Snake Oil Salesman
Before I knew it, a week had passed since I’d taken over Leoport’s body.
[★Lowest-Grade Health Enhancement Potion]
Effect: Increases maximum health.
Notes: ※Intake limit 5/5
In the meantime, I’d drunk maximum-health potions up to the allowed limit.
[Status Window]
Name: Leoport Sean
Status: Third Prince
Race: Human
Health: [■■■■■■■■■▨]
Mana: [▨▨▨▨▨▨▨▨▨▨]
Perks: [Status Window], [Past Records], [Churu Physique]
I had also reduced the health blocked by the Petrification Disease to around 10 percent.
"Ah, Your Highness, you've come?"
The head cook, who had bowed her head and trembled when I first saw her, had also grown friendly with me while we made potions.
Back then, she had been so terrified that she looked at me like I was a grim reaper come to take her life.
Giving her a few bottles of the leftover potions I made had gone a long way toward easing that fear.
Isn't there a saying that no one who gives out free potions is a bad person?
"What do you plan to make today?"
Somehow, she, the head cook, looked more excited than I did.
Over the past week, I had tried making most of the one-star potions.
Now it was time to try my hand at the two-star recipes.
"You still can't buy ingredients?"
"No..., the head lady-in-waiting won't permit it."
The problem was that I had no money.
The one-star potions were made from easy-to-find ingredients so they could be crafted even in the early game.
Things like herbs, flowers, and spices that were even in the kitchen storeroom.
But starting from two stars, the potions required proper alchemical ingredients, so I had to purchase them myself.
"Because of that incident, all my assets were confiscated, you mean."
Assets like businesses and mines had been handed over to my other siblings, and because of concerns that I might gather private soldiers and hunt beastfolk, not even luxury expenses were being paid out.
Treatment costs, food ingredient costs, and the servants' wages were all paid under the head lady-in-waiting's management.
The money I could touch was zero, absolute zero.
So I had tried to coax the head cook into obtaining potion ingredients under the pretext of food supplies.
Failed.
The imperial head lady-in-waiting was not such an easy mark.
Probably because of the trouble I had caused before, they had attached someone experienced and strict to me.
I was frequently refused with words like, 'This isn't an ingredient you normally use, is it? And it's certainly not for cooking.'
I had considered selling the potions I made for testing to earn some pocket money, but the capital was different from the forest.
Unlike the main story, where I could sell potions freely, the capital required an alchemist's license issued by the imperial family.
It would be nice if alchemy were just a skill for making potions, but depending on the user's intentions, its uses were far too broad.
You could make poison that spreads through the air, or a bomb that could blow away an entire castle.
So alchemist licenses could only be obtained by a select few nobles who passed the exam.
The stated purpose was to prevent dangerous techniques from spreading among the common people.
Though the hidden motive of creating a monopoly market seemed bigger.
But that license wasn't issued by some private organization; the imperial family personally inspected applicants thoroughly before granting it.
In that case, the fact that I had taken the alchemist license exam would reach the emperor's ears.
'Would he permit it?'
Would you hand a bomb to a terrorist who once ran at an embassy shouting 'Allahu Akbar'?
Unless the emperor wanted war, he would obviously block it.
Was there anywhere I could sell secretly without a license?
Well, even if there was, there wouldn't be one in the capital where the imperial palace was located.
"Your Highness, if you haven't decided on a potion to make, would it be all right to make the recovery potion from yesterday again?"
"Hm? Why?"
"Just as you said, Your Highness, when I spread it on my face, the wrinkles really did disappear."
I had handed her a potion yesterday and given her a small tip, and she seemed pleased with it.
Since it was a lowest-grade potion, it only reduced wrinkles somewhat, but she seemed excited about using a potion for the first time.
I had nothing else to make anyway, so I decided to go with the recovery potion for practice.
I whipped up the potion in no time, and of course it was a success.
I bottled the potions for the day I could sell them, then slipped the head cook one bottle as a bribe to keep her quiet.
"The effect isn't that strong, so don't spread it all over your skin. Save a few for emergencies."
"Yes! Understood."
Seeing how flushed she got, saying her husband hadn't been letting her sleep lately, she would probably just answer like that and use it all over her face as cosmetics.
"Oh, and you absolutely must not tell anyone else. Not even people you're close to."
"Yes, potions are the exclusive property of nobles, after all."
After giving her a firm warning, I gathered up the lovely potion bottles in my arms and went up to the bedroom.
***
When I returned to my room, Taira was waiting in front of the door.
Over the past week, I had tried to raise her Affection, but it had all been a failure.
Because she openly avoided me.
She only did her duties as a maid and gave reports, with no time for casual conversation.
Affection was something you raised through conversation or gifts.
If she refused both, there was no way to raise it.
But forcibly holding her back to keep a conversation going was a bad move that would lower Affection instead.
Even in the main story, if you kept talking to someone after the conversation ended, their Affection dropped.
She wasn’t a cat that gagged whenever its routine was disrupted.
"What is it?"
"The young lord of House Lawrence has requested an audience. He is currently waiting in the reception room."
Not even a baron himself, but the son of a baronial house could summon a prince without notice?
No matter how much of a fallen prince I was, that was too much.
But I didn't openly show my displeasure.
If we were originally people who met often, it would be strange to suddenly question it.
"Lead the way. Are you going to carry me like you did last time?"
"......."
I asked with a bit of a joke mixed in, but instead of answering, she ignored me, turned around, and walked ahead.
How am I supposed to raise Affection like this....
Maybe I shouldn't have brought up Taira's sister's dialogue back then.
If only there were dialogue options.
Since this was a short-answer test where I had to write the answer myself rather than multiple choice, getting the right answer was too difficult.
And on top of that, the current point in time was ten years before the main story.
Since there were many futures that hadn't happened yet, the facts I knew didn't match up exactly.
'Still, while organizing information about Taira, I did find one piece of good news.'
It was information that had briefly come up in her dialogue.
Her younger sister was said to still be alive.
And later, she would appear in the black market as a slave.
The problem was that I didn't know when she would appear.
She might have already been sold.
Still, if—if by any chance her younger sister hadn't been sold, and I could rescue her.
I might gain an ally.
'I need to find a way to get to the black market as soon as possible.'
To enter the black market, I needed a ticket.
***
As could be inferred from the word "young lord," the guest who had come to see me was a man.
The fact that he was a man meant he was not someone the emperor had chosen, but someone the scoundrel Leoport had chosen.
First, one stack of dislike.
Next, my gaze naturally went to his face.
I didn't usually judge people by looks, but this world followed the grammar of a game.
If someone was handsome or pretty, they were a key NPC; if they looked ordinary, they were an extra NPC.
And the young Lord Lawrence looked incredibly sleazy.
Narrow, slitted eyes, a petty mouth, and a pointed chin.
If he hadn't been a noble, I might have suspected he was a rat beastfolk.
A typical treacherous-minister face.
Two stacks of dislike.
"You're as beautiful as ever today, Miss Ira. Your Highness, are you truly not willing to hand over that maid? If you would only do so, I would provide your medicine free of charge, you know?"
Ninety-nine stacks of dislike.
You’re sentenced to death.
"What did you come here for? I don't have time, so get to the point, briefly."
"They say your attitude changes depending on whether you need someone or not, and you've become far too cold, haven't you? Who do you think you have to thank for being able to walk like you do now? Isn't it all thanks to the medicine I made for you?"
The young Lord Lawrence's gaze turned back to Taira behind me.
With a rat-like, insidious look, he swept his eyes up and down Taira.
"Since your body has recovered, don't you now have the energy to exert yourself in bed? I also handle other medicines, so if you would just let me use her first...."
This guy.
I don't like him.
I didn't like his first impression, but the more we talked, the more I disliked him.
No matter how much of a fallen prince I was, the son of a baronial house was not someone who could treat me like this.
It didn't make sense unless he had some hidden card up his sleeve.
"If you're only going to talk that kind of worthless nonsense, get out."
"Hah... Your Highness. Are you going to keep this up?"
The young Lord Lawrence shook his head as if he found it absurd.
He flashed a confident smile that revealed his fangs, then pulled a bottle from the leather pouch at his waist.
It was a small bottle better described as a reagent vial than a potion bottle.
He waved the white liquid inside it back and forth in front of my eyes, acting cocky.
"So, don't you want to drink this?"
I didn't particularly want to drink it.
A cloudy white color, with a needlessly thick-looking consistency.
Something about it made me not want to drink it.
I didn't know what it was, but something kept coming to mind, so I didn't want to drink it.
My face scrunched up on its own from the unpleasant imagination.
"Right? You know too, Your Highness. In the end, you have to drink it. That's the only way your body won't hurt and you'll recover."
From the way he talked, it was no different from a treatment.
But he was too frivolous to be an important NPC handing over a treatment.
Besides, it wasn't the color of the treatment I knew.
"Eheh, fine. The maid doesn't matter, so I'll take money instead."
Just by looking, I couldn't tell whether it was a real treatment or not.
It might just be some strange drink in a bottle, peddled by a scam artist pretending it was medicine.
There was no need to agonize over it.
Because I had an ability.
As I took the reagent vial, the young Lord Lawrence smiled confidently.
Judging by his conduct alone, he had seemed far from an alchemist.
But surprisingly, what he handed over really was a potion.
Because a potion effect window appeared before my eyes.
[Low-Grade Hallucinogenic Potion (Failed)]
Effect: For a set period, makes the user believe their health has recovered. Dulls the user's physical senses and reduces maximum health.
Notes: ※No actual recovery effect. ※Dependence 3/4
But wait, isn't this a drug?
And a failed one at that.