Swept Away, I Became One Of Them (5)

Rita, the woman carrying in every potion they had, did not look bright.

Watching her use a reasonable amount of potion and set the bottles aside, I could only be dumbfounded that all of them were defective.

Adventurers were mostly commoners, and the Pharmacists’ Guild was said to be run by nobles, right?

If so, even when defects occurred, what could you do but swallow it? On their side, they could just insist they were right.

They could bring a standard sample and say, “We manufactured it properly! Look,” and if they “proved” it, the Adventurers’ Guild could be accused of swapping the goods, leaving them with no way forward.

If you were resentful, gain strength—such was the world’s common sense. If this went on, nothing good would come of it. So I strode toward the master’s office and organized my thoughts.

Power was necessary anyway.

And since the Adventurers’ Guild had been swindled to boot, I thought I might be able to make allies with timely help. For that, proof came first—and I was about to try.

I stepped into the guildmaster’s office and locked the door.

There I saw, at a glance, Rita, the Adventurers’ Guild Master, the big man, and the woman lying unconscious.

They looked back at me with faces that said “Who are you?”—a silent question. I said to them,

“I have a medicine that can save her. In return for helping, I’d like your cooperation. Shall we make a deal?”

Their faces said, “What kind of bastard are you,” but the guildmaster decided faster than I expected.

“A life comes first. I’ll accept any terms. Give me the medicine.”

As he reached out, I took a salve jar containing the Emergency Wound Treatment from my breast and handed it to him. The guildmaster accepted it with a puzzled look.

“It’s a topical. If you’re not lovers, I think the woman named Rita should be the one to apply it to the patient.”

“…Apply it? I’ve never heard of a medicine like that.”

“It’s not like you have any other answer. If something goes wrong, you can punish me.”

The guildmaster looked conflicted, but Rita moved faster. She snatched the salve from his hand and shouted to the master and the wounded woman’s companion.

“Turn your heads or step outside. You too… the apothecary.”

“Of course.”

With that, I turned my head to face the wall, and the other two came to stand by me, shoulder to shoulder, looking in the same direction.

They were clearly curious about who I was.

“Can you explain your intent?”

“I’m a wandering apothecary. I’ve manufactured some rather curious medicines, but there’s no easy sales channel. Since some might target me for it—given they’re near special-effect level—I want protection.”

“Protection… and if we don’t have that kind of power?”

He was a guildmaster who put people before money. If you can’t trust someone like that, who can you trust?

I might be used. But if I misjudged a person and got used, that would still be on me. So I chose to trust.

“It’s the person. I figured you, Guild Master, could be the strength I need.”

“Strength, huh…”

The guildmaster trailed off. Then the big man beside him asked me:

“That medicine… does it really work?”

He looked as rough as they come, and I answered him.

“For closing wounds, it’ll outperform most potions. But it doesn’t ‘make blood,’ so if the bleeding is severe, things could still go wrong.”

“Bleeding… I at least want the wound treated. The rest will be fate…”

As I listened, a recipe surfaced in my mind—the method for a “blood-replenishing potion.”

It was absurd, but I could only marvel that it was manufacturable—and that the ingredients were unexpectedly simple. As I wondered how to broach it, I decided to be direct.

“I do have a way to solve the bleeding problem immediately, but I’ll need ingredients.”

The mercenary thrust his face at me like a thunderclap.

“What do you need? If it can be obtained, I’ll get it.”

The fallen woman must have been important. So I named the herbs from the recipe that surfaced.

“Red Herb, Green Herb, and Blood-Restoring Herb.”

He was about to dash outside when—

“Wait. We have those ingredients in guild storage. First… could you check on the woman?”

At Rita’s words, the big mercenary glanced back, eyes widening, then sprinted off.

Rita came up to me, handed me the jar, and said,

“What miracle did you bottle in here?”

Rita wore an incredulous expression, and the guildmaster’s face—seeing Rita so shocked—was a picture.

Whatever relationship they had, it didn’t matter now. Work came first.

“It’s no miracle—just handmade medicine. Could you bring the herbs first?”

“We’ll hear your story slowly. Master… keep him from leaving.”

“…Rita, are you serious?”

The guildmaster asked again, but Rita nodded and hurried out.

I couldn’t help asking:

“She’s not just a counter clerk, is she?”

“She’s our deputy guild master. Hah—been a long time since I’ve seen her this fired up.”

That’s fired up? Wasn’t she angry?

As I thought that, the guildmaster glanced back and asked:

“What exactly is that medicine? If even the experienced Rita is this shocked… it must be something.”

“As I said, I made it myself. My aptitude is… unusual.”

“Ah, so it’s aptitude after all…?”

He looked like he had more to say, but then Rita returned with an armful of herbs. She shoved aside the clutter on his desk and set them down. The guildmaster flinched, but Rita said to me:

“She might die from lack of blood. Please manufacture it quickly.”

What force of will. Wanting to stay on her good side, I unpacked my kit at once, then followed the recipe—pounding the Red Herb first and pan-roasting it.

The clear, herb-like fragrance began to vibrate through the room.

Since I was adding magic power while pounding and roasting, the scent grew richer. I saw the guildmaster and Rita whispering to each other as they watched from the side.

They were clearly sharing opinions, but I focused on what I could do and put my strength into the work. After pounding and roasting, I mixed pine-resin powder with water to make it suitable for forming pills, then raised the Red Herb proportion to focus on blood production and formed round boluses.

As each dusky-colored bolus formed, I laid it out on the table to dry. When the first one began to emit a faint glow, I picked it up, handed it to Rita, and said,

“Have her swallow it with water. That much is easy, right?”

She nodded, took the bolus at once, and went to the patient. A moment later, I saw her giving the pill—and, well, it was a little provocative.

A kiss between women…

“Looks nice.”

I murmured, and the guildmaster gave a small laugh and said,

“Is that your preference too?”

“…Probably not.”

I wasn’t sure which preference he meant, but in any case, not my camp. As we watched the woman swallow the medicine, her bluish complexion slowly turned rosy. I spoke to the onlookers, who stared in astonishment.

“It looks like the crisis is past… but you’re not planning to leave her on the floor, are you?”

Only then did people finish assessing the situation and start moving. The big man hoisted her and rushed upstairs to the inn; Rita headed out to prepare things. Left facing me, the guildmaster leaned back on the sofa and offered me a seat.

“Come sit. Seems we’ve got a lot to discuss.”

“I will.”

As the boluses kept flashing faintly, I thought about how formidable my aptitude might be. I kept reminding myself that this could be a major weapon—and that I needed to steer the flow of the conversation.

“You can make extraordinary medicine. I’m green with envy.”

“For me, it’s a problem. As you’ve seen, this isn’t something to take lightly.”

“Right. With your medicine, the temples and the Pharmacists’ Guild will be on high alert. I know it means money; they won’t be ignorant of that.”

“I need protection—and a distribution network. I have no intention of selling at exorbitant prices.”

“No, if you price it cheap, pushback will be even fiercer. It’ll end in the worst case. The Pharmacists’ Guild and the temples are tied to the imperial leadership. If the powerful move, even we would have to hand you over—though we’d get compensated.”

His nuance was that they might hand me over for the right price. Oddly, I appreciated the candor.

“Then I simply need to be valuable enough that you won’t hand me over lightly. That’s what we set up with this deal, isn’t it?”

“You’re a curious fellow. Say we protect you—what do we gain?”

“Access to medicine at favorable prices. And it’d be a mistake to think all I can make are wound treatments.”

“…What else can you do?”

“I can manufacture something good for… down there.”

“Down… there?”

“You know. There—there.”

At that, the guildmaster looked down at his groin. His face brightened suddenly, and he grasped my hands with both of his.

“You must be a messenger sent by God.”

I wondered why he was like this.

What followed was a spectacle: he complained that nights terrified him, that he couldn’t muster strength, that God had given him much but took away what mattered most. In short, in this world men past forty rarely saw their “companion” raise his head even once a day.

“…A curse?”

“…I’ve heard it called the Demon God’s curse. It could just be human degeneration—but since it affects everyone, curse is the word.”

I hadn’t expected it to be a literal curse. The reason: the Demon God’s plot to reduce human fertility and weaken them in the long term.

Because of it, the Demon God had supposedly waned for a hundred years, but the curse would last a thousand more, the guildmaster said.

“A thousand years… that’s insane.”

That span could be enough for humanity to go extinct. If men past forty couldn’t raise their heads, humanity would walk the path of decline.

Even now, rumors said heirs of powerful houses took concubines before marriage to produce illegitimate sons first. It was hard to imagine a worse world.

The real problem wasn’t the Demon God’s invasions—it might be that humanity would become unable to reproduce.

But a countermeasure had already surfaced in my mind: a recipe for a “virility tonic.” As for what it could do… no need to spell it out.

‘…This could be an incredible weapon.’

Thinking how to leverage it, my imagination took flight. Until Rita returned, I had to listen to the guildmaster’s lament.