AWDC Chapter 39
by Volare“Who is that woman?” I asked my companions involuntarily. I had been busy creating plans for the desert cultivation area and village roads, and had only been to this establishment twice.
“Her name is Salomé, and she’s said to have come from the capital,” Kent explained. Certainly, the woman’s face had a sophisticated air, different from the local village girls.
“Kent, you seem to know a lot,” Jim said teasingly.
“This guy has already been here eight times.”
“Sulke must have come at least five times. I can’t say anything about myself.”
The companions here often worked together, but were all single.
By the way, Ladapole had successfully gotten married last month and had left the single group.
“It’s strange that a bar opens as soon as I get married,” he never forgot to complain.
Anyway, he was happily able to get a wife in his mid-thirties. Nothing could change that it was cause for celebration.
However, it was natural that we too were starting to get interested in women. Even while engaging in idle chatter, our eyes would inevitably wander to the women in the establishment.
And, as expected, Salomé was a standout.
Several days later, a woman was standing by the riverbank on the outskirts of the village.
“Oh, my head hurts,” Salomé groaned.
“Damn, I drank too much tonight.”
The establishment had a base salary, but it also included a commission. In other words, the more customers one served and the more they drank, the more money the woman who served them earned.
Some customers would say, “Tonight is my treat,” and offer drinks to the women in the establishment as well. Of course, the man would pay for the woman’s drinks.
Therefore, women would accompany and drink with men who treated them.
The more Salomé drank, the warmer both the establishment and Salomé’s pockets became.
“Sis, you can really hold your liquor. Here, have another one.”
Some male customers, with the intention of getting Salomé drunk and taking advantage of her, kept urging her to drink more and more.
However, Salomé had been doing similar things at an inn in the capital for many years. Her constitution was also strong when it came to alcohol.
It was the male customer who got drunk first.
But the heavy drinking still took its toll. As she staggered home, she suddenly felt nauseous and crouched down by the riverbank.
“Damn it, don’t put such cheap liquor in the establishment!” She couldn’t help but curse as her head throbbed.
Before she knew it, she had run to the riverbank and was vomiting up everything in her stomach.
“Gah, gah.” What an unsightly figure she was. But her nauseous stomach seemed to still have things to throw up.
At that moment, someone gently stroked her back, which was trembling with sobs.
It seemed a man had approached her from behind without her noticing.
Normally, she would have been startled and rejected the man with curses.
But now, she didn’t resist having her back stroked.
“You drank too much. You should throw up more. And then sleep. If you take this medicine when you wake up in the morning, you’ll feel a little better.”
The man observed Salomé for a moment, decided she was alright, and left without doing anything.
Salomé woke up the next morning with a heavy head. She remembered the unsightly events of the previous night and took out the medicine packet the man had given her.
It was wrapped in white paper, which was still precious in this world, and she could tell that it was not a fake.
Salomé swallowed it with water.
“Bitter. What is this bitter stuff? Even for medicine, this is too much.”
But, “Good medicine is bitter to the mouth.” She could feel the nausea in her stomach subsiding.
Salomé realized who the man was.
“That’s one of the group that often comes to the establishment. I think the customers called him ‘Doctor’ or ‘Doctor’.”
(If I could use that customer…) Salomé had a smug look on her face.
Krim also knew who the drunk woman was.
That night, he had been attending the birth of a young couple’s child in the village. The young couple were paper-making colleagues, and since it was their first child, he was worried.
In this world, midwives usually delivered babies, and doctors rarely attended.
However, he had heard news from the midwife that it was a difficult birth, so Toma and he had rushed over.
Krim had seen several births, but had never experienced such a difficult one.
“If this continues, both mother and child will run out of strength and won’t survive. I’ll perform a cesarean section.”
Toma immediately decided to perform the surgery and gave instructions to Krim, who was assisting, efficiently.
“It would be better during the day, but if we wait for dawn, they might not survive.”
Saying that, Toma decided to operate. Krim assisted.
The surgery was successful, and both mother and child were safe.
“Wah!” Krim felt relieved when he heard the baby’s cry.
He was tired, but the sense of accomplishment from saving a patient as a doctor made his steps lighter.
The woman he encountered on the road that night was Salomé.
He immediately recognized her as a woman from the establishment when he saw her drunk and crouched over.
He had been searching for herbs with Toma and had made stomach medicine and was carrying it around. He felt good about having saved the baby.
“If you drink this, you’ll feel better,” he said, and didn’t hesitate to give it to her.
Four days later, Salomé found Krim at the establishment.
“Doctor, thank you for the other day.”
Salomé approached him with the best smile she could muster.
“Oh, it was nothing.”
Krim hurriedly stood up and replied.
“Oh, Krim, since when did you get involved with someone like that?”
Jim immediately stirred things up.
“No, it’s not like that,” he denied, but everyone was looking at him with curiosity.
Tonight, the single men had gathered at the Mulan Inn with the usual members.
The fact that the beautiful Salomé had called out to Krim was a major event.
After that, we interrogated Krim with our companions, but we didn’t find out much.
Krim’s stammering answers were not convincing.
For Krim, he had only helped a drunk woman, but he thought it would be embarrassing for Salomé to spread it around, so he pretended not to know anything.
Of course, we pursued our suspicions deeply. Unmarried men are jealous of any man who has any success with women.
Krim took on all of that jealousy alone. In order to determine the future of the romance, we started showing up at the Mulan Inn more often.