#064
“Is this all yours? Did you gather all of this from the expedition?”
I nodded with a somewhat proud feeling.
“I’ll give you all of this, so look through it carefully later. But this first.”
Among the things I’d poured out, I picked up the sand strawberries and thrust them in front of Eira’s eyes.
“Kate ajumma has fallen ill – do you know about it?”
“Ah… yes.”
Eira’s eyes fixed on the sand strawberries.
“How did you get these… I heard they’d almost disappeared even in the desert…”
Ignoring Eira’s murmuring, I quickly explained the purpose of my visit.
“I just came from meeting Kate ajumma and her condition is really bad. She’s at death’s door. I heard medicine made from sand strawberries is needed, but it seems they can’t make it in the village. Could you make it from these? I’ll handle the delivery.”
“Ah…”
Eira frowned immediately. I understood. From Eira’s perspective, Elmer ahjussi and Kate ajumma were just among the people who had falsely accused her and driven her from the village. She’s not a saint, so there’s no way she’d want to make medicine for such people.
I hastily continued speaking.
“Of course, given what you went through, you must have bad feelings toward the villagers, but those two people…”
“Forget it, you don’t need to make excuses for them.”
Eira cut off my words.
“Anyway, back then the atmosphere was so crazy that anyone who took my side would have been branded as an accomplice and driven out together. Besides… the evidence was so clear that it would have been hard not to believe it. But even so…”
Eira sighed.
“Those two people secretly, through various methods, delivered necessities to me when I was isolated. If it weren’t for those two and a few other people who helped me, even I couldn’t have survived in the middle of this forest until now.”
‘A few’ people.
“There are others besides those two? People who helped you?”
At my question, Eira raised her eyebrows and made a wary expression.
“Don’t try to find out. No matter how much we do business together, we’re not in a trusting relationship enough to share everything like that.”
“Ah… okay.”
I readily backed down. Though Eira’s tone had become sharp like before, it was probably to protect the people who had helped her, so I didn’t take it badly. Since I also had some resentment toward the residents who had cast Eira out, wondering how they could do such a thing, hearing that there were more people who had secretly helped her actually made me feel better. I was just mildly curious about who they might be.
‘I wonder if any of the main NPCs are among them.’
As I was thoughtfully recalling the main NPCs one by one, Eira opened her mouth with a serious expression.
“More importantly, there’s a problem.”
“A problem?”
“About Kate ajumma’s illness. I need to see her once. I can’t just blindly make a potion from sand strawberries alone without knowing the disease name or detailed symptoms. I need to see the symptoms and condition directly and combine various other medicinal ingredients to make it.”
“Ah…”
Is even this a reality patch? Wasn’t it supposed to be simply cured with just a sand strawberry potion? Anyway, if that’s the case, this was really a serious problem. Given Kate ajumma’s condition, it would be impossible to safely transport her here, and it would also be difficult to secretly bring Eira into the village.
Carlisle might have special items like invisibility items, but setting aside how to pay for it, going back and forth to borrow it would take too much time. No, come to think of it, Carlisle had flatly refused to get involved with Eira at all. It hadn’t been long, so there’s no way his mind would have changed. This time, there was a high chance I’d be cast out too.
The Secret Merchant probably deals with similar things, and since I have the call button, I thought about summoning him once, but the problem was money. Considering the price range of that guy’s catalog, there’s no way it would be an amount I could afford.
Then what should I do?
‘Nothing ever goes smoothly.’
I let out a groan and asked casually.
“Don’t you have such a potion? Like an invisibility potion…”
Actually, I asked out of frustration, not really expecting an answer. In this game originally, Eira’s specialty was agriculture and healing. Other functional items were mainly handled by Seiz, who made items.
‘Come to think of it, there’s Seiz. Should I ask Seiz if he has such items? But this isn’t certain either…’
While having such thoughts, I suddenly realized Eira’s reaction was strange. That expression of slightly frowning while glaring into space, avoiding my gaze… could it mean Eira actually has such a thing? Really?
“…Do you have one?”
“……”
Eira looked at me with a sulky expression.
“Well, there is… something like a stealth potion. Originally I have a policy of not making potions with ambiguous purposes… but just this once, since it’s to save someone’s life, it wouldn’t be breaking my principles.”
Eira muttered as if making a resolution to herself.
“What’s wrong with stealth potions that makes their purpose ambiguous?”
I asked in bewilderment, but Eira ignored my question, pretending not to hear.
“Then since there’s no time, let’s quickly prepare and go.”
I thought it would take time to make the stealth potion or whatever, but Eira already had stock prepared.
‘You say you have a policy of not making such things, but you already have stock?’
It was somewhat contradictory, but it wasn’t the situation to question it, and it wasn’t important either, so I decided to let it slide.
Anyway, thanks to that, preparation was quick. Eira put on a loose hoodie over her shabby knit dress. Then, as if hunting people rather than monsters, she thoroughly sprayed monster repellent on both herself and me, and without any hesitation, very familiarly downed a yellow potion in one gulp.
***
“Well, if it isn’t the flower farmer.”
After going in and out several times, the mercenary guards seemed to recognize my face and acknowledged me. Calling me a ‘flower’ farmer still contained mockery about my previous Casanova behavior, but somehow it felt like they were genuinely greeting me more normally than before.
When I left the village this morning, they had acted friendly saying they heard I’d safely returned from the desert expedition, so maybe I seemed less ridiculous due to the expedition’s success.
The thought that my reputation might have improved crossed my mind briefly, but I didn’t have the energy to worry about other things right now. I tried to smile as naturally as possible while slipping past the mercenaries. I could only hope my walking figure from behind didn’t look suspicious.
“You really shouldn’t act. It’s too obvious. Yet how did you manage to two-time, even three-time people?”
Eira mocked from beside me. I felt wronged.
“Two-timing, three-timing! I didn’t even two-time. It was one person at a time!”
In the game, of course.
“Shh, be quiet. If you suddenly burst out alone, you’ll look like a crazy person.”
I flinched and shut my mouth. Eira’s point was correct. Eira was currently under the effect of a stealth potion, so no one could see her. We’d safely entered the village, but I had to refrain from suspicious behavior.
Moreover, come to think of it, it was true that I had pursued multiple romantic interests simultaneously for efficiency, so Eira’s criticism wasn’t wrong either. But that was just a game, and the real me wasn’t that kind of person, so I still felt wronged. Even so, none of the people in this world would understand my sense of injustice.
I swallowed a sigh inwardly and silently quickened my steps toward Elmer ahjussi’s house. Fortunately, Eira seemed to have no intention of picking more fights and quietly followed with her mouth shut.
When we arrived at our destination, the surroundings were already shrouded in darkness. Fortunately, there were no passersby, so the area was quiet. It was originally a house on the outskirts of the village, so it was a place with few people around.
Kate ajumma’s examination ended quickly. I deliberately didn’t mention that Eira had come in person. They would be awkward with each other anyway, and there seemed no need to implicate the two in the illegal act of bringing Eira directly into the village.
While I held onto Elmer ahjussi, pretending to check symptoms using the examination chart Eira had prepared, Eira directly examined the sleeping Kate ajumma.
“Her condition is quite serious. If we’d been just a little later, it would have been a real disaster.”
Only after leaving the house and walking down for quite a while did Eira recite the standard line of drama doctors in a serious voice. But Kate ajumma really did seem like every day counted, even to my eyes.
“You really managed to obtain the medicinal ingredients just in time.”
“Will there be any problems making the medicine?”
“Yes, actually the medicine itself is simple. The medicinal ingredients I brought and the temporary kit are sufficient, so I can make it tonight as planned. But…”
Eira’s voice dropped meaningfully.
“But will it really be okay?”
“Well… it’ll be a problem if we’re caught anyway, so as long as we’re not caught, it should be fine…”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
