Monster Girl Doctor Vol. 3

by Yoshino Origuchi

  So I hope that in front of Dr. Glenn, I will always be his reliable senior professional and assistant.

  ***

  I have an awful, terrible confession to make.

  My…

  My mother was a thief.

  My beautiful mother was greedy. There was always something she wanted. What made it worse was that she didn’t know a single way to curb her own desires.

  Her modus operandi was shrewd. She would use her natural beauty to con the men who approached her and control them. Even when she would make her men steal for her, and snatch things from others, she made sure never to get her own hands dirty.

  The men that she ensnared wouldn’t even balk at committing a crime if it was for her sake.

  My mother stated that the one thing she absolutely wouldn’t do, whether directly or indirectly, was murder someone. But even that felt suspicious to me. She was a woman who would do whatever was necessary to get what she wanted. If, for example, she had used the chaos of the great war to take someone’s life, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all.

  I had always thought her behavior was wretched—being unable to restrain oneself from wanting something, the inability to endure the fact one couldn’t have something. As such, she was a woman who would take advantage of any sort of good will or kindness that was directed toward her, and do anything in order to satisfy her desires.

  It was only natural that I detested her.

  Nevertheless, my mother’s blood runs through me.

  My mother thoughtlessly had intimate relationships with many different men, so I don’t know who my father is. My mother didn’t neglect me at all, but I wouldn’t say that she cherished me, either.

  She probably just saw me as a by-product of her escapades in seducing men.

  How unfortunate—to have such an ugly and indecent woman’s blood in my veins.

  Not only that, but I am similar. I am very much like my mother. I inherited her inability to restrain herself from the things she wanted.

  Possessions, love—I want all of it.

  I want to control it all.

  My mother acted like a queen, with all those men following her every beck and call, and her blood does indeed flow through me as well.

  That’s exactly why I’m different from her. I wanted to show that I’m different.

  For example, any clothes, jewels, food, or even men—if it was something I could obtain, then I did so relying only on my own power. I made use of nothing but my own talent and my own charm.

  Even if what I did was wrong, I didn’t want to become someone who uses others for their own purposes, like my mother.

  Well, I didn’t want to completely avoid becoming like my mother.

  Even now, I still believe that I am different from her. Yet despite that, an emotion flares up within me from time to time. It’s probably because I used to watch my mother’s audacious behavior from up close, but sometimes, there are things that I can’t help but want. A fierce desire burns within me, and I lose the ability to think about anything else.

  I feel a growing desire to pluck up and take away something another holds dear, without at all considering the trouble I would cause for those around me.

  Alas, how wretched a thought!

  Yet, the more I think about how contemptible my mother was, the more I despise myself for being so much like her.

  That’s right—a perfect example would be this very moment.

  I couldn’t contain these feelings, very similar to those of my mother. The thing I wanted most to avoid was acting exactly as she would. In that case, what was I to do? At the end of my inner turmoil, what I reached out for was—

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  It was then a voice spoke to me, interrupting my thoughts. I was sure there hadn’t been anyone around. In spite of myself, I turned around.

  “You didn’t even plan a trap. That’s pretty careless of you.”

  Oh, what a lovely voice and a lovely face. Standing there was my close friend, truly far too good for a person like me.

  “Isn’t it now…Arahnia?”

  “Sapphee… How did you know?”

  “Oh, what’s that? Not even using that hokey dialect of yours? That’s very unlike you, Arahnia.”

  Whoops! I had forgotten both my feigned smile and my fake dialect.

  I had never shown anyone my natural self before. Lately I had been a little…tired. It was because of all the unfamiliar medical training and studying I had been doing. That was why I wasn’t acting like myself, acting careless.

  “I don’t really care,” Sapphee continued. “If you want to swap around the medical vials in the clinic and put them where they don’t belong, or mess up the order of some of the medical records, I’ll overlook that level of mischief. But that is off limits. That’s something very special that I gave to Glenn.”

  I had it gripped in my hand. It was a golden dragonscale charm—something Glenn always carried on him and held dear to his heart.

  I had tried to steal it because it was something he always kept with him. How unsightly. In the end, I was a thief, just like my mother.

  Dr. Glenn’s bedroom.

  I had crept in knowing that there shouldn’t have been anyone inside, but Sapphee had been lying in wait. In retrospect, it should have been obvious to me. Sapphee was well versed in the arts of the assassin. Outwitting a simple thief should have been easy for her.

  “Tch!” Throwing the dragonscale charm, I escaped.

  I have confidence in my ability to escape. Arachne exoskeletons are as sturdy as they are light. While Dr. Glenn’s bedroom was on the second floor, leaping from tall spaces and other physical maneuvering was the specialty of the arachne, and didn’t pose a problem.

  Fortunately, the window of the bedroom was quite wide. I could slip through. I wrapped my silk around the handle and pulled. It was unlocked, and I was able to open it in a split second.

  I would escape.

  Tomorrow, I would leave town.

  It was a fitting fate for someone like me, unable to curb my thieving nature. But through it all, I still believed that I was different from my mother. My mother would probably have held the golden dragonscale charm in her hand even as she was making her escape. I, however, had cast it aside as I left, either because I wanted to return it to Sapphee, or because it wasn’t really the charm that I had wanted. Which was it, I wonder?

  I probably don’t even know myself.

  But as for what I was really after—was that even something that could be stolen? Was it really something that a cowardly, greedy, black-hearted person like me could get their hands on?

  “Hnh!”

  My eight legs absorbed the impact of landing on the ground.

  I wouldn’t be able to carry through with the work that Dr. Glenn had asked of me, and it would cause trouble for Loose Silk Sewing, but it was hard to believe that either of them would even ask for the help of a thief like me. Lindworm was a pleasant city to live in, and I had grown attached to it, but I had brought this on myself. This was the end of my time here.

  Or at least, I had thought it was the end, when—

  “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I had escaped from the clinic’s second floor—or so I had thought—but there was a large figure standing outside to greet me. I was dumbstruck.

  It hadn’t been just one person lying in wait for me.

  There was a massive figure standing in the road.

  Miss Tisalia had already drawn her spear and made her intention clear—she wasn’t going to let me go a single step further. I couldn’t win against a powerful woman like this head on. While I was confident in my nimbleness and speed, I had no knowledge of the martial arts.

  “Now then, you’re going to have to explain yourself, Miss Arahnia. In detail , understand?” said Tisalia.

  “Tch.” Could I escape? Perhaps I could use my agility to slip right past her.

  It seemed difficult—my opponent didn’t seem
to have any holes in her defense and had blocked off the path of my escape with her spear.

  Maybe I could use my silk to jump up and escape?

  In forests or inside buildings, this option was effective. However, Lindworm was a well-developed cityscape and there weren’t many superfluous things to grab hold of around the town. I couldn’t see any convenient starting point I could use to attach my silk. My vision in the dark wasn’t that strong to begin with, either.

  In that case, I had to go back. My segmented legs immediately cut backwards—but I knew it was impossible.

  A figure fell with a thud from the second floor. Coiling her long lower body, the assassin blocked my retreat.

  “…Give it up, Arahnia,” Sapphee declared, with a look of reproach in her eyes. I had tried to steal something of importance to Dr. Glenn, so I couldn’t expect anything else.

  I sighed, giving up. It appeared that I had once again managed to lose a friend.

  The arachne were supposed to be skilled at ensnaring others, yet in the end I was the one who ended up being captured. All I could do was shrug my shoulders in defeat.

  It seemed that this bad habit my mother passed down to me would never be something I, Arahnia Taranterra Arachnida, could cure.

  ***

  It was already late at night, but the Great Squid’s Inn was still open.

  Tisalia and I brought Arahnia with us to our regular pub. I was completely at my wit’s end. I couldn’t believe Arahnia. I had realized her intentions long ago and only wished she hadn’t waited until the middle of the night to make her move.

  Arahnia looked on in amazement.

  “Um… Aren’t the two of you going to hand me over to the patrolmen?” she asked. Her dialect had returned. This sounded much more like the Arahnia I knew, whether or not it was an artifice. Even if it was just a quirk she had stuck to herself to try and hide her own personality, using the dialect of the eastern countries suited Arahnia much better.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “What do you mean…?” Arahnia replied.

  “You haven’t taken anything. Isn’t that right?” Tisalia said next to me, nodding her head. Arahnia’s face turned more and more perplexed.

  “You’ve been tasked with a nigh-impossible job, Arahnia,” I said. “I know that the stress of it was what caused your bad habits to come out. You just started wanting to mess around with other people’s things, right?”

  “Augh… It looks like I’ve been found out…” Arahnia replied.

  “Dr. Glenn thought they were all his mistakes, but the medical vials moving around, the documents being rifled through and messed around with… All of that started after you arrived. So it was logical to think it was all your doing, wasn’t it?”

  I opened up my hand. Hopping up and down in my palm was a fairy, wearing a small cap. The helper fairy, always quick to appear when called for, crooked its head sideways as if to ask what was going on.

  “You know, I’m pretty friendly with the fairies,” I continued.

  “Oh yes, that’s true, isn’t it… These little ones are always helping out with the chores around the clinic,” Arahnia said, letting out some silk and winding it around her finger. Sensing the presence of something entertaining, the fairy made a flying leap from my palm onto the silk. Grabbing it, it swung side to side like a pendulum.

  I had thought the fairies were a race of monster that didn’t particularly enjoy doing things for their own amusement, but it seemed that even if the impulse was weak, they still had a desire to be entertained.

  “Weee! A swing!” The fairy shouted in joy.

  “I’m honored you’re enjoying it so much,” Arahnia replied.

  Just then, the server brought over our orders. I hadn’t hesitated to order some wine. Arahnia had ordered her favorite ginjo but wouldn’t even touch it.

  “That’s why I thought with how tired and irritated you were, Arahnia, that you would try to do something eventually. I spoke about it with Tisalia, as well,” I said.

  “That’s right. I lie in wait near the clinic every night. It also served as a nice evening walk for me,” Tisalia said, puffing out her unnecessarily large chest in pride.

  “I see. So, then, Miss Tisalia joining us for drinks the other night… It was all a part of this, then?” Arahnia asked.

  “That’s right. I got to keep an eye on you and see how you were doing, all at the same time,” Tisalia replied. It appeared that even Tisalia could clearly see Arahnia’s state of exhaustion. She had said so to me after our get-together.

  Arahnia seems like she’s up to something. Be careful, Sapphee.

  “I was of the same opinion. After all, you aren’t a woman that can restrain herself,” I said. My words prompted a sour expression on Arahnia’s face.

  “Leave it to you, Sapphee,” she replied, as if she was giving up, and as if she was ridiculing herself with her words. She limply rocked the silk that was suspended from her finger. The fairy squealed and looked to be enjoying itself. “Leave it to the clinic pharmacologist. You’re right—I’m at the mercy of an inescapable ailment known as kleptomania. If I want something, I can’t control myself, whether the something belongs to me or not. It doesn’t take me long to start desiring my friends’ lovers. The flirting in the clinic, for example…”

  “To try and capture Dr. Glenn’s attention…? Miss Arahnia, you still haven’t given up on him, have you?” Tisalia replied, her ears jolting to attention. This behavior suggested Arahnia’s words had put Tisalia on edge.

  Arahnia had attempted to rape Dr. Glenn at the harpy village. I didn’t think Arahnia would give up at such a small setback, myself. There was no way she had abandoned her plans—the emotions held within her were much more complicated than that.

  “You had some sort of ulterior motive when you accepted the work at the clinic in the first place, didn’t you, Arahnia?” I asked.

  “Quite. Well, I would never say my motives were ‘ulterior’ or anything of the sort… I was being honest when I said I wanted to wear matching outfits and work together with you. It’s just that I wanted to know more about Dr. Glenn on top of that…or perhaps I wanted to get closer to him? I wonder,” she replied.

  As I put my glass of wine to my lips, Arahnia at long last also began to drink. It appeared that she had something difficult to say. If that was the case, I thought, borrowing a little liquid courage wasn’t a bad idea—Arahnia wasn’t very good with alcohol to begin with. Why not loosen her lips with some liquor?

  “Up at the harpy village, I tried to steal the doctor,” Arahnia began.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I replied.

  “That’s a perfect example of it—my awful habit. Stealing the doctor who was so precious to you, Sapphee… At the time, I boasted that it was all for the sake of my art and designs, but…while that wasn’t entirely a lie, what I was really doing was testing you, Sapphee. I thought—could you still be my friend? Someone who would try to steal the man you love from you, a terrible person like me,” said Arahnia.

  What an unbelievably cowardly arachne. Without trying to test me, she couldn’t even believe in our friendship.

  Previously at the Giant Squid’s Inn, Arahnia had coiled her silk around our fingers and had declared the three of us friends. Yet, the one who believed the least in our friendship was none other than Arahnia herself.

  This woman couldn’t form relationships with others, unlike the silk that she had spun herself that night.

  “Even when you came to talk about the surgery, honestly, I was astonished. I couldn’t even imagine what you were thinking, after I had done all those things to both of you,” Arahnia continued.

  “There wasn’t any other person for the job,” I said.

  “Putting your feelings aside and taking the best course of action for the situation at hand… That is much easier said than done. Dr. Glenn really is able to be calm about these decisions, isn’t he?”

  “Dr. Glenn praised you, too, Arahnia,” I replied.
/>
  It wasn’t a lie. Her growth in such a short time was remarkable. Dr. Glenn and I had been coaching her, but her improvement was the result of Arahnia’s own work ethic. She had been so serious about her work, so why all of this nonsense?

  “I can’t help but find it strange,” remarked Arahnia looking off into the distance. She was looking at someone who wasn’t there. I’m sure she was thinking of the same person who always occupied my own thoughts. “Every day, that man would carefully teach me as though all the indecent things I had done were forgotten. No matter how much I teased him, tricked him, he didn’t seem to be hurt or offended at all… For Sapphee’s beloved doctor to be this much of a softhearted, good-natured person—I couldn’t believe it.”

  “He is, isn’t he?” I replied.

  “As I thought about all of this, I began to want to know more about what was going on inside him… I started to want to pick on him. To test him,” Arahnia continued.

  “That’s true. You are that sort of person, aren’t you?” I replied.

  “It’s awful. That man truly is unflappable.”

  I wondered just how good-hearted Dr. Glenn could be.

  Setting up a harmless prank, Arahnia wanted to see his reaction. If the prank had made him angry, that would have been that—she would have understood the type of person he was. But Dr. Glenn not only failed to even notice the pranks, but thought they were his own mistakes instead. He didn’t even consider the possibility that it had all been Arahnia’s doing.

  “Well, normally,” Tisalia chimed in with a look of exasperation, “that would be the end of it. Can’t you just be satisfied by knowing he’s incapable of distrusting others? Why do you have to reach out for more and more?”

  “I wonder. I guess it’s my own cowardice, after all. No, I think it might be because I don’t trust anyone to begin with. You two are different, of course. But both humans and monsters, if you peel back a single layer, they’re all just masses of greed and desire, and anyone who doesn’t appear to be that way makes me suspicious. It’s impossible to tell just what black thoughts and deeds someone is hiding inside them, no matter how good-hearted they may look,” Arahnia replied.