CH 4.2

The shop assistant in Meldor’s item shop arranged the items in the shop as usual while attending to the shop patrons.

His hair was light green with chestnut colored eyes, and along with his gentle features, the young shop assistant was easily mistake for a young girl when people saw him in uniform.

His name was Pipin.

A 11 years old alchemy apprentice working as a shop assistant.

Just very recently the ratio of work and study gravitated towards work a great amount. He had to work a long time as a shop assistant and he had to replenish the potions that he sold. The reason was because his father was busy gathering the materials.

Besides requesting the adventurer guild to gather the materials, he also went out everyday to gather. The past him was an adventurer and an alchemist. Even though he had to retire because he became unfit, gathering the materials near the killer bees or the monsters near it was still not a problem. However, any materials that were of the intermediate rank was a little much.

The monsters’ activities intensified, and gradually it became impossible to supply potions that were of the intermediate and higher ranks. Although the adventurer’s guild did their best in gathering the materials, the placed was governed by creatures with a giant body and the face of a pig – Orcs. They held the passageway to the area and they were numerous because of their fertility. The amount of materials harvested was little.

Even though potions are ordered from the capital and other towns, the quality of the potion was usually affected when they were sent here and rendered useless. The appearance of intermediate potions in this town disappeared.

But if this continued it would be impossible to fight against monsters. For that reason, the strong adventurers in the town gathered and protected the potion’s materials at fixed intervals. There were a few adventurers who took on the job of gathering high quality materials, but the intermediate potions were sold out within two days. This was why he went out frequently to gather materials.

And to the worry as to who was going to tend the shop, Pipin took the role as a shop tender. Even though he was interested in playing, he was clever enough to understand the situation and helped out, eventually taking care of the shop all by his own.

His mother was in another world and he only had his father left.

He was proud of his father who worked hard to gather the materials, so he had a strong wish to support him. Still, even though he understood his situation, he felt it was hard to suppress the loneliness when his father was not around, so he buried himself in work.

Today he met a customer.

He was a youth who looked like he was 5 years older than himself, with black hair and eyes.

The customer requested to make the lowest ranked potion, and he did so by mixing the materials just like how his father taught him. There was time involved in grinding the potion, so most of the customers either looked at the store’s goods or went out of the store to do something else.

But the customer stared at his work. Was it really that rare to see someone make a potion— Even though Pipin was embarrassed, his loneliness from his father’s absence made him try to talk to the customer.

The customer replied that he knew about the materials to make a potion, but it was the first time he was seeing one created. Conversely, Pipin knew how to make a lowest ranked potion, but he had no idea what materials were needed to make other potions.

His father did not teach him, for the reason that he was still not skilled in mixing delicate materials — Although that reason was valid, it was also the fact that there were simply no materials to work on as it was difficult to gather them from the Orcs’ region.

Pipin simply thought that he was insufficient in skill and could not be taught yet.

The customer asked why there were only two different types of potions in the shop

Does this person not know what the circumstances are now —- he felt a little gloomy and looked properly at the customer. He probably just came to this town. So Pipin explained the situation about the materials and the monsters.

The customer could be seen contemplating thereupon.

He looked like he was troubled, as if he was considering the negative effects of the interruption of the supplying of potions.

But Pipin was not able to do anything about the situation even if he worried about it, so he tried switching to a topic that he was curious about, the materials to make potions.

He knew almost nothing about the other potions because his father was busy, and he wanted to study in advance to surprise his father— and then get praised —such was the boy’s feelings, so he inquired the customer about them.

Pipin’s father, Nash, returned home on the very same day when the sun set. Pipin had finished closing the store and was preparing for a late dinner.

[Otou-san, okaerinasai.] (TL: I’m preserving the flavor text here. Basically it’s, welcome home dad, in polite terms. )

[I’m back, did anything happen today?]

Nash gently stroked his son’s head, and Pipin closed his eyes as if he enjoyed that.

[Today right, there’s a customer called Chaos-san who came over.]

[Chaos? I never heard of him, is he someone staying in town?]

[Yes. It looks like he came here for the first time. Chaos-san taught me a lot about the materials for making other potions, including the monsters in the harvest locations.]

[This bastard Chaos taught him this!] Nash’s attitude towards him turned for the worst.

He tried to be gentle in order not to break to his cute son’s joyful face.

[You are really passionate for this, Pipin. However it’s dangerous to gather materials on your own because of the monsters, okay?]

Nash tried to get his attention as much as possible.

[But that’s not all! Chaos-san really knows a really great deal. He taught me the recipe for mana potions and elixirs.] (TL: 霊薬, I tled that as elixirs.)

Nash tilted his head. He had heard of mana potions as they were used for recovering a magician’s mana. The materials to make them were simply not available in this region.

However he had not heard of elixirs.

[Pipin, what is ‘elixirs’?]

[It’s a potion that restores health and mana together.]

‘It’s amazing right’, Pipin’s beaming face was saying that.

‘That kind of miracle like medicine does not exist, and it’s more like a fairy tale to deceive Pipin—‘ Nash’s evaluation of Chaos dropped rock bottom.

He mildly admonished Pipin that he had been deceived, but his cute son said that there was no such thing.

So Nash decided to confirm there was nothing like that and asked him in detail about the recipe.

—- But all of the material names were correct and there were indeed named locations in his description. Furthermore there were names of lost ancient places that Chaos taught to gather the highest ranked materials.

Nash was tongue-tied.

How should I determine this —- Nash had a hard time judging the accuracy of the recipe. Apart from the highest ranked potion, the recipes to make the other mana potions and health potions were correct. And so he could not dismiss the highest ranked potions were lies.

Furthermore, Pipin strongly insisted that he was not lied to.

It was a really huge thing if it turned out to be true. The first thing was the location for creating elixirs. It was in the west of Meldor, a different place where Orc governed the north, and there were far less monsters in the west.

Ant there was only one kingdom, Castalla, that was researching substitute potions for the highest ranked potions. If the highest ranked potion was successfully manufactured it would be be an advantage in politics.

And even if there were problems in the recipes, it would still serve as good research right?

………. It might even be possible to build up great wealth from this.

In the end Nash was unable to judge and decided that he had to ask someone of higher qualifications. And so he took a pen and began writing

Author’s note: By the way, if potions are kept in the inventory slots, it won’t degrade.