Preparing to Sortie

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/20/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Calm down. At times like this you count primes and calm down.
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19…
Hmm… more than twenty people, this.
A line waiting at reception first thing at a general hospital?
No, in a town of a hundred and fifty thousand, even a clinic level wouldn’t be strange.

This is wrong. How did it come to this.

“W-what do we do, Asha?”
“It’s all right, calm down, Kira. I’m thinking now. Leave it to me.”

I showed Kira a smile, even as my head was turning at full speed.
To begin with, I had hardly spread word yesterday that I was the new apothecary.
Among townspeople, Elma and Nasti were about the only ones who knew.

A workshop I had only just arrived at and did not know how to use, and, as expected, insufficient stores of herbs.
In this situation, I could not in good conscience tell people to come from tomorrow.
And yet they had come. This many, all at once.

This was probably not going to be the end of it.
From here on I ought to move on the premise that patients would come without a break.
In which case, first: how to clear this first twenty-plus quickly?

“Kira, if you can use magic, can you read and write?”
“Eh, yes, of course.”
“Yesss, then we can probably manage.”

I declared it with force to the anxious Kira.
…Of course it was bluster.
But if I did not, Kira would stay anxious, and more than anything I myself felt as if I might break.

People who could come first thing in the morning—I wanted to think they were not that severely ill.
Of course preconceptions were dangerous; I cautioned myself not to cling to that.
Even so, being pessimistic would not help.

“Anyway, let’s get dressed. Sorry, breakfast will just be baked sweets.”
“Y-yes.”

As I said it, I yanked off my nightclothes.
Sorry, Kira, if it’s another woman I’m fine with this much. There were a lot of situations where I couldn’t afford to fuss.
While Kira was fidgeting, embarrassed, I changed in a rush and headed out of the room.

“Kira, change at your own pace. I’ll be downstairs getting things ready.
It’s all right, I’m used to this, but you’re not, so being at a loss is only natural.
Or rather, sorry~, the morning after a sleepover turning into this.”
“Eh, ah, um, no, don’t… mind it…?”

Kira answered my light words, still bewildered.
Yesss, even while wondering, I had gotten Kira into the position of being the one to forgive me.
With that, I wanted to think we had avoided a situation where Kira would hate herself for not handling it well.

At any rate, I clattered down the stairs, first to the kitchen-and-table. Dining-kitchen, if one wanted it to sound nice.
I took out a large pitcher, put in honey by eye, and squeezed a lemon hard, taking care not to drop the seeds.
I added a little water, stirred gaaah!, and when it had dissolved reasonably I added more water to adjust the strength.
I poured the finished lemon water into a cup and downed it in one go, in the name of tasting.

“Yes, not bad, if I do say so!”

It was not a masterpiece, but it was enough to gulp down with a just-woken body.
I pulled the baked sweets from the cupboard, and plated about three for Kira.
Then I took out one or two, crunched them, and swallowed.
Dammit, I had only just wet my throat, and baked sweets on an every-other-day schedule still catch!
I poured another cup of lemon water and this time knocked back about half.

I let out a breath, and sorted in my head what I had to do.
First, that, probably.

From a cupboard packed with various baggage I took a bundle of paper, a pen, and ink.
…To be precise, what is called parchment.
Even on this island, fairly far south, sheep were apparently raised.
As someone used to paper made from pulp I had various complaints, but saying so would not help.

Next I had taken out the bottle of distilled liquor bought at Elma’s, when Kira came down.

“S-sorry I’m late.”
“It’s fine, actually perfect timing! Kira, please, put ‘Desiccate’ on this!”

As I said it, I held out the distilled liquor with the lid off.
She blinked, startled by my intensity, for a while.
Then, as if collecting herself, Kira nodded.

“Y-yes. ‘I humbly beseech. What I wish is eternal dryness. Wither and be spent, as I desire.'”

Eh, th-that’s a rather ominous chant! I muttered inwardly, and in that time the magic seemed to have activated.
What remained was a liquid reduced to about half its volume.

“Eh… I-I failed…”

At once Kira’s eyes filled with tears.
Eh? I froze for an instant. Then I realized why she was crying.

“N-no, no! This is right, the liquid is supposed to stay! This is what they call spirit of wine!”
“I-is… that so…?”
“Yes, here, um… s-see, it smells like liquor, right?”

As I said it, I fanned the mouth of the bottle near Kira’s face, pata pata.
Yes, that thing you do in elementary and junior high when you check the smell of a pungent liquid.

“Wah… ah, yes, it does smell like liquor…”
“Yes, so it’s not a failure of ‘Desiccate,’ it’s all right!
Then, this…”

I added a little of the tap water I had boiled yesterday.
With that, it should have become about 70 percent ethanol.
Well, there might be alcohols other than ethanol as well, but this was not the time to worry about that.
In this world, too, spraying or smearing distilled liquor on wounds was reasonably widespread as a rule-of-thumb treatment.
So even this method could be expected to have a sterilizing, disinfecting effect above a certain level.
In fact, rubbing alcohol was said to have the highest disinfecting effect at around 70 percent.
I had thought 50 percent distilled liquor was about the best we could do, and then there was Kira’s ‘Desiccate.’
If this was not a godsend, what was?
We had obtained the best disinfecting alcohol we could hope for under the circumstances.

“Eh, why do you cut it with water…?”
“This way it actually works as medicine.
Then, let’s see…”

I thought, combining the herbs on the herb shelf with the fighting strength we had on hand at present.
I would manage on the fly, as for me.

“Kira, first eat those baked sweets slowly so you don’t choke.
And drink at least two full cups of lemon water, slowly. Three or four is fine.”
“Ah, y-yes…?”

Yes, it comes out as a question, I know, I know.
But in practice, it would be a problem if Kira ran out of gas halfway.
The two of us turning it over, versus me alone: the efficiency was clearly more than four times different.

“And I want you to listen while you eat.
There are three things I want you to do.
First, boil water in these two pots. If it boils down, add water.
The left is for washing instruments, the right is for medicinal decoctions. Keep that absolutely.
And I want you to keep at least half a pot of hot water at all times.”
“Eh, ah, that much is fine.”

Kira’s face went blank, that’s all? Cute.
No, so I don’t have time to be swallowed by impure thoughts!

“Next, this is the most important. See the paper I prepared here?
I want you to ask each person their name and write it, and then ask all the questions written here, and write them down.
Ah, use this board.”
“Eh, eeeeeh!?”

As I said it I handed her a clipboard-like board, and Kira raised a voice like a scream.
Yes, it’s surprising. And I’m sorry, you’re probably bad at that sort of thing.
I know, I know, but there’s nothing to be done!

“Last, while you’re asking, if there’s someone who looks especially unwell, tell me.
We may need to change the order.”

Looking at them now, there did not seem to be any patients that severely ill.
But it was also true that you never knew when someone might take a sudden turn.
After all, every patient here now was someone I had never seen.

At my words, Kira nodded hard, still bewildered.

Yes, good.
I was truly glad it was Kira helping me like this.

So thinking.

“All right, then let’s begin!”

I rolled up my sleeves, raising my voice to fire myself up.