You Just Gave It All Away
Returning to high society.
She couldn't believe she was sitting in a waiting room right now.
Her heart was fluttering.
When was the last time it had pounded like this?
She closed her eyes and carefully traced back through her memories.
She had to go quite far into the past.
For the past year, she had spent every day in dark shadow.
Each time a treatment failed, the paths left to her dwindled.
She couldn't picture a bright future.
She had withered like a rose in a storehouse that never saw sunlight.
Then she met her benefactor.
And her heart began to race again.
"My heart, huh... pfft."
She remembered her benefactor reading that mischievous pledge.
The way he'd read it so seriously, then flustered and fell apart.
"Ah, I'm thinking about him again."
At meals, she wondered how he ate with his mask on.
While putting on makeup, she recalled his black eyes.
Lately, she connected everything to him.
Even while bathing.
"But he's the one who healed me... and I'm curious."
About the face beneath that mask.
What kind of smile did he wear when he talked to her?
What kind of flustered expression did he make while reading that strange pledge?
It was odd for someone who had always worn a mask herself to say this, but.
She hated that mask.
A wicked mask that kept her from seeing his face!
Someday, she would cure his illness and look him in the face.
"But if we do meet face to face, and he doesn't seem interested in me... what then?"
Could she really seduce him?
She had received countless confessions and proposals from men.
But she had never actually dated a man properly.
She'd been too busy building up her family and Rose Garden.
The clients she met were mostly noble ladies.
And on top of that, her lack of interest in men played a part.
Contrary to the rumors that she changed men every day.
She had never once held a man's hand.
Even thrusting out her chest to flirt had only been because the eyes of young noblemen at the banquet had turned her way.
She'd tried it, wondering if it might work.
"It didn't work, though...."
Even when he'd applied the potion directly to her chest, she'd assumed he was simply focused on the work and uninterested.
He must have felt the temptation to reach elsewhere, but his hands never strayed from the treatment area.
But even when she offered her chest as his reward, to do with as he pleased.
Even when, for the first time in her life, she lowered her clothes and made that face-burning attempt at seduction.
He didn't reach out.
"Could it be that my benefactor has no interest in breasts like these?"
She lifted the underside of her chest slightly with her hands.
The soft, heavy flesh sank under her fingers, too yielding to hold its shape, spilling out limply.
They were so large that her palms couldn't support them all.
Maybe absurdly huge breasts like these weren't his type....
"The woman who came with him wasn't this big."
That woman always silently kept one step behind him.
She was too impertinent to be a mere servant, yet too accustomed to serving him to be an equal companion.
She was probably an attendant who doubled as a guard.
Of course, she might also be a woman he kept at his side for reasons other than work....
"That would make me too sad...."
She slumped over the desk, then straightened back up for fear of ruining her makeup.
The banquet would begin soon.
"Right. I'll ask the noble ladies I meet today."
Two days ago, Sera had suddenly taken leave.
A whole week of it, no less.
She had worked diligently ever since joining the household, so she was certainly entitled to a vacation.
But that was exactly why it seemed suspicious.
Sera, who had never missed a single day at her side, suddenly took leave?
And just days before the northern grand duke's birthday banquet, which so many nobles would attend?
If Sera really was the traitor.
And if she exposed the secret.
That day would surely be today.
"Even if I'm wrong, it doesn't matter. It works as my return to society."
Keeping the mask on all the time.
Watching Rose Garden's sales decline.
She was sick of it now.
Her benefactor had pointed out the suspected traitor, and if he hadn't proposed catching the mastermind, she would have already held a splendid return celebration.
She hadn't been able to develop new cosmetics because she'd been busy with treatment, but....
She tilted the potion bottle side to side, watching the liquid slosh.
"I have my benefactor's gift."
A potion that could eliminate the side effects caused by cosmetics.
Even if it was only one bottle, it was enough to announce that Veloz had returned.
"I feel nothing but gratitude toward him."
It hadn't been long since he'd made such an incredible medicine, and this morning he'd made yet another new potion.
Even with her helping at his side, it was so complex that she couldn't imagine replicating it.
It had eight ingredients alone.
And each ingredient required a different processing method.
She had no idea how he'd developed it—he might as well be the reincarnation of a legendary alchemist.
"The effect was scar treatment, wasn't it?"
She didn't know if he'd intended it, but scar treatment was also an effect noble ladies wanted.
The more she learned about him, the more intriguing he became.
"Ah, geez. I'm thinking about him again...."
She cupped her cheeks with both hands and rested her chin lightly on them.
"But what can I do? I've already fallen for his unknowable charm."
***
Before treating Countess Veloz.
I'd thought the reward I'd receive might be smaller than what I got in the main story.
In the game, Countess Veloz was the type who gave the protagonist everything he needed—a so-called mama character.
And the protagonist was a pure country pretty-boy—a so-called shota character.
Like pickled radish comes with fried chicken.
Wasn't there always a shota behind the mama?
Even with crude pixel art.
Fan art pairing the two had circulated in droves through the seedier corners of the internet.
So there was a running theory that the countess's generous support was only because the protagonist was a shota.
But what about me now?
A young man who'd finished his secondary growth, with hair everywhere it was supposed to grow.
No matter how you looked at it, you couldn't call me a shota.
Thanks to imperial blood, I'd been born with a decent enough face, but even that was hidden behind a mask.
You couldn't expect the same level of patronage for a cute country boy and a suspicious masked man.
But the reward Countess Veloz gave me exceeded expectations.
First, money.
A reward nobody dislikes, plain and simple.
Rose Garden, a cosmetics brand that had captured the wealthiest of wealthy noble ladies.
Thanks to that, House Veloz had money rotting in overflowing piles.
The amount I received from her was so large I couldn't have earned it selling potions on the black market for a full year.
She even handed it over like it was nothing.
At that sheer alpha energy, I nearly tore off my mask and licked her feet in submission.
But all of that was within the expected range.
"But she's even lending me her Secret Garden."
Secret Garden.
Every noble alchemist had an herb garden of their own, large or small.
Partly to cultivate rare herbs that were hard to obtain.
But the most important purpose of a Secret Garden was to hide ingredients.
As I'd said before, if someone knew which herbs you used, they could easily deduce your recipe.
So rather than buying from merchants who left purchase records, you grew and used them yourself.
For that reason, security was strict.
No one could even approach except the owner and a minimal number of caretakers.
And she was going to give me access.
She'd provide as much of the herbs already being cultivated as I needed.
And she'd even set aside a small plot where I could grow whatever varieties I wanted.
For someone like me, who didn't have time to wait for plants to grow because of my terminal condition, it was the best possible reward.
How miserable it had been, having a terminal-illness setting slapped into a farming management game.
'But that's not all~!'
The countess's generosity brought an infomercial tagline to mind unbidden.
She said she'd even gift me alchemy tools I didn't have.
She'd already placed an order through a craftsman she knew.
It was a shame they'd take three months to make.
But as if she'd anticipated that, she said she'd lend me her workshop while they were being made.
She was just doing everything for me.
For a moment, I even thought her type might not actually be shotas.
What does canon know!
"Would lending me her workshop be the end of it?"
As if she'd just leave me alone in an empty room.
She'd probably show me how to use things, or help with the brewing.
I'd effectively gained the alchemist behind the best-selling cosmetics as a free assistant.
Am I not expecting anything lewd?
I'm not.
Even if a lucky pervert event came up, I'd ignore it.
The reason was simple.
I didn't have time to spare.
Even during a pleasant night spent in bed with someone, my death drew closer.
No matter how worked up I got, one look at my Status Window and junior wilted.
The more my health gauge hardened, the softer everything else got.
Now that I had herbs and alchemy tools, couldn't I make a max-health potion?
If raising my health delayed my terminal illness, couldn't I spare a single day?
If it ended after just one day, I'd have done it already!
Couldn't you tell just by looking?
That's not a body you can experience once—bam!—and then forget.
Why do people tell you never to touch alcohol or cigarettes?
Because once you start, you can't quit!
If I died of Petrification Disease mid-thrust, would that count as death by snu-snu? Or not?
I didn't want to create a situation where I'd be asking that kind of question.
Well, maybe I was overthinking it.
Countess Veloz might genuinely like shotas, and her chest... might just be business, right?
She'd given up her chest for treatment, so "do as you please" might not have been a green light.
It might have been the mindset of a jungler abandoning our bot lane after they'd fed a combined twenty deaths.
This morning, when we made the potion together in her workshop, nothing happened either.
No hands brushing as we passed ingredients.
No event where she wrapped her arms around me from behind to teach me, like helping someone shape pottery.
"Well, maybe thanks to that, I succeeded in making the potion in one go."
[Upper-Mid-Grade Scar Removal Potion]
Effect: Completely removes scars from the applied area.
Among potions with scar-removal effects, this was the highest-grade one.
'If there's a scar this potion can't heal, then it isn't a scar—it's a curse.'
It was a potion so effective that a description like that appeared on a loading screen.
I hadn't expected to be able to make it now.
But thanks to Countess Veloz's generous support and the coincidental leftover of Taira's blood, I'd succeeded in producing it.
The total amount produced was three bottles.
"I decided who one bottle belonged to before I even made it."
Step, step.
Someone approached, treading silently over the grass.
"What business do you have, calling me out to the garden in the middle of the night? Today isn't even a black market day."