Veria Potion
Satou here. With the advent of middleware, it became standard to release games on multiple platforms. But before that, it was very difficult to downsize from desktop gaming computers to handheld consoles.
“Lord Kuro!”
“Sorry to show up in the middle of the night, Lelillil.”
After I returned to our house, I changed into my Kuro disguise and used the Space Magic spell Return to go to the Ivy Manor.
I wanted to research whether it was possible to adapt the veria potion recipe I’d learned about at Baronet Dyukeli’s place so that it could be made with humans’ Transmutation Tablets.
The youthful house fairy Lelillil came to greet me, so I told her I would be using the laboratory in the basement.
“I’ll get it ready right away!”
Lelillil scurried off briskly. She seemed to be in an energetic mood.
As Lelillil left, another girl appeared in her place.
“Lord Kuro! You’re back!”
Miss Eluterina, the blond noblewoman, wore a look of evident delight on her lovely features.
She’d been staying in the Ivy Manor since I’d rescued her from the plunderers.
Since she was from a noble family, any rumors that her purity had been compromised by plunderers would bring disgrace to her and her family; I was waiting for things to blow over before releasing her and her fellow nobles from the manor.
Oh right.
“I have a question for you.”
I didn’t want to make her stand around and talk to me, so we sat down in the reception area of the study. Since she was the granddaughter of Marquis Kelten, I asked her about the rumors I’d heard in the baron’s house the day before.
“Lord Kuro! My grandfather would never commit such treason!”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Grandfather worships the royal family, since they are descended directly from the great ancestral king Yamato.”
So he’s not just loyal—he worships them?
Doesn’t sound like the type of person I’d like to be friends with.
“Is it possible that he was forced to obey some villains because they’d taken you hostage?”
“…Not at all.” Eluterina’s voice was faint. “Grandfather would side with the royal family even over his own children or grandchildren.”
“That’s pretty extreme.”
“Such is the way of the Kelten family.”
The blond noblewoman was from an offshoot of this family, but she still seemed to take pride in their nature.
“As a result, our family has earned a great amount of trust from the royal family, and we have commanded the king’s army for generations.”
Eluterina was a good judge of character. There must be more than just personal bias in play for her to declare this so confidently.
“If you’re worried about them, would you like to return to the royal capital?”
“N-no, thank you. Someone like myself wouldn’t be of much use anyway.”
She shook her head, but she did look worried.
“Why don’t you go—?”
I was going to suggest that she check in on her family, but I was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Lord Kuro? It’s Tifaleeza.”
“Come in.”
Tifaleeza entered the room, her silver hair swaying barely above her shoulders, framing her lovely face and sharp eyes.
The light in the room seemed to flow across her soft curls.
Though not quite on the level of Lulu, her beauty was still incredibly captivating.
“Here are the account books for the food stalls and other side jobs.”
She handed me a register tracking the numbers for the work of the rescued girls who were currently living in tenement houses in the downtown area.
There was dust in her hair. She must have just come through the secret underground passage that connected the downtown tenements to a place near the Ivy Manor.
The passage was made with Pitfall and strengthened with Wall and Hard Clay, so I wasn’t surprised that people would get a little dirty passing through it.
If my new Stone Object spell turned out to be useful, maybe I could reinforce it with stone.
As I thought about all this, I brushed the dirt from Tifaleeza’s hair.
“L-Lord Kuro?”
She turned bright red and squirmed. Maybe she didn’t like having her hair touched so suddenly.
“My apologies.”
With that, I quickly skimmed the books.
“Hmm. We’re in the red.”
The food stalls were fairly profitable, but thanks to lots of household expenses, the total was in the negative.
Even the earnings from Miss Elder Sister and her explorer group were lower than those of the frog-hunting group.
“Yes. So Elder Sister and the others proposed an expedition to the mantis area.”
“Put a stop to that. They could be hurt or worse.”
They might have decent armor, but their levels weren’t very high, so they would undoubtedly have a difficult time against soldier mantises or war mantises.
“But there aren’t many day-labor jobs that will hire women, and the pay for the other side jobs is quite low…”
We might have to come up with some kind of marketable product for the girls to sell.
“Lord Kuro, perhaps we could sell the magic tools made in Labyrinth City to people in the royal capital, plus sell accessories from the latter to explorers in the former?”
This was Eluterina’s suggestion.
“Commerce, eh? Do any of you have experience in that area?”
“Yes, Neru and three of the other girls who manage the stalls.”
She explained that two of the girls had parents who were merchants, and one had actually been a peddler herself.
As long as some of them had experience, they would probably be fine.
“All right. I’m putting you and the peddler girl in charge of investigating the market.”
“It would be my pleasure!”
This would allow the blond noblewoman to check in on her grandfather, too, so it would be killing two birds with one stone.
“Bring the other noblewomen from the mansion, as well. Market research will be easier with more people.”
I figured this would let some of the other girls go back to visit their families, but Eluterina’s expression darkened.
Maybe she thought I was fishing for an excuse to kick them out for good?
“I’ll give you a month for the investigation. Don’t forget to account for travel time both there and back.”
And with that, the blonde broke into a relieved smile.
I guess she understood what I was getting at when I mentioned the trip back here.
“While you’re at it, see if you can find an estate in the royal capital that we can use as a base, too.”
This was mostly so I could place a Return seal slate there.
“Lord Kuro, I’ve heard that you need a trade license to deal in magic tools in the royal capital.”
“Oh dear, you’re right. I had completely forgotten.”
The blond noblewoman agreed with Tifaleeza’s observation.
“We’ll have to get ahold of one before we start trading, then.”
If I asked the king as Nanashi the Hero, I could probably get any number of licenses, but negotiating with him directly sounded stressful.
“I’m terribly sorry.”
“It’s fine. My master will get the trade license for us.”
While I was there, I would be able to sell first-generation handmade Magic Swords to my heart’s content.
They were the same kind as the Magic Sword Akatsuki, which Viscount Siemmen had shown off to General Erthal after buying it at the dark auction in the old capital.
After the demonified-Ludaman incident, General Erthal had told me that there were few people with valuable mithril or mithril-alloy swords even in the royal army, let alone wielders of Magic Swords.
I wasn’t interested in becoming an arms dealer, but I figured I could sell them some Magic Swords to protect the land from monsters.
So I was just going to sell them my handmade Magic Swords, keeping my salvaged weapons of war, like large Magic Guns and Magic Cannons, hidden away in Storage.
I had plenty of fins from monster fish and giant monster fish, which were used to make skypower engines for aircrafts and such, so I could probably sell some airships and engines, too.
If air transport became more common, then I could comfortably travel the skies in my regular Satou form.
And even if that didn’t happen, I’d be more than happy if the distribution of rare ingredients became more widespread.
But I could deal with all that after Eluterina and the other ladies concluded their research.
“I’ll put Polina and Sumina in charge of researching goods in Labyrinth City. As I said before, I’ll allocate a month for research. Two days from now, I’ll bring you to the city with my Teleportation Magic. Be ready by then.”
When the conversation concluded, I headed into the basement laboratory.
“Let’s start with the basics.”
Dressed as Satou again, I put on a white lab coat, enjoying the scientific atmosphere as I attempted making magic potions from veria plants by following Mr. Trazayuya’s recipe.
“All right, that seems to work.”
Even the best veria potions were only around as effective as a decent lesser recovery potion and about 10 or 20 percent less effective than one of the same quality.
But that wasn’t a big enough difference to be a problem, since the real issue was the cost and availability of ingredients.
If it was possible to make potions using evil veria, the giant veria-like plant that grew in abundance to the west of Labyrinth City, it would be possible to make a near-infinite supply of magic potions. But that was nowhere to be found in Trazayuya’s recipes.
I would have to experiment with that later.
Noticing the tablet I was using, Lelillil slipped into her habitually rude tone. “What in the hell are you using a human Transmutation Tablet for, erm…Lord Satou?”
“I’m trying to adapt this recipe so that humans can make it with this kind of tablet.”
“You’re changing the recipe?!” Her eyes practically bugged out of their sockets.
Brushing her off with a smile, I started going over the adaptation process in my mind.
Ugh. I shouldn’t have bothered.
It was such an undertaking that I almost started to regret it.
I was taking a transmutation process that was already difficult with high-performance equipment and trying to reproduce it on far inferior equipment, so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but this was much more difficult than I’d expected.
Once I finished running simulations in my head, I started working for real with the Transmutation Tablet.
Sometimes the components refused to mix, sometimes they blew up with a puff of poisonous smoke, and at one point my concoction emitted a foul odor that nearly knocked out Lelillil and myself.
I was more or less fine, but I still had to use an Antidote: All-Purpose for the first time in a while.
This grim battle continued for another two hours.
Finally, I managed to make a relatively successful batch.
> Title Acquired: Porting Master
> Title Acquired: Reorganizer
> Title Acquired: Finder of New Paths
Now that I had a new recipe figured out, I wanted to make sure that people besides me would be able to transmute and alchemize it, so I transformed into Kuro and went to fetch the alchemists and doctors among the girls.
“Incredible! To think that making magic potions from veria is actually possible!”
The lone alchemist in the Ivy Manor exclaimed in surprise.
“““You’re amazing, Lord Kuro!”””
The doctors and Lelillil all praised me in unison.
“The formulation stages are similar to that of veria salve.”
The doctors agreed that this recipe would be doable.
Incidentally, veria salve is an ointment used to disinfect wounds and stop bleeding, popularly used by everyone from the poorest to the most experienced explorers.
I had never heard of it until now, since it wasn’t mentioned in the rookie explorers’ class.
“The transmutation stage is a little too difficult for me at my current skill level.”
After a few attempts, the alchemist girl called me over.
Sure enough, most of her attempts were failures, and the ones that succeeded were of the lowest possible quality.
“Lord Kuro…”
I thought she was going to give up, but instead she clenched her fists.
“Please give me a little more time! I’ll master it in a month—no, half a month!”
“All right. We’ve got plenty of veria, so practice as much as you need.”
I gave the alchemist girl a Magic Bag containing many cores that were grade 3 or above to use for transmutation. I also gave her some watered-down magic recovery potions.
“As for the rest of you, please make enough veria salve for Sumina and the other explorers.”
“““Yes, Lord Kuro!”””
The doctors seemed to have time on their hands. Best put them to work.
Since their names might have been spread as the creators of demonic potions, I had Tifaleeza give them new names just to be safe.
Since they would be returning to their real names eventually, I gave them names in alphabetical order: Ann, Beth, Chris, Debbie, and Emily.
“Oh right. Do you know about a potion called Monster Incense?”
My casual question made the girls all stiffen.
“I…I do.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“No, no. We will! This sin is ours to bear.”
According to the alchemist girl, the plunderers had used this item to cause chain rampages.
The recipe had been disseminated in the underworld of Labyrinth City, spread by cohorts of Yellow Robes—the same yellow-skinned demon who had taught the plunderers how to cultivate ingredients for demonic potion.
Those plunderers and demons were both always up to no good.
“You were just forced to make it. I won’t say to forget about it, but don’t let it keep weighing on you. All the blame lies with the plunderers, not you.”
I comforted the girls, who were painfully holding back tears, leaving the Ivy Manor only after they had calmed down.
My revised veria potion was likely to have a huge impact on Labyrinth City, so I was planning to wait for the right time to release it.
I had Tifaleeza use “Name Order” to give me the fake name Tsarayuya, an imitation of Trazayuya the Sage, for when I released the recipe.
“For today’s volunteer work, we’re cleaning up the aqueducts!”
“““Yes, ma’am!”””
The kids all waved their cleaning implements and cheered enthusiastically in response to Arisa’s rallying cry.
Since we’d gotten permission to clean the aqueducts, we decided to get started right away.
It would be dangerous to have only the kids and old folks who came to the soup kitchen do the cleaning on their own, so I hired the girls from the downtown tenements as backup.
I had just mentioned it to Neru this morning, but there was a bigger turnout than I’d expected.
Despite the low pay of a copper coin per person, they all seemed eager to help.
“This is a strange tool, young master.”
The redheaded Neru was gazing curiously at one of the trash-picker tools I had hastily constructed.
“Will the stalls be all right without you, Miss Neru?”
“Just ‘Neru’ is fine, mister. The other gals are there, too. It’ll be okay! Figured I’d come help out here, since I can use Everyday Magic and all!”
My title had slipped from “young master” to “mister,” but I decided not to comment.
“How convenient, eh?”
“I wanna pick stuff up, too.”
“Wait your turn!”
The old folks and kids alike seemed to be impressed with the trash pickers. It sounded like they were having fun as they set about clearing the garbage from the aqueducts.
I would have to make more trash pickers for the next day, since they were more helpful than I anticipated.
“Mister, I mean, young master! This tool is from a foreign land, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“Yeah, I ain’t… Erm, I’ve never seen one.”
The girls from the tenement houses came up to me, struggling to keep their language polite as they spoke.
“If you pull this string, the thingies on the end close! That’s so cool!”
“Erm, excuse me, young master. Would it be all right if we made something similar to these trash pickers and sold them?”
While Neru continued to gawk at the trash picker in admiration, another girl, wearing a serious expression, approached me with a proposal.
“Sure, that’s fine. If you can find some branches that are hollow like this, it should be pretty easy to make.”
However, because the handle of this trash picker was made thin but sturdy with Treespirit Pearls, they would have to use different components.
“That should be fine! I know a lumber dealer who sells thin bamboo.”
If the girls had a new product to sell, that would certainly be a good thing.
They might even level up in the process of developing the product and gain some creation-related skills.
With only a few minor incidents, the aqueduct cleaning was proceeding smoothly.
“This is quite a lot of garbage.”
“What are we going to do with it? Burn it?”
“There’s a dump site outside the city, so we’ve been told to throw it away there.”
A government official had told me this when I went to get permission the day before.
We used a human-wave tactic to carry the garbage out of the city.
“What an enormous pit.”
About a hundred and fifty feet away from the south gate, the hole was nearly thirty feet around and ten feet deep.
“The viceroy hires Earth Magic users to remake this hole once a year.”
“Wow, that’s interesting.”
This piece of knowledge came from one of the old folks who had helped transport the garbage.
“No one tries to go through the garbage?”
“No, sir. There are slimes at the bottom.”
Sure enough, I could see some gray slimes wriggling around at the bottom of the pit.
Slimes had to be used to dispose of food waste, scraps, and so on, the old man explained, or the pit would overflow right away.
I’d been under the impression that everyone just threw their waste in the aqueducts, but apparently, that wasn’t the case.
Once we finished throwing out the garbage, we distributed rewards some distance away from the garbage dump site.
“Wow! These fish-oil drops are delicious!”
I distributed the treats to the tenement girls as well as the volunteers.
“Yeah, but I dunno. I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse.”
“We have biscuits, too.”
A hungry girl voiced her complaints with an old-fashioned phrase, so I offered the ladies some biscuits and dried meat.
“Neru, the aqueduct cleanup is going to be a several-week project. Can I hire all of you to keep helping us?”
“Sure, but…you gonna be all right, mister?”
Neru looked hesitant. She was probably concerned about whether I could afford to pay everyone, since it would add up to about one gold coin for every three days.
“Sure. Don’t worry about the expense.”
I smiled at Neru to show my gratitude for her concern.
Paying around ten gold coins for a month was no big deal. We couldn’t cover much ground in a single day of cleaning, but if we kept it up for a month, the city’s water quality would drastically improve.
You’ve got to take your time with things like this.
“Here I thought there were less morons bringing gabo fruit into the labyrinth, but now the bastards are using Monster Incense. I guess we’ve got no shortage of idiots.”
After the aqueduct cleaning session, I went to the guildmaster to tell her the rumors I’d heard about Monster Incense, war, and so on.
She already knew about the latter and actually seemed to be better-informed than I was about the effects of war, even going so far as to warn me not to get caught up in any get-rich-quick schemes.
As it happens, feckless explorers sometimes illegally brought gabo fruit into the labyrinth in order to incite demi-goblins to multiply. But in most cases, this ended with the explorer parties being wiped out by a tidal wave of demi-goblins multiplying out of control.
“Is that all you needed to talk about?”
It appeared that the guildmaster had caught on to the fact that I was leading up to making a collection request.
“Actually, I want to put out a request for ogredrink-potion ingredients. Would it be possible to share it as a request from the guild?”
“For the viceroy’s daughter? …No, this is because of that Dyukeli bastard, isn’t it? You should choose your friends more carefully, Satou.”
The guildmaster seemed to dislike Baronet Dyukeli as well.
“It’s mainly for the viceroy’s daughter.”
I made this excuse with the help of my “Fabrication” skill.
The guildmaster sighed. “You’re too damn nice,” she grumbled. “You’ll be providing the money, I take it?”
“Of course. I’ll submit the fee in advance.” I gave her a bag containing the request payment as well as the retaining fee. “Actually, I’d like to make one other request as well…”
“You want to buy up any Magic Scrolls from the labyrinth?”
Since I’d received some labyrinth scrolls from Baronet Dyukeli yesterday, I was hoping to get lucky again.
“And you’re offering ten gold coins for each, no matter what kind of magic it is?” The guildmaster stared at my personal request with widening eyes.
It was certainly a high amount compared with the market rate for most scrolls being sold, but intermediate Magic Scrolls could be worth five gold coins or more, so I didn’t think it was too outrageous.
Besides, a mere ten coins was a small price to pay for expanding my arsenal of spells.
Still, since Magic Scrolls were one-use-only for the average person, it probably seemed like a ridiculous pastime.
“I’m paying one silver coin for used scrolls, however. And I won’t be buying duplicates or market goods.”
“Boy, you’re a strange one, all right.”
You’re one to talk, guildmaster.
“When are you going back into the labyrinth?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tch, guess I can’t invite you to go out drinking tonight, then. Let’s get drinks as soon as you come back, y’hear?”
The guildmaster looked grumpy, so I responded “yes, of course” with a smile and excused myself from her office.
“Please! Just give us three more days!”
“We’ll pay the interest, I swear!”
As I passed the reception desk on the first floor, I heard two women’s frantic voices.
“Sorry, but I just work here. I have to follow the rules.”
It was the Lovely Wings pair who was pleading with the guild employee, and it sounded like they were trying to get more time to pay something back.
“I can cover for them for now, if that’s all right,” I offered. These two were familiar faces, and they didn’t seem like the type to shirk a debt; I figured I’d intervene on their behalf.
“M-mister!”
“We can’t cause trouble for you like that…”
“The interest for one trimoon is two silver coins total for the pair.”
The guild employee told me the price, completely ignoring their protests.
He was a regular at my drinking parties with the guildmaster. He must have known that I often purchased expensive drinks and snacks.
He probably figured that I could spare two silver coins easily.
As soon as I paid the money…
“Th-thank you, mister.”
“Oh, mister, we really owe you big-time…”
…the two women clung to me and wailed in gratitude, making things pretty awkward.
Even with my “Poker Face” skill, I was painfully aware of the curious looks from the other explorers and employees.
I couldn’t bear all the attention much longer, so I offered to listen to their troubles at a nearby bar.
“Really, we can’t thank you enough, mister.”
“You saved us from becoming slaves, you know. We’re so grateful, we’d happily give you Jena’s purity if you want.”
“Why me? What about yours, Iruna?”
“Yeah right. Why would he want mine?”
The two women finally calmed down and started joking around.
My AR display reminded me that the charming one was named Iruna , while the beauty was named Jena .
“Here’s the chef’s special today and some ale…,” the friendly waitress said, dropping off our food.
I gave her a big tip and ordered another round of food.
“Wow, boiled rock cray! I’ve never had this before!”
“Y-you sure you wanna treat us to such a classy meal?”
“It’s no problem.”
I quenched my thirst with some ale, then dug into the boiled rock cray, which looked like a giant spiny lobster.
It was a little salty but tasty. The chef here seemed to be pretty skilled.
“It’s so delicious, I can’t believe it…”
“Yeah, this is a far cry from the hard biscuits and dried meat we always eat in the labyrinth.”
The pair nearly started crying again as they gobbled up the rock cray meat.
They didn’t eat it, shell and all, like the beastfolk girls, though.
“You’re not supposed to drink ale so daintily, mister!” Jena of the Lovely wings scolded me as I took a small sip of the unpleasantly sour ale and tried not to scrunch up my face. “You gotta chug it all at once and feel that tingly sensation as it travels down your throat!”
She appeared to be quite the impassioned ale enthusiast.
“Mister, you can ignore Jena’s so-called wisdom.”
“Oh, come on, Iruna. You’re the one who never shuts up about the right way to grill meat!”
As they exchanged friendly banter, we enjoyed the other dishes.
When I noticed them looking sadly at their empty ale glasses, I told them they could have unlimited refills of whatever they wanted. But that might have been a mistake…
“You won’t believe it, mister! Those Silverlight jerks are sooo mean!”
With a drunken beauty on my right and a foggy-eyed charmer on my left, I was subjected to complaints about the Silverlight party.
“We finally went on an expedition, but we got stuck with breaking down monster parts, throwing out garbage, and odd jobs like that—they didn’t let us hunt a single maze locust!”
“Yeah, they just treated us like lowly carriers.”
“I mean, technically we were invited along as carriers, but still! We were told that even carriers got to hunt straggler prey sometimes.”
“Nothing we can do, though. They told us they wanted to train their newbies instead, y’know?”
I briefly recalled the scene between the Silverlight party and the Lovely Wings that I had happened across back in the labyrinth.
They must have been pretty miserable throughout the expedition. Their complaints washed over me like a waterfall.
Still, as a programmer in Japan, I’d often listened to the complaints of Mr. Tubs and my other seniors. This was no big deal by comparison.
“This is all because that greedy moron Besso had to try and steal the royal-jelly ball, y’know?”
“Yeah, if it weren’t for that idiot, we wouldn’t be stuck paying off a fine for the stupid chain rampage!”
Ah, the target of their complaints shifted from Silverlight to Besso.
If I remembered correctly, he was the same guy who’d been causing yet another chain rampage for Mr. Koshin’s party the other day.
Some people never learn.
“He’ll get what’s coming to him sooner or later, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, you said it!”
“Let the bastard screw up and get eaten by monsters!”
Thus, I ended up drinking along with them as they complained into the night, until eventually the alcohol carried them into slumber.
The looks from nearby explorers seemed to beg the question Which one’s he gonna take home? so I contacted Arisa and the others with the Space Magic spell Telephone to come get us.
“Guilty.”
“You’ve got some nerve, calling your wives to the scene of your cheating.”
Wives? Since when?
Mia and Arisa narrowed their eyes at the drunken Lovely Wings pair.
“Liza, Nana, can you help me out?”
“Understood.”
“Yes, master.”
I didn’t know where they lived, so we ended up loading them into a carriage to bring them back to the mansion with us.
We had open guest rooms; they could sleep there.
“Both of them? Really?”
“Good going, kid.”
Dismissing the comments from drunken explorers with a wave of my hand, I climbed into the carriage.
Then I reassured the infuriated Arisa and Mia on the way home, letting the evening breeze disperse my tipsiness.
Looking out at the street, where there were no longer any kids sleeping in alleys, I felt a little accomplished as we returned to the mansion.
I think I’ll be able to sleep well tonight.
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