I Shall Survive Using Potions! Volume 1 Page 12

  Prince Fernand sent another bitter glare at Viscount Alemann.

  “And then, there’s still the most important issue of all!” I declared, pointing my finger at him. “Did you actually check to see if I even wanted to marry you?”

  His only response was a blank expression on his face. It was the type of face that said he never expected me to reject him once I knew he was a prince.

  “The answer is no! I absolutely refuse!”

  “““WHAAAAAAAAAT?!”””

  “Being a princess is on my top three list of jobs I’d never ever want to do! You have no privacy, you can’t get close to the people you want to, you have to fake a smile and talk to people you don’t like, your children get taken from you by your wet nurse and you never get the chance to be a real family with them, and you have to go to parties all the time with other nobles or royal families from other countries! That’s not to mention that you’re pushing out babies until you get a boy, or a girl so you can marry her off for diplomatic relations later! Your husband will even go off and have children with other women like it’s no big deal! Nothing about that life sounds fun to me!”

  One of the queens who’d come over to see what the fuss was about just stiffened up... Ah, now she’s crying.

  “It’s pretty much the same thing with counts and earls and all that. You’re barely allowed to leave the house, and outside of the odd party, the only people you end up talking to are your servants. Even then, the difference in status is so big it’s not like you’re going to be friends with them. In fact, they would never dare speak their own opinion to you, and would just follow your orders. Your husband would always be gone because of work, and you’d have your stepparents always breathing down your neck for a successor to their household. That’s not to mention how they’ll pester you have to follow the traditions of the family you married into, and tell you how you’re a member of their family now so there’s no need for you to go back home, and that their grandchildren only belong to them, and so on and so forth. Let’s not forget how your husband can use the excuse that they need many, many children to cheat on you like there’s no tomorrow, and you could end up stuck living in the same house as the woman he’s cheating on you with and their children as well.”

  Several other wives crumpled to the ground in tears. An older noble grabbed the man who looked to be the husband of one of the wives. I wondered if that was the wife’s father...

  “That’s why a viscount or a baron would be nice. They’re still nobles, but are a bit more far-removed from the power struggles you would find elsewhere. You can also be a little closer to the help because of your position, like having tea together and chatting with them. You can even raise your own children along with the wet nurse or maids that are babysitting them. When your son gets a little bigger, you can travel around your territory with him, having the people celebrate your child on their birthday or things like that. It seems like you would have a much happier life spending time with your family and the people living in your domain.”

  The girls who had their eyes on some of the higher-ranking nobles looked around nervously. While it was true their parents wanted them to marry someone with a high status, the parents didn’t want to make the daughters unhappy. At the same time, it was plain to see several upper-class nobles wincing. Probably the parents and stepparents of sons waiting to get married and carry on the family lineage.

  “That’s why the only way I’d want to marry into money is if I could find the rich son of a merchant, or even a lower-ranking noble. I would never want to be with someone who has a higher status, but at the cost of a boring or stressful life. I’ll leave that to the actual daughters born into nobility, the ones who live lives of luxury because they’ve sucked the people dry with taxes, or who are ready to give everything for their country in exchange for having a higher education.”

  Silence fell over the party.

  “I don’t care about any of that!” Fernand cried out. “I want you, and your knowledge! With your beauty and wisdom, I want you to help me develop this country even more! Together!”

  “Knowledge? Beauty and wisdom? Those are all just things you want to use for yourself, aren’t they? So it’s not that you actually love me, you just want to use me. Then what about me, huh? Do you not care about what I feel? Is that something you don’t have to take into consideration just because you’re a prince?”

  “W-Well...” The words caught in the prince’s throat, making him unable to answer me.

  I picked up a plate from a nearby table and slammed it against the table. A noise accompanied the shattering of the tableware, and I stooped down to pick up one of the fragments of the broken plate. All eyes were on me as the guests wondered what in the world I was doing.

  Shng!

  I used the plate shard to slash open my right cheek.

  “Wh-Wh-What are you doing?!”

  Blood dripped down from my face. The women let out screams, while Fernand was rendered speechless. The other nobles could only stand there, dumbfounded.

  “There, now I’m nothing more than a foolish and unsightly girl. I’m worth nothing to a prince like you; just a commoner with nothing to offer. Now you should have no more business with me, right?”

  After I finished saying my piece, no one even tried stopping me as I walked out of the party.

  The guests at the party began stirring once more, and the first words to break the silence were finally spoken:

  “What rash remarks! What disrespect—”

  “What elegance!” one of the counts present shouted over the voice seeking to condemn Kaoru. “She knew the prince marrying a commoner such as herself would only disrupt the political balance here, so not only did she give up on being queen, she even went so far as to sully her own beautiful visage! That’s not to mention how she used all that coarse language to make herself look like the villain here... Though she may just be a commoner, she chose the peace of the country over the fear of being punished! What loyalty! What devotion!”

  It may have seemed like a stretch, but those gathered there had no choice but to accept it as fact to preserve the prince’s dignity. No one would complain as long as it meant that commoner girl would be kept safe because of it. Besides, if Prince Fernand’s reputation had dropped too low, that would bolster the people who were backing Prince Ghislain, the second prince, instead. If the girl had gone so far as to injure herself to protect Fernand, then no one would be able to say anything in contempt to the prince for fear of turning her efforts to naught.

  This sudden declaration was quick-thinking on the part of one of the earls backing Fernand, and the partygoers were caught up in the moment. There were voices of admiration coming from all over the venue, signaling that the earl’s plan had gone off well.

  “Fernand, my friend... What did you do?” Allan looked down on Fernand with scorn as the prince knelt on the ground.

  “I had just made the necessary arrangements with my father to look into her background so we could be ready to bring her here at any time...” The disappointment in Fabio’s voice was evident.

  “Life actually might have been pretty fun if she ended up being your fiancée...”

  Fernand lamented the foolishness of what he’d done when he heard Allan’s words. But a broken plate was never going to be the same as it was before.

  “Allan and I will go to the restaurant tomorrow by ourselves to see her. Please don’t come with us. I’ll see if we can’t get some money together for her, or maybe a way to get her another job, since I’d imagine she won’t be able to work at the restaurant anymore...”

  Fernand barely managed to whisper a “please do” in response.

  Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!!!

  The moment I left the party, I whipped up a painkiller and styptic combo potion and drank it all at once. The pain from the gash on my cheek calmed down right away.

  All right, no one’s following me. Time to make my escape from the capital!

  I headed stra
ight for the city gates. People were looking at me in shock as I jogged through the streets at night. An eleven- to twelve-year-old girl wearing a first-class maid outfit from the royal palace with her face smeared with blood who also had a harsh look in her eyes... Yeah, anyone would be a little surprised by that.

  I finally made it to the gates and called out to the guard there.

  “Pardon me, but I need to leave!”

  The gates leading out of the capital would close once nighttime fell, and would only be opened for the odd passerby coming in and out of the city. It was around this time a small girl called out, asking permission to leave. The kind-hearted guard took his lamp and left his station to see what all the fuss was about. Depending on what their story was, he planning on detaining them and convincing them not to leave. It was dangerous outside the city walls at night.

  “What happ—whoa!” The guard let out a shout once he saw Kaoru’s face smeared with blood.

  “I got on the wrong side of some nobles, and I have to leave town right away...”

  Though the gash on her cheek had stopped bleeding, it still left an awful scar. It may have healed cleanly if it was just a straight cut, but injuries like this where the flesh was rent completely was bound to leave a scar. Though she was still young, this was a blemish that would affect her for the rest of her life. If she was running away from nobles who could lash out at her for any reason at any time, it might actually be safer outside the city walls.

  “Wait just a second.”

  The guard had given up trying to detain Kaoru, heading inside his barracks for a second before returning and handing something to her without a word. It was a leather pouch with water inside, something that looked like dinner, and five silver coins.

  “Um, what’s this...?”

  “Take it with you.”

  The guard quickly opened the small gate for her. Bowing her head to the guard, Kaoru hurried through the open doors.

  After walking for a short while, she created a health potion and drank it down. The cut on Kaoru’s face healed completely before fading away.

  “Oops, I kept the maid outfit I got from the castle... Oh well. This may come in handy down the line!”

  All she had to do to get rid of the bloodstains was make some type of cleansing potion.

  Her next stop was the capital of the Kingdom of Balmore: Grua.

  “All right, let’s get going!”

  Several years later—

  A lone city guard was hurrying on his way home, looking worse for wear.

  The man’s son had been badly injured in a horrible accident last year. Though it was a miracle he didn’t lose his life, the young boy lost his sight in his right eye, and he could barely see from his left. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before he wouldn’t be able to see out of that eye either...

  Of course the man would feel heavyhearted for his son when he thought about his son’s future. If only he had those “tears of the goddess” he’d heard rumor of... It was a legendary medicine, said to be yellow in color, and found within an elegant glass bottle. But it was said to be something even the nobles had trouble getting their hands on, so it was out of reach for a simple commoner like himself.

  “Welcome home, dear. A little girl was here earlier, and she brought something addressed to you.”

  After his wife greeted him, the man went over and opened up the small box she’d left on the table. Inside were several various things, as well as a letter.

  Who could this be from? And just what is it, anyways...

  As he began reading over the letter, an expression of shock eventually took over his face. He grabbed something from the box before shouting out for his son.

  “Joshua! Joshua!”

  His son gingerly approached him, surprised to hear the unusual fervor in the man’s voice. He took the bottle filled with medicine and had Joshua drink it. The next moment...

  “Huh? I... I can see? And there’s no scars either... Why?”

  The man held his son tight and cried, while his wife ran over in shock.

  On top of the table was the same box, filled with just a few things—and a letter.

  “Thank you for everything you did for me. I’m returning the things I borrowed from you back then. As thanks, I’ve also included something called the ‘tears of the goddess’ as well.”

  Also in the box was a familiar leather pouch and five silver coins.

  The man had been promoted from his job as gatekeeper to being a city guard, but he still remembered the young girl he had lent a helping hand all that time ago.

  The tears wouldn’t stop flowing.

  “Goddess...”

  Chapter 6: Laying Low

  It’d been a few days since I began my trip to the neighboring country’s capital. Luckily for me, I happened to be getting a lift from another kind merchant. It was times like these where it was really useful that I look way younger than fifteen. Oh, hey, maybe I’d even be able to stretch out my time looking to get hitched at this rate.

  That gatekeeper guy was really nice though. To be honest, I already had plenty of water and food in my Item Box, but it was so sweet of him to be worried about me that I just took it without saying anything. I’d have to make sure and thank him somehow when I got the chance.

  The merchant I was riding with said he happened to own a shop in the capital, but he’d occasionally leave and do business on his own to gather more information, as well as to not forget the basics of his trade. Yep, that was pretty much what every merchant should aspire to be. It seemed like the guy would leave his son in charge of the shop while he was gone, but that same son told him to stop going on these trips because of how dangerous it was for him.

  I was bored, so I’d moved up to sit next to the merchant to chat with him. He was a resident of Grua, the capital of Balmore, so I definitely should get something useful out of talking to him. Grua was on my list of places I might want to settle down, so I had to find out all I could about it.

  “Oho, so that store’s sales actually dropped, you say?”

  “That’s right. People weren’t seeing the prices as half-off on the weekdays; rather, the prices were double on days off. They called the normal prices a rip off, since they figured that store was able to make a profit selling things at half-price anyway.”

  “I see...”

  The merchant was pretty interested in my story about a certain fast food restaurant that went under in my past life (I guess that’s what you’d call it?) in Japan, so we worked out a deal where I would tell him more business horror stories from back home in lieu of paying for the ride.

  “So even though the store was trying to get rid of their leftover food by offering huge discounts on it all right before closing, all their customers would just wait for the discounts without actually buying anything.”

  “Hmm... So it’s just like I thought.”

  Oh, has our merchant friend thought about giving discounts right before closing shop for the day? Then maybe I’ll tell him about this next...

  “I see... So since they offered that sort of service, it made customers who they couldn’t make a profit off of stay longer, while the regular customers had no place to sit and left... Goodness, the service business is hard to figure out.”

  Alrighty, let’s try talking about marketing next...

  “Featured bargain items you use to draw customers in? Package deals?! That’s just an affront to the trade business itself!”

  Well how ‘bout that, he’s an honest-to-God businessman after all. I guess I’ll tell him about some more ethical business techniques then.

  “Customer loyalty, you say? And you narrow down the type of customer you want? But if you do that, then won’t you end up losing a portion of your customers instead...? Wait, don’t aim for one out of a hundred, but for two out of ten? Tell me more about how that works!”

  ...Why is he the one asking me for more information here?!

  She’s a pretty interesting gal.
>
  The Abili Trade Company was said to be one of the most prominent enterprises you could find in the royal capital—and it also happened to be my company.

  I’d worked my way up from when I was just peddling wares out of my lone wagon, but found myself in a bit of a rut as of late. I began longing for the days where I had no money but enjoyed getting out there and selling things, so I left my store to my son and left on a bit of a trading journey. I was almost back to Grua when I happened to pick up a young girl along the way. She looked to be about eleven or twelve and was strolling with barely any luggage to be seen. She said she was on her way to the capital as well, but where could she have been walking from while carrying almost nothing on her? Judging by the way she walked, it would take her much longer to get where she was going compared to any normal person. She had such a delicate-looking body that it wouldn’t even take a monster to finish her off... Maybe a single stray dog would be enough to spell the end for her. I had a daughter as well, so I couldn’t just leave her be.

  There was space in the back of my wagon, but she seemed a bit bored, which was probably why she came and joined me up in the passenger seat. She asked me a whole slew of questions about the capital, and it sounded like she was looking for work there. The conversation eventually turned to the trading business, and she started telling stories about “stores she knew” or “what she heard from other people.” I was shocked, frankly. How did she know so much? No merchant worth their salt would tell some girl living out in the sticks these sorts of things so easily. She wasn’t just repeating these stories without understanding what they meant either—she understood why these things happened, and was even adding her own opinions on the stories. Not only that, but she had some pretty sharp takes on them too!