TN: I think this is now the longest chapter yet, so I won’t get to release the bonus chapter this week if I want to release the Monday chapter on time, but don’t worry its comingThursday.
On my day off, I visited the Duke’s mansion for the first time in a while, and found Serea writing something in her room. It looked like a script for a play.
“What are you doing?”
She looked up at me and happily answered.
“I’m trying to make a picture show. I want to give the children something to look forward to. It’s a leisure activity where one person tells a story while flipping through the pictures. I heard that it was very popular in my grandfather’s generation.”
So, it’s like reading a picture book to a child.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but the literacy rate is still low in our country, so let alone the children not even the parents can read the picture books to them. As a result, there is no demand for publishing books for children, and only a small number of books are available for children of the aristocracy and the wealthy. Picture books are expensive things and aren’t something that that can be found at an orphenage. Serea, your way of thinking is amazing.
“Oh, so what kind of story are you writing?”
“I was thinking of writing ‘Swim, Taiyaki-kun[TN-1]!’, it was popular in my country, and was based on a popular nursery rhyme.”
......What is a taiyakikun?
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about Taiyaki-kun being roasted over an iron plate every day.”
“Wait a minute, is that really something for children?”
That’s just hellish torture, isn’t it?
“It is a children’s story though, it was based off of a nursery rhyme.”
“It’s not torture......So what kind of nursery rhyme is it, what’s it about?”
“Taiyaki-kun, fed up with such a life, flees and enjoys a short-lived freedom.”
“Well of course you’d be fed up with a life like that...... I can’t help but have a bad feeling about the short-lived part, but how does it end?”
“The happy and free Taiyaki-kun gets carelessly caught in a trap, that makes him realise that he is, at the end of the day, just a taiyaki, and in the end he gets eaten.”
“It’s out! It’s out! You can’t let orphans hear a story like that!”
That’s a ‘’bad end’ isn’t it? It’s a tragedy!
“Serea, among the children of the orphanage there are a lot of them who came here after running away from horrible parents or workplace right? A story full of despair, that says that says that you will always be caught and killed in the end and that help won’t come is the worst kind of story you could tell at an orphanage!”
“Well, it makes sense when you put it that way...... It was really popular in Japan though.”
I feel like I’ve just witnessed Serea’s deep rooted darkness.
What kind of country is Japan, where such a story became very popular? [TN-2]
“Is this taiyaki a word for a slave or domestic animal? It’s just too sad. Please, let’s go with a more hopeful story.”
“Hmmm, why don’t we go with ‘Hayabusa’s errand’ then?”
“I like it. The title alone sounds great. What kind of story is it?”
“It’s about Hayabusa, who is asked to run an errand. He runs into all sorts of trouble, but with his wits and courage, he overcomes them and manages to complete the errand.”
“Wonderful! That’s the kind of story I want the children to hear!”
I think it’s good for them to hear this fairy tale like story.
She is absorbed in writing the story. It would be best if I don’t interrupt her......
We plan to visit the hospital next week.
I’m sitting at the table recording everything Serea tells me about hospitals. I stop and ask her to explain if I don’t understand something. She really knows a lot when it comes to hospitals.
The most interesting part of information are the ‘medical records’. They make a special notebook for each patient and record their diagnosis and treatment. Doctors usually write in something like a diary or ledger, but in a hospital where many doctors work together, it’s difficult for doctors to know each patient’s past treatments.
Even if you ask the patients, they often don’t know what they suffered from it the past, what kind of treatment they had received, or what kind of medicine have they been given, so in the end, they are treated only according to their current circumstances, and long-term treatment is not possible.
We have to keep one medical record for each patient at the hospital, and keep it for the rest of their lives. We would need as many notebooks as there are patients, but I think it would be a better approach. What a great idea!
Also, the concept of bacterial infection, and disinfections.
Tiny, invisible creatures cause disease!
I wonder if people will really believe this......
You have to boil everything in hot water to disinfect it, but the best way to do that is actually alcohol!
In short, spirits. The ingredient in spirits that makes you drunk is effective for disinfecting.
Looks like we will have to distil and mass produce spirits that we don’t even drink.
I wonder if the breweries will accept doing this work......
No, for starters we have to get data and prove that its effective.
We need to experiment so we can properly quantify how useful it is.
There was a knock at the door, miss Bell brought us tea and snacks.
Miss Bell is surprised to see us sitting at a table and wholeheartedly writing something. She is probably thinking that we are playing.
“That’s impressive......Are you studying?”
“No, we aren’t studying, we are doing our official duties.”
“Are the two of you really eleven......?”
“We can’t afford to lose.”
“To whom......?”
It’s finally time to visit the hospital.
It’s crowded. In the past, there were a lot of people who couldn’t see a doctor even when they were very sick, so the very fact that a hospital was built, and anyone can see a doctor subsidised by the government is a huge breakthrough. Before even if poor people did call doctors, they wouldn’t even come.
By establishing the hospital, doctors who could treat only for to five people a day going from house to house, could now treat more than twenty people a day. This is all thanks to my elder sister.
However, there were times when a person injured at work and just bandaged up, bled out while waiting for his turn to be treated at the hospital. This won’t do, the system needs improvements.
After the clinic hours are over, I gather all of the doctors and the other staff for the meeting.
There are five doctors and fifteen nurses. That’s still not enough. We need to increase the number of people, but first we need to improve the system.
“Please divide the hospital into at least three departments. Those being surgery, internal medicine and emergency aid.”
“Sur, Surgery......?”
“Surgery is for things physical injuries and broken bones and internal medicine is for things like colds, stomach aches and fevers. The surgery department would be responsible for things like sewing up and bandaging wounds or doing operations, and the internal medicine department would be responsible for things like giving medicines to patients. Even if you are all doctors, everyone has something that could be called their specialty right?”
“That’s right.”
“Decide on a chief physician, make a window for accepting patients, and distribute the rest of the staff accordingly.”
“That would certainly be more efficient.
The director seems impressed.”
“So, what is the emergency aid department supposed to be?”
“It’s a department that gives top priority to those who need to be treated immediately and will die if left to untreated. We don’t want to have people bleed out while waiting in line.”
“Hmmm, that certainly sounds like it would be effective.”
I explain everything about the medical records next.
“No, that’s impossible! Every doctor has a different way of doing things, and you would have to share your skills with other doctors. All doctors would object to that!”
Even the young doctors are against it. Aaah, I see, so that’s why doctors don’t like showing their records to each other.
“......If you compared trivial things like that to the cost of a person’s life, you would change your mind. If the knowledge of the best treatment methods is shared between everyone, medicine would be advance faster, and many more lives would be saved. If good treatment methods and medicine exist, but are hidden and monopolized the ones who will suffer are the citizens.”
“......”
“For starters try it, and then verify the effectiveness. Please.”
They don’t look very enthusiastic. I didn’t think that this would be an obstacle......
“Don’t you think that medicine isn’t the property of one person, but a shared asset by all mankind? Even when it comes to all of you, you didn’t personally come up with everything you know, right? You became doctors after your teacher taught you most of what you know. Was there never a moment for you when you saved someone by teaching them a treatment that they were unaware existed?”
“There was......”
“Then please.”
Saying that I bow my head, and Serea follows suit.
“I understand, we can’t say no after your highness went to such lengths in order to ask us to do it.”
All right! It looks like we will be able to complete today’s task.
And now, Serea will take over the explanations.
“As for the prevention and treatment of diseases, are you aware that the majority of them are caused by ‘microorganisms’, beings so small that they are invisible to the naked eye?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of someone working on that theory. It isn’t widely accepted yet, but you sure are informed!”
The doctors are surprised.
“The scariest ones are contagious diseases.”
“Certainly, there are many diseases that can be passed from person to person......”
“The majority of diseases are caused by bacteria and viruses, the aforementioned microorganisms. They are the reason diseases spread. The small creatures, invisible to the naked eye, enter the human body and multiply.”
“There certainly are oddballs conducting research on this topic, but I’m surprised that even the royal family believes in that theory...... Do you really believe that those things exist?”
So, there are people in this country doing research on this topic. I’d like to talk to them at some point.
“Yes, I do. Food poisoning for instance, where many people eat the same food and fall ill at the same time, is caused by bacteria. You eat spoilt food and fall ill, but the ones who caused the food to go bad are the bacteria.”
Everyone seems sceptical.
“In order to prevent the spread of diseases, we need to kill these bacteria. For example, surgical tools are always washed and boiled before use, right?”
“Yes, it is empirically proven that even raw water that can upset your stomach, can be made drinkable by boiling it, it’s the same principle.”
“You should do this for each surgery. Also, don’t use the same instrument on multiple patients in a row without boiling them again. That also applies to everything else that would go into the body.”
“Well, I mean...... We would need a lot of spare instruments...”
I think they should hear this from me as well.
“It’s necessary. Make up a proper budget and buy them.”
As for the need for disinfection, Serea has another idea, so I had her continue.
“For things that can’t be boiled, like wounds, the best thing to use is alcohol.”
“Alcohol......”
“It’s the ingredient that makes you drunk in strong spirits. I’m sure it’s known that it can prevent some wounds from getting infected.”
“Yes, I believe that it’s used as a kind of treatment on the battlefield. It’s more for the soldier’s peace of mind than anything else though.”
“It’s not just for their peace of mind. It’s definitely effective. Alcohol is effective in killing bacteria. When you soak fruits and foods in alcohol, they don’t go bad right? It’s the same principle. It can also prevent the human body from festering.”[TN-3]
I’m in charge of the money problems right? I’ll take over from here and explain.
“Start with the cheapest alcohol you can find. It’s enough if we can get data that alcohol is useful in preventing infection.”
“Data... is it?”
“There will always be people who oppose this kind of thing and say it’s not necessary, but we can silence them. We just need to prove with data that this actually works.”
“Ahh, I see......”
“I’m hoping you can somehow pull it off.”
“Yes, understood. We will try it out.”
“Please do. If we manage to prove it works, I think I can get them to increase the production of alcohol.”
“Some of the doctors are gonna drink it thinking it’s a waste.”
When one of the doctors said that everyone laughed.
Please be serious, I beg you.
“That aside, I’m really amazed. Are the two of you really eleven?”
“We get that a lot these days......”
When we left the hospital, the wind was blowing fast and black clouds were gathering, a storm was brewing. Thunder was rumbling in the distance, so Shreegan’s men hurried the carriage back to the palace.
With the thunder came heavy rain.
“Aaah, well this is no good!”
Shreegan, Serea and I rushed into the palace, where the maids were waiting to pick Serea up.
“It can’t be helped...... Serea-sama, please spend the night at the palace.”
At night, lightning was flashing, and thunder was roaring.
The room next to min, the one my sister used before, is where Serea should be sleeping.
I wonder if she is scared?
Rumble rumble, boom!
The thunder struck so close!
She’s scared, isn’t she? She definitely is!
I knocked on her door while hugging my pillow.
‘Come in’ she said, so I did.
“Shin-sama, what’s wrong?”
“N-no, nothing’s wrong, it’s just that there was a lot of thunder, so I wanted to make sure you weren’t scared.”
Boom! Rattle, rattle. Rumble, rumble!
“I...I mean well...”
Serea opened the curtains, put on a fluffy negligee, and sat on the bed looking at the thunder through the window.
“Serea, aren’t you afraid of thunder?”
“I’m not though?”
“How!?”
“Lightning is a natural phenomenon of static electricity discharging from the clouds. You know that thing when you are wearing woollen clothes, and you touch a knob, you can see a spark? It’s a big version of that. It’s not like the devil or god is dropping it from the sky.”
Having knowledge from your past life is amazing! I can’t believe you aren’t afraid of thunder!
“Are you afraid of thunder, Shin-sama?”
Rumble rumble. Boom!
I squat down......
Serea taps on the bed.
“Come in. We’ll sleep together tonight.”
“Eh, can I?”
“Yes.”
I timidly crawl into her bed, and we pull the covers over ourselves together.
Serea softly pulled me into her bosom.
It’s soft and warm and smells sweet.
It stood up. I’m in a bit of a bind.
TN: Looks like it’s standard to finish a chapter with Shin being a perv now. It looks like the author wants to rush through the improvements ‘arc’ if I can even call it an ark and get to more important things. I can’t say I’m against that too much though, I for one can’t wait for the inevitable meeting with the heroine.
[TN-1]: I’m keeping the ‘kun’ in this part just to make it obvious that it’s supposed to be a “person” in the story. If you guys think it’s unnecessary I can remove it.
[TN-2]: To be fair, when it comes to stories vs the real world, they are usually inversed. In hard times the most popular types of stories are comedies and happy ones, and conversely in happy times tragedies become more popular.
[TN-3]: I mean people were using alcohol and other things to treat wounds for far longer that the existence of bacteria was known. But no point in nit-picking too much.
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