“I heard that you helped me during that process, is that right?”

Lumiere, who had finished her story, asked while holding Tamia’s hand.

Tamia hesitated for a moment before nodding briefly.

“……I see. Then perhaps that help is related to my missing memories?”

Tamia couldn’t answer Lumiere’s second question and just looked at her.

Lumiere nodded with a smile.

“Karl said you might not be able to answer. It’s okay. That’s enough. He said the anti-exius will arrive soon. He said it would be able to help me.”

“……Ah.”

Tamia clenched her fist with a happy face at the news that the anti-exius would arrive soon.

Lumiere, who was watching her, reached out and hugged Tamia.

“……I don’t remember how or in what way you helped me, but thank you, Tamia.”

Tamia shook her head and hugged Lumiere tightly.

The two shared each other’s warmth without saying anything for a while.

Lumiere smiled and pulled away from her embrace.

“Well, now that the situation seems to be sorted out……”

She said, getting up from her seat and putting on her coat.

“Shall we go prepare for revenge?”

* * *

“Really, how can I ever repay this debt……”

A gaunt man grasped Chris and Gustav’s hands with his hands stained with plant dye, expressing his gratitude.

Tears welled up on the face of the man who was embracing his child and wife.

The man was a pharmacist who had come from Berhe.

In his hometown, there was no one who didn’t know his skills.

People lined up saying they recovered better after taking the medicine he made than being treated by ordinary doctors.

And coincidentally, his hometown was that very city with the port leading to Cissus Island, Wingkears.

“My father was also a pharmacist, originally from Cissus Island. And father learned how to compound from my mother, that is, my grandmother.”

The pharmacist explained with a bitter smile how he came to make the antidote.

He said it was a formula passed down from his grandmother’s grandmother that he had modified and completed.

“People often mistook flower poisoning for mental illness, but I knew it was a side effect of mishandling the flower.”

It wasn’t often.

Once or twice a year.

He said that that flower, which supposedly didn’t grow well elsewhere, could occasionally be seen in the fields of Wingkears.

Because it looked similar to a flower called ‘raccoon’ that poor people picked to eat, people sometimes mistook it and ate it raw, causing problems and coming to him.

At first, his father treated these people, and later, the man treated them.

Somehow, a young man heard about this and came to him, saying there were such people in this distant land too and asked him to take a look just once.

The amount offered was too substantial for him to ignore, so the man gladly crossed the sea with his family on a ship.

That became a tragedy.

He and his family were held captive for 4 years.

“They bullied me to make medicine that prevents poisoning from the beginning, not just a neutralizer. With threats of not showing my family, I had to somehow make the medicine.”

“You’ve been through something truly terrible. You’ve suffered a lot. This is settlement support money sent by our President. It’s modest, but I hope it helps.”

The man handed him money that could be used in Berhe.

This person had saved his life by rescuing him from that horrible place.

And now he was giving him this support money too; the man sobbed, not knowing what to do.

“I, being locked up in a small room, making only medicine, I seem to have grown weak. I wasn’t someone who cried this often……”

The man tried to hold back his tears by pressing his eyes with his wrists, but it wasn’t easy.

His wife and daughter, who were watching him, embraced him.

He soon couldn’t hold back and began to sob loudly.

It had been a terrible 4 years for him and his family.

He was especially sorry for his young daughter.

Four years for adults and four years for a child were not the same……

Chris and Gustav quietly waited for the man to calm down.

There was still some time before the ship they were planning to board would depart.

“Oh yes, I heard you helped my wife and child.”

The man who had wiped away his tears turned to Mark, who was waiting to board the ship together.

Mark was waiting to move to another region where his family was.

His ship was scheduled to depart about an hour later than the pharmacist’s ship.

“I heard from my daughter that your child is also sick? A disease where the limbs stiffen and green spots appear on the hands and feet. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. There were no suitable doctors to treat her domestically, so these people helped me. Now I’ve found a doctor and am getting treatment.”

“I see. That’s good. Although I haven’t examined the patient precisely, from what I know, I think that disease might be ‘Gurutos Syndrome.’ It commonly affects children under 5, and if treatment is delayed, it can cause the lungs to stiffen, leading to inability to breathe.”

Mark was surprised and opened his eyes wide at the pharmacist’s accurate identification of the child’s symptoms.

The pharmacist smiled awkwardly and took out a medicine bottle from his bosom and held it out.

“You said you found a good doctor, but I prepared this just in case. I wanted to do something for the person who saved my wife and child……”

“This is……”

“The recovery period is more important for that disease. Make sure to provide food rich in vitamins and iron, and have them take this together. It’s not a special medicine, you can think of it as a nutritional supplement. Just in case, I’ve included the formula and ingredients here. You can show it to the doctor.”

Mark clutched the medicine bottle with trembling hands.

The two heads of their respective families, who had struggled to protect their families, embraced each other silently.

“Well, everyone, it’s really time to say goodbye now.”

Chris and Gustav patted the shoulders of the two men with haggard complexions.

Before boarding the ship, the girl ran to Mark and Gustav and hugged the two men tightly.

“Thank you, both of you.”

“……Take care.”

“May the blessing of travel be with you.”

The child smiled brightly and waved her hands to see off the two men.

The child’s back figure running toward her mom and dad looked brilliantly radiant in the sunlight.

* * *

“Lumiere!”

Elina showed a bright smile and embraced her despite Lumiere’s visit without any notice.

“How long has it been since we last met and you’re here again? Did you miss me already?”

Had something good happened in the meantime?

Elina’s face looked much more vibrant than when she saw her a few days ago.

Lumiere hugged her back and said gently.

“I missed you, and I have something I want to tell you. Is he still here by any chance?”

“Huh? He?”

“The playwright. Henkel Raus.”

Upon Lumiere’s words, Elina called for Henkel right away without asking why.

Henkel appeared with ribbons on both sides of his head, having been playing something with Michael.

The sight of a middle-aged man nearly 190cm tall wearing two white lace ribbons.

Elina sighed and touched her forehead at that unsightly scene.

“Couldn’t you have at least taken those ribbons off before coming?”

“Well……”

Henkel glanced down at Michael clinging to his leg, looking cautious.

Michael, whose eyes were sparkling with delight at seeing Lumiere, quickly shouted to Elina.

“We can’t take them off! It’s a penalty! I won the word game earlier. We promised that the loser would wear ribbons in their hair all day!”

Michael spoke proudly, straightening his shoulders.

“Well, well? Losing a word game to a child, and you still call yourself a writer?”

Luka protested indignantly at Elina’s scolding.

“But I don’t know the words kids use these days. Do you know what ‘supre’ means?”

Supre?

Even for Elina, it was a term she’d never heard before.

When she looked at Michael with a confused face, the child smiled brightly and said.

“It means ‘super pretty’!”

“No, how can we compete with abbreviations? Then do you know what ‘geuban’ means?”

Michael shook his head with round eyes at Elina’s counterattack.

“That’s cheating!”

“……N-no, it’s not!”

“Cheating! Wrong! So take those ribbons off now.”

“Hmph, that’s not fair……”

Michael pouted but removed the ribbons he had firmly placed on Luka’s head.

Lumiere, who had been watching the scene, bent down to the dejected-looking Michael and said,

“Hello, Michael. If you have any ribbons left, would you put one on me?”

The child nodded vigorously with a happy face.

Clink.

“Well, we’ve had tea, and it’s quiet around, so shall we get to the main point now?”

“I appreciate your directness.”

Lumiere put down her half-empty teacup and placed the unfinished script she had kept in her bag on the table.

“You said this story was lacking, right?”