The Doctor Cured The Villainess And Ran Away

Chapter 63: Lifting the Curse (1)

“Antibiotics, antibiotics, antibiotics here too, and this is... huhh—Doctorrrr.”

As always, Chloe greeted him while stammering.

When he told her the duel trial had ended well, only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.

“H-How was the antidote?”

“The antidote. It worked. Well, if you think about the mechanism, it’s a similar word.”

“Yees. Because it was a poison made with black magic.”

Antidote. A process to dispel curses.

“I’d let it slip my mind for a bit because of the duel.”

He had straight-up declared at the party that he was going to dissect Asela.

“The problem is this.”

He used the recording function of the status window to check the X-ray image transferred into the crystal orb.

While re

Hugo walked until he reached a tent barely worthy of the name “home.”

“Eri, Daddy’s home.”

“Daddeee...!”

Inside, a girl around five years old lay under a blanket.

Her jet-black hair was just like Hugo’s.

“Did you do okay while Daddy was out?”

“Uh-huh...! I played with Charlie and Maxie. Cough cough.”

She was referring to the dolls placed neatly beside her pillow.

Though she said that, it was clear Eri had been too weak to even move all day.

“Eri, let’s sit up and drink some water.”

“Okay....”

Hugo carefully poured water into a small paper cup and helped Eri sip it.

Even while swallowing, she soon coughed it back up.

‘It’s been over three months since her last healing.’

Hugo felt a tight knot in his chest.

Eri had been born healthy. She started getting weaker and coughing all the time three years ago.

Maybe her health had only seemed fine. His wife, always frail, had passed away after giving birth to Eri.

What pained Hugo most was that, as a healer, he couldn’t heal his own daughter.

‘I spent every coin I had trying to cure Eri.’

No matter how much he healed her, she only improved briefly, then declined again.

Treatment at the clinic was expensive.

He’d used every connection to get her treated more often, and when he came to his senses, even their house had been sold.

Still, without those treatments, Eri might already be dead.

‘If only I could’ve kept working...’

His greatest misfortune had been choosing the wrong faction.

Patients cursed enough to need curse healers were rare. Most healers handled it on the side.

But when Sir Armin declared independence, Hugo wanted to follow.

Upon learning that he couldn’t take Hugo unless he cleared his debts, Armin immediately cast him aside.

In the end, the world ran on money.

‘And no other faction wanted me.’

He’d been discarded in an instant by the job he’d worked at his whole life.

‘So much for the Emperor’s grace.’

A simmering resentment toward the clinic and the Empire began to rise within him.

It was absurd, but... if something happened to Eri...

Then the ones to blame would be the Empire bastards who failed to heal her.

“Cough, cough!”

“Eri!”

Hugo could only lay her down and stroke her forehead helplessly.

Eri slowly opened her eyes and murmured with her small lips.

“Daddee....”

“Eri, is there anything you want to eat? I’ll go buy it for you.”

Eri shook her head.

“Just stay here....”

She gently grabbed the hem of his coat with her tiny hand.

How lonely must she have been while he was away?

Hugo was furious at a reality that gave him no time to be with her.

It was then.

“Hey, big guy in there?”

A voice from outside—another slum resident. Hugo pulled aside the tent flap.

“You looking for me?”

“Yeah, you. Didn’t you say your daughter’s sick?”

“...I did.”

“Bring her out. Quick.”

“What’s this about?”

The man gestured urgently, voice excited.

“Starting a week ago, someone from the clinic’s been here. A personal physician, even! They’re treating everyone for free. Hurry and bring her!”

“The clinic came here? Treating patients for free? That makes no sense.”

Hugo frowned, skeptical. The man clicked his tongue.

“Man, you’ve been living under a rock. Fine, whatever. But they’re even giving out some good stuff called... uh, SCP or something.”

“You mean aspirin?”

“Yeah, that. Whatever it is.”

Hugo’s eyes widened.

He’d heard a rumor just before he was fired, around the time the martial arts competition began.

“Eri, let’s go out for a bit with Daddy.”

He picked her up, blanket and all, and rushed out of the tent.

He ran toward the crowd gathered in the distance.

“Diagnosis. Scrape—apply antiseptic. Diagnosis. Ah, coughing patient. You’re the one I was looking for. Take this regularly and record your condition every day. If you take the medicine and run, this knight lady will spank you, got it?”

A man in a white coat stood at the front of the line, patients stretching out before him.

Hugo knew that man’s name.

Before getting fired, he’d heard all about the newly rising private physician of the Third Imperial Princess.

“Doctor Gotberg!!”

At Hugo’s booming voice, everyone turned to look.

In the midst of shocked silence, only Gotberg looked at him—and smiled, satisfied.