The First Day of the Holiday
“Yaaawn—”
In the pre-dawn dark, well before morning, I woke to my alarm and got ready for the market.
Aside from the pure water I produced myself with my unique skill, Clear Origin, nearly every ingredient I used for my medicines came from the gates.
To get those gate-sourced materials, you either dealt directly with hunters or guilds, or you went to the market run by the Association.
I had neither the standing nor the connections for direct deals, so of course it was the market for me.
I’d spotted an app-only online ordering feature while browsing the Hunter Association app, and it would have been convenient—except then I wouldn’t be able to check the freshness of the materials myself. Even the alchemy professor I’d interned under over break always went in person to buy her reagents.
If I’m going to be walking around, comfortable clothes are best.
Whoosh—
I braided my long hair so it wouldn’t come loose, pulled on a loose black dress, added a cardigan against the still-chilly weather, and slipped into sneakers.
There’d been a time when I was little when I’d cried about not wanting to wear skirts—but after years of my aunt dressing me, pants felt more awkward now.
Last of all, I turned off the flame under the mana cauldron holding the Blue Potion, grabbed the notepad where I’d listed everything I needed to buy last night, and tucked my coin purse into my pocket. Ready to go!
Clunk—
The first train of the day, at five-thirty in the still-dark early spring morning. The subway seats were completely empty.
“Yaaawn—”
Three transfers later, and even sitting the whole way, my body was already worn out.
Because I was broke, the pharmacy sat way out on the outskirts, far from the city center—which made the trip especially long.
It was the kind of distance you only covered when you really meant it.
This stop is Hunter Association. Hunter Association Station.
“Mm… mnyah… ah. W-wait a second! There’s someone here!”
I’d dozed off and somehow arrived at my destination. After an hour and a half on the subway, I got swept out with the crowd of early-rising Awakened heading to the dawn market, jostled along between them.
“Hah— hah—”
When I finally fought free of the throng, I was standing in front of the Hunter Association headquarters.
It was no exaggeration to say the entire downtown core was built around this building—the Association’s main headquarters.
The absolute peak of hunter territory, the place from which hunters could deploy the moment a gate opened.
When I was looking for a spot for the pharmacy, I checked the land prices around here and nearly fainted.
“…Hah!”
I lost count of the floors staring up at the building, then hurried my steps again.
The reason I’d left home so early: the Association market. If I wanted to make the dawn bazaar on the shop street, every minute counted.
Pat-pat-pat—
I worked my short legs as fast as they would go, cutting across the market.
“Fresh-caught slime extract! One million won for ten kilos!”
“Premium pure water made by water spirits themselves! Sold by the liter! Just a hundred thousand won a liter!”
“You don’t sell by the gallon? My master’s from the Empire—”
“—Get lost.”
A lively street packed with boisterous merchants and customers haggling at the top of their lungs.
My destination was tucked inside, past the third corner down the street.
“Oh! There you are, our little dru— master… mph.”
“Shhh! Shhhh!”
I hopped up and clapped a hand over the mouth of the green-skinned man greeting me at full volume.
“Keh-keh-keh.”
“Eek—”
Valan, the orc merchant I’d gotten to know while earning my alchemy degree.
At first he’d called me “little pharmacist,” and when I told him to stop, he’d deliberately stressed the “drug” part of “drug master” so I couldn’t even correct him without making it worse. A thoroughly rotten uncle of the highest order.
People say you lose this kind of joke the moment you react—but I genuinely couldn’t help it. Call me a drug master and everyone starts giving me weird looks.
“Alright, alright, I’m sorry. Whoa there, if you keep glaring at me with those sharp little eyes, you’re gonna break this old man’s heart. Careful—today’s herb prices might just go up.”
“…These, please.”
I lowered my eyes prettily and held out my notepad with both hands.
“Keh-keh! Well now, look at this big-spending VIP. And so polite, too—guess I’ll have to throw in some serious extras.”
Waaah! …Ahem. No, that wasn’t right.
“Please don’t clear out your old stock. Fresh ones only.”
“Hey now, what do you take me for? Among Empire-born merchants, there’s no one more trustworthy than me.”
“The first time we did business, you gave me old Mana Herbs.”
“Caught red-handed.”
Valan grinned, black tusks gleaming, muttering that it had only been lab-experiment errand stuff anyway. I kept a sharp watch over his shoulder as he pulled items from his spatial pouch.
Fortunately, everything looked green and fresh.
“So, how’d those patches you were making turn out? If you need a test subject, I’m available—”
“If you come buy some, I’ll throw one in free.”
“No delivery?”
“Hunter medicines are still medicines. Remote shipping isn’t allowed.”
Those were the rules.
Most hunter medicines sold at pharmacies were just high-dose versions of ordinary drugs, so the risk of misuse was high enough that you had to check both a hunter license and an ID before selling.
I’d checked Park Sang-jin’s ID thoroughly before selling to him, too. My aunt hadn’t needed it, but… my aunt was a ridiculously strong hunter.
“Well, if that’s the case, nothing I can do. I’ll make time to come buy some next chance I get. Still that same outskirt address from last time?”
“Yep.”
“Tsk—when I delivered last time, the whole neighborhood was crawling with drug dealers. Stuff’ll get there today, so take it right away.”
“Yeees—”
“And quit peeking at the goods on the sly. Just check them properly.”
“Hyaak!!”
With that, he grabbed my head in one hand and moved me like a claw-machine prize.
I tried to glare at him, but he fixed my head in place under the pretense of ruffling my hair, so I had no choice but to look at the materials.
Troll blood, fresh herbs, potion bottles, cloth for patches, adhesive, protective film, plus a set of square planters with soil, and even the entrails of a low-grade magical beast.
“Ooooh.”
The “serious extras” hadn’t been a joke—there was a lot more than what I’d ordered.
“The entrails are for fertilizer, right?”
“Yep. The soil’s gotten all crumbly.”
“Then I’ll ship it as is?”
“No—you’ve got the Heroshi Grass, but the seeds are missing.”
“Whoops, slipped my mind.”
“……”
“I’m serious. My memory’s been acting up lately.”
Anyway, once I’d gathered everything for the new medicine as well, I was truly finished.
The total came to exactly six million nine hundred eighty thousand won.
Ooooh…!
I’d come out twenty thousand under budget—enough to pick up some tteokbokki on the way home.
“See you next time!”
In high spirits, I retraced my steps and turned the corner.
“Coming through! Everyone please step aside for a moment!”
A long, massive truck filled my vision, rolling slowly down the central road of the broad market street toward the large magical-beast processing yard at the far end.
“Whoa…”
More precisely: a truck with nothing left of its cargo bed but a huge flat platform, and on it—roped down like a villa building laid on its side—an enormous dragon.
“Is that the Flood Dragon the Red Flame Guild took down?”
“I heard Han Ye-na went straight into its jaws herself to keep the hide intact.”
“Damn. No wonder it smelled so good—that was roasted snake meat.”
“Waaah.”
The Red Flame Guild. Han Ye-na.
One of the top three guilds in the country. And its master—Korea’s strongest fire mage—was Han Ye-na.
She had a twin, I think?
She was famous enough that even someone like me, who barely used the internet, knew of her.
According to my aunt, despite a cool, expressionless face that looked effortlessly chic, her nature-type affinity made her personality pure fire.
So impulsive that she’d speed-run marriage with a younger husband after only a month of dating—or so I’d heard.
And yet they’d been happily married for ten years now.
Anyway, speaking of which…
“Oh, a Flood Dragon—it’s been ages.”
“The hide’s in fantastic condition. Armor made from that would be A-class even if you slapped it together with your feet.”
“Uwaaah. E-excuse me, there’s a person here…”
The crowd was pressing in too hard—
“Ack!”
“Hey, are you alright?”
Just as I was about to fall, a hand warm with heat caught my back.
“…Hunter Han Ye-na?”
Brown eyes with a faint reddish cast, even though she wasn’t using any mana. A beautiful face wearing an easy smile. The toasty warmth of her hand.
Looking up from below, it was unmistakably the same Han Ye-na I’d just been thinking about.
Coming face-to-face with a celebrity famous enough for even an internet-avoider like me to recognize, my mouth fell open on its own.
“Waaah…”
“Heh. You’d get hurt if you fell, so be careful.”
“Y-yes…”
“Everyone, could you make a little room so the child can get through?”
Han Ye-na escorted me all the way to the front of the Association building, then gave my head a gentle pat.
As I walked away, I snuck a glance back.
The smile had already left her lips. She was staring intently at her phone with a serious expression.
What would someone that cool be doing on her phone?
Something super professional and guild-related, right?
“Hoo… so tiiired…”
Thanks to that unexpected help, I’d gotten out of the market and shop street just fine—but three transfers still waited for me after that.
By the time I got home, I was so completely wiped that I’d forgotten all about packing tteokbokki to go.
But I couldn’t take a nap.
“Yaaawn—”
I lit the mana cauldron with the Blue Potion again, hand-washed the clothes I’d worn all week, and all the while kept my ears pricked for any sign of someone outside.
Then, after dashing out to the laundromat to run the dryer and coming back at lunchtime—
Vrooom—
Thump-thump.
“Delivery—”
“Yes, coming!”
Right before I poured water into my ramyeon, the same-day delivery Valan had promised arrived.
“…Sign here—”
“Yes!”
It was the same delivery guy who’d brought my herbs the first time. Thanks to that, I could just stamp the receipt without having to explain that I was Han Sia.
The stamp was the workshop seal the Association had issued when I registered the pharmacy as a workshop.
After that, I moved the goods the delivery guy had set inside the pharmacy over to the spots I’d prepared in advance.
First, the materials for making soil—up to the rooftop!
“Nngh— ungh—”
It was seriously, seriously hard.
Slurp—
I gave up, ate the ramyeon, and then finished moving everything.
Once it was all up there, the materials were ready on the roof.
The pharmacy building was a little two-story place, and like the other shops nearby, the upper floor was empty—so I could use the rooftop without worrying about anyone noticing.
And so I began making optimized fertile soil for gate-sourced plants.
First, the planter soil I’d spread on plastic sheeting and left to dry overnight.
“Prep the materials!”
Over that, I scattered the magical-beast entrails, minced fine by a skill that sent a prep knife flying and chopping in my place.
Next, I pulled on latex gloves from the dispensary and mixed everything thoroughly by hand.
“Huuueh…”
Just for a moment—a very brief moment—I flopped face-down to rest.
Lying there, the smell of sweat mixed with magical-beast entrails rose from my dress.
“Bleh.”
I shot upright. The stench was too much to stay lying down.
I went back down to the dispensary and wrapped the leftover medicinal paste from making patches around my trembling calves with plastic wrap.
Then, while resting a little, I picked up a flask.
Into it went the leftover Mana Herb stems from making the beads I used to filter impurities out of troll blood, along with pure water and the rest.
“Hup!”
Finally, I poured in my own mana—and it was done!
Category:???
A liquid made by dissolving the filter-effect stems of Mana Herbs into pure water and a mana-user’s mana. Possesses a weak purifying effect.
Glug-glug—
I went back up to the roof and poured the solution evenly over the soil-and-entrails bibimbap.
Let it mature for a day like this, and you’d have fertile soil rich enough in mana to grow even gate-sourced medicinal herbs.
“The sun’s already hanging on the edge of the earth…”
Tomorrow evening, all I’d have to do was scoop this soil into the planters and plant the herb seeds—and then I’d truly be finished.
“Heehee.”
With today’s work done, I washed up in the little red-tiled bathroom and came out smiling.
Ordinarily I’d have to buy expensive herbs on a regular basis—Mana Herbs used in potions among them—
but even though it had been hard, my herb-cultivation skill was going to slash those costs massively.
Heeheehee.
Grinning, I dove onto the floor where I’d laid out blanket-padding-blanket.
Fresh from the shower, my body was all warm and toasty…
……
Zzz…
Mnyah…
……
“Daddy…”