#101
It was only a few days before the festival when I finally received the items I’d commissioned from Seiz and Eira for the event. However, when Eira handed me the purification potion, she told me a rather strange story.
“My blood is… in here?” I asked, scrunching up my face.
Eira nodded. “Actually, when I was making purification potions before, I accidentally spilled some of your blood into a flower pot, and sprouts grew from it. At first I thought it was because of my potion, but the effect was excessively good. I found it strange and experimented with various things—it seemed like your blood was the cause.”
I was flabbergasted by this absurd story.
“Since you gave me tree sap this time too, I mixed it with the potion and researched it a bit more. And really, whether it’s fertilizer or purification, the efficacy gets multiplied dozens of times. When I added the tree sap to this, naturally the effect was even more amazing. Why on earth is this happening?”
Why is this happening? How would I know?
“…You don’t know either?” Eira read my expression and seemed slightly disappointed. But she quickly perked up, fired with research enthusiasm, and began pressing me for answers.
“What is it? What could it be? You didn’t pick up and eat something weird while exploring, did you?”
Something weird… Since I’d picked up and eaten so many things every time I went to hidden areas, I couldn’t pinpoint anything specific. Wait—Eira had drawn my blood right after I came back from the plains, so maybe it was something I ate in that dungeon. Or maybe…
“Could it be because I drank Carlisle’s potion? That potion seemed to be made from tree sap.”
That was the only possibility I could think of. I also suddenly remembered how the priest had stopped talking mid-sentence when mentioning purification potions a few days ago, which struck me as odd. But I wasn’t some elf or earth spirit from a fantasy game—no matter how much of a player I was, having such attributes would still be weird. After all, I was just a farmer in a farm management game.
Anyway, my speculation seemed plausible to Eira, as she nodded with a serious expression.
“That might be it. Come to think of it, that medicine had an incredible effect. It resolved both the treatment and seaweed poisoning at once.”
“…It did.”
“Can I get some more of your blood? So I can research it further.”
Eira looked at me with gleaming eyes. I honestly felt uncomfortable, like I was having my blood drawn by a mad scientist, but I couldn’t refuse the request of such a crucial ally—not when I needed her help to return to reality. So I reluctantly nodded.
“Great! Here, I’ll give you this as a gift. It’s free.” Pleased, Eira held out a glass bottle. Inside were red pills and white pills mixed together, filling about half the bottle.
“What is this?”
“The sleep inducer and tranquilizer you requested. Made from ice apples.”
“Ah…” Right, ice apples did seem to have sleep-inducing effects. Did they have calming effects too? But would it be safe to eat this? Remembering Carlisle’s strange behavior at the ice mansion, I hesitated to reach for it.
“It’s fine. I separated and extracted the sleep and calming components separately, so it’s safe. As I mentioned before, issues like hypnosis or mental manipulation would need more time to investigate, but these two effects have been known for a long time, so you don’t need to worry. Of course, if you take too much, there are side effects like sleeping too deeply or becoming lethargic, so only use it when absolutely necessary, and never take more than two pills a day. Don’t mix them either.”
I carefully listened to the precautions and collected everything I needed. After that, Eira didn’t forget to drag me to the back room and draw some of my blood—actually quite a lot of it. I felt like I’d become a character in a dystopian novel who pays for potions with blood.
I felt dizzy for a moment from the unexpected blood donation, but instead of lying down to rest and eating something, I managed the aftermath with a bottle of stamina potion. Only then could I wake up Taro, who was sleeping in the corner, pack my now-heavier backpack, and barely escape from Eira’s cabin.
Returning to the village, I stopped by Seiz’s to collect the upgraded farming tools. I immediately headed to the farmland and began diluting the potion with water in a watering can, spraying it over the entire cultivation area. If this were reality, it would be impossible work for one person, but since this was a world within a game, I could rely on the power of items.
That said, it wasn’t an amount that could be easily handled, so I worked all day, replenishing my stamina intermittently with potions, naps, and food that Hayden brought me. Even doing that, it took several days to completely finish. Taro wanted to help too, but since he had no farming-related abilities or items, he wasn’t much use.
By the time I finished the work, I could taste blood in my throat. I wondered if this was how the character felt in the early game when their stamina bar was completely drained from farming and logging, falling asleep on the verge of fainting. I felt newly sorry for having worked them so mercilessly in the past.
There were continuous meetings and related work until the festival day, so I was frantically busy day and night. Despite having gotten a sleep inducer from Eira, it was completely unnecessary. I slept like the dead—so deeply that someone could have carried me away without me knowing. It was embarrassing how I’d whined to Eira about not being able to sleep even when tired.
Around this time, there were traces that Carlisle had come and gone at night, but because I was sleeping so deeply, I couldn’t tell when he’d arrived. I think I glimpsed him while sleeping, but I was so half-asleep that I couldn’t distinguish whether I’d actually seen him or dreamed it.
This won’t do.
I became anxious. I needed to properly face Carlisle and have a conversation at least once before the festival. There was the Eira problem and the sponsorship issue too.
Every time I went to meetings, Karin and other festival committee members pestered me about whether I’d talked with Carlisle, asking what was going on since there was still no change in the sponsorship amount. I said I hadn’t been able to see him yet so I couldn’t talk to him, but they didn’t seem to believe me. Well, it was understandable they’d think that way—it would be impossible not to see each other even once for several days while living in the same house.
I have no reason to lie about something like that!
Honestly, even I thought it was strange. No matter how busy we both were, it didn’t make sense not to meet like this while living in the same house—even sharing the same room. Unless someone was deliberately avoiding the other. I’d even openly told Taro and Hayden that I had something to say, but was ignored.
If anyone should be avoiding someone, it should be me, so why is he avoiding me?
Thinking like that, I was starting to feel somewhat annoyed. Was he worried I might pounce on him? No, you’re the one who needs contact, not me!
Four days before the festival, thinking this really couldn’t continue, I decided to stay up all night if necessary to wait and meet Carlisle. The purification and fertilizer work had been safely completed despite the chaos, leaving me with some stamina. But worried even that might not be enough, I deliberately drank a stamina potion after dinner.
When night came and it was time I usually fell asleep, even though I wasn’t very tired, my eyelids grew heavy as if it had become a habit.
But that won’t do. I have to endure.
Sitting on the sofa made my body keep slouching, so I eventually got up and paced around the room. Today I absolutely had to meet Carlisle and finish our conversation.
I’d enthusiastically persuaded Seiz to participate in the festival, and he’d made lots of small daily necessities and even finished reserving a sales booth. On the other hand, nothing had been decided for Eira. Since I’d promised to look into potion sales methods, I had to do something, but partly due to being busy, no plausible ideas had come to mind.
Feeling frustrated, I opened the balcony window and went outside to wake myself up. Though the weather had warmed up considerably, it was still chilly at night, so breathing the cold air seemed to clear my head a bit. I walked back and forth on the wide balcony, continuing to think.
Actually, if Carlisle would just turn a blind eye, attending the festival wouldn’t be much of a problem since I had invisibility potions. But I couldn’t sell things while invisible… Would it be better to disguise myself as an outside merchant instead?
No. To open a sales booth, I’d need to get permission and register, which would only complicate matters, and continuously dealing with people while doing business would also be dangerous. Since Eira was a village native, no matter how much she disguised herself, people couldn’t fail to recognize her…
Wait, disguise? Outside merchant?
Speaking of a disguised outside merchant, a face suddenly came to mind. The secret merchant who always appeared wearing strange masks. How long had it been since I’d met him? Come to think of it, when Eira talked about my bracelet, didn’t she say a foreign merchant wearing a strange mask came to the festival every time to sell miscellaneous goods? That was probably Bisang… Would he appear at this festival too?
It would be good to entrust Eira’s potions to him, take a small commission fee, and ask him to sell them instead.
If he was willing to trade, he probably wouldn’t demand an unreasonable commission fee. Instead, he’d ask me to buy unreasonably priced goods.
But how can I meet him? Should I use the summoning button?
But using the one and only summoning button for something like this seemed too wasteful. That should be saved for truly urgent or important matters. Was there another way to meet him? What were the locations and times when Bisang appeared in the original game?
Just then, a strangely chilly wind brushed past my spine. Feeling chills rise, I hunched my shoulders and looked around. The bedroom balcony overlooked the forest, so there was almost nothing visible at night. When it wasn’t contaminated, the forest that changed with the seasons was quite beautiful, but that was only during the day. Now that it was contaminated and nighttime, it only felt ominous, as if ghosts or monsters might jump out from somewhere.
“How eerie. If something’s going to jump out, let it be Bisang. Not ghosts or monsters…”
Just as I was rubbing my goosebump-covered arms and muttering, suddenly something pitch black popped its head up from below the balcony railing.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
