Chapter 14: A Mysterious Request

Chapter 14:
A Mysterious Request

 

THE LAST TIME I’d checked the request box was during that whole “black potion” thing; it’d been a while. When I realized how long I’d left it sitting, I went to open it up.

“Still, I doubt anyone’s dropping requests in this thing,” I muttered.

The rectangular box was about the size of a sheet of writing paper. I shook it and heard something.

“Wait, there’s a note in here?” I turned the box upside down, and much to my surprise, several requests fell out. “That’s more than I expected.”

Having finished her chores, Noela came up to me, tilting her head in confusion. “What, Master?”

“Oh, these? They’re product requests customers wrote.”

“Product requests!” Noela grabbed the notepad and pen beside the box and started writing. “Po…”

Yup, she was writing down “potions.”

“We already carry those, Noela.”

“Groo?”

Apparently, the werewolf girl didn’t quite understand how the request box worked. I’d created it so female customers could ask for products they felt uncomfortable speaking to me about. According to Mina, women needed stuff that was awkward to mention to men.

When I thought about it, about half the drugstore’s customers were women buying goods specifically for women; we had our fair share of those, after all. The request box was also meant to collect customers’ opinions on our selection.

“What kind of requests did we get?” I murmured.

“Hurry, Master! Hurry!”

The request notes were neatly folded, so it was impossible to see inside one without opening it.

“Well, let’s start with this.” I grabbed a random note and unfolded it.

“I love you!” it read.

Who in the world…? Anyway, sorry, but the request box isn’t for that kind of thing. Man, I went out of my way to put instructions beside it and everything. I set the love letter aside. Rejected!

“Request box get love letter already, Master?”

“That it did.”

“Noela also love Master.”

“Thanks a million.” I stroked Noela’s head gently. How could I lose my patience with this girl?

“Noela open next one.”

“Be my guest, Trooper Noela.”

“Groo?” She cocked her head and then looked at the letter in her hands.

It began, “If you’re reading this, I’m no longer of this world…”

“What the hell?!” I cried. What’s with this?! Was the writer going to die? Have they already died?! Did they misplace it? What happened?!

“Groo… Sad tale,” Noela said with a quiet sigh.

“What was going through their head?” I muttered, grabbing the note from Noela’s hands. Since we had no clue who’d penned it, or who its recipient was supposed to be, I tossed it into the “declined” pile on top of the rejected love letter. “Noela, next, please.”

“Groo! Arroorroo! This one!” Noela grabbed a note—but then her face fell.

“What’s wrong?”

“Bad feeling.”

From the note? Let’s see.

I unfolded the paper and read the words “NOELA, BABY, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YOU!”

I know who this is from.

I was about to throw it in the trash, rather than the “declined” pile, when Noela hurried next to the garbage can. “Hey! Master!”

“Catch, Noela!” I tossed her the wadded-up note.

“Got it!” Grabbing the paper ball, she hurled it into the trash. “Whew!” She wiped sweat from her forehead. “Evil destroyed.”

“What a sad note to come across.” That’s what he gets.

Noela returned to my side. We high-fived and then collected ourselves. “Noela next!”

“Okay.”

She grabbed the next note, reading it silently, then cocked her head. “Groo? Mystery. Noela no understand.”

“It’s mysterious?”

I got her to show me the note, which read, “Just thinking about those times makes my chest tight. How can I cure that? Whenever I see a conversation with another woman, I’m jealous!”

“Noela want know writer.”

A young lady you’re quite close to. “This isn’t a box for love letters,” I repeated. Rejected, needless to say. Come on, people! Read the instructions beside the request box!

“Noela want read rest, Master!”

“You want to what?!”

These aren’t chapters of a novel! Begrudgingly, I handed her the note, and Noela kept reading with great curiosity.

“Wait…that’s right. This world doesn’t have novels or manga,” I said to myself. It was probably rare for someone to write out their inner turmoil so clearly.

The two of us kept going through the request box.

“Are you hiring full-time, and do you offer travel compensation?” a note asked.

No on both counts.

It continued, “Also, does the drugstore have a system for promoting part-timers to full-time?”

I see you, Vivi. You wrote this note so formally, you almost hoodwinked me. I put Vivi’s note on the “declined” pile. Rejected, obviously.

The next note said, “You must be bored as heck to read this, Rei Rei! Legit hilarious. LOL!”

Shut up! Noela and I will barge into the tool shop with loaded erasers!

“When I ask what he’d like for a meal, he always responds ‘Anything is fine!’” the next note read. “That’s the worst answer he could give, so I wish he’d stop. It’s quite a problem!”

This note’s totally about me…which means it’s from Mina. I’m really sorry, Mina… I’ll think harder from now on!

The next folded paper in the request box said “Kyuu! Kyuu!”

How did Griffy even write this?!

The next note read, “Potion tasty today, Master! Thank you!”

Just like that, I felt warm and fuzzy. Noela, you darn fluffy little fluffball! I ruffled her tail and hair without thinking. She’s so soft!

“Garrooooo?”

After rejuvenating myself, I kept opening the remaining notes. They were still all over the map.

“Not a single product request,” I muttered. Does nobody read instructions around here?! I guess I can’t complain. This is killing time.

“Here, Master.” Noela handed me the final note.

“Another weird ‘request’?”

The werewolf girl shook her head gravely.

Curious, I looked down and read, “Please save my mommy.” I froze.

“What do, Master?”

“I…don’t know.” This was as serious as it got.

There were only four words, so I had no clue who the note was from. But it definitely seemed to have been penned by a kid who wasn’t used to writing yet. The letters barely qualified as such. I had no way of discerning whether this was some prank or the real deal. Several kids dropped by the drugstore occasionally to play with Noela and Vivi; was the note from one of them?

“Hmm… Hold on.” Not counting Paula, people usually came to the drugstore to buy medicine or treatments. What was in that first note we read? Here it is.

“If you’re reading this, I’m no longer of this world…” The note was in a woman’s soft handwriting.

Is this just a coincidence?

I didn’t remember a sickly woman dropping by the drugstore. If I’d seen one, I wouldn’t have bothered her. I wasn’t a doctor, so I couldn’t provide a checkup; I’d have no clue why she was sick. In fact, I frequently explained that to customers who didn’t understand. It was possible I’d told the woman who wrote this note the same thing—actually, I probably had. If she’d passed away, I wouldn’t be surprised if her children blamed me.

Since I’d turned the request box upside down, I’d read the notes in reverse order. That meant the child wrote their note before their mother. If she’s still around, could I do anything to help cure her?

“Might as well look into it.” With the child’s note in hand, I headed for the lab.

There, Noela hugged my shoulders, peering down at my hands. “What make, Master?”

“Something for a detective.”

“Groo… ‘Dee tech tive’?” She cocked her head.

Right—I forgot. Detectives don’t exist in this world. Even if they did, they wouldn’t work in little towns in the boondocks.

My bottle glowed as usual. “All right! Done.”

 

Lesseeit: Renders water and oil residue visible.

 

This should help us figure out who wrote that note.

“Groo? No understand, Master.”

“I know.” I spread some lesseeit on the bottle I’d just touched. “Take a look.”

Small, light-blue crests appeared on the bottle’s surface. Judging by their thickness, I guessed that they were thumb and index fingerprints.

“Arroo! Master’s hand?!”

“Yup. Those are called ‘fingerprints.’”

“Noela try too!” She started touching tons of stuff and then spread lesseeit over all of it. Her fingerprints appeared immediately. “Groo! Noela’s fingers! Same mazes!”

Those aren’t mazes, they’re fingerprints.

“So, now that we know which fingerprints are yours and mine, what do you think’s next?” I asked Noela.

“Note! Note!”

“Bingo.” I spread lesseeit on either side of the note.

Noela watched next to me, excited. “Master! Glow!”

Actually, three sets of fingerprints were glowing. I identified Noela’s and my own, then a set of child-sized prints. “Just what I expected,” I murmured.

Wait. There aren’t any preschools or elementary schools in Kalta. But if this kid can write, they’re getting an education. Mina and Noela wrote things occasionally, but nothing difficult, and they made tons of mistakes.

“So we’re looking for a kid from a wealthy family who visited the drugstore recently.” Not many moms brought their kids to Kirio Drugs, and I had no clue who’d left the prints. Even if the child had come in with their parents, there were too many customers to remember.

“Sir Reiji? Noela? I’m here!”

Speaking of kids from wealthy families…

“Drills!” Noela left the lab to greet Elaine. I followed.

“Good day, Sir Reiji, Noela!”

“Hi, Drills!”

“Hey, Elaine. Perfect timing.”

“What do you mean?” I showed Elaine the note, explaining what happened, and she teared up. “How sad! The child’s mother is ill?! No doubt they came here to find medicine to cure her!”

“Do you have any idea who they could be, Elaine?”

She thought to herself, then shook her head. “I haven’t the slightest. But I must say, for someone so young, the child has pretty handwriting. Their parents must be aristocrats or wealthy provisioners.”

“Pro visioners. Sound strong.” Noela nodded as though she knew what Elaine was talking about.

“That just means ‘people who sell stuff,’ Noela.”

I figured Elaine was on the right track. A child would need to know how to read and write to inherit that kind of family business.

The young aristocrat turned to me. “If this woman’s alive, Sir Reiji, please…”

“Yeah. I plan to do everything I can.”

“That’s my Sir Reiji!”

Noela shook her head. “Not Drills’s. Noela’s.”

Really? You’re going to argue over that?

Just when I was about to leave to look into the child’s identity, Elaine offered to help. I had no reason to decline, so I gladly welcomed her to the team.

“Let’s ask around town in case their parents are provisioners or merchants,” I suggested.

“Go, go, go!” Noela was all fired up.

I told Mina we’d be gone for a while, and we took Elaine’s carriage into town.

 

***

 

Obviously, showing a bunch of people some random fingerprints wouldn’t get us anywhere. To start, we would search for a literate child with a sick mother. We’d use the fingerprints to determine whether someone fit the bill.

Noela, Elaine, and I asked around the town square, searching for leads, but we had no luck.

“Do you think perhaps they don’t live in town?” Elaine asked.

“Hard to say. Hey, Elaine…is there a doctor in Kalta?” I’d always found it strange, but first-timers at Kirio Drugs often did think I was a physician.

“Not right now. When someone gets sick, they have to visit the next town over.”

“No wonder people keep treating me like a doctor.”

I didn’t practice medicine, so even if someone consulted me about symptoms, I couldn’t really treat them. At most, I’d suggest a product like cold or stomach medicine; I couldn’t hand them a miracle cure or anything. But if I found this sick woman, I didn’t want to tell her, “Well, nothing I can do!”

We eventually bumped into the traveling merchant Vin, and I explained the situation to him.

“The fact that you don’t remember this child and their mother suggests it’s possible that they aren’t from Kalta,” Vin said. “Folks who don’t normally come to town… A merchant family with a young child and a sick mother…” He seemed to have someone in mind. “You must be looking for Mr. Hautbeaux from the next town over.”

“Mr. Hautbeaux?”

“Yup. His wife fell terribly sick not long ago. They’ve got a baby and a little girl who can write.”

“That must be them!” Elaine said.

“Must! Must!” Noela echoed.

I calmed the pair down. “Hold your horses, girls. We don’t know for sure yet.”

“Yup. That’s all gossip,” Vin agreed. “Mrs. Hautbeaux may have recovered.”

Either way, we had our first clue. Time to go confirm this. I thanked Vin, and then Elaine, Noela, and I took Elaine’s carriage to the neighboring town.

 

***

 

Truth be told, our destination wasn’t much bigger than Kalta. It wasn’t a one-horse town, but it wasn’t bustling either.

According to Vin, the Hautbeaux family ran multiple shops—a greengrocer, a general store, and even a weapon shop. To use my old world’s terminology, they were a conglomerate.

We drove Elaine’s carriage to the Hautbeauxs’ residence. It wasn’t big enough to call a mansion, but it was still larger than average. I spotted a little girl playing by the front gate. Is she the one?

Hopping out of the carriage, I cautiously called out to her. “Good day! I run a pharmacy in Kalta called Kirio Drugs.”

“Kirio Drugs?” she repeated.

I showed her the note. “Did you write this?” She looked at me and then the note. “Is your mommy sick?” I asked.

“The doctor said so.”

To identify the girl for sure, I handed her a bottle I’d brought and then applied lesseeit to it. Noela and Elaine popped up to compare the prints on the bottle to those on the note.

“Mazes same.”

“Yes, the mazes are the same!”

Fingerprints, people. Let’s work on our vocabularies. Anyway, that means…

Having seen Elaine’s lavish carriage, a plump man in his late thirties exited the house and approached us. “What business do you have with my daughter?”

This guy must be Mr. Hautbeaux. “I’m a pharmacist from Kalta. I received this note in my request box, so I’m looking into it. May I have a moment of your time?”

Mr. Hautbeaux looked at the note, nodded, and led us into his home.

In the reception room, we listened as he somberly explained the note. “I’ve brought my daughter along to Kalta during several business trips. On top of that, we’ve been to your drugstore. She must’ve written that request during one of those visits.”

Mr. Hautbeaux and his wife had stopped by Kirio Drugs after hearing rumors of my skill, hoping to purchase medicine that would cure her, but to no avail. “She’s visited our town doctor several times,” Mr. Hautbeaux continued. “He says he can’t do any more to help her.”

“Is that so?”

“My wife’s stable, but she doesn’t have long. At any rate, thank you for reading my daughter’s note and visiting us.”

He must be in immense pain, yet here he is, thanking me. My heart ached. If the town doctor says his wife’s dying, it might be true. And I don’t have any medicine that could heal her. At least, I didn’t right then.

I wound up visiting Mr. Hautbeaux’s wife with him and his daughter Aisha. Mrs. Hautbeaux looked tremendously kind, but her skin had a sickly pallor. Strangely, my medicine-making skill reacted before I’d even seen her.

What the heck? Once I realized what my skill was suggesting, however, it made sense.

“I have an idea, Mr. Hautbeaux,” I told him. “I’m going to create a treatment for your wife’s illness.”

“You can do that?”

“I can.” My medicine-making skill was telling me everything I needed to know about the product: ingredients, purpose, dosage, and the steps to create it.

After talking to Mrs. Hautbeaux for a while, asking her how she felt, I promised her that I’d make her a treatment. I also explained that I couldn’t guarantee its effects.