Abandoned Reincarnation

Chapter 19 – Potion Purchase Price

As I head for the forest spring as usual, some monsters attack me along the way.

It looks like goblins. Since they’re also the targets of my subjugation request, I’ll get a reward for hunting them, so I better hurry up and do that.

That said, I don’t want to be defeating them with water blades every time, so I think I’ll try a different spell for once.

Thinking so, I place my hand on the ground and activate a magic circle. Then, the ground the goblins are standing on becomes soft, swallowing their feet.

“Giggiii!”

They’re desperately trying to get out, but the ground has already returned to its original hardness, so their feet are completely stuck there.

Alright, they’re firmly stuck in place. Now comes a bit of a bold move…

By concentrating more than usual and picturing a magic circle in my mind, a huge magic circle appears at the goblins’ feet. It’s big enough to wrap around the entire group of goblins.

I swing my arm down as if to signal the spell’s activation. At that moment, a tremendous amount of blades of wind rise from the magic circle, tearing the goblins’ bodies into pieces.

It’s called area magic, and it’s one of the types of magic used for annihilating monsters over a wide range. Unlike normal magic, it consumes a lot of mana, but it’s useful in situations where there are many enemies because it has the potential to mow down every enemy in one fell swoop.

However, this time it was a failure.

I take a moment to look back at the bloodstained mess that’s left of the shredded group of goblins. I don’t think anyone will buy these for a high amount of money…

Area magic is cool, but if I want to sell these as materials, water blades work just fine, hmm.

I arrive at the spring while feeling a little depressed about having spoiled the materials just because I had this strange desire to try out something new.

I quickly take out the mortar from the Storage and start preparing to make potions.

For now, I’d be mass-producing the potions that I’ve already made before. If I can’t make a lot of the same potions, I won’t be able to say that I’ve completely mastered potions..

I’d also like to research medium potions, but I wonder if I should buy the actual potions first.

This time as well, I will start making the potions after making the small bottles as well.

Hmm, I wonder if it would be quicker to just buy the small bottles. I’m really tired of doing this every time. I’ll take a look around the city tomorrow and check prices.

“Hey, Haku.”

“Hmm? What is it, Aria?”

“Something’s coming.”

Aria speaks to me while I’m fully immersed in potion making.

Something’s coming? Huh? A person?

I activated the detection spell without thinking, but judging from the reaction, it doesn’t seem to be a human.

Rabbit in shape. It seems to be a horn rabbit.

I’ve never been attacked while I’m making potions, but since we’re out in the forest, it wouldn’t be strange if something came to attack me. Rather, it’s a miracle that I haven’t been attacked until now.

I quietly raise my hand and shoot a pebble. It’s not that big, but its speed is guaranteed because it’s boosted by my magical power.

The pebble hits the horn rabbit’s head, killing it instantly.

It looks like there are quite a few of them, but since I got the first move, they won’t be a problem.

These monsters are said to be good for practicing. Even children should be able to defeat horn rabbits as long as they have a weapon. Of course, I’m talking about one-on-one battles.

After collecting the corpses into my Storage, I return to work.

There were no attacks after that, and the sun went down without any further incidents.

Well, I was a little too immersed.

Thanks to that, I ran out of small bottles and had to make another batch halfway through. But wouldn’t this sell for quite a lot of money?

This time I made thirty potions. So, including the remaining three that I made yesterday, the total is thirty-three. That’s quite a decent number.

I hurriedly cleaned everything up and left the forest.

Lars and the others had gone gathering in the shallows today as well, so, thinking I’d share with them, I gave them some of the potions I made, but they got angry for some reason.

They said that “these aren’t things you should be giving away for free so easily”. But I’m fine with that because I made them myself. They still accepted them, though.

I then returned to the guild, and delivered the medicinal herbs and materials at the purchase office.

I’ve always brought in cleanly cut heads, but after seeing the blood-spattered mess I brought in today, the clerk asks me if anything happened.

Well, I guess you can blame it on the enthusiasm of youth.

As I had expected, they’re not going to pay all that much for them. Well, it can’t be helped.

Fortunately, they did buy the horn rabbit corpses at the usual high price.

Then I go to Shirley’s desk to report that I had completed the request and got my reward.

Since this is a repeatable request, it doesn’t pay too much, but perhaps I managed to get back the amount I lost on the goblin materials that I’ve shredded? No, as expected, it doesn’t pay enough to make up for that either.

But I still have something to sell today.

After thanking Shirley, I headed towards the bar.

Come to think of it, I feel that the usual gazes are a little more lenient now? The eyes of the people here used to look at me glaringly, as if they were hunting for prey, but now they have this greedy feeling about them.

Hmm, maybe that’s it. Maybe they’re like that because I’ve been declining these people’s party invitations. I think that their eyes have been feeling like that because they’ve been wanting me.

But there are still people who come and ask me to join their parties. I wonder if I should refrain from using Storage…

Aside from that, head to the counter.

As usual, the grim-looking Master looks at my face and throws a few words at me.

“A drink? Medicine?”

“Well, this time I’m here to sell these.”

I take the potions I made out of my Storage and place them on the counter.

I can see Master’s eyebrows twitch.

“Did you make these yourself?”

“Yes. I think they came out pretty well…”

Master picks up one of my bottles of potion and looks at it carefully.

After a while, he puts it back down and turns the palm of his hand towards me.

“Six small silver coins. How many do you have?”

“Umm, twenty.”

“Let’s see them.”

I actually have more, but I want to keep them in case something happens.

After counting them out, Master looks at all of them carefully. Once he’s done with that, he takes out a bag from one of the shelves at the back and hands it to me.

“Twelve silver coins. Please count them.”

“Ah, yes”

When I open the bag, I see that there indeed are 12 silver coins inside. Having confirmed that, I nod at Master.

Master nods back, and starts placing the potions from the counter onto the shelf one by one.

“Ah, and could I have a medium recovery potion?”

“One small gold coin.”

That’s so expensive! Is there really such a big difference between low and medium?

Well, it’s a bit of a waste, but this is also a necessary investment for my research. There’s nothing I can do about it.

At great pains, I take out 10 of the silver coins I’ve just received from Master, and give them back to him. Then he hands me a potion in a small bottle with a slightly different shape.

It’s more transparent than the lower ones, and I can feel how much magical power it has. The materials used don’t seem to be too different, so, is magical power what decides if it’s low or medium?

Come to think of it, I wasn’t conscious of my magical power at all when I made the potions, but I wonder if they came out all right. They seemed normal enough to me.

Hmm… let’s do some research about that later.

Okay, they sold for a higher price than I expected, so I’m satisfied. Still, that profit was blown away with that medium potion, but it still felt pretty good.

Selling the same amount of medicinal herbs doesn’t pay even half of that price. It might be better for me to stop gathering medicinal herbs from now on and focus on accepting subjugation requests, and making potions and selling them.

Well, tomorrow I’m going shopping.

For some reason, I’ve never gone out looking around. Since this is a commercial city, there seems to be quite a lot of things, so I should at least take a look around the shops at least once.

Is there anything I want to buy? Aside from the small bottles for my potions… maybe I should buy a new bag as well.

I don’t really use bags since I can use Storage, but I want to do something about the fact that using Storage draws a lot of attention. If I had a bag, I can at least make it look like I’m taking stuff out of it.

After that… Come to think of it, I should get myself some new clothes as well. These are pretty tattered, and now that I’m taking a good look at them, they look worse than Lars’ clothes, and he’s come out of an orphanage.

Since I’ve been reborn as a girl, maybe I should dress up a little. Though I don’t know anything about fashion.

I wonder if I’ll be able to pick something nice? Oh well, I’ll just have to think about it as I keep on walking around the city.