Chapter 59
*
“What did you just say, Young Lord Nihirit?”
“I said I would give you both a child.”
The 12th Prince’s gaze fixed on me.
It was a familiar gaze.
I had received plenty of gazes like that in the red-light district.
— What? You mean we can have a baby?
When you practice medicine in the red-light district, you come across all sorts of stories.
A prostitute who wanted to bury her past and start a new life.
A gangster whose manhood had been cut off.
An interspecies couple who wanted to overcome the differences between their races.
All sorts of newlyweds had quietly visited my clinic.
And then they had returned home together, holding a baby wrapped in cloth.
— Sir... weren’t you a healer? Then exactly how far can the profession of medicine go?
The boss had looked dumbfounded beside them.
Of course, not all of those stories ended happily.
It wasn’t such a soft world.
But I could be certain that the prince and princess consort’s story would have a happy ending.
The prince’s sexual function was normal, and the princess consort was in a condition that could be treated.
‘I already have all the ingredients I need, too. There’s no need to make anything new.’
That was why I had gone all in so boldly.
Of course, the prince and princess consort, who knew nothing about those circumstances, didn’t seem to have properly grasped the meaning of my words yet.
“….”
The prince’s mouth opened halfway, then closed again.
The prince’s voice slipped through lips that opened and closed like a goldfish’s.
“…Let’s talk separately.”
Edmund rose from his seat.
With his back to us, the prince headed for the small reception room.
“My dear. Come with me.”
The princess consort, who had been frozen like a stone monument, finally managed to move at her husband’s voice.
I stood as well and glanced at Charlotte.
Even before I could say anything, she was already preparing to follow.
Judging by her eyes, she seemed intrigued by the mess I had just caused.
But Charlotte also seemed to be holding her tongue.
Thus, we followed the prince and princess consort across the banquet hall toward the small reception room.
“Come in.”
The small reception room we entered after the prince was a little room containing only two mana-stone lamps mounted on the walls and two sofas facing each other.
Once we entered, the guard knight who had followed us closed the door.
Click.
The moment the sound of the door closing rang out,
Edmund turned his back to us.
The prince remained silent for a while, showing us his back.
Then he slowly opened his mouth.
“I was on the southern front.”
His voice came from the back he still kept turned away.
“For three years. I stood atop the Black Iron Wall and watched countless corpses pile up at my feet.”
His shoulders moved faintly as Edmund took a deep breath.
“You can see all sorts of tragedies on a battlefield. How people die, what expressions the dead wear, and how those who survive spend the rest of their lives.”
“….”
“Because of that, you naturally learn to grow numb to ordinary tragedies.”
Only then did Edmund turn around.
The face I had thought would be angry instead showed deep exhaustion.
“When that happens, you naturally learn to be generous even toward the thoughtless remarks young lords who have never experienced a battlefield casually make. If you know there was no malice behind them, you usually just let them pass.”
Edmund’s gaze shifted to Charlotte.
“I also saw the two of you do something to my wife’s glass just now. I thought a little prank like chilling her drink was nothing to worry about since there was no malice behind it.”
Edmund looked at me again.
At the same time, his voice dropped by a tone.
“But what you said is not something I can easily let pass.”
Edmund took a step toward me.
“Young Lord Nihirit. Do you know what it feels like to send away the little bundles of flesh that came to us?”
A little bundle of flesh.
The moment that word left his mouth, the princess consort’s shoulders flinched.
“Every time her belly began to swell, she couldn’t bring herself to use the name we had given the previous child again, so she buried that name in her heart. Then, praying that this time, just this once, she would meet a healthy child, she would tremulously choose a new name. Do you know what that feels like...?”
The prince’s voice, which had maintained a calm tone, began to tremble.
And the man who had even forgotten his honorifics poured his raw anguish out at me.
“That shattering pain...! How dare you think you can even speak of it—!”
“You don’t have to experience every tragedy yourself to know that pain, Your Highness.”
My voice cut off the prince’s words.
Before the prince, whose train of thought had been interrupted, could continue, I spoke concisely.
“How many babies do you think have slipped through my fingers, Your Highness?”
“….”
The prince’s mouth closed.
The initiative had passed to me.
“Of course, I have never experienced that tragedy firsthand. But anyone who watches a tragedy from the sidelines inevitably bears part of it too. When those little weights gather and gather, at some point I end up carrying grief no less than theirs.”
Edmund’s eyes moved faintly.
“I see more than ten expectant mothers a day. Over the course of a year, that means I meet thousands of children. And among them are children I had to send away without even saying hello.”
“….”
“There are couples for whom I have to be careful even to dare promise hope. Why do you think someone like me would dare say this to you?”
Edmund did not answer.
But I could tell from the way his tightly clenched fist had just relaxed.
“…Can you stake your name on what you said?”
“If it allows the two of you to have hope, I will gladly do so.”
It was immediately after I finished speaking.
“…Young Lord Nihirit.”
A small voice that seemed to trail off into nothing.
At that small voice, everyone’s gaze turned to the princess consort.
The woman who had not said a single word since entering the room spoke for the first time.
“I heard about what happened at House Belheim.”
The woman spoke in a trembling voice, as if even speaking were difficult.
“They say you solved an unsolved case and treated the count’s daughter. If that’s true...”
The princess consort bit her lip tightly for a moment.
“Can you... cure me too?”
I nodded without hesitation.
Of course, there was no such thing as 100 percent certainty in medicine.
No matter how hard you tried, tragedy would always come eventually.
But if this bluff could ease a patient’s heart, I was willing to bluff as many times as necessary.
‘Still, it’s ninety percent. That’s good enough.’
Besides, I had the plot armor of a misunderstanding novel for precisely this sort of thing.
So I answered with certainty.
“Yes. I’ll help you.”
Something trembled in the princess consort’s eyes.
Tears threatened to spill over at the edges of her eyes.
Before the dam burst, I drove home one final point.
“But let me correct one thing before we go any further.”
I kept the prince and princess consort in my line of sight together and spoke.
“A miscarriage is not a disease.”
Academically speaking, it was classified as a disease for the time being.
But in clinical practice, a miscarriage was classified as a phenomenon, not a disease.
“And it certainly isn’t anyone’s fault.”
“….”
“The two of you simply need more prayers and effort than other people to meet your child. So saying that I will ‘cure’ you would not be quite appropriate.”
The tears welling in the princess consort’s eyes spilled over.
The prince silently placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
He held his wife against his chest and pressed his lips to the crown of her head.
Then he quietly closed his eyes.
I waited in silence for some time, until the two of them had sorted through their emotions.
*
How much time had passed?
The prince took his hand from his wife’s shoulder, took a breath, and looked at me.
Only then did I begin the rest of what I had to say.
“Normally, I would tell you after confirming the diagnosis, but I will explain it to you in advance.”
It was normally risky to discuss a treatment plan before the diagnosis had been confirmed.
But for couples who had suffered four miscarriages, I sometimes made an exception.
They needed hope first, so they could at least eat properly and take care of their health.
“First, several tests will be necessary.”
The disease I suspected was somewhat complicated, so quite a few tests would be needed.
First, we needed a urine test, and we also needed a blood test.
They were to check whether there was foam in the urine and how quickly the blood coagulated.
But there was one test that was more important than all the others.
“And we need a syphilis test.”
“…Syphilis?”
The prince’s eyebrow twitched.
I realized my mistake belatedly.
My habit of skipping the context and blurting out the conclusion first had slipped out again.
I hurriedly corrected myself.
“I am not saying that Her Highness has syphilis.”
“Then why is that test necessary?”
“There is an apparatus used in syphilis testing. It was originally designed to react to syphilis, but interestingly, it can also react in the presence of other diseases.”
“Can you explain that more simply?”
“When a magical-beast wave comes rushing in, you sometimes use siege weapons, right? It’s like that. The weapon has a different original purpose, but it’s useful, so you use it anyway.”
“I understand.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
The syphilis test I had just decided to use on the princess consort was the Wassermann test.
The Wassermann test is a syphilis-testing apparatus that uses a substance extracted from a cow’s heart.
Its drawback is that, despite being created to diagnose syphilis, it also reacts to other diseases.
Because it could react even when syphilis was only a false positive, it had fallen out of use by modern times.
But this time, that drawback was exactly what I needed.
‘Because I need to diagnose a rheumatic disease.’
The Wassermann test had a profound impact on the diagnosis of rheumatic diseases.
It led to the discovery of anticardiolipin antibodies, a diagnostic criterion for rheumatic disease patients, and eventually even made it possible to diagnose new rheumatic diseases.
I was making use of that history.
“Considering Her Highness’s symptoms, there is a high chance that she will also test positive for syphilis. That’s why we need the test.”
“Fascinating. I had no idea it could be used that way. Where did you learn such knowledge?”
“Let’s call it a vision.”
I raised my index finger to my lips and beamed.
At the word ‘vision,’ the prince stopped questioning me about my knowledge.
“If all these tests match my expectations, we will be able to understand Her Highness’s condition.”
“An illness... no, you mean there is a cause?”
“Yes. But Her Highness’s body is not weak or defective.”
Strictly speaking, the princess consort’s condition could be classified as a disease.
The disease was called ‘antiphospholipid antibody syndrome.’
It was a type of rheumatic disease in which autoantibodies in the blood caused clots to form inside the blood vessels.
That was also why the princess consort had miscarried.
A blood clot had blocked the umbilical cord, causing the baby to die without receiving nutrients.
But since I had just said it was not a disease, I refrained from explaining the name of the condition.
Besides, there was no one in this world who would understand me even if I gave them the name of a disease.
The prince must have caught on to the contradiction in my words too.
But perhaps he recognized my consideration, because he did not press for more details and let it pass.
“Again, there is nothing wrong with Her Highness. She simply needs a little help from medication.”
“Can you tell me what medicine you intend to use?”
“Yes. A medicine called heparin.”
Heparin.
It was the medicine Eri was taking as well, a drug that dissolved blood clots.
With this medicine, antiphospholipid antibody syndrome would be taken care of in a snap.
The problem was the clot blocking the umbilical cord, so dissolving it would solve everything.
Hearing that, the princess consort leaned slightly toward me.
Hope had appeared in the eyes that had been steeped in resignation.
The prince, on the other hand, was understandably reluctant to believe it, perhaps because he was a former soldier.
“Heparin? I have never heard of it.”
“Would it help if I said it was a medicine that the Mercure Trading Company sells only to healers?”
But that lasted only a moment.
Perhaps it was because he was from the southern front.
The moment the name of Mercure Trading Company came up, he immediately nodded.
Now that I had won them over, I summarized the details.
“Starting tomorrow, I will visit Your Highness’s detached palace every month. I will give you the medicine each time, so if you take it consistently...”
I paused for a moment.
The couple had leaned forward in unison.
Their gazes weighed on me, so I leaned back slightly before finishing what I had been saying.
“…you two will have cause to celebrate as well.”
Once I finished speaking, silence descended for a moment.
Edmund broke that silence by rising from his seat.
“Thank you.”
He took both my hands.
The problem was how hard he squeezed them.
Perhaps it was because he was a former soldier.
Maybe he thought I was built like other soldiers too, because the strength of his grip was extraordinary.
I barely managed to keep my expression from crumbling.
“Thank you so much....”
But as I watched the prince bow his head again and again, the pain seemed to vanish completely.
‘I never thought I would live to see the top of a royal’s head.’
This is why I became a doctor.
Pure gratitude as a fellow human being, transcending social rank.
The high from this was incredible.
No medicine could cure this kind of high.
I got kidnapped into trauma surgery because of it.
…Damn it. I should have just settled for thoracic surgery.
Anyway.
“That is too generous, Your Highness. Then shall we return to enjoying the banquet….”
At that moment, Edmund released my hands and turned toward his wife.
“My dear. You go back first. I still have something important to discuss with Young Lord Nihirit.”
“?”
What was this?
Was he trying to ask about her condition in more detail somewhere his wife couldn’t hear?
Most husbands who wanted a private word with me at this point did so for that reason.
So I also gave Charlotte a subtle hint.
“You go back first.”
“All right.”
Perhaps Charlotte had noticed the atmosphere too, because she obediently left the room.
On her way out,
the princess consort looked back at me once more with visible reluctance, then left the reception room under the guard knight’s guidance.
After Charlotte and the princess consort left the reception room,
only Edmund and I remained inside.
The prince looked at me without saying a word for a while.
Before long, his legs began to tremble.
He clasped both hands in front of his knees and lowered his gaze to the floor.
Then the prince spoke to me.
“Sir Julian.”
“Your Highness. I’m not someone worthy of such an address….”
“Sir. I have a favor to ask.”
“….”
The prince raised his head.
When our eyes met, I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut.
There was a desperation in his eyes that no adjective could adequately describe.
“Actually... with it happening over and over... you see... the thing is...”
Edmund’s gaze shifted slightly away from me.
A man who would not have even blinked while facing tens of thousands of magical beasts on a battlefield could not meet my eyes now.
Was he about to say something serious?
I steeled myself as well and waited for him to speak.
Eventually, the prince squeezed the words out.
“I, and my wife... these days... at night, I...”
Ah.
“My feelings for her haven’t changed. That much is certain. But I’m afraid the same result will happen again... I feel so anxious... so the thing is...”
“…You needn’t say anything more.”
Right.
After experiencing that tragedy four times, it was certainly possible for his confidence to suffer.
Mm-hmm. Of course.
But whether this was a misfortune or a blessing,
the prince happened to have an excellent medicine available to him.
“Don’t worry, Your Highness. I happen to have an excellent medicine.”
“Medicine? You mean there is medicine for something like this?”
“I happen to be a clinical trial supervisor for Mercure Trading Company, you see. That means I know about several medicines that have not yet been released on the market.”
“Could it be... that medicine?”
“…You know about it?”
“It’s already famous among those in the know.”
What the hell?
How had it leaked this far?
What on earth were those directors doing with the company’s internal security?
Just as I was thinking that I needed to tighten things up inside the trading company sometime,
the prince gripped my hand tightly.
Even more desperately than when he had thanked me a moment ago.
His eyes sparkled.
Even more brightly than when he had seen the gun earlier.
Of all the expressions this man had shown tonight, this was the liveliest face of all.
“Then this makes things easy. If Your Highness is willing….”
“I will.”
It was before I had even finished speaking.
“Please listen to me until the end….”
“Whatever kind of trial it is, I’ll do it.”
“But I still have a duty to explain it to you….”
“I said I’d do it.”
“I haven’t explained the side effects yet….”
“I’m telling you, I will.”
In the end, I nodded to rescue my fingers from being crushed.
“…If, by any chance, it works well, may I use Your Highness’s name when promoting the medicine later?”
“Once a child is born, you have my permission.”