I Shall Survive Using Potions! Volume 1 Page 4

  It was a little bit after the sun had set (there appeared to only be one in this world) that I finally made it into town. It was just before it was completely dark outside, so I’d say I was cutting it pretty close. There were no walls surrounding the town, which meant there were no gatekeepers here either. It seemed like people could come and go as they pleased.

  It wasn’t like it was the royal capital or a huge bustling city or anything. It was just a small rural town that didn’t hold any strategic value whatsoever. I’d bet there weren’t really any benefits for using all the money you’d need to build the walls surrounding the town, the costs to maintain it, paying the people necessary to staff it, and just the general inconvenience of it all. I’d be in a bit of a rut if you needed some sort of ID to get in and out of town, so I was thankful about that.

  I went ahead and made four healing potions before I headed into town: three blue ones and a single yellow one. I wanted to make more than that, but I was empty-handed at the moment. I didn’t even have a bag to carry my stuff in. I might get myself into trouble if I suddenly used my Item Box without knowing what did and didn’t fly in this world, and I would look like a total weirdo if I just carried it in my hands.

  I ended up shoving two potions in each of the chest pockets on my clothes. I arranged them by color according to a game I had played a long time ago. There were three types of healing potions: blue, yellow, and red, with each one more potent (and valuable) than the last. Since it was so easy to tell them apart at a glance, I decided to adopt those colors for my own labeling system as well. The blue ones were just your run-of-the-mill potions that could heal your everyday external wounds like gashes, bruises; that sort of thing. Yellow was your intermediate potions, and fixed up things like internal damage and broken bones in addition to the other wounds the blue could. Finally, you had your red potions, which were powerful enough to bring you back from the brink of death, but you’d want to wait and see if the situation could be solved by taking a blue or yellow potion first. My policy would be to at least wait a day before deciding to use a red potion.

  I’d make my goal for today to get enough money for dinner and a place to sleep, so there was no reason for me to take any risks while I still didn’t know up from down in this world.

  I headed along the main road until I found an inn so I could check out their rates. A night at the inn with dinner and breakfast cost four silver coins. I guessed a silver coin was something like 1,000 yen then? If that was the case, then I guessed my blue potions were worth one coin, and my yellow one about five? Well, I should be fine for tonight so long as I couldn scrounge up about five coins.

  After, I decided to head to the Hunter’s Guild right away after asking a nearby hunter where it was.

  Welp, I’d say the building in front of me definitely seemed like the Hunter’s Guild.

  There was a mark on the front with a sword and a spear clashing with each other, and the sign on the front said “Hunter’s Guild.” All right, I can actually read it! The place had swinging doors that looked like they were right out of a Western flick. I didn’t know if it was because it was nighttime or what, but those swinging doors were the only things being kept open, while the normal doors were shut tight. I bet it was the opposite during the day—so long as it wasn’t winter, or if the weather was bad or something.

  Hrm... It was kinda hard to get myself to go inside... But if I didn’t go in there, then I could say goodbye to having dinner and a place to sleep tonight...

  I steeled myself and finally made my way through the door. I shouted out, “Anyone here!” in my mind...but in reality, I slipped in through the barely ajar doors without saying a word. Life was cruel however, and the bell hanging above the door made the loudest jangling sound you could imagine as I snuck inside, causing everyone in the room to stare directly at the entrance to the guild—and at me.

  It looked like working hours were over for most of the receptionists here since most of the counters were completely devoid of people. Only one of the them was still open... I wondered if that was the nighttime service counter or something, but no one was lined up there.

  In stark contrast with this side, the area just behind the counters was roaring with activity. There were tons of tables all lined up over there, with people who were probably hunters stuffing their faces and downing all kinds of alcohol as they chatted away with each other. It looked like there was some sort of counter way in the back providing food and drinks for everyone. Yeah, these kinds of places always seemed to be set up like this.

  Wait, shouldn’t this be the part where someone says, “Hey, this ain’t no place for a kid,” or something? Or maybe, “Hey there, little missy, how’s about pouring us another glass of the good stuff?” You know, something like that...

  Huh? Were they ignoring me? I mean, it wasn’t like I wanted to get involved or anything... It was just, I had my pride as a woman. And I felt like that pride was slowly being chipped away... No, it was nothing! I was just going to head over to that counter now like a good girl!

  And so here I was. I’d made it to the nighttime counter.

  The receptionist here looked pretty intense, and she gave off a harsh vibe... But I bet she didn’t want to hear that from me, especially when people always told me that I was the one who always had a harsh look in her eyes. There were no other counters open right now, so it looked like I had to take my chances with the scary lady.

  “Um, excuse me...”

  She’s totally glaring at me! But still, I couldn’t back down now. My dinner and my place to stay were both riding on this. All those potions I drank earlier were sloshing around in my stomach right now, but I wanted some actual, solid food, dang it! Oh, and a soft bed as well of course.

  “Erm... Is it possible for me to sell potions here?”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Eep!

  “What are potions? Some type of medicine? Go to the apothecary if that’s what you have. Why would you even bring them to the Hunter’s Guild? Are you stupid or something?”

  Shot down...

  Right, so this wasn’t the right place to sell potions... Then that meant I had to at least try and move on to the next step!

  “I’m sorry, this is my first time leaving my hometown in the sticks, so I don’t really know anything... If I don’t sell these, I won’t be able to eat or find a place to stay tonight. Where could I find the apothecary and the doctor?”

  “Yeah, fat chance either of them would be open right now. Besides, the doctor is out of town for a while since he’s off to a nearby village, and the apothecary went to a neighboring town to see a couple that just got married. Seems like they had a kid or something or other. I’d say they’ll probably both be back sometime tomorrow or the next day though.”

  Ahhhhhh... It’s all over...

  I slumped down to the floor, my dreams of hot food and a warm bed fading into nothingness. Why didn’t Celes have any money ready for me before she set me loose here?!

  ...The answer was simple of course: because she was Celes.

  Damn it, damn it, damn iiiiiit! My tears were completely blurring my vision at this point.

  Thankfully for me, it looked like the sharp-eyed receptionist had a heart of gold after all. After watching my miserable breakdown, she took pity on me and came to my rescue.

  “All right, guess there’s no way around it... I’m in charge of the place till morning, so I’ll use my authority to help you out a little. I’ll say it now, but this is only for tonight, got it? There’s no ‘next time’ for this, even for the days I’m on duty again!”

  “Y-Yes, I got it! Thank you very much!”

  A drowning woman would take any lifeline she could get, and it was safe to say I was pretty desperate right now.

  “Then first off, I’ll let you borrow one of the folding beds we use for employees who need some emergency shut-eye. I can’t actually let you into the staff-only area or anything like that, so you’ll have to make do
with one of the corners around here. If you come crying to me about how the floorboards are too hard or if your blanket is too thin or something, I’m tossing you back out on the streets!”

  “U-Understood!”

  “Next up is food. I don’t plan on giving you any kind of money, so you’ll have to do something about that on your own. I’ll be nice and give you permission to work here for the night, so go earn your dinner money by selling your potions or whatever to those hunters back there. You could also run errands, rub their shoulders, or pour them drinks or something. That could also be a good way to get them to share some of their food with you... However!” The receptionist slammed a hand on the counter for emphasis. “HOWEVER! No selling your body, got that?! If you do, I’ll beat you AND the guy who paid for you half to death before kicking you out, so make sure that sits tight in that pretty little head of yours!”

  She glared even harder at me with those piercing eyes of hers. Even though I was able to pull off being pretty firm with God and Celes, I wasn’t about to push my luck with the receptionist from hell here. I bowed over and over to express my gratitude before scurrying off to the dining hall packed with tipsy patrons. If the doctor and apothecary were out of town, then I should have plenty of chances to peddle my potions to everyone.

  The receptionist’s shouts rang throughout the dining hall, clearly audible for everyone to hear. Despite the harsh look in her eyes, the hunters were all totally on board for doing anything they could to help the cute young girl with her plight. Not to mention they were all pretty used to women with harsh expressions thanks to the receptionist, Gilda.

  Kaoru looked to be about fifteen years old...but that was only if she was still in Japan. To the people from the land of the rising sun, Westerners who were twelve or thirteen looked like high schoolers, or even college students if they were unlucky enough. The opposite was also true of course. There were plenty of cases where Westerners would mistake fully grown Japanese women for children. To this day, the fact they would be given all sorts of candy and treats when traveling abroad never ceased to baffle these women.

  In this world, people looked at Kaoru like she was around twelve years old at best—the sharp-eyed receptionist included. If she actually did look to be fifteen or older, there was a chance everyone here wouldn’t have been this nice to her. It was possible they could have told her to put up an empty stomach for a night and just sleep outside since she was an adult. No matter what world you ended up in, it seemed like children and all the beautiful people were still the only ones to get special treatment.

  “Would anyone care for a potion? The blue potions can heal any type of cut or wound, and they only cost one silver coin! The yellow one can cure everything from broken bones to internal damage, all for the low price of five silver coins!”

  That was the sales pitch Kaoru tried going with, but all she got from the hunters she was trying to help were bitter smiles. A single silver coin could buy about three or four mugs of ale, and all it would take was another silver coin to get you a decent amount of food and other snacks. No matter how much they wanted to help her, they weren’t about to cough up a silver coin for medicine a kid probably made out of weeds or something. They might have been able to at least laugh it off and call it some type of diet supplement if she made it cheaper, but that would only be if it was for a few copper coins. They would’ve sprung for a small silver coin at most.

  Kaoru was beginning to panic once she realized the potions she was so proud of probably weren’t going to sell.

  Why can’t I sell these? There seems to be plenty of injured hunters here from what I can see.

  Were they planning on having their friends heal them up with magic later? Maybe they had to rely on potions when they were on the job and didn’t have a healer in their party, but they could get healed on the cheap from another party’s healer when they were back in town. It was true you probably didn’t need to worry about MP once you were back, and they may be able to get fixed up for the same price it would cost to treat them to a drink or something...

  Crap, I made my prices too high! But, wait... They should need potions for when they’re out there on the job too. I could be making all sorts of trouble for myself if I make them too cheap... What should I do?!

  A tough, middle-aged hunter called out to Kaoru as she agonized over her next move.

  “Hey, little missy, think you could rub my right leg for me? I think I might’ve been a bit too rough with it today since it feels like it could cramp up any second. Man that’d hurt like hell if it did. How about we make your payment these two sausages here?”

  “One leg rub, coming right up!”

  Kaoru happily bounded over to the man out of sheer joy. She’d always given her mom and dad massages for tips, so she was fairly confident in her skills. The hunter was just about the same age as her dad as well, so she didn’t shy away from doing it at all. It was almost the exact same feeling as when she would do it to her dad. Besides, who could say if the man really was feeling like he would cramp up, or if he simply made it up as an excuse to give Kaoru something to eat? No matter the reason, the hunter’s eyes were half-closed in pure bliss as Kaoru put her all into massaging his leg, which was around the time the other hunters started getting rowdy as they saw that.

  “Do me next! My shoulders need a good rubbin’, and I’ll give ya two of these chicken skewers for it.”

  “I’ve got a quarter of a boar steak for ya if ya can gimme a back massage!”

  “It’s all gonna get stuck in her throat if you lot just keep giving her food! Here, I’ve got a mug of grape juice for you! That’s way more valuable than these scraps they keep trying to give you!”

  “Damn... Then, I’ve got fruit! Go ahead and ask me for anything you want! Oh, but peaches’re out of the question. Those things are way too expensive!”

  “Oh, come on, you lazy bum! It’s the hunter’s spirit to act tough. Man up, and get the girl a peach, dammit!”

  “B-But...”

  The fierce-looking receptionist took a look back at the dining hall, somewhat raising her eyebrows. It even looked like the corners of her mouth were pulled up ever so slightly. Perhaps you could call that a smile on her part, though there were very few hunters who’d believe that theory. That went especially for those who knew just what type of personality she had.

  After a short while of Kaoru being fed by the hunters, she finally managed to say, “Please, no more food! I’m stuffed, so I’ll take copper coins if you can spare them!” to which the hunters gladly obliged.

  Suddenly, the doors to the guild were flung wide open. It happened a little while after Kaoru had eaten her fill and was starting to get paid in copper coins.

  A female hunter who looked to be in her mid-twenties came bursting in the guild, shouting, “Someone show me where a doctor is, I’ve got someone seriously wounded here! Tell them to get their clinic open!”

  Just a second later, a man around his early thirties with a well-defined physique rushed in carrying another blood-soaked man on his back. They were followed by an archer who looked like he had just turned twenty, who was carrying a sword and some armor which probably belonged to the injured man.

  “He got done in by a graybear!” the man shouted as he carried his wounded comrade. “Please, we have to hurry!”

  The receptionist came running out from behind the counter, her usual intimidating demeanor replaced by a more serious expression on her face. Facing the four who just came in, she told them the one thing they didn’t want to hear:

  “Doctor’s gone to one of the nearby settlements and won’t return for some time. The apothecary’s also left for a neighboring town. I dunno if they’ll return by tomorrow, or sometime later than that. All the hunters here are familiar with emergency first-aid techniques, so our only hope is to cooperate with ’em while using any medicinal herbs you may have on hand...”

  Expressions of despair clouded the party members’ faces. Anyone here could tell it was o
bvious these weren’t the type of wounds that could be handled by amateurs. They laid the injured man down on a blanket spread out on one of the tables, standing around in a daze.

  “What are you all doing?!” Kaoru shouted. “We need to hurry up and cast a healing spell on him! With this many hunters, there should be at least one or two healers around, right?! Also, you should also be giving them your high-grade potions, a person’s life is on the line here! You can just get them to pay you back afterward! Why are you all just standing around?! C’mon, guys!”

  The hunters continued standing where they were, blank expressions on their faces, as if they couldn’t comprehend what Kaoru was yelling about in her sudden outburst.

  “Forget it, just get out of the way! I’ll do it!”

  She pushed aside the people standing in her path to make it to the table where the injured man laid. His armor was already off, so she went ahead and swiped a knife from the middle-aged man who carried him in to begin cutting away the parts of his clothes near his injuries. His wounds were now out in the open, blood still pouring from the gashes.

  “H-Hey...”

  Kaoru ignored the flustered man. She didn’t have time to deal with him now.

  “Somebody bring me the strongest alcohol you’ve got, bottle and all! Hurry!”

  With dumbfounded responses, a few of the hunters ran off to the food and drink counter and brought back many bottles of booze with them. Kaoru used her teeth to pull out the corks before dousing the man’s wounds with the contents of the bottles. The injured man had been unconscious up till now, but as soon as the alcohol touched him, his back arched as he began screaming bloody murder.