What Was With This Country… Two Emperors?

Rita seemed very interested in the restorative I had made.

“If you have the ingredients, are you saying this could be mass-produced?”

“Well, in principle, yes. But I’m not sure about true mass production.”

I said that remembering how exhausting it was to use mana. Rita seemed to take my words as me hedging.

“How about we price it at the going rate for mid-grade potions?”

She said it while looking at the master. The master’s name here was “Guts.” Rita introduced him as one of the top three Adventurers’ Guild Masters, so I had no choice but to trust her; with that much clout, it felt like she was signaling that he could cover my back.

Rita seemed like a very capable, sharp woman. From bits and pieces she’d seen and heard, she had grasped my situation.

So she made her proposal.

“I saw the effects with my own eyes. The storage is finicky, and I’m done dealing with scammers. If you supply us with the treatment, we can sign to keep your secret and never turn you over, under any circumstances.”

“Rita… you don’t have to go that far…”

“Do you plan to keep getting fleeced by nobles? Do you even know what mid-grade potions cost? And even potions can’t heal a gash like that so easily. If you can see and think, you should realize this isn’t the time for the master to bow out.”

I no longer knew who the guild master really was. Guts, called out so bluntly, sighed and slowly nodded.

It was the look of “Handle it, Rita.”

“And I couldn’t help overhearing… that you can manufacture something good for men. Is that true?”

Rita seemed interested in that too. Or maybe, in this world, everyone had to be interested.

Did the Demon God really have nothing better to do than throw around useless curses? Still, it was a grave issue for humanity, and the higher the rank, the more sensitive they’d be about it.

“If you can truly make that medicine, it would be a clean hit against the Demon God. And a ray of hope for humanity. But we need to test it… For men over forty… well, we have the master.”

Rita looked at the master with a curious expression—while the master, under that look, hung his head like a mouse before a cat.

“By any chance… are you two… in that kind of relationship?”

“My, it’s rude to blurt out such personal questions.”

So they were, then. A man who couldn’t “raise his head” anymore, living under her thumb. Demon God’s curse or not, it was a quality-of-life issue. And you couldn’t just sleep with any young man whose “head” rose easily; whether lovers or spouses, household life would sink into hardship.

Maybe that was why.

Rita asked me questions with fierce focus.

Part of me also wondered what Guts would be like if I really made that medicine for him.

“But hasn’t anything like this already existed?”

It’s the sort of idea anyone would try. Experiments would be underway, maybe even something on the market. Otherwise, population numbers wouldn’t hold.

Rita cut off my thought with a single answer.

“One of the Demon God’s curses keeps men from rising once past the midpoint of life… but it also keeps women’s looks from aging right up to death.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Most women stay fresh and youthful, while men alone grow old and lose strength. How sad is that?”

“…And?”

“I’m sure there were many attempts, but most failed. Now many women sell their bodies in brothels to soothe loneliness. I’ve even heard of brothels where it’s free.”

“What a chilling land.”

This crazy setting… arguably a fantasy world for men—but also a formidable one in its own way.

“I don’t know where you’re from, but… that’s the common reality.”

So—an old, entrenched curse. I couldn’t stop wondering what went on in the Demon God’s mind.

“But can you really make such a medicine?”

“…I can’t promise. I don’t even know if it will work.”

“If it works even a little, every noble might target you.”

Would it really be that extreme? Then again, people had made a fuss over a single wound treatment. If it was a medicine tied directly to their private lives, they’d hunt me with eyes blazing.

Still, if someone had the right aptitude for pharmacology, couldn’t they make it too?

I wondered—but maybe the whole mess existed because they hadn’t. So, following the recipes that surfaced, I told Rita:

“The method isn’t hard. Some use easy-to-find ingredients; others use rarer ones—there are many variants.”

About a dozen recipes hovered in my head. It was as if something was determined to teach me. If “God” had given me this, it was blatant enough to feel like benevolence toward humankind—the recipes wouldn’t leave my mind.

I even felt urged to start making something right away.

Rita’s eyes lit up to match mine as she leaned in. She wanted me to just say the word. Guts, too, seemed quietly expectant…

Was I really doing the right thing?

But I’d already taken the step, and words once spoken can’t be swallowed. So I spoke at once.

“Powdered horn of a Hon Rabbit, heart of a Big Boa, and petals of Seollem Flower. Also, pure purified water and some consecrated water if you have it.”

“Really… that’s all you need?”

“The process and proportions are secret, but those ingredients suffice.”

Rita looked doubtful, then bolted outside. Left behind, Guts and I met each other’s eyes.

“Is it rough? Not rising?”

“Ahem… the first few years are rough. Feels like dying. But then a calm sets in. Then you start feeling self-conscious… and whatever you do at home, the seat turns to thorns.”

Just hearing it was awful. Past the midpoint of life, a human man’s future turned uncertain. What a cruel curse.

It was horrifying to think about. I could only hope the medicine I was making would work wonders.

About five minutes later, Rita and several other women returned, arms full of the ingredients I’d named.

“…We don’t need anywhere near this much.”

“There are a lot of would-be users. Rumors spread fast. If you win the women to your side, no power-broker will dare touch you. If your medicine works and we present it to the upper echelons, Her Imperial Majesty the Empress might even shelter you.”

So the Terakan Empire empowered women. If the curse affected all humans, then women should’ve held power in the Apoca Kingdom that summoned us, too—but maybe not, and honestly I didn’t know.

So first, I sent everyone who brought ingredients back out and said,

“Since the method is a secret… could everyone please step outside?”

“Even me?”

At Guts’s question—did he have to leave too?—the women grabbed him and dragged him out. I felt oddly guilty.

Left alone with a “do your best,” I wondered if this situation was really sane.

“I’ll just have to try…”

The first task was to grind the Hon Rabbit’s horn.

Well dried and well kept, the horn crumbled to powder with the slightest shock—but the point was not to simply grind it. I had to apply a measured amount of mana. Honestly, I was using what they called mana, but was this truly how it was meant to be used?

If it was like MP from games, it wasn’t something to spend lightly—but given how I’d been burning through it, what was the point of fretting now?

After more than ten minutes of turning a large amount of horn to powder, I was drenched in sweat.

It was the unavoidable result of repetitive motion—and I was learning firsthand that channeling mana itself was hard labor.

But I had only just begun manufacturing. I had no intention of stopping. Next came the heart of the Big Boa, also dried and prepared as an ingredient.

After scraping the Hon Rabbit powder cleanly into one pile, I started grinding the Big Boa heart the same way.

Unlike the horn, the heart didn’t powder so much as shred into hairlike strands; with repeated cycles of mana, it gradually turned to powder.

It definitely took twice the time and effort of the horn. I sank onto the sofa, breathing hard. Just then, the door cracked open and Rita poked in her head.

“Is it going well?”

Why so impatient?

Given that I was making something related to their quality of life, of course they’d be interested.

I didn’t even hide how rough I felt.

“I’m dying. Do you have something to drink?”

Seeing me dripping with sweat, Rita hurried off. Soon she came back into the master’s office with a tray of what looked like a drink. Behind her stood a long line of women—more than the ones who’d brought the ingredients earlier.

“Are there… more people now?”

“It’s a sensitive matter. Rumors were bound to spread. And your idea of winning over the women—that will come true.”

I wanted to tell Rita that wasn’t my idea, but she swept back out.

Frankly, talk of winning over the women or winning the Empress’s favor—that was Rita’s proposal, not mine. It was absurd. Still, with one more ingredient to grind, then mixing and proper drying, the medicine would be done. So first, I gulped down the drink in front of me.

At the first sip, a familiar flavor made my eyes widen.

“Tastes like hwansa.”

It was probably juice from a similar fruit—quite pleasant. It lifted my mood; catching my breath, I stood and began grinding the petals of Seollem Flower, the last ingredient.

Being well dried, they ground easily. Much easier than the two prior ingredients; in under five minutes I had a large batch. Looking at the three little mountains of powder and feeling a dilemma, I cracked the door and poked my head out—only to be choked by the flood of gazes.

“Is it finished?”

Countless eyes flashed. One wrong word and they’d tear me apart—that’s how it felt. But what I had to say wasn’t “finished,” it was that I needed a different tool.

“I’m ready to combine them, but my bowls are too small for this quantity. Do you have something larger?”

“How large?”

“Mm… about this big?”

I spread my arms to show the rough size, and several women said they had bowls that large and ran off.

I heard some of them telling the others to run at full speed. Their urgency was palpable. Feeling how thoroughly wrong this world was, I backed into the room slowly and said,

“When the bowls arrive… please bring them in.”

“Leave it to us!”

Rita even clenched her fist as she told me to leave it to her. I wondered if this was really something to be so solemn about.