I Became a Plague Doctor in a Romance Fantasy Novel - Chapter 90

Episode 90. The Golden Ring Around the Pupil (2)

Kayser–Fleischer ring.

A golden ring around the pupil. It’s a symptom caused by an abnormality in the body’s copper metabolism, where copper metal accumulates in the eyes.

It’s the most prominent sign of Wilson’s disease.

“The patient needs to be hospitalized.”

“Yes.”

The Duke and Duchess said there was no family history of genetic disease. Wilson’s disease is an autosomal recessive disorder, so there’s no way the Duke and Duchess wouldn’t know.

First of all, the probability of both the Duke and Duchess having the Wilson’s disease gene is astronomically low. It’s not that common a disease.

The probability of a couple without Wilson’s disease having a child with Wilson’s disease isn’t that high.

Even if the Duke and Duchess, who don’t have Wilson’s disease, have the Wilson’s gene by some absurd coincidence. The probability of a homozygous outcome is only 25%.

The probability of Erzabet being the child of the Serulles Duke and Duchess is practically zero.

I don’t know the reason yet, but everyone in this mansion is lying to me. Everyone tried to lie to me. Some failed.

Anyway. I need to re-examine everything I’ve deduced so far. I’d been focusing my deductions on the feigning illness and its cause, but what am I supposed to do when a real genetic disease pops up on the third attempt?

I sighed.

Erzabet looked a little flustered.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.”

I shook my head.

“Aren’t you going to, like, examine me?”

“I’m telling you, you need to be hospitalized.”

Even though everything I was deducing had been shattered, Erzabet’s diagnosis was undeniably clear.

I turned my back on the confused-looking Erzabet and faced the butler.

“Mr. Anderson. I’ve figured out what’s wrong, so please gather the whole family around 7 PM.”

“Ah, understood.”

Anderson nodded. I left the Princess’s room, leaving the patient and the butler behind.

Erzabet and Anderson scratched their heads. Why does he act like that the moment he makes eye contact?

“Butler. Did I do something wrong?”

The doctor, who’d just arrived for a house call, frowned the moment he saw Erzabet’s eyes. He just kept repeating that she needed to be hospitalized, and then left Erzabet’s room looking absolutely furious.

“I don’t know? Doctor, he just solved Ms. Emily’s silence and Ms. Erisa’s seizures earlier. Why is he angry here…?”

The butler, Anderson, pondered it, but couldn’t figure out why he was so angry.

“He did that the moment he looked at me.”

“There must be a reason, right? Let’s just wait, he said he’d tell us later.”

Erzsébet sighed.

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“Maybe it’s because my illness is the most serious. They started talking about hospitalization the second they saw me.”

“Still, it’ll be okay. If it was a truly serious illness, Erzsébet, you’d have been treated right after the exam, not just hearing about hospitalization.”

“I guess…”

Was it because her illness was the most critical?

My patience was wearing thin.

There are plenty of illnesses that are hard to treat even when the patient is fully cooperative and tries their best. What’s the point of actively fighting with the doctor? Multiple patients, even their guardians, all scheming together.

I could almost excuse the first and second princesses’ faking, but… no, if there was a suspicion of a genetic disease, they should’ve mentioned that.

Anyway. I stood in the central living room of the mansion, impatiently waiting for these people.

Istina sat beside me.

The people of the mansion arrived one by one.

Our butler Anderson, who was precise as clockwork. The third princess, still wearing a puzzled and very worried expression.

The second princess, whose desire to fake a fit seemed pretty much gone, wearing a defeated look, and the first princess, who walked in with a somewhat gloomy expression.

Finally, the Duke and Duchess. The Duke of Serulis chuckled as he sat in the head seat of the living room.

“Truly, the empire’s best doctor is different. You found an illness that several doctors have seen and declared unknowable, in just one day.”

“Yes.”

I nodded vaguely.

“It seems the key to solving the problem lies with all the people here. So, if we just gather and have a conversation, it seems like everything can be resolved.”

“Children. Can their illness be cured?”

“Yes.”

The Duke laughed heartily again.

“It’s a relief to have something to laugh about after so long. So, what illness do the children have?”

Originally, I was going to keep it a secret. Originally, I wasn’t even going to mention the two princesses’ fake illness, but that time has passed.

My patience ran out a while ago.

Now, it’s time for everyone to share the information they were holding onto to solve the problem. I pointed at the three princesses sitting in a row.

“The eldest daughter is pretending to be crazy.”

“The second daughter is pretending to have seizures.”

“The third daughter is illegitimate.”

The living room immediately descended into chaos.

The Duke held his forehead, and the three princesses were talking noisily, whether it was an explanation or anger…

A total mess in an instant.

“Father! It’s not like that–”

“It’s not pretending to have seizures, I really saw a ghost, and the bruises were real–”

“Me, an illegitimate child? What nonsense is this?”

The Duke tried to answer, but his voice was drowned out, and he let out a deep sigh.

“Everyone, shut up!”

The Duke of Ceruleus, who had been speaking calmly, shouted, and only then did the living room fall silent.

“Okay, I get what you’re saying, so everyone, please be quiet. We can talk slowly.”

A dry cough, then silence.

The Duke looked at Erzebet again.

“First off. It seems there’s been some misunderstanding, my third daughter isn’t illegitimate. Not illegitimate, but rather adopted at a very young age. She was a bright child from a fallen noble family.”

That would explain it, then. Probably adopted from a family with a history of Wilson’s disease.

Honestly, it’s not easy to have a homozygous gene for Wilson’s, it’s likely she was adopted from a family with some level of inbreeding.

But that’s not important right now.

“I see.”

Despite the Duke’s explanation, Erzebet couldn’t close her mouth. She looked pretty shocked. Seems like she’s really hearing this for the first time.

“Huh? What kind of crazy talk is that?”

The bickering and explaining started again.

Confusing, so confusing.

The Duke raised both hands again.

“Doctor. We won’t say a thing, so just summarize it for us.”

I nodded. Summarizing won’t be easy, there’s a lot to cover.

The three Duchesses with ailments.

Starting with the first one.

“I examined the first Duchess’s hands immediately. On the back of her hand, the back of her fingers, were cuts from teeth. Multiple instances of self-induced vomiting.”

Eyes briefly shifted to Emily, who covered her left hand with her right.

“My initial assumption. She had a past experience with ergot poisoning-induced hallucinations, and under stress, triggered the past experience of being ill for no reason.”

The duke sighed again.

“What is ergot poisoning?”

“It’s a type of fungal parasite that sometimes grows on grains. It’s quite rare.”

The first princess isn’t the only victim of ergot poisoning. I should mention this, too. Ugh.

“After asking around, I found out that some maids working in the manor also experienced hallucinations. It seems like this is also ergot poisoning.”

“What’s the basis for that?”

“Ah. We found ergot in a sack of rye that was in the manor. The basis is definite. It doesn’t seem like they ingested much, though.”

Next is the second daughter.

“The second princess had a seizure the moment she saw me. I determined it was a psychogenic seizure because she was conscious during the seizure, or could hold a conversation, things like that.”

Erisa was looking off into the distance, avoiding people’s gazes. Well, I guess she’d feel frustrated.

“Yes. This time again, I thought the overall cause would be similar to that of the first daughter. Past ergot poisoning, and stress, right? Though the way the symptoms manifested was different.”

This time, the butler, who had been looking surprised with wide eyes, opened his mouth.

“Th-that, is it a disease that can be cured?”

It’s not a real illness, what did he even hear.

“To summarize. The first two ladies just need to figure out how to eliminate or manage the psychological factors causing the symptoms. That’s not something I can handle.”

Now, the last one.

“The third princess has gold rings around her pupils. It’s a hereditary disease that requires both parents to be affected, or have the gene, so I thought she might not be their child.”

“Oh dear.”

The duchess wiped her face with her hands a bit. The situation is a bit different. The third, Erzabet, didn’t seem to be faking it, she looked genuinely unwell.

“In Erzabet’s case, it definitely isn’t faking. Wilson’s disease can also cause those symptoms I mentioned earlier, you know? Hallucinations, weakness, impaired judgment, etc. But it can be treated and she’ll get better.”

Erzsebet nodded.

“Personally…”

I hesitated over the choice of words again. A single link connecting everything. In the end, that’s what this whole thing boils down to.

A feigned illness.

“I think that the reason the first and second daughters decided to pretend to be sick is because they had been watching and imitating the third daughter’s illness since long ago.”

This time, Istina tilted her head.

“What about the ergot poisoning?”

“The ergot poisoning is just a pretext.”

It was a very complex and long process, but this was the outline of the events I’d pieced together. Now all that was left was for them to settle it amongst themselves.