1 – Entrusting It to an Orangutan Is All I Have to Do
Working as a male nurse in a hospital, I was hit by a truck.
The truck turned out to be a reincarnation portal to another world. When I opened my eyes, I found myself surrounded by curious white medieval people.
“Where do you come from?”
The first words to me were from Count Roland and Lady Hanna.
“I’m from Korea.”
It worked.
It was amazing that my Korean worked, even though these people clearly don’t use Korean.
“Where is Korea?”
“Is it an Eastern orangutan?”
I later found out that there was no country called Korea in this world.
I had fallen into a completely new medieval era across dimensions.
Damn it.
I had lived my whole life as a busy nurse, never wishing for luck, and now I had fallen into a land with no ointment.
It was pitch black in front of me.
“If you have nowhere to go, would you like to work in the stables?”
Fortunately, I fell into a lucky category.
The Count assigned me a job.
Unaware that the job was emptying the dung. Carrying two large barrels on my shoulders, I was now in charge of clearing the hardened dung off the castle walls.
In this era, a toilet is simply a hole in the floor, and you just empty your waste outside with a splat!
“Hmm, you seem to be getting used to this job.”
The foul-smelling waste is preferred by our meat-loving Count Roland.
The less smelly waste is for the vegetarian-leaning Lady Catherine.
Well, now I’ve even reached the point of guessing who it is just by the smell of the dung.
Is this what they call expertise?
“Wow! It’s the dung man! I can smell it!”
Becky, the youngest daughter and unruly little one of Count Roland, exclaimed.
I opened my eyes wide in surprise.
“Becky, come here.”
“What’s up?”
“Shh! Come closer.”
“Ugh… I don’t like getting closer to the stinky old man….”
Becky may treat me like filthy sewage, but it doesn’t bother me at all.
The people around Viscount Roland all avoid coming near me.
Because of the smell.
But I felt a sense of duty to uphold the honor of the sanitation worker.
“Becky, did you clean up after yourself?”
“I did.”
“Then who cleans up after your mess?”
“Um… I don’t know!”
“I will. If I don’t, you’ll end up cleaning your own mess. Can you handle emptying your piled-up waste like a mountain into a huge container and disposing of it?”
“Ugh…!”
Becky’s expression turned pale.
Having a brief taste of the sewage disposal process made her empathize with the difficulty of the job.
“I’m in charge of the cleanliness of the estate. Without me, the estate will vibrate with the dirty smell of feces!”
“Ugh… I don’t fully understand, but it sounds right!”
“Never underestimate the sanitation worker again. I am like the microorganisms breaking down garbage, a proud cleaner of Viscount Roland’s estate.”
“Ugh! Alright, Mr. Stinky! You keep the Viscount’s place clean!”
“If you understand, that’s enough, ignorant Becky.”
I felt satisfied that I had given a good vocational education to the youngest member of our estate.
“Well then, I’m off.”
With 46 estates to clean, I have a busy day ahead.
* * * *
I quite enjoyed cleaning up the waste.
Providing meals twice a day.
A place to sleep.
And most importantly, not being dragged into dangerous tasks.
This medieval era is a time when people wield swords at the slightest boredom. It’s better not to be a target for archers.
Of course, in some fantasy novels, they give you an instant death cheat code like ‘split in half upon reincarnation.’
I didn’t have that luxury.
“Just survive for now.”
I don’t aspire to be strong.
Once I have enough to eat and live, I’ll find a way back to Korea.
Fortunately, there’s magic in this world. Perhaps there are wizards who can use dimensional magic for teleportation?
I pinned my hopes on magic.
“Are you doing well with your work?”
Lady Emma, along with Miss Catherine, approached me from a distance and asked.
I snapped out of my reverie.
Emma Hana, who entrusted me with the excellent job of a sewage disposal worker, without any identification or background.
No matter how many times I thank her, it’s not enough.
I politely bowed my waist.
“Yes, Lady Emma Hana. Miss Catherine. I am removing the sewage stuck to the castle walls and scrubbing it clean.”
“You don’t need to scrub it, but Kim Cheol-soo is really diligent. Oh, don’t come too close. It’s smelly.”
Emma and Catherine blocked their noses with their little fingers and moved away from me little by little.
Although I didn’t notice it myself because my nose was almost paralyzed, the maids say that a very difficult smell emanates from my body.
Thinking about the maid who brings food and runs away from me from a distance of 10m.
Emma and Catherine treat me almost as kindly as if I were a living angel.
“Anyway, do your best.”
Scratch, scratch, Emma passed by scratching her waist with her hand.
Following her, Miss Catherine was scratching her neck with her hand, and the area she scratched turned red.
“Oh, it’s so itchy.”
Miss Catherine seemed unable to bear it and scratched her neck with both hands as if digging into it.
As someone who used to be a nurse in Korea, I thought of a skin disease from that appearance.
‘Is it contact dermatitis?’
It’s easy to think of it as an infectious disease, but it’s not.
It’s a skin disease caused by irritation and “contact.”
A disease that causes itching when the skin is stimulated.
Almost all the people in the Roland Viscount’s family suffer from this disease, which is understandable because these people don’t bathe.
There’s only one person who bathes once in a lifetime.
At most, three or five times.
Not in a year, but in a lifetime.
Bathing five times in a lifetime is considered a lot.
‘It’s contact dermatitis caused by not bathing.’
If you don’t bathe, sweat and dead skin accumulate on the skin, and bacteria love them.
From the bacteria’s point of view, the Roland Viscount’s family, who never bathe in their lifetime, is a paradise.
There must be tens of thousands of bacteria in the bodies of the Roland Viscount’s family!
“Miss, are you very itchy?”
“Huh? Yeah, it’s very itchy. Don’t worry, it’s always itchy, so don’t mind.”
“Should I help you not to itch?”
“It’s okay, it gets better if I pray.”
In this era, an illness was treated as a curse from the devil.
So when a serious patient appeared, they all went to the shrine and prayed.
They prayed in front of the patients bleeding profusely, and if they were lucky, they naturally stopped bleeding and lived, but most of them died from excessive bleeding.
Having experienced this chaotic reality here, I suggested to Miss Catherine.
“Prayer is good, but there is a different way.”
If you say that prayer is useless here, you can be accused of heresy and be immediately sentenced to death, so I purified my language.
The tongue of justice, wanting to tell the truth, trembled but managed to hold back.
Miss Catherine showed curiosity.
The itchiness is severe… What should I do?
“You should wash with water.”
“I do that every day.”
“You only wash your hands and feet, right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not enough. You need to wash every nook and cranny of your body. That way, it won’t provide a breeding ground for harmful bacteria.”
“W-Wash every nook and cranny?”
Miss Catherine was taken aback.
In an instant, Emma, a broad-shouldered woman, rushed over to me and grabbed me by the collar.
“Kim Cheolsu! There are things you can and cannot say to a lady! Don’t you know that mentioning a lady’s body is considered harassment!?”
“G-Gulp! I-I mean, I was just trying to help soothe Miss Catherine’s itch! I-I meant no harm!”
I felt my breath catch.
I, a feeble anchovy of a man, stood no chance against Emma’s strength!
The manners of Roland Viscount to this foreigner from another world are too complex!
“A-Ahem. It’s okay, Emma. It might be a bit embarrassing, but I don’t think his intentions were bad.”
Thankfully, Miss Catherine was an angelic person.
Emma shook me back and forth by the collar before slamming me to the ground.
“Miss Catherine is very kind, so I’ll let it slide, but normally, that would have been quite rude!”
“A-Ahem… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
Darn it.
To be scorned by a benefactor in this pitiful state.
My throat hurt, and tears welled up.
Miss Catherine’s face contorted, her eyes rolling, before she looked down at me and spoke.
“I told you to wash with water, right? I’ll remember that. It’s a method used in Cheolsu’s tribe, right?”
Miss Catherine thought I had lived with some Indian tribe or something.
“Oh my, my throat… Yes, that’s right!”
It hurt to explain precisely, so I just agreed.
The next day.
Miss Catherine came to me with a flushed face.
“Kim Cheolsu, do you happen to know a way to completely cure the itchiness? Washing with water seemed to help reduce it a bit.”
Miss Catherine had seen the effects of a shower. Simply washing the body can help remove dirt and bacteria, which are causes of skin irritation.
But if skin conditions were resolved after just one bath, where would diseases be?
Skin diseases require consistent care.
I smiled, not bothering to collect the spilled sewage on the floor.
“Of course, Miss.”