The Apothecary of Athens (Part 2) — Selling What You Know
The bread was delicious.
If someone fed me something this tasty only to tell me it was all a dream, I would feel thoroughly cheated. Waking up in the morning study room only to realize that what I was chewing on was an eraser would be downright horrific.
…As if a dream could ever taste this vivid.
Brushing the last crumbs into my mouth, I looked up at the sky as it bruised into twilight. That was when another realization struck me.
How am I supposed to pass the time?
The Bear had promised to return tomorrow. My plan was to ask him again about the rock and the sword then—to confirm whether he truly was the boy I remembered, and whether this place really was that trainwreck of a mythological world. But before tomorrow could arrive, I had to survive tonight.
After parting ways with the Bear, I had wandered aimlessly through the city to burn time and wallow in denial. Once the sun went down, however, wandering wouldn't be an option.
In this era, a kid without a guardian is prime material for the slave market.
There was no way I was getting sold into slavery on my very first day. Glancing across the way, I spotted the bakery in the distance. Out front, Melissa was shaking out an empty delivery basket.
She told me to come back if I couldn't find my parents.
Naturally, I hadn't found them. Nor did I have anywhere else to go. I hopped down from the stone ledge by the public well and started walking toward the bakery—only to stop in my tracks.
…Haaah.
I sighed and shook my head. Crashing at a stranger's house required a thick skin, and Melissa was someone I had met only a few hours ago. A twenty-five-year-old guy waltzing over to a girl he'd just met and begging to spend the night sounded…
Wait, come to think of it, aren't I a little girl right now?
Even so, shameless was shameless. Besides, Melissa hadn't explicitly offered to put me up for the night anyway.
Let's start by heading back there.
They say criminals always return to the scene of the crime. When someone shrinks by thirty centimeters and gets their gender swapped, it wouldn't be strange if a clue or two had been left behind on the ground. I trudged back toward the alley where I had first opened my eyes.
And there—
…Gasp.
I found a snake.
It was slender, black, and about the length of my forearm. Coiled atop the dried grass where I had been lying, it stared up at me with pale yellow eyes.
Is it venomous?
How should I know? I was a medical student, not a veterinarian. When I took a cautious step back, the snake slid forward by an equal measure. One step back, one span closer; two steps back, two spans closer… until my back met solid masonry.
A-A dead end?!
I pressed flat against the wall, holding my breath. The snake flicked its tongue once before slithering up and wrapping its cool body snugly around my ankle.
Eeeek!
A whirlwind of panic rushed through my mind. Where was I supposed to tie off a snakebite again? No, wait, didn't modern first aid say never to use a tourniquet?
While my thoughts spiraled, the serpent lingered around my ankle for a moment, then slid back down to the ground. It rested its chin gently on the bridge of my foot—just like a puppy that had waited all day for its master to come home.
…What?
I shook my foot. The snake dropped onto the grass, only to climb right back on.
“Go over there.”
I pointed toward the end of the alley. The snake merely flicked its tongue, staring back at me with unblinking eyes. A silent tug-of-war ensued, and after shuffling about ten paces along the wall, I gave up first.
What is this thing's deal?
Now it was following right beside me like some loyal pet. Watching it trot along stirred up an old memory of my medical school badge: a serpent coiled around a wooden staff, printed neatly on my student ID.
The Caduceus… wait, no, the Rod of Asclepius.
Every med student undergoes the rite of passage of seeing that symbol, mistaking it for the staff of Hermes, and promptly getting corrected that it's actually the Rod of Asclepius. I had been no exception.
And how exactly is that trivia supposed to help me right now…?
Suddenly, I felt a wave of regret over all that wasted tuition. The snake trailed me to the mouth of the alley, and the moment we stepped onto the main thoroughfare, it coiled itself securely around my ankle once more.
Knock, knock.
In the end, I found myself standing before the bakery. I didn't have the coin for an inn, and spending the night on the streets with a snake as my bunkmate was out of the question.
“You came!”
The moment the door opened, Melissa bounded out. My feet left the ground as she scooped me up, and before I could react, a soft, marshmallow-like cheek pressed against mine.
“I've actually been keeping an eye out for you! You really didn't have anywhere to go, did you? Don't you worry! If you need anything, I'll—”
Her voice cut off abruptly.
Melissa's gaze creaked downward toward our feet. I followed her line of sight, only to find the snake rubbing its snout against her knee in an overly friendly greeting.
“Eeeeeeek! Aaaaaaah!”
Tossing me aside in sheer panic, Melissa vaulted straight onto the kneading counter. The flour bin perched on top tipped over, sending up a white powdery explosion like a firework.
“Shake it off! Hurry! It's gonna bite you!”
“Don't worry, it won't bite.”
“How would you even know thaaaaat?!”
Covered in flour from head to toe, Melissa stomped her feet frantically atop the counter. Unbothered by the chaos it had caused, the snake coiled itself neatly by my foot, looking utterly innocent.
“What is all this racket?”
A broad-shouldered woman with thick forearms emerged from the back—the same woman who had brought over the water bucket earlier. She took in the scene step by step: Melissa, the spilled flour, me, and finally the serpent. A calm voice broke the silence.
“It's a house snake.”
“A-A house snake?!”
“A snake that protects a home brings good fortune. Don't people say one lives beside the goddess in the shrine atop the hill, too?”
The woman casually swept the scattered flour into a pile with her foot.
“You're that child from earlier, aren't you? The one who washed her hands.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Nowhere to sleep?”
Instead of answering with words, I picked up the broom leaning against the wall. It was a silent declaration: I'll do whatever work you need if you just give me a roof over my head.
Seeing that, the woman placed a heavy hand on my head. She stroked my hair once, pulled her hand away, then stroked it again.
“Beside the hearth stays warm through the night. Wake up early at dawn and help me knead the dough.”
“…Thank you so much.”
“What about the snake?!” Melissa shrieked from atop the kneading table.
The baker turned to her with a shrug. “Told you, it's good fortune.”
Before drifting off, my thoughts wandered back to my apartment in Korea. My bed. The tablet plugged into its charger. The carton of milk sitting in the back of the fridge, three months past its expiration date.
I really should have thrown that out.
It was comical how my mind clung to such trivial things when my actual body had been transformed into a little girl.
…The latrine.
Curled up on the straw mat by the hearth, I groggily pushed myself up. The snake, resting in a tight coil at the foot of the mat, merely raised its head an inch before setting it back down.
At least it doesn't plan on following me to the bathroom.
I wasn't sure whether to be grateful or insulted. Feeling my way along the dark walls, I navigated toward the latrine Melissa had pointed out before extinguishing the lamps.
“Haaah…”
Smooth. Completely smooth. Squeezing my eyes shut, I faced the undeniable reality of my vanished masculinity once again.
…I'm going to lose my mind.
Praying that everything would magically return to normal when I woke up, I hurried back to the mat and pulled the blanket over my head.
“Child. Time to get up.”
Normal, my foot. The moment I opened my eyes, a massive sack of flour was waiting for me.
“Coming…”
It was dawn, and the view outside the window was a deep, muted indigo. After a quick stretch, I approached the towering stack of flour sacks on the floor.
Manual labor at the crack of dawn…
Back in December after finishing the college entrance exams, I had tagged along with a friend's older brother to work on a construction site for pocket money. What those hellish ten hours had taught me was simple: I needed to spend the rest of my life using my brain, not my back.
Still, maybe this body has some hidden strength?
I grabbed both sides of the sack with a firm grip and straightened my back with everything I had.
“……”
Only I stood up. The sack didn't budge an inch. Dropping down again, I hooked my arms beneath it, hauling upward with my entire upper body. The sack hovered a finger's width off the floor before crashing straight back down. Just as I lost my balance and tumbled backward, a hand caught the scruff of my tunic.
“That's enough. I should have known just by looking at those twig arms of yours.”
My chance to prove my usefulness had ended before it even began. Instead, I was assigned to dough-kneading duty.
Oh.
At first, it was actually fun. Pressing down yielded a soft, pillowy pushback, and folding it over restored its plump heft. It felt just like playing with clay. But ten minutes in, my opinion shifted drastically.
…Why does this never end?
First came the dull ache in my arms, followed by a throbbing pain in my wrists. By the thirty-minute mark, my lower back was screaming. The moment I pulled my hands back and straightened up, the baker glanced over from organizing her tools.
“Resting already?”
“I'm sorry…”
This body was clearly not built for hard labor either—not unlike Choi Jiwoo, the fourth-year medical student. The baker stared at me for a beat, let out a short sigh, and hoisted another load of flour into a massive wooden trough. As she bent over, a faint grimace creased her brow and a low groan slipped past her lips.
Her lower back must be killing her.
I looked at the woman, then down at the trough. The vessel rested flat on the floor. To work the dough, she had to stand over it with her spine bent at an agonizing angle—all day long, likely for decades on end.
“Your back hurts, doesn't it?”
“Every baker's back hurts. Nature of the trade.”
“What if you tried it like this?”
I dragged over two overturned ceramic jars from the corner, set them side by side, and laid a sturdy wooden plank across the top. The surface sat perfectly level with her waist.
“Try setting the trough up here.”
Torque is force multiplied by horizontal distance. When standing upright, the horizontal distance between the spine and the body's center of mass is only two to three centimeters; the moment you bend ninety degrees at the waist, that distance exceeds thirty centimeters.
Which means the rotational force the lumbar spine has to endure jumps tenfold.
For a sixty-kilogram person bending ninety degrees, the load borne by the erector spinae and intervertebral discs surpasses two hundred kilograms of force. In short, preserving a healthy back required raising the work surface to waist level to minimize that lever arm.
“Go on, give it a try.” I patted the makeshift workbench encouragingly.
The baker gave me a skeptical look, but figured she had nothing to lose and lifted the trough onto the plank.
“Can't imagine it'll make much difference…”
The cords in her forearms bunched as she pressed into the dough with an upright posture. Once. Twice.
“…Huh?”
On the third press, her eyebrows shot up. I offered a gentle smile and continued.
“And when you lift the flour sacks, bend your knees instead of your waist. At night when you sleep, prop a folded sack under your knees, too.”
“Will that cure my back?”
“Less of a cure and more about reducing the pain.”
Medicine wasn't magic, after all. The baker remained silent for a long moment, twisting her torso slightly while kneading before pressing down again.
“Where did a slip of a girl learn something like that?”
“Just… practical experience, I suppose.”
“Hah. A peanut like you, talking about experience…”
Letting out a breath that was half chuckle and half sigh, the baker nudged an empty stool forward with the toe of her sandal.
“Leave the kneading. Sit down and fold the cloths for covering the bread.”
“Are you sure that's enough?”
“Aye. Won't let you starve, so don't worry.”
She smirked and went back to kneading the dough. Sitting on the stool, I picked up a linen cloth and smoothed it out. A sudden epiphany struck me.
That's it.
Yesterday, I treated a wound and earned bread. Today, I offered ergonomic advice and secured breakfast. Rather than stubborn, futile attempts to haul heavy sacks with this frail body, selling the knowledge locked in my head was a far more reliable path to survival.
They say medicine and prostitution are the two oldest professions in human history, surviving every era without fail.
When the mind is sharp, the body suffers less. Nodding to myself, I folded the linen square in half.
“Morning delivery's all done~!”
The front door swung open as Melissa breezed inside. The baker straightened her posture and looked back over her shoulder.
“Back early today, aren't you?”
“Hehe, the streets are completely empty at dawn!” Setting down the bread basket, Melissa trotted over to my corner. “Well, look at you~ already helping out with—”
She froze mid-sentence.
Coiled quietly beside the pile of cloths, the snake slowly raised its head.
“I-Is that thing still here?!”
“It won't leave.”
I had pretty much accepted its presence by now. Melissa swallowed hard, drew in a massive breath, and gingerly crept closer to me.
“Putting that aside… hey, kiddo, want to take on a job?”
Kiddo. It felt bizarre to be addressed like that, but I decided not to make an issue of it.
“What kind of job?”
“The royal palace is looking for extra hands. They said they're short-staffed in the dispensary preparing for the banquet the day after tomorrow.”
“What would I be doing?”
“Nothing complicated. Just carrying bundles of dried herbs and organizing them.” Melissa held up two fingers. “The pay is two full meals and a giant loaf of barley bread.”
Meals provided, plus a large loaf of barley bread. For simple manual sorting, that was a generous wage.
“Doesn't sound bad at all.”
When I nodded, Melissa grinned. “Right? And the dispensary is overseen directly by the Queen, so if you do well, she might keep calling you back. If you happen to catch Her Majesty's eye, your pay could skyrocket!”
“Overseen by the Queen…”
The queen of this land. If my working hypothesis was correct, she would be the Bear's stepmother. No names immediately sprang to mind.
“What is the Queen's name?” I asked cautiously, hoping for a clue.
Melissa tilted her head, giving me a look that questioned why anyone would even need to ask.
“She hails from a distant land to the east. Lady Medea.”