How to Become an Alchemist
Seong-il’s voice was low and teasing as he leaned in close.
“From the very beginning, if I had actually drugged you, the only thing that could have made you go into heat would have been an ointment-type aphrodisiac…”
“Like I just told you, I only used a completely ordinary lotion with zero effect.”
“So what’s the truth, then? It simply means your sexual preferences were already leaning that way. Heh heh. Get it?”
At those words, Elisha’s face drained of all color. She stared at him in utter shock, stammering as she tried to respond.
“N-no…! I-I’m not… that kind of woman…!”
“Really? Then I guess we’ll find out over the next week while we enjoy our little naked walks together. Whether you’re that kind of woman or not.”
“!!”
Seong-il stepped toward the half-dazed Elisha, pulled her into his arms, and whispered directly into her ear.
“Is it really that important what your kinks are? Just accept it. I like you even if you are that kind of woman. Actually, it makes me like you even more.”
“…”
“So why don’t you stop being so stiff and just accept my sponsorship?”
“…”
Elisha stared at him with a hardened expression. Reading her face, Seong-il decided it was time to lay all his cards on the table and made his offer in a firm, decisive tone.
“If you accept my proposal and become my woman, I promise to give you sponsorship on a scale no one else could ever match.”
“Don’t worry about any price or conditions. Just live however you want. All I ask is that you occasionally make the things I request.”
“That five thousand gold I mentioned on top of the annual salary? You don’t even have to repay it on schedule. If you want an indefinite extension, I’ll give it to you.”
“Even if I choose to let you go one day, those conditions will still remain valid.”
“So stop hesitating and just offer yourself to me. Then I’ll sponsor you so generously that you’ll never regret it.”
Elisha listened to his long speech with a rigid face. After a long silence, she finally opened her mouth.
“Hah… I won’t deny that your proposal is tempting. But I am the one who must become the family head and lead our house. I cannot hand the family over just to become your concubine!”
“What are you talking about? Who said anything about making you my concubine?”
“…?”
When Elisha blinked at him in confusion, Seong-il continued.
“You want to become the head and revive your family? Then go ahead and do it. I’ll help you. You can be the head. I don’t mind at all.”
“Even if you use me, I won’t care—as long as you stay obedient toward me.”
“And if you truly want to revive your house as its head, don’t you need to know how to use your body for political marriages? Honestly, where else are you going to find a sucker with conditions as good as mine?”
“No external relatives, loads of money, and only interested in women. Is there any more attractive offer than that?”
Elisha stared at him blankly, listening to his words. After a long silence, she finally spoke again, her voice strained.
“If… just hypothetically…”
“…?”
“It would never happen, but let’s say I submit to you.”
“Alright.”
“Then… how exactly would you treat me…?”
“What do you mean, how? During the day you’d work as the manager of my workshop, and at night I’d drag you to my room, enjoy you thoroughly, and then we’d sleep together.”
“….Is that really the condition? For such enormous sponsorship?”
“Yes. That’s how attractive your body is. If you don’t believe me, say it right now. I’ll write up a notarized contract. If that’s not enough, I could even become your family’s son-in-law.”
“You crazy bastard…”
“That’s just how men are. Haven’t there been plenty of kings who ruined their countries after falling for a peerless beauty?”
“No matter how I look at it, you really do seem insane…”
“I’d appreciate it if you said I’m crazy for you, specifically.”
“….So you plan to sleep your way through every woman in the world like this?”
“Don’t worry. If you become mine, in ‘this world’ I’ll take you as my legal wife and limit myself to no more than three concubines. Of course, only with your consent.”
“…..”
“We still have nearly a week left, so take your time and think it over carefully. No pressure.”
At that, Elisha frowned and asked,
“Usually people say ‘no pressure’ when they actually mean the opposite, don’t they…?”
Seong-il gave her a bright smile.
“You should feel pressure. Your creditor isn’t just anyone—it’s that Edward guy.”
“…What do you mean?”
“…? What do you mean, what do I mean?”
The two of them stared at each other in mutual confusion, neither understanding the other. After a long silence, Elisha finally broke it.
“I asked first. Answer me.”
“Hmm… You really don’t know about Edward’s infamous reputation?”
“What exactly is he? Why is even a madman like you saying something like that?”
Faced with Elisha’s naïve question, Seong-il began to explain the dark story that had circulated in the real world—the twisted worldview created by the perverted author of the game How to Become an Alchemist.
“What else? Edward approaches declining noble families without powerful backers, offers them a business partnership, then sabotages the venture from within to make it fail on purpose. He dumps massive debts onto his partners, driving them into ruin.”
“Once he’s turned the family into debtors, he arranges a marriage with a daughter who can inherit the title, using that as justification to swallow the entire house. Then he frames the vassals and heirs with various crimes and drives them all out.”
“After replacing the entire internal power structure with his own people, he accuses his wife of lewd behavior and other scandals, demotes her to concubine status, and seizes both the title and the territory.”
“It’s pretty well known that he’s already devoured four or five ruined noble families this way.”
Shocked by his explanation, Elisha shot back,
“T-then… does that mean our father also…?”
“Probably, right?”
Learning the hidden truth of her family through a third party left Elisha reeling. She stood there, face pale with shock.
I can’t verify whether it’s true or not, but if what he’s saying is real…
Watching her serious expression as she agonized, Seong-il continued.
“If you want to know whether he’s tampered with your family, shall I find out the truth for you?”
“What?! You can do that?!”
“It’s easy if you spend enough money. I won’t be able to get perfect physical evidence to completely destroy Edward—just enough circumstantial evidence.”
“…”
“Oh, and do you know what happened to the young ladies he demoted to concubines?”
“…?”
Elisha looked completely clueless. To break her down further, Seong-il began embellishing the darker parts of the game’s lore.
“Once he successfully steals the entire family, Edward is known to train the now-useless daughters as sex slaves and play with them. You know that, right?”
“..?!”
“To prevent any possible rebellion, he’s infamous for thoroughly breaking them. The most notorious thing is that after framing them, under the pretext of ‘reflection,’ he makes them take naked walks in broad daylight every day on the very lands they should have inherited, then forces them to sell their bodies to serfs. That story is famous.”
“!?”
“Hmm? From your expression, it looks like you didn’t know. Usually he parades them around like that until they’re half-insane, then uses threats to extract false confessions, formalizes them into records, publicizes those records to destroy their reputations, and slowly drives them to death.”
“…”
“After sucking them dry to the marrow, he carves all sorts of obscene phrases into their bodies as tattoos—under the pretext of recording their crimes—to prevent any chance of escape.”
“Crazy…”
“So think carefully. The monster you’re up against is no ordinary opponent.”
Elisha stood there, face deathly pale, as if frozen in terror. Seong-il drove the final nail in.
“Five years… it might feel long, but it’s not that long. And your debt isn’t small. The moment Edward senses you might actually be able to repay it, he’ll start interfering immediately.”
In the game, once half the debt was repaid, Edward would appear as the main villain and begin harassing Elisha to prevent her from clearing the debt. In the original story, she overcame his interference by cooperating with allies she had befriended.
“B-but… he clearly told me he would let me repay the full ten thousand gold within five years with no conditions!”
“Really? But did you get a contract in writing?”
“…Verbal agreements are legally binding too.”
“Sure, but you mustn’t forget he has powerful backers. If you fight him relying only on a sloppy verbal promise, you’ll end up in serious trouble. Looking at how he operates, there’s no telling when he’ll change his story.”
“…”
“So think it over. If I were you, I’d accept my proposal, take out a loan, get a proper contract written up, and repay him in one short burst so he can’t pull any tricks.”
“Hmm…”
“That way he won’t have time to scheme.”
“Ugh…”
Edward was the main villain who inevitably appeared if you played the game normally. Since the maximum gold Elisha could hold in-game was only two thousand, repaying the debt through standard means guaranteed you would encounter him. However, there were a few exploits that prevented the debt-collector Edward from ever showing up.
One such exploit involved the most expensive item a player could carry—up to three bottles of Elixir (1,000 gold each). The trick was to leave Edward no opening to appear and thereby skip the event entirely.
First, repay the debt up to 4,999 gold through normal means. Then craft three bottles of Elixir. After that, gather 2,000 gold to make another payment, sell the Elixirs and some junk items in two batches to generate 3,000 gold in a single day, and use that to clear the remaining balance. If done correctly, Edward would never appear.
But unless a player had cleared the game multiple times, they would never know about this trick. Most users ended up repaying the debt bit by bit and inevitably ran into Edward. The only other methods were using the gold hidden as an Easter egg inside the cursed house, or defeating the fire dragon in the Abyss Mountains and looting its lair—only those two options.
While Seong-il stood there blankly thinking about the game, Elisha spoke up.
“According to what you’re saying… Edward has been targeting our family from the start, plotting to swallow us whole?”
“Exactly.”
“And not only that, he’ll interfere with my debt repayment to make me fail, then use that as an excuse to turn me into his concubine, torture me for fun, frame me, turn me into a sex slave, and lock me away?”
“Yes. Based on everything he’s done so far, it’s practically guaranteed.”
“…”
As one horrifying secret after another was revealed—secrets she had never even imagined—Elisha’s face turned deathly pale. She swallowed hard and fell silent.
“Want me to help?”
“…?”
“Don’t you want revenge?”
“?!”
“Once you’ve rebuilt the family, you’ll have to screw him over eventually. Right?”
“Mm…”
At Seong-il’s sudden offer of cooperation, Elisha let out a low groan. As she began to seriously consider it, he pressed her from the side.
“Come on, just join hands with me. Let’s team up, pay off the debt in one go, then grow the workshop and build up our strength.”
“Once the workshop and your family are strong enough, we can look for an opportunity to ruin Edward. I think if we combine our power, it’s more than possible.”
Elisha stared at him blankly as she listened.
“I… I really can’t understand you at all.”
“Well… if you lived in a world that wasn’t your own, you’d probably end up like me.”
“….Even if I immigrated from the West to the East, I don’t think I’d ever think like you.”
“Who knows? Maybe that’s not exactly what I meant.”
“…?”
His words were completely incomprehensible. After listening, Elisha let out a long sigh.
“Hah… Anyway, like you said, we still have a week left. I’ll give you my answer then—whether I accept your proposal or not.”
“Originally I was planning to just take the remaining balance and cut you off. But since you’re offering this much, I’ll at least think it over seriously.”
“However, if you really want to convince me, don’t just use words. Bring solid evidence. Prove that you’re different from Edward. Understand?”
Seong-il smiled at her words.
“Of course. You can look forward to what I bring on the last day.”
With that, he stood up, kissed her forehead, and said,
“Shall we head back now? Want to eat before we go, out of respect for the madam’s kindness? Or should we just leave?”
A loud growl came from Elisha’s stomach. Her face instantly flushed red. Without a word, she put on the clothes beside her and answered,
“W-well… since she showed us courtesy, we should at least eat before leaving.”
“Good. I’m pretty hungry too.”
After saying that, Seong-il offered her his hand, helped her up, and left the room with her arm linked through his.