TIPI 06

Chapter 6

No matter how many times you witnessed someone die, you never really got used to it.

Lionel sat blankly on a garden bench beneath the warm sunlight, thinking back on the days that had passed.

Saying goodbye to her kind mother.

And even in the hospitals of both her previous and current lives, she had watched patients die countless times…

Still, Lionel had never managed to become familiar with the word “death.”

“Doctor Prensia!”

Just then, someone called out to Lionel from the far end of the garden.

It was Ailey and Kaylen, the aide who had gotten out of bed and walked around just a few days after having his chest tube removed.

“Lord Kaylen. How are you feeling?”

“My chest is a little uncomfortable, but I’m doing great. And thank you for taking such good care of Mr. William.”

“I only did what I was supposed to do. …Ailey. Are you leaving now?”

Ailey nodded, her eyes still swollen from crying.

“I came because I wanted to say goodbye before I went to boarding school.”

“Yes. Thank you for coming. I wanted to say goodbye to you too.”

“I’ll study really hard. I’ll study hard and… I’ll become a wonderful doctor just like you, Teacher. When I do, will you take me on as your assistant?”

“That’s a wonderful dream. I’ll be cheering you on for your future.”

At that, Lionel took something out from inside her clothes.

It was a small pocket watch with exquisite craftsmanship.

“Ailey. Do you know something?”

Lionel continued in a gentle voice.

“When someone precious to us dies, they say the grief turns into a rock that presses hard against your chest. At first, the rock hurts so much that you can barely breathe… but as time passes, it gradually gets smaller, until eventually it becomes nothing more than a little pebble.”

Ailey looked sad.

“Then does the pebble eventually disappear?”

“No. Instead of disappearing, people carry that little pebble around in their pocket for the rest of their lives.”

Lionel handed the pocket watch to Ailey.

“Look. Your grief has already become a little pebble because of your teacher. So don’t be sad for too long. Your father in heaven will be happy if you eat well, grow up healthy, and laugh a lot.”

I sincerely hope this little girl has a peaceful future.

I hope she doesn’t spend too long hurting over the death of a parent she couldn’t have saved.

That was what Lionel sincerely prayed for.

Ailey stared at the watch for a moment before throwing her arms around Lionel.

The strength packed into her tiny body was incredible.

“Teacher, thank you so much. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The two of them remained locked in an embrace for quite some time.

Kaylen carefully called out to Ailey.

“Ailey. The carriage is waiting.”

Ailey took Kaylen’s hand and walked away with the light, carefree steps of a child.

Lionel watched her back until she disappeared from sight.

“You can come out now, Your Grace.”

Blasion emerged from beneath the shade of a tree.

His eyes followed the path Ailey had taken as he approached Lionel.

“You could have said goodbye to Ailey too, you know.”

“I make it a point not to waste my emotions on unnecessary things.”

“You say that, but I know you’ve decided to cover all of Ailey’s tuition and living expenses.”

“…Kaylen. I never gave him permission to blab about such unnecessary things.”

Blasion muttered the words and began striding forward.

Lionel naturally followed behind him, and the two of them began walking together.

As they admired the unfamiliar flowers and plants, Blasion broke the silence first.

“When did you prepare that watch? It looks rather expensive.”

“Oh, that? It was one of my late mother’s belongings.”

“You gave away your mother’s keepsake? Why?”

“Well… I’m going to die today, after all. So I decided to get rid of something precious ahead of time.”

Blasion abruptly stopped walking.

Lionel stopped as well.

For a long moment, the two stared at each other.

“Did you forget? The condition was that you’d only keep me alive until William died.”

Please have my body cremated, and, although I’m not particularly fond of the idea, send a letter to Baron Prensia…

She wanted to say those things too, but something about the atmosphere felt strange, so Lionel kept her mouth shut.

Blasion’s violet eyes were fixed intently on her.

“How old are you, anyway?”

“Me? I’m twenty.”

“You’re barely an adult… Why are you so composed about death? Just what… are you?”

Lionel shrugged.

“What do you mean, what am I? I’m just a doctor.”

With a little help from memories of my past life.

Blasion’s brow furrowed.

“…No. The doctors I’ve known until now weren’t like you. They couldn’t admit that they lacked the skill to save someone, and when treatment failed, they made excuses about divine punishment. Some even demanded absurd amounts of money while claiming they could cure people.”

Lionel gave a bitter smile.

She had seen more than enough varieties of humanity in medical school and at the hospital, so none of this was particularly surprising.

“Ah… Yes. There are doctors like that. But I’d rather you didn’t lump me together with them. At the very least, I don’t play games with people’s lives.”

“Have you thought that way ever since you became a doctor?”

“…I don’t know. Isn’t respecting human life simply the natural thing for any ordinary person to do?”

“Why did you become a doctor in the first place?”

Why was he asking so many questions?

Was “I’ll kill you” actually his way of saying he was going to become a question-mark murderer before killing me?

There was certainly an answer to his question, but Lionel didn’t want to give it.

A mysterious epidemic wiped out an entire village. I was the only survivor. That’s why I became a doctor—to track down that disease.

She wasn’t ready to tell him something like that yet.

The wounds in her heart hadn’t healed enough.

“…Let’s just say my mother’s death was what led me to become one.”

“How did your mother—”

“Your Grace.”

Lionel cut him off mid-sentence.

It was a clear signal that he should stop asking.

“Do I really have an obligation to answer all your questions when you’re going to kill me anyway?”

At last, the Question-Mark Murderer’s mouth fell silent.

Lionel sighed softly and straightened her shoulders.

“So, how am I going to die? Stabbed with a sword? Or strangled? I don’t like pain, so please make it as quick and painless as possible.”

Blasion roughly ran a hand through his bangs.

A sigh that sounded almost like a groan escaped him, as if something were deeply frustrating him.

“…You really don’t seem afraid of death at all.”

“Of course I am.”

Lionel immediately denied it.

“Everyone is afraid of dying, and I’m no different. But more than that, I understand the weight of a promise once I’ve spoken it aloud.”

It would be a lie to say she had no regrets.

There were still so many things she wanted to do.

But…

At least I did my best in this life.

Maybe this was a better way to die than the way she had died in her previous life, suddenly struck by a car.

At least this time, she had been able to comfort the heart of a child.

And she could say with absolute certainty that it had been a more meaningful life than being married off to a perverted old man.

“I never intended to use someone else’s life just to escape an immediate crisis.”

Lionel fidgeted with the clover ring still tucked inside her pocket.

Strangely enough, the simple touch calmed her.

“Well, I’m ready now. Please make it quick and painless. And then, who knows? Maybe next time…”

Lionel searched for the right words for a long while.

Finally, as though she had found her answer, she finished.

“Next time, in my next life, maybe I’ll be born as a doctor again… and figure out the secret behind your immortality.”

Having said everything she wanted to say, Lionel closed her eyes.

Surprisingly, she felt calm.

But then—

Even after quite some time passed, no pain came.

A strange warmth touched Lionel’s cheek as she cautiously opened her eyes.

“Lionel Prensia.”

Blasion had placed his hand against her cheek.

He called her name.

“What do you think? Do you believe this curse of immortality can be broken?”

Though he was an ominous being who had supposedly transcended the realm of God, his hand was warm, just like an ordinary person’s.

“Hmm… I’m not sure. Actually, I never thought of it as a curse.”

It was something Lionel had always wondered about, ever since she read the novel.

Was the immortal really created simply because of a ‘curse’?

In the original novel, Blasion had been a knight who served a princess of a fallen kingdom.

He suffered a fatal injury while trying to save her, but the princess made him drink a cursed potion.

As a result, Blasion became immortal.

Years passed, and toward the latter half of the novel, it was revealed that the heroine was the reincarnation of that princess.

The two spent a passionate night together.

And from that point onward, the novel described how the curse of immortality was broken.

An ordinary reader might have simply thought,

Aw, poor duke. He never knew the greatness of love~

and moved on.

But Lionel thought about it differently.

He became immortal because he drank a potion in the first place. So if the heroine’s bodily fluids, saliva, or something like that mixed with him and broke the curse… couldn’t the enzymes or proteins in her body have stimulated the duke’s cells that had stopped aging?

Perhaps the miracle that had seemed to be nothing more than the power of love actually had some medical explanation that this romance-fantasy world had yet to discover.

That was Lionel’s hypothesis.

“I think what happened to your body is a pathological problem.”

“You think this… isn’t a curse, but a disease?”

“Yes. I can’t say that for certain, but… if I had enough time to examine and analyze your body, I might be able to uncover the secret through medicine.”

“Then…”

The hand that had been resting against her cheek moved to Lionel’s shoulder.

The gaze looking down at her wavered for a moment, then quickly became firm.

It was the moment when a man who had lived for 720 years found a small glimmer of hope in a twenty-year-old woman.

“Then don’t wait for your next life. Become my personal physician in this life and find the answer.”