Translator: P411

Editor: Shizukuku

Read at Watashi Wa Sugoi Desu!

Chapter 100 – I’ll Accept the Quest

“Autumn Online Game Fest…”

When I got home, I opened the website of the Game Festival that we’d been talking about during lunch break. 

I’d been so determined to go to this event together with Yuuta ever since it was announced!

But I had completely forgotten about it until now. Of course, I would quickly make a reservation at school as soon as the time came. But this was a lottery and the competition would be really high. First of all, I wasn’t sure if the phone call would go through and, if I did it online, the server traffic at that time would be disastrous, so I would pass on that. It would also be quite a hilarious sight if there were no students in the classroom at that time, including me of course. I guessed it wouldn’t be appropriate to call during the class.  

On the site, there are photos of a very large event venue at the port, as well as information about the state of last year’s Game Festival and this year’s upcoming games lineup. 

It seemed that most of the top 10 online games would be there, and of course, there would be a booth for ‘ADO’, which was my goal.

I stared at the screen, hoping that I would win this lottery. Even if I didn’t win, I still planned to go there as a regular visitor, but the admission hour was quite different, so even if I got in, the booth would be far beyond the crowd. 

By the way, last year I went alone as a regular visitor, but ended up being mobbed by the crowd… I could never reach the front, and for some reason, there were so many tall people that I couldn’t see anything in front. I could barely look up at the huge screen on the ceiling between people’s heads. It must be nice to be a woman since they can wear shoes to make them look taller by at least 5 cm. Even if I wore them, it was obvious that I would slip and fall and I also wasn’t into that kind of thing.

After I logged in, I left the inn and decided to take a quick trip to the general store. 

The purpose was to look for something good within the common materials. 

In the end, I decided to accept the quest.

Looking back at my original plan, after much consideration, all that was left was for me to create something new.

There’s also the reason that, for the first time in a while, I just wanted to have some fun with pharmacy and alchemy.

That’s why, after I got all the materials, I would just rent a place and do pharmacist things. 

The general store was easy to find. 

It was located right next door to the Sei Adventurer’s Guild. 

The signboard was a cute one, carved out of wood, with colorful flowers engraved around it.

“Hello—” 

“Welcome.”

When I opened the door and came in, I was greeted by a woman with a lovely atmosphere who stood at the counter wearing an apron.

There were several players and locals in the store, so the not-so-big store was already crowded. 

“How can I help you?”

The clerk, whose gentle voice matched her appearance, greeted me with a friendly smile. 

“Umm, I’m looking for materials that can be used in making medicine. Are there any recommendations?”

“Ah, are you a pharmacist? Then the herbs from the farm down the road are fresher and better. We also handle monster materials more or less. However, it’s limited to the monsters from around this area. Let’s see which ones can be used in medicine.”

As the clerk scanned the store, a player who was standing near the counter quickly picked up something that looked like a fang from the shelf. 

“Romina-chan, this one. I just sold this yesterday. Red Hunt Wolf’s fang. I heard from a friend that this can be used as a material for something.”

“Oh, that’s right. Thank you, Yukihira-san.”

“I can go get more if it’s for Romina-chan, so just say the word.”

“Yes. But if I need anything, I’ll make a request to the guild, so please take care of me at that time,” the clerk, named Romina-chan, replied back with a smile. 

Then, she presented me with the fang she had received from that person.

“You have to crush and break it into small pieces to use, but it has a high nutritional value. However, it originally produced heat, so combining it with materials that produce cold could negate the effect. And the rest was… Ah, it’s here. This.”

The clerk rummaged around behind the counter and brought out a dried flower. 

“This is a dried flower from a flower called Ribemalo, which only grows here on the city farm. It’s common around Sei Castle City but, for some reason, it is quite rare to see outside of that.”

“This…”

I took the flower and appraised it. It didn’t look like some kind of rare material, so I nodded my head thinking this was good enough.

But the description said it could be mixed in to take the bitterness out of potions. I had never used a flower in potion-making before.

“Because of this flower, the potions made in Sei are very popular, as they aren’t bitter and are easy to drink.”

“Yep, yep. The potion Romina-chan sells is the best and sweetest of them all. How about you try one?”

“Yukihira-san, he’s a pharmacist so he can make his own. That would be like recommending home cooking to a professional chef…”

The clerk was trying her best to calm down this Yukihira guy who was recommending her potion with a sparkle in his eyes. 

How do I put this, I kind of get it from the vibe that this Yukihira guy likes Romina-chan quite a bit.

It made me smile a little, but somehow this pretty much looked one-sided. 

“If you recommend it so highly, please give me one. I’ve never had anything other than what I made myself.”

Looking back now, it was like that from the beginning. The first potion I worked on was the easiest one to make. I wondered what it tasted like when I first finished it. I remembered that it was a failure. It was so bitter that it left a strong aftertaste. After that experience, I swore to myself I would never touch a failed one again. 

Remembering the past, I hesitantly paid the clerk who offered me a potion. 

I picked up this simple and plain bottle, which had a different design from the ones I bought from Crash’s store, and opened the lid. My HP was full, but I was just testing its taste so it was okay.

I drank it in one gulp, and it tasted like a thin black tea with a lot of honey, focusing only on the sweetness. After that, a slight bitterness lingered on my tongue. Hmm? The taste was fundamentally different from the potions I made. 

In the case of potions, recipes were either memorized from a book or registered as a recipe when you successfully made one yourself, so depending on the person, there were many different ways of making potions. 

“Um, excuse me.”

I was curious about the taste of the potions sold in other cities, so I called out to the player from earlier who had been emitting love beams toward the clerk. 

“What? Do you need more of Romina-chan’s potions?”

“It’s not that, do you have any potions that aren’t from this city? I wanted to compare them.”

“If it’s that, I got some from Neuve City.”¹

“I’m willing to pay a high price for it, so could you sell it to me?”

When he said Neuve, that was around where Yuuta and the others were. The guy looked simple but his level might be quite high. Maybe he was famous. I should take a look into these matters once in a while. 

When I looked at the player in front of me, who wore a friendly smile, he tilted his head and said, “I see. I’m not short of money, so I could give it to you, but that would be quite boring. How about we trade with the potion you make?”

“Okay, but I’m only making high potions right now, so are you okay with that?”

“Sure, anything is fine.”

The friendly player pulled out a potion from Neuve and I also handed him my high potion. I opened the lid and smelled it. 

A slightly grassy, herb-like smell hit my nose. 

…A vegetable juice?

The smell made me think that. 

I took a sip.

“Wow, so bitter.”

I was so surprised that I spoke my thoughts out loud. It reminded me of that unforgettable taste of a failed product, that gross, strong taste. I felt like this had something similar to that. 

“Right?! You also think the same right!”

“Why is this so…”

“My friend’s pharmacist said in order to improve the potion’s performance, he adds a lot of different herbs. Don’t you think this is the reason why they are so bitter?”

“Ehh—”

Rather than using a lot of herbs, it would be better to use a few with good performance, which would definitely produce something of a higher rank.

I held back the urge to say this and replied, “It seems so.”

The player also seemed to be concerned about how the color of my potion was lighter than he expected. 

“This, how’s this performing? Does it work? It’s so light. Hey Romina-chan, could you appraise this? Oh, can I examine this?”

“It’s okay.”

The clerk, holding the potion in her hand, apologetically bowed her head and examined the product. 

Come to think of it, I wondered what people without skills did when they wanted to appraise or something else. We players could use appraisal by selecting it from the skill section, but I was curious about how they did it, too. I would make sure to ask Crash about how to do that next time. 

“High Potion Rank A, Recovery [144].”

“144?!”

The loud voice from the player, caused all eyes to focus on him. Without care, he kept looking at the high potion with an astonished look on his face.