Granny Dia’s Workshop

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/12/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

With the shopping done, we headed for the workshop in earnest this time.
Along the way, something occurred to me.

“Come to think of it… the streets in this town are awfully clean.
Could it be there’s sewerage?”
“Ah. Now that you mention it, that seems to be rare on the continent over there.
While we’re at it, there’s running water as well, you know?”
“I see. So those fountain-like things are the water supply.
That’s impressive… but in that case, it helps a great deal.”

I had thought this world had no such conveniences as plumbing.
At the very least, neither the village I had lived in nor even the royal capital had.

And yet this town had sewers and running water both.
Well, by the standards of modern Japan, one could not call it complete.
The water was not piped into each household; you drew it from public squares.

To be honest, drawing water from a well was fairly heavy labor.
You were hauling up a bucket reasonably full of water from several meters down.
If it sat at ground level, or a little above, you could scoop it easily, splash splash.
…Well, you still had to carry it to each house after that.

“Whether you’re making medicine from herbs or doing all sorts of treatment, water is quite important.”
“I can understand that, somewhat. Ah, if you need water drawn, tell me. I’m good at heavy work.”
“Yes, that, I understand, well.”

I looked again at the baggage Gerda was carrying in her arms and on her back.
…It might well have totaled twenty kilograms or more, and she carried it lightly, as if it were nothing; it was reliable, in a word.
Come to think of it, Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel trained by walking tens of kilometers in twenty kilograms of gear; perhaps this much was breakfast for Gerda, a professional soldier.
That did not mean I ought to lean on it too much, I thought.

“…Asha.”
“Ah, yes?”

Gerda spoke suddenly, and I answered with a startled sound.
Bad, bad. Once I started thinking I sank into it; that was a bad habit of mine.

“I will say this: assisting you is a direct order from Her Majesty.
So you have no need to feel guilty.
If anything, using me well is your duty, one might say.”
“Eh, eeeh!?
No, that is, how to put it… no, the reasoning is sound, but.”

Damn, it was as if she had read what was in my heart.
Or rather, Gerda really was perceptive, and considerate…

“And.
Personally as well, I want to cooperate with you.
So rely on me without reservation.”
“Wai—eh, ah, y-yes…?”

A fastball again. What was this, throwing a fastball like that without a hint of embarrassment.
Stop. Don’t look at me with a face that serious.
Aaaah, I could feel my face going red!

“Ah, forgive me. I said a little too much, perhaps.
At times I seem to become rather pushy, you see.”
“If you know that, then please restrain yourself…”

The slightly troubled look was, in its own way, cute.
What was this being? Wasn’t this cheating?
Was someone really not going to stab me?

Thinking that as we walked, I suddenly caught a smell I knew.
I started, and looked in the direction it came from.

“Ah. That’s Granny Dia’s workshop.
Or ‘was,’ I suppose, would be correct…”

Gerda’s eyes went a little distant.
I understood the feeling, somehow.
If you said was, it became the past. Completely.
You made it the past yourself.
That was… somehow melancholy.

“…Shall we just make it the name of the building?
‘Dia’s Workshop.'”
“…I feel as if I might cling to that suggestion…
But would that not be rude to you?
From today, this becomes your workshop.”

Gerda said it looking terribly apologetic.
When she said it with a face like that, I could tell how much Dia had contributed to this town.

“Dia worked in this town for a long time, didn’t she?
Thanks to that there are surely people whose lives were prolonged, and those people will surely help me from here on as well.
In that case, I think leaving the name as a mark of respect is a fair thing to do.”

After all, she was someone Gerda regretted this much, and to whom the Demon King had shown that much respect.
I was very sorry not to have met her, but I would be touching what she had left behind from here on.
If so, I wanted to show respect in my own way to a great predecessor.

At my words, Gerda’s face twisted, a little. It was only a few seconds before it returned.

“Yes. Thank you.
I will try proposing it to Her Majesty.”
“Yes. Please do.”

I smiled back at Gerda’s wistful, nostalgic smile.
We had been looking at the building for a while when it happened.

“My my. If it isn’t Gerda.
Rare to see you in a place like this. What’s brought you?”

I was addressed in a somewhat unhurried tone.
Or rather… eh, Kansai dialect? Kyoto dialect?? No, it was only something that sounded like that, surely.

“Ah, Nasti. That’s right, you lived near here.”
“Yes, we’ve been given a house around that way, you see.
This pretty young lady with you—is she new?”

The one who turned her gaze on me as she said it was a woman of quite short stature… a girl, one could almost say, in appearance.
Her brown hair, cut around the shoulders, was a little fluffy, and her large eyes seemed to shine with innocence.
Yes. The look and expression she turned on me were dressed in an artless girl’s smile, but an interior you could not let your guard down around was seeping through; she was not the age she looked.
She was probably a woman of the race called grass runners.
Even as adults they stood only two-thirds to half a human’s height, and were also called little people, or halflings.
As their looks suggested, they were nimble, and their fingers were deft.
And more than anything, their minds turned quickly.
As the name implied they lived running the grasslands, so they were short on knowledge as such, but they had a toughness more than enough to make up for it.

“Yes, I arrived today. My name is Asha.
I’ll be looking after Dia’s workshop as an apothecary.”
“My word, such a pretty thing for an apothecary.
True enough, you’ve the hands of someone who’s been at medicines and such.”

…It was my imagination, right? That faint barb I thought I felt.
A young thing like this, an apothecary? Can she be trusted? Hands all stained with medicine, my my—
the way it converted in my head was the fault of a nasty acquaintance in my previous life.

“Come to think of it, Nasti used to deliver medicinal herbs to Granny Dia.
Can I ask you to do the same for Asha from now on?”
“Well, if it’s a request from you, Gerda, we can hardly say no.
Shall we start delivering as soon as tomorrow?”
“Ah, please. I’m counting on you.”
“Thank you. I look forward to working with you.”

I bowed my head after Gerda’s words.
For an instant she narrowed her eyes as if appraising me—was that my imagination?

“Yes, so long as you’ll take our herbs, we’ve no complaint.
If they can be of use, we’d be grateful.”

That’s odd. I can hear we’ll sell, we’ll sell, but medicine a slip of a girl like this makes can’t be worth much, you know?
I showed a smile, somehow holding back a face that wanted to twitch.

“Then, from tomorrow, I look forward to working with you, Nasti.”
“The pleasure’s ours. Doctor Asha.”

Nasti smiled, looking thoroughly amused.
A smile with a faint seep of spite in it.