Chapter 12 - The Start of a Solo Run (3)

4

“I-it’s a humble place... but please, come in.”

The apothecary hesitantly led me inside. The shop was in disarray, as though a storm had swept through it.

“It really is a humble place...”

She wasn’t exaggerating. Broken glass bottles lay scattered across the floor. A toppled bookcase had spilled its books everywhere. The dust drifting through the air was a bonus.

An absolute mess.

-Wow.

The attendant spirit marveled.

-People used to tell me all the time that I never cleaned up, but this young lady has me beat. Really inspires confidence in her hygiene. Hey, do you seriously want to drink an elixir this girl made?

“Um, are you really going to give me a twenty-thousand-gold commission...?”

The attendant spirit and the apothecary asked at the same time, almost as though they had rehearsed it.

I smiled wryly.

“If you don’t believe me, shall I pay in advance?”

“Th-there’s no need to go that far...”

The apothecary waved her hands emphatically, then abruptly stopped.

“... No. Um, if you could, I would prefer payment in advance.”

Her face was bright red. She seemed ashamed even to be saying such a thing. I see. Her finances must have been so dire that she couldn’t afford even basic courtesy.

“Take whatever money you need from my vault. I’ll notify the Union in advance.”

“Whatever I need...”

The apothecary murmured blankly.

“Yes, although my wealth isn’t unlimited, of course. I’d appreciate it if you could keep the budget within twenty thousand gold.”

“Um, well. What sort of drug did you want to commission...?”

Had the enormous budget frightened her? She looked pleased, but anxious at the same time.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t manufacture narcotics. My personal beliefs won’t allow me to make those... If that’s what you came to commission, I-I’ll have to refuse...”

“Oh?”

Inwardly, I nodded in approval.

'She’s a little naïve, but she really does have what it takes to become the Alchemy Ministry Head.'

Not many people could firmly turn down tens of thousands of gold dangling before their eyes. All the more so if their shop had just been ruined. Yet she had declared that she would not manufacture narcotics.

This apothecary looked timid, but she had a great deal of pride.

“Haha. Don’t worry. It’s definitely not narcotics.”

“Ah... Th-that’s a relief, then. What exactly would you like me to make?”

“Hmm.”

I looked at the attendant spirit. Something must have displeased him, because he had kept his mouth shut ever since we entered the shop. Only after I gave him a pointed look did he finally sigh.

-Fine, fine. She doesn’t look remotely skilled, but I’ll give you the recipe.

He should have done that in the first place.

-Listen carefully. Rabbit-pig liver, balloon-cat eyes, desert giant earthworm skin...

“Here are the ingredients. Rabbit-pig liver, balloon-cat eyes, and...”

Following the attendant spirit’s lead, I rattled off the elixir’s ingredients.

“Ah, please wait! I-I’ll write this down!”

The apothecary hurriedly took down the recipe. It contained no fewer than twenty-three ingredients. The longer the recipe grew, the more serious her expression became.

-Well, that’s all the ingredients. How she prepares them is entirely up to her skill.

“That’s all for the ingredients.”

“...”

The apothecary silently studied her notebook, nibbling her nails.

“Mixing these together this way... It’s a combination that maximizes reflexes. It stimulates rather than relaxes. No, with all these combined, perhaps ‘heightened awareness’ would be more accurate than ‘stimulation.’”

-Huh?

The attendant spirit looked at the apothecary. Oblivious, she continued muttering.

“This is an incredibly sophisticated formula. Ah, I might be jumping to conclusions from the ingredients alone... but rather than drying or refining them separately, you simmer them all together while they’re as fresh as possible, right?”

-Uh, that’s right, but...

I nodded.

“That’s correct.”

“I knew it! Desert giant earthworm skin usually contains trace amounts of poison. One way to neutralize it is to consume rabbit-pig liver, but the effect changes depending on how you take it...!”

The apothecary chattered excitedly. The hesitant, stammering young woman from a moment ago was nowhere to be found. The apothecary before me was a regular chatterbox.

Yes. There were people like this in the world.

'People who lack practical sense but have real skill.'

People who threw themselves wholeheartedly into the field they loved and eventually achieved something extraordinary. I didn’t dislike these [experts].

“How many days would you need to prepare it?”

“Ah.”

I interrupted what threatened to become an endless conversation. The apothecary blinked as though coming back to her senses. She had apparently been talking away, lost in her own little world.

“I-I’m sorry! It’s been so long since I’ve seen such a beautiful formula that I got carried away...!”

“It’s all right. So, how many days?”

“If I have enough money... I-I can have it ready within four days. Ordinarily, I could do it faster, but I’ll need to buy new equipment and tools...”

Four days, huh.

“I can certainly wait that long.”

Before I regressed, getting even a single dose of medicine from her meant waiting at least a year. Compared to that, four days hardly counted as a wait.

-Hey, I’m still not convinced.

Even after we settled the details and left the shop, the attendant spirit kept grumbling.

-Plenty of people talk a good game but have lousy skills. Those are exactly the ones who grow up to be snake-oil peddlers. Bah. You’re just throwing good money away!

“So where did you learn that recipe?”

-I developed the formula myself. I barely managed to perfect it after drinking all sorts of poisons. It’s the finest, the absolute best elixir there is. A precious tonic you couldn’t get in your world even if you wanted to!

I chuckled.

“And that apothecary praised it as an incredibly sophisticated formula.”

-...

“She recognized the formula’s true value after just one look, so give her a chance. She might not look it, but ten years from now, she’ll be the highest-ranking person in the Alchemy Ministry.”

The attendant spirit clamped his mouth shut. His face was intimidating enough already; with his lips pressed together, he looked exactly like a giant toad.

-You just insulted me in your head, didn’t you? Huh?

“Now this ghost is making accusations against an innocent man.”

I played dumb.

He was far too perceptive for his own good.

5

The four days flew by.

During that time, the apothecary freely withdrew gold coins from my vault. Someone from the Union came to ask, “Are you really all right with this?” but I told them to let her be.

However much it cost, medicine from the illustrious Alchemy Ministry Head was practically a giveaway.

-Zombie, want to make a bet?

“Oh, what is it now?”

-That girl’s just going to take the money and run. I’m sure of it. Whatever else you might say about me, I’m a damn good judge of character. That girl has the face of a born master thief! Hurry up and kill yourself, Kim Zombie! Four suicides to take you back four days. Let’s go!

Naturally, the ghost had no eye for people whatsoever.

At noon on the fourth day, the apothecary came to my lodgings in person, laden with bundles of elixirs.

“I-I’m sorry. I wanted to get these to you a little sooner, but combining everything took longer than I expected...”

“No, you promised to make them within four days to begin with. You did, so that’s all that matters.”

The apothecary had made three boxes of elixirs in total. Taken three times a day, that was a full thirty-day supply.

If I had gone to the shop the attendant spirit knew, I would have gotten two days’ worth at best. Fifteen times the value.

'And they’ll be even more effective, too.'

Now this was how to spend money.

Feeling pleased, I found myself smiling.

“Um...”

“Yes?”

“I-it might be strange to ask this now, but why did you give such an expensive commission to an unknown apothecary like me?”

She fidgeted with her fingers.

“O-of course, I’m confident in my skills. Looking at the formula you commissioned, I think there are only about two people in Babylon who could properly understand it and make it... But people only ever treat me as an eccentric...”

“Hmm.”

Why had I entrusted this particular person with making the elixir?

Obviously, because the apothecary before me was a once-in-a-generation genius. The Alchemy Ministry’s Guild Leader. I had also calculated that it would be worthwhile to build a connection with someone who would one day lead a major guild.

But...

'That’s not the only reason.'

This was before I regressed across four thousand days, back when the Flame Emperor set fire to the slums. Despite being one of the top-ranked hunters, the woman before me had arrived at the scene faster than anyone else and directed the response to the fire.

As she helped people, the Alchemy Ministry Head had murmured:

[“That man, the Flame Emperor... I don’t like him.”]

[“He makes me a little uncomfortable, I suppose... It’s not polite to talk behind someone’s back in a place like this. Still, I think the Saintess deserves someone better.”]

Someone who had recognized the Flame Emperor’s true nature.

'She probably guessed purely on instinct, without any evidence.'

Even so, that meant this apothecary had excellent judgment.

She was skilled, kind enough to rush straight to the scene of a disaster, and perceptive enough to recognize a psychopath. Wouldn’t it be a loss not to befriend someone like that?

I spoke.

“You just seemed like a kind person.”

“Pardon?”

“I helped you because you seemed kind. Well, even without my help, you would have been a huge success on your own. But wouldn’t it be better for kind hunters like us to succeed, so we can help each other out down the line?”

“...”

“We can’t let only crazy psychopaths succeed. It’d be infuriating. Let’s both do our best.”

I told her exactly how I felt, without lying. I couldn’t have been more honest. Now it was up to her how she took my words.

The apothecary studied my face intently before speaking.

“... You’re right. Yes, we have to succeed before we can change the world.”

Her tone suggested she had made up her mind about something.

“Thank you! I’ll do my best, just like you said!”

The apothecary clenched her fists.

“If you ever need anything else, please contact me! I’ll always give your commissions top priority!”

“I’d certainly appreciate that.”

We shook hands with smiles on our faces and parted ways.

Unfortunately, my smile didn’t last long.

-Well, well. Been a while since I’ve seen someone call himself a kind hunter. And I’ve never seen anyone accept that like it’s perfectly natural, either. Hey, are you two nuts? Tsk, tsk, tsk. You’re out of your minds.

“... I know I said something embarrassing, so let’s just train.”

The next day, we headed to the hunting grounds. I packed a sleeping bag and plenty of elixirs in my backpack.

The difference from our usual routine was that we had come to the third-floor hunting grounds instead of the second floor.

Monsters still a little too much for a lowly hunter like me—goblin packs, orcs, and the like—roamed here and there.

Watching them from a distance, I asked:

“What do I do now?”

-First, drink the elixir.

I nodded. Without questioning him at all, I gulped down the elixir I had brought in a thermos.

“Hmm.”

The taste itself was ordinary. With its lemon fragrance and what might have been added honey, it was even rather pleasant.

I had expected something like ginseng extract. Just as I was thinking what a relief that was...

“Urgh...!”

THUMP.

My heart beat harder than usual.

At first, I wondered if I was imagining it, but I wasn’t. Cold sweat streamed down my back in an instant. The strange thing was... I was beginning to perceive every individual bead of sweat on my back with extraordinary clarity.

'What’s happening?'

THUMP.

It wasn’t just the sweat. The feel of air curling around my fingers. Its pressure. The texture of the earth beneath my feet. A single blink seemed to take thirty seconds, drawn out and incredibly slow.

“This... is...”

-The elixir’s effect.

Amid everything slowing down, only the attendant spirit’s voice remained the same as usual.

-It makes your perception of events extremely slow. Well, think of it as making time feel endlessly stretched out. I hate to admit it, but that girl was pretty good at making medicine.

It was horrible.

Each strand of hair, hundreds of thousands of hairs, felt vividly alive, as though every one were prickling. I could even feel the blood vessels in my eyes writhing. Had I drunk it without knowing, I would have mistaken it for poison rather than an elixir.

-Can’t you feel it?

“Feel... what...?”

-What’s squirming in your heart.

THUMP.

Something was there. No, something was flowing. And it wasn’t blood.

It was far softer than blood and far finer than a stream of it. Yet something was unmistakably flowing throughout my body. Passing through my heart, the flow slowly spread.

Something I had never clearly felt in my entire life.

-That’s aura.

The attendant spirit spoke.

-Every hunter who enters the Tower has aura inside their body. They simply go through everyday life without being aware of it. How consciously you can use that aura—in short, how freely you can draw it out and wield it—is what decides a fight.

The attendant spirit chuckled.

The laughter echoed in my head for over twenty seconds. He must have laughed for only the briefest instant, yet somehow my consciousness experienced it as twenty seconds.

I was so exhausted that I felt I would collapse if I lost focus for even a moment.

-Normally, you would train quietly on your own in this state, or sit cross-legged and slowly get used to the flow of aura.

Amid all that, something enormous approached me.

-But that takes way too long, doesn’t it?

THUD.

A footstep.

Like the laughter, the footstep echoed for a long time. With difficulty, I raised my head and looked ahead. A huge orc was coming toward me.

-When you’ve got no talent, your body has to suffer for it.

Goddammit.

-All right! If you don’t want to get hurt, draw on your aura, Kim Zombie! Actual combat is the only way for you to train! You don’t stay dead even if you fucking die, so who cares if your body gets a little wrecked?

“This... ghost... seriously...!”

-Huh? You’re such a loser you can’t even use aura. Can’t hear what you’re saying.

Once again, the attendant spirit burst into hearty laughter.

-Suffering? Kill yourself if you don’t like it. Oh, but then your kill count will go up from four thousand again. That’ll make old Markus awfully nice to you, won’t it?

Ah.

My partner really was a bastard.