by Kiri Komori
“F-Fifty…thousand…colts…”
I had no idea how much Heatstones were naturally worth! Fifty thousand sounded about right though.
Don’t do anything crazy, Mister Giyaga!
But if he can really get seven of them for just fifty thousand…
“All right. If you’re willing to go that far, I’ll make sure to save up fifty thousand colts and wait for you.”
“Then it’s a deal?”
“As an advance, I’ll make sure you have ten supreme-grade antidotes by tomorrow!”
“Antidotes? You mean, with the things I brought you today…?!”
“Yes!”
The air between Giyaga and me shivered for a long moment… At least, that’s how it felt to me. The door was still wide open.
♣♣♣
THE next morning, I woke up in the attic.
Oh yeah, I let Nakona sleep in my room…
I didn’t mind. The attic was my second room, in a way. It was where I hid all the things Grandpa and Dad couldn’t see, since they didn’t suit a little girl. I actually felt more comfortable in the attic.
I slid out of bed, got dressed, and did a few stretches on the attic’s balcony. I did my hair, and as I did, I examined myself in the mirror. My ears were definitely getting longer… Much longer than they were when I was younger! I had to wonder if they’d end up being as long and pointy as elf ears. After all, Sirius was a half-elf, and now my ears were about as long as his.
I used hair bands to tie up my hair on the sides. That way, my ears would be hidden, and my hair wouldn’t get in the way.
Maybe I can make it into a bob cut and hide my ears that way? No…the wind might ruffle my hair, and they’ll be visible… Just growing it out so I can use different hairdos to hide my ears might be simpler. And cuter at that.
I tried not to think about it yesterday, but I really am a little…weird. Blond hair with naturally purplish-red fringes. Crimson eyes. Pointy ears. I always thought I was human, but demi-humans and Mythical Beasts lived in this world. And I faintly remembered the “mother” who gave birth to the current me, and she had elfish ears. And a stone embedded into her forehead too…?
“May the blood of the Stone of Daybreak never come to awaken.”
I’d forgotten all about it since I was so occupied with alchemy recently, but I should probably look into it. I want to ask Mister Giyaga, but what if he reacts with, “What?! You know about the Stone of Daybreak?! You’re a threat!” and throws me to the wolves…
I got the feeling this stone was related to why I was abandoned in the first place. It could be really dangerous! To that end, I decided to leave the matter be for now and look into it once I was old enough to investigate on my own.
And besides, I had a mountain of problems to resolve already. Now wasn’t the time to be caught up in this one!
“…Good morning,” I said as I went downstairs.
“Morning, Tina,” Dad said. “Sorry about yesterday.”
“It’s fine. I like being in the attic, anyway.”
Dad gazed at me with pitying eyes. I couldn’t blame him. His real daughter showed up, throwing tantrums and tears in every direction. Meanwhile, I was being visibly reserved around him. He probably felt bad and apologetic. But really, I didn’t mind. Especially when it came to the room.
“The attic’s bigger, so it feels like an improvement, really. Actually, do you mind if I make it my permanent room?”
“Tina, listen, you don’t have to force yourself…”
“I’m not forcing myself though. I’ve wanted to set up a medicine cabinet in my room but thought it was getting too cramped. So can I just keep using the attic?”
“…Thank you. I owe you, Tina…”
…You’re exaggerating…
“I’ll help you make breakfast. Oh, and Giyaga said they’ll take a bath in the morning, so they’ll need some firewood to boil the water. I’ll also be working on the antidote outside today.”
“Firewood? Got it… Just be careful with alchemy. I know someone who had their face blown off because of an alchemy accident.”
“I will!”
Talk about a scary story… I really should be careful…
“…By the way, where’s Nakona?”
“Mm? She isn’t up yet? What am I going to do with her…?”
“I’ll go wake her up,” I offered.
“Thanks. Tell her she won’t get any breakfast if she doesn’t get up.”
“Hehe. I will.”
Dad’s cooking didn’t taste that good, but he made food every day, never skipping a meal. In that regard, he…kind of reminded me of my mom from my past life. She would always cook, no matter how busy she was and despite not being good at it…
The father I knew from back then was the kind of scum that would cast mom and me aside, but Marcus was different. If he was what a father should be, maybe I could stand to trust him a bit more.
Not at once, of course. The image of the father I knew from my past life was too deeply rooted.
I’m feeling really confused now… Maybe I should just straight up start calling him Marcus instead of Dad?
I went up to the second floor, passing by Dad’s room and his study to the corner room.
“…Good morning, Nakona. Rise and shine.”
That was where my room was until yesterday. The bed, sofa, and closet were the same as they were before. The books Dad and Mister Giyaga got for me were still sitting on the bookshelf too.
If I was going to change rooms, I didn’t mind leaving the furniture behind, but I at least wanted to take my clothes and books back. I did take my clothes for the day when I left yesterday, but most of my things were still in this room. Nakona was older than me though, and wouldn’t fit into my clothes, so I assumed she’d hand them over if I asked.
…Wait, did Nakona even have any luggage? Does she have clothes to change into?
My call was met with silence.
“…Hello…?” I knocked and called out to her again.
I could hear her inside, but she didn’t respond.
Wait… Is that why…?
“Um, I’m just checking to be sure, but you don’t have anything to wear, do you?” I asked.
“…Yeah…” she eventually replied bashfully.
“…Mister Giyaga is here, so we’ll buy something you can wear from him. I’ll bring you your clothes with your food, okay?”
“…O-Okay.”
“What kind of clothes do you want, by the way?”
“Something easy to move in…”
“All right.”
I hurried down the staircase and explained the situation to Dad. Apparently, Dad didn’t think of that either and heaved a perplexed sigh. He then put Nakona’s breakfast on a tray, which I carried up to her.
At worst, she could be naked, so I simply left the tray on the floor in front of the door and called out to her. I then made my way to Mister Giyaga’s cottage, where I ran into Mister Drake, one of the caravan’s members, doing his morning stretches.
“Good morning, Mister Drake,” I greeted him.
“Good morning, Tinaris! Sure is nice out today.” He beamed at me.
“Yes, it is… Um, I know this is sudden, but I need to buy some clothes. And, erm, some underwear too…”
“Finally?! Wait here; I’ll go tell the boss!”
“Huh? No, not clothes for me…!”
Finally… Finally what?!
“Oh, you mean for the big sister?”
“Big sister?”
“That girl, Nakona. She’s Marcus’ daughter, so that makes her your big sister, right?”
…Oh. I guess that’s not wrong?
“R-Right… Anyway, she needs some clothes. She can’t leave her room otherwise.”
“The clothes she had on yesterday must have gotten torn or worn out when she was running away from Marcus… Ahaha! I’ll go get her something.”
“Th-Thank you… And sorry for bothering you s
o early in the morning…”
I didn’t tell him it was both of those things, if only to protect Nakona’s dignity.
After buying Nakona some new clothes, I returned to her room. I carried the empty plate and utensils back to the kitchen and left the new clothes in their place. Then I waited for Dad to come back from delivering the firewood to Mister Giyaga. As soon as he returned, we started eating breakfast.
Halfway through our meal, Nakona came down from the second floor, dressed in her new clothes.
“Morning, Nakona,” Dad greeted her with a smile. “Did you thank Tina yet?”
“Ugh…” She fidgeted uncomfortably as she looked at me. “Th-Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, cracking a slight smile. “Did the clothes fit? Do you like the way they look?”
“Yeah!” She nodded. “They’re a perfect fit and easy to move in too! I could beat up a bigbear with these!”
…Huh?
A bigbear… A large, carnivorous creature that inhabited Mount Rofola. It was similar to what I knew of as a bear, except it was twice as large and only subsisted on meat. It was essentially an apex predator.
I only bought you clothes… Not armor…
“Nakona, you do know those are just normal clothes, right…?” I asked her.
“I can’t see you beating a bigbear…” Dad agreed with me.
“Dad, that’s not what you should be pointing out…”
“Don’t worry!” Nakona puffed up her chest. “Back in De Marl, Uncle Gildias taught me martial arts and how to use a sword! I’m actually pretty good at fighting!”
“Gildias did what?!”
…Isn’t that the person Dad mentions every now and then when he talks about his time as a knight? One of his old subordinates, I think…
I suppose he respected Dad so much he decided to look after his daughter…?
“S-Still, bigbears are no good,” I told her. “We can’t cook them since they tend to taste like the last meal they ate, so we don’t hunt them.”
“Hm, what can we hunt, then?”
“Boars or bigboars. We can preserve their meat as jerky or dried meat…”
“Then I’ll go hunt a boar today! I live here too, so I’ll help around the inn!”
“W-Wait!” Dad stopped her. “Look, we do need to restock on pork, but it’s too soon for you to go hunting alone! I’m not letting you hunt when you’re not familiar with this mountain… If you want to work, you can chop the firewood. We do have the caravan staying here, after all.”
“Boo.” Nakona huffed grumpily.
“And you be careful with your medicine brewing, Tina,” Dad warned me firmly too.
“I will.”
I knew to be careful, of course, since I’d be making something new that day. And it mostly used toxic materials, so it required extra caution.
“Medicine brewing?” Nakona cocked her head quizzically.
“Yeah, Tina’s all sorts of amazing, Nakona,” Dad said boastfully. “You might not believe it, given her age, but she can use alchemy.”
“What?!” Nakona exclaimed.
“D-Dad…!”
If you put it like that…!
“H-Hmmm. Really now?” Nakona looked at me with hostile eyes.
She was positively glaring at me. But this time, she didn’t shout at me like yesterday—I guess she felt obliged because I helped out with her clothes. She probably had plenty of nasty things to say though.
“W-Well, I can do an eight-punch combo!” she eventually boasted.
“Huh?” I asked, unsure what she meant.
“Oh, really? That’s amazing, Nakona!” Dad exclaimed with a grin. “That’s my daughter!”
“H-Hmph!” she cooed grumpily.
…I don’t get it. Eight-punch combo? Is that a martial arts thing?
I was just happy she didn’t blow up at me again. And I didn’t want to see the clothes we just bought her get ripped like the ones she had on yesterday. We hadn’t even paid for them properly yet.
“Now then…”
Dad said he’d handle cleaning up after breakfast, so I prepared twenty empty medicine bottles and went outside. I stopped under a large tree near the lakefront. Lake Rhiode was the largest lake on the human continent, but… People in this world weren’t really interested in sightseeing. It wasn’t as large as Lake Biwa in Japan, but it was still big enough that you couldn’t see the other bank. It was large enough to fish in too.
But the only thing built around Lake Rhiode was the Rofola Lodge. It was a bit odd, but people in Wisty Air didn’t live in villages or towns, but mostly in “countries.” Different “countries” were connected by the highways, but the land between the countries and off the roads didn’t belong to anyone.
There were long distances to travel between countries, so the land between them was developed, and roadside inns and stores opened. To legally open a business, an establishment needed to receive a permit from at least two countries.
“Let’s get started.”
So if I were to open a pharmacy between this inn and the highway, I would probably need permits, right…? I’d consult Dad about it when the time came.
For the time being, I’d need to gather funds! Dad wouldn’t just kick me out… At least, I didn’t think he would… But since I carried the secret of the Stone of Daybreak, a time might come when I would need to live alone. And to that end, I’d need a fortune of my own.
The capacity to live on my own, a job that would enable me to make ends meet… To do that, I would need to start by geeeently concocting fifty low-grade tonics!
I didn’t have enough of the smaller potion bottles, so I also brought two big jars. These were called Economy Jars—they weren’t used by adventurers, but by merchants like Mister Giyaga. They used them when they needed to divide the materials they sell.
Each jar was worth about twenty little bottles. Filling up one of these was much easier than filling up twenty bottles one by one. This was how alchemical apothecaries mass-produced low-grade tonics.
One bottle was worth about two hundred colts, so a jar with twenty bottles worth of tonics was an easy way to make lots of money. Part of me wanted to produce more, but I’d eventually run out of ingredients. And, according to Mister Giyaga, even alchemical apothecaries used to crafting large quantities of medicine can only make one jar a day.
I decided I’d make two jars, and while I used the mana recovery technique, I’d start making the supreme antidote. Yep, the low grade-tonics were essentially me warming up.
“It’s ready!”
I poured the prepared tonic into the jars. Two full jars ready. Normally, each of these would cost four thousand colts, but since the tonics I made were all of good quality, their cost went up by an extra thirty to even forty colts per bottle. I could sell each jar for about five thousand colts! And two whole jars would be ten thousand colts! That would be enough for Nakona’s clothes with some money left over.
“Now for the antidote…”
Its ingredients were spring water, Solan flowers, and the materials Mister Giyaga brought me: Murder Moth scales, Deadly Scorpion stingers, Venom Lizard claws, and Toxic Serpent’s fangs. The water I used was from a waterfall on Mount Rofola, which meant it was high quality. I also picked the Solan flowers from the mountain.
Much like making a tonic, the antidote was crafted by mixing the water with the Solan flower and other ingredients and applying mana during the process. After the initial transmutation was complete, the concoction was left to simmer for a while, during which I was to add more mana and stir it.
I felt beads of sweat roll down my forehead. It was harder than I thought and took longer than I expected. I knew I’d walk away from this with my arms sore from all the stirring.
Grr, I gotta finish this, though… I said I’d make it.
I poured the water into the pot and then added the ingredients. As a safety precaution, ingredients with toxic properties were to be inserted and mixed while still
in their bottles, with their lids open. You could loosen their lids but never open them completely.
“…Solan flowers, then the scales…and…”
I loosened the lids and dropped them into the pot. Once everything was in, I added my mana slowly and gently, and then it was time to mix!
Churn… Churn… Churn…
If I could make the supreme antidote, it might mean I was good enough to create high-grade tonics. Of course, a medium and high-grade tonic wasn’t potent enough to restore Dad’s lost arm, but a supreme tonic might be able to do it… If nothing else, the alchemy recipe book did say there were reported cases of a supreme tonic restoring lost limbs…
Dad… Marcus… The man who raised me. I’d often thought about how I could repay that debt. How I could return the favor for this kind man who raised a strange girl without ever complaining. And this was the best thing I could come up with.
My way of repaying him for everything would be the supreme tonic. That was what I decided as soon as I learned of the tonic’s existence, and right now, I was taking the first step toward making that happen.
I’ve gotta focus!
I concentrated my mind and body on pouring mana into the concoction. I sensed the Air around me…and took it in…
I’ll do it. For sure!
♣♣♣
MISTER Giyaga looked at the result with stunned silence.
“…Is this real…?”
“What do you think, Mister Giyaga?” I asked.
“W-Wait. I’ll try Appraising it…”
I looked up at Mister Giyaga full of anticipation. Dad, Nakona, and the rest of Mister Giyaga’s caravan crowded around us in front of the inn as Mister Giyaga appraised my supreme antidote. Everyone capable of Appraisal magic—Dad included—gazed at the bottle containing the bright-blue liquid I made.
That way, we’d know the quality for sure, but supreme antidotes were generally hard to come by. And as one might expect, there was no precedent of a six-year-old alchemist successfully brewing one…
If I made it, it would be an unprecedented event in this world—in human history! Or so everyone said, until I brought the actual bottle. I just hoped it worked out—I’d spent four hours brewing this thing.
“…Its quality is ideal. There’s no mistaking it… That’s a supreme antidote.”
