Ingrad? Is That Something You Eat? A Noble… Me?! (5)

After all the medicine ran out and I promised to return tomorrow, I went back to the lord’s manor.

At the front gate, I waved in greeting to five knights who were waiting with nervous expressions.

“Were you here to welcome me?”

“We were worried. Our mission is to protect the lord’s safety for a year no matter what, so what if something had happened! Do you know how worried we were?”

“I’m sorry. But things went more smoothly than I expected, so it just took a little longer, that’s all.”

The knights looked at me with puzzled faces. I told them we should go inside the manor first, then walked ahead and said,

“I traded medicine with the Beastkin. I expected my medicine would work here too, but I didn’t think it would be this popular.”

“…What kind of medicine did you trade?”

“For now, just three kinds: blood-replenishing medicine, a fatigue recovery tonic, and an invigorator.”

Honestly, I felt a little embarrassed to say I sold invigorators to women. But since they were knights and didn’t seem to mind, I quickly continued and shifted the topic.

“If the medicinal herbs from the Forest of the Demon Dragon really are five times stronger than those from other regions, I’m thinking of making a new kind of medicine.”

The knights grew curious at the mention of a new medicine.

Everyone already knew the medicine I made wasn’t ordinary. I asked them casually,

“What kind of medicine would be good for women?”

“For women…?”

“Yes, it seems most of my main customers will be women. Could you give me some advice?”

The knights looked thoughtful, and as I led the pondering group into the manor, the butler came running to ask,

“You’re not hurt, are you? I was so worried. Do you even realize where you just went off to alone without a thought?!”

It was a remark that could be seen as disrespectful. If I had a typical noble’s temper, I would have been furious, but I only shrugged and said,

“It didn’t feel dangerous at all. On the contrary, I was surprised at how friendly they were.”

The butler gave me a look of disbelief and replied,

“M-Milord Vincent has lived here for twenty years. And you say the Beastkin aren’t dangerous?! That’s impossible!”
“Well, if you can’t believe it, I won’t force you. Now, could you step aside for a moment?”
Vincent stepped back with a face full of things left unsaid. With his strict appearance, his fiery temper whenever he worried about me, and his blunt way of speaking, I thought he was an amusing person.

Since I didn’t feel any malice from him, I let it slide for now. But I decided I would shatter Vincent’s preconceptions eventually.

I began pouring out the medicinal herbs I had traded for medicine from my dimensional pouch.

Occasionally silver coins clattered noisily as they fell, but the knights quickly picked them up and stacked them in one corner. After a while, a literal mountain of herbs piled up, leaving the knights and Vincent staring blankly, until I said,

“These are the herbs I earned from selling medicine today. Roughly how much would they be worth on the market?”

The knights clearly didn’t know. Vincent looked doubtful, but when I pressed again, he stammered,

“T-There are s-so many different kinds of herbs, it’s hard to estimate, but hmm…”

Vincent picked up various herbs with a serious face, examining their condition. Then he looked at me gravely and said,

“Milord, aren’t you a pharmacist? If you used these to make medicine to sell, that would be far more profitable. Do you really mean to sell them as they are?”

“No, I’m just asking. I wanted to get an idea of how much I earned today, so I can calculate the yearly profit I might gain as lord of this territory. For reference, the medicine I sold today… if I had the ingredients, I could make the same amount in about five hours.”

It took time to grind, mix, and age the ingredients, but not much time to press them into pills. My hands had grown quicker too, and even if I only shaped them roughly into pills, they could still be consumed without issue.

Hearing this, Vincent went pale as a sheet and said,

“Some of these herbs are worth as much as their weight in gold… This much would be worth at least ten large gold coins.”

Ten large gold coins. A hundred gold coins were needed to exchange for one large gold coin. That meant I had earned the equivalent of about one thousand gold coins today.

The ingredient cost had only been about thirty gold coins. Which meant I had earned 970 gold coins in labor and skill alone. It was an astronomical profit.

Both the knights and Vincent looked like they were playing with colors on their faces—flushing red, then turning pale, repeating over and over as they struggled to grasp the reality before them.

‘They’re funny people. Anyway, it means I can make an incredible profit…’

But the problem was the value of these herbs outside Ingrad Territory. Inside Ingrad, they weren’t all that rare.

Unlike modern medicine, where active components could be extracted separately, that wasn’t possible here. Neither my knowledge nor the recipes in my head required that level of refinement.

All I could do was combine herbs into pills, but thanks to the use of mana, the results skipped entire steps unnaturally.

Moreover, the recipes warned that using the herbs from the Forest of the Demon Dragon as if they were ordinary herbs would produce outrageously overpowered medicines.

‘It’s almost like the recipes have a will of their own, warning me…’

Strange as it was, I was grateful just for the knowledge I didn’t have and for being able to live more comfortably thanks to it.

“For now, could you show me to my room?”

“What about the herbs?”

“Hmm, I’d like to turn the room next to mine into a workshop. Can I ask you to arrange that?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll leave it to you.”

Vincent agreed and clapped his hands. Several maids emerged from the hallway and began organizing the herbs I had spilled. Curious, I asked Vincent,

“How many maids do you have?”

“Please speak casually, Baron Ingrad.”

“…I’ll adjust in time. For now, could you just answer my question?”

“Counting those who cook and those who tend the gardens, about twenty.”

“…That’s quite a number.”

Strangely, though I was the new lord, none of them came to greet me like in movies or comics. I wondered why, but decided to figure it out later and followed Vincent to my room.

Despite clearly having been unused for a long time, the interior was well-kept and preserved. Honestly, I thought the poor state of the territory would mean neglect, but it seemed otherwise.

“It’s clean.”

“This will be your living quarters from now on, my lord. If you need anything, pull that cord there or speak outside, and a maid will attend to you.”

“Ah, I see… All right. The herbs are in the next room, correct?”

“Yes.”

With that, Vincent excused himself, saying he had to move furnishings to prepare the next room as a workshop.

A large bed, elegant decorations—yes, this was what a noble residence should feel like.

As I looked around, one of the knights knocked and entered.

“Where should we stay?”

“Do I need to decide that for you as well?”

“At least provide food and shelter for us. Our only duty is to guard you.”

In other words, they’d be freeloaders. I told them to pick any room and rest, and they left.

I hadn’t even asked their names. How hard it was to exchange names here. Regardless, I ended the day in a good mood.

The next morning, I rolled up my sleeves and entered the workshop, ready to work. To my surprise, the herbs had been sorted neatly.

Some had been dried in the sun, others stored carefully according to their needs. I admired the care taken.

How hard must the maids have worked?

I resolved to later reward them with a beauty treatment made from Tiger’s Fang Grass, then began examining which medicines I could make.

‘Wound-Healing Medicine is possible, as well as antidotes, sleeping pills, stimulants? There are also female-specific tonics… though they don’t seem necessary. Hmm, there’s also the invigorator, but maybe it’s too strong…?’

Because of the potency of herbs from the Forest of the Demon Dragon, ordinary medicines were nearly impossible to make without overwhelming results.

‘I’ll have to mix them with herbs from other regions to balance them… but the nearest territory is half a month away… What a headache.’

The sheer size of the Terakan Empire made things difficult. On top of that, this territory was barren and isolated, populated only by Beastkin who were hard to govern.

I was lucky the Beastkin treated me kindly and were willing to trade, but humans who had lived here long seemed to have deeper rifts with them.

So I needed to ease human-Beastkin relations while also finding ways to acquire weaker herbs for balanced medicine.

‘If it’s not from the Forest of the Demon Dragon, maybe it’ll be less potent…’

That meant there was a way. I could gather herbs inside the city walls. But would any Beastkin bother with weaker herbs there?

From their perspective, with free access to stronger herbs, there was no reason.

Then I thought briefly—maybe I could use my authority as a noble.

‘They’re my servants anyway, right? No need to keep so many managing this huge estate… I’ll take a few with me and see…’

Thus began my reckless scheming.