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, the
ir 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 perc
eptive 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.”
Monster Girl Doctor Vol. 3 Page 9