The Tanaka Family Reincarnates - Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Recalling the Past Life
“…….lady…….you…….lady! …………Young Lady!”
My maid Martha seems to be panicking…… Even in my state of fuzzy consciousness, I pushed myself to wake up, so as to not let Martha worry. Just then, my head hurt as if a tub had just crashed landed on it…… Hm?
What is this image? Why is a tub crashing down?
…!
Aah, is this a driff[1]? It’s a driff, isn’t it?
Hm? What’s a driff? Driff is, well, a driff. It’s when old memories get sorted out.
[T/N 1: Driff originates from dorifu or dorifuneta (?????) which is a slang term that means ‘to recall or to remember something while your eyes are closed’.]
What’s this? My mind keeps getting confused.
What’s wrong? I…… feel like my head is all messed up?
Watashi[2]? Watashi? Watashi? Huh, watashi?!
[T/N 2: Minato normally uses casual speech and slang when speaking, but here she suddenly realizes that she has been referring to herself with ‘watashi’, which is a polite/formal way of saying ‘I’ or ‘me’.]
What? ……is this?
“Young Lady-? Have you awakened-? Young Lady?”Martha called out to me while cradling my sleeping body.
What happened? Martha? That’s right, Martha knows. That I have always been inside the house. Then, what I don’t get is?
“Young Lady? Emma-sama[3]?”
[T/N 3: -sama is a Japanese honorific, like -san, -chan and -kun, used to indicate levels of respect/formality from the speaker to the person referred to. In this case, Martha is showing respect to Emma. -sama indicates the highest level of respect.]
Emma….? Emma?
Yes, right. I am…? Emma?
I start to feel dizzy.
It’s the tub’s fault that my head feels like it hurts.
Huh? Tub?
So, driff……. driff?
What? What is it? My head starts to spin faster and faster.
I can’t… stay conscious any longer.
Suddenly, a vast amount of information came rushing inside my head. People I have never seen… Unrealistic vehicles… that felt familiar. A “Me” that is not me?
“So…rry… Martha, just let me… go back to… sleep…”
(Wobbles)
Like shutting down a computer to reset it, I will rest to ease my headache.
“Young Lady……….!”
When one is confused, the first thing to do is sleep. When I wake up again, I will feel refreshed… probably…
After that, I lost consciousness.
I was unconscious for ten days.
Tanaka Minato[4], now known as Emma Stuart, a daughter of a count, who has finally come to terms with her situation, is listening to Martha describe what happened ten days ago.
[T/N 4: Japanese names in this story shall be presented in the Japanese convention of <family name> followed by <given name>. Here, Tanaka is the family name and Minato is the given, or first, name.]
“Please never do that again! To think, you brought wild mushrooms from the garden to the dining table! It would have been horrible if the whole family had died of food poisoning! It’s a relief that everyone is safe.”
“So, sorry….?”
Martha was angry that the mushroom I chanced upon in the garden had caused us harm.
By the way, why is she accusing me of being the one who grilled it on charcoal and mixed it into our dinner? There doesn’t seem to be any evidence. Does she have a habit of blaming me?
But… about that… I think there’s something Martha doesn’t know. It was a matsutake mushroom, you know? MATSUTAKE!!
I can’t say that I remember the amazing taste of a natural-grown matsutake from my previous life… At least I can’t say it now. That’s all I will say on that.
…?
Eh? Just now, did Martha say that the whole family got food poisoning?
“I’m not the only one who fainted?!”
I don’t understand how, but I wonder if what happened to me also happened to my family?
“Master, Madam, George-sama, even William-sama who ate the mushroom, yelled some strange words all at once, then fainted.”
What could it mean?
Because matsutake is not eaten in this world, did eating it shock everyone?
Even though matsutake…. is really, really delicious.
I’m drooling just remembering it.
That mellow scent the moment you bite into it! That crisp texture!
The sinful matsutake that reminds me of the taste and aroma of Japan…
Right… As soon as I ate it, the first thing I remembered, ironically, was the scene right before I died.
The final moments of Tanaka Minato in the previous life.
A rushing noise, followed by a shaking tremor, I couldn’t even stand up properly to escape. Severe pain came immediately after seeing the wall crashing down, or was it the ceiling above, collapsing with a loud noise…
“Young Lady…?”
Martha looked at me worriedly when she noticed me furrowing my brow. Of course. I had just barely recovered from a serious incident.
I didn’t hear Martha’s question because I was still stuck in my own memories.
What a painful death!
“Aah, …I wanted to drink a can of beer, at least!”
As I subconsciously muttered away in Japanese, Martha made a surprised face.
“That’s it! Everyone was yelling similar things! What kind of spell is that?”
When I heard that, my consciousness that had wandered off to my past life returned.
“Martha, it’s not a spell, it’s Japanese… What? Eh! Everyone was?!”
???
Author’s words: That’s right… The Tanaka family likes alcohol.