What Was With This Country… Two Emperors? (4)

Since an order had been given to provide whatever medicinal herbs I needed, the Chancellor had no choice but to be all deference to me.

We moved together and I was shown into a luxurious room. There, unlike the Chancellor—who jotted down my list of required ingredients and hurried off—the woman named Agnes sat quietly in the room, gazed at me, and asked:

“His Majesty ordered us to wait until you finish compounding. Can you tell me what kind of medicine it is?”

Was it all right to say?

I thought it over, and honestly it didn’t seem like a problem, so I spoke at once.

“His Majesty wanted a medicine that could erase scars.”

“Scars…?”

“Yes. It seems a disfiguring scar formed on someone dear to him. He said he wanted it gone.”

“If it can truly be erased… that would be a blessing. And if you really make a scar-removing medicine as His Majesty said, then…”

Agnes began to say something and stopped. I waited to hear what she wanted to say, but instead she turned her head, coughed lightly, and fell silent.

“Why stop mid-sentence?”

“It’s nothing. If I learn the wrong thing, even as a free citizen I might—quite literally—lose my freedom.”

Agnes spoke the chilling words without hesitation. Well, imperial secrets were best unknown to common folk. I could tell she meant it as consideration, and I had a rough idea.

Surely the Emperor had a daughter or son, and some important area had been scarred by something. I could only guess they had borne it as a lifelong burden.

After a brief silence in the hall, the Chancellor returned in haste, attended by several ladies-in-waiting.

I couldn’t fathom why someone of the Chancellor’s rank would run around for this, but that was palace business; I let it be.

When the exact herbs I wanted were set before me, the Chancellor said to me:

“Are you saying such a medicine can be made with herbs this common?”

“Have you lived your whole life getting swindled?”

“…I fear being swindled.”

“Try trusting me. I’m not the type to risk my life on a lie.”

“Ahem. If it works, you will be well rewarded. With luck… you could even become a noble.”

“I don’t want that. For now, could everyone step outside?”

“…Why? Must we leave?”

“The recipe is simple, but I have my trade secrets. Have you heard of intellectual property?”

“Tch, that accursed ‘intellectual property.’ Very well—I’ll go. Lady Agnes, what do you intend?”

“It seems you want me to leave as well, so I shall. But I would like to witness the result.”

“Is that so…?”

The Chancellor pondered something and nodded. Everyone filed out, and I was alone again in the room—familiar, but with a sad air.

‘It felt like things were going well and yet not… something felt off.’

Honestly, since coming to this world, it felt like I did nothing but travel and compound.

I wondered if I had been born with the curse of wandering in a previous life.

But there was no undoing it. The only option was to get it done. All the more since the one hoping this time wasn’t an ordinary person but the Emperor. If I failed, it would be disastrous.

In the worst case, I could be treated as a felon for “insulting the Emperor” and clapped in irons. I did not want that.

A reward?

That was bait beyond my station; I wasn’t going to bite. Otherwise I’d end up as “fish-stew material,” boiled in hell’s cauldron.

So I planned to make the medicine properly and withdraw. One should wear a cap only if one can bear its weight. Like a pine caterpillar, I would go nibble pine needles where I belonged.

The recipe for lightening and ultimately clearing scars was truly simple.

It required only a single plant.

The problem was extracting the plant’s “juice,” and it didn’t look like a plant that would yield much juice.

“Stuff it into cotton cloth… and squeeze with maximum pressure using mana…”

That was the entire recipe. Then the expressed juice would be spread evenly over the scar, left to dry, and the dried layer peeled off—repeating that process to gradually erase the scar.

The recipe said ordinary scars could be cleared completely within a month, so I had no doubt the efficacy itself would be good.

But the biggest problem was producing a month’s worth.

“Phew… let’s begin.”

I stuffed a mass of the plant into a cotton cloth and began to roll it up.

I could not beat it or bruise it. I had to apply pressure with mana through the cloth—that would be the most grueling part.

Thus began the wringing. At first it was manageable. And the herb—called “Tiger’s Fang Grass”—was fairly common and abundant, which helped with extraction. But as time passed, the required mana increased and my body tired quickly.

Worse, once a little juice came out, it dripped in drops as tiny as a mouse’s tear—barely any moisture at all.

It was frustrating that I couldn’t even fill a single 200-mL vial.

After ten, then twenty minutes, my arms had no strength left; I had to set the cloth down. I barely managed to fill 200 mL—and, curiously, after a short while it began to set slightly, like jelly.

“How curious…”

I dabbed a fallen drop with a fingertip and spread it on the back of my hand; it felt faintly cool as it slowly set. It reminded me of those peel-off mask packs from the past.

‘What were those called again?’

I was thinking of giving the medicine a fitting name when there came a knock, and a lady-in-waiting stepped in and asked:

“They said to tell you we can bring more herbs if you need them. And the Chancellor orders that food and a room are ready—tell us if you’re tired.”

“Ah, I do need more herbs; rest can wait. And… could you bring a meal in about an hour? Just enough for a light bite.”

“Understood. Also—they asked for a status update on the medicine.”

One bottle’s worth was finished. Frankly, it was ready to be applied immediately. Judging from its faint glow, I thought it would be fully effective.

But depending on the scar’s size, I worried how many more bottles I’d have to wring out.

“Could you find out how large the scar is?”

When she said all right and turned to leave, I caught her arm and said,

“This is a finished batch. Please take it, apply it now, and tell them to peel it off once dry and reapply—repeat the process.”

“…You’ve already… made it?”

Was that so surprising? I nodded and said,

“The sooner the scar is gone, the sooner I regain a bit of freedom, don’t you think?”

At that, she gave me an awkward smile and left. An hour later, as I finished two more vials and lay there thoroughly exhausted, an extravagant meal began to arrive.

I had asked only for a light bite, but this was excessive—far too excessive.

It was a single “setting,” they said, but if you ate the dishes separately as individual meals, it looked like a month’s worth. I got up at once, poked my head out, and looked for the Chancellor or Agnes—but perhaps they were busy.

No one was in sight for the moment.

Someone who noticed me doing that approached and asked carefully:

“Is something the matter?”

“Well… whoever you are, this spread feels excessive. One bowl would be plenty; this is far too much.”

He smiled lightly and said,

“His Majesty’s courtesy to his benefactor. Please accept it as repayment and eat without reserve.”

“…What have I done to be called a benefactor?”

“You are doing much for us. Please—accept it gladly.”

I had no idea what this situation was. But if they said eat, then I would eat. And there was an old saying that even a ghost who dies after a good meal looks better.

It might even be a last supper, so I decided to enjoy it—and really, I took exactly one bite of each dish and then began to have them cleared away.

It was a luxury.

It was extravagance on a royal scale, but I was full before I could taste everything. So I spoke to the ladies-in-waiting who were laying out and reheating dishes:

“Let’s all eat together. Since this food was given to me, I should be free to decide how to handle it, right? So—let’s all eat. Eat. Come on, let’s eat! We all live to eat in the end—nothing pays off like eating, does it?”

At first the ladies-in-waiting stood like stone statues, but when I began ladling food into their mouths by hand, they cautiously began to eat on their own.

I even had the dishes and waiting staff from outside brought in, locked the door, and we all began to eat. Then the kindly old gentleman who had answered me before approached and asked:

“This banquet was prepared for you, Apothecary. Is it all right for us to share it?”

Everyone paused, mid-bite. I chuckled and said,

“In my homeland, wasting food is a sin. I can’t eat this much. I’d rather not be a great sinner—so please, help me finish it.”

The old gentleman, who had stared at me blankly, finally burst out laughing and began to eat. Only then did the ladies-in-waiting resume, and I, checking my near-bursting belly, had to loosen my belt.

‘Eat and be damned!’

It was a splendid meal. After the dishes were cleared, I rested, then went back to wringing herbs to build up reserves—when I received an unexpected guest.

“I did not know free citizens were such a busy class.”

She was a woman of astonishing beauty—but the problem was that she was the Empress. Hearing I was compounding, she had come herself.

I wasn’t so grand that she needed to come in person, I thought—but I couldn’t lift my bowed head. Her charisma exceeded expectations.

No—her gaze was like a snake before prey; I didn’t want to meet it.

Her voice struck the crown of my bowed head.

“How long do you intend to keep your head down? Raise it. I came to converse, not to admire a free citizen’s crown.”

“…If that is your will, very well.”

I straightened, and when our eyes met, the Empress wore a blossom of a smile filled with venom as she said to me:

“So—you do make special medicines well. I always thought ‘apothecaries’ were all quacks—cheats who only cared for money… To think a proper one existed. I am newly impressed.”

What had the apothecaries of this world done to be disparaged so sharply? Honestly, it wasn’t my concern. Their lives were theirs.

But the problem began now. The Empress’s gaze was keen. There was a desperate wish in it; she hadn’t come merely to see me.

And just when my misunderstandings were piling up—that she might order up any number of odd medicines, imagining I could mass-produce whatever she wanted—

The Empress lowered her head. I saw the crown of it.

“As Empress who leads the empire, no—but as the mother of a child—I offer thanks to you, apothecary. By your wonder, my daughter will regain her former self… and I, as a parent, give thanks to my benefactor… Thank you.”

It was so unexpected that no words passed my lips.