The Immortal's Personal Doctor is an Internal Medicine Physician — Episode 3
Thump. The Duke finally barked his order.
"Why are you so slow?! Do you want to watch my adjutant die?! Move, now, MOVE!!"
Only then did the Duke bolt. Lionel slapped Kaylen across the cheek without mercy.
"Adjutant? Adjutant, can you hear me? Where does it hurt?"
"H-hah... hah..."
Kaylen's breathing was abnormally rapid. His pulse was fast and weak.
The puncture site... left chest. Bleeding isn't heavy, but...
She pressed her ear to his chest and listened. The breath sounds on the left were nearly absent, and the movement of that side of the ribcage was visibly diminishing. The right side, by contrast, was grossly overexpanded.
Tension pneumothorax.
Kaylen's face was turning an ashen blue.
Air was pouring into his lung through the stab wound and had nowhere to escape, pressurizing his chest cavity with every breath. What would happen without immediate intervention wasn't hard to guess.
Lionel gritted her teeth.
"The bag!!"
The Duke tossed her the medical bag, and Lionel upended it on the spot. Alcohol swabs, a small scalpel, and bandages rolled out one after another — but not what she needed.
"Do you have a long, hollow metal rod? Something long and rigid enough to..."
Mid-sentence, something flashed through her mind. The bottle of orange juice Kaylen had brought her in the interview room.
"...A straw."
"What?"
"A metal straw. Quickly — it's in the drawing room!"
This time the Duke ran without a word. While she waited for him, Lionel pulled out the scalpel blade.
"This is going to hurt, Adjutant, so bear with me. It beats dying, right?"
Kaylen gave a weak nod, his face drained of color.
Lionel turned the man's body slightly onto his side and traced his ribs by hand along the front of the armpit.
Fifth intercostal space. She swabbed the area with alcohol, drew one short breath, and set the blade to his skin.
"Ugh..."
She had no spare attention for his groans. She made the incision and pushed the metal straw straight down into the wound. The Duke, watching, cried out in alarm.
"What are you—!"
"Quiet!! If you've got nothing to do, hold his hand or something!"
At her sharp voice, the Duke's mouth snapped shut. Lionel was refocusing on her fingertips when—
"...!"
A large hand closed over hers. She looked up in surprise to find the Duke's sharp profile, his gaze fixed intently on their joined hands.
You idiot, not MY hand! The patient's hand!!
Either way, this was no time to be picky. Lionel squeezed his hand tight and drove the straw deeper.
The straw pushed through muscle—
Pop.
She felt it puncture the pleura. The instant it did, the trapped air burst free.
Psshhhh—!!
The violent pressure came roaring up through the straw. Kaylen's chest sank rapidly, and the overinflated right side of his ribcage gradually settled back into rhythm.
"Kh—hah...!"
Kaylen dragged in a ragged breath. Even his bloodless lips regained a hint of color. Lionel, who'd been holding her own breath the whole time, finally let out a long sigh of relief.
By the time her pounding heart had calmed, she found herself face to face with the Duke. In his eyes as they met hers, in the slight rise and fall of his shoulders, something deep inside Lionel began to simmer with a strange camaraderie.
And here I thought you were nothing but cold blood and stone. Turns out you're human after all.
She steadied her breathing and straightened up. The fire was out, but she couldn't afford to relax yet.
"...Let's move the patient for now. He'll need further treatment."
The violet eyes that had been studying her for a long moment closed, and the Duke nodded. Only then did their still-clasped hands finally part.
"We will."
"Treatment's complete."
Deep in the night, Lionel delivered her report in the same parlor where the interview had taken place.
"It'll take several days for the air to fully drain through the tube we've placed."
What I'd really love is a nice dose of clindamycin...
Lionel found herself desperately missing the antibiotics that had been lying around everywhere back at the hospital.
There was a medical academy and there were hospitals, sure — but the medicine of this world was a shambles compared to what she'd known. Antibiotics didn't exist, and most treatment amounted to easing whatever symptom presented at the moment.
Worse, medical care itself was a privilege of the aristocracy, so even people who sought out a hospital often went away untreated.
She had just cut a hole into a man's chest without a single antibiotic on hand. Infection was the obvious worry — but for now, all she could do was hope Kaylen's body fought it off.
"Lionel Frencia, Physician."
Why the full name all of a sudden? Sensing the mood turning, Lionel braced herself as the Duke inclined his head slightly.
"You have my gratitude for saving my adjutant's life."
"Oh — no, not at all. I only did what had to be done. And I should thank you, Your Grace, for following my instructions so well."
"Good. Then it seems your work here is finished."
The Duke lifted his head and settled back against the sofa. The atmosphere shifted in an instant as he said coldly:
"Shall we begin the interview anew?"
"...Ah."
Now that the adrenaline surge was draining away, her grip on reality was trickling back with it.
The Duke's bloodstained shirt was still hanging open. And on his chest — not a single scar.
...I'm dead.
Lionel called up the plot of The Unfading Flower.
Long, long ago, a man had been cursed into immortality. He wandered from place to place, changing identities with each move, until he finally attained the title of Duke and settled down in one spot.
Then he met a heroine who was basically sunshine incarnate, and they entered a contract marriage.
Just like the male lead of any other doom-and-gloom novel, the Duke became obsessive, the heroine went mad, the Duke locked her up, the heroine went madder, and so on and so forth.
And the ending? Just when you thought the heroine had finally broken his curse and everyone would get their happy ending — everybody died.
Sigh... I was too busy being pleased about an easy patient to remember any of that.
The Duke in the novel was a monster. Everyone who learned his secrets died — except his closest confidants. And even among those, anyone who so much as breathed a word of his secrets was killed.
How else would he have earned nicknames like "the Deathgiver" and "Crazy 'Cause He Can't Die"?
And I had the brilliant idea to order that very Deathgiver around like he was my errand boy...
Lionel dredged up her nonexistent acting skills and answered with all the calm she could fake.
"Are you going to kill me? I saved your adjutant's life — shouldn't that count for something?"
"Physician, have you wondered where all the servants of this estate have gone? This whole commotion, and not one of them has appeared."
She'd been too frantic to notice, but now that he mentioned it, it was decidedly strange. The Duke helpfully explained the situation.
"This estate receives uninvited guests on a regular basis. Whenever they come, the servants retreat to the cellar and wait until things quiet down. The knights stand by at their posts. And yet my adjutant ran out of the house — specifically to save you."
"So... if I hadn't been here, the adjutant would never have been hurt. Is that what you're saying?"
"I'm not blaming you, Physician. But yes, you could put it that way."
You could ABSOLUTELY put it that way, because that's EXACTLY what you're doing!
Lionel swallowed the protest rising in her throat. Instead, she put her mind into overdrive and started scheming for survival.
"Your Grace. I'm truly sorry your adjutant was so badly injured on my account. But since things have come to this... why not hire me?"
Right. If ordinary people who learn the secret get killed — then I'll become one of his confidants who knows the secret.
Lionel launched into her self-pitch, exactly as she had at her hospital interviews.
"Top of my class admitted to the Imperial Medical Academy — and top of my class at graduation! Plus I was the youngest ever! I have experience at a general hospital AND as a personal physician. Hire me, Your Grace!"
Granted, I got fired from all of them, but if you hire me here, I promise I won't try to form a union and will perform my role as the dutiful subordinate with the utmost diligence!
She wisely kept that part to herself. Lionel waited anxiously for the Duke's answer.
Lips pressed into a thin line, the Duke said nothing — only stared her down. Even in the middle of a life-or-death situation, the man's face was so devastatingly handsome that Lionel briefly forgot her own peril.
"Whether you live or die will be decided tomorrow. Go and rest for now."
"...I'm sorry, but I can't do that. I need to look after the adjutant."
"I will look after the adjutant."
Giving her no chance to argue further, the Duke rose to his feet. Lionel trailed after him, watching his mood carefully.
At the drawing room, he personally opened the door for her. As she stepped inside, she reminded him over and over:
"Call me if he runs a fever. Also if he has trouble breathing, or if the tube comes out, or—"
"Lock the door."
The door slammed shut. Lionel stood there dumbly, listening to the Duke's footsteps fade into the distance.
"...Am I actually going to die tomorrow?"