Chapter 51 - You Didn't Know I Was A Genius, Huh?

Translator: Yonnee

Chapter 51 – You Didn’t Know I Was A Genius, Huh?

Sierra smiled leisurely as her enemies surrounded her, their immature gazes on her. She would need to test these pharmacists whether they’d suit being her close aides.

“You mentioned earlier that, for a long time now, all individuals from noble families who entered the Imperial pharmacy were top students, right?”

“…Why do you ask?”

The blonde Sally retorted sharply. Then, Felia, who had blue hair, meddled immediately.

“Yeah, that’s right! Even Sally here was born in the Imperial Palace. We’re pure-blooded pharmacists.”

The term ‘pure-blooded’ was quite ridiculous. However, this meant that they had some influence within the palace. Though they were trying to bring Sera’s spirit down by telling her this, it only served as very good news for her.

‘Everyone thinks status is all there is. If they’re familiar with the rumors inside the palace, then it’s necessary for someone like that to be a close aide.’

Then, it was time to check their discrepancies. Sierra tilted her head to the side and asked them.

“Do you all devote your lives to the pharmacy?”

The gazes pointed towards Sierra became subdued. They didn’t seem to expect that she would bring up the pharmacist’s oath, ‘I swear to give my life to the pharmacy’. But that subdued atmosphere disappeared in an instant—with sulking expressions, they tried to drive Sierra into a corner once more.

“What life? We’ve even dedicated our souls!”

“An arrogant parachute cruiser like you dares to ruin the Imperial pharmacy’s reputation?”

“Even if you’re sponsored by aristocrats, the Imperial pharmacy isn’t a place for dogs and cows to enter!”

Half-listening to their shrill voices, Sierra picked her ear and smiled. The people who slandered Sierra behind her back were clenching their teeth. They wanted to kick Sierra out right away. In contrast, Sierra seemed to be liking these aides more and more.

‘Sure enough, since the Duke and the Godmother recommended me for the post, only the ones thirsty for power would want to be close to me while doing their best to flatter me…’

The Imperial pharmacy seemed to be a place that focused on skills more than power. Then, it would be even easier for Sierra to dominate it—she was a genius among outstanding geniuses.

‘They’ll be good enough to be my hands and feet.’

Then, Sierra looked around at the three pharmacists surrounding her, then she smiled.

“You—do you think we’ll let you off if you tremble like that?”

“I wasn’t trembling though.”

And Sierra was telling the truth. She never trembled, but then the atmosphere took a strange turn.

“I won’t let you go even if you make a pitiful expression like that.”

“T-That’s right!”

…Sierra looked up with gloomy, sad eyes. Then, she saw some agitation shaking them up. While furrowing her eyebrows, she smiled pitifully.

“Okay, I got it. So you don’t like that I suddenly came to the Imperial pharmacy with the support of nobles, which makes me less than you.”

“Exactly.”

“You understood it well.”

“You don’t know, but we did well on the Imperial examination.”

Sierra stared at them as they chattered like birds. In fact, it was quite cute seeing this kind of arrogance and shamelessness from these young pharmacists. Relaxed, Sierra nodded and replied.

“Just in time, the head of the pharmacy who’s in charge of making potions for His Majesty is away for quite a while.”

How dare you mention the great pharmacist? Their eyes grew dark just then. Sierra shrugged as she looked at Felia, Jenny and Cellie.

“Then why don’t we have a contest?”

‘Of course, I’m going to win.’

“Aren’t you curious about my skills?”

“No, it’s just a waste of time to compete with a mere academy bee.”

They turned their backs on her. Sierra had a lighthearted smile as she spoke again.

“You’re avoiding me because you’re scared, aren’t you?”

“…What?”

Sierra smirked.

“What a shame.”

It was an obvious provocation.

“Fine.”

And these young pharmacists were so naïve to have fallen for a simple goad.

‘Got you.’

Sierra shamelessly asked back.

“Hm?”

“Instead of just competing.”

“……?”

“If you lose, stop arrogantly butting in when you don’t have the abilities for it anyway.”

Sierra, having nothing to lose, nodded relaxedly.

“If you lose, then you can’t ignore me again.”

Looking into the three people’s eyes one person at a time, Sierra raised a corner of her lips and whispered in an insidious way.

“And don’t mess with me.”

* * *

After half an hour, the contest between Sierra and the three pharmacists was set. They proudly presented a patient’s chart towards Sierra as though they’d been ready for this moment.

[ Unidentified, night care, health drink, Bentimo Vital prescription. ]

“If it’s Bentimo Vital—”

Felia shrugged, an arrogant expression on her face.

“You’re from the countryside. Do you even know what that is? It’s a drug to relieve energy.”

“It’s difficult to make.”

Something ‘difficult to make’ was nothing for Sierra. Just smiling, Sierra replied.

“The patient should be identified first. If it remains unknown, then it must be one of the Imperial family members, and if the prescription is weaker compared to a man’s prescription, then it must be a woman.”

“…Yeah, you’re right. This is what Her Majesty the Empress takes after dinner. The color should be vivid blue, should be neither sweet nor salty, and it should be both tasteless and scentless because it’ll be mixed in the mulled wine that she drinks often.”

They were top students at the academy, and even this was fairly difficult for pharmacists who have gotten into the Imperial pharmacy. In this thrilling situation, their gazes pointed to one side.

“Alright. Who’s going first among you?”

“Cellie will go first. She’s in charge of what Her Majesty drinks.”

Sierra looked over at Cellie, who in turn spoke haughtily.

“I recommend giving up even at this point.”

“Have you even made Bentimo Vital when you’re from the countryside?”

“You’re scared to even look at my face, huh? Then raise the white flag and we’ll pardon you.”

While maintaining her poker face, she turned her head. When Sierra’s expression hardened, they were pretending as if they had already won, but Sierra just looked down at the patient chart that they handed over to her, thinking to herself.

‘This is really easy.’

Sierra put on some gloves and headed to the formulation table. Before her, there were immunity boosting roots and berries, sterilized medicine bottles, pots, graduated cylinders and syringes. Then behind her back, she heard whispering voices.

“What the—what kind of confidence does she have?”

“What’s with that expression? How arrogant.”

The sound of their mutterings was just insignificant to Sierra, so she smiled.

She trimmed the roots while pruning them simply.

Shhk, shhhk.

The skin of the immuno root, which was an ingredient for the Bentimo Vital, was as rough and as hard as the skin of a pineapple. The reason why it was considered difficult to make Bentomo Vital was because of the difficulty in peeling the skin of the immuno root.

Immuno roots have a translucent husk, but the medicinal component of this ingredient was concentrated near the skin of the root. The difficulty in extracting that potent part was high because the moment a mistake would be made, that part would disappear.

‘It’s really easy to prune immuno roots.’

Sierra trimmed the root’s husk too easily and too smoothly—she was a genius and had nimble hands. Cellie, the most outstanding of the three, was of course unlike the genius Sierra because she struggled to trim off the immuno root’s skin.

“Ha, haa.”

She gasped several times as her hands trembled while carefully peeling off the skin. Felia volunteered to be the referee in this match, and she watched Sierra’s ministrations while muttering.

“A-Aren’t you good at using a knife?”

“I’m good at other things, too.”

Compared to Cellie, who could barely peel the immuno roots, Sierra was already boiling the root’s husk to take its extract. She then poured it into a clean potion bottle.

‘It’s almost done.’

After simply adding the berries into the extract, the final step was finally here—infusing mana into the formulation. At this point, Cellie’s hand trembled. At first, she thought that it would be easy to get rid of Sierra, but now that they were deep into the match, it didn’t even need to be said who had come in first. Of course, Sierra was someone different.

“I’ll be infusing mana into this now, look carefully.”

She was excited because she could finally show her skills after such a long time, and she smiled happily as she looked at the potion bottle that hadn’t been closed yet. Sierra wiggled her fingers briefly at Jenny, who was frozen as she stood there.

‘This is so easy. And using mana is easy, too.’

A wave of blue mana flowed from Sierra’s fingertips. As the wave of pure mana flowed into the potion, Sierra blinked and tapped the potion bottle once as though it was no biggie. It’s finally complete.

“I’m done.”

Looking over at Sierra and her blue potion bottle, Felia nervously refuted her.

“Ha! Making potions quickly doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t good, so…”

“Cellie, l-look at that.”

Looking away from her boiling pot, Cellie looked at the reagent bottle in Sierra’s hand. At once, she knew that it was a perfect, high-quality potion. Cellie’s eyes trembled as she saw the potion’s clear blue hue, quite literally the textbook definition of the expected color. Cellie hiccupped.

“No, we can’t tell just by the color…”

“Then we can use a spray for the diagnosed reagent.”

Those three pairs of eyes were wide in astonishment as they looked at Sierra. As the referee, Felia barely came to her senses.

“Let’s see its efficacy. Hand over a clinical reagent!”

As expected of the Imperial pharmacy. There were plenty of expensive reagents to test whether a potion was good, low-tiered or poisonous, and this only made Sierra smile with one corner of her lips raised.

“First… Let’s check.”

“If there’s a problem with it, bubbles would come up, but if there’s no problem, then there won’t be a reaction.”

Lily dropped the diagnostic reagent through a syringe with her trembling hand, and perfectly without any bubbles, there was no reaction from Sierra’s potion.

“Even if it’s confirmed, its scent and flavor still need to be tested.”

Lily carefully took the potion bottle and placed it under her nose. She was famous for having a hound’s nose, but she still smelled nothing from the potion.

“I can’t s-smell anything.”

She hurriedly searched for a spoon on the table and carefully scooped up some of the potion. Then, she held it to her mouth.

“……”

Crackle. The spoon soon crumpled. It was definitely made out of metal, but then Felia could only comment on it with a quivering voice.

“…You, you’ve gotten stronger, Lily.”

“I believe it’s been proven.”

The trio just looked at each other, frozen. It was a perfect defeat for Cellie, who thought that she was good at making potions. As they bit their dry lips tightly, the three people opened their lips carefully to speak.

“Then…”

“…How on earth—how is t-this possible?”

“You only got l-lucky!”

But their eyes were shaking.

“I did what you asked me to do. You said you value skills, right?”

Sierra smiled and placed the lid over the potion.

“I think I’ve proven myself.”

In the standstill, the pharmacist’s master, the old pharmacist, entered while wearing a white robe. He looked at the three pharmacists who were standing foolishly, then over to Sierra who was smiling brightly.

“What commotion is this in the formulation room?”

“It’s… it’s nothing big.”

With her conscience pricked, Jenny took a step forward first, and the old pharmacist murmured as he took in the truth of the situation, wiping his forehead.

“No commotions are allowed in the formulation room.”

He turned to Sierra and spoke as though it was a warning.

“If anything happens, then just tell me.”

But before she knew it, his eyes were meticulously inspecting her appearance.

‘Hm…’

Thanks to this, she also took this as a chance to take a closer look at his appearance.

Then, the moment they made eye contact, Sera realized that something was off.

‘This pharmacist is weird. His eyes are relaxed, but he keeps sweating…’

Sierra looked over to him and pondered.

‘Hmm well, if he’s the Imperial pharmacist who checks the Emperor’s health every morning, then he must have met the Emperor…’

At that moment, she glanced at the clumsy hand. Certainly, this golden opportunity was just right.