Chapter 139: Smell

With things settled and new tasks to do, the club meeting was adjourned and they went their mostly separate ways. Dukiel's and Julius' dorms were in the same direction, after all. Nessa went back to her dorm. Everything they had to do could be done after a night's rest.Not to mention their own tiredness, their tasks were of the social kind. It would be difficult to do what they needed to do when the people they needed to meet were unavailable.

Zach was the only one who didn't head straight to his dorm. He was pretty tired, but it was manageable, so he decided to stop by Alzara's lab before anything else. After a night and a day, Zach hoped she would have made some progress.

It didn't need to be much as long as she had taken a step in the right direction. Zach had gotten a sense of urgency after hearing how many had disappeared from the streets of Basila.

Zach stepped into the lab, hopeful but not sure what to expect.

He came face to face with a distinct, sour, earthy smell that stung his nose and made his eyes water. He frowned and put up an airtight barrier that kept any weird smells far from his olfactory sensory organ. He provided Yanael the same service, which he could tell she appreciated since she had sharper senses.

He then looked at Alzara, who was huddled over her workbench with messy piles of resources and glass bottles around her. Her maid dress was a mess. Her short hair was a mess. Her face was a mess.

She was still beautiful.

But it seemed like she had decided to live up to the stereotypes of mad scientists who had things blow up in their faces and cover them in soot.

However, Zach guessed based on the glass bottles filled with colorful and colorless liquids that all of the experiments weren't complete failures. He was curious about what Alzara, the mad witch scientist, had accomplished while he and Yanael were gone.

"*Ahem* Alzara?" Zach cleared his throat and called out to his familiar.

A beaker with a green fluid and a rounded glass bottle with a blue liquid flew into the air as Zach's voice startled Alzara. Still stuck in the same shocked position with her arms slightly raised, Alzara slowly turned around in her chair.

The bottles would have fallen to the table or floor and broken if Zach hadn't caught them with a couple of soft barriers.

"...Master. Welcome back."

Alzara stood up and tried to smooth down her hair before realizing her clothes were a little scruffy, twisted, and dirty, so she tried to fix them first. Then, she caught a glimpse of her face in the reflection of a nearby bottle. She gave up.

She looked at the floor for a moment before taking a breath and embracing it.

"I hope you don't mind a little mess, Master~" Alzara smiled with her question and took a more confident pose.

Zach shrugged.

"Depends on the mess, I guess. Did you get anything done while we were gone?"

"Yes." Alzara was quick to answer, relieved Zach wasn't mentioning her current state of disarray.

"I managed to concoct a string of potions that should have somewhat potent effects. I need more worms. I prefer working with them over the base materials. And I've started figuring out how this underworld energy works. Give me a day or two, and I'll have something you can give your friend." Alzara briefly recounted her achievements. She downplayed her efforts and the results she produced.

She might be a desert witch, but she was still working with materials completely unfamiliar to her. Yet, she had managed to craft several working potions. She had also started understanding how a mysterious force like the underworld energy worked. That was far better than what Zach or any of the others in the club had done.

The Underworld Research and Extermination Club had concluded that the underworld energy was hostile to everything. It wasn't like it had sentience or a will or anything. It just sought to overtake whatever it came in contact with. It was also flighty. Without enough of it, a directive, or a constant stream in a certain direction, it just dissipated.

Like that, it was easy to deal with.

It was when a seemingly endless amount of underworld energy filled the forest that it was difficult to deal with. Or when it had taken root in something like Rierdan's familiar.

"That's great!" Zach picked up one of the potions with a pretty red color. "What do they do?"

Alzara avoided Zach's eyes, briefly glancing at him.

"..." She didn't answer.

"Alzara?" Zach gently prodded her. Sёarᴄh the ηovelFire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

"...I don't know." She meekly admitted.

"What?" Zach asked in utter confusion. She had made the potions. How did she not know what they did?

"Well…I know they should do things, and based on the ingredients, I can somewhat guess for some of them. Others…Others I just tried a few things to see what would happen. Instead of melting the equipment or going up in puffs of smoke, they stabilized, meaning they were completed as potions.

But I'm not familiar enough with the ingredients I used to predict the result of the combination." Alzara started rambling.

Zach had a feeling she would continue with that if he didn't stop her, so he held up a hand.

"It's alright. We just need to test them, right?" Zach didn't see what the big deal was. By testing the potions, they could find out what they did, and Alzara's potion-making would advance since she would udnerstand what the ingredients did when combined.

"That's true. In theory. In practice…" Alzara's voice trailed off and she avoided Zach's look while fiddling with her hands.

Compared to her joking or seductive side, Zach didn't know what to think of this meek Alzara. She was so cautious and uneloquent that she seemed like a different person.

"It's fine, no? It's not like they're going to explode or anything."

"..."

"Alzara?" Enjoy new tales from m-v l'-NovelFire.net

"..." Alzara continued evading Zach's gaze.