The Doctor of Monster Town - Chapter 2

The old me seemed to have been far richer than I’d imagined.

There was only one clinic in all of Monster Town.

March Clinic—and it belonged to me.

Monster Town had no antitrust laws, either. I could hardly imagine how high I used to set my prices.

Wait… Was that why someone had beaten me up?

Harboring a secret little thrill of anticipation, I opened the clinic’s doors. Then I discovered the situation wasn’t quite what I’d imagined.

The residents of Monster Town were tougher than the last. None of the few I’d seen over the past several days looked like the sort to be troubled by ordinary aches and illnesses.

After all, whether they were three-headed hellhounds, unicorns, man-eating flower spirits, fire-treading centaurs, or insect people covered in compound eyes… their names alone told you their physiology differed completely from that of fragile humans.

Which meant my clinic didn’t sell cold medicine or IV drips.

It sold rows and rows of healing potions in flasks, just like items from a video game.

There was a weighty tome of potion-making in the clinic. Even without my memories, I could follow its instructions and make the potions.

This required practically no skill at all.

So how had I managed to corner the market before?

“Because only your potions work on monsters,” Parsifal patiently explained. “Healing potions are usually for play— for humans. But you’ve received a god’s blessing, so potions that pass through your hands are different.”

Honestly.

That sounded exactly like the spiel of a charlatan.

But when I considered that the story might have come from me, and the money had certainly gone to me…

Well, being blessed by the God of Wealth still counted as a divine blessing, didn’t it?

After a brief period of preparation, the clinic officially opened for business.

Whether because of the earlier violent incident or not, the place was deserted for the first two days. Not a single customer came through the door.

Whenever my neighbors saw me, they couldn’t get away fast enough, much less come buy one of my potions.

They seemed terrified of me.

What was there to fear? It wasn’t as if I could be some angel-of-death doctor.

Then one day, I happened upon the owner of the flower shop next door after he’d been injured. He was a man-eating flower spirit—the kind with a flower for a head and a human body.

While watering the flowers in his shop, he’d accidentally let one bite off half a length of his vine.

Seizing my chance, I offered him a healing potion for free.

The shopkeeper hesitantly accepted it.

The shopkeeper cautiously drank it.

The shopkeeper’s eyes lit up.

And just like that, the flower-shop owner became my first loyal customer.

Not only did he begin visiting the clinic frequently himself, but he also brought me plenty of new buyers.

Soon my clinic was filled with the delightful sound of gold coins rolling in.

Parsifal didn’t seem remotely surprised by this turn of events.

While I grinned over the accounts, he sat quietly beside me reading.

Firewood crackled in the hearth. Parsifal lowered his eyes as he turned a page, and in the firelight he looked like a medieval oil painting hung in a museum.

He really was beautiful.

But this wasn’t right.

“Didn’t you say you were my assistant?”

I looked from my own frantically bustling self to Parsifal, the picture of peace and leisure.

Which of us was the boss, and which was the assistant?

At that, Parsifal gave a soft “Oh,” as if the question had only just occurred to him.

He slowly set down his book and rose to take the ledger from me.

The moment he moved, however, he covered his mouth and broke into an uncontrollable fit of coughing.

Parsifal struggled to straighten his back, apparently hoping to look less wretched. But when what little color he had drained from his face, that brave attempt to hold himself together only made him resemble a crystal doll about to shatter.

I rushed forward to support him, patted his back until he could breathe again, and fed him a potion.

Parsifal docilely rested against me as I gave him the medicine. It took a long while for him to recover.

He nuzzled my neck with trusting dependence. “Sorry, Doctor. I’ll help you as soon as I’ve rested.”

“…Better not,” I said.

With a body that looked ready to collapse in the slightest breeze, what help could he possibly be?

He was better off quietly serving as eye candy.

I was speechless. What on earth had possessed my pre-amnesia self to invite such an exalted burden home?

Yes, he worked for free, but what use was he?!

Surely I hadn’t hired him purely because he was pretty?

I lowered my eyes to Parsifal, who was resting with his eyes closed.

Uh…

Actually, that wasn’t entirely impossible.