Where the Connections Lead

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/53/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

The change from there was truly dizzying.

“Here, please write this; I will come back for it later.”

Kira went on handing intake forms stuck to clipboards to the people waiting.
Incidentally, when I asked Nora and the others that I wanted boards like this, they made about thirty in a day.
What production power is that, really… The metal fittings and the springs cannot be that easy, I think…

“If it’s Doctor Asha’s request!”

She said it with a thoroughly good smile, which made me glad.
But it did not end there.

“But I worked hard, so I want some kind of reward, you know.”

I got told that, you see?
I asked various things about what would be good… and it became that she wanted her head patted.
When I was ruffling her head, Nora had a thoroughly happy-looking smile.

“Nfufu, this is nice too.”

And so on; she seemed satisfied.
That she is glad with this much makes me happy, but… I have a feeling I am sinking deeper and deeper.

At any rate. With Nora’s help as well, the intake forms showed considerable effect.
After all, we can have them written in the waiting people’s waiting time.
Yes, that they can write is terribly grateful.
I feel anew how amazing what the Demon King and Lady Grace were doing is… at the least, it would not go this way in the village I lived in.

Thanks to that, the information I want to know comes to me gathered to a certain degree, so examination time can be greatly shortened as well.
And Kira has more time she can put toward desiccating herbs and that direction.

“…Since we started using these intake forms, it has been really easy…”
“Right? I can talk with the patients more easily too, and the turnover got faster.”

At lunch, which we could take more calmly than before, the two of us said it to each other, feeling it sink in.

 

Then the distribution of notices began in earnest as well.
The featherfolk, to whom the Demon King had personally explained how important a role this was, had high morale, and flew through the sky of the royal capital every day with faces full of pride.
Incidentally, as expected in the end, Gerda was selected as the one to take it together.

“It is a somehow mysterious thing. I had thought the only thing I could do was fight to protect someone.
And now I can make soap, and like this I have been given a role supporting the information that comes and goes in the royal capital.
That I could do such a thing, Asha, I had not even thought of until you came.”

She said it the other day when we were eating dinner together at Elma’s shop… if I could be of even a little use in widening Gerda’s possibilities, I am glad.
The one who first showed me hope was Gerda.
If I can return even a little, there is nothing so glad-making.

“Only, in accepting this duty, I put out one condition.”
“Eh, is that so? What sort of condition?”

Thinking it rare for the upright Gerda, I asked so, and Gerda put on a slightly mischievous smile.

“Nn. Asha, on the condition that if you come to need long-distance travel, I may give that priority.”
“Eh. Ah, yes, that is, thank, you…?”

I could only answer that way.
That I felt I had sunk one step deeper—I want it to have been an illusion.

“Come to think of it, it became clear that with the featherfolk alone it is hard to deliver in crowded places and in collective housing like the magicians’ dormitory.”
“Ah, now that you say it, indeed…”

Featherfolk have large wings growing from their backs.
In open places that is no problem at all, but in crowded places they get in the way—more than that.
If one is unlucky the wings are hurt, and it would greatly hinder their lives.

“Then, leave it to people who are good at running on the ground, or so. Grass runners seem as if they would be good at it, don’t they?”
“Hmh. I see. If we make distribution points, carry it there once, and from there on go on foot, it seems it would turn well.”

Gerda nodded at my proposal.
And immediately after she proposed it to the Demon King, and permission was apparently given.
A few days later, Nasti, who had come to deliver herbs, touched on that talk.

“And so the talk came round to us.
The others were keen as well, so we decided to take it.”
“Ah, so that talk has started moving in earnest.
You and yours know the town well, and I think Gerda will find you a strength as well.”
“…Yes. And we are small of body, so we can go here and there.”

Nasti smiled brightly, but what was that instant of faltering.
That evening, while eating, I suddenly remembered and asked Elma.

“Ah, that might be it. See, grass runners have a bad reputation for light fingers, don’t they?
And yet Asha, without thinking that even a little, said they’d be suited, and all.”
“…Ah~… I-I see…”

I see, so that was embarrassment. Or she was taken aback.
Even if I ask her herself she will not tell me the truth, I suppose.
If she was glad of it, that would be nice, I think.

Some time after those started moving, the effects began to appear at once.
Especially the elderly seemed grateful.

“My legs are bad, so I can hardly go look at the notice boards.
Thanks to this I don’t miss things, so it helps.”

An old woman who had come for an examination the other day said it.
Besides that, information seems to have started reaching people too busy to go look as well; one may well call this a large improvement.

Speaking of the elderly, as for the making of the resident register, it ended up that we asked people to come to the office and write it themselves, and the Demon King would type out only the elderly whose legs were bad.
That this sort of notice could be done with distributed matter is large after all, I felt.
The Demon King, with the numbers narrowed and with that circumstance, is typing it out with tremendous spirit.
It looks as if she will finish typing terribly early…

Ah yes, after that I have been allowed to make distributed matter as well.
The meaning of washing hands and gargling, how to do it, and so on, made into illustrations, you see.

The Demon King, looking at those pictures…

“Say, Asha. Your pictures are strangely practiced, or rather… you are used to drawing.
Is this that as well, thanks to school, to art or whatever?”
“Eh, ah, e-er, yes, that’s right~”

She was looking at them with considerable interest, shige shige, so I glossed it so.
…See, everyone has a dark history, don’t they?
Probably, if one is an otaku, one tries drawing illustrations at least once, don’t they?
I could hardly explain such a thing, so I glossed it on the spot.

Incidentally the illustrations themselves were well received as “easy to understand,” and people who wash their hands properly seem to have increased.
Thanks to that I have a feeling patients coming for food poisoning and colds have decreased quite a bit.
This part I will have to judge once a few more numbers have gathered.

A little later I think I will make distributed matter writing the importance of replenishing water as a measure against heatstroke.
If even a few fewer people fall ill from that, it would be nice.

“Lately I feel the number of patients has gone down…”
“That’s so. It’s a good thing.
An apothecary is best idle, after all.”

At me answering with a laugh, Kira made a face a little surprised.
Then she returned a smile.

“That’s, so. I, think that place of yours, Asha, is nice.”
“Ahaha, is, it?”

So saying, in the workshop where patients had left off for a spell, I put my mouth to the lemon water Kira had made, meaning to take a breath.
That it tasted more delicious than usual… may not have been my imagination?