I'm an alchemist. I've dumped self-restraint into the trash - Chapter 16

It was late at night, around the time when silence began to descend upon the capital. Alone in his room at the inn, Raith was preparing for tomorrow.

“Monsters, huh…”

There were monsters present in the vicinity of Raith’s house, tomorrow’s destination. To be frank, Raith was bad at dealing with monsters, to the point that it could be called trauma.

This was because he had been chased around by dangerous monsters many times during the harvesting hell tour with his teacher. Experiencing something like that so many times during one’s early teens could be traumatic. In addition, as Raith’s teacher watched him running away in tears, she began holding her sides with cackling laughter.

Raith smiled emptily at these upsetting memories that he didn’t want to recall. But fortunately, he wasn’t alone this time. He had a reliable escort, Laffy.

“If possible, it’d be best to avoid encountering them at all, but… There. Phew…” Raith sighed once he finished packing his bag with most of the things he needed. Healing potions were a given, and he also included potions for driving monsters away.

They were pretty effective for monsters that had sensitive noses. With this, he would be able to defend himself a bit in case of an emergency.

“All that’s left is the ring, then.”

Raith took off the red ring he’d been wearing on his right hand’s middle finger. Then, he prepared a blank sheet of paper.

Raith put the ring in the center of the paper and started drawing a complex pattern around it using dark blue powder. His right hand moved without hesitation, and within a few dozen seconds, the pattern was completed.

“Bestow,” Raith activated the alchemical spell, holding his hand above the ring. Bestow was an alchemical spell for creating magic items, by using a magic circle to apply magical effects to accessories and such.

Most magic items were single-use and returned to being normal accessories once they were used. A used magic item could have Bestow applied to it again, but the effect would lower considerably, so it was inefficient.

Just now, he had Bestowed a damage resistance effect on the ring. The ring would absorb a certain amount of damage in his place.

“Seems about right.”

Raith put the newly Bestowed ring back on his middle finger. With this, his preparations were complete. All he needed to do now was to prepare physically and give his body ample rest.

Raith got into bed and quietly closed his eyes.

***

The next morning. In the middle of the stinging cold, Raith and Laffy met up just outside the capital.

Raith had his usual bag hanging from his shoulder, and Laffy had her sword and her light armor that protected only her vitals. She had a somewhat large burlap sack on her hip that probably had other tools inside it.

“I got a carriage ready, so go ahead and get on.”

“Alright.”

It was about a day’s distance from the capital to Raith’s house by carriage if they hurried.

Raith hadn’t told Laffy, but judging by the progression of Sylvia’s illness, she had a week or so. They had to hurry as fast as possible.

“Come to think of it, I know it’s a bit late to be asking this, but will Sylvia be alright without you?”

“Hm? Yeah, I bowed and asked Amelia-san to take care of her while I’m away.”

“Oh, okay. Then, that’s a relief.”

Laffy and Amelia had known each other since Laffy became an adventurer. That would make it a connection of several years. That alone made it trustworthy.

Raith confirmed that Laffy had boarded the carriage and grabbed the horse’s reins.

“Raith, you can even ride a horse?”

“…Well, with my teacher being the way she is, I learned most skills you’d need for things like odd jobs and everyday life. Though it wasn’t because I wanted to…”

“I- I see…”

Talking about the hardships related to his teacher, Raith let out a dry laugh. He could talk all about his teacher if he felt like it, but the darkness would overflow without end, so he restrained himself.

“Anyway, there’s something that’s been bugging me since I examined Sylvia yesterday.”

“Hm, what is it?”

“Magic Crystallization Syndrome should’ve originally been discovered in a completely different region. So how did Sylvia get it?”

If Raith remembered correctly, the place where Magic Crystallization Syndrome had been discovered was more to the northeast of the capital. The rare cases of patients who had contracted it were all people who lived in the northeast. It wasn’t contagious, so it didn’t pass from person to person.

Then, why did Sylvia contract it?

“Has Sylvia ever visited the northeast?”

“No, never. At least, not since I met her.”

“…So, in other words–” Raith guessed at what Laffy was trying to say from her odd phrasing. Raith had always thought that the two looked nothing alike ever since he met them.

 “Well, you probably kind of noticed, but we aren’t sisters by blood.”

“…Do you mind if I ask about that?”

There might have been some profound reason for it. Clearly sensing Raith’s discretion, Laffy let out a slight laugh.

“It’s not that big a deal. It’s just that I saved Sylvia when she lost her memories and took her in since she didn’t have any relatives,” Laffy calmly declared as Raith made a complicated expression at this.

“I think it’s a pretty big deal to make that decision when you were even younger than you are now, though…”

It seemed like Laffy had matured at a young age. Out of all the people Raith had ever met, the word “sincere” suited her best.

“So, Sylvia lost her memories?”

“Yeah. Though I don’t know how she lost them.”

“Then Sylvia might actually be from the northeast. Magic Crystallization Syndrome was discovered in the northeast, after all.”

“I see… I’ll remember that.”

Having obtained a clue to Sylvia’s memories in an unexpected place, Laffy nodded meekly. Though, curing her illness came first for now.

“Come to think of it, where is your house?”

“It’s further down this road, in the middle of a forest. It’s a wooden cabin.”

“In the middle of a forest? You sure lived in a really weird place…”

“Please don’t say that. I’m already aware…”

Compared to when he lived in the forest, one could say that his current lifestyle was far more pleasant. There was no need to make his own meals, and there were many different things he could buy.

Once he retrieved the ingredients he had left in his house in the forest, it would be a total win for living in the capital.

Even though his teacher was the one who had originally brought him to live in that cabin in the first place, the teacher in question had suddenly disappeared one day.

Raith hadn’t been living somewhere as inconvenient as a forest by choice.

And so, interspersed by the occasional conversation, the two proceeded to the house by carriage. Then, they nearly reached the forest.

“…Hm?”

The sun was setting, and it was already turning dark. In the midst of this, Raith narrowed his eyes in suspicion as he looked ahead, keeping his hands on the reins.

“Is that… a person?”

It was a human-like silhouette, but it loomed in the road by itself. It wasn’t exactly strange for a person to be here, but the silhouette was sitting down in the middle of the road.

Naturally, it was dangerous to do that on a road that was used by carriages. Raith slowed the carriage and approached the silhouette to give them a light warning.

Then, Raith realized his error.

“…!”

He had only been able to make out the person’s silhouette, but once he could see them clearly, Raith was shocked. They were probably an adventurer. They were bleeding and breathing heavily.

It wasn’t that they refused to move from the middle of the road, they probably couldn’t move. Raith hurriedly stopped the carriage at the side of the road and rushed towards the adventurer.