Doctor In The House (Dr. STONE Fanfiction)

King of The Stone World

"So Senku, who are you going to revive first?" questioned Taiju.

"We must de-petrify them all one by one anyway." replied his friend in a matter-of-fact tone. "It doesn't matter who goes first." A sudden thought stumbled across his mind, to which he let out a chuckle. "If we accidentally de-petrify a psycho killer, it would be bad."

The brunette stared at him before his gaze went to the ground. "I see."

Senku seemed to have understood the subtle disappointment in his tone. "It's so troublesome to decide the first target." After getting up and adjusting his clothes, he then pointed at the young man and grinned. "Taiju, you choose."

The said man momentarily looked surprised and then returned a smile. "Thank you, Senku. My answer is obvious."

"I take it that the two of you would be going off right now to revive another friend of yours." noted Rikona. "If that's the case, I'll stay back. I need to do something about our medicinals. Can't risk having low amounts if come the time one of us gets sick or injured, right?"

The two boys didn't argue and nodded curtly. "Alright." said the brunette with a smile. "Senku and I will de-petrify Yuzuriha, while you stay back."

The young lady nodded back before giving him a closed-eye smile. "This Yuzuriha must be a special person to you, eh?" she teased.

Taiju's face immediately flushed, and he quickly turned away, attempting to hide his blush. "Yes, she is." he stammered. "I promised I would get her out, so I've long decided that she would be the first person to be revived."

"I see." she responded with a gentle smile. "Well, you two shouldn't waste any more time. Yuzuriha needs her knight in shining armour to save her right now."

"Roger!" shouted the eager Taiju.

"We'll be back in a while." said Senku with a grin. "Go ahead and do whatever experiment that comes to your mind, Doc."

"Okay." responded Rikona. At that moment, she thought of something and rushed to where the spears were placed. "Wait a moment. You might need to bring these along just in case. There could be wild animals lurking out there, so-" She wasn't able to complete her sentence as she turned around and realised that the two had left. "Oh, well. Hopefully they won't run into a lion or something."

If only she knew how that sentence manifested into reality in a few moments' time.

Rikona went back inside the laboratory to check on the basket filled with herbs she'd collected that early morning. "Let's see what I can do now. I think I need to replace the dried batches with new ones." She started by bundling two to three stalks of feverfews, chamomile blossoms, holy basils, and stinging nettle leaves. She then tied the stems with twine made from the same dried plants they used to make ropes. After making a few bunches, she went to the shelves where there were bunches of dried herbs hanging upside down at the corner, and replaced them with new ones before putting the dried herbs inside a smaller basket. Placing the basket aside, she put two empty small jars on the table and plucked the mint and basil leaves accordingly before closing them tightly.

The young doctor then went to a shelf at the corner, picked up up a jar of dill and coriander preserved with the salt they extracted from seawater. "So far so good." she commented to herself, after taking off the lid to look inside. "The leaves still look surprisingly fresh. Hopefully we can use these for the next few months." Placing the jar down, she picked up another one which was filled with tinctures made from burdock roots preserved in alcohol for at least a month. She returned to her workstation where she strained the herbs with a small basket and poured the content into an empty one; the herbal tincture was ready to be used. After washing the containers at a nearby stream and letting them dry outside, she moved the black stand that was used for the distillation pot to where there was direct sunlight, and then placed a big stone tray on top. Returning with a basket of mushrooms that had been cleaned and sliced, she carefully laid them on the tray, letting the sun and humid air dehydrate them for storage.