A Mission and a Resolution

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/6/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Now then. With that, it is settled that all of you will be taken in.
As I said earlier, this country is desperately short of hands, so I must have you work as soon as tomorrow.
I shall assign and sort you, so tell me your origins, your skills, what you did for a living, and so on.”

Just as we had all asked to be taken into the country and things had settled, the Demon King suddenly said that.
The remark left me bewildered; Gerda gave a wry smile; and the aide looked troubled.
After a moment’s hesitation, I raised my hand, a little.

“U-um, Your Majesty, may I ask something?”
“Hm? I do not mind. Speak.”
“Thank you. Then, if I may be so forward…
I understand, of course, why you would wish to confirm our skills and the like… but I had thought this was the sort of thing a responsible official would handle.
I never imagined Your Majesty would do it in person, and I must confess I am rather at a loss.”
“Hmh?
Hmh. I see. That is a fair point, Asha.”

The Demon King nodded, magnanimous, at my frank words.
I thought hm?—and it must have shown on my face, because hers turned somehow amused.
…Was it my imagination, or had Gerda’s wry smile deepened?

“Ku ku. You have a rather quick mind, it seems.
That face of yours is asking, ‘How do you already remember my face and name?'”
“Eeh!? Ah, no, I… I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”
“It is fine, it is fine. It is rather entertaining, if anything.”

I hurriedly bowed my head, and received, as her words promised, a cheerfully given pardon.
That was the thing.
Just now she had been greeted by more than ten of us, and yet the Demon King clearly remembered the face and name of me, who had introduced myself first.
She had said my name as naturally as if we were already acquainted, and that very naturalness had felt off—and it had shown.

“And that is also the answer to your earlier question.
In short, I am good at remembering people’s faces and names.
The humans sent here until now: fifty-seven thousand three hundred and twenty-four. I remember them all, you know?”
“Fifty-seven—!? Eh, th-that many!?
Ah, I-I’m sorry, I raised my voice—”

The volume had slipped out of me.
I hurriedly covered my mouth and bowed until my head nearly touched the floor.
The Demon King, however, took no notice at all.

“Yes. It has been some fifty-four years since I returned, and that is how many have been sent in that time.”
“More than a thousand a year… ah, but, I see…”

More than a thousand a year: the sheer number startled me despite myself. And yet.
The country I had lived in was not that large, even on the continent, but I was fairly sure the population had been three million, or perhaps four.
The population of the whole continent was probably in the tens of millions.
In other words, a thousand was a few tens of thousandths of the whole. Less than 0.01 percent.
Far fewer lives lost than the thousands and tens of thousands a war would take, so cheap enough for a ruler—and perhaps they would cling even to a charm of that modest effect.
It was the ones being sacrificed who got the short end.

“I’m sorry for interrupting. You remember that many people—all of them?”
“I do. From the first who were sent, every one.”
“Every one…
Ah… that is… I, um, I understand.”

For an instant, a shadow passed through the Demon King’s eyes.

The average lifespan in this world was, I guessed, fifty years or a little more at best.
If the first people had been brought here at sixteen, when they were treated as adults, they would be seventy by now.
In modern Japan, a fair number would still be alive. In this world… probably a great many were not.
The look on the Demon King’s face just now, I thought, had been her remembering those people.

I had answered poorly, and the Demon King waved a hand with a wry smile.

“Think nothing of it. It is a difference between demonfolk and humans, if one must put it so.
At any rate, I who remember faces, names, skills and the rest, listening to you and then assigning you, is by far the most efficient way.”
“I see… I understand well. Thank you.”

Still not free of my surprise, I bowed my head.
In other words, the Demon King herself was a living family register. A databank.
If she assigned people from the data in her head, it would take far less time than an official paging through registers and papers.
…Was it possible the Demon King was far more of a cheat than I, a reincarnator, could ever be?
No—of course. She was the Demon King.

“Yes, you may be at ease. Ah, as we are here. Asha, you may tell me your skills first.”
“Yes. Though I am unworthy, I shall say it.
I am from a mountain village, and farm work and the like…”

There I stopped.

Had I not just thought that here, I might be able to use my knowledge?
And more than anything, there were tens of thousands of people here. Surely some of them were suffering from illness.
Worse: people who had died of diseases that could have been treated…
I had no right to turn my back on them.
I raised my face and looked at the Demon King. …I thought she looked at me and smiled.

“And I also worked as an apothecary, handling medicinal herbs and such.
Your Majesty, in this country, I wish to be of use as an apothecary.”

I said it clearly, all the way through. I felt as if my back had straightened, a little.
Yes. In this country. Here. For the lives I could still save, even a little.
It was a feeling I had forgotten for a long time.

The Demon King looked slightly surprised, then narrowed her eyes, pleased.

“An apothecary, is it? That is most welcome.
Since Granny Dia passed the other day, we have had no apothecary.”
“Eh, is that so… please accept my condolences.”
“Yes. She truly gave of herself. A regrettable thing.
…Then this, too, may be a turn of fate.
Asha, I shall leave Granny Dia’s workshop to you.
The tools for making medicine are all there. Put them to use.”
“Yes. I am most grateful.
…Your Majesty, I have two questions, if I may. May I ask them?”

The Demon King closed her eyes for a moment in silence, as if in respect and mourning for the predecessor who had died, then spoke to me; I received her words with a bow.
There had been something in the earlier conversation that bothered me greatly, so I asked leave.
As ever, she nodded, magnanimous.

“What is it? Speak.”
“Thank you.
I feel odd saying so myself, but is it all right to believe me so readily?”
“And here I wondered what you would ask, and it is that?
No, it is a fair worry, but I do have some confidence in my eye for people.
I merely thought you would be all right.”
“I am quite overwhelmed to hear it.”

As I said it, I bowed my head again.
Come to think of it, she had looked upon more than fifty thousand humans; her eye for people would have grown keen enough.

“Now, what is the other?”
“Ah, yes. This is the one I most wished to ask…
You said a moment ago that ‘there is no apothecary’…
Could it be. In this town, there are no other apothecaries…?”

At her prompting I asked, a little faltering, and timidly.
To be honest, I had wanted her to laugh it off. I had wanted it to be a misunderstanding.

“Yes, there are none. With that, you become this town’s only apothecary.”

She said it with a full, beaming smile.
I felt the resolution I had only just made begin to waver at once.
The only one, in this town.
In this town of an estimated fifty thousand or so—and who knew how many more if you counted demonfolk—me. Alone.

“The gravely ill we have managed with magic, but for the rest, no amount of struggling would let us keep up.
No, no—that you have come is a true help.”
“Y-yes… I will do all I can to meet your expectations…”

Faced with a Demon King in high spirits, that was all I could say…