Saved Him, Now I'm Obsessed - Chapter 66

“But isn’t it strange? Usually, people steal such items to sell them secretly for financial gain.”

“That’s right.”

“Then shouldn’t they sell books other than botany? Book prices vary greatly depending on the type, and while knight’s swordsmanship manuals, literature, or philosophy books can be priceless if rare, herbology books are not at all.”

“That’s true. Most nobles display books in their libraries to show off their intellectual vanity. Botany isn’t very popular.”

“For me, although it was burdensome given my poor circumstances, herbology or botany books weren’t excessively expensive compared to other fields. A week’s food expenses were enough to buy one. The bookstore owner even set aside such books separately since I was the only one looking for them.”

When importing foreign books, sellers didn’t particularly select specific types. They often bought them by the crate, sorted them appropriately, and sold them at suitable prices.

In that process, botany and herbology books that came along inadvertently were useless items taking up space unnecessarily. That’s why they were so cheap.

“Would someone take such a big risk as stealing imperial property for such small change? Taking one rare literature book would be more profitable than taking all the botany books?”

“Then shall we ask the person managing the library?”

“That would be good. The books might be stored elsewhere.”

We sought out the librarian to ask why the botany books were not properly stored.

“That’s all there is for plant-related books.”

We tilted our heads at his words. It was incomprehensible that the botanical collections stored in the imperial library were not even a tenth of the books in my pharmacy.

He explained to us that there had been no record of new plant-related books being brought in for the past 25 years.

“Since the annual budget allocated to the library is limited, we mainly stock famous books or those sought after by many people. As there aren’t many people looking for plant-related books, we couldn’t bring in many.”

“Even so, the condition of the bookshelves is too strange. Some books seem to have disappeared, leaving gaps here and there…”

“That’s correct too. 25 years ago, by the Emperor’s order, subversive books in the library were disposed of, and I heard that many herb-related books were particularly cleaned out at that time.”

“Herbology books were considered subversive? Why on earth…”

Ian spoke to the librarian as if he understood.

“Seeing that it was 25 years ago, I suppose it’s related to the war with the Stefan Kingdom?”

“Yes, that’s right. I understand that books related to prophets… no, witches from the Stefan Kingdom were designated for disposal at that time.”

Hearing the two of them, I finally understood and let out a regretful sigh.

The Emperor particularly disliked prophets from the Stefan Kingdom.

After the war ended in victory, while nobles from the Stefan Kingdom were allowed to maintain their titles even if they couldn’t participate in central politics, he went as far as issuing an order to eliminate the prophets.

I thought only people were rounded up, but it seemed even books related to them were disposed of. After getting an explanation from the library’s curator, we returned to stand in front of the empty bookshelves and sighed.

“We should examine the books that are here carefully, just in case. Well… it won’t take long since there aren’t many books to check.”

I tried to smile as I spoke, but I couldn’t help feeling depressed. There were far more books in the pharmacy than here! Moreover, if it weren’t for the fire, I could have referred to grandfather’s notes. With regret in our hearts, we examined the books.

“I found a book here about the gravekeeper’s flower, but it’s no different from what Jane said. It says that while the roots of young gravekeeper’s flowers contain no components, as they grow, there are cases where they are influenced by the corpses they come into contact with through their roots…”

“Through the roots… the roots…”

It felt like the thread of a solution was floating around in my head, just out of reach. It was frustrating that I couldn’t quite grasp the end of it.

I lowered my head and hit it hard with my palm. As I was about to hit it again, Ian grabbed both my arms to prevent me from hitting my head.

“Ah!”

“Don’t do that. Hitting your head won’t make you remember.”

“I know that, but… I’m just frustrated.”

Ian smiled gently and stroked my hair. Just like how I had comforted him earlier on our way to the library.

“Instead of hitting, let’s do this.”

It might not bring back my memories, but it seemed to ease my frustrated mind.

He was still facing me closely, and as I gazed steadily into his blue eyes, suddenly, as if struck by lightning, my mind became clear.

“I’m crazy… I just remembered.”

It was a problem so simple it was foolish, and also a mistake that someone dealing with herbs should never make.

The difficulty with herbs is that although they are a single plant, the flowers, roots, stems, fruits, and flower parts each have different properties, and their roles change depending on how they are processed.

But I had remembered the characteristics of the gravekeeper flower’s root as characteristics of the entire flower. I had overlooked the fact that she liked the gravekeeper’s flower and brewed it into tea, and that her father had filled the room with flowers for her.

‘I really am crazy… I knew my memories weren’t complete, but…’

Of course, I wasn’t a genius and didn’t remember the characteristics of all herbs.

That’s why I had been working with grandfather’s notebook as a guide, which he had organized like a textbook. Without grandfather’s notebook now, it was understandable to be confused in this state without anything to replace it, but I felt uneasy.

I thought only my memories from a month or two before the fire were messed up, but I became anxious about what to do if even my knowledge related to pharmacy work wasn’t intact.

‘It could be resolved if I just had grandfather’s notebook for reference… but the notebook that burned in the fire won’t come back…’

I was worried about my future work as a doctor, but for now, the important thing was that we had found a way to wake up the gravekeeper’s daughter. We immediately rushed to the gravekeeper’s house.

“Are you really saying that just by removing these flowers, our child can wake up? Just by doing that?”

He looked at me with a face that couldn’t believe my words.

“The pollen of the gravekeeper’s flower contains a component that induces sleep. Usually, it’s not a problem because people only encounter trace amounts of pollen mixed in the air, but occasionally there are people who show hypersensitive reactions to pollen that has been strengthened by brewing in hot water. That’s also why her tongue turned black.”

I asked him to remove all the gravekeeper’s flowers that filled the room. He took the flowers out of the room with a guilty face, as if he had practically poisoned his daughter.

His rough hand movements revealed his emotions. After ventilating to ensure all the remaining pollen in the room had escaped, I handed him a small medicine bottle.

“This medicine helps the remaining components of the gravekeeper’s flower in the body to be expelled more quickly. She won’t wake up immediately after taking this, we’ll need to wait about half a day.”

He took the medicine bottle from me and fed it to his daughter.

I could have done it, but I wanted to alleviate some of his guilt for his daughter not waking up, and he was much better than me at the skill of giving medicine to an unconscious person.

It was probably due to the experience he had naturally accumulated while nursing his daughter with utmost care.

After confirming that he had given the medicine, I went outside. Ian followed me out.

The scene of the cemetery viewed in the warm afternoon was nothing but peaceful. So much so that it belied the fact that the dead were buried there.

“Looking at that cemetery, I suddenly became curious…”

“About what?”

“After I died in the fire, you… took care of my remains, didn’t you, Your Highness?”

It was something I had wanted to ask but couldn’t easily bring up. I had avoided asking Ian due to the uncomfortable feeling, but I became curious.

The curiosity about where my remains were buried. Of course, he would have had someone do it, but Ian was the only one who would have searched for my remains in those ashes and made a grave somewhere.

Ian was visibly flustered by my question. Is it such a difficult thing to answer?

“Ah, that… It’s true that I took care of it, but…”

Unlike usual, his hand gestures became busy and he stumbled over his words, showing how incredibly difficult it was for him to answer.

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t even find my remains? Well, the fire was pretty intense…”

“No, Jane… I mean, the remains… No, I did take care of it.”

“Then where did you bury them? Let’s go see. It’s a very strange thing to visit my own grave, but…”