elra
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🕑 Added 2024-05-31 17:38:40 +0000 UTCTime off was a rarity at the orphanage. With a dozen orphans prowling around, there was always something to do. A scraped knee to patch, a nasty Dust Bunny trying to steal from the pantry, a leak in the roof, or an unexpected visit to the market. Luckily, the planets had aligned that morning, and I found myself with nothing to do. Breakfast was over, Ginz was teaching the little ones to read, and the older kids were outside sparring with Risha and Astrid.
Elincia was behind the wooden screen, changing to her day clothes.
“Do you want a hand?” I asked while I inspected the bookshelves, looking for something to read.
Elincia seemed to fumble with one of her boots. I heard a thud, and the wooden screen almost tilted over.
“W-why would I need a hand? I’ve been dressing myself for more than two decades!” Elincia replied, flustered.
We have been performing the ‘wooden screen skit’ for a month now. Half of the time, she teased me with her nudity. The other half of the time, I teased her by saying I would peek at her. Despite the playful push and pull, we never dared cross the barrier we had imposed ourselves. And the barrier seemed to grow with each day that passed.
Elincia joked about suggestive themes relatively freely, but I noticed some covert nervousness every time the topic of our romantic life arose. Whenever Risha or Ginz made a salacious remark about our relationship, Elincia froze like a deer in front of a truck; her face completely flushed, and all traces of her usual confident demeanor disappeared. Even the slightest mention of suggestive implications threw her off her game.
I thanked the gods [Awareness] existed; otherwise, I would be unknowingly burying myself in mud, and I really wanted our relationship to work. My only problem was that Elincia wasn’t particularly communicative about the norms of modesty in this part of the world. Whenever I brought out the topic, she retreated like a hermit crab.
I tried to be tactful but couldn’t dance around the problem eternally.
Elincia jumped from behind the wooden screen. I expected her to wear her usual long beige dress with a long-sleeve shirt, but instead, she wore her tight riding breeches with a wide leather belt and a shirt with wide sleeves. Elincia spun over her heel and made an exaggerated curtsy. The outfit highlighted the curve of her legs and slender and graceful frame.
After working more than twelve hours a day for six months, the perspective of having free time seemed alien to me. Sure, we had our little moments of respite after dinner or during lunch, but those moments were short-lived at best. I continued examining the bookshelves, thinking of what to do. It wasn’t like he could take his phone and browse funny cat videos. The nearest cell phone tower was a world away, and I had left the phone charger in the glove box. Also, electricity was a few levels away through Farcrest’s tech tree.
“Mister Lowell has quite the collection of philosophy books,” I pointed out. The theories of Ebros’ Scholars were so outlandish that I preferred not to dig too deep into them. After all, I already knew the System was man-made and not the offspring of a cosmic orgy of gods and primordial beings.
“I think he was looking for answers. He never had kids of his own, but he needed to know how to raise them,” Elincia mentioned, crossing the room and standing by my side in front of the books.
“People have been asking that for a while. Plato already had interesting ideas two and a half millennia ago,” I said. “But I like Rousseau more. He believed kids are innately good and educators should try to nurture those natural instincts.”
“It seems Rousseau never met any kid like me,” Elincia replied with a mischievous smile.
“Were you really that bad?” I said, raising an eyebrow. I had been trying to get stories about kid Elincia from Risha, but she shot us down every time.
“I was a little monster from the beginning,” Elincia said.
I glanced at the bookshelf. Most of the authors could be considered ‘levelists’. They believed that the class and level of the person determined their value, of course, with slight differences between author and author. It surprised me that Mister Lowell had adopted a completely different approach, considering the intellectual environment he was immersed in.
“What about Risha?” I asked.
“Believe it or not, he slowed me down. I used to bully him until he got enough muscle to lift me by the ankles. Literally. Then, I started to accept that this was my home and the other kids were some sort of weird, non-related siblings,” Elincia replied.
I wouldn’t believe Elincia went from problem child to governess if it weren't for her titles. Yet, part of that Elincia still lived on, barely perceivable under the guise of the Governess. There was a part of Elincia that hadn’t turned his back on the idea of being a Hunter.
“So, will you use your precious free time to read, you nerd?” Elincia bumped me with her hip.
“I already read all the important books, and I’m not in the mood for this ‘levelist’ nonsense,” I replied, wondering what I could do. A sudden idea popped into my mind. There has been a while since I went on a ‘date’ with Elincia. “Want to go on a quick trip to the bakery?”
Elincia’s face lit up, but she shook her head.
“I was wondering if you could help me with something,” Elincia said, her demeanor suddenly changing. She avoided my eyes and fiddled with her finger. “I’m a level forty but still a Bronze Alchemist, so I was wondering if you could use your Scholar magic and help me with my class.”
I wasn’t expecting such a request.
“I know from a good source that you’ll become a Silver Alchemist if you kiss your nearest Scholar five hundred times,” I replied.
Elincia giggled. “I wish it was that easy.”
I made a mental note. Kissing didn’t seem to embarrass Elincia, which was expected. We kissed a lot.
“Alchemists develop their classes by using exotic ingredients, brewing uncommon potions, and creating their own recipes, right?” I asked.
Elincia nodded.
“We also get experience by processing ingredients, but it’s hardly noticeable. Most bases require common ingredients, so it’s not like I’m becoming a Silver Alchemist by cutting Dire Cress,” Elincia explained.
I remembered our brewing sessions after our trip to the Farlands. Most of the work involved cutting, boiling, or smashing certain parts of the plants and herbs. There seemed to be a correlation between physical labor and the purity of the magical properties, which made sense considering that the magical effects belonged to the plant, not the Alchemist or the System. Even orcs who rejected the System could use magical herbs to a certain extent.
Without the System assisting the process, Alchemists would need ten or a hundred times more ingredients to produce the exact amounts of potions. My assistance as a Scholar also helped to keep the environmental mana away from the alchemic reaction. High-rank potions were nothing but the purest form of a particular potion.
I wanted to know if I could brew something using purely mechanical procedures, but I left that tangent to another time. My intention wasn’t to leave Elincia without a job. Even if ordinary people didn’t realize it, the System seemed to help combatants and non-combatants equally. Crafting Classes ignored that fact because they rarely performed without the assistance of the System.
“Rob? Are you there?” Elincia asked.
“Y-yeah, I was thinking,” I quickly replied.
Chemistry was one of my weakest disciplines, so teaching Elincia innovative methods to extract magic essence was out of the picture.
“How hard is it to create a new recipe?” I asked.
Elincia tapped her fingers against her lips in a thoughtful expression. “If brewing is performing a song, creating a new recipe is like composing something yourself.”
“So, it’s hard,” I pointed out. Composing good music required knowledge, experience, and a certain artistic sense that wildly varied from person to person.
“Really hard. You need a deep knowledge of the ingredients and the mixing process,” Elincia replied. “This isn’t like cooking. Even the slightest modification of a recipe can break it. It’s hard to create something functional, and even harder to create something useful.”
At least I knew Elincia had my skills in high regard if she had asked me for help.
I leaned over her and kissed her temple.
“What was that for?” She asked.
“Nothing in particular. I just remember you are really cute,” I replied.
Elincia blushed and recoiled, even if only slightly. Compliments seemed to make a dent in her otherwise haughty demeanor, even if kissing didn’t. I wondered if vocalizing affection was the part that embarrassed her. She didn’t seem to have trouble sharing a small bed with me, but as soon as someone mentioned something vaguely lewd, she became defensive.
“Stop talking nonsense. I want to become a Silver Alchemist before I turn thirty,” Elincia complained in an attempt to silence me.
“If creating your recipes is beyond your actual skill, then we should start by brewing uncommon potions,” I said.
Elincia cringed. “About that… the System only provides us with basic recipes, and I don’t know any uncommon potion yet.”
The revelation caught me by surprise. By level forty, I assumed Elincia had a couple of special potions under her belt, even if they were used for ordinary things like helping kids babies with the pain of growing teeth. I shook my head. Elincia’s words didn’t make sense.
“Eli?” I asked.
“Rob?” She replied.
“Wasn’t Mister Lowell a powerful Alchemist with enough money to support a whole orphanage by himself? Shouldn’t that kind of person have investigation journals? Journals that would be inherited by his favorite kid who turned out to also be an Alchemist?” I said, turning around and examining the bookshelf.
Elincia paled and stood before me, blocking my view.
“On second thought, I don’t need your help cultivating my class. I can do it by myself. I promise,” Elincia spurted, putting her hands on my shoulders and pushing me away.
My Scholar Sense tingled, so I lifted Elincia like a sack of potatoes over my shoulder and let [Awareness] drink from my mana pool. Elincia kicked, trying to break free, but it was too late. In an instant, [Awareness] located a suspicious bundle wrapped in gray fabric and tied with cheap flax string.
“Put me down, you fiend!”
Elincia was more muscular than her slender frame revealed, yet she felt really light. I knew she had the strength just to get away from my gentle grip, but after a moment of weak struggle, she calmed down and accepted her fate. I grabbed the bundle of journals and gently placed Elincia on the bed. Her eyes glinted with a mix of defiance and resignation, which had a comical effect, considering how red her face was. I doubted the redness was due to the seconds she spent head down.
I put the bundle on the bed and untied the flax string, revealing a pile of leather-bound diaries that were not much different from Byrne’s journals. The thin leather was worn out at the edges, but for tomes that were more than a decade old, they looked like they were in great shape. I examined them with my mana sense but detected no trace of magic.
“Eli?” I asked, somewhat worried as the blush didn’t leave her face.
“Fine. Read it,” she replied, avoiding my eyes.
The first journal detailed several magical herbs and plants and where and when to find them. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Dire Cress grew in the lushest areas of the Farlands, where trees covered most of the sunlight all year around except during winter. Elkadia Root grew in high, dry areas, and it was best to harvest at the beginning of autumn before leaves fall. Moon Laurel grew in humid crevices away from the sun, and it was best to harvest it at the beginning of winter before snowfalls. Despite its spicy pods, Fire Vine grew near water bodies all year around. Here and there, I found allusions to ‘that place’, and I knew Lowell was talking about the secret valley between the mountain ranges.
Nothing that revealed why Elincia was so reluctant to share the journals.
I skimmed through the pages of the other ingredients, only stopping when I found a particularly interesting-sounding one. After a few pages, I finally got to the first recipes. They were written more like something you would find in a cookbook than what you would find in a spellbook, or at least what I imagined a spellbook would be like.
The lack of magic circles was a letdown, but the System generally didn’t conform to my vision of what magic should look like.
I skimmed several pages about iterations of Energy Potions. Mister Lowell detailed different methods for obtaining better yields. There was a lot of complicated Alchemy lingo, but Elincia refused to answer any question related to the journal. It wasn’t hard to notice that Mister Lowell was a hardcore researcher, considering the amount of seemingly trivial experiments. Everything was quantified in extensive tables that stretched for pages and pages without an end.
Mister Lowell's dedication to his Class almost made me feel like an impostor. I wondered if Elincia felt the same. Not that she was to blame, as she had to sustain the orphanage alone.
Out of nowhere, the research turned into some sort of ledger that listed the potions' names, units sold, rank, and prices. My eyes shot open. If the numbers were to believe, Mister Lowell moved an obscene amount of money. Far more than Elincia and I were making with our blackmarket potions. No wonder he had enough gold to fill the orphanage with the best researchers, craftsmen, and artists in this corner of the kingdom.
The potion that sold the most was named L.B.B Potion.
I looked at Elincia for an explanation, but she quickly turned towards the window. Of all the mysteries I had tried to solve, this made the least sense. I turned the journal pages, but all the rest was more and more sales records. When I reached the last page, I found a single folded sheet. The paper didn’t match with the journal.
Esteemed Great Alchemist,
I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits, although I fear I can’t say the same about Farcrest. Recent events have brought forth a dire need for your expertise in alchemy. The Monster Surge arrived half a decade earlier than expected, wreaking havoc through our lands and destroying many of our forces. The morale is low, and our best Scholars believe the peace between Monster Surges will continue to decrease. If their calculations are correct, we have less than twenty years to prepare for the next calamity.
I am afraid the population will not recover by then. In light of this situation, I implore you to lend your talents to the Farcrest Family. I’m aware of the complexities of the art of Alchemy, but your reputation precedes you, and I believe that with your knowledge and wisdom, we can develop a potion to reverse the death of our city.
I am prepared to offer generous compensation for your services and the resources needed for developing and commercializing the potion. Time is of the essence, and every moment wasted brings us closer to tragedy.
I eagerly await your response.
Marquis Estefaniss of Farcrest.
I had several questions but wasn’t sure Elincia was ready to answer.
“Let’s start with something easier. I’m sure I saw some interesting bases there,” I said.
“Y-yeah. Let’s do that,” Elincia muttered back before rummaging through her stash of herbs and ingredients.
She put several flasks and jars on the table, sprinkled with bundles of dried herbs and her set of brass alchemic tools.
“If you don’t want to talk about those kinds of things, we can avoid them,” I pointed out.
“I just think those kinds of things are important, and people shouldn’t joke about them,” she replied. Then she turned around and looked at me under her long eyelashes. “I’m not against sharing those kinds of things with a person I really like, though.”
