Chapter 20
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: 3. Gathering Materials Myself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3. Gathering Materials Myself.
*knock knock knock*
Someone knocked on the door to Chairman Mureos's office.
"Come on in~."
Without even checking who it was, Chairman Mureos—who was inside—invited them in.
She had already sensed exactly who was standing outside the door through the fluctuations in their mana.
It was Edin, who had just started working at the academy's general store today.
With Teacher Saella's sudden vacation request earlier and all these visitors today of all days, why was it so busy?
Chairman Mureos set aside her work and greeted Edin as he opened the door and stepped inside.
"Ah, Chairman. Sorry to bother you."
"No, no. What can I do for you?"
In response to Mureos's question, Edin seemed to hesitate for a moment before speaking up.
"There's something I wanted permission for."
"Permission?"
What could it be?
She had prepared as many facilities and fixtures as she could think of, but maybe there were still things a practitioner like him needed?
But what he wanted permission for was something she never could have anticipated.
"...So, you're saying you want to go gather the materials yourself?"
That's right—he wanted to procure the alchemy materials personally.
A question immediately popped into Mureos's mind.
'Why go to the trouble?'
Of course, Edin explained his reasoning properly.
To save money on raw materials.
But that was the academy's concern, not something Edin needed to worry about.
All he had to do was list out the materials he needed, receive them, and make the potions.
'Is he asking us to cover that expense too?'
He didn't strike her as the type to be that greedy for money.
It was strange.
"Wouldn't that be dangerous? You don't need to take that kind of risk."
"......"
Edin paused as if in thought for a moment, then spoke to Mureos.
"To be honest... it's just an excuse."
"...?"
An excuse.
Both the part about wanting to help the academy and the part about saving on the budget.
Of course, Edin did have some of those intentions.
But the truth was, the Adventurer Academy wasn't struggling financially to the point where it needed his help.
As long as they had the massive funding and investments pouring in from the Adventurer Guild, they would never face budget issues.
It was just a matter of cutting back on unnecessary waste.
Whether Edin helped or not didn't really make a difference.
In the end, all of that was just an excuse.
The real reason was something he truly wanted.
"The truth is... I've always wanted to collect materials properly with my own hands!"
Edin said it like he was confessing some embarrassing secret, his face flushing red.
Yeah, it was all just an excuse.
Just the selfish whim of a kid at heart.
I want to try it.
I want to test out the knowledge I have with my own hands!
In the end, he was an alchemist through and through.
The kind who wanted to take the ideas he'd come up with and the knowledge he'd built up, put them to the test in real scenarios, and see the results for himself.
Research maniacs!
Perhaps it was a backlash from being suppressed for so long.
Now that he had the freedom to research and experiment, Edin wanted to immediately put into practice all the things he hadn't been able to try properly in the past.
Helping with the academy's budget was just a side benefit.
"Heh heh heh. Judging by that look on your face, it'd be a disaster if I tried to stop you, huh?"
"...Ah. Sorry."
Edin snapped back to composure, startled by the fact that he'd let his excitement show on his face without realizing it.
"Very well. Time for personal exploration is essential for any alchemist. But there are a couple of issues."
Two problems.
The hours required to run the general store, and Edin's safety.
Edin had a solution ready for the time issue.
Well, more accurately... Suiven had come up with it.
"With that in mind, I'd like to hire a salesperson for the store."
"A salesperson...?"
Hiring staff wasn't a big deal.
If the Adventurer Academy posted a job listing, even simple janitor positions would draw massive crowds.
Who wouldn't want to work for such a prestigious mega-organization with pay better than average for the same jobs elsewhere?
Hiring a salesperson would cost less than buying materials anyway, so it wouldn't undermine the 'helping the budget' rationale he'd given on the surface.
...Not that the rationale mattered much anymore.
In any case, hiring a salesperson could be sorted out in a matter of days.
But Edin had brought a completely different solution.
"Teacher Suiven volunteered to work as a clerk at the general store herself."
"...Oh ho, I see."
Chairman Mureos didn't seem as surprised as expected.
She already knew all about it.
Suiven Rosu had originally been an aspiring merchant and still dreamed of becoming one even now.
She was always talking about opening her own shop and going into business for herself after retirement.
"But she's a current academy instructor. It's not impossible to do both, but... wouldn't that be exhausting for her?"
Suiven taught the tank role at the academy.
They couldn't immediately hire a replacement for her position, so naturally, she couldn't transfer right away.
Even if they did let her transfer, she'd have to juggle two jobs until they found someone.
"She said she's fine with that. And if it ends up interfering with either job in any way, she'll quit the store job immediately."
"Oh ho..."
"Her salary would be the same as a regular clerk's. And since this stems from my own selfish desire, I don't mind covering it myself."
"No need to go that far. We're the ones hiring her through the academy."
The whole budget thing seemed pretty meaningless at this point anyway.
As mentioned earlier, the Adventurer Academy had plenty of money to spare.
"That leaves the issue of your safety, Mr. Edin."
Edin had already given that some thought too.
"Today at the academy general store, I fielded a lot of questions from students. As expected from Adventurer Academy students—they're all so passionate and talented."
A flood of questions from the students.
How to deal with orcs lurking in the forests, packs of kobolds in the mines, dire wolf packs on the plains.
The forests, mines, and plains where they lived...
Those were exactly the places where the alchemy materials he wanted could be found.
"Accompanying the students on their field classes... I take it."
"Yes. That way, I can teach them about valuable harvestables and how to collect them while preserving quality. Two birds with one stone."
"......"
Mureos's eyes widened at Edin's words.
It was definitely a great idea.
For adventurers, alchemy or magic materials didn't feel all that important.
They were just a byproduct that came along with quests or monster hunts.
That's why they often didn't bother putting in the time and effort to harvest them carefully—they'd just grab them roughly and sell whatever they got.
And even that was mostly something low-rank adventurers did for pocket money, so higher-rank adventurers hardly ever bothered.
At best, they'd salvage valuable parts from the monsters they'd killed and sell those.
'That's why pure research mages and alchemists who don't become adventurers despise them as barbarians.'
They looked down on adventurers for not even knowing how to preserve material quality.
That was why, despite their mutually beneficial relationship, the Mage Guild and Alchemist Guild didn't get along well with the Adventurer Guild.
Honestly, she could understand their frustration.
To make high-quality potions or magic scrolls, you needed equally high-quality materials.
And to get those, they either had to shell out big money to hire specialized adventurers...
Or risk their own necks going out to gather them personally.
Well, it wasn't just about avoiding disdain from the Mage or Alchemist Guilds.
Thinking about it, sourcing high-quality materials was ultimately beneficial for adventurers too.
Forgetting the extra money for a second—they were the ingredients that went into the potions the adventurers themselves used.
The more high-quality materials flooded the market, the more high-quality potions, scrolls, and enchanted gear there would be.
And at lower prices, too.
In the end, it would boost adventurers' survivability and let them take on more quests.
'But the idea of teaching it to them never even crossed my mind.'
It was something anyone could figure out with a little thought.
But they'd always brushed it off with excuses like "adventurers can't change," or "it's too time-consuming and inefficient anyway."
However, Edin's arrival changed everything.
Students could learn hands-on right in front of their eyes how to harvest materials while preserving quality—and then directly experience how that led to better potions and consumables.
And now the academy had a brilliant alchemist who could fully utilize those materials.
(Of course, he was a genius who could make miracles even from garbage materials.)
To the students, it would look like good materials led to good products.
Or he could even pretend that was the case just for the lesson.
Any other alchemist would indeed be affected by material quality anyway.
People are the type who won't believe something until they see it with their own eyes...
And feel it with their own skin.
'Once you're skilled enough, carefully harvesting isn't all that time-consuming unless it's some ultra-rare material. Factoring that in...'
Edin's proposal for a "hands-on field class on material harvesting."
Students who experienced it firsthand would carry those habits into their adventuring careers, flooding the market with high-quality materials.
That would lead to more high-quality goods, ultimately boosting adventurers' survivability and quest performance even further.
'This isn't something that needs his permission... We should be the ones begging him to do it...'
To think one outstanding alchemist could shift the situation this dramatically.
Mureos couldn't help but let out a hollow chuckle at how incredible it all was.