Chapter 12: The Headstart (3)

“I-it’s shabby... but please come in. It’s really shabby...” The Chemist awkwardly showed me into her shop.

She wasn’t being humble. The inside of the shop was a chaotic wreck that looked like a storm had passed through it. Glass fragments were scattered all over the floor and collapsed bookcases lay on top of piles of books. The specks of dust in the air rounded off the ensemble.

—Wow.

The Guardian clapped.

—Before I died, people always used to tell me that I should clean more, but I have to hand it to that young lady. What excellent hygiene. Zombie, do you really want elixirs made by that lady?

“Umm, are you really going to give me an order of twenty thousand gold...?”

The Guardian and Chemist asked at the same time as if they had planned it.

I smiled bitterly. “I can pay upfront if it’s difficult to trust me.”

“N-no need...” The Chemist stopped fidgeting after a moment.“...No, I think upfront payment is better if possible.”

Her face was as red as a tomato, ashamed of the fact that she was making such a request. It looked like her financial situation was so bad that it was difficult for her to protect her dignity.

“You can take as much money as you need from my vault. I’ll tell the employees at the MA.”

“As much as I need...” the Chemist blankly repeated.

“Yes, but my money isn’t endless. I would appreciate it if you keep the budget within twenty thousand gold,” I told her.

“Oh, s-so what kind of potions are you trying to order...?”

The Chemist looked happy and nervous at the same time about having such an enormous budget.

“I’m sorry, but I won’t create narcotics. It’s a matter of principle, so...if you’re here for narcotics, I’ll have to turn you down...”

“Oh.”

Though she’s clumsy in many ways, she really is going to be the Master Alchemist in the future, I thought to myself.

Not many people could turn down a deal that would bring them tens of thousands of gold, especially if their business was on the brink of ruin, yet the Chemist set down her foot when it came to narcotics. She looked very feeble, but she took pride in her work.

“Haha, they’re far from narcotics, so don’t worry.”

“Ah... I-I’m glad to hear it.” The Chemist smiled sheepishly. “What kind of potions are you ordering?”

“Hmm.”

I looked at the Guardian, who had been silent and grouchy since entering the shop. Only after I gave him the eye did the Guardian let out a sigh and break his silence.

—Phew. Fine. I really don’t think that lady is a skilled Chemist, but I’ll tell you the recipe.

I felt like he could have given up sooner and saved everyone the trouble.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

—Listen up: it needs a rabbit-pig’s liver, a balloon cat’s eyes, a desert wyrm’s shell...

“So here are the ingredients: a rabbit-pig’s liver, a balloon cat’s eyes, and...”

“Ah, please wait a moment! I-I’ll write them down!” The Chemist jotted down the ingredients and formula.

It required twenty-three ingredients. The Chemist’s expression grew more serious as the list got longer.

—That’s the last ingredient. Mixing them depends on her skills.

“Those are all the necessary ingredients.”

The Chemist bit her fingernails as she examined what she’d written in her notebook. “If you mix these together...it’ll heighten your reflex to the limit, but by calming your nerves. It’s done by tensing them. No, I guess the right description is awakening them.”

—Huh? The Guardian quickly turned to look at the Chemist.

“This is a very high-quality formula,” she continued to mumble. “Ah, I might be mistaken since all I have are the ingredients... These ingredients need to be as fresh as possible and should be brewed at the same time, yes? They aren’t dried or refined in advance?”

—Yeah, that’s correct...

I nodded. “You’re right.”

“I knew it! It’s very weak, but desert wyrm shells are poisonous,” she exclaimed. “One way to neutralize it is to consume a rabbit-pig’s liver. Depending on the method, the effect is...!”

The shy, stammering Chemist became lively and talkative, verging on chirpy. It turned out that she was one of those people.

She’s still stumbling her way through this world but she’s good at what she does.

People like her gave everything they had to the field they loved, and would accomplish remarkable feats someday. I liked experts like her, but I had a feeling that the conversation wouldn’t end at this rate.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” I interrupted.

“Oh.” The Chemist blinked, slowly realizing that she had been lost in her own world. She quickly bowed. “I-I’m sorry! It’s been a while since I saw a beautiful formula like this one, so I didn’t even realize what I was doing...”

“It’s okay. How many days would it take though?”

“With enough money...f-four days will be enough. It usually takes less, but I have to get new equipment and tools...”

“I can wait that long.”

I smiled. Before my regression, it took at least a year to get a potion from her. Waiting four days didn’t even count as waiting.

—Zombie, I can’t say I’m fine with this yet. Many guys out there may be smooth talkers but don’t have the skills to back it up. That’s why there’re so many crooks out there. Ugh, I’m dead certain you’ve thrown your money down the drain!

The Guardian continued to grumble even after I finished talking things out and went outside the shop.

“So where did you learn that combination?”

—I made it myself by drinking all sorts of poison. It’s the best elixir out there. Without me, you won’t be able to get that elixir no matter how hard you try!

I chuckled. “The Chemist called it high quality, and it only took her one look to see the true worth of it, so trust her. She may not look like it now, but she’ll be the leader of the Alchemist Office in ten years.”

The Guardian pursed his lip. He already looked threatening, but his pursed lip made him look like a giant toad.

—You were trash-talking me just now, weren’t you.

“Are you going to point fingers at anyone now?” I asked, feigning innocence. He was annoyingly sharp.

***

Four days passed by quite quickly. Meanwhile, the Chemist didn’t hold herself back from taking as much gold as she needed from my vault. An employee from the MA came by and asked me if it was alright, but I told him to let her. It didn’t matter how much it cost if it meant I was getting the Master Alchemist’s elixirs.

—Zombie, do you want to make a bet?

“What is it now?”

—That lady will just run away with your money. I’m sure of it. I don’t know about the rest, but I have a great eye for people. The lady had the face of a grand thief! Just kill yourself, Kim Zombie! Kill yourself four times so we can go back to four days ago!

Of course, a ghost couldn’t have a good eye for people.

At lunch on the fourth day, the Chemist came to my room with boxes of elixirs.

“I-I’m sorry. I wanted to deliver them sooner than this, but I began to mix some stuff and it took me longer than I expected.”

“No, it’s fine. You told me it was going to take four days, and here you are. ”

The Chemist brought three boxes of elixirs in total. If I took them three times a day, it would last thirty days. However, I would have only gotten two days’ worth of elixirs if I had gone to the shop that the Guardian had recommended to me. This result was fifteen times better than what it would have been with his original plan.

And it’ll be more effective than the elixirs from the other shop. This is how you use money.

I smiled contently.

“Umm...”

“Yes?”

“I-I know it’s strange to ask you this now, but why did you make such an expensive order to an obscure Chemist like me?” The Chemist’s fingers fluttered. “I-I can guarantee my skill, though. I believe that only I and one other person in Babylon can understand your combination and properly concoct potions based on it... But people think I’m just a freak...”

“Mmm...”

The reason why I chose this Chemist in front of me to create my elixirs was that she was the genius of the century. She was going to be the leader of the Alchemist Office, so I also wanted to build a relationship before it happened.

But that isn’t the only reason.

Before my 4090-day regression, when the Fire Emperor had set a fire in the slum, the woman in front of me had arrived at the site before everyone else. She put her High Ranker title to good use and took charge of the firefighting effort. As she had helped me, the Master Alchemist had quietly raised concerns.

“...I don’t like the Fire Emperor.”

“Something doesn’t feel right about him...”

“Although I know it’s not polite to talk badly of him, I still think Miss Saintess deserves someone better.”

She had recognized the true colors of the Fire Emperor.

It had to have been her gut feelings, not based on evidence.

Even if that was the case, the Chemist had an eye that was astute enough to recognize a psychopath. She was skilled and kind enough to immediately come running to the site of an accident. I would be losing out if I didn’t get on her good side.

“You look like a good person,” I said.

“Huh?”

“I helped you because you look like a good person. Well, you would have made it on your own without my help, but good Hunters like us should be successful so that we can help each other in the future. It’s unfair if only wacky psychopaths get to thrive. I don’t want that to happen, so let’s do our best.”

I told her what I truly felt without a speck of lies. Actually, I couldn’t be more honest than I was right now. The rest depended on how the Chemist took my words.

She stared at my face for a moment. “...You’re right. Yes, you need to be successful first to change the world. Thank you, sir! I won’t give up, like you told me!” the Chemist said, clenching her fists. It sounded like she had found her resolve. “Feel free to call me whenever you need to make an order again. I’ll always prioritize your orders!”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

We exchanged a handshake and a smile before we said goodbye. Unfortunately, my smile didn’t last long.

—It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Hunter who called himself good. And it’s my first time to see someone who didn’t say anything about it. Hey, are you two nuts? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Both of you are out of your mind.

“...I know it was cringe, so let’s just get on with my training.”

On the next day, we headed to a hunting ground. My bag was loaded with a sleeping bag and elixirs. One difference from usual was that I was on the third floor, not the second. The third floor was a little high for a Class F Hunter like me because goblins, orcs, and other monsters that were too much for me to handle roamed the area.

I watched them from afar. “What do I do now?”

—Drink an elixir first.

I nodded and gulped down the elixir from my thermos bottle without question.

“Mmm...” I expected it to taste like ginseng essence, but it was pretty ordinary. It smelled like lemon and actually tasted rather pleasantly of honey.

I gasped.

My heart beat harder than usual. At first, I thought I was mistaken, but I wasn’t—my back was drenched in sweat immediately. It was amazing...I could feel every drop of sweat running down my back.

What? I frowned.

It wasn’t just my sweat. I could feel the texture and pressure of the air around my fingers, and even the ground I was standing on. A blink of an eye seemed to take thirty seconds.

“This...is...”

—It’s because of the elixir.

Only the Guardian’s voice sounded normal; the rest of the world moved at a crawl.

—It slows down your perception time to an extreme level. Well, it’ll be easier to understand as something that gives you as much time as necessary. I hate to admit it, but that lady is quite skilled.

It was horrible. I could feel every strand of hair on my body as if I was covered in hundreds of thousands of ants. Even the movements of my veins were clear to me. If I didn’t know it was an elixir, I would have mistaken it for poison.

—Can’t you feel it?

“Feel...what?”

—It’s moving around your heart.

There was definitely something there, flowing. I had never felt it this clearly in my life. It wasn’t my blood. It was much softer and thinner than my veins; however, it was clear that it was slowly circulating within me, centered around my heart.

—That is your aura. Every Hunter in the Tower has an aura of their own, but they just carry on with their daily lives without realizing it exists. The deciding factor of a fight is how much aura a Hunter can draw on, the Guardian said.

His quiet laughter lasted over twenty seconds inside my head. Although he probably only laughed for a split second, my perception of time made it stretch. It was so exhausting that I would lose consciousness if I let my guard down even for a second.

—You normally get used to the flow of your aura by meditating in the lotus position or training on your own. But that’d take too long.

Through the swarm of sensations, I could feel that something huge was approaching me.

I heard a footstep, stretched unnaturally long like the Guardian’s laughter. When I managed to look up, I saw a giant orc walking toward me.

—If a person lacks talents like you, you have to make up for it through pain.

Fuck.

—Now, draw up your aura unless you want to get hurt, Kim Zombie! Someone like you has to train through real combat! You won’t stay dead even if you die, so who cares if it ruins your body?

“You...freaking ghost...!”

—Hmm? You know, I have trouble hearing a loser who can’t even use his aura.

Once again, the Guardian burst into manic laughter.

—Does it hurt? You can kill yourself if you don’t want to do this. Oh, wait. It’ll increase your kill count. With over four thousand, Gramps Marcus will be so much nicer to you, won’t he?

Ah, my partner was a true villain.