I'm an alchemist. I've dumped self-restraint into the trash - Chapter 13

Raith walked towards the shop on the route he had become familiar with. He’d gotten lost a lot when he’d first moved to the capital, but after some time, he’d memorized it. Of course, that was only true for the places he’d been so far.

“Although, that was the one place I didn’t really want to go…”

The area surrounding the royal castle was filled with nobles’ dwellings. He had been forced to visit once, but try as he might, he couldn’t handle that atmosphere. He sincerely wanted to avoid it as much as possible.

Aside from that unpleasant memory, Raith also remembered his arrival in the capital with fondness. As he did so, he continued walking and arrived at the shop. That familiar shop seemed to be fairly prosperous, as he could see many people entering and exiting.

Raith blended in with the crowd and walked into the shop. The petite girl at the counter was smiling from ear to ear, cheerfully attending to her customers.

Yes, the same Daisy that normally made no attempt to hide her displeasure or her dissatisfaction with Raith, was greeting customers with a smile.

In reaction to this, Raith, too, did not hide his shudder.

Having unconsciously stopped at the entrance, he did a double take at the counter.

“I- I see, in that case, it makes sense that business is booming.”

As long as she hid her snappy attitude, Daisy seemed like a sweet girl. Visible through her blue hair, her big, round eyes had some charm to them. Her small lips formed a beautiful curve with an innocent smile.

Among all those visiting the shop, there must have been more than a few who had come here solely for her smile. Their lives were far richer than Raith’s.

Though the difference in Daisy’s everyday appearance startled him, he couldn’t just keep standing at the entrance forever, so Raith started looking around at the alchemy ingredients.

Raith had been to this shop many times before, but this was his first time carefully observing the products as a customer. Though he already knew about all of them, it piqued his interest.

“Oh, this is…”

A highest-level potion caught Raith’s eye. Considering Daisy’s ability, it must have taken quite the effort.

Though Raith was impressed, his expression stiffened when he looked at the price.

“Usually, I’m the one selling them, so I don’t really think about it, but now that I’m here as a customer, that seems pretty expensive…”

Raith had become a bit rich from the elixir-related requests, but he hadn’t lost the mentality of an ordinary person. He gently placed the potion back on the shelf.

“Actually, now that I’m looking at it, this is all pretty good stuff.”

There were a wide range of products, such as ingredients necessary for alchemy as well as completed potions. This might have been another reason that a place like this was doing so well. While thinking that it might be interesting to have his own shop someday, he took the ingredients he needed and headed to the counter.

Once Daisy saw Raith’s face, her expression went blank. Apparently, she hadn’t noticed him until now.

“Ah, welcome.”

“Hey. Looks like business is doing pretty good.”

“Thankfully.”

While Raith had been choosing ingredients, most of the customers seemed to have finished their business and left, so Daisy now had time to have a conversation.

“It’s rare for you to come here on a day when there’s no request.”

“Well, I do, once in a while. I’m pretty low on ingredients, so I just thought I’d come and stock up on them.”

“Oh, I see,” Daisy responded, sounding disinterested, as she calculated the price of the ingredients Raith had handed over. He almost wanted to ask how the person who brought up this topic could have that kind of attitude, but this wasn’t the first time Raith had received a reaction like this.

“Come to think of it, it seems you’ve had quite a bit of trouble. I hear that because you saved someone, people have been begging you for elixirs.”

“So you knew about that…”

“I hear about a lot of different things from talking to my customers. And talk of you especially has spread quite far.”

Rumors about Raith were currently going around in the capital. This was something Raith had been prepared for, so there was no reason to panic about it now.

“…Well, I managed to make it through that, so no need to worry.”

“Yes, I wasn’t worried from the start.”

“Is that so?”

‘Wouldn’t it be fine to worry a little bit more?’ Raith thought to himself. Despite his unconcerned expression, he was a man who thought about petty things.

“Alright, the total is two gold exactly. Thank you for your purchase.”

It seemed that she had finished calculating while they were talking. Daisy gave him the big smile Raith had just seen a little while ago and handed him the ingredients.

“You know, the contrast between your usual attitude and how you treat customers is insane… It’s kind of giving me goosebumps.”

“This is business, so being cordial is a given, isn’t it? And that comment about goosebumps, I wonder what you could’ve meant by that?” Daisy said while maintaining her smile, applying an unspoken pressure. 

“Nothing at all,” Raith replied robotically, smoothing things over. “But come to think of it, if you’re this friendly when you’re doing business, how come you’re so unreasonable with people from the Adventurer’s Guild?”

Amelia had tried to stop Raith from taking Daisy’s request. If she could be this friendly with everyone, she wouldn’t have that kind of reputation.

“…The many adventurers who failed my requests probably say whatever’s convenient for them,” Daisy murmured while averting her eyes, unusually meek. Seeing the state she was in, Raith inferred the circumstances.

She had probably treated other adventurers the same way she treated Raith. Their ages weren’t far apart, so Raith, being good-natured, hadn’t minded, but the same couldn’t be said for others.

Then, a certain hypothesis suddenly surfaced in Raith’s mind.

Is it possible that I’m Daisy’s only friend…?

Considering Daisy’s usual serious attitude, it certainly wasn’t unlikely.

“It’s okay, at least you’ll always have me as a friend!”

“Would you mind not saying disturbing things out of nowhere?”

As if she was looking at garbage, Daisy’s gaze pierced him like a blade. Coughing up blood in his imagination, Raith’s body immediately became unsteady.

“By the way, about those two adventurers you saved, I hear they were attacked by monsters in a strange place.”

“Hm, they were?”

 Raith’s body, which had been swaying like a ghost, suddenly stopped.

“Apparently, it was in a place where there were no reports of monster sightings until now.”

“That’s really unlucky.”

The wound on the adventurer girl’s back had decayed and been poisoned. There were many monsters that had poison, but there weren’t many who could cause their opponent’s wound to decay. The two possibilities that seemed most likely were that it was either an undead type monster or one that carried a special weapon.

Undead monsters were a bit unique, so encountering one was treated as a rarity. Though, that didn’t change the fact that they were dangerous, since they were still monsters.

“But weird things do happen sometimes, anyhow.”

The conditions that caused monster outbreaks were not yet fully determined. Therefore, it wasn’t clear why outbreaks happened, but they were often said to occur in places where the air was dense with magic.

Even so, there were exceptions, and cases like this one where monsters suddenly appeared did happen sometimes. Cases like these were inconvenient for humans. It was for that same reason that Raith had recently been chased out of home and gotten stuck in this mess.

“For now, you should be careful if you ever leave the city.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” Though it wasn’t certain whether Raith would have the opportunity to leave the city. It would be more useful to warn real adventurers like Laffy and Sylvia. “Anyway, thanks for today.”

“Of course.”

With his bag now much heavier, Raith carried it with a secure grip and left the store.