Chapter of Bottled Love: A Merchant’s Secret Stash

“What did you say… You actually succeeded...”

After Karen and I took care of ourselves—including a bath, laundry and lunch, in that order—we searched for Ria, in the hopes to get some advice. Conveniently, we found her with Korwen, whose eyes were as wide as saucers right now.

“Nn… But it needs a lot of mana. We used up all the mana crystals we had and it only opened up for a short amount of time. Plus, the most you could probably do was putting your hand through it.”

“… The mana consumption does sound like it would be a problem. But it’s nothing that can’t be dealt with. This is good news. Hehehe, this is really good news, Yumi, Karen! Hahaha!”

He was grinning like a madman, completely losing himself in laughter. Elated to the max.

“That means… As long as we can get a sufficient amount of mana crystals, we really could travel large distances, after all. This is truly amazing!”

“Nn, it is… But… We don’t know how much mana that would take… It might be way more than we could afford.”

“Mmm… You’re right, I guess.”

Hearing my warning, he finally calmed down a little. I didn’t expect him to get this excited about it. This was more like a little boy who got the toy he always longed for.

“Ria, help them out with whatever they need to do. We have to find out if it is feasible to travel in this manner.”

“Understood…”

“As for the mana crystals to use… The mana crystals we bought up from that one merchant are stored in a warehouse in the city. We should still have enough time after this, so we’ll go there and collect them. Yumi, how many crates did you say could you fit into that mana orb?”

“Four and a little. Maybe even more but I’d rather not experiment too much with such a large amount… in case something goes wrong.”

“Mm… It’s probably better if you don’t fill them with too much mana. If you keep it at a reasonable level, they’ll be less conspicuous. People might put their eyes on them should they spot you using one and should one get stolen, it won’t be a complete catastrophe. So, let’s say four crates.”

I hadn’t even thought of that situation in particular. It would be hard to completely hide those mana orbs in the future whenever I used them. If someone saw me using them, they might try to steal them… And I didn’t have much confidence I would be able to stop them. But Karen could, probably.

“Four crates is still a significant difference. If you take care of all the mana crystals like that, we should easily be able to fit it all in a single crate. An easy way to clean up. Saves us the transport cost.”

“...”

Yes, they were more compact, as well… They were… Anyway, there was something I just realised while we talked about this. I didn’t really have a clue about how much mana was… well… considered ‘a lot.’ The mana crystals Korwen had bought were barely as large as a pebble and the amount of mana was minuscule in a single one. The only reason it had ended up being a significant amount of mana was that there was a literal crate full of them…

“Captain, what will happen to the roper’s mana crystal?”

“That one? We’ll likely sell it. Don’t even think about trying to use it for that. We can just buy up smaller crystals instead.”

“I didn’t want to… I wanted to know how much mana it has.”

“If it’s only that, you can check it later. Just don’t mess around with it. It’s a valuable source of income for us.”

“Understood.”

Mana crystals that large were probably rather uncommon. And it was surely containing an amount of mana that was considered huge. Probably way too much to take as a baseline but it should still be good to get a vague understanding. Other than that, yet another question to ask our teacher Ria.

“Well then, let’s not dillydally. That warehouse is not going to empty itself.”

“... I feel like our day off miraculously disappeared, Sis.”

“I think that’s mostly our own fault…”

True… It was our own fault, without a doubt. I shouldn’t have gotten overeager yesterday.

“Mhm… Maybe I should cut your days off short, seeing how you girls are killing time with work anyway.”

“Please don’t. Seriously.”

Just because we had done it this time didn’t mean we would next time. We just did it because it was something we had talked about even before the job. It meant by no means that we were workaholics that didn’t need a break. On the contrary, I’d prefer only days off to laze around and have fun with Karen, but I digress.

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Was a joke.”

“Nn…”

“If you got other plans we can delay collecting the mana crystals.”

“No, I’m fine with that. Sis?”

“I don’t mind either.”

“In that case, we’ll take Ria along later and go to the warehouse. It might get a little late, though.”

Personally, I didn’t mind that but on the other hand…

“Ah but… once we are back, you girls will take a proper rest, understood?”

“Huh?”

“Err…”

“Resting is part of your job. I understand the feeling of doing something—anything—after a job like this, but if you don’t properly rest, you start doing stupid things and just end up getting yourself killed. Don’t give in to that temptation. Overeagerness just gets you killed.”

His eyes narrowed in my direction. Yeah, he totally referred to the incident from yesterday…

“You got that? When we’re back, if I see you lift a single finger for the next four days, I’ll lock you up. Understood?”

“Understood, Captain…”

“Understood, Mr Captain…”

“Good.”

Satisfied with our response, he nodded and his expression softens again.

“Seriously, I never know if you girls are lazy or not. Decide on one, not both.”

“Ahahaha…”

I could only let out a dry laugh… We had screwed up a little… Just a little.

“Haa… That’s enough scolding. As long as you got it, don’t do it again. And in the future, if you do any practical experiments, consult with Ria first. Ria, make sure they don’t do anything stupid.”

“Mmm… I’ll try… Captain…”

Korwen furrowed his brows, probably not quite sure whether Ria had understood it or not.

“I probably asked the wrong person to look after them... I hope this won’t turn into trouble in the future… Whatever, let’s get going. The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

Korwen stood up from his chair and stretched his arms and back.

“Time to empty a warehouse!”

And with a smile, Korwen led us out of the tent and the camp.

… Speaking of which, did we get more days off just now?

“Hey, Captain, I just thought about it but is it fine for you to be away at this time?”

“As long as we don’t take too long it shouldn’t become an issue. Merim and the others might get back and I left Greyward and Fenna in charge for the meantime.”

“I see…”

We didn’t have much of a chance to speak with Fenna yet after the roper job… She was still busy guarding El and Nel with her squad.

Should be fine if they’re still there, though…

Either way, it was too late now, since we were already wandering down the paved road in the city, accompanied by a few other mercenaries and Ria. As usual, the dark red bricks they used in their construction here gave the place a rather bright impression.

“Mr Captain, can I ask something?”

“Sure you can, Karen.”

“Why did we not take any of the Black Guards along for the village assault?”

“Oh? That’s quite unexpected.”

He grinned, pleased at the question.

“There are a few some reasons but the most important one is because they could protect the camp. Greyward is also a capable leader. If things had gone awry, I can trust him to get everyone to safety. Fenna has potential and I want her to take more important roles in the future—Ah, to the left here—but Greyward is far more experienced than she is.”

We walked down the road, approaching what seemed to be… a harbour?

“Also, Fenna still had her own job to attend to. And since our supplies of those protection tools were limited, we wouldn’t have been able to take along everyone anyway.”

“The charms that never saw a use…”

“Well, that’s how it is at times. But it’s better to be prepared than not. We didn’t even confront Yumelia. If we had been an hour or two earlier, we might have caught her. On the other hand, things might not have gone as smoothly in that case.”

There really was a harbour here… And a wide river. Several warehouses were lined up right next to it.

“Mr Captain, we wouldn’t have had to deal with the roper then, though.”

“Yes, but we still aren’t sure of Yumelia’s capabilities. What if she was a magician of Ria’s calibre? We would’ve seen casualties without a doubt. Or if she could charm people despite the protection tool.”

“And now we still don’t know anything.”

“Right. Not much we can do about now, though—To the right here.”

The river came into full view now. A large wooden sailing ship was anchored there. Sailors were unloading one crate after another with something that seemed to be a primitive crane.

“Well, enough about that, we’re soon at the warehouse. It’s that one over there.”

He pointed at a rather large building at the end of the row of warehouses we were currently passing. It was a little more worn down. The sign at the top of it, which should usually declare whose property this was, had the name scratched out for some reason. If I recalled correctly, Korwen mentioned the merchant left town so maybe he got rid of this place as well? But wasn’t that a little weird when there was still stuff left inside that he sold to others?

“Guess that merchant doesn’t intend to come back to Larfas anymore, huh… Is he that scared of a war?”

Korwen raised his eyebrows in surprise, seeing the scratched out sign hanging over the large double door or maybe gate was a more apt description.

“Whatever, not my problem. Let’s get inside.”

He walked up to the gate and touched a metal piece that was locking the doors in place. A short moment after, it glowed in dim blue light and fell to the ground.

“Captain, what was that?”

“A magical lock. Without the key piece, you can’t open them no matter what. But they’re quite expensive, unfortunately.”

“Huh…”

After picking up the magical lock that had fallen to the ground, he pushed open the wide doors.

“Now, that’s what I like to see.”

“That’s… a lot of crates.”

“Makes me wonder what he planned to do with these.”

Korwen, Karen and I expressed our impressions of the view in front of us. A wide space that was filled with dozens over dozens of wooden crates, stacked up on top of each other.

“Captain, are all of these…”

“Sure are.”

“...”

This… would take a lot of time. Even if I could empty a crate in a minute… We might be working here for hours… That’s how many there were here.

“Let’s not stand around for too long. You guys, get those crates up there down. And disassemble any crate that was emptied. Can’t have them in the way.”

“””Yes, Sir!”””

The ten or so mercenaries that had come along immediately set out to take down the crates.

“Yumi, the rest is up to you.”

“Great…”

The first crate was brought before me and opened up, revealing the sparkly pebbles insides.

“Well, here I go…”

I picked up a single pebble that would serve as the mana orb’s base and had it absorb all the mana from the surrounding pebbles. Once it was distinctively larger than the surrounding crystals, I dropped it inside, put my hand inside the crate and dragged all the mana towards the mana orb. The crate’s contents slowly diminished as the mana crystals turned to dust one after another.

“Hoo, so that’s how you do it. That’s pretty quick. We might actually finish this today.”

“Ahaha…”

It was fast, yes. But considering the amount stored in here… Just what had that merchant planned?

Nn? What’s this?

After I had finished around seven mana orbs, something odd happened.

“What the heck… Huh?”

“Yumi, is something wrong?”

“I can’t grab the mana anymore after I emptied half of this crate…”

I retracted my hand and stared at the sparkly contents inside. These crystals seemed a lot smaller than the pebbles… Did someone grind up the mana crystals? But even if they did, I should still be able to collect the mana…

“Let me take a look…”

Karen peered over my shoulder into the crate.

“That looks more like powder…”

“Right? But I should be able to collect the mana… But something’s weird about these.”

“... I’ll go call the Captain.”

“Okay.”

In the meantime, a pair of mercenaries brought another crate, so for now I turned my attention to that one. Now I had to keep in mind that there was only half a crate inside this mana orb… How bothersome.

“Here we go…”

By now, I had gotten pretty used to the procedure already. Throw in the mana orb, drag the mana towards it and done. After repeating it so often, I was also growing more accustomed to controlling the mana, making it even easier. A little surprising, but very welcome nonetheless.

Practice makes perfect, after all…

And in that regard, this was good practice.

“Huh?”

My hands stopped…

“Another one?”

This crate also had powdery crystals inside it, making up for half the contents. Sure, now my problem with half a crate was gone, but this was still an issue...

“That crate there?”

“Yes, Mr Captain.”

“Let me take a look.”

In the meantime, Karen had returned with Korwen.

“Captain, this one has it too.”

“Two crates you can’t empty?”

“Nn.”

He walked up to me, then past me looking at the crate. His eyes grew wide, then his expression turned into one of confusion until it finally settled on a stern one.

“Yumi. Go wash your hands.”

“Huh?”

“Now. We got a problem.”

“Err, okay?”

Karen and I exchanged a confused glance but before we could ask Korwen what the hell was going on, he had already moved to the other crate, to check the contents. Then, he sped away, flagging down a mercenary and sending him out.

“Yumi, let’s wash your hands like he said.”

“Sure… But where?”

“The river outside?”

“Oh, good idea.”

I had no idea why he wanted me to wash my hands… Were the crystals a problem?

But I feel like I’ve seen those before, haven’t I?

Yet, I couldn’t quite pin down where I could have seen them before. It kept haunting my thoughts while Karen and I left the warehouse and approached the river bank.

“The river’s really wide…”

“I heard they dug the banks to widen it for this river port.”

“Seriously?”

That must have been a lot of work… Then again, it might not be that much work if they could get some magicians to do it.

While pondering about that, I squatted down next to the water and dunked my hands into the water.

“Ohh, cold.”

The coldness from the river water me shiver a little as I washed my hands.

“But nice…”

“Oh, you’re right, it is cold.”

“Right?”

Even though the sun was blazing, the water was still cool to the touch.

“Swimming would be nice…”

“In this cold water? Are you sure about that, Yumi?”

“Nn. It’d be nice for a hot day, right?”

“... That’s true.”

Now I only had to find some proper bathing attire for us. And I had subtle doubts that that would be easy…

Maybe I should ask Wanda about it.

I made a mental note before I finished up washing my hands.

“Mhm… Wonder if this good enough?”

“Probably?”

“Then, let’s get back. I want to know what is going on.”

Korwen wouldn’t make me wash my hands for no reason… Was that powder maybe poisonous? Or otherwise dangerous?

Wait… Dangerous powder?

Wasn’t there one such thing we had seen just yesterday that was like that?

“Yumi?”

“Hey, Sis. Did that powder seem familiar to you?”

“... A little. Yumi, do you know what that is?”

“... Maybe. Let’s ask the captain first.”

I dearly hoped I was wrong about that, though.

But if I’m right, then I don’t want to touch that powder more than necessary…

The two of us went back to the warehouse where Korwen had already assembled the other mercenaries as well as Ria. The latter was currently peering into the two crates, her brows furrowed.

“Captain.”

“Back? Washed them properly?”

“Yes… Captain, that powder…”

“... We might have found a missing link by chance.”

A missing link…

“Captain…”

“Ria, how is it?”

“It is… without a doubt… Crystal Flowers…”

“Damn it.”

Korwen cursed under his breath while holding his temples.

“As if things couldn’t get any worse anymore.”

So, it really was… Crystal Flower powder…

“This damn merchant… He was smuggling Crystal Flower powder of all things and then left it just sitting here? Are you kidding me? Ahh, damn it! You three, go and look around the warehouse. Find anything that might shed light upon this. You two, go to the Traders’ Guild and get all the information about this merchant that you can. The name of the merchant is Kehlwa. Might have been an alias, if there is no information, flag me down someone from the guild and bring them here.”

“””Yes, Sir!”””

“”Understood, Sir!””

The five mercenaries dashed away, two out of the warehouse and the other three to the back, entering the other rooms attached to the warehouse.

“And you two, go to the barracks and bring Ruben over here. And only Ruben, no replacement.”

“”Yes, Sir!””

Korwen let out a deep sigh as he watched the mercenaries run about and execute their orders.

“Yumi, continue with your work. We need to find as many as of these crates as possible before Ruben comes.”

“Understood.”

“And make sure not to touch it too much. Wash your hands repeatedly. Also, don’t let anyone else touch that stuff.”

“Understood… But why?”

It didn’t seem like just touching it was dangerous, after all.

“Because you don’t want to accidentally ingest any of it. And the less people touch it, the better.”

“Okay.”

Good point.

“Everyone else, get back to your work. We’re going to clean this up.”

“””Yes, Sir!”””

The remaining mercenaries saluted and returned promptly to their work. They carried the crates with the powder out of the way, replacing them with new, untouched ones.

“Yumi, I’ll bring a bucket with water.”

“Nn, thank you, Sis.”

And while Karen brought a bucket, I probably should get back to this…

Honestly, I don’t really want to touch that stuff if I can help it… Knowing how they are made…

Alas, I also understood that it was necessary to do this. And so, I plunged my hands once more into the crate and continued unearthing one powder crate after another…

Around an hour later, the door to the warehouse opened up and a familiar large man entered.

“Korwen! What’s the meaning of this?” he shouted loud enough for everyone to hear.

Korwen quickly ran over to him to explain what was going on. I was still busy dealing with the crates, so I couldn’t quite pay attention to what they said but judging from the way Ruben’s expressions experienced the same roller coaster Korwen had earlier… I got a good gist of it.

“And another one... There you go.”

“Yes, Miss Yumi!”

The mercenaries on standby heaved up the crate with the powder and carried it away. Then I washed my hands and started on the next one.

“I feel like this is never going to end…”

“Nn… Sis, how many of those powder crates did we find already? I didn’t keep track.”

Mind you, I did keep track how much mana was in a mana orb. This one, for example, was now full.

“Err, we had thirty-three crates since we found the first two crates with powder. And twenty-six of these were ones with powder, including those two.”

“So many…”

I didn’t want to know how much it took to create such a vast amount of this powder…

“Yumi, Karen.”

“Nn? Captain?”

“Come over here for a moment.”

Korwen beckoned us over so we joined him and Ruben. After I washed my hands, of course.

“You’ve really taken a liking to those two, Korwen.”

“Who wouldn’t prefer cute girls over guys like you? Haa… Jokes aside, Yumi, how is it going?”

“Most of the ones we found were full of powder… They were all filled the same way. Half with powder, half with mana crystals.”

“I see…”

Korwen turned to Ruben, asking for his opinion.

“So, what do you think?”

“What do I think, you say… But you know as well as I do what this means. The merchant smuggled vast amounts of the drug by disguising it as mana crystal shipments. Pretty clever, if I may say so.”

“Sure was. And he fled town early on already.”

“Cutting the problems off as fast as he could… Tsk, we’ll never get one. What do you know about that merchant?”

“Not a lot. I heard he was a well-known mana crystal merchant. He approached me wanting to get rid of his mana crystal stock when he heard we were buying them up regardless of size. Of course, I checked his reputation among other merchants first, but he seemed well-liked and known.”

Ruben raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Well-liked and well-known. And then he got this much baggage to leave us with.”

“I was a little surprised to see the sign scratched out. He clearly has no intention of returning.”

“... He knew we’d catch on so he fled before that could happen. Hell, that man was a lot smarter than those nobles and other merchants.”

“He might not be the only one.”

“What do you mean with that, Korwen?”

“Remember when the news of a potential war spread? Many merchants fled the city at the time.”

Just like this particular merchant.

“Shit! Are you serious?! We’ll never catch any of those!”

“There’d be no point in running away if you could.”

“Don’t get smart with me now, Korwen!”

Korwen shrugged his shoulders while Ruben suffered a literal breakdown, cursing the merchants and shouting less-than-proper insults through the room. It took a few minutes before he finally calmed down.

“Fuck all those merchants… Shit.”

“You don’t yet know if there were any involved, though.”

“Maybe not. But you do know that most merchants except for peddlers are attached to our local Traders’ Guild, right? In the worst case, this might go deeper than I’d like it to.”

“Now, now, don’t jump to conclusions too early.”

“Tsk… Just because it’s not your problem…”

If even hat Traders’ Guild was involved… That could become a problem.

“You already knew in advance you’d have to dig deep to find all the problems, didn’t you?”

“I still held hope that it wouldn’t be like this.”

“Well, sorry to dash your hope. But now you got at least something you can work with. Crystal Flower smuggling is no small offence. And seeing the scale…”

“... Justifies if we go at it a little rougher than usual, you mean? Haa, you’re not wrong. But I still don’t like it. Fuck... Fucking hell!”

Ruben stomped the ground in anger. He really was outraged at this.

“Now, calm down. Getting angry won’t solve it. What will you do if your men saw you like this?”

“They’re not here, so why should I care?!”

“We’re here, though… Haa, whatever. I’ll treat you to a drink later, I guess.”

With a wry smile, Korwen patted Ruben’s shoulders.

“... I’ll hold you to that. I’ll drink every last keg empty.”

“Have mercy to our stores.”

Ruben took a deep breath, calming himself. Once he had composed himself, he walked up to the crates that were lined up at the wall.

“These the ones with the powder?”

“Yes.”

“... Shit, there’s so much.”

“And we haven’t even gone through a third yet. The first few crates at the front had nothing but I suspect most of the crates deeper in are filled with powder.”

“... Do you think this has been going on for long?”

“No. If I had to guess, this was probably a one-time occurrence. There aren’t many drug problems in Lafria, right?”

Ruben shook his head in response.

“Not many still means there are some. And we never found out where the drugs came from. But if they were smuggled in through the front door like this… No wonder we couldn’t catch them.”

He clicked his tongue in annoyance as he inspected all the crates.

“We’ll have to investigate more first… Whether this was only once or a recurring deal. Did you find anything else in here?”

“We’re still searching the warehouse, but so far nothing has come up.”

“I see.”

“We also send some men to the Traders’ Guild. They haven’t returned yet, though. Shouldn’t be long anymore, though.”

Karen and I watched as Ruben checked every single crate and then came back.

“... I won’t ask you how you do it. Just get me all the crates with that powder. I don’t care about the mana crystals, they’re yours.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Hmpf… You can have all the secrets you want. As long as you’re our ally, I don’t care.”

Ruben glanced in my and Karen’s direction for a moment, before turning his gaze back to Korwen.

“Although, I guess I’ve caught a small glimpse of what is going on behind the curtain. Some things start to make more sense now.”

“...”

“... I know, I won’t ask.”

“We’re grateful for your understanding.”

“... Don’t get smart with me, Korwen. Haaa… Just keep them out of trouble. I’ll trust you on that.”

“That’s a tall order…”

While they exchanged some more bantering, the door to the warehouse opened once more. Two mercenaries entered, followed by a thin man, wheezing and ringing for breath.

“Captain! We’ve returned and brought someone from the Traders’ Guild!”

“Good job.”

Korwen nodded to the two mercenaries.

“Go take a break.”

“”Yes, Sir!””

“Yumi, Karen. You go back to work as well. I’ll call for you if we need you again.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Understood, Mr Captain.”

With Ruben in tow, Korwen walked up to the thin man and talked to him. They were too far for us to hear anything, though.

“Should we get back to it, Sis?”

“Sure. There’s still a lot left.”

“Don’t remind me…”

I stared at the literal mountain of crates before us.

Time to get back to work...