my words shifted something in his heart. At last, the Duke placed the chrysanthemum flowers before the portrait.
Thus ended a joint funeral service spanning seven hundred and twenty years.
Flowers arranged in rows on the desk and the portrait made a fitting pair. I stood in the center of the room, clasped my hands, and prayed.
May the clear souls who had brushed past his life lend me their wisdom.
May I one day be able to lift the Duke’s curse.
I prayed this with all sincerity.
After putting away the flowers and portrait, it was already two in the morning. I held out the treasure box, now filled with all the photographs and paintings.
“Here, I’m returning these to you. You’ve worked so hard tonight.”
“You worked hard too.”
It was a warm departure scene between employer and employee after completing an important project. I handed over the box and hesitated for a moment before removing the ring from my finger.
“Should I… keep wearing this?”
“I’d appreciate it if you would, for now.”
“Goodness, all this trouble just because I signed one contract wrong….”
I openly complained about my employer, but the Duke paid it little mind. Instead, he offered his thanks.
“Thank you for the funeral tonight. And for playing the part of the Duchess.”
“It was nothing. Has your wallet grown any lighter, Your Grace?”
“After finally holding a proper funeral in seven hundred and twenty years, my heart will take a while longer to feel truly unburdened. But one thing has become clear.”
“…? What’s that?”
He spoke to me as I tilted my head in confusion.
“I absolutely do not want to attend your funeral.”
……
“So you must live longer than me, Teacher. You must.”
With that, the Duke left the room.
I stood there dazed, and before I knew it, my face was burning. My oblivious heart was pounding wildly, and a sudden fever crept up my neck.
“What… what is this….”
Those words were almost like… they were almost like….
Some kind of confession.

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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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