A Contrary Heart

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/13/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Well then, we’ll be off. Ah, I’ll let our people know.”

After a while of small talk, Nasti left.
For an instant, she glanced toward the workshop.
We waved her off, and once she was out of sight, I let a mutter slip.

“Nasti… was she perhaps keeping watch around this workshop?”
“Hm? Why did you think that?”

Gerda turned a puzzled face on my sudden murmur.
It was not as if I had grounds; it had only been a feeling.

“Just a feeling, but. The way she appeared, it was as if she had waited for the right moment after you and I arrived.”

And besides.
The profile she showed as she left, looking at the workshop, had been lonely, as if she were reluctant to part.

“I wondered if she was trying to protect it from people who might do it harm, or something.”
“That itself is not an impossible story.
Nasti and Granny Dia were quite close.”

I nodded, I see, at Gerda’s words.
There had been all sorts of things in Nasti’s expression that could not be put in a single word.
What had the two of them talked about? What sort of exchange had they had?
Surely that was something, now, that only the two of them would ever know.

“I really… have a heavy responsibility, don’t I. To stand in for Dia, who was liked this much.”

If my guess was right, that was.
I would have to stand in for someone who had been that well loved by Nasti, who seemed to have one quirk or two… or several.

…It was, somehow, heavy.

I let out a single sigh—hafuu—and then,

“Asha. You seem to have a habit of shouldering things alone.
I will do all I can as well, so could you rely on me a little more?”

Gerda said it smoothly, and smiled at me.
…I wished she would stop calling out like that at the perfect moment.
It made my head swim.

“I think I’m already relying on you completely, you know~”

I answered with a limp smile. I think I managed to answer.
Yes. Perceptive Gerda had a face that would not be fooled by that much.

“But, since you’ve gone out of your way to say so, there is one more thing I’d like to ask.”
“Ah, of course. Tell me anything.”

Ah, honestly, why did this person look so happy.
Was that it? I had thought she was a cool dragon, but she was actually a puppy-type, behind that look.
But I have never kept a dog, so I don’t know how to deal with one!
I was in chaos internally, even as I kept an ordinary expression on the surface.

“The truth is, I was wondering if you could introduce me to a dwarf.
After I’ve checked the tools Dia used, there are a few things I’d like made.”
“I see. With that medicine of yours, it stands to reason you would need different tools as well.”
“That’s it.”

There would be no stainless steel, of course, but I wanted a tongue depressor even in iron… a metal spatula. It would be a pain to maintain, though.
Touching the inside of someone’s mouth with bare hands without one risked infection by saliva; I wanted to avoid that.
A wooden spatula, I thought, would have to be thick to get the hardness you needed, and then you could not see into the mouth.
A stethoscope would be even better if we could make one, but that would not be immediate. I would have to manage with percussion for a while.
There were other things I wanted, besides.

“In any case, shall we set the baggage down first?”
“That is so. Then, Asha, open the door with the key I gave you.”

Prompted by Gerda, I nodded.
I took the key on its chain from my pocket and fitted it into the lock.

…A breath, before I turned it.
From here, it would finally begin.
The thought made me a little nervous.
But I could not go back, and I had no intention of going back.
I told myself that, and opened the door in one go.

“Whoa… hm?”

The familiar smell of medicinal herbs spilled out the moment I opened it.
At a glance, well-ordered tool shelves, dried herbs and the like.
The well-used kettle had, however, been very well maintained.
And a sense that something was off.

“Um, Gerda. About when did Dia pass away?”
“About three months ago, but… hmh.”
“Yes. For three months with no one going in, it’s far too clean… there’s hardly any dust.”
“That’s true. As if someone had cleaned it recently.”

When she said someone, one face came to mind at once.
As I stepped into the workshop, I asked Gerda.

“Hey, Gerda. Grass runners are very deft with their fingers, right?”
“That is certainly so.”
“And among them, there might be people so deft they can pick locks, or something?”
“…Ah. There might well be, yes.”

The same face had probably come to her as well.
We looked at each other and smiled wryly.

In fact, I had heard that a fair number of grass runners made their living as thieves.
That said, it was not so much burglary in town as slipping into dungeons and the like and quietly helping themselves to treasure monsters had hoarded.
Perhaps, from their point of view, the herb trade with Dia had been a rare stretch of honest living.

“I’ll have to keep it together, or I might get my throat cut in my sleep.”
“I don’t think she’s that desperate.”

But she was attached enough to trespass, I did not say.
Joking like that, we had Gerda set the baggage down for now in a wider part of the workshop we had looked around.

To be honest, I felt a little easier.
Of course I would still have to clear the hurdles I had to clear as Dia’s successor.
But if it was as I imagined.
If the reason Nasti had been so spitefully teasing was that she had not wanted a place that mattered to her torn up—
then that, if anything, was rather pretty, was it not?

“Right. Someone went to the trouble of cleaning, so let’s put it to good use!”

I rolled up my sleeves and set to putting the baggage away and checking the tools.