‘What’s the meaning of this?!’, my body was still tattered as before as if it didn’t even heal at all.

After the battle (could you really call it a battle?) against the King of Dawnwell, my body had its arms and legs missing. I thought that those days I was asleep must’ve healed me, but nothing had changed.

It was probably because of the Skill ‘Fast Healing’, ‘healing’ isn’t the same thing as ‘regeneration’. The skill probably only heals shallow wounds not missing limbs.

‘Damn it.’, I re-materialized my soul and looked up at the ceiling. I was lying on my bed, I felt tired my body was heavy.  I’m pretty sure I’ll only sleep the time needed not two weeks again…

Tomorrow I would be meeting the alchemist in her workshop and I would be dining with Gray and his party, I needed to get at the very least enough rest to get through tomorrow.

‘I can’t believe myself, the very fact that I go sooner to bed because I’m worried about my lack of sleep’, I thought as I felt my consciousness slowly drifting away again, and falling into slumber.

‘Okay now this it the time where some sort of cliché will happen again, won’t it?’, I still had my eyes shut without moving a single inch.

I opened my eyes to see no one inside the room other than myself, I was sort of surprised when thinking about my circumstances up until now.

I rose up from my bed and put on my clothes, now that I think about it… I only have my adventurer equipment and that robe I received from the previous inn.

I went down stairs and entered the lobby, I found Athena, Willow and Azure at a table eating breakfast.

“Good morning, Master.”, Athena greeted me. “Good morning. Where’s Alice?”, I asked about the missing presence.

“She is still asleep in her room, I think she’ll wake up soon though.”, Athena told me.

I sat down on the chair close to the table and sighed. “So what are ya goin’ to do today?”, Willow asked taking a bite from his bread. “I’m going to meet up with an Alchemist this evening to receive the rest of my rewards, and I’m going to have dinner with a party I joined up temporarily.”,

“A lot happened in one day, huh.”, Willow said eating some sort of sweet. ‘Wait is that a…’, I looked towards the sweet he was eating.

“That’s an Éclair!”, I recognized the pastry from my world, I remembered eating it every weekend. “If ya want some you can order the barmaid to bring it to ya.”, Willow noticed my gaze towards the food.

‘Do ya even need to eat?’, Willow thought but brushed it aside.

I ordered the same thing as Willow, Athena did the same thing as if she were imitating me. “You don’t mind if I…”

“No, I don’t mind if you order.”, I told her. “Hey Master, look at what I can do!”, Azure extended our her hand and a small ball of wind manifested itself within their palms.

‘What the hell? What was she doing while I was out?’, I wondered. Did she learn it from someone? No, Athena only knows ‘Fire Attribute Magic’, and Alice knows ‘Life Attribute Magic’. Until the only answer would be Willow, but I never asked him what his skills were.

“Hey don’t look at me like that, I’m as surprised as you are. I can only do ‘Fire Attribute Magic’.”, Willow said. “Master isn’t it amazing! Come on praise me!”, Azure acted like an absolute child asking me to praise her.

“Yes you did great, by the way where did you learn it from?”, I praised her and raised up a question. “I learned it all by myself!”,

‘Bullshit.’, I thought when my food finally arrived together with Athenas. “Uwah! I can’t believe how much I missed this!”, I ate half of the whole pastry in one bite, I could feel the cream spreading inside my mouth.

Athena seemed to enjoy it as well, her eyes were mesmerizing by the taste of the delicious food. “Actually, what did you two do yesterday?”, I asked Willow and Azure.

“I went to visit an old friend of mine, I can’t believe he hasn’t kicked the bucket yet, haha!”, Willow answered with a nostalgic look. “I was looking after Athena.”, Azure responded.

“It seems I was the last one to wake up.”, Alice who came from upstairs said. “Hey, you, you’re finally awake.”, I made a reference to a game I had played in the past.

Alice sat down on a chair and ordered some food. “I extended it for one week like you asked me to.”, she told me about the request I made.

“Thank you.”, I thanked her.

We continued eating like nothing had happened, when suddenly Alice spoke out. “I would like to ask this…”, she spoke and everyone at the tables attention was drawn towards her.

“Do all of you only have ‘those’ clothes?”, she asked. “It seems someone finally pointed it out.”, I said.

The only clothes I had were my equipment and my robe I had received from an Inn, the same thing went to Athena. “How can any of you live like that? You can’t just use the same thing everyday!”, Alice was outright angry.

“Even you Athena, what happened to the girl who liked trying out dresses in our Weekends?”, Alice looked towards Athena and she averted her look. “I don’t particularly mind it…”, Athena whispered in a low voice.

“And you! That white dress of yours is good enough for everyday, but you need more clothes you can’t always wear the same thing, eventually it’ll get dirty and it won’t smell well!”, Alice pointed towards Azure. “But I like this dress it was made by Master!”,

“… it was made by him?...”, she said in a small voice so that I couldn’t hear it. “And Shiro, please get at the very least more clothes. You can’t just wear adventurer equipment everywhere you go!”,

I continued eating like she had said nothing, even though I was listening. “And you… actually you’re alright.”, she said that to Willow and he made a small victory sign with his fingers, he had lots of clothes to begin with he’s a smith he was bound to get dirty.

“Okay that’s it! Athena and Azure you’re coming with me. Shiro you go get clothes on your own, I’ll be using the money you gave me, is that okay?”, she asked.

“Yeah, you can use it.”, I allowed her. If she was only using it for essential stuff like clothes I could allow it, I’m going to be making my own clothes instead of buying them though.

And I’m not sure it would be a good idea for me to make clothes for them. (especially since they’re girls)

“Heh~, but I want to go with master this time, you got him for a whole day!”, Azure protested like a child and Athena twitched at her sentence. “I cannot let this slide anymore.”, Alice made an argument and left together with Azure and Athena following them behind.

“I’ll see you later master.”, Athena said leaving and I made a hand gesture signaling my regards.

I sighed and stood up from my chair. “I should be making my leave then. What are you going to do?”, I asked Willow and he said. “I’ll be exploring the town for a bit, I haven’t been here in years.”,

And so I made my way to the Alchemist home.

“Welcome to my workshop and home at the same time!”, the alchemist gave me a warm welcome to her workshop.

There were several books and flasks all over the place, it was messy so to say even my room would be more organized especially my anime figurines.

The alchemist sat down on a extremely elegant chair and said. “Now, your reward can be whatever you want it to be as long as it is within my capabilities, you can ask for information, potions, special items and or books that I have in my possession.”

“But before that’d, here’s something I wanted to give you in the beginning.”, the alchemist threw a bottle filled with glowing liquid. “What’s this?”, I asked inspecting the bottle.

“That’s a potion made with the flowers you picked up for me.”, she responded as she took out a second one. “I was able to make at the very least twelve of these. A noble requested me to make a potion and this was the result.”

“What does it do?”, I asked curiously. “Hmph! Glad you asked.”, she plucked out one of the flowers in her pots. “This one flower can have many effects depending on how you brew it, it is mainly used for making healing potions. However, it can also be used for making poison.”,

The alchemist pointed towards my potion. “I gave you a healing potion, as a healing potion what it can do is cure any disease and heal heavy wounds. But it can’t regenerate lost limbs… for humans that is.”

‘This potion is amazing!’, I thought in awe but there was something odd about her explanation. “What do you mean by ‘for humans’?”

The alchemist grinned. “As you know there are different races in this world, and due to their different yet similar physique the potion can induce different effects. Oh, but don’t worry this potion works the same for every humanoid being like elves and dwarves.”

“But let’s just say you give this potion to a monster, for example a wyvern or a dragon. What do you think’ll happen?”, she asked me. “Hmm, the potion will probably do more damage than good?”

“Meh! The potion won’t work, it’ll be just like drinking water.”, she said crossing her arms in an x. “The reason is because their body’s digest things differently, it’s like how the skill ‘Poison Resistance’ works. The poison will feel more like water though a little bit bitter.”

“Ooh. Interesting.”, I awed in amazement to her knowledge. “That’s why the effects depending on what race may work differently, maybe that potion heals limbs but not from the human race!”,

“One more thing, I told you that this flower can also be turned into a poison.”, the alchemist made a mischievous smile. “As a poison, it would probably increase the heat of your blood to the point where it vaporizes.”

“Okay, now I’m very reluctant to take this potion.”, I told her. “No, no! Don’t worry, I sell my products with one hundred percent proof that it won’t harm my customers or at the very least depending on what my customer wants.”

“Anyway, you are free to take that as a present. If there’s anything else that I can offer you within my jurisdiction, then I’ll give it to you gladly.”, the alchemist said turning around to her desk. “Look around and tell me if there’s something you want, though I think I can’t offer you money.”

I took her word and started looking around her workshop, I was looking through some boxes filled with books. I ventured even further into the workshop, and found something questionable.

“Hey, why is there a bra here?”, I asked her and she simply continued her works but responded. “Oh, that? I forgot I had put it there, if you want it you can take it.”

‘Why the hell would I take these with me?’, I threw them away and simply came back to the Alchemist. “There’s something else I would like instead.”, I told her.

“N-no way… you wouldn’t want m-my body?”, she said in a shy voice even though I could tell she was joking. “No way, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Haha! I was just kidding anyway, though your reply did hurt a little.”, the alchemist left her work and readjusted her glasses. “So what is it you wanted to ask me?”

“Do you know… where I can get slaves?”, I mustered my strength and said in my usual emotionless voice. I couldn’t tell what the alchemists reaction was due to the glasses covering her eyes.

“Hmm, from what I can tell I’m probably the only person whom you could ask for that information. Now may I ask as to why you need slaves?”, the alchemist spoke, now I could tell that behind her glasses she had a sharp gaze towards me.

“Someone important to a friend of mine got sold as a slave. And I would like to find them.”, I told her the truth. And she smiled. “I can tell you’re telling the truth, I’ll tell you what I know.”

“There are two types of slave businesses going on in Zeltram, one of them is the legal one and the other is illegal.”, she explained. “The legal one is run by the kingdom, it’s pretty much like a penalty for thieves or people who have broken the laws.”

“The illegal one is where people illegally sell slaves, like innocent people who did nothing wrong get sold as slaves.”, she took out a map from her drawer and placed it on a table. “If you’re telling me they were sold then that means it was an illegal trade, I only know a couple of locations as to where your friend could possibly be.”

I looked closely at the map, the alchemist started drawing circles and crosses on different locations. “The places I marked with a circle are places where I know there are slave businesses and the crosses are places where it would definitely not be.”

“Why didn’t you mark the places where it ‘could’ be?”, I asked her. “You’re better off marking off the places where it could not be, believe me it helps a lot.”

I looked over the locations marked, there were in total of three circles and eight crosses. “Could you tell me when they’re we’re sold and from where? That would help narrowing the possibilities.”, she said.

“They’ve been sold for about almost one month and from Dawnwell.”, I told her what I knew. “Hmm…”, the alchemist started marking off even more places until there was only one circle left and barely any towns available for search.

“This is the town you should go to, it is within the lines of authority of the kingdom and the church has barely any influence over there.”, the alchemist marked the location on a different sheet of paper and gave it to me.

“How do you know all this?”, I asked her and she smiled. “As someone who has sold a lot of products, I have received tons of information from different types of customers.”, she told me.

“Also, don’t worry, whatever we spoke about today only happened in here and it’ll never reach other people’s ears.”, she reassured me as she returned to her work. "But are you sure that is all you want?"

"Yeah that is all, thank you very much, uh…”, I wanted to thank her by her name but I didn’t know it.

“Haha! You still don’t know my name, huh?”, the alchemist turned around one last time.

“My name is Helena, pleasure you meet you.”

YeetusFeetus

Finally finished uploading this chapter, hope y'all enjoy it. The reaso- I think all of you already know. the event is finally here (F/Go) I can already smell Altiria in the palm of my hands!

Also, another question (why do I keep on asking questions) do all of you enjoy the lengths of my chapters, or would you like them to be longer?