Parallel World Pharmacy: Chapter 1 Episode 1

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The Meeting with Charlotte and The Divine Art of Water

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The information came bit by bit.

The room was made of stone and the ceiling was low.

A red tapestry hung on the stone wall.

The window was small and dim even though it’s daytime.

There was a fireplace in the back of the room. In it, firewood was crackling as it burned.

He laid on the bed covered in rustling bed sheet, it smelled like straw.

He was perplexed as to where the heck this European style building was he carried to actually was.

“There, there”

“Where is this……?”

He asked the girl while feeling uncomfortable.

“Falma-sama, you were hit by a lightning! Do you not remember?”

She moved in close to his face as she looked at him with great worry. She looked to about 10 years old, with her angelic smile pointing towards me.

She wore a simple dress with a white apron over it. Her beautiful, glossy, pinkish gold long hair drops down to her shoulders. A beautiful girl with blues eyes that drew you in had a white headdress demurely placed on top of her head.

He thought it was cosplay, but his impression said that it lacked imagination.

He tried to get up quickly, but his muscles where weak and did not allow for it

“No, actually I can’t clearly remember….. Who are you?”

When the girl heard that, her smile disappeared, replaced with a sad face.

“Did you mean that you have forgotten about me? 　It seems you were struck by an unusual blue bolt of lightning.

“I’m sorry, it seems to be. I might have gotten amnesia”

She then cleared her throat, straightened her face, lifted a little bit the hem of her skirt, and did a curtsy.

“Well then, I will introduce myself once again. I’m your servant, Charlotte. Please call me Lotte as usual. Along with my mother who was summoned by Master, we have been serving you in this mansion since you were a child. Ask us for anything Falma-san”

It seems the mother and child work together in this mansion as live-in employees. He thought about it, but shouldn’t he bring this kid to the police because of child labor? Falma-sama was called out the second time. Because he was called out many times, he was finally aware.

“Falma? Me?”

(What is that, a name for some kind of pharmaceutical company?)

His mood became sensitive. He wondered if that’s just a nickname given by her.

“Yes, you are Falma de Médicis-sama”

de Médicis.

He remembered that Medici was a french sounding family name that ruled medieval Florence. You generally wouldn’t make a mistake of that with someone who has a Japanese face.  Then it dawned on him.

“Would you show me a mirror?”

Perhaps it might not be a mistaken identity, he had a bad feeling about that.

“I’ll bring it now”

It was obvious that his body was differed   from his former self, even without looking at the mirror. The hands and arms he saw were too small. No matter how he looked at it, they appeared to belong to a kid. Not to mention that the race wasn’t even the same, in the first place…

“Whaa!”

When he looked into the small hand mirror, what he saw was a Caucasian boy with blond hair, blue eyes, and a goofy face.

“This is impossible!”

When he said that, he told his body to rise up from the bed and it listened, he then looked out of the window.

What filled his view was a foreign town resembling those of medieval Europe. And extending outside the window were people who wore old-fashioned clothes, coming and going. A lively marketplace. The sound of bells coming from the bell tower filled the air.

He was flabbergasted, his mouth wide open.

Lotte lightly tapped him on the back as she became worried with him in a daze.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry, I’m feeling slightly unwell.”

(Given that this is not a dream, was I reborn, then?)

But he doesn’t believe in an unscientific phenomenon such as reincarnation, but now that the affected person is himself, he might believe it.

(I wonder how I died. Could it be…… Could it be death from overworking?)

Although it didn’t occur to him how he died, death from overworking was the first thing that comes to his mind. His working hours were exploitative. It surpassed the limits of flex time or unpaid overtime.

When he calmly calculated his working hours, he came up with over 20 hours a day. Because of that, he had been living in a sleeping bag in a corner of the laboratory. Although blaming the workplace is like barking at the wrong tree. He himself chose to be exploited at work, hobby = work was the mindset of what was once a workaholic person.

He died.

And he was reborn. Considering it a good thing, he resigned himself to accept it. He thought so, but.

(Impossible! This can’t be good!)

Nevertheless, he never gave up the sliver of hope that this was just a dream.

(I beg of you, make this a dream! I still haven’t put together a thesis on the data the I had left behind!)

Because of the condition of his previous life, he was rolling in regret.

He remembered what’s called a reality check. There is a way to check if the phenomenon or event that occurs right there and then is in a dream or not. He held his breath. It doesn’t hurt when you’re in a dream, and you can continue to live. But after one minute, he coughed it out grandly.

“Fwaa! Gehoo, Gehoo”

He, who dangerously stopped breathing, saw the girl cutting in.

“What are you doing? Seems like you are having fun playing”

Lotte stared at him blankly, and showed him a carefree smile. This servant child had an impression that was well acquainted with relatively tragic circumstances.

“No, I was not playing. Though it would seem so”

(This world is real? Did the lightning strike restored the memories of my previous life?)

As he unintentionally became perplexed, the girl’s hand held on to his arm. It was then he noticed it, both of his arms were wrapped in bandages.

“What this?”

“Ah, Falma-sama! You shouldn’t move suddenly, doesn’t it hurt?”

He unwrapped the bandage, his arm was coated with a dark red ointment. He wiped off the ointment with the bandage, the painful looking keloid ran from his shoulder to his upper arm, burnt by the lightning’s electric current. Both arms.

Lotte covered her mouth with both hands, her pale blue eyes widening upon seeing the scar. She made a sign of prayer towards the wound.

“Your scar from the lightning…… Looks like the Crest of the Holy God of Medicine. I guess the Medicine God protected you”

“The scar of the lightning strike, I think when the lightning crawled and burned my skin, it made a Lichtenberg pattern”

“Yes?”

“Hmmmm, no.”

Since Lotte looked puzzled with a smile on her face, he paraphrased it as “The scar made by the lightning” However she believed that it was a holy symbol granted by the Holy God of Medicine. She said it’s for a person to survive a lightning strike.

(Well, certainly it is so)

Because she had devout faith, his inelegant words were spoken ambiguously

And so he learned that it’s safer to just conceal the scar that resembles the Medicine God’s brand.

“Ah, that’s right, I brought some delicious sweets. Please  have some! 　It will also calm you”

Lotte placed beside him something like a wafer and an empty silver cup.

“Thanks for the food. How about you?”

“I couldn’t possibly! The master should not give such expensive things to their servants, and should just leave them as they were.”

Even though she said that, Lotte looks like her drool will drip down any moment. Her feelings seems to have been reflected on obedient face.

“You don’t have to decline, you need to fill up your stomach”

“Uuu, do you really mean in it, Falma-sama?! Really mean it?!　Then, thanks for the food! ”

Sweets are expensive in this world, so servants cannot easily taste them. That’s why Lotte was really delighted when he said that.

“You want to eat one more?”

“Ah *ulp*, no way!　Are you sure? Absolutely?”

“Yes, yes, absolutely”

Because she ate with great relish, he gave her more than half. Just looking at the situation, it became an escape from reality and his mind was healed

“My cheeks seems to melt away……. Ah, Falma-sama, I’m getting thirsty. Will you use a Divine Art like before?　Can I have the water you make? The water that Falma-sama produces is very delicious”

Lotte pleaded to Falma while holding out a humble wooden cup towards him.

“What? Divine Art?! Water?”

His voice almost squeaked. He was reincarnated from a different person, there was no way for him to gain the knowledge about this world other than to live in it. He thought that he had to play along with her, but he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

“Falma-sama is a master of the Divine Art of Water. No way? did you forget about the Divine Art?”

Although that was supposed to be his specialty. Her face then momentarily turned pale.

Seems like that being able to use Divine Arts was the proof of being a noble.

“So, what would happen to me if I can’t use it?”

“I do not want to even think about it, but……”

If he was not able to use Divine Arts any more, he wouldn’t be recognized as a noble. His father would disinherit him, and he’d be chased out of the mansion as a commoner.

“I’ll keep it a secret! I know nothing! This is a favor for receiving the sweets! A, a great amount of gratitude!”

Lotte waves both hands as she kept her eyes closed.

“If you bear that much gratitude. Will you leave me alone for a little bit? I will try to remember the Divine Art”

Rather than saying that he wants to remember, he just wants to be left alone.

“That’s right. Please slowly recuperate”

To invoke the creation of water, she told him he must imagine the form of the water in his mind, it will surge and pool from the hands. She left the room as saying she’d finish the laundry and go shopping.

He would be exposed to the everyone if he couldn’t use Divine Arts. He’d be driven out of the mansion, with no food and would probably die a miserable death.

In this world, something like that was possible.

If he’d ever be expelled from the mansion, he must set himself up with work before going out in the cold. If all else fails, he had no choice but to go join the war, Falma got depressed just thinking about it.

Therefore he decided to deal with recovering the Divine Arts.

“Water….!”

He concentrated his attention on both hands, which were above the wooden bowl and imagined water in his mind.

Water.

He was a pharmacologist is Japan, he had deep understanding of water molecules.

He fully understood the elemental form, energy state diagram, and even the spin states.

However, what could that knowledge be used for?

(It’s no use huh?)

He felt like a great deal of time had passed

Then his blood flow was getting warm and an unusual phenomenon was  occuring on his arm’s scar.

He realized the scar was emitting a strong bluish-white color, an intense neon light shot out.

(What is this luminescence?)

Nervous and surprised, sweat was oozing out of both Falma’s hands.

But the amount was too big for it to be just sweat.

“Sweat….. no it’s different. Water! It’s Water!?”

Water gushed out and didn’t stop. Rather than coming from his body, he felt like it’s calling out a power of a different dimension. He doesn’t want to flood the room, so he stuck his hands outside the window beside him in panic. At the same time he felt some relief as water gushed out like a fountain.

“Stop, stop, STOOOP! 　Stop it! ”

Lotte didn’t told him how to stop it. When he imagined the water turning off completely, the production of water had stopped.

“Fu ……”

He took a big sigh.

“Falma-samaaaa!”

A soprano voice can be heard from outside. When he looked down out of the window, he saw Lotte looking up and waving at him in an herb field.

“It’s water, does that mean you remembered it?!”

“Sorry, you got wet?”

“I got wet! It’s refreshing ~ I like it! ”

Because it rained, she was spared her daily work of watering the herbs. And so Lotte laughed.

“What a relief…..”

Thus, he recovered his Divine Art of Water.

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Proofreader: Masadeer