Research (2)
After roughly finishing the laundry, I hung the clothes between the tents near the campfire. I'd wrung them out thoroughly so they'd dry properly.
Once all the chores were done, I quietly looked up at the sky.
The moon and stars were glittering.
Maybe it was because I'd done something good today, but I was in a fine mood. Being able to properly feel the power of magic was nice, too.
I drifted off into a daze of quiet appreciation, and before I knew it time had passed and Emma woke up.
"You're up?"
"Yeah. Shift change."
Seeing that Emma was up, I stretched and got ready to crawl into my sleeping bag.
"Did you do the laundry?"
"Yeah, I tried out that magic tool we bought."
Emma eyed the laundry critically.
"It didn't come out very clean."
"Come on, no way…?"
I'd been washing clothes the whole time until she woke up!
"Hand-washing is best."
Ugh! Was it because we didn't have detergent that it didn't wash properly?!
"Whatever. Live with it."
I ignored Emma and burrowed into my sleeping bag. Tch. I'd gone out of my way to do the laundry for them…
I hadn't been all that tired, but the moment I lay down in the sleeping bag, sleep came drifting in.
Come morning, everyone quickly started packing up the campsite. And I got an earful.
"We were going to rest once we got down to the village anyway. Why bother doing laundry at night?"
"And it didn't even come out clean."
Emma and Sister Mary both took turns pointing out yesterday's behavior.
"Hey, doing it ahead of time is good, isn't it…?"
I grumbled under their endless nagging. The way they talked, you'd think I'd committed some terrible crime.
Whether I complained or not, the campsite was packed up and we were ready to head down the mountain.
"Shall we head straight down?"
"Of course?"
"Since we have some time for once, I thought it might be nice to, ah, forage? on the way down."
"Forage…?"
"Yes, you mentioned it before, didn't you?"
He still remembered what I'd said back then?
"That sounds fine. We'll be resting a day once we reach the village anyway, so let's gather what Julian needs for her research."
With Sister Mary agreeing as well, I shrugged.
"I wasn't the one who brought it up, so no complaining that it's hard work."
"Yes, don't worry about that."
An opportunity was an opportunity. I'd planned to research alchemy while traveling, but I hadn't even managed to attempt the first letter of the word research. There were two reasons for that. First, there simply hadn't been time to forage.
The truth was, foraging wasn't something you could just do in passing. To gather materials properly, you had to go deep into the mountains, and there had been neither the time nor the leeway for that while on the move.
The second issue was camping outdoors. Sleeping rough was considerably uncomfortable and exhausting.
It wasn't just a matter of lying down — preparing and packing up took time. As a result, there had never been a chance to forage under normal circumstances.
"All right, then. Let's gather what we can."
I led everyone through the mountain, combing it thoroughly for any usable materials.
Herbs, poisonous plants, toxic mushrooms, edible mushrooms — and when I spotted the common bubble grass growing everywhere, I asked them to pick that too. While we were at it, we caught any rabbits that crossed our path.
We'd be able to cook them once we got to the village.
"Ah, that one's no good. Toss it."
"Is that so?"
It looked similar, but it was a different plant.
"Oh, dig that one carefully so you don't damage the roots."
Looking at the leaves, it seemed like wild ginseng?
"What is this?"
Sister Mary asked as she carefully dug into the earth.
"Probably wild ginseng? I think so."
In my previous life, wild ginseng had been treated as a panacea. If it was old enough, its effects were so potent you had to be careful with it.
"Wild ginseng is a tonic, isn't it?"
"Yes. We're lucky."
I carefully excavated it without breaking a single root and checked whether it was the real thing.
"Hmm, it really does seem genuine."
This was knowledge from my previous life, not this one, but…
Eating it to confirm the effects would be best, but it seemed a waste to consume it without proper preparation…
"Once we get down, let's all share this."
Judging by the size, this one was fairly old. It'd be a waste to eat it alone, so we should all have some.
"You could sell this for a lot of money, though?"
"Come on, how am I supposed to sell something like this?"
A Commoner like me bringing it in? I'd be lucky not to get scammed.
"Besides, we've all worked hard. We should nourish ourselves."
After securing the wild ginseng as well, we finally headed down the mountain for real.
By the time we arrived at the village, the sun was high in the sky.
"Ohh, you're back."
A man who appeared to be the village chief, the innkeeper, and several others came out to greet us.
"Hmm? Were you waiting for us?"
"We were worried, so we've been keeping watch since last night."
They'd been watching the mountain through the night and had seen magic flashing, they said. Apparently the light magic we'd used to illuminate our surroundings had been visible to them as well…
Well, in a world where artificial light barely existed, it would have stood out clearly.
"Well, we did catch them."
The young master spoke with confidence and pulled out the troll head he'd prepared in advance to show them.
"Th-this is?!"
The head alone was enormous — easily the size of an adult man's torso.
I'd wondered why he'd bothered bringing that along. So it was to show as proof?
"This is a troll. For reference, there were four of them."
Everyone gasped and murmured in astonishment. No matter how common monsters were in this world, actually seeing one up close was rare. Small monsters with large populations were one thing…
But a large monster like a troll — even after living as an adventurer, this was my first time seeing one.
"Th-then…?"
"We've taken care of the ones we found, but we can't rule out the possibility that there are more."
There wasn't really a good way to deal with it. The whole reason large monsters were treated as disasters was that ordinary methods simply couldn't handle them.
The surest method was to abandon the village and relocate somewhere safe.
"Huh…"
"Well, now that we've slain four of them, you should be safe for at least a few days."
Until other monsters moved in to claim the vacated territory…
After the explanation was finished, we asked to borrow a place to rest. When we said we planned to stay a day or two, the village chief's expression shifted slightly.
"Well, as our benefactors, I'd love to offer you a fine place, but…"
Apparently there weren't any good houses available, or something like that. Then he said that if we didn't mind a house damaged by the monster attack, we were free to use it as we liked.
We entered the house we'd been shown to… and the condition was poor.
There should have been belongings from the people who'd lived there, but nothing was visible. Well, it didn't really matter if there wasn't any… Had the villagers taken everything……? I set our bags down in a corner for now. Then I watched through the window as the village chief walked away.
"Everyone's dispersing."
I supposed that meant their business with us was done.
"Well, the condition isn't too bad."
There were some damaged spots from when the monsters had come to abduct people, but the building itself was largely intact.
Still, it left a sour taste.
We'd helped out of goodwill. We hadn't moved expecting a reward. Even so, being treated like this was bound to leave me feeling slighted.
"Is everyone all right?"
I said to my companions as they unpacked.
"About what?"
Was I the only one bothered by this?
"Well, what the village chief and the villagers did."
"Ah, why bother fretting over it? We'll never see these people again once we leave."
That was true enough.
"I don't care."
Emma was always a bit indifferent about these things, so that made sense.
"What about you, Mary?"
"This is my first time, so…"
She said she was a little flustered since it was her first time in a situation like this, but…
"They're probably just like this because we're outsiders, aren't they?"
Sigh. I should stop fretting and just sort through what we'd foraged.
Some rooms were too damaged to use, but others were in decent shape. One of the better ones became my research lab for the day. In the room that had become my laboratory, I sorted through the materials we'd gathered. Then I pondered how to use them.
"Isn't everyone hungry?"
"Starving, actually."
We'd been on the move since morning without eating a thing.
"I'll prepare something."
Sister Mary stood up and volunteered.
"Then take these and these for cooking."
It seemed the rabbits we'd caught earlier had already been claimed, so I pulled out some of the edible mushrooms and potatoes from among the sorted materials and handed them over.
"I'll help too."
"Suit yourself."
I set out the magic tools and materials on the remaining table and prepared to start combining them. The young master watched from the side. There wasn't much to see, so it was probably boring for him.
"Hmm, what should I make."
I set a pot on the small brazier and considered. I should try using the troll blood first, right? There wasn't much of the material, but since I'd only be using a little at a time, I could probably get more than ten uses out of it.
"Decided."
I took out some herbs, washed them clean, and chopped them finely. Then I put them in the pot.
Next, I added the troll blood. Where water would normally go, the troll blood took its place.
I wasn't sure if this would work…. I'd only swapped the medium in an ointment recipe, but I decided to try it anyway.
When I infused Holy Power into the magic tool brazier, heat began transferring to the pot. I took out a stick and slowly stirred the contents while channeling Holy Power into them. If I kept stirring, the contents should react…
This was a failure.
If they'd mixed and achieved harmony, there would have been a glow of light. There was no such reaction, and they weren't even mixing properly — a clear failure.
So simply replacing water with blood didn't work after all?
I continued injecting Holy Power and stirring anyway. Even knowing it would fail, I had to see it through to the end to get experimental results.
After about five minutes, gray smoke rose from the pot. Inside, a sinister dark-red lump remained.
"Failure."
There was none of the rainbow light that appeared when a combination succeeded. But what was this?
When I pressed it with the stick, it had elasticity and didn't give easily.
Hmm… since blood had gone into it, had it turned into blood curd?
I poked at it a few times, then took it out of the pot.
"Should probably throw this out?"
It could be dangerous, so I tossed it into the trash.
"Did it fail?"
"Yikes!"
A voice suddenly came from beside me and I jumped.
"Ah, my apologies."
"N-no, it's fine. I was so focused I forgot you were there."
The young master had been in the room since the experiment started. I'd just assumed he'd left out of boredom.
"Please don't mind me. Continue with what you were doing."
"Really?"
"Yes. I don't have anything else to do anyway."
I decided to leave the young master be and focus on the experiment.
How should I combine things this time?
Replacing water with blood hadn't worked… so should I add water? In what ratio? Maybe use troll blood for only half the normal amount?
I decided to experiment with changing the concentration. First I washed the pot clean to remove any residue, then added the materials again.
I hummed a little tune as I mixed the contents. Holy Power was practically overflowing in me anyway, so I might as well pour it in generously.
Naturally, this combination failed as well. The result was a dark-red lump with less elasticity than the previous one.
I tossed it in the trash, washed the pot, and pondered.
"Not going well?"
"Well… yeah."
Creating a new recipe was work where failures exceeded nine out of ten attempts. The trial and error itself was a meaningful act — that was why I did it….
"Come eat."
A voice called from outside the room.
"What will you do?"
I'd just stopped the experiment anyway, and the timing was perfect.
"Eat first, then continue."
I stretched and stood up.
"Research is truly difficult, isn't it."
"It is. The odds of producing results are low to begin with."
And yet for all that, it gobbled up money and time like crazy. Even after pouring in endless amounts of both, you often failed to get the results you wanted. More often than not, you got unexpected results and discovered something new from those instead.
So I wouldn't rush. I'd proceed slowly, at a leisurely pace.
My goal of returning to being a man only needed to be achieved within ten years. Looked at another way, that meant I had ten whole years.
When I went out to the living room, Emma and Sister Mary had laid out breakfast, and a delicious smell filled the air.
Checking the menu, I found stew and roast rabbit.
The stew had meat in it too, giving it a rich flavor.
"No bread."
"I tried to get some from the village, but it didn't work out."
"Huh? Even when you offered to pay?"
"Yes. It seemed like they were shunning us."
The way the innkeeper had acted… and the village chief too… it didn't seem like it was just because we were outsiders.
"It's a closed-off place."
Didn't seem like somewhere we'd want to stay long.
The lack of bread was a shame, but with plenty of meat and mushrooms, it was a hearty meal.
Whew. What would we have done if we hadn't foraged…?