Meruru Vanishes
As a Guild Master, that man Philstone had been the worst imaginable. When it came to brewing potions, though, he had apparently been quite something.
The Koubel Refinery he'd operated had supplied every shop in Kubel that dealt in potions. He'd even been exporting to other cities through the harbor, so the hole he left behind was enormous.
Once he was arrested over the Variant Mandragora incident and the Koubel Refinery burned to the ground, word spread, and refiners flocked to Kubel in droves.
Philstone had held a monopoly on potion manufacturing, and he'd never sold a single vial directly from the refinery itself. Now, however, Kubel had become a battleground — everyone racing to seize the potion market first. The refineries sprouting up like weeds on the outskirts weren't even hesitating to sell over the counter, just to get ahead.
"Over here! Hemostatic potions — drink one and the bleeding stops on the spot!"
"Animal lure, anyone~? A single drop and you'll have herbivores swarming in!"
Just as Algot had said, the outskirts of Kubel were thick with newly opened refineries. The reek of medicinal herbs was so vicious that none of them could set up in the city center, which was the only reason they hadn't been visible until now.
A few of the newcomers had given up on Kubel entirely, pitching tents or throwing up shacks in the nearby woods to do business. Some even started hawking the moment you drew close. The competition felt, if anything, a little too fierce.
"Never imagined it'd gotten this bad."
I stared in astonishment at the ramshackle refineries lined up like stalls at a street market. Silphy, trailing behind me, clapped a hand over her nose.
"Ugh... the smell is awful."
"All these people flooding in just to carve up the pie Philstone left behind."
Are potions really that lucrative?
With a crowd this size, the atmosphere had that distinct flavor of every hanger-on and two-bit hustler in the region showing up to try their luck. Give it some time — once a handful of refineries locked down the market, the rest would go under.
Just as Yunoa suspected, plenty of the refiners who'd gathered in Kubel were con artists. With the supply of quality potions cut off overnight, imports from other cities cost a fortune. At least half the refiners assembled here had no idea what side effects their own potions even had.
That's... incredibly dangerous, isn't it?
Buy a potion from the wrong place and the side effects could land you in serious trouble.
"Hey, pal! You an adventurer? We're running a half-off sale on recovery potions stronger than holy magic!"
A shifty-looking man sidled up and shook a bottle of red liquid in my face. The stink of a scam rolled off him so thick you could practically see it.
What I needed right now was a refiner I could actually trust.
"Silphy, don't fall for that — get over here."
She was getting the hard sell a short distance away, so I called her over fast. She'd been on the verge of pulling money from her pocket, looking half-hypnotized.
Dangerous. Very dangerous.
Now I understood why Algot had bothered to add that there were plenty of shady outfits in the mix. Buying a potion in this climate was a complete roll of the dice.
If I wanted a proper potion under these conditions, I was going to need some standards.
First: anything sold out of a slapdash tent or street stall was out. Anyone grabbing passersby to hawk their wares was out too. I'd seen Philstone's refinery with my own eyes more than once, so I had a rough idea of what real refining equipment looked like. I'd filter out every suspicious stall that couldn't tell a refiner from a peddler, and find a workshop that actually had proper tools.
Everyone camped out toward the woods had that strong con-artist, traveling-salesman energy, so I headed back toward the inner edge of Kubel. From the list of refineries Algot had given me, I crossed off every entry on the forest side and kept only the ones renting actual buildings.
"Hmm. About three places, then..."
That left exactly three worth visiting. All of them had rented buildings on the outskirts of Kubel and started operating recently.
The first place I tried felt more like a general store than a refinery. Maybe they'd taken on retail just to keep from getting squeezed out of the competition. The owner was a young man who, to his credit, wasn't out there hustling like the forest crowd — but the refining equipment looked flimsy. I didn't waste time thinking about it. I moved on.
The second refinery had its door shut. I peered through the window: the inside had been completely cleared out.
Gone under, huh.
I sighed and headed for the last one.
And then I arrived at the third refinery.
"Oh..."
It felt familiar. They didn't have as many herbs stocked as Philstone's old place, but the layout was similar. Medicines neatly sorted into boxes. Complicated refining instruments whose purposes I couldn't begin to guess, crowding the worktables.
More than anything, I trusted the owner — who didn't so much as glance my way when I came close, eyes locked on the still in front of him. You could feel it: this was someone a little unhinged about potion-making. The aura of a true craftsman.
Well. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
The one thing that gave me pause was how young the owner looked. Generously, the boy behind the counter couldn't have been twenty.
But you couldn't judge by appearances. Of every refinery I'd seen so far, this was the best equipped. I'd talk to him a bit, and if he seemed trustworthy, I'd ask for a consultation.
"Excuse me."
I called out carefully to the boy absorbed in his still. Unlike Philstone, who'd ignored you like his ears were plugged until he finished whatever he was doing, the young owner came right over the moment I spoke.
"Ah — are you a customer? I'm so sorry. I was in the middle of a refinement and didn't see you come in."
"It's fine. I've been making the rounds of the refineries nearby. Do you sell here as well?"
"Yes — ready-made stock and custom orders both. Oh, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Rian."
The boy who called himself Rian dipped his head in a polite little bow.
Not a bad first impression.
"Your equipment's quite well set up. It felt more professional than the other places, so I came in."
I played at knowing a thing or two, glancing over the complex stills installed throughout the shop and the herbs sorted neatly into boxes. Rian gave an embarrassed laugh.
"Ahaha... honestly, I was helping at my master's refinery in another city, and I just opened this place. Master said this was my chance and I absolutely had to set up in Kubel, so he's been supporting me with all sorts of things..."
"Ugh... sunbae... I... I can't take it anymore."
Silphy, who'd been standing beside me, swayed on her feet, one hand loosely covering her nose and mouth.
"Silphy? You okay?"
"My head hurts..."
Rian looked at her in alarm, then fetched a small vial from a cabinet in the back. He uncorked it and held it out.
"Don't drink it — just hold it about two finger-joints from your nose and breathe in. The headache should ease up."
Silphy took the vial as instructed and sniffed from a careful distance. A moment later, the color returned to her face.
"Ah... that's much better. Thank you."
"If you take in too many different herb smells all at once, that can happen. Anyone running a refinery needs a countermeasure like this on hand. I use it myself all the time."
Watching all of this, I was certain.
This refiner, Rian — he's the real thing.
He was clearly more skilled than the nameless hustlers pitching mystery potions out of tents in the woods outside Kubel.
"Rian. There's a potion I need in a hurry."
My mind made up, I got straight to the point.
"Of course — whatever it is, tell me. If it's something I can do, I'll do my best."
"Would you happen to have a potion that maximizes the sense of smell?"
"That's a very unusual effect you're looking for."
"I need it. Badly."
Rian's expression turned grave.
"Amplifying a specific sense can be dangerous. You'd think boosting smell would just let you pick up scents better, but a person's mind can break if it suddenly takes in too much stimulus. How much amplification are you hoping for?"
"Enough to follow the body odor on an item left behind by a missing person..."
"No. That's not possible. It's far too dangerous. Unless you were born as a race with a naturally keen sense of smell, amplifying a human's senses that far, that suddenly, can cause them to pass out. Look at the young woman beside you. Even with an ordinary sense of smell, the herb odors gave her a headache and dizziness. What do you think would happen if you artificially amplified that?"
Hearing it laid out like that, it did sound more dangerous than I'd thought. I'd simply figured that if a smell-boosting potion existed, I could track Meruru's scent and it would help the search.
This place is remarkably conscientious, though.
If he'd wanted the money, he could have skipped the warning entirely and just sold me the potion. My trust in Rian kept climbing.
"The truth is, we're looking for a missing person right now. One of the things they left behind still has a strong scent on it, so we were hoping a potion that enhanced smell would let us follow it. Is there any other way?"
I explained the situation to him in more detail. When it came to potions, Rian was the expert. If I laid out the problem, he might offer a solution I hadn't even considered.
"I see..."
Rian thought for a moment.
Please let there be a good option.
I'd heard that the longer it took to find a missing person, the more danger they were in. If I were certain they'd walked off on their own two feet, that would be one thing — but as it stood, I had no choice but to treat this as a disappearance.
"What about converting the senses? So you could see smells with your eyes."
After thinking it over at length, Rian offered a solution I had never even imagined.