I Shall Survive Using Potions! Volume 1 Page 14

  I guess there was no rush though. For now, I’d just wait for my chance to come...

  One day when Kaoru was cleaning the entrance to the workshop, a street urchin happened to pass her by. When they were gone, they left a balled up piece of paper in their wake. She stooped down to pick it up before sticking it in her pocket. She was cleaning after all, so it was only natural for her to pick up trash.

  What wasn’t natural, however, was what had just gone down.

  No simple street urchin should have something as valuable as paper, and they certainly wouldn’t just toss it away as garbage. Kaoru went to the kitchen before taking out the scrap of paper and reading what was written on it.

  “a mother and a kid in the slums. shes honest she gives everything to raise daughter. nobles hurt her really bad, lashed out at her”

  The note was written in an untidy scrawl by the only one of the vagabond children who could actually write.

  Kaoru suddenly had plans for the evening.

  After I finished cleaning up after making dinner at the workshop, I made some late-night snacks for later and left them on the shelf before changing into some comfier clothes. Everyone was so focused on their work they didn’t notice me quietly sneak outside. Even if they had, I was sure they’d let me off saying it was only a kid enjoying some nighttime fun.

  After walking a bit, I saw a kid who looked to be a street urchin in front of me. I kept a good distance between us as I followed behind them. Eventually, I found myself with several other raggedy-looking kids following behind me. They kept their distance from me as well, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings. We walked along like this as we headed into the poor district of the city, coming to a small shack of a house. The boy I was following stopped and gave me a signal, then went off to hide.

  So this is the place...

  I drank a potion to change the color of my eyes and hair, then put on a mask to hide my face before donning a cloak and entering the shack.

  “...Who is it?”

  A little girl who couldn’t be more than five or six was on full alert as she warily responded to me breaking and entering. The tone in her voice showed she was prepared to protect her mother at any cost, who was bedridden from injuries. A person had just essentially broken into their house wearing a mask and a cloak... Yeah, even I couldn’t think anyone else looked more suspicious than I did right now.

  “Just a messenger,” I answered the little girl in a gentle voice.

  “...A messenger? From who?” the girl asked back, not letting down her guard.

  “Celes.”

  “Celes? Who’s that?”

  “Oh, right. Maybe calling her ‘Celestine’ might make it easier to understand?”

  “Ah!”

  There was no blasphemer in this world who’d name their kid after the Goddess, and there wasn’t anyone who would do evil in her name either. She wasn’t just an imaginary concept in this world, but had actually made appearances here up until a few decades ago. She was a real god who’d come down and save people, and hand down divine revelations.

  “I want to give your mom some medicine. Would that be okay with you?”

  “Yes, please!”

  The mother was lying on the floor, staying so still I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or had lost consciousness. She looked to be in her late twenties, but I bet a native would say she looked about twenty-two or twenty-three. That was about the same age I was when I bit the big one back on Earth, and that was just when I’d gotten a job after graduating college. Here she was, working so hard to raise her kid, and got beaten half to death just because an aristocrat was having a bad day?

  Screw that! Like hell I’ll just let that slide!

  “The righteous shall be healed by my hands!”

  I raised my right arm into the air and summoned forth a potion in the shape of a mayonnaise squeeze bottle, filled with a red potion. I had the little girl lift the upper half of the mother’s body while I held open her mouth with my left hand, putting the tip of the bottle inside and gently wringing out its contents. The red liquid poured down her throat as the small girl gulped and watched me as I worked.

  One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand...

  Five one thousand, six one thousand, seven one thousand, eight one thousand...

  “M...mmgh...”

  “M-Mommy!”

  “Ko...sha...?”

  “Mommyyy!”

  Right around the time Kosha stopped crying, the mother turned to look at me with a curious look on her face.

  “U-Um... Who might you be?”

  “Oh, I’m just a simple pharmacist. I’ll be taking my leave now that we’re all finished here. As for my fee...”

  ““What...?”” Kosha and her mother both turned pale.

  I already knew they didn’t have money—but cash wasn’t the only payment method I took.

  “All right! Then you can pay me by letting me poke and squish Kosha’s cheeks until I’m satisfied!”

  ““Huh?!””

  “All done. Thanks for leading me here.”

  “Then we’ll all be your escort on the way back to the workshop.”

  “Right, I’m counting on you.”

  “...”

  Though he said that, Emile didn’t budge an inch as he stared right at my face.

  “Something the matter?”

  “...Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure what’s up?”

  “Why does your face look so smooth?”

  “...It’s a secret!”

  It had all happened a few weeks back. Kaoru was out in the marketplace doing some shopping when a street urchin had collided with her. She watched as the boy ran off without stopping before sticking her hand into her breast pocket.

  Yup, it’s gone all right...

  It should go without saying, but she’d just been hit by a pickpocket.

  Though she looked like a child herself, Kaoru would go out into the town market every day to buy groceries. Anyone seeing the armfuls of food she’d bring with her on the way back could guess she had a decent amount of cash on her. Since she was only a little girl, there was no need to worry about getting caught and taken away even if someone flubbed an attempt to steal from her. She was the perfect prey for street urchins and pickpockets. It was times like these when the Item Box came in handy. She kept her real purse stored safely away in there while having a fake tucked away in her breast pocket. As for what was inside it, well...

  Kaoru leisurely strolled in the direction the boy had run off in. Getting pickpocketed meant the perpetrator would take the cash out of the wallet once they were safe, then ditch the wallet itself. Even if there were people who wrote their name on it beforehand, no one would ever write it on their money; there wouldn’t be any evidence left of the crime. That was why Kaoru had set up her fake wallet with something that happened almost instantly:

  “AUUUGGGHHHHHH!”

  There it is!

  Kaoru followed the scream, finding herself face-to-face with a young boy clutching his right hand in agony. It was the same street urchin who’d bumped into her earlier. The boy’s right hand had swollen, taking on a ghastly shade of purple. It looked like the pain was as bad as it looked—which is what she expected, since she’d made the potion to do just that. Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes as soon as he saw Kaoru, pleading with her to help him.

  Oh, fine...

  Kaoru took a potion from her pocket and handed it to the boy, telling him to drink it. His hands shook as he downed the medicine, and the pain and swelling from his right hand were fixed almost immediately. She’d actually made it so the symptoms of her trap would disappear on their own after a few hours had passed, just in case the culprit managed to elude her. They’d have to suffer through the pain until that happened though. Even if someone stole from her, it wasn’t like she wanted to cause them any real harm. At most, Kaoru wanted to traumatize them a little with the experience.


  “Stealing from a god, are we... You must not care much for your life, boy.”

  “Huh? G-God...?”

  “You won’t be getting off with just this when I bring down my next divine punishment,” Kaoru said with grin on her face.

  “A-Ahhhhhh!”

  The boy threw himself to the ground and prostrated before the girl as she placed her hands on her hips triumphantly. It was a very strange scene, the fiendish look in Kaoru’s eyes just making it seem all the more suspicious. If she just stepped on the boy’s head now, then...

  ...Wait, why did it turn out like this?

  “I’d ask you what you’re doing stealing...but I think I already know the answer.”

  It has to be so he can get himself something to eat.

  “Actually, Belle hasn’t been doing so good...”

  Uh-oh, someone’s sick... That changes things!

  “Lead me there.”

  “H-Huh...?”

  The boy had no choice but to comply, leading me to a run-down house in the slums with crumbling walls and a dilapidated roof. Living inside this ramshackle home was an assortment of seven boys and girls. I guessed they wouldn’t really be street urchins if they actually had a place to live, huh?

  When I asked who was sick here, they all raised their hands.

  Got it, so that’s how it is.

  “Everyone, line up!”

  All the kids looked especially confused when I said that, so I had the boy who tried to pickpocket me earlier line them up for me since he seemed to be the oldest one of the group. Being eleven or twelve may be considered young here, but since I looked like around fifteen or sixteen tops, there shouldn’t have been any problems with me putting him to work!

  “All right, everyone come take turns getting one.”

  I handed out an assortment of potions to cure various injuries and diseases.

  “All right, and here’s another one.”

  Next, I whipped up a potion to restore their deteriorated muscles and organs, and even improved their health as well. It looked like they were all suffering from a variety of different afflictions, and I thought it may be a bit overboard trying to squeeze too many effects into one potion, which was why I’d split them up into two instead.

  “Huh...?”

  “My leg doesn’t hurt?”

  “I feel so light now!”

  “My chest doesn’t hurt anymore...”

  The children let out cries of surprise one after the other.

  Hmm... What to do, what to do...

  At this rate, they’d just end up right back where they started. This was only a way to stave off the inevitable. But would some girl working as a housekeeper be able to look after all these kids? Should I have just ignored them in the first place since it had nothing to do with me? I thought not. I wouldn’t have come here in the first place if I was going to do that.

  I’d already said it myself, and I quote: “I wanted to have a bit more freedom with how I lived my life. I would play it safe and make a plan for myself, then it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to be proactive and get me some self-protection. It’d be nice if I could help people out with my potions somehow as well.” It was about time to do just that! Kaoru Nagase was the type of girl who avoided danger and always chose the safe way in life! (Though I did end up dead in some freak accident...)

  So did that mean I was just going to repeat that same lifestyle again here? Was I just going to live life protecting my close friends and family, even after I’d gotten these powers from the Goddess? Should I not get involved with other people?

  That would be way too boring.

  The old Kaoru Nagase was dead. I was a brand new Kaoru, given a fresh start in life here. I wasn’t the same “Kaoru Nagase” from Japan, but just “Kaoru,” a girl free to live her life the way she wanted in this world—and with permission from the Goddess who watched over this world even!

  “Listen up, kids!” I declared, placing both hands on my hips and sticking my chest out. “I’m Kaoru, a friend of the Goddess Celestine. She has given me free reign to do as I see fit and enjoy life in this world as a normal human.”

  Nothing I said was a lie so far, but the kids didn’t really seem to get what I was talking about.

  “Basically, she told me I can do whatever I want.”

  Nod, nod.

  “That’s why I want to offer some blessings to those who are pure of heart, just like I did with you all.”

  The children finally came to realize, tears in their eyes, that it was a miracle all their ailments had been cured. Even though their fellow humans had abandoned them and treated them like nothing more than garbage, they’d received the blessing of the Goddess.

  “However, trying to find those deserving of these blessings without being discovered by ones who’d want to take advantage of them is quite the task, considering I’ve taken on the form of a human myself. That’s where you all come in. How about becoming my assistants to help me out? As a reward, I’ll keep you healthy while bestowing you with all sorts of food.”

  The seven children all threw themselves down at my feet, and that was how I gained seven new members of my own personal defense force.

  After, Kaoru had made sure to tell the children to keep this a secret. If someone appeared who wished to use the powers of the Goddess for less than wholesome motives, then divine punishment would befall the world, and Kaoru would have to return to the heavens. Even if the kids tried to sell her out for money, a truly evil person wouldn’t just pay for the information; they’d kill the children so they’d be the only ones who knew.

  Though Kaoru would cure them and give the children enough food to get by, she claimed that just providing them with everything wouldn’t make them successful people. She made sure to let them know they’d have to work to earn anything else than that for themselves. The children had no reason to doubt her words, especially after having experienced her miracles with their own bodies. They turned away from crime, looking for work running errands or other odd jobs to improve their quality of life. On top of that, they went around searching for rumors about purehearted souls suffering from injury or sickness, and served as the personal bodyguards to the goddess who’d come to the world as a human.

  Kaoru had prepared herself a cloak and mask to hide her true identity. Though she was under the impression it looked pretty cool, it was a little much. Like, enough to make a child cry if they ran into her in the middle of the night.

  That was how Kaoru began working her miracles in secret. She used the information the children brought her to help those who needed it, one person at a time.

  There was a rumor slowly spreading among certain people who lived in the capital:

  Those who were righteous and pure of heart would receive the blessings of the goddess. You could never let anyone whose hearts were tainted by greed know of her existence, and you mustn’t betray the goddess. The eyes of the goddess saw everything.

  Back at the headquarters for the secret organization, “The Eyes of the Goddess”—

  In reality, it was just a busted up house, the same one the seven kids were living in.

  “You think we can we stop with such a name?”

  “““Never!”””

  They turned me down, even though I was supposed to be the goddess here...

  Today I was extra lazy...er, ahem, very efficient, preparing meals for the workshop, so I thought I’d stretch my legs and head over to the slums to make dinner for the kids. They were always cooking for themselves using a pot that had definitely seen better days, and the food they made was... I shouldn’t sugarcoat it—it wasn’t good. That’s why I thought it was nice to do this every once in a while.

  After dinner had wrapped up, they gave me their report. I’d already told the children how I was enjoying my life here, and they could just speak with me normally as long as they kept my secret. Basically, they could just think of me as a nice girl who would cook for them every so often.

  “So th
at merchant’s daughter is sick then. But they must be pretty rich, right?”

  “There are some things you can’t fix with money. Besides, they’re a really good person,” insisted Emile, the leader of the ragtag group of kids, the one who’d tried pickpocketing me. Anyway, he made a good point. “This guy is always down here in the poor district offering food for everyone, but he always says the same thing: ‘I’m nothing but a hypocrite. I only enjoy the self-satisfaction I get from this sort of charity work. I could get used to this feeling of superiority!’”

  Oof... I mean, uh... They sound like a good person...I think?

  It was the dark of the night when I’d knocked on the back door of a certain merchant’s house.

  “...Who is it?” a woman’s voice answered in response.

  “A thief, put ’em up! No, but seriously, it’s the pharmacist.”

  “...Ah... Please, come inside.”

  It’d be impossible for an amateur like me to try sneaking my way into a big-name merchant’s house, so I made sure they knew I was coming. That said, all I did was give some spare change to some random kid to deliver a letter to them beforehand. There was pretty much nothing more suspicious than that.

  But the doting parents of their sick daughter were grasping at straws looking for solutions, and I was supposed to be coming alone. Even if they were on high alert and had a guard or someone here, I figured they’d at least let me inside. If they knew their visitor was a child, I thought that’d make them a little less on guard...or it could have made them even more suspicious.