I could always try to fight in the underground arena. There was an underground fighting arena where many people bet money on fighters. If I signed on as a fighter, I could make a good deal of money. The problem was the underground arena was also owned and operated by one of the Three Heavenly Families, the Kriger Family, I believe. If I went there and defeated every opponent I faced, they might take notice of me. Of course, I could fake some losses... but that didn’t sit right with me.
I hated to lose even on purpose.
While I was trying to think of a way I could earn some money, the door opened. I ignored it. There were already several people inside. More importantly, I needed to think of some way I could turn this situation around. Without those medicinal pills, I would be in a lot trouble. My training speed would be cut by at least three-fourths!
“Eryk…”
At the sound of the soft, despondent, but very familiar voice, I looked up.
Kari stood before the counter. Her eyes were a little red and puffy. Her shoulders were slumped as though a great weight was pushing them down. I stared at her trembling lips for a moment, and then met her blue eyes.
“Come on,” I said as I stood up and walked around the counter. I gestured for her to follow me and went over to the stairs. Countless eyes trailed after us, but I was used to that by this point.
“What do you think is going on?”
“Princess Kari looks depressed. Did something happen?”
“I don’t know, but it looks like she’s coming to that damn pretty boy for help!”
“Damn all pretty boys!”
Like me, Kari also ignored the peanut gallery, as they spoke so loudly we could hear everything they said, and followed me up the stairs and to a table where we sat down. The almost boneless slump that was the complete opposite of Kari’s normally upright posture told me about her emotional state more than words ever could.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I…” Kari stopped talking, sniffed, and began again. “I used to be really good friends with this girl in my class. We would always play together when we were younger, but something happened and she eventually distanced herself from me. I’ve kept trying to bridge the gap that separated us, to become friends again. However… nothing I do works. She still barely even speaks to me. I’m pretty sure the only reason she’s willing to speak at all is because of my status.”
Her words made me flinch, and not just because I felt for her. This was a side of Kari I’d never seen before. It was a new side. However, this new side made me feel helpless.
I was positive that the problem was that back then, back in my previous life, I had been too blind to see the trouble that she had been going through. I had been so in awe of her that I never saw the hardships she faced. Then, when Nevaria was destroyed, most of those troubles were replaced by new problems we needed to confront together. The situation now was probably a situation she’d had in my previous life, and I had likely just never noticed it.
“I’m assuming something happened today,” I said, urging her to continue.
Kari nodded. “I learned today that my friend recently began training with someone. I’ll admit, I was a little jealous of whoever is training with her. I think that’s why I asked her if she’d let me join them.”
“I’m assuming she said no,” I deduced.
“Yes… she said it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to train together because of my social status…”
Kari had never looked more miserable than she did right now. Of course, this misery she felt was that of a young girl dealing with the problems of a young girl. If I were to compare her to the woman I knew from before, these problems weren’t a big deal, but at the same time, I didn’t make light of her current plight. This wasn’t a life or death situation. However, it was still something that affected her happiness.
While she spoke, Kari had placed her hands in her lap, her fingers tightly clenched as she gripped the fabric of her soft blue gown. I hesitated for a moment. Then I reached out and placed my hand over one of hers. Kari’s eyes grew wide and round as she jerked her head toward me.
“I do not think there is anything I can do about your friend,” I admitted. “That said, I will never treat you any differently because of who your mother is. I don’t care if you’re the Princess of Nevaria. To me, you will always be Kari.”
Kari’s lips trembled, moisture gathered in her wide blue eyes, and her porcelain cheeks became dusted with a light shade of pink. Many emotions flitted across her face. The one it settled on, however, was gratitude.
“Thank you.” She turned her hand, the one I had placed my hand on top of, over and slowly curled her fingers around my hand. “That means a lot to me.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Come to me any time you have a problem you wish to share. I will always be here to lend you my ear.”
Her smile brightened a little more.
We talked for a while after that, but the conversation was not heavy like our previous topic. Kari would not realize she was still holding my hand for several more hours.
Something was wrong with Fay as well. The girl normally responded enthusiastically to training, pushing herself hard to keep pace with me, but not that morning. She seemed listless. Her body was sluggish. Not only was she not acting like she normally did, but she didn’t seem to hear a word I said. I’d call her name several times, and all she would do was respond with grunts.
Finally, I couldn’t take it.
“What is up with you today?” I asked, placing my hand on her forehead.
That got a response.
“W-what are you doing?!” Fay asked, jerking her head away from me and stumbling several steps backward.
“I’m checking your temperature, obviously.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re barely paying any attention to what you are doing and you haven’t responded to a word I’ve said. You know, if you’re sick, you don’t have to come here to train. In fact, training while you’re sick is quite possibly the worst thing a person can do.”
Fay’s cheeks looked like someone had lit a bonfire on them. “I-I am too paying attention!”
I gave her a hard look. “Fay, you tripped over a root while running the obstacle course and face planted on the ground. After which, I had to haul you to your feet and drag you back here because you wouldn’t pick yourself back up.”
“Y-you did?” Fay asked. “When did this happen?”
As she spoke in a startled tone, Fay reached up and rubbed her face as though checking to see if there was dirt on it. I sighed.
“I already cleaned your face off,” I said. “The fact that you didn’t even realize it is merely another point in my favor.” As the woman blushed all the way to the tips of her ears, I gave her a concerned look. “Seriously, though. Are you okay? I’ve never seen someone spacing out so badly before.”
“I’m fine.” Fay looked away. “I’m just dealing with some problems.”
“Like what?”
“Just personal issues.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, wondering whether I should push the issue or not. Her issues, whatever they were, were currently affecting her training. If this continued, her training would stall. That would subsequently make my training stall as I tried to care for her. It was better to nip this problem in the bud now than deal with it later.
At the same time, if these were personal problems, it wasn’t necessarily something I should meddle in. I wouldn’t want someone meddling in my affairs. I also realized that there was a chance telling me about her problem wouldn’t help. I could help her train, but that was all. There were many things I couldn’t do for her.
“If you don’t want to tell me, then that’s fine,” I said. “But perhaps we should stop for today. It doesn’t look like our training is going to go anywhere.”
Fay looked like she wanted to argue with me, and in fact, her mouth was halfway open as though she was prepared to do just that. Then she paused. Her mouth slowly closed
as her brow furrowed. I could see the thoughts going through her head before, with a gentle sigh, she conceded.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“It’s okay.” I grabbed the bag of Three-Way Widening Pills that Fay had brought and handed them to her. “I get that these things happen. Just do what you can to fix the problem soon. We can begin training again once you are in the right state of mind.”
Fay nodded as the two of us began walking back to Nevaria. I grew silent as we did, my thoughts turning to my own personal dilemma. Money. I needed money to buy more ingredients for my alchemy, but I was still running into a dead end. The harder I thought, the less ideas I had. It felt like I was running around in circles!
“I know I’ve said this before, but these pills of yours really are incredible,” Fay said, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Thank you,” I replied almost absently.
“You’d probably make a lot of money if you sold these,” she added, speaking with the sort of absent-mindedness of someone who was saying this almost as though it were an afterthought.
I stopped walking. Fay continued on for a bit longer before she realized I wasn’t walking beside her. After which, she stopped walking and turned around as well.
“Eryk?” she questioned as I stared at her.
“You are a genius,” I said, walking up to the girl. I could feel the smile stretching across my lips as I reached Fay and pulled her into a fierce hug. On any other occasion, I would have never hugged this girl, and I even recognized that what I was doing wasn’t appropriate, but I was so happy I didn’t care.
“E-Eryk!” Fay squawked, too surprised to do anything. “W-what are you doing?!”
I pulled back and placed my hands on her shoulders, still smiling as I eyed the now beet-red girl.
“Thank you,” I said simply.
“Um, uh… you’re welcome, I guess?” Fay looked completely unsure of herself. “But I still don’t know what I did.”
I had 500 valis left from when I sold that Spiritual Technique Scroll to the Spiritualist Academy. That wasn’t enough to buy the ingredients I needed. However, I broke into my savings, which contained another 500 valis. It was enough. Just barely.
Returning home from shopping, I set all of the bags with me on the floor and brought out my alchemy set. There were quite a few bags this time. They were much smaller than usual, but that was because I hadn’t bought anything in bulk like I usually did.
I was actually glad Fay and I had ended our training early today. Had we ended our training later, the apothecary would have already been closed.
Once my alchemy set was ready, I grabbed several metal sheets and used them to keep my floor from burning as I lit a number of fires underneath the 500 mL beaker and the 250 mL flask. I poured regular water in each of them.
While I worked, the snake that was now a more or less full-time resident of my humble abode slithered over. It stared at me as I worked. I did my best to ignore it. However, when the snake tried to reach into one of the bags and nose around in the ingredients, I gently pushed its face away.
“Don’t do that,” I said, a warning in my tone. The snake hissed in an angry manner. At least, I think it was an angry manner. Either way, I was not putting up with that today. “I spent all my valis buying those ingredients. They are extremely valuable to me. I will not let you contaminate them.”
It was hard to know if the snake was making a face, but I somehow felt like it was pouting at me. I gave the snake an even glare. I had to let this creature know I was dead serious right now. Perhaps it understood what I was trying to tell it. Perhaps it didn’t. This staring contest lasted for a full minute before, with a gesture that really did make me think it was sulking, the snake slithered back onto my bed.
That was one problem out of the way.
As I waited for the water to come to a boil, I crossed my legs and stared at the bags. I wondered what I should make first. After giving it a moment’s thought, I nodded to myself, and then grabbed the bag nearest to me. Inside the bag was a small piece of bark-like substance. Woodchip Shell. It was part of a Wood Slug, a harmless F-Ranked Demon Beast found in the Demon Beast Mountain Range.
I used the mortar and pestle to grind the woodchip shell into a powder. I set the powder into a 100 mL beaker, cleaned the mortar and pestle, and then grabbed the next ingredient. It looked like a cabbage; however, it was extremely small, able to fit on my palm with ease. Grass Heart was what it was called. I mashed that up using the mortar and pestle as well. Then I added the paste it created into the boiling water of the 500 mL beaker. After stirring the contents until it mixed completely with the water, turning it into a murky brownish-green color, I cleaned the mortar and pestle again, and then worked on my next set of ingredients.
This continued all through the night.
I think my eyes were a little dead as I walked through the streets. I didn’t sleep at all last night. The entire night had been spent refining pills, which wasn’t exhausting, but this body of mine wasn’t used to pulling all-nighters. I might have been able to do that in the past… in my previous life before I was sent back to the past I mean. However, it seemed I wasn’t capable of it right now.
“I should create an energy pill,” I muttered. “I’ll call it Red Bull Booster Pill.”
Rambling to myself, I turned down several streets, which were made mostly of limestone and cobblestone. It tended to change every so often when someone entered a new district. As I left the Peasant Quarters, the buildings also became more spaced out instead of jammed together. Their design also changed a little. The buildings where I lived were like two-story rectangles, but these seemed more extravagant. Some of them had columns, a few featured stone statues, there were some with balconies and verandas, and one even looked like a small palace.
I shook my head and continued traveling. It took fifteen minutes to reach my destination. As I held the bag of alchemy pills in my hand, I stared at the stairs that would lead to the Alchemist Association.
While the stairs were made of stone and appeared like they’d once been extravagant, they were now in a state of disrepair. As I looked further up, I saw that the wall surrounding the Alchemist Association was cracked, chipped, and faded in several places.
I walked up the stairs and entered the Alchemist Association’s main courtyard.
I stood in an empty courtyard that contained several large buildings. The buildings looked like they had once been majestic. I could see the remnants of several dragon motifs etched into the stonework; the roof was decorated with ceramic tiles, a sign of influence; what’s more, there were two large dragon statues located by the entrance to what I assumed was the main hall. Even the doors, large contraptions painted red and studded with gold, spoke of the majesty this place had.
Or the majesty this place used to have.
The paint on the walls of the Alchemist Association’s buildings had long since faded, there were cracks running along the buildings themselves, the ceramic tiles looked old and worn, the dragon statues were similarly unkept, and the doors looked like they were in great need of repair. Derelict was the word I would have used to describe this place. It looked like the Alchemist Association had fallen on hard times.
None of the stalls I remembered from last time were set up yet. I guessed it was too early in the morning. However, there were still people present, including the young man who I had bought the alchemy set from.
I walked up to the young man, who was maybe a few years older than myself. His shoulder-length red hair contained hints of orange that complimented his brown eyes and pale face. He was wearing a deep blue robe this time. It looked like the outfit used to be nice but time and a lack of proper care had given it a somewhat raggedy appearance. As I walked up to him, the young man spotted me. His eyes became empty for a second as though trying to place where he’d seen me before, but then they regained their vibrancy.
“You’re the kid who bought an alchemy set from me last month
, aren’t you?” he asked. He looked me up and down, his frown growing.
I almost twitched at being called a kid. At least he didn’t call me a woman. I needed to be thankful for the little things.
“That’s right,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “You have a very good memory.”
He shrugged. “Not many people come up here, and a young kid looking to buy an alchemy set is a pretty rare thing.”
If this guy kept calling me kid…
Shaking my head to dispel the violent thoughts swirling through my mind, I looked at the young man again and tried to present a calm, serious exterior.
“I was hoping you or someone else could introduce me to the Head of the Alchemist Association,” I said.
“You want to meet our leader?” The young man frowned and looked me up and down. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure we have time to deal with you.”
“Because you have so many customers?” I taunted. He twitched, but I didn’t care. I was a little angry myself. “Look, just tell your leader that I have a proposal I think they would be interested in.”
“And why should I do that?” The young man stepped up to me. We were about the same height, so the intimidating demeanor he tried to put up didn’t work. What’s more, I was a lot more muscular than him now.
“Because your Alchemist Association is currently in dire straits, and if you don’t do something to rectify the situation, you will probably end up becoming little more than a rundown shop selling beauty products to old women for the rest of your life.”
I’ll admit, that probably wasn’t the best thing I could have said. I could have definitely put that a little more diplomatically. At the same time, not only was I a bit pissed at this guy for being so confrontational, but I wasn’t a diplomat. Back when I was running Brave Vesperia, I was more of a figurehead. Kari had done pretty much all the work when it came to dealing with other sects.
WIEDERGEBURT: Legend of the Reincarnated Warrior: Volume 2 Page 3