Chapter 34

Chapter 34

✠

“Allie, Rinz! Come over here real quick!” Ailette’s father called out to his children. “Do you know what I just talked to the finance secretary about?”

“What is it?” Prinz asked excitedly. “What did you talk about?”

“Well, you see, the Gilette family established a new trading company and they want to distribute my potions!”

“What? Really?”

“Yes!! And that’s not even the best part! They’ve offered an amazing deal. The secretary said the count is willing to pay out most of the profit to us!”

“Goodness!”

“Of course, there’s usually some risk that comes with doing business with new trading companies, but this is one the Gilette family has created to test Lady Bianca’s hand at business, so I’m not worried one bit! It is Lady Bianca, after all.”

“I know! That’s so true!” I feigned ignorance on the matter and enthusiastically reacted to his news. As I congratulated him, I thought to myself about how Bianca had deliberately set up specific terms and conditions so that my excessively generous father wouldn’t find things uncomfortable.

Bianca really is the best.

Prinz and I watched our father flounder about as he described his meeting deadlines when Prinz asked, “Dad, then does that mean we’re also going to sell Allie’s apple juice potion and steak-flavored supplements?” He was munching on the supplements that as of yet didn’t have any commercial value.

The various tonics and supplements I’d fed Prinz to support his sword lessons were finally paying off. He’d grown much taller and now had a strong, powerful physique.

“Of course! I don’t know how she found out, but Lady Bianca specifically requested that we sell Allie’s potions as well. It might be even better if those potions became our main product!”

“Whoa, we’re gonna be rich now! Allie’s potions are amazing!”

“Yes. I-I’m so proud of you Allie...” My dad brushed away tears from his eyes as he made a pledge. “I’ll make sure to try even harder from now on to make potions as good as Allie’s.”

“Aw, mine just tastes good. The healing effects of your potion are second to none. I’ll work even harder to become a great alchemist like you, Dad!”

“Oh Allie, you’re too kind. Let’s all give it our best. The finance secretary mentioned something about a direct sales store once the business takes off.”

“Oh oh! Our own store!”

It was the dream of all alchemists to open up their very own potion shop.

Dad’s eyes glistened with tears once again. “Count Gilette is a gracious man. I was so thankful when he took us in when I was wandering around with you two as a rookie alchemist.”

That doesn’t sound right, Dad. If it weren’t for Bianca, you’d still be getting exploited by him, slaving away while getting paid less than the minimum wage.

“He’s even connected us with a new herb trading company. We really need to thank him. Aren’t the herbs that we get nowadays great? The herb company we used to trade with mixed in rotten herbs in their products and our orders were hardly ever on time.”

That’s me, Dad. I’m your new supplier.

“He’s supplying us with such quality ingredients but is giving us most of the profit from the potion sales. I’m afraid the count’s profit share is too small.”

Wait! Now that’s taking it too far. Bianca did indeed offer us an amazing deal with the whole trading process as a favor for our family, but the ingredients were all being supplied by me, so in reality, the profit shares were roughly even. I couldn’t explain all of this to my dad, so I quickly tried to brush aside his worries.

“Don’t you think Lady Bianca and the finance secretary have everything under control? I don’t think it’d be right for us to step into the trading company business.”

“Ah, you’re right! I almost crossed a line there. Thank goodness you’re here to stop me.”

We began to discuss what potions we would make. Prinz’s input as the taste tester also made up a large part of our conversations and so the business meeting ended up becoming a family discussion.

After organizing most of our plans, we jumped right into the manufacturing process. All that was left to do is labor away like machines. The distribution of labor was such that Dad would create the actual potions and supplements, while I would be in charge of the post-processing so that they tasted good.

Like most people in the early stages of starting a business, our entire family was filled with excitement and lofty dreams.

Prinz started us off, “Allie, what are you going to do when we become rich?”

I’m going to pour my savings into the Transmigrator’s Item Shop to take advantage of the pay-to-win perks. “I’m going to make you a knight. We’ll save up whatever is left over after sending you to the knight academy.”

“A-Allie...” Prinz’s eyes shined with appreciation.

I’d been a little worried about sending him off since it’d feel like sending him to the military for six years, but I guess it’ll be all right if he enjoys it.

Prinz asked Dad the same question, “What about you, Dad? What are you going to do with all the money?”

“I...” This was the face of a tired, single father who raised two kids all by himself. He stared into the distance. “I want to visit the home your mother and I used to live in. I haven’t been able to visit lately because of work.”

A solemn silence settled over the room. Ironically enough, my transmigration host had also lost her mother at a young age. The only difference between her and me was that mine passed away while giving birth to me, while my host’s mother just disappeared.

Dad’s voice became watery with emotion as he began to talk about our old house. “Your mother... appeared before me out of the blue, only to later disappear like the wind.”

“So she ran awa—”

Prinz covered my mouth. “Shh, I’ll give you the larger half of the chocolate cookie the next time we have to split one.”

Why does this negotiation sound so familiar? Everything except the chocolate cookie part. That should’ve been coffee ice cream.

I murmured quietly with his hand still covering my mouth. “It has to be the half that has a lot of chocolate.”

“Okay, okay. Deal. Shh.”

Prinz seemed to want to protect Dad’s precious, romanticized memories, but my first impression of my transmigration host’s mother was not a good one. A frivolous woman who got in the way of a young man with a bright future ahead of him!

Mom and Dad’s meeting was pretty suspicious, to begin with. It was back when Dad was being exploited by the Golden Ivory Tower. One rainy evening, Dad went into the woods to find some herbs to make ends meet.

When he ventured deeper into the forest, he came across an injured woman. He took her back to his log cabin where he healed her with his potions, but she claimed to have amnesia and decided to settle down with him. He saved her life, yet she had the audacity to extort a poor, working student.

Dad’s trip down memory lane began as I reflected on the timeless wisdom that warned to never pick up a stranger on a rainy day.

“She wasn’t exactly the best at household chores. It was as if she’d been pampered her entire life... But strangely enough, she was quite skilled at hunting. Any time she went out for a walk in the woods, she’d always bring home some game. And then she’d nag me to make her some stew because she was hungry. I remember crying a lot in private while taking out the animals’ innards.”

Dad’s face seemed content as he reminisced over these terrible memories. I guess he really loved her dearly. I puffed my cheeks out even more. I didn’t care how much he loved her. It doesn’t change the fact that she ruined the life of a young man with a promising future by making him a single father.

Anyways, I had already come to accept that my post-transmigration family was made up of only a father and a brother.

All I needed to do was take care of these two. There was no reason for me to yearn for or form an emotional attachment to a faceless mother who I strongly suspected had abandoned them. I guess the disapproval on my face was quite evident because Dad started to defend her.

“She looked like she came from a totally different world... It’s not so strange that she regained her memories and returned back to where she came from.”

No, dad, that’s trashy. Even I can tell and I’ve never seen the woman in my life. “Don’t you resent her? She left you all alone with two kids.”

“Not at all. I’m so thankful that she left me with two of the most precious treasures in the world.”

There was no way I could complain after that.

As I fell silent, my brother came up with an unexpected theory. “I don’t think Mom abandoned us.”

“Prinz?”

“I thought I’d dreamed it up until today, so I never told either of you, but I actually saw Mom the night before she disappeared. I even talked to her.”

“What? Is that true, Rinz?!” Dad leaped up in surprise, almost knocking over a potion flask in the process.

Prinz shared what he’d witnessed that night as I moved the fragile glass flasks a safer distance away. “I had awoken in the middle of the night because of a bad dream, when, through the darkness, I saw Mom spring to her feet with an irritated look on her face. She walked out to the front yard, gathered a garden hoe and steel chain, and prepared to stomp off into the woods.”

My father waited with bated breath for Prinz to continue.

“I yelled out to her through the window and I even remember what she said. She said that she was going to go smack some sense into some impudent critters that didn’t know their place... That’s what I think she said, something like that.”

What the heck? Was it just me, or did Mom sound like an extraordinary person?

“I think mom had her own reasons for leaving that night.”

“I remember too. Some of the tools we used to farm herbs with were missing. What if something happened to her while she went out to hunt a wild boar?”

I had a strong intuition that she wasn’t after some wild boar that evening. Who in the world was my mom?

Agh, who knows? I set aside the unanswerable questions for now and refocused my efforts on making potions.

✠

These days, my daily routine was consistent for the most part. I went to give my morning prayer in the sanctuary, harvested herbs in the dungeon, and worked in my dad’s alchemy lab.

There was a lot of work to be done, but I wasn’t pressed for time. In fact, I actually had time left to spare.

I took advantage of the fact that the flow of time passed three times as fast within the dungeon.

I set up shop inside the dungeon with a scale and everything else I needed. I completed most of the herb weighing in the dungeon, and by early afternoon, I’d already met my quota for the day.

Nowadays, Bianca was busy with successor training, so I had a lot of time to myself. I decided to knock out some important projects that I’d been putting off.

⟬«System» You’ve successfully purchased [Job Advancement Package] (Combat).⟭

⟬«System» [The Strength of an Aura Master] item contains [Aura Awakening Quest], [Physical Training], and [Weapons Training].⟭

I purchased the aura package as if I were paying big bucks for a one-year gym membership. Well, there’s no turning back now. The system shop had a no return/no refund policy.

⟬«System» You’ve attained [Strong Body Lv.] by effect of [Physical Training].⟭

⟬«System» You’ve attained [Wooden Sword Mastery Lv.1] by effect of [Weapons Training]. Weapon Mastery automatically transitions when your primary weapon is changed.⟭

⟬«System» A pre-quest to awaken your aura has been initiated.⟭

⟬«Quest» So You Wanna be an Aura Master? Do You Have What It Takes To Be a Sword Master?

Achieve Strong Body Lv.50 (1/50)

Achieve Weapons Mastery Lv.50 (1/50)

- Current registered primary weapon: wooden sword, no sub-weapon found.⟭

These were all familiar system notifications that I’d seen before when I bought Prinz his own aura awakening set.

My body felt a little different just by awakening Strong Body Lv.1 and Wooden Sword Mastery Lv.1. I grabbed one of the quill pens lying on my dad’s desk and swung it around like a sword for a bit.

“Hah! Hah! Hyah!”

My movements were quite sharp and disciplined, or so I thought. But ten minutes later, I was faced with a serious problem.

Why isn’t my mastery level rising?