Case 02: The Self-Deprecating Cyclops

Monster Girl Doctor Volume ZERO — LNCrawler · All chapters

CASE 02:
The Self-Deprecating Cyclops

“No thank you.” Her answer was immediate. “Such an engagement would be absolutely impossible for one such as myself.”

“Please, Miss Arahnia. We came to the conclusion that you were the best possible fit for the job,” Glenn said.

“Even if that were true…” said Arahnia, frowning. She seemed to be troubled by Glenn’s words. Glenn still believed she was a woman who kept her true intentions difficult to read, but at that moment she did appear to be truly at a loss.

“Miss Arahnia, I’ve been put in the position of handling all of the preparations for this operation. My master, Cthulhy Squele, will be the one conducting Miss Skadi’s surgery.”

“Yes, I saw in the papers. How awful, truly.”

“Miss Skadi’s disease is a rare one without any precedent, so there will be many firsts involved in Cthulhy doing the surgery, as well. That’s why I want to gather the best of the best to assist her… Miss Arahnia, that person is you.”

“Why, I am thrilled to be held in such high regard. It is an honor to hear that from someone such as yourself, Doctor.”

The unequaled expert when it came to a needle and thread, Arahnia Taranterra Arachnida, still had that troubled look on her face after listening to Glenn’s wishes. She seemed to be doing needlework of some kind, four of her arms embroidering a piece of cloth faster than Glenn was able to follow with his eyes.

“But I must say…” she continued. “To come while I am working to talk about other employment like this. The branch manager will start keeping tabs on me, you know.”

“M-my apologies. Nonetheless,” Glenn stammered.

“Just a little joke, Doctor,” Arahnia replied, looking as though she was enjoying herself as she took in Glenn’s troubled expression. She was just as crafty a woman as ever.

As she had said, she did seem to be in the middle of working. There were a great number of arachne who worked at the Lindworm branch of Loose Silk Sewing. There were women reeling in the silk they produced from their abdomens, women using that silk to sew, and some who were using sewing scissors and foot-pedal sewing machines to make clothes. From silk, to cloth, to clothes, the process required a wide variety of jobs.

Everyone working there was an arachne woman. Of course, Glenn knew that arachne were a women-only race of monsters in the first place. However—

“For a little while now… I’ve kind of felt like I’m being stared at,” said Glenn.

“Well, now, Doctor. That would be because you’ve brazenly walked into a business that only employs arachne,” Arahnia said with a suggestive laugh. “Arachne are all women, and we have to capture men from other races to have children. It’s only natural that the impassioned gazes of these nubile arachne would find their way to you. That’s to say nothing of the fact that humans are very popular.”

“Humans…are popular?”

“That’s right. For you see, human men are small and easy to catch, and they are timid and submissive. With them as partners, we can work them hard for the rest of our lives, and as such, they are quite a bit more popular than men of other monster races. Were you unaware of this?”

This was the first time Glenn had heard about arachne marriage. Hearing this, he could only feel a sense of dread at the ardent gazes boring into him.

While not to the same degree as with dragons, there were still many mysteries surrounding the arachne as well. The fact that they only gave birth to women was strange in the first place. As a basic rule, organisms could only mate with organisms of the same species, but many of the monster races, including centaurs, lamia, and mermaids, were able to mate with humans. But other than the arachne, there were no cases of a species that only gave birth to women.

That they could mate with one another meant that that humans and monsters might actually be quite similar as organisms. Monster-human relationships happened often enough for such a hypothesis to come about. In fact, Lindworm recognized marriages between monster and human, and the centaur Tisalia had repeatedly asked Glenn for a marriage interview.

“…………”

Having accompanied Glenn, Sapphee menaced the arachne in the building with a sharp glare. For a while now, her tail had been vibrating back and forth. Her wariness and mistrust was at its peak.

Despite Sapphee’s glares, the arachne continued to look toward Glenn ever more, whispering to each other and snickering quietly. It was terrifying that even while they amused themselves in sizing up the man in front of them, their hands didn’t stop moving for a single second. Glenn imagined that every one of the arachne women that was gathered there was an absolute expert when it came to clothing.

“Now, now, Sapphee, don’t be angry. Everyone here is starved for love and gossip, you know. Why, after all, they spend all day in here working,” Arahnia said.

“I’m not angry,” Sapphee replied.

“My Sapphee, you truly are precious when you’re all full of jealousy like this,” Arahnia said, smiling. She was wearing a monocle that appeared to be for her work, but in a strange twist, also had a total of three lenses. Glenn assumed that the differing sizes of lenses had been specially ordered to match up with all six of Arahnia’s eyes, but when he considered how expensive regular glasses were, he wondered just how much such a special order would cost. Leave it to a designer, he thought, not to compromise on the quality of her clothing and accessories, no matter the cost.

“Now, if your business is finished, I’ll have to ask you to leave quickly. I’ll be in quite a pickle if I don’t finish this today.”

“Please… Can we please work something out? Miss Arahnia. I’m begging you.” Glenn bowed his head, but Arahnia simply shook hers.

“I’m a designer. It would be fine if we were talking about clothing, but running a thread and needle through a patient? Why, there’s no way I can do that so easily. If I play my part poorly, and the surgery fails… Wouldn’t I then have to bear much of the responsibility?”

“I accept all responsibility. So long as you’re able to follow our instructions.”

“You may say that, Doctor, but I wonder what the townspeople would think? If the papers started writing things suggesting the surgery failed entirely because the completely untrained Miss Arahnia had participated, what then?”

“That’s, well…”

“They can write whatever they want about me, but the thought of losing the trust of Loose Silk Sewing… Well, I’m sure you can understand, yes?”

Glenn imagined that it was precisely because Arahnia was so obsessive and something of an artist that she became so earnest when it came to her work. That being said, her earnestness was very unique and did not necessarily line up with conventional common sense and morality.

“I’m truly very sorry, but I’d ask you to find someone else for this task…” Arahnia began.

“Arahnia,” said Sapphee.

Just as Glenn thought that it was going to be impossible to convince her, Arahnia lifted her head at Sapphee’s call. He imagined that Arahnia must have picked up on the seriousness in Sapphee’s voice. Her hands even stopped their work.

“You’re fine with this? Really?” Sapphee said.

“Whether I’m fine with it or not, for me to practice medicine—why, it’s just out of the question.”

“As long as you agree to work with us, we’ll give you constant direction. We’ll explain it all to the Loose Silk Sewing branch manager. We’ll make you a clinic employee for a little while.”

“And?”

“Basically, what I’m saying is,” Sapphee said, smiling suddenly, “you’ll be able to wear a nurse outfit matching my own.”

“I’ll do it. No, please, let me help you!”

Glenn didn’t even get a moment to wonder if Sapphee’s persuasion would work. Arahnia even cast aside the fabric she was working on and took Sapphee’s hand. Glenn knew that Sapphee’s nurse outfit had been specially made by Arahnia herself. Thinking about it further, Arahnia did have a strange attachment to her close friend Saphentite

“… That’s what did it?” Glenn asked.

“What are you saying, Doctor?! Of course! Sapphee’s outfit is the only one of its kind in the whole world—a miraculous fusion of a strong light-blocking inner layer and a nurse’s outfit overflowing with a feeling of cleanliness! Naturally, it would take a considerable amount of adjustment for me to wear it, but a chance to wear matching outfits? Why, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity!” Arahnia said.

“Um, couldn’t you just wear that normally?”

“Why, as if I would wear a nurse’s outfit without any reason!”

Glenn couldn’t empathize with Arahnia’s obsession with clothes at all. Nevertheless, she was finally interested. Despite how she had given every excuse she could think of to turn Glenn down, she had responded with ease to Sapphee’s pointed persuasion.

“Now that it’s been decided, we have to win over the branch manager immediately! We haven’t a moment to lose!” Arahnia continued.

“U-um, Miss Arahnia? Is it really okay?” Glenn replied.

“I’m prepared for the worse! Sapphee and I! The two of us together will make sure this is a success! Why, at the end of the day, sewing cloth isn’t that much different from sewing blood vessels, right?”

The change in attitude was intense, thought Glenn. With her natural agility, Arahnia rushed off deeper into the building. Left behind, Glenn was stunned by her immediate change in attitude. He wondered if things would actually play out this easily.

“We’re close friends, after all,” Sapphee said, turning toward Glenn and giving him a wink. “I know her very well. I’m sure Arahnia will be a big help to us.”

“Did Miss Arahnia really want to wear a matching outfit that badly?” Glenn asked.

“Of course not.” Sapphee gave a sarcastic laugh. “I’m sure the reason she was hesitating to accept the offer was because she was waiting for a concession from us. That woman’s heart is completely black— she was just pretending that she didn’t want any part of it until we proposed a compromise that was convenient for her.”

“Is that so…”

So it was all a part of the negotiations, Glenn thought. His failure to notice it meant he was once again relying on Sapphee for everything.

“That’s why, with the promise of wearing matching outfits, I pretended to meet her halfway. If she was still unwilling after that, the conversation would be over, so she accepted,” explained Sapphee.

“…Wait. If that’s the case, does that mean that Miss Arahnia had something else in mind in accepting the offer?” Glenn asked.

“Probably. Although I’m sure her desire to wear matching outfits with me wasn’t a total lie. I think she’ll face the task at hand seriously, but be careful, Doctor.”

Glenn had been tricked by Arahnia once before. He knew that he should be cautious around her. Arahnia wasn’t at all a bad person, but there were times when she felt that the ends justified her means.

“…Thank you again, Sapphee. I’d be lost without you.”

“Of course. You still need a lot more experience, Dr. Glenn.”

All Glenn was able to do was once again express his appreciation to his always dependable assistant.

***

While he had convinced Arahnia—although Glenn questioned if that was the right way to describe it—there was still a mountain of problems to tackle.

First was training Arahnia. Although she was proficient with a needle and thread, suturing a body was not the same as sewing up fabric. They needed to teach her from the ground up about stitching together nerves and blood vessels.

For the time being, Sapphee was put in charge of teaching Arahnia the basics. This was partly because even if Arahnia harbored some other intentions, Sapphee would be able to see through them. Fortunately, it seemed Arahnia was a quick learner, and it was fine to leave her to Sapphee for the time being.

The Lindworm branch manager of Loose Silk Sewing had agreed to let Arahnia visit the clinic under the condition that she would do so until the end of Skadi’s surgery, regardless of whether it was a success or not. She said that seeing more of the world and taking part in a different kind of work would refine Arahnia’s sensibilities as a designer.

“The branch manager is quite broad-minded, so she doesn’t lament when her skilled designer goes off somewhere else.” Arahnia laughed as she said this, but Glenn couldn’t help but hear Arahnia’s cynicism toward the branch manager in her words. Nevertheless, he could tell her cynicism didn’t necessarily mean Arahnia had wanted the branch manager to stop her from leaving.

Glenn wanted to help coach Arahnia himself, but he had other things he had to take care of.

First, he had a meeting with Cthulhy to draw up their surgical plan. Since there was no precedent for performing surgery on a dragon, he wanted to properly investigate all points of uncertainty and concern.

Most importantly, he also had to convince Skadi. Glenn had wanted to go through Kunai to set up another opportunity to speak with Skadi, but things weren’t going very well. Skadi had already returned to her official business as the city council’s representative. It didn’t seem at all like she was afflicted with a rare and serious disease. It was almost as if she were throwing the whole rest of her life into her work.

And in order to resolve another problem, Glenn had left the clinic in Sapphee’s hands and arrived at a certain place on a corner of the main road.

“All right, then…” Glenn said, wiping sweat from his forehead. He had arrived at the Kuklo Workshop.

The heat was intense. It seemed to come not just from the furnaces themselves, but the fiery passion of the workmen as well. It was a huge workshop, filled with hardworking craftsmen.

It had formerly specialized in blacksmithing, but as the years passed, the workshop had gathered a variety of craftsmen. Now they didn’t just specialize in metal, but dealt in all manner of everyday goods, from glassware and pottery to wood processing and brickwork as well. Making textile products would infringe on Loose Silk Sewing’s business, so Glenn was sure they had formed some contract with one another, but if he was to put it simply, the Kuklo Workshop handled anything that didn’t involve fabric.

Inside the workshop, a number of the giant craftsmen hurried around at their work, while others sat quietly, faces turned down toward their current projects. Glenn could also see a giant machine whirring loudly, although he didn’t really know what it was.

A water mill was being used to power the machines. The workshop’s production was supported by the stable waters from the Waterways. The canals that ran all over Lindworm weren’t just for the mermaids to travel around in, but were also used in many such applications.

Glenn relied on the workshop to supply him with his medical equipment. With the precision that his surgical needles, clamps, and scalpels required, as well as how often he had to throw out his tools for sanitary concerns, he thought that without the aid of the Kuklo Workshop, it might have been impossible for him to be a doctor at all. Indeed, it was the craftsmen of this workshop he had called on previously to make Tisalia’s horseshoes. The place had been taking care of him and helping him for a long time.

As Glenn thought these things, he came upon a face he knew among the giants working around him.

“Hey,” he called out.

“Eek!” The girl jumped back as soon as Glenn called out to her. “A h-h-human…?!”

“Well, yes, I am human, but it’s me, Glenn. Nice to see you, Memé.”

“A-ah, it’s you, Dr. Glenn… That’s all…” The young girl, small compared to those around her, still timidly glanced toward Glenn even after realizing he was a familiar face. “I-it’s been a while since I’ve seen a member of another race… I still get surprised by people with two eyes.”

“Well, I suppose that makes sense. Though I think biologically speaking it’s more rare to have only one eye.”

“Th-that’s true. Only having one eye looks scary anyway…”

Glenn scratched his head. He had called out to a young girl named Memé Redon.

Similar to the arachne of Loose Silk Sewing, the craftsmen of the Kuklo Workshop were entirely cyclops—massive one-eyed giants with strong, muscular bodies. With their large frames, about one size larger than a human being, they were classified as one of the giant monster races. But in contrast to their gigantic bodies, their species was very skilled with their hands.

The young cyclops girl before him—Memé Redon—was no exception. With her craftsmanship earning the trust of the workshop boss, she worked as the only woman apprentice in the whole shop.

Of course, the cyclops’s defining feature was their big, round eye. But it seemed that to Memé, her eye was a symbol of her inferiority complex. She hid it by growing out her black bangs, and constantly looked down at the ground. She seemed to have a trace of anthrophobia, and her normal response to just being talked to was always to get frightened and apologize, much as she had done with Glenn.

She often spoke and acted servilely because of her inferiority complex and would make self-deprecating comments at the drop of a hat.

“H-how unusual for you to come to the workshop, Dr. Glenn.”

“Yeah, I have a bit of a request to make.”

“…Thank you for your patronage, as always,” Memé replied, giving Glenn a look that suggested she had something else she wanted to say. The main characteristic of the cyclops—their single eye—projected the feelings and emotions of its owner very clearly. However in Memé’s case, her timidity got the better of her, and her eye darted left and right suspiciously. She would rarely look the person she was talking with in the eye.

Glenn himself couldn’t forget the shock he was given when he first met a cyclops, but through his work as a doctor of monster medicine, he had simply gotten used to them. But with how shy Memé was, she had become hypersensitive about the looks that other races gave her. As a result, her voice became shrill and panicked when she stood facing another person and talked with them.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here, but is everyone doing well?”

“I-I suppose. Stiff shoulders and back pain come with the work, so I wouldn’t say we’re that healthy… Heck, even I look pale and have a bag under my eye… I bet I look sick, don’t I?”

“Now I never said that, did I?” Glenn replied. It was true that there was a bag under Memé’s eye. At first glance she seemed in poor health, but Glenn was sure that it was just a result of poor hygiene and a lack of sleep.

Even humans could form bags under their eyes from the muscles around them growing weak. This was especially true for cyclops because their eyes were so big and heavy, and as such, their orbicularis oculi muscles would tire easily. For cyclops, a bag under the eye was a typical trait of their people and didn’t need to be given any extra attention.

“…Is there anything bothering you?” Glenn asked.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m sure I’m just going to get run into by people and run over by carriages anyway, so nothing’s going to change much anyway, even if I say anything,” Memé replied.

“…Cyclops do have a hard time with their depth perception, after all. But, if you don’t properly watch where you’re going, Memé, you’ll get in an accident someday.”

“A-and look people in the eyes?! I-impossible, totally impossible…”

Glenn sighed. This was how things usually went when he met with Memé. He was worried about whether she would be able to survive in the harsh business inside the workshop, but there were many elderly and middle-aged craftsmen who worked there and treated her tenderly, like she was their daughter or granddaughter. Memé had been accepted by the boss himself and made an apprentice there, so Glenn was sure she had quite the talent as well.

“W-what? You’re staring at me…”

“Oh, sorry.”

Glenn surmised that she was still around fifteen years old. She had black hair and white skin, and was wearing a thin undershirt and an apron, but it only concealed her chest and stomach, with her shoulders, arms, and back left exposed. Inside the workshop, filled with the hot air of the furnaces, it only made sense to Glenn that she would be wearing such thin clothing.

She wore a style of pants from the east known as “hakama”—suitable for working in the hot workshop. She had flame-proof sleeves on her arms and with them a pair of leather gloves. Although her clothing was light, she was securely protected from any risk of burning herself.

Cyclops men were large, but cyclops women weren’t that much different in size from humans. That said, their hands were a bit on the large side, with thick fingers. Memé gripped a hammer she was using for her work, but it didn’t look heavy at all as she wielded it. It gave Glenn a glimpse of why the cyclops were known as a giant race of monsters.

Glenn imagined Memé could probably lift a person around his size. He had been lifted into Tisalia’s arms as well—there were many examples of women monsters boasting impressive strength.

Despite how professional and practical she looked, she also paid close attention to her own appearance. The triangular white bandana on her head had become her trademark, and the back of her hair was intricately tied up in a three-part braid. It was quite an elaborate hairstyle. Glenn imagined it took a long time to arrange.

What was even more eye-catching was the earring attached to her left ear. It was a simple piece of metalwork, but something that Memé had made herself. The fact that she could produce such craftsmanship with ease signaled to Glenn that she had a bright future ahead of her.

“What have you been working on lately?” Glenn asked.

“H-huh? U-um, kitchen knives, drawknives… They’re having me brush up on the small stuff… I’m still an apprentice, anyway… So I just get all the odd jobs,” Memé replied.

“But you’ve graduated from doing the deliveries, right?”

“I can’t bear doing any more deliveries… Talking to other people is terrifying… ”

“Just the same as ever…” said Glenn. Memé laughed in self-deprecation. She had a bit of an eerie look to her as she gazed off in a different direction.

Previously, Memé’s job had been to deliver the tools made in the workshop to their respective customers. As such, Memé had always delivered the tools Glenn needed for the clinic. It was sad that even though Sapphee and Glenn were already familiar faces to her, Memé would never look them straight in the eye.

But now, Glenn realized, Memé was being given jobs to work on besides making deliveries. He thought it might not be long before she made a name for herself as the craftswoman of the workshop. Although he imagined for that to happen she would have to do something about her timid attitude.

“All right, then. Hey, Memé, is the boss around? I have a difficult job I’d like to talk to him about.”

“Oh, yes, hold on…” she replied.

Memé led the way for Glenn, but due to her long bangs and her habit of looking down at the ground, her steps were completely unreliable. Glenn truly wished she would look where she was going as she walked.

There were many dangers within the workshop. The smell of melted iron, the high-pitched ringing of hammers pounding steel, and the heat that made Glenn want to tear off his lab coat. The unique sights and sounds of the Kuklo Workshop had a certain charm to it—slightly different from the tourist appeal of the Merrow Waterways—but if one staggered through the workshop, accidents were bound to happen. In fact, there were many instances every year of a cyclops from the workshop being brought in to his clinic to have their injuries treated.

“Augh!” Memé cried.

Just as Glenn was thinking this, sure enough, Memé collided with a cyclops carrying some materials. Once more, it proved unnecessary to even say—since cyclops had only one eye, they didn’t have a proper sense of depth perception.

“Whoops—are you okay?” Glenn said, supporting Memé as she looked on the verge of falling backwards. But that only made things all the worse. Catching her in his arms, Glenn was now peering down at her.

“Augh… G-get awaaay!” Memé shouted.

“Whoa!” This time Glenn was the person being pushed away. Even female cyclops could exhibit a considerable amount of strength in the blink of an eye. But while she pushed him away, Glenn felt that Memé was really the one who was confused. She fell backwards.

“Ow!” Memé exclaimed. The recoil sent the both of them flopping onto the ground. There was a dull sound. The moment Memé fell on her backside, tools of some kind fell out of the front pocket of her apron and scattered about. Glenn wondered if they hadn’t been tucked properly into her pocket, or if the force of the impact had just been too great.

“Oh…” said Glenn.

Whatever had happened, Memé had gotten caught by some tool or another. Glenn could hear the sound of tearing fabric. Just as Memé had fallen on her backside, the hakama she was wearing was softly torn in two.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh?!” Memé’s cry echoed through the workshop.

With her clothes torn, Glenn could clearly see Memé’s underwear from his position on the floor. Everything was in view, from her white thighs to her groin. The slight change of her skin color from her sweat in the heart of the workshop burned themselves into Glenn’s vision.

She was wearing a style of loincloth underwear from the east, known as the “fundoshi.”

I see, Glenn thought—the fundoshi was both breathable and sweat-absorbent, and overflowing with a type of functional beauty that a craftsman would appreciate.

A few seconds later—Glenn felt that it was only to be expected—in her confusion, Memé slapped his face with all of her strength.
With tears streaming from her large eye, Memé left to change her clothes and then returned to showing Glenn through the workshop.

“If you don’t properly watch where you’re going, you’ll fall again,” Glenn said.

“No… He saw, he saw everything… Now I’ll never be able to get married, though I guess it’s not like I was ever going to be able to get married in the first place,” Memé mumbled, sniffling. Glenn felt bad that he had seen her underwear, but also really didn’t think that she needed to cry so much.

Despite her tears, Memé still guided Glenn along. But between crying and not looking ahead as usual, there was no telling when she would fall down again. Even with all the uproar, it didn’t appear that any of the cyclops around them had registered what happened, so Glenn wondered if, in fact, this sort of scene was relatively common with Memé.

Continuing behind Memé on tenterhooks, he arrived in front of a behemoth clad in leather working-clothes.

“B-b-boss…”

“Oh, Memé… And looks like we have a visitor, too,” replied the middle-aged cyclops, arms folded. He was the foreman of the workshop. Referred to simply as “boss” by the other workers, he was the greatest craftsman in Lindworm.

Right in front of him was a forge spitting out heat from its gaping mouth. It was the Kuklo Workshop’s great forge, and it was said that the fires inside of it burned endlessly throughout the year. No matter the workshop, the fires of the forge were held sacred.

It appeared the boss had just taken some molten iron out from the forge, and a number of cyclops took turns pounding it down with a hammer. It was still impossible for Glenn to tell what they were making, but the forging seemed quite large-scale.

The boss stared intensely at the forging without joining in with the work. Glenn assumed the thing they were making required the boss’s direct supervision.

“What on earth has brought you here, young Doctor? We’ve delivered your tools for the month, haven’t we?” asked the boss.

“Oh, no, that’s not why I’m here,” Glenn replied.

“In that case, is it about payment? You’re usually good about paying us properly, so I didn’t think there were any problems… Either way, your clinic is a good customer of ours. Waiting a little for payment won’t be the end of the world.”

“I’ll pay you properly. That’s not why I’m here, either,” Glenn continued. The boss narrowed his one eye and stared hard at Glenn. As one might expect, the gaze of the commanding master craftsman was sharp. His eye was just as effective as his mouth at expressing himself—in fact, sometimes the colossal eye of the cyclops would express something far more eloquently than their speech ever could.

The boss had a feeling that whatever had brought Glenn all the way to the workshop must certainly be trouble if it didn’t involve deliveries or payments. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption to make, considering that he was a perceptive foreman.

“Actually, right now I’m making plans for Miss Skadi’s surgery,” Glenn explained.

“I see. I was there at the ceremony, too. To think the Lady Draconess would collapse like that,” the boss replied.

“Yes. Since then, I’ve gone over it with the director at the Central Hospital, and we think we’d like to operate on her. Therefore, we will need the tools necessary to perform surgery on a dragon.”

“Hm. So that’s it, is it…?” The boss grumbled, stroking his beard.

Glenn took a piece of parchment from his doctor’s bag. It was an order form that listed all the items he wanted made, with the required size and strength laid out in detail. Glenn naturally had Cthulhy’s signature on the form as well. Taking the form, the boss quickly ran his eye across the page.

One of the problems weighing on Glenn was the procurement of these tools. He needed the scalpels, for example, to somehow be both sharper than a razor and strong enough to pierce Skadi’s dragonscales. He expected the existing needles he used for suturing would break easily, so he required them to be hard enough to not break on a dragon’s body.

In short, he needed to have his surgical tools freshly made with dragon surgery in mind. If the Kuklo Workshop was able to prepare the tools with the specifications as outlined on the order form, the probability of success for the surgery would increase dramatically. Glenn thought having the tools would make it somewhat easier to convince Skadi.

The boss scowled at the order form. It seemed as though his single eye would burn a hole through the paper just from staring at it. Memé appeared to be interested as well and took intermittent peeks at the form herself.

“Hmph,” snorted the boss.

“Will it be possible?” Glenn replied.

“We’ll have to order materials. That’ll take time and money. How much can you afford to pay?”

“As far as money’s concerned, I am using the Central Hospital’s budget for this, so please do not worry. As for the time frame… All I can say is as fast as possible.”

“I’m going to need you to decide on a delivery date.”

“Then one month, at the very latest.”

“Hmmmm,” the boss replied, rubbing his hand over his bald head. Glenn thought the boss was most likely over fifty years old, but he had a vigor to him that prevented any signs of weakening from age. He had been a weaponsmith during the great war, and manufactured an abundance of weapons and armor used in battle. The experience he had acquired was different from apprentices like Memé, who knew nothing of war. As a cyclops weaponsmith, he had been lauded as the greatest craftsman among countless others.

That boss now had his head in his hands. Glenn began to understand just how absurd his request was. The cyclops groaned for a few moments, until at last, he looked Glenn in the eyes.

“Alright. We’ll do it.” His face still wore a scowl, but his sense of responsibility was evident as he spoke.

“R-really?” Glenn replied.

“Yeah. I’ll put my cyclops pride on the line. It’s gonna be expensive, Doc. We’re going to need something upfront to make something like this.”

“Please rest assured—you will be paid.”

“Hah, I suppose I don’t need to worry if the Central Hospital’s involved, do I?”

Once a city got as big as Lindworm, the number of monsters that needed treatment naturally grew along with it. That even a small town doctor like Glenn was so busy meant that the number of patients at the Central Hospital were too numerous to even count. It was natural to assume the profit the hospital earned was sizeable. Cthulhy understood how difficult the request was and would spare no expense on the surgery.

“One thing, though,” the boss said, cutting off his thought with a small pause. “The needles—that’s the only thing I can’t contract for.”

“The needles?”

“Yeah, to get them down to surgical needle size and make them strong enough to penetrate dragonscale… That will be a little difficult. I’m gonna need to rack my brains about this one. I can’t promise for certain that it’ll be done by the due date.”

“…You’re saying you’ll make it, though?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I’ll do what I can.”

Glenn thought the request must be quite the tough job for the boss to comment on how difficult it would be. “Understood. So, then, you’ll get started on everything besides the needles right away? If the situation with the needles changes, please let me know when I can expect them by.”

“Yeah, of course. Give the director my thanks when you see her,” the boss replied, smiling as he rubbed his bald head.

Glenn was sure that if the boss said he would do something, he would pull it off at any cost. He knew without a doubt that he could put his trust in the dyed-in-the-wool craftsman temperament characteristic of the cyclops.

On the other hand—assuming that the boss was able to complete the needles, there was a chance they wouldn’t be exactly as Glenn had ordered them. He should make sure to let Cthulhy know this information.

“…………” The boss cast his massive single eye around him. He appeared to be looking around the workshop. The eye of a cyclops wasn’t capable of binocular vision, but their visual acuity and range of vision were far beyond that of a human’s. It was an eye with an extremely unique construction to it. Spinning around with ease, it could clearly capture things to the right and left just as it did those in front.

“Memé.” At long last, the boss called out to the apprentice who was still glancing now and then at the order form.

“Y-y-yes?!” she replied.

“How about you try making the needles?”

It was an unbelievable nomination. Memé’s eye opened perfectly wide and light reflected in her iris, which made it seem that her eye really did emit light of its own.

“It’s about time I gave you a job. It’s small work, but it’s a major task. Try making a needle just as the Doc requested.”

“H-h-huh? M-m-me…?”

“You have to start sooner or later. This is a good chance.”

“N-n-no way! I can’t do it, Boss! I can’t make such an important needle!” Memé shook her head so hard it looked like her neck was going to break. A normal apprentice would be in high spirits to be given an assignment by the boss, but Memé didn’t seem to think of it that way. “I-I get what your motives are… You’re leaving the tools for Miss Skadi’s surgery up to a newbie like me and are going to accuse me of being responsible when her surgery fails, is that it?! The surgery will fail because of my needles, and then the town will be in an uproar, and the paper will reveal all my private secrets, and I’ll be the laughing stock of the town!”

“You’re really a pessimist aren’t you? You’re the one who’s best suited to these kinds of delicate jobs. Stop your whining and get to it!”

“Uuuuggghhhh…” Memé looked at Glenn with tears in her eye. He felt like the words “save me” were written across the girl’s big single eye.

After thinking for a moment, Glenn smiled at her, saying, “Sounds good to me. Give it a shot, Memé.”

“Hngggggggh…” With all her escape routes cut off, Memé let out an indescribable noise.

Everything within the workshop was managed by the boss. Glenn had a certain position as the customer making the request, but he had no right to speak up about who should be given the work. If the boss said he wanted to try leaving it up to Memé, then Glenn would trust in that decision.

Moreover, while Memé was still an apprentice, Glenn had heard that she was skilled at more delicate work, like metalworking. If anything, she might actually be suited to the work involved in manufacturing the surgical needles.

“I-I-I’ll do my best… But don’t get your hopes up because… This pressure, this pressure is going to kill me,” said Memé.

“What the hell are you saying to the customer? Times like these are when you say you’re going to dedicate yourself to getting the job done,” the boss chimed in.

“I can’t do it, I just can’t do it…” She was an awfully pessimistic craftsman, but that was very much like Memé to begin with. The fact that the boss was entrusting it to her meant there was no doubt of her skill—the problem was with her personality.

It appeared to Glenn that the boss had a much higher opinion of Memé than he had thought. At the same time, the boss knew that Memé needed to overcome her pessimistic attitude in order to properly exhibit her skill. He imagined that entrusting Memé with a job so quickly was out of his concern to try and give her more self-confidence.

Glenn hoped it would go well. But seeing Memé staring at the ground, mumbling something under her breath, he thought it didn’t seem likely without some trouble along the way.

“Anyway, I ask that you complete this for me. For the success of the surgery,” said Glenn.

“I-I-I’ll give it everything I’ve got…” replied Memé.

The cyclops were one-eyed giants. There were times when they used to be misunderstood, due to their appearance, as being crude and barbaric. In actuality, they were a serious species with a keen sense of obligation. They had a stubborn and unaccommodating side to them as well, but they had a strong sense of responsibility and took pride in their creations. Glenn was sure that because they had accepted the order, they would absolutely be able to get the surgical tools together.

Nevertheless, he would be lying if he said that he didn’t have his doubts about Memé Redon, who still had her eye cast down to the ground, muttering to herself.

***

“What in the world is this…? Hmm, what the…?” Arahnia muttered.

“You’re pretty sloppy,” Sapphee said. “Dr. Glenn is better at this after all.”

“Well of course he is! I’m a total amateur!” Arahnia’s cries echoed.

Glenn thought Arahnia’s words weren’t that unreasonable. She was an expert with a needle and thread, but now she was sewing up blood vessels instead of fabric.

“Hmph. I never thought there was anything more elaborate than lace embroidery. Doctor, are you always doing this sort of work?” Arahnia continued.

“Well, stitches aren’t really something we handle everyday… Miss Kunai is obviously the exception,” replied Glenn.

“I-I suppose so…”

They were in one of the rooms of the clinic. Arahnia had come to practice suturing again. Although she could use all four of her arms at will and was a quick learner, suturing technique was something that even Glenn had needed a long time under Cthulhy’s supervision to master. If anything, he would have been upset if she learned it overnight.

When working in the clinic, Arahnia wore a nurse’s outfit that matched Sapphee’s. Naturally, it had been modified in various places to fit an arachne.

The hat and red-and-white apron were the same as Sapphee’s. The sun-blocking inner liner was fundamentally the same as Sapphee’s as well, but it was tailored to match Arahnia’s four arms. All of her fake fingernails had been removed for her work, and she had put her hair up in a single ponytail high on her head instead of her two usual pigtails.

When working as a designer, she looked outlandish and fashionable, but now more importance was being put on neatness and practicality in her attire. Putting on the clothes most suitable for the time and place was a personal fixation of the arachne.

“I don’t really mind. The chance to sew someone up doesn’t come often. You can thank this body of mine.” Fortunately for Arahnia, there was someone willing to let her borrow her body to practice suturing.

That was Kunai. The wear on her right arm was severe from overwork and stress, and even if Glenn sutured it back together, it would still come apart easily. This was convenient for Arahnia’s practice, and Kunai would visit the clinic every day to offer her right arm up as a practice partner.

“They really are small… How is that, Kunai? Forget the blood vessels, the nerves are what’s really hard to see,” said Arahnia.

“You can fiddle with them any way you like, I don’t mind. Still, to think you’re really working here in the clinic, Miss Arahnia. When I first heard, I thought it was a joke,” said Kunai.

“I would never joke about something this important… Though I am regretting the choice a little,” Arahnia added under her breath. The exhaustion on her face was plain to see.

Glenn imagined it was only natural for Arahnia’s exhaustion to be growing worse as she stared day-in and day-out at the nerves and blood vessels in Kunai’s right arm. If it weren’t for Skadi’s surgery, Arahnia and Kunai would never have met like this. As hard-pressed as she was, Arahnia managed to sew Kunai’s arm back together.

As a result of the days of continuous training, Arahnia’s skill was improving before Glenn’s eyes. Just as he had expected, Arahnia’s needlework was the real deal. If she kept improving like this, she’d be able to do a reliable job when it came to be time for the surgery.

“Do the very best you can, Arahnia,” said Sapphee.

“Sappheeee… I’m so exhausted. I want a drink…” Arahnia pleaded.

“Nope. You always drink too much. No drinking for the time being.”

“That’s just cruel…”

Sapphee was stern with the complaining Arahnia. Glenn even felt a hint of enjoyment in Sapphee’s voice as she looked at the worn-out arachne. The two of them had a complicated friendship, and Glenn honestly felt it was a little warped in some respects.

Sapphee had told Glenn that Arahnia was scheming something, but with Arahnia swamped with work in the clinic, he didn’t think she had the time to wrap them up in one of her plots. For the sake of her technical improvement, he couldn’t afford to ease up now. He planned on strictly looking after her and pushing her to her limits.

“About the Lady Draconess,” Kunai said as she was being stitched up. “I keep trying to convince her myself, again and again. She should be receiving some correspondence from Dr. Cthulhy as well, but she is still opposed to performing the surgery. It seems she is hard set in her way.”

Glenn wanted to tear his hair out. He couldn’t perform surgery without the patient’s consent. There wasn’t any doubt in Glenn’s mind that neglecting her heart disorder was painful for Skadi, and he couldn’t understand why she was so opposed to the surgery.

Kunai, sitting in front of him, had once hated doctors, and there had been circumstances where she had refused treatment, but Glenn had never heard about Skadi hating doctors as well. Skadi had a deep, close friendship with Cthulhy to begin with, and had been the one to install her as hospital director.

There didn’t seem to be any way to quickly get rid of that heart of hers, besides surgery. If they couldn’t perform the operation, then Arahnia’s frantic special training and the needles he had requested of Memé would all come to nothing.

“Why exactly is she so against it…?” Glenn pondered.

“It may be a weird thing to hear coming from me, but I think she believes it’s her fate,” Kunai said with a self-deprecating smile.

Fate. It was true that whether one was human or monster, there would be a time when one’s life came to an end. Glenn’s job was saving lives, but no matter how many he saved, there was no escaping death when it finally came. Of course, while that was true, there were also undead races, and examples of monsters like Kunai created by sewing dead tissue together, so this rule might not necessarily apply to them.

“The Lady Draconess loathes the long history of monsters and humans fighting one another, and exerted herself to develop this city where monster and human live together,” Kunai said. “To the Lady Draconess, building this city was her mission. And now Lindworm is one of the most prominent cities on the whole continent. It’s not often a city grows this populous and has an economy of this size.”

“That’s true…” Glenn replied.

“The Lady Draconess feels that she has accomplished everything she needed to. Therefore, if she should die from a disease, then she believes it must be fate. She has no regrets. At least, that’s what I think her reasoning is.”

Though this seemed like it was only a guess, if the bodyguard that was always by Skadi’s side saw it that way, Glenn imagined it wasn’t far from the truth.

“Now that’s tricky, isn’t it?” Arahnia said. “I’d just be happy to live as long as I could. Why, I have a mountain of things I still want to do.”

“The Lady Draconess doesn’t think such base thoughts,” Kunai replied. “But… That’s right—she’s never used the word ‘death’ in front of me before. She says she’s going to ‘return to the sky.’ I wonder if there is some kind of difference.”

“Yes. Naturally, I would be a rather base woman, wouldn’t I?” Arahnia replied, pursing her lips in a sulk.

But there wasn’t anything wrong with Arahnia’s line of thinking. It was normal for all organisms to want to live well, as long as they were still breathing. Glenn felt that as a dragon, Skadi’s philosophy on the matter differed. He also found the way she put it, “returning to the sky,” very mysterious.

He wondered if it meant that, to Skadi, the earth wasn’t where she belonged. Now that he thought about it, when he was examining her, she had said something similar—that she had come from somewhere close to the realm of the gods.

Glenn wasn’t religious, but there were many humans and monsters that held religious beliefs. That she was referencing the gods signaled to Glenn that dragons were indeed the inhabitants of the world spoken of in myth and fairytale.

If he had to choose one way or the other, Glenn shared Arahnia’s more base way of thinking about life and death. Nothing came immediately to his mind when he heard talk of the gods and their realm in the heavens. He wondered if gods became sick, if he could give a god a medical exam—these were the only types of questions that came into his head.

“However, we still need to keep trying to convince her. This time, I’ll accompany you,” said Glenn.

“Right. If we keep it up, the Lady Draconess might change her mind,” Kunai replied.

“That’s right,” Arahnia chimed in. She cut the thread with her surgical scissors. It appeared she had finished suturing up Kunai’s arm. Judging from her suture marks, Glenn couldn’t quite say she had done it perfectly, but her growth in this short time was remarkable.

Despite this, Kunai gave a disapproving shrug of her shoulders. It seemed clear that the suturing she normally received from Glenn was better, but Kunai had been the one to offer her body as Arahnia’s training partner. Glenn felt a twinge of regret, but all Kunai could do was bear with it for now.

“I know I keep saying this, but the young miss representative might just become more stubborn if you do that,” Arahnia said.

“Hm…” Kunai replied.

“Thread becomes stronger the more you twist it, but it also becomes stiff and hard to work with. I don’t think adding more people will make things better. Sometimes, you have to try pulling back… Well, I will say you don’t seem to be very skilled with diplomacy, do you, Miss Kunai?” Arahnia said as she drew out a piece of thread she had pulled from somewhere unknown. Before anyone realized it, she was using her four arms and twining the thread together as though she were playing cat’s cradle.

“You see, if you pull too strong, the thread will snap—so discretion is key,” Arahnia explained.

“Discretion, you say?” Kunai asked.

“Us monsterfolk aren’t so great at discretion, though, are we?” Arahnia said, giggling. Her gaze was pointed toward Sapphee. Sapphee had a somewhat indignant look on her face. Glenn thought that Arahnia was referring to their time in the harpy village, when Sapphee had wrapped herself so tightly around Glenn’s neck that he fainted. She had squeezed his neck hard enough to leave marks, but the one who had angered Sapphee enough to go that far was Arahnia.

The two of them really did have quite the complicated relationship. They had something that Glenn couldn’t quite figure out between them, but whatever it was might be why they were such good friends.

“In that case, what should we do…?” Glenn asked.

“If a frontal attack doesn’t work, then we have to go in from the back. If neither pushing forward nor pulling back works, then dyeing something is the best solution. If a thread is beautiful dyed, then the finished clothing will be just as splendid, won’t it?”

“Dyeing…?” said Glenn, puzzled.

Arahnia nimbly wove the thread between her fingers. In doing so, she completed a magnificent spider web between her four arms. The hexagonal geometric pattern looked like a work of art. Glenn once again thought that Arahnia’s skill was marvelous, to be able to make such a piece of art in such a short time just by fidgeting with her hands.

“You’re skilled at dyeing, are you not, Doctor?” she asked.

“Huh? No, I don’t believe so… I don’t have any experience with dyeing clothes or anything like it,” Glenn replied.

“Why, whatever do you mean? Aren’t you always dyeing Sapphee’s face red? I wonder exactly what colors you use to get the lovesick Sapphee so bright red?”

“Arahnia!” Sapphee cried.

Glenn realized that what he had thought to be a serious conversation was in fact just a way to tease him and Sapphee. With her face just as red as Arahnia had described, Sapphee went to berate Arahnia, but thanks to her superb ability to run away, the arachne had already escaped the treatment room. Arahnia was just as fast as ever, in contrast to her body’s colossal size.

“Looks like she’s got you all wrapped up, Dr. Glenn,” said Kunai.

“Well, she is playing with some thread, right…?” Glenn replied.

“Hahaha. I’m glad to see you’re doing well enough to make such jokes,” Kunai said. “Don’t think about it too much.” Kunai seemed to enjoy those types of jokes. Her expression turned gentle.

“This isn’t anything to laugh at!” Sapphee said, the only one angry, her face bright red. Glenn felt bad about it, but he found Sapphee endearing when she got angry with someone for pointing out her feelings for him.

Of course, he realized that saying so to Sapphee would only make her angrier, so he kept those thoughts to himself.

***

Glenn just kept getting busier and busier. Balancing his daily business of examining patients with making preparations for Skadi’s surgery proved to be a difficult task. He had to leave the clinic to Sapphee more and more frequently, always going in and out of the Central Hospital and the Kuklo Workshop. He had also consulted with Kunai and decided on the date he would go to the Council Hall. The day he would speak directly with Skadi was drawing near.

He felt bad about leaving Sapphee to watch the clinic while he was gone. He was entrusting her with work that he was supposed to handle, and he knew it was a burden. Although the helper fairies and Arahnia were there as well, Sapphee was the one who had it worst.

Now that he thought about it, Glenn had been so taken up with things he had to do that he hadn’t properly talked to her. Despite sleeping under the same roof, he hadn’t shown any concern for her struggles. He realized that while he couldn’t relieve the burden he had placed on her, he should at least give her some words of appreciation. He knew that she tended to let her suspicions run wild.

“You’re thinking about another woman right now, aren’t you Glenn?”

“Eh? Uh, no—” replied Glenn, flustered at being called out for his inner thoughts.

“Believe me, I understand,” Cthulhy replied, worming her tentacles across the floor as she walked forward.

Glenn wondered how she had known, and if perhaps his mentor was well versed at reading others’ minds. As he thought about it, he had heard that Cthulhy could carry on a normal conversation with Skadi. Was that because of their deep friendship or because his mentor could read everything from her expression all the way down into her soul?

Though he thought such an idea ridiculous, Glenn also found himself considering that, given Cthulhy’s unfathomable nature, it might not be so far-fetched after all.

“But right now, you need to focus only on your job,” Cthulhy continued.

“…Understood,” Glenn replied. He was worried about Sapphee, but Cthulhy was right—he couldn’t afford to be caught up with her right now.

He had come to visit the Kuklo Workshop again, this time with Cthulhy accompanying him. There was the smell of burning iron and the sound of hammers hitting steel. Through it all was the feeling of intense heat on the skin.

“This place really is hot,” Cthulhy said, knitting her eyebrows. Cthulhy was originally an aquatic monster, and fundamentally disliked fire and hot air because of how it dried out the mucus that protected her. Glenn watched her biting down on the tips of her tentacles. It seemed that the workshop was a very uncomfortable place for her to be.

“You should fix that tentacle-biting habit of yours, Doctor,” said Glenn.

“It’s just like sun-dried squid. Chewing on them relaxes me. You can chew them too, if you want, Glenn,” she replied.

“I’ll pass…”

Cthulhy had a bad habit of trying to force Glenn to eat her tentacles from time to time. The tentacles of the scylla were a delicacy, but Glenn still didn’t have any interest in tasting them. He had heard that in a region far to the west, there was a restaurant where scylla cut off and cooked their own tentacles, but he wondered if that sort of business was even successful. Their tentacles grew back quickly, but nevertheless, Glenn would be distressed to have them offered as food. Not only that, since the chefs were cooking their own bodies, it meant that no one could possibly criticize their cooking, making the situation even more complicated.

“Let’s finish this up quickly,” said Glenn.

Deep inside the workshop, the boss had taken up a position with his arms crossed. He had on the same frown as usual, and a chieftain-like dignity about him.

“Oh, you came. I wouldn’t have expected you to come yourself, Director,” said the boss.

“I’ll be the one using the tools, so it makes sense that I would want to see them directly, doesn’t it?” Cthulhy replied.

The boss pointed to a workbench covered with a high quality piece of cloth, on top of which were the freshly completed, flawless surgical tools.

“Here’s what you ordered. Nothing should have been overlooked, but please see them for yourself,” he said.

“Hmmm…” Cthulhy said, taking a scalpel in her hand. The blade tip was sharp, and it didn’t have any sort of sword-like roughness to it. The edge of the scalpel was smaller than the tip of a finger, but it was keen enough to pierce skin at the slightest touch.

Cthulhy scrutinized the scalpel, and Glenn thought that she had confirmed its integrity when finally—

“Hng.”

Cthulhy turned toward one of her tentacles and quickly ran the knife across it. Its sharp edge amputated the octopus-like tentacle with ease. The tip—a piece of flesh about as small as Glenn’s pinky—fell to the floor with a plop. The piece of tentacle wove back and forth slightly on the ground before finally falling still.

Glenn was dumbfounded, but Cthulhy wore a nonchalant look on her face.

“It cuts well. I love it,” said Cthulhy.

“…Can you please not try out blades on your own tentacles?!” Glenn objected.

“Oh, it’s fine, we’re going to disinfect them anyway.”

“It’s not just a sanitation problem…” Glenn said, at his wit’s end. The regenerative powers of a scylla’s tentacles were strong, and a small bit of it being cut off was sure to heal in a few days’ time. Nevertheless, whether it was Kunai or Cthulhy, Glenn felt there were far too many people who were rough with their own bodies. He wanted them to treat themselves more carefully—needlessly injuring oneself wasn’t something they should be doing.

“There doesn’t seem to be any problem with the quality, either. Boss, I’ll take them all. However, shouldn’t there be more of them here?” asked Cthulhy.

“Yes, thank you for your patronage. The rest are piled up in the back, please take a look,” the boss replied.

Surgical instruments were meant to be disposable. Cutting tools quickly lost their sharpness. There wasn’t time to sharpen them during surgery, and due to sanitation concerns, they couldn’t be used continuously. These conditions necessitated an appropriate number of them be created.

“In that case, can I have you bring all of this to the Central Hospital for me?” Cthulhy asked.

“Yeah. The young guys will bring them later,” replied the boss.

The Kuklo Workshop also made deliveries to the Central Hospital. As such, Cthulhy and the boss had been acquaintances for a while. The conversation between the two of them continued smoothly, as if it was all very familiar to them both.

Glenn looked at the numerous tools laid out on the cloth. With just a single glance, it was plain to see how good the craftsmanship was. The boss was speaking with abundant self-confidence, so Glenn thought they probably cut through dragon skin and scale like butter. They had been completed entirely thanks to the workshop’s high-heat forges, their highest quality ingredients, and the skill and technique of the cyclops craftsmen.

But among them all, there was one kind that caught Glenn’s eye.

It was the surgical needles. Smaller than sewing or fishing needles, a number of them were lined up in the corner. Glenn picked one up, but it was clear that they were of poor quality. They were bent, and none of them were strong enough.

“Oh, those are prototypes,” the boss said, looking at the needles. “Memé tried all sorts of things to make some, but… They definitely aren’t something that can withstand practical use. She’s been stressing over a lot of different things as well.”

“I see,” replied Glenn. If he were to put it harshly, they were a failure.

However, he knew very well that one couldn’t achieve success without failing repeatedly. Glenn and the others were asking for something quite unreasonable in order to make sure the surgery was a success. He imagined Memé’s trial and error was all just natural progress.

“Gonna go meet with Memé, Doctor? She’s locked herself up in the workshop’s prototyping room and won’t come out. If you say you want to see her, I can call for her, but…”

“…No, I’ll hold off for now,” Glenn said, shaking his head after a moment’s hesitation. He was sure that Memé’s head was filled with thoughts of her first real assignment right now.

Memé was still young, but she was an excellent apprentice that had the boss’s favor. This was the first job of a craftswoman with a bright future ahead of her. Right now, Glenn wanted Memé to focus on her own work and not worry about anything unnecessary.

Without saying anything, Glenn had been staring for a while at Cthulhy as she verified the quality of the tools to be delivered. When she noticed Glenn’s gaze, she wiggled her tentacles in protest.

“What? Why are you staring at me, Glenn?” she asked.

“Oh no, I just remembered something,” he replied.

“Are you just now noticing my beautiful good looks?”

“That’s not it… I thought back to my first operation. You summoned me out of the blue, and I had no clue why you were calling me, when all of a sudden, you had me perform my first surgery.”

“That was how it happened, wasn’t it?”

It happened back when Glenn was in the academy. An emergency patient was brought to Cthulhy’s research lab who had been unable to be admitted to the nearby hospital. At the time, Glenn had thought for sure that Cthulhy would be the one to perform the surgery, but she designated her then-student Glenn to be her assistant.

Thinking back, Glenn remembered the surgery was to remove a tumor as well.

The patient was a golem. They were a race that formed their bodies by eating mud, but it seemed that the patient had ingested some foreign substance without knowing it, which then became the core of a tumor that formed around it inside them. It had taken everything he had just to operate according to Cthulhy’s instructions, and he remembered when he—covered in mud and dirt—finally excised the tumor.

“Ever since then, you’ve done nothing but ask for the unreasonable, Dr. Cthulhy,” said Glenn.

The original reason the patient had been taken in by the academy was because Cthulhy had jumped at the chance for golem-related medical research—although Glenn was sure she hadn’t been lying when she said she wanted to save the patient’s life.

“What’s this? Do you feel bitter that I’m cleverly making good use of you, Glenn?” Cthulhy replied.

“Absolutely not. I’m able to get by now because you were so strict with me, Doctor.”

“How stupid,” Cthulhy replied, showing Glenn a smile. It had been a long time since he had gotten to see his mentor’s smiling face. Cthulhy was rarely one to show her emotions in front of other people. She always seemed languid and lazy, but the truth was that she just wasn’t skilled at being sociable. In reality, it was in her nature to hide away deep in the ocean, and living in a city wasn’t her forte. In this way, her personality was somewhat similar to Memé’s. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean he would be able to get close to Memé.

“I was strict? Hearing you use the past tense like that is rather sad. I’m still quite strict,” Cthulhy shot back.

“…I’m aware.”

“Well then, in that case, can you go and grab me some water?” Cthulhy said, reclining in a makeshift chair she had found. Glenn knew she was asking for water because her tentacles had dried out quite significantly.

The forge at the heart of the workshop contained a red-hot flame today as well. The cutting-edge forge was the pride of Lindworm, and could make extremely high-quality steel. In addition to the main forge, there were other, smaller forges scattered about the workshop with their own fires roaring, inevitably making the workshop hot. This was why the boss and Memé were so lightly dressed.

It was thought that the cyclops’ characteristic eye was what led them to specialize in smithing. Unlike the eyes of human forge masters, which were worn down by staring into the high heat of forges without end, those of the cyclops had a unique, almost glass-like membrane covering the surface. Their tear glands were also more active, which kept them protected with plenty of fluid. This meant their eyes could always maintain their moisture, and could avoid any long-term damage even when exposing themselves to intense heat. At least, that was the usual explanation.

The uncertainty about the truth behind their eyes arose from the fact that no one had yet dissected one. Cyclops eyes decayed easily, and immediately disintegrated from a cyclops’ remains. The hypothesis that they had a glassy membrane to protect them had been put forth by a scholar who had observed cyclops as they diligently worked at their smithing.

Even if the explanation had come from a scientific dissection, it would have been hard to form any sort of general understanding from observation. The dissection of dead bodies was not viewed favorably. Thus, cyclops research failed to move forward. Their eye was still full of secrets.

Their aptitude for forge work, however, was undeniable, both because of their racial temperament and their bodily characteristics.

“Glenn, what are you doing? Water, ” Cthulhy demanded.

“Yes, yes, Dr. Cthulhy, coming right up,” said Glenn.

“That answer only gets forty points. You don’t have enough respect for your teacher.”

“That’s not true. I have nothing but respect for you.”

“I don’t know about that…” Cthulhy said, looking discontent.

Of course Glenn respected her. In fact, Cthulhy had been the person to try and dissect cyclops remains during his time at the academy. She, too, wanted to know about the structure of their bodies, with their one eye wrapped in mystery. Glenn assumed that in the end, she hadn’t been given the necessary permissions.

If they could understand the mystery of the cyclops, then that, too, could prove useful in medical treatment. The secrets of their single eye—found in no other monster race—might save not only the lives of cyclops but other races of monster as well.

Cthulhy may have done as she pleased, but there was no denying she had a doctor’s sense of purpose to save lives.

“…I wonder what that information could do,” Glenn pondered quietly.

“What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Dr. Cthulhy.”

Glenn poured water into the workshop-made glass cup and handed it to his mentor. Her throat must have been considerably parched, judging by how she gulped down the water.

When it came to technical skill, the cyclops had no equal, and the Kuklo Workshop had put together the most state-of-the-art facilities on the whole continent. Glenn hadn’t given up hope that Memé would complete a high-quality, top-class surgical needle for him. Just like when he, Glenn Litbeit, had been a newbie, and completed his first surgical operation.

As he thought about it, even Cthulhy was turning her expectations toward him—both during his time in the academy and now.

Glenn wasn’t going to see Memé because that would only put pressure on her. She was a delicate girl, sensitive to the stares of those around her, timid, and had no confidence in herself, but Glenn was positive her delicate nature would create a needle up to the task of suturing a dragon’s body.

“What are you grinning about over there, Glenn?” asked Cthulhy.

“I’m just thinking about something that was funny, that’s all,” he replied.

“What a weird boy… Do you want to eat a tentacle?”

“N-no thank you…” Cthulhy was the last person he would ever want to call him weird.

When they were done, Cthulhy returned to the Central Hospital and Glenn returned to the clinic. He didn’t visit the workshop again and didn’t see Memé in the end. However, he had no doubts that Memé would bring him her completed needles with a huge smile on her face.

It was a few days later that Glenn came to regret his decision—when he received word at the Litbeit Clinic that Memé had lost consciousness.

***

Memé Redon had collapsed at the workshop.

Glenn flew out of the clinic as soon as he heard this. Fortunately, there hadn’t been any emergency patients at the clinic, so Sapphee accompanied him. They put up the closed plaque and left the rest up to Arahnia and the helper fairies.

“Memé!” Glenn cried.

Led by the boss, Glenn entered what was referred to as the prototyping room.

“She’s here, Dr. Glenn,” said the boss.

“Memé, are you okay?” Glenn ran over to where the one-eyed girl was lying down. The cyclops craftsmen all thought of Memé as a daughter and cleared the way for Glenn.

There was no response even as Glenn called out her name. He quickly checked that she was breathing.

“She’s breathing,” he said.

“Her pulse is weak, but it is there, Doctor,” said Sapphee.

“Memé, can you hear me?! Answer me!” Glenn called out to her as he placed his hands on either side of her cheeks. Her big single eye opened a little and there was an ever-so-slight movement in her lips.

Glenn couldn’t understand what she was saying, but there had been a response.

“She’s conscious. Sapphee, I’m going to get her undressed.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Sapphee used her tail to grab a pair of scissors nearby. Glenn took the scissors and began cutting up Memé’s outerwear. While her undershirt was thin, it was made of a material that absorbed sweat well. Shearing it open with the big workshop scissors was a simple task.

Her breathing was rough, so Glenn cut her clothes to put less strain on her chest. With her chest exposed, her breasts—big for someone her age—came bouncing out.

“Nh…………les,” Memé said, but Glenn couldn’t catch what it was. Part of it was because Memé’s voice was low, but the environment inside the workshop wasn’t conducive to picking up her words either. Inside the prototyping room, there were loudly roaring machines Glenn was unfamiliar with. The rumbling noises intruded upon his thoughts.

A colossal machine powered by the Waterways. Glenn surmised that Memé had been in the middle of some sort of work when she collapsed.

“She’s still conscious. Let’s have her rest somewhere quiet,” said Glenn.

“Doc, what’s happened to Memé? Is she sick with something…?” the boss asked.

“I don’t know. However, I don’t believe she has any chronic diseases, so it’s hard to believe that it’s any sort of life-threatening illness. The workshop is hot, so it might be dehydration.”

Glenn put his head against Memé’s forehead—her temperature was a little higher than normal. He contemplated whether this was the result of light dehydration or heatstroke. Yet, he knew that a cyclops should be tolerant of the heat. If she truly had gotten heatstroke, then that meant she had been pushing herself beyond her limits for a considerable amount of time.

“Either way, she shouldn’t stay here. Let’s transport her elsewhere,” said Glenn. The inside of the workshop was hot—he was drenched in sweat. Memé was too, but not to a degree Glenn considered abnormal. In which case, he thought, this collapse had been brought on by something else

“You know I told her… I told Memé to make sure she gets plenty of rest,” the boss muttered.

“It can’t be… You’re saying she had been working all day and night?” asked Glenn.

“No—I was sure she wasn’t pushing herself so hard that she’d collapse, but… This might my fault. I should have supervised her better.”

Working in the workshop was unforgiving. A cyclops’s body was sturdy, but every species has their limits. Glenn wondered if Memé had stretched her body to the breaking point. In that case, there was a high possibility that her collapse was the result of overworking.

Cyclops, being so serious and honest, were reliable when it came to their work, but sometimes unintentionally overworked themselves. There were many species of monsters who were serious about their work, but when it came to cyclops, Glenn found their solemnity was a little excessive. Memé might be the perfect example. No matter how weak to pressure she was, she still embraced her nigh-impossible task.

The other craftsmen brought a stretcher over. The clinic wasn’t far, and Glenn thought it would be best to have them carry Memé back. Sapphee used her tail to pick up Memé’s body and deftly lay it on the stretcher.

Memé’s lips moved. The humming of the revolving machine was loud, but for some reason this time Glenn was able to hear her words. He thought her consciousness might be returning.

“Needle…”

Okay, Glenn thought, she was talking about needles.

“Needles…I have to…make them…”

To the last, Memé’s words were devoted to her work.

***

Memé felt that her giant eye was spinning in circles.

She didn’t know where she was looking. Reflecting in her eyes was the figure of her former self.

Again and again the world spun. Around and around in circles.

Memé Redon had heard it a lot ever since she was a child: “But you’re a girl.”

Even when she was still an infant, Memé was captivated by her father’s work. Her cyclops father worked as a craftsman. A cartwright of everything from small wagons to massive carriages, he could make anything that had a set of wheels on it. She had heard that during the war, he even gained experience making chariots.

She had admired the massive, rustic carriages he made, particularly their decorations—the small details like the glass windows and the gold work furnishing the carriages’ roofs. One time she had even borrowed her father’s tools without permission and fixed some poorly fitted metal fixtures on a carriage’s door. Her mom had scolded her by telling her that some tools were very dangerous, but her father only praised her for her efforts.

Traditionally, cyclops craftsmen had always been men. Even now, there were some among the more elderly craftsmen that would scowl if a woman even got near a forge. Memé’s father was different. He picked up on her talent immediately and began to train her as a craftsman. It had been several years since Memé was left in the hands of his longtime acquaintance—the boss of Kuklo Workshop—as an apprentice.

There was no arguing that Memé had an interest in glassworking and metalworking. But with her natural timidity and unsociable disposition, she didn’t have the confidence necessary to get used to the unknown city of Lindworm. The craftsmen in the workshop were nice, but she was scared of the humans and other monsters. Everyone has two eyes, she would think to herself—it was something she never would have imagined, having come from a village of only one-eyed inhabitants.

As she began learning the skills and techniques needed to become a craftsman, she only managed to make her social skills worse. By holing herself up in the workshop, she never got outside to speak with other people

The boss worried about Memé, and purposely gave her delivery jobs that would lead to lots of opportunities to meet other people, but he didn’t see much improvement. On the contrary, he got the feeling that contact with humans and other monsters only made Memé’s inferiority complex worse.

There was a reason Memé’s hypersensitive mental spirit had withered.

It was the grim realities of the craftsmen’s lives.

In the long continuing war, the cyclops were never put on the front lines. They were a mild-mannered race not cut out for battle. However, they were first class craftsmen and served the monsters’ side of the war by making weapons. While they previously had made a wide variety of tools, as the long war continued on, crafting weapons became the highest priority. The skills that they maintained only pertained to war. As a cartwright, even Memé’s father had participated by producing chariots.

When Memé had come to the Kuklo Workshop, most of the craftsmen were weaponsmiths, including the boss himself. In order to live through the war, the cyclops had had to make weapons. Before any of them knew it, their skills and techniques had become specialized to creating tools of war.

In fact, the jobs that the Kuklo Workshop got the most often were those that involved making cutting tools. Kitchen knives, normal knives, and hatchets were all necessary for everyday life, but all of them were made by applying methods of weapons production. For the former weaponsmith cyclops, it was very familiar work.

No matter what they created, it had the stench of war on it. Memé picked up on this acutely. She was more sensitive than other people to begin with. She was timid and cowardly. Nevertheless, the work at Kuklo was harsh, and the techniques used to make weapons were applied to the creation of the tools they produced. This fact was too much for Memé’s overly gentle heart to endure. The work Memé sought to do involved creating accessories and ornaments—things that had nothing to do with war.

She thought that it would be better if the workshop could just make sculptures and statues instead, and she wasn’t the only one. The vestiges of war that Memé felt were also sensed by many of the craftsmen in the Kuklo Workshop. These peace-loving cyclops did not intend to work only with the skills and techniques they fostered during the war.

The craftsmen of the Kuklo Workshop were always thinking—

Give me work. Give us work. No matter how hard the article, we’ll definitely be able to make it. We’ll make products that’ve never been seen before. No matter how impossible the conditions are, we’ll surpass them. So please, give us work. The war is over. Give us work that doesn’t involve weapons. Give us work that won’t hurt anyone.

Especially because of Memé’s sensitivity to the gazes of others, and her ability to understand the emotions of those around her better than anyone else, she felt like she could hear the silent voices of the senior craftsmen around her. And this was also what Memé wished for herself.

She liked pretty things. She liked glass and metalwork. She liked beautiful ornaments. She also liked clothes dyed with lace and frills, but that was the work of the arachne. It was fine for others to make cutting tools with their uncouth hammers, only concerned with practical beauty, but she wanted to make delicate, colored ornaments with her tools.

That was why she wanted to sweep away the vestiges of war that still remained in the workshop. Of course, a workshop built in a former fortress town was itself one of those vestiges, but that motivated the cyclops even more to seek opportunity in the rebuilding of the city of Lindworm to display their prowess. They watched without saying a word, patient and still. Just as when they made weapons for the war, hiding and waiting was their specialty. Hiding and waiting for what they longed for—an era of peace.

Sure enough, their opportunity to showcase their skill eventually arrived.

Memé distinctly remembered what happened.

“A new director has come to the Central Hospital,” Kunai had said. It was a little while after Memé had become an apprentice at the Kuklo Workshop. The city council representative Skadi brought her bodyguard Kunai with her and visited the workshop. Kunai was raising her voice as Skadi’s interpreter, but the words she spoke were unmistakably Skadi’s.

“The new hospital director holds progressive ideas and will have this city’s hospital provide comprehensive medical care for monsters. What I have written here is a list of the goods she requires. Cthulhy has said she won’t accept the position unless, at minimum, this list of items can be prepared.”

Every one of the craftsmen in the workshop opened their big eyes wide and looked at Skadi. Even with the gazes of all the cyclops washing over her, Skadi’s leader-like posture never broke. At the very least, that was how it seemed to the young Memé. She wasn’t good at dealing with others, so whenever someone she didn’t know came into the workshop, it was her habit to hide herself in the back and peek out at the visitor.

“Therefore, I would ask all the capable craftsmen in the workshop to complete these items.”

The adults all checked the order form and spoke among themselves. The boss scowled. With her skills and technique still unrefined, Memé didn’t know exactly what the order form entailed. All she knew was that until this hospital director or whoever came, the workshop would have to work all day and all night.

“It seems that in the past you cyclops gentlemen made weapons.” Skadi borrowed her bodyguard’s mouth to speak to the wavering boss and his craftsmen. “The items on this list aren’t weapons, but medical equipment. I’m sure you will use the same techniques you used to manufacture weapons to make them. However, all of these tools will be used in order to save other people’s lives. Let me promise you this—the skill that all of you possess will help someone. You will save lives—far outweighing the blood that was spilled in wartime.”

It was the big job that the craftsmen of the Kuklo Workshop had been looking for. Encouraged, they were happy to display their talents to their heart’s content.

The work they received from the hospital was especially good for them. For the gentle cyclops, it was using their skills to save others—not for war—that suited them the best. Besides, being the only ones able to do the work, it was only natural for them to take it up with some enthusiasm.

Thus, the Lindworm Central Hospital became a client of the Kuklo Workshop.

Naturally, with the Litbeit Clinic operating independently from the Central Hospital, they also turned to the workshop for their supplies. The Kuklo Workshop became widely known as the biggest in the city and was so busy that even an apprentice like Memé fainted from the amount of work.

With just a small speech, Skadi had inspired the craftsmen. Memé could still remember their excitement back then. She wanted to someday become a craftswoman with skills the world needed, just like the craftsmen had been needed that day. Skadi’s words became a major motive behind Memé’s goal to become the ideal craftswoman.

Manufacturing tools necessary to save that Skadi—there was no way Memé wasn’t going to give it her all. Several years had passed since she had first set eyes on Skadi that day. After having said the workshop’s skills would help people, Skadi herself was now one of the people who needed their help.

Memé would absolutely follow through on her work.

Her enthusiasm was excellent, but her desperation to accomplish her task shifted into an obsession with the fact that she absolutely couldn’t fail. The needles she made would decide the success or failure of the surgery. With this, her hand trembled as she worked. Her face grew pale.

She only ever thought the worst. She knew this negative mindset was probably connected with her habit of looking down at the ground, but she couldn’t help it—the eyes of others scared her. They had two eyes. And having two eyes, their gaze was twice as terrifying. Arachne even had six eyes. She wondered why they all had so many—one was more than enough, wasn’t it? It was incomprehensible to her. She felt like she was going to collapse.

In actuality, she had collapsed. She couldn’t even lift her head. The world spun around her—around and around it went. Her desire to complete the surgical needles and her fear of failure combined like coffee and milk into a spiral that seemed to spin about Memé’s head.

***

Memé’s large eye opened wide.

When looking at it up close, the massive eye of a cyclops was truly powerful. Glenn had heard there was a superstitious custom among big farms to employ cyclops women. Their big eyes protected the crops from the birds, and their natural diligence and hard-work was always useful on a farm. It was said the reason they employed women was because all the cyclops men end up becoming craftsmen.

“……Dr. Glenn?” Memé said.

“Oh, you’re awake?” Glenn replied.

Memé was in a bed at the clinic. Sapphee, Arahnia, and the helper fairies were all standing by on the other side of the bed curtain. The cyclops stared vacantly for a moment, but before long she gave a surprised gasp. It appeared she finally understood where she was.

“Oh, I-I, have to make the needles…” Memé pushed aside the sheets and went to get out of bed when—

“Bleeeeerg…” She bent over and vomited in agony.

“Now now, slow down. You still need to rest.” Glenn calmly caught Memé’s vomit in the washbowl he had prepared. Fortunately, it was a light ejection, and only a slight amount of gastric juices collected in the bowl.

Glenn rubbed Memé’s exposed back. The combination of her delicate, young girl’s frame and the muscularity unique to cyclops gave Glenn a strange feeling as he rubbed.

“Ugh…? I-I feel awful…”

“There, there, you’ll be fine, but you can’t move quickly like that.”

“Nhggg…”

It seemed that Memé didn’t realize how bad a condition her body was in. Her pupil seemed to be swirling around in circles. Of course, that was nothing but an illusion, but the sincerity of emotion displayed in the cyclops’s eye seemed to express just how sick she was.

“Dr. Glenn is so kind,” Sapphee said.

“Why, he seems even nicer than when he’s talking to us, now doesn’t he?” Arahnia replied.

“Th-that’s not true…!”

“Hardworking girls sure are popular, now, aren’t they?” Arahnia added.

“I-I’m a hard worker, too, you know.”

“Yes, well, you do drink a lot, Sapphee.”

“What’s that got to do with anything, Arahnia?!”

The voices on the other side of the curtain were loud and bothersome. Sapphee had become more agitated and flustered ever since Arahnia started coming and going from the clinic. But Glenn still had a feeling that Arahnia’s presence wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for Sapphee. They had stopped peeking in because it would be harmful to the patient, but Glenn wished that at the very least they’d keep quiet.

“Aaaauuuggh… Why, why do I always get like this…” Memé said. “It’s probably just because throwing up suits me… I told myself this time would be different and worked hard… though I obviously wouldn’t be able to do it…!”

“Memé, calm down. You’re okay,” Glenn replied.

“I have no idea what’s going on…”

“You collapsed at the workshop.”

“Huh? I-I-I did? W-Why?”

“I’m going to examine you now to figure that out.”

While it was premature to come to any conclusion, Glenn had already arrived at an approximate cause for Memé’s collapse. In order to make the surgical needles, she had neglected her health to a considerable degree.

The symptoms were dizziness and vomiting. Yet, the color in Memé’s face now that she was sitting up in bed didn’t appear to be all that worrisome. Glenn thought there might be a possibility she was just overworked, but—

“Eeeeeeeeek!”

—or at least, he was thinking that up until Memé let out a scream.

“M-my clothes… They’re…c-c-cut up…” she stammered.

“Sorry—it was an emergency, so I had to cut them. I’ll be sure to compensate you for it,” Glenn replied.

“Th-that’s not what I mean!” Memé said, desperately hiding her chest.

Memé’s shirt was a simple garment that was tied around her neck and only really concealed the front of her. She had nothing on underneath, so just cutting the shirt at her chest left her breasts exposed. She had been immediately transferred to the clinic, so Glenn thought it only natural that she would still be naked.

“Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! I can’t take it anymore!” Memé stuck her head under the covers as she screamed. She had always been quick to start crying, but now she seemed truly upset. “Everything’s been seen! Everything, everything, everything!”

“…Memé, just calm down a little, okay? I need you to come out,” Glenn said with a sigh.

“Bleeeeerrrrg!”

As soon as he spoke, Glenn handed the washbowl to the vomiting Memé, exasperated.

“It’s going to be all right, okay?”

“It’s not okay at all! No way!”

“Well, can you at least take your head out from under there for me?”

Memé squirmed about under the covers for a moment before finally poking her teary-eyed face out.

“I want to get a good look at you. Can you bear with it for a bit?”

“O-okay…”

“Thank you. Now first, can you show me your eye?”

“Unghhh…” Memé said, giving a sniffing reply.

Glenn peered into Memé’s pupil.

In this world, there were researchers who would observe the movements of the heavens and track the paths of the stars in order to discover the truths of the world. Glenn couldn’t even imagine such ideas, but it was said that by looking at the far-off stars, one could understand the nature of the world that he lived on.

There was a massive state-of-the-art telescope that these astronomers used for just such a purpose. One time,when Glenn was visiting the Kuklo Workshop, he had seen one of the lenses for that telescope. It had been obvious that the skills of the Kuklo Workshop were indispensable for observing the stars in the far-off skies.

Looking at Memé’s eye, Glenn thought of that telescope lens.

“Nhhhg… Don’t, look at my eye. It’s embarrassing…”

“It’s okay—relax your muscles.”

“I c-c-can’t do it… D-don’t look at my face,” Memé said, covering her eye and shaking her head.

“Just relax. Take some deep breaths.”

“Haaa, fwaaah.”

Glenn worried that if she got too flustered she might vomit again and tried to speak to Memé as gently as possible. The girl was the very manifestation of an inferiority complex, and if he didn’t deal with it properly, he wouldn’t be able to examine her as he would like.

When he examined a monster’s body as a doctor, there were times when Glenn felt that the natural beauty of a monster body was much greater than any work of art: a pure, untouched piece of glasswork.

For example, the beautiful construction that allowed centaurs to specialize in running. The elegance produced from a mermaid’s curves, befitting their swimming and diving. The patterns and feel of a lamia’s scales, sometimes even sensual in their appearance.

“Nhggg…” Memé groaned.

“Bear with me for just a moment,” Glenn replied.

“Hng… You’re too close!”

The eye of the cyclops was a biological peculiarity that possessed this beauty of form and function. Rather than peeking at far-off stars through a telescope, Glenn felt that peering into the deep, abyssal hue of their eyes might actually bring him closer to the cosmos.

There weren’t any abnormalities in Memé’s eye. Nevertheless, Glenn thought it had something to do with her collapse.

“U-um…? D-Doctor…?” asked Memé

“Oh, forgive me. I sort of spaced out on accident,” responded Glenn.

Glenn knew he couldn’t tell Memé that he was fascinated by her eye. If he said that to her, the embarrassment of her self-deprecating spirit might cause another collapse.

“It looks like your pupil’s movements are a little slow. Is your head a little cloudy?” Glenn asked.

“Hng… I-I’ve felt dizzy since trying to get up…” Memé replied.

“Look at this for me,” Glenn said, taking his pointer finger and holding it up in front of Memé. “Can you follow my finger with your eye for me when I move it?”

Glenn then moved his finger left to right. Memé’s eye began following Glenn’s finger, but—

“…Ugh-huuurrrrk,” Memé once again clasped her hand over her mouth.

“There you go, there you go.”

It seemed her nausea still hadn’t subsided. When she hunched forward, her cleavage—extremely developed for a girl her age—was exposed by the sheets and stared Glenn directly in the face. He tried as much as possible not to look and rubbed Memé’s back.

“Dr. Glenn…”

“Please don’t look at me like that. You can go back after you get some rest.”

Tears had welled up in Memé’s eye from the nausea. The eye of a cyclops was built to easily gather tears, as they protected it from damage. Thus, one of their unique traits was a propensity to quickly become teary-eyed.

“Uh, u-um…”

“Yes, is something wrong?”

“Can I, um…you know…clothes…”

“Oh, yes, right. Sapphee, is there anything that Memé could wear?” Glenn said, calling out beyond the curtain. No matter what happened, he couldn’t let Sapphee know that his gaze had been on the breasts of a tender young girl.

Then—

A single layer of cloth came flying in, as if it had been thrown over the top of the curtain. It was a shirt with a plain design. They did have a change of clothes prepared in the clinic just in case, but Glenn couldn’t recall this particular shirt.

“Why, please, use that.” The voice belonged to Arahnia. “I improvised. Now the size might be a little off, but please do forgive me.”

On the other side of the curtain, Glenn caught flashes of her segmented spider legs. He couldn’t believe she had been able to complete a piece of clothing in such a short time. It was unexpectedly quick work. But he was thankful that she was such a caring woman.

“Th-thank you… Miss Arahnia,” said Memé.

“Please talk to me any time you want to order more of those gothic lolita clothes, okay?” Arahnia replied.

“Th-that’s supposed to be a secret!”

“Oh my—I shouldn’t have said anything.”

It seemed to Glenn that Memé and Arahnia were somehow familiar with one another. Judging by Arahnia’s words, she seemed to have something to do with Memé’s casual clothes, but even ignoring that fact, they seemed to be close. That was very rare for Memé.

If Glenn had to pinpoint what the two of them seemed to share in common, he’d have to say it was that both of them weren’t very sociable. Arahnia was amiable enough, but because of her personality problems, she didn’t appear to have many friends. Glenn wondered if that had anything to do with why the two had hit it off so well.

“You too, Doctor!”

“Y-yes!”

Just as he was thinking unpleasant things about her, Arahnia’s piercing voice came flying over the bed curtain. “You need to show more consideration after cutting up a young girl’s clothes like that! Clothes are a woman’s best friend, so I’ll ask you to be more careful!”

“F-forgive me,” Glenn replied.

Arahnia spoke harshly when the topic turned to clothing. Glenn unconsciously sat up straight at her words.

Memé happily put on her clothes. Despite how embarrassed she had just been, she didn’t pay any attention to Glenn’s gaze as she put on her clothes—no, he thought, it was probably more that she was so embarrassed that all of her focus was on getting dressed. Thanks to this, Glenn was given a good look at her white back. Even from behind, he could identify her ample breasts in front. Flustered, Glenn quickly averted his eyes.

The shirt Memé put on was plain, but constructed well enough that it was hard to imagine it was made in such a short time frame. He was sure Arahnia had used her own personal silk to make it. Glenn was speechless after being aided by Arahnia’s impossible-to-imitate craftsmanship.

Though judging by the short length of the shirt, and the way Memé’s lower abdomen peeked out slightly, showing her well-toned abdominal muscles, there were defects that Arahnia couldn’t do anything about. Memé herself didn’t seem to mind it at all.

“Shall I make some eye droplets, Doctor?” asked Sapphee, but Glenn simply shook his head.

“No, I don’t think those will be necessary this time. Memé, does the smell of mint make you feel sick or anything?”

“N-n-no…”

“All right, then. Sapphee, could you bring over a mint potpourri? I think it will make things much easier if we can calm her down with herbal fragrances.”

There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary with her eye in the first place. Wearing her shirt now, Memé had calmed down. Her face was still a little pale, but her symptoms weren’t life-threatening.

“What is wrong with her, then?” asked Arahnia.

“It’s simple. She just had a bout of nausea,” replied Glenn.

“Nausea? Like a hangover?”

Glenn had heard Arahnia loved to drink. Hearing the word nausea, it seemed she immediately associated it with being hungover.

“I-I didn’t drink any alcohol or anything…” replied Memé

“It isn’t from being drunk or hung over… It’s the same in principle to what we call ‘carriage sickness,’” Glenn explained.

“A carriage…?”

In Lindworm, carts were generally pulled by centaurs, but across the rest of the continent the main method of transportation was still horse-drawn carriages. Practice was required to ride horseback, but riding in a carriage didn’t require any special skills. As a result, those not used to riding in carriages often got sick.

“B-but Dr. Glenn, I haven’t ridden in a carriage or anything either…” Memé protested.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s true. But the principle is the same.”

“P-principle…?”

“Your semicircular canals. Inside your ears, you’ve got organs that sense motion and gyration. This is true both of humans and cyclops. Almost all monsters possess these organs.”

In lamia, the semicircular canals had developed abnormally. As such, they could move freely through the tops of trees, and even be active upside down without any issue. Sapphee often hung from the ceiling, and it wasn’t particularly difficult for her to do so.

Glenn tapped on his own ears. “Cyclops are actually weak here,” he said.

“W-we’re bad at moving, is that what you’re saying? I guess it’s true that I’m not great at exercising…” Memé replied.

“It’s a little different from that. The function of the semicircular canals is normal. It’s just that a cyclops’s vision is too good. They have a wide field of vision, and they have good eyesight. However, with only one eye, they are incapable of binocular vision, and if they fix their gaze on something, then nothing else can enter their vision.”

With one eye, they were very skilled at intently fixing their gaze on something. But their wide field of vision wasn’t good at capturing a lot of things at once. It was hard to say that their kinetic vision was particularly excellent either.

“For example, if a cyclops stares at a windmill, or is in a space similar to a carriage that simply moves up and down, because of their extremely good vision, their eyes and semicircular canals stop being able to work together properly. Just standing up will feel like the room is spinning around them, or conversely, they’ll feel like they’re standing still when moving…”

“Oh…” Memé said, her eyes widening to tell Glenn that she had remembered something.

“The cyclops are a race that can get carriage-sick even without riding in a horse carriage.”

The link between the semicircular canals and one’s vision was extremely important, but cyclops had specialized vision. With their lack of binocular vision being their key weakness, it was easy for the connection between their eye and semicircular canals to break down.

“Depending on the circumstances, there are some cyclops who start to feel like they’re having a hallucination. Their consciousness grows vague and hazy… It’s a phenomenon that happens due to how good their vision can be.”

“Yeah…”Memé replied.

“You seem to remember something.”

If Glenn was dealing with a human, they wouldn’t collapse just from nausea. However, there were times, such as after nearly drowning, a human would lose function in their semicircular canals and lose the ability to tell up from down because of the water getting into their ears. For cyclops, even a simple case of nausea—when severe enough—was sufficient for them to lose their sense of equilibrium and collapse.

“What in the world happened?” Glenn asked. “Unless you had been gazing at something massive rotating around for a long time… something like a water wheel or windmill… I wouldn’t think you’d become nauseous.”

“Th-that’s, um, probably because I had been making the needles,” replied Memé.

“I see, so that was what did it.” Glenn had been able to guess that much. What he was curious about was exactly how she had been making them and what connection that had to a cyclops experiencing carriage sickness.

“Th-this will work out perfectly. I’d like Dr. Glenn to take a look at them anyway… And Miss Arahnia, too.”

“…Show me? ” Arahnia said, cocking her head to the side. But Glenn also felt that since Arahnia would be using the needles in the operation, it would be a good idea for her to look them over.

A mint fragrance floated in from the other side of the curtain.

Knowledgeable when it came to medicine, Sapphee was also well versed in preparing medicinal herbs and plants. Glenn assumed the herbs she was currently using were those she had harvested from the Aluloona Plantation—a place Sapphee was on very good terms with. It was a pleasant fragrance, and mint was effective at calming the mind.

“Well, I’m a useless cyclops anyway, and honestly I can’t do anything well, but…this time, this time , I really did try my best.”

Memé’s face no longer looked pale or flushed. Glenn imagined it was because her symptoms had been relieved, thanks in part to the minty smell.

It appeared there was a glimmer of hope in sight for Memé’s needle production. Reflected in her large eye was a confidence in her own work—the confidence of a craftswoman.

***

Rumble, rumble . The colossal machine groaned as it spun around and around.

It was so massive that it was difficult to figure out what the machine was, but it seemed to be some giant hexagonal contraption that spun horizontally. The power it possessed was the pride of the workshop and came from currents flowing in from the large water wheel. Glenn couldn’t even imagine how many centaurs worth of power the machine could demonstrate.

Around and around it went.

It was situated in the prototyping room where Memé had collapsed. Even looking at it, however, Glenn had no idea what was what.

Having brought the now completely healthy Memé back to the Kuklo Workshop, Glenn was once again visiting himself, this time with Arahnia in toe.

Memé constantly apologized to the cyclops they met as they passed. She bowed her head a great number of times in apology to the boss as well. She was more regretful that she had caused trouble for the workshop than about having collapsed. Her loyalty was admirable, but her overzealous apologies had the opposite effect and made those she spoke to unsure of how to react to them. The boss looked like he had been forcing a smile as she bowed to him.

But that was neither here nor there.

“A spinning wheel…” Arahnia muttered as she looked at the machine.

At her words, Glenn realized the horizontal rotation of the machine did appear similar to a spinning wheel used to wind thread. The wheel looked just a bit bigger than Memé. The fact that the craftsmen were able to operate such a machine reflected just how skilled the cyclops of Kuklo Workshop were.

Yet, it wasn’t winding thread. With the power of the water mill, the machine thinly stretched and stretched the raw materials it used to make one thing—steel.

It made threads of steel.

“A-at first I tried to temper iron to make the needles…” Memé explained. She faced the ground and mumbled her words, so it took some effort to hear what she was saying. “B-but they were too brittle to use on a dragon’s body… I changed the material and tried all sorts of different things, but a sturdier needle would be as expensive as the materials I was using to strengthen it, and it would take a lot of time to manufacture, so I couldn’t mass-produce them…”

“That makes sense,” Glenn replied. Memé’s problem was balancing both the quality and the quantity.

“That’s when I used this machine!” Memé proclaimed, proudly puffing out her chest. Her large, healthy bosom sprung up and down. Although she had gotten changed, she was wearing nothing below her undershirt. Despite how easily she got embarrassed, she was careless with these other details.

“This machine…what exactly does it do?”

“By rotating, it stretches out materials. This time I stretched out steel and made wire. That’s right—not a needle, but a wire!”

“Ooh…” Glenn said unconsciously, in admiration. It was attacking the problem from a different angle.

“By stretching out wire like this, cutting it short and using it in place of a needle, it can be mass produced, and it’s made with quality steel so it should hold up to practical use. As far as the strength of the materials, I’m sure they’ll only hold out ten or so uses when stitching up a dragon’s blood vessels, but by manufacturing them this way, I can make sure there’s enough made that there isn’t any problem with them being disposable! This way, I’m positive it’ll prove useful for the dragon operation, though I’m sure nothing someone like me would make is going to be used anyway, but I thought that if I could do at least this much then maybe Dr. Glenn would even use them for me, even if you were reluctant about it, so I—”

“M-Memé, you’re too close,” Glenn said, cutting her off.

“Ah!”

Glenn was happy to have things explained to him, but somewhere along the line Memé’s face had gotten right in point-blank range of his. Memé stepped back in a panic and cast her eyes to the ground. The way she leaned in as soon as she started talking about her work was very much the nature of a craftswoman.

Glenn had to agree that she did have a point—this was way more efficient than forging them one at a time.

As far as strength was concerned, he expected that as long as Memé was responsible for the needles, they would be fine. After all, even he hadn’t gotten the idea to use wire for the surgery—that was how Memé’s creative power had manifested itself.

Giving a meaningful cackle, Memé took out several of the needles. Glenn figured they were prototypes. Memé handed the wire to him and Arahnia. He thought to test it by trying to bend the needle, but it was harder than he expected. With his slender arms, the needle wouldn’t bend even when he tried putting more power into it.

“They’re surprisingly…durable,” he concluded.

“R-right?”

Glenn thought that since Memé had referred to it as a wire, it would easily bend, but that didn’t appear to be the case. He could imagine it bending if he used all of his strength, but that showed just how sturdy the needle was. It appeared that Memé had perfectly followed the conditions laid out in the order form after all.

“Hmm. Well, this seems fine to me, does it not?” Arahnia said, staring fixedly at the needles. All of a sudden there was a thread attached to the back of the needle. Even without an eye to pass through, the silk of the arachne was adhesive and stuck to the needle. “Having no eye not only seems to simplify manufacturing, but this could pass through smaller spaces. And my silk fastens on just fine. Dr. Glenn, with this, could it be possible to skip piercing through the dragonscale and slip it between them instead?”

“It’s a possibility. For how durable lizardfolk scales are, they do have gaps in between them. If dragonscales are similar, then…” Glenn pondered. Scales appeared to uniformly cover the entire body, but there were a surprising number of gaps. Lamia and lizardfolk had spaces in between their scales, so it was possible that dragonscales might be the same.

“We’ve got some hope in our sights now, don’t we?” Arahnia said. “How truly spectacular little miss Memé is. It looks like we have a future woman workshop boss in our midst.”

“P-please don’t compliment me—I know you just have ulterior motives. You’re planning on demanding something from me later, aren’t you?!” Memé said, looking down at the ground and growing more and more embarrassed. “I-I still need to make the finishing touches, but with this, your surgical needles are finished. All that’s left is for you to inspect them, Dr. Glenn.”

“Okay. We’ll need Dr. Cthulhy to look over them, too, but…I think this is good, Memé,” Glenn replied.

Memé once again mumbled something in a voice too quiet for Glenn to hear properly, but for now her first assignment had been finished. She had done it all without incident—well, Glenn couldn’t exactly say that, but whatever the case may be, she had completed the job.

“You’re just adorable, Memé. Truly precious,” said Arahnia.

“Yes…but I don’t want you fainting any more, okay?” Glenn remarked.

“Why, Dr. Glenn is here for her, are you not?” Arahnia replied.

“I can’t be everywhere at once… It’s best you avoid collapsing again.”

Glenn stared up at the machine, groaning as it rotated. Memé had collapsed from looking at this machine. In order to observe the wire-making process, she had sat unmoving in this prototyping room, watching the hexagonal machine spin around. Judging from the large amount of gastric juices in Memé’s vomit, she had not eaten anything at all while she had been monitoring it.

Memé’s eye, spinning around in circles—Glenn felt like he could perfectly imagine it all.

“U-um, w-well, Dr. Glenn…” Memé began.

“What is it?”

“Th-th-thank you…for entrusting th-this job to me…” For Memé, these words were a rare occurrence—truly rare words that lacked any sense of self-deprecation or servility. She always hid her true feelings by putting herself down. Seeing her true self behind her timidity wasn’t difficult, but it was very rare to hear it straight from Memé’s mouth.

“You even helped me when I collapsed… Um , I’ll do my best not to collapse again,” she continued.

“That’s right, it’s important that you rest properly, okay?”

“I, um, understand, and, well, one other thing.” Memé hesitated, but still tried to say something to Glenn. “B-but don’t get the wrong idea! Don’t think that I’m a good worker just because of this! I’m still just a totally useless newbie, got it? Don’t even think about trying to ask me to do any more work!”

Glenn wondered if it was just his imagination that Memé sounded like she actually wanted him to give her work again.

“I’ll have to consult with the boss about that. But I really think it’s incredible that you were able to pull this off so well at your age.”

“Hehehehehe,” giggled Memé.

“Also, you need to lift your head up properly and look in front of you. Tripping and bumping into things is bad enough, but it would be really serious if you got hit by a cart or something like that, you know.”

Memé gave a startled gulp.

She had even fainted this time, so Glenn assumed that she had learned the risks her body faced. He thought that saying she might get hit by a cart was a little too frightening a threat to make, but nevertheless, there were many centaurs pulling carts and carriages in Lindworm. Such an accident wasn’t an impossibility.

“Th-that’s a little too much…” Memé protested.

“Still, it’s dangerous,” Glenn insisted.

“Hnnng, d-do I really have to?”

“There are already a lot of accidents involving cyclops to begin with.”

With one eye, cyclops had no sense of distance. While most had no trouble walking through a town they were unfamiliar with, going around with their head down like Memé only increased the risk of injury.

Finally giving up, Memé brushed up her bangs and raised her head. Her single eye aimed straight at Glenn’s face.

“There we go—see? Your face looks great,” Glenn replied.

“Ah, um, eep!” Memé repeatedly opened her mouth to start talking, then immediately closed it. It appeared that she really was unused to looking directly at a person’s face. Her cheeks turned red.

“You’re a cyclops,” Glenn said, “so it isn’t strange for you to have only one eye, okay?”

“But I… My eyebrow.”

“Your eyebrow?”

“I-it’s weird right?”

Now that Memé mentioned it, Glenn noticed that her eyebrow leaned to the left a little.

Just like their eye, cyclops had only one eyebrow. However, there was individual variance in where the eyebrow sat on their face. Memé’s eyebrow leaned noticeably to the left. But the lean itself didn’t indicate any issues with her overall health.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just some individuality. Not just your eyebrow, but your pupils and iris are totally healthy. You should have more confidence in yourself.”

Being sick had a completely different meaning to it from being “weird,” but Glenn feigned ignorance of this variety in meaning.

With her face still raised, Memé gave a blushing smile. Whether it was because of the shape of their massive iris, or because of the light reflected in their eye, Glenn didn’t know, but when a cyclops smiled it seemed like their eye was sparkling. It wasn’t a just a figurative feeling—their eye did indeed hold a mysterious, beautiful tint to them.

Then—

Memé’s face quickly grew even redder, and she let her bangs fall back in front of her face.

“Y-y-you pervert doctor! M-making eyes at me, th-this is sexual harassment!” Memé cried.

“H-huh?”

“I’ll, I’ll sue you! Got it?!” Memé ran away, her face beet red.

While he knew it had come from embarrassment, Glenn could only stand dumbstruck by the brutal parting words that Memé had left as she escaped.

“…I guess my treatment was a little too drastic.”

“I do wonder,” Arahnia said. “Even if it was too much, it goes without saying that that girl’s submissive attitude is quite the serious condition.”

Glenn wondered how long it would be before Memé made her name known as a craftswoman. At the very least, it would be difficult until she fixed her personality, so he imagined it was still a while off for her. He imagined the next time they met she’d have some kind of self-deprecating comment for him. Either that or she really would accuse him of sexual harassment.

But there was just one thing Glenn thought about it all.

Her eye really was beautiful. It resembled a shiny decorative ornament—like the kind of work that Memé Redon would someday make with her skilled and dexterous fingers.

Glenn wished with all his heart for that day to come.