Author’s notes:

It’s been awhile.

Some time ago, while I was frantically working on Inigo and Inigo, I mentioned that I was drawing a doujin about Miriel. Consider it a postscript.

Although, well, it’s really just a comic full of talking heads that blab all day. It’s my explanation for why they’re able to focus on their research despite knowing their fate. When it comes to Miriel’s invention, after some consideration I thought that the microscope seemed appropriate for her, but while I was thinking that (getting very technical) simple optical microscope seemed about right, at the same time, if it’s the simple one, the user’s eye comes quite close to the observed object, and I worried about whether it would do for studying pathogens. I thought a compound microscope seemed better in that respect. In the end, I just copped out by not drawing the microscope. Technically speaking, Miriel is probably developing not just a microscope, but also microbiological cultures and other things related to that field of work, since I think that developing something like antibiotics is an incredible undertaking. But I’m sure Miriel can do it. /sloppy

Thanks for the Likes! For a long time I just threw it up here and left it alone. I’m very sorry for being late in my replies. ><

Translation Notes:

When Laurent says “Mother, that question is too cruel—” Miriel originally responds with, “It’s not a problem,” echoing one of her in-game voiceovers (which was localized to “Very well”). However, this seems to read too easily as Miriel being strangely dismissive of Laurent’s angst.

There’s a cultural difference at play. In Japan and several other Eastern countries (including China and Russia) it was widely believed by doctors and others in the field of medicine that telling someone that they have a terminal illness was as bad idea. They thought it would cause the person stress and exacerbate their condition. In one classic Japanese Kurosawa film, Ikiru, a guy in the waiting room counsels the main character, “If they tell you it’s just a stomach flu, you know it’s really bad. If they say you can eat anything you want, you have less than six months left.”

Sukesou explained to me (after saying that she only realized after I mentioned it that it was a Japanese thing and not just A Normal Thing That Is True Everywhere, which goes to show how deeply this is rooted in Japanese culture) that in the case of Japanese society, there is a strong belief in the Power of Words. So if a doctor tells their patient “You have three months left to live,” everyone involved feels like the doctor is condemning the patient to have no more than three months of life.

Since the 90s, informed consent has become the law, but many people still feel that they didn’t want to be told, to the point where some have filed lawsuits on the grounds of having been caused emotional distress by being told their diagnosis.

So when Laurent says, “Mother, that question is too cruel,” he originally meant, “Don’t make me do this to you,” (or even, “Don’t make me kill you”) but to us it might look more like “Don’t make me relive that memory.” I couldn’t think of any way to change Laurent’s response that wouldn’t make his line too overt for both Sukesou’s and my tastes, but I added an “at least” to Miriel’s line so that we know she’s letting him know that she wants to know. (Sukesou says, “Miriel thinks [that belief] isn’t rational.”)

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