True Treatment Begins with Trust
Some called it a curse from God.
Others called it a blessing from God.
But no one had ever called it a disease.
"I've killed men and saved others, but not one of them ever came back to repay a debt from a past life. I don't believe in past lives."
"So, you're saying you'll spare my life instead of taking it?"
The woman asked with wide, round eyes, and Blasion nodded in affirmation.
"Not that I intend to keep you alive forever. I'm giving you one year. In that time, find me a way to die."
"And if I can't?"
"Then you'll have to truly die, to keep my secret."
At those words, the woman asked a question Blasion had never anticipated.
"What will you do with the estate you leave behind when you die, Your Grace?"
"...My estate?"
"Yes! You're incredibly wealthy, aren't you? You can't take any of it with you when you go, so leave it all to me. In return, I'll gladly serve as your personal physician."
Hadn't she just declared herself ready to die? And now she was flipping her palm over and baring her greed like it was nothing?
The woman spoke with the brazen confidence of someone who already owned the mansion.
"Your Grace. Since it's come to this, I'll stake everything I have on giving you a peaceful death. So you put your faith in me too."
"You're brimming with ambition to swallow this estate whole, yet you spout such saccharine nonsense without a hint of shame."
"But you've already decided to hire me, haven't you?"
The woman gave a casual shrug. Having escaped the jaws of death, she radiated ease from head to toe.
"Don't worry so much, Your Grace. There must be some reason I fell into this world. So let's start by trusting each other. Because..."
The woman extended her hand. Small, pale, and utterly ordinary — just as it had appeared at first sight.
If I take this hand, will my wish truly come true?
It just might.
A hope with no foundation whatsoever made his chest ache with a strange tightness.
"...True treatment begins with the patient and the doctor trusting each other!"
At last, Blasion took the small hand.
Standing in the heart of a spring where all things bloomed, he made his declaration.
"Lionel Frencia. From this day forward, I employ you as the personal physician of the House of Carseido."
"Thank you, Your Grace. I will do my utmost for the health of you and this estate!"
The next morning.
I counted the zeros on the check one more time. It was the kind of sum that made a giddy smile creep across my face just from looking at it.
My debts were gone — wiped clean, every last one. The fact that I was now fully independent of the Frencia household put me in an even higher spirits.
Meals of nothing but jerky and juice three times a day is this job's only real flaw... but let's set that aside for now. Priorities first.
Paper spread out before me, I began methodically writing down everything I remembered from The Unfading Flower.
First, the female lead. By now, she should be undergoing her training at Cresto Monastery.
But in the original story, there was never any scene of someone attacking the ducal house like this. It was supposed to be the female lead and the duke stabbing and saving each other in turns while my failed stock-investment self-insertion occasionally interrupted... that was the main plot.
Two possibilities.
Either this wasn't the world of The Unfading Flower at all — or my involvement had thrown the plot completely off course.
Either way, my task was clear. As the duke's personal physician, do my absolute best to unravel the secret of his immortality.
The most promising lead seems to be using the female lead's bodily fluids or saliva... but if I throw my full medical knowledge at this, I'm sure I can find another way.
Which meant — might as well block the meeting between the female lead and the duke at the source.
The duke achieves his wish and dies peacefully. I walk away with the fortune. The female lead becomes the priestess she always wanted to be. Wouldn't everyone get to be happy in their own way?
"...Let's do this, Lionel Frencia. Whatever it takes, we survive the next year."
I made the vow to myself once more.
"Shall we begin with the intake interview?"
What Lionel held out before Blasion was a comprehensive health screening questionnaire — perfectly familiar to any modern office worker.
"Question one: how would you rate your overall health? Very good, good, average..."
"Exceptionally very good. I haven't suffered a single illness in 720 years, and there's no family history to speak of. Neither tobacco nor alcohol has ever done me any harm."
The interview was over in five seconds flat. Lionel awkwardly slid the questionnaire aside.
"Right... Then I'll listen to your breathing with the stethoscope."
Lionel fitted the earpieces as she always did, and just as she turned her head—
"...I only meant for you to undo a few buttons. Why are you stripping?"
"You can't examine someone properly with clothing in the way."
"Haah..."
To be fair, the duke's attitude and conduct made him an exemplary patient.
Lionel found herself remembering all the patients she'd met at the hospital in her past life. Most had been lovely people, but there was no shortage of those who simply refused to listen.
"You fasted properly for today's ultrasound, didn't you?"
"Of course! I was starving to death. Why do you torture an old woman like this?"
"Huh? Then what's that white stuff on your lips... And why is there a yogurt bottle in the trash?!"
"Yogurt isn't eaten, it's drunk, so it doesn't count!! I slurped the strawberries down too!"
...Like Grandma Kim Bok-soon from Room 903, who made me want to tear my hair out.
"I told you to quit smoking. You've been keeping up with that, right?"
"Absolutely! I've been taking quitting seriously, I swear!"
"...You haven't smoked even one, correct?"
"Well, one cigarette — surely that's allowed! You can still have one even while quitting, can't you?"
...Like Park Young-chul from Room 701, who earned himself a full lecture from the attending professor because of it.
Ah, dredging up old memories made my stomach hurt. Compared to them, how diligent a patient was our male lead?
Granted, he made my examination a little too... personally interesting in other ways.
"Is something the matter?"
The duke asked as Lionel's gaze swept up and down his torso.
"No, I was just... admiring."
Blasion let out a quiet chuckle.
But something was off. Lionel, who should have been blushing, only grew bolder — inspecting him with increasing openness and narrating every reaction.
"Your muscles look like they came straight out of an anatomy textbook. It's honestly fascinating!"
"...Is that the extent of your reaction?"
"Goodness, you're such a perfect teaching specimen I'd love to stand you on the medical school podium wearing nothing but shorts."
Lionel failed to notice the subtle shift in Blasion's expression. Instead, she immediately moved on to what she was curious about.
"Was your body always like this, even before you became immortal?"
"...It's the same body I had when I became immortal at twenty."
"I see. Then, let me listen for a moment."
Lionel carefully pressed the stethoscope's diaphragm against his chest. She focused every nerve she had — but there was no heartbeat.
"Has your heart truly not beaten once since you turned twenty?"
"It beat when I was badly injured."
"How badly injured, exactly?"
"When an arm was severed. When a leg was severed. The heart pounded hard as the flesh regenerated. I don't remember when my head was cut off, but I imagine it beat then too."
"...Do you feel pain?"
"Just because I can't die doesn't mean I can't hurt."
I see. Understanding dawning, Lionel raised one hand and explained.
"Your heart seems to remain stopped under normal circumstances, pumping only in moments of crisis to support your body's regeneration. So what we need to investigate is whether something else can stimulate it. I'll work on finding a method going forward."
And so the first examination came to an end.
While Blasion put his shirt back on, Lionel sank into thought.
What could stimulate the heart? Back home, I'd start with 200 joules from a defibrillator — but this world doesn't have one.
While she wracked her brain, Blasion finished dressing. Buttoning the last one, he said abruptly:
"Most people panic when examined like this. It seems I chose my physician well."
"...What do you mean?"
"Plenty of physicians have pretended to examine me while groping around with impure intentions. Physicians number 2, 7, 18, and 24 were dismissed for exactly that. Number 5 made outright advances."
"That's insane..."
"Then you'll have no need for such pointless worries. Which is why I'm returning this."
At the object Blasion drew from his pocket, Lionel shot to her feet.
It was the pocket watch she'd given Ailie just days ago.
"Wh-why is that here?"
"I collected it from Ailie."
"You confiscated the gift I gave her?!"
"Don't worry. When she learned it was her mother's memento, she was the one who told me to return it to you."
She was overjoyed — and yet Lionel couldn't quite shake the knot of complicated feelings in her chest.
"Still, taking back something I already gave feels rather unpleasant..."
"I gave Ailie an emerald necklace the same size as the watch, so there's no cause for concern. And if it still weighs on your conscience... then you may reimburse me the value of the emerald."
"Thank you for your boundless generosity, Your Grace. I shall treasure the returned watch."
Having completed her lightning-fast cost-benefit analysis, Lionel bowed deeply.
Blasion — ever the man standing at the summit of capitalism — responded with easy magnanimity.
"I appreciate your understanding."
Just as the conversation between the two reached a natural pause—
Knock, knock. At the sound, Kaylen entered the room.
"You have a visitor in the drawing room. One Adrian Dorset, eldest son of Viscount Dorset."
"I don't know the man. What does he want?"
"That's the thing... To be precise, he isn't asking for you, Your Grace. He has requested an audience with Physician Frencia."
Kaylen's and Blasion's gazes swung to the same spot in unison.
Lionel, wearing the exact expression of someone chewing on dung, answered.
"He's a stalker."