The mice in this world weren’t easy to deal with. For a mother and daughter, they were downright terrifying. But Xilika didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of her child. She felt that a parent ought to be able to endure things like this, and Tori’s father wasn’t around to help. So even though she was scared enough of mice to want to cry, she and Tori still managed to catch the two mice in their house.

At that moment, the two mice were tied to a wooden board.

“See, Mom? They’re not that scary after all! I’m just not strong enough yet. Otherwise, I could’ve caught them all by myself.” Tori tried to reassure her mother.

“Besides, these two mice must’ve stolen and eaten a lot of our red peppers, right? Look, their tails are a little red. I heard that a mouse’s magical traits are concentrated in its tail. If they steal and eat a few more years’ worth, they might turn into fire mice!”

Xilika had no idea what kind of creature a fire mouse was. Right now, she was starting to wonder if Tori was really her child. But she’d given birth to her herself. Could someone have switched her baby back then? But Xilika had chestnut-brown hair, and so did Tori. In the sunlight, Xilika’s hair took on a faint golden sheen, and Tori’s was exactly the same. How could she be so brave?

Had she inherited it from her father? But she wasn’t a boy…

Seeing that her mother seemed to have calmed down, Tori breathed a sigh of relief. It wouldn’t do to scare her mother half to death. Two mice certainly weren’t enough for testing medicines, but she could start with these and see how it went.

“Mom, watch me avenge you!”

She tried crushing the poisonous stuff she’d gathered, soaking it, then collecting the liquid. She had her mother use two sticks to pry open the mouse’s mouth, then scooped up a spoonful of the liquid and fed it to the mouse.

About ten minutes later, the mouse began to struggle. Another ten minutes passed, and it stopped moving. Even when Tori chopped off one of its feet with a knife, it didn’t twitch. That probably meant it was really dead.

Tori gave a cold laugh. “As expected of me! I killed a mouse so easily, without leaving a trace!” She immediately dropped what she was doing and started flipping through the village chief’s notes.

“Mom, keep an eye on the other one for me. Don’t let it get away!”

Xilika looked at the other mouse, tied to the wooden board. It seemed to have witnessed its companion’s tragic end. Its whole body was trembling, and on closer inspection, it was kind of pitiful.

“Oh, no! Poison orchids won’t work. Their poison will contaminate the soil, and nothing else can grow in land where they’ve been planted for a long time. The Witch Church would have to come and cleanse the poison.”

“The Witch Church? Never mind, that’s not important. Let’s see what I can use instead of poison orchids!”

Before half an hour had passed, the other little mouse had swallowed the poisonous liquid. It was luckier: the poison wasn’t as strong, and it didn’t die.

“Tsk! The leaves of the yellow fruit aren’t poisonous enough? I heard eating this stuff could at most give you diarrhea…”

Tori decisively stabbed the mouse. “Can’t be helped. A mouse that’s already eaten poison is no good for a control group!”

Xilika watched her daughter wield the knife without hesitation, and remembered how she’d chopped off the mouse’s leg just as casually to check if it was dead…

She couldn’t help wondering again.

Was this really her daughter?

If Tori knew what her mother was thinking, she’d probably answer, “Maybe not.”

…

Tori had found a new way to make money. She decided to help people in the village catch mice, charging just five copper coins per mouse. Mice were a real nuisance even for adults, so she’d take care of them.

In reality, she was doing it for her experiments.

Of course, it wasn’t easy. Luckily, Tori had gained some experience. And when it came to catching mice, she didn’t necessarily have to catch them with her own hands.

She used the cheese method. She spent ten copper coins on a small piece of cheese from the baker, then used it to lure the mice into a trap based on one people in her old world used to catch birds.

But the mice in this world were strong. Her method could fail.

Tori made sure to prepare a pair of cloth gloves first, just in case something went wrong while she was catching mice.

She kept this up for a full half-month!

“What’s Tori been up to lately? Hasn’t she been studying?” the village chief asked Xilika one day when he ran into her.

The smile on Xilika’s face turned a little strained. “Lately, she’s been experimenting with the things in your notes. She said she wanted to try them on mice first instead of using them directly. You really are the wiser one, Chief. If it were us, we wouldn’t know what to test them on. She’s practically a mouse-catching expert now.”

“…Well, a mouse’s body is different from a human’s, after all. Making a Potion isn’t that easy. But—I have high hopes for this child.” The village chief smiled. “Not many children her age are as eager to learn as she is. And she’s got the drive to put what she learns into practice. She won’t lead an ordinary life.”

Xilika brightened at that. Who wouldn’t love hearing someone praise their child?

“Mm! I believe it too! She’s our pride and joy!”

Meanwhile, the Tori they were talking about had bloodshot eyes as she stared intently at the mouse tied to the wooden board in front of her. It squeaked, as though it could already see its own miserable fate coming.

“Radet vine is poisonous. Anyone pricked by it gets redness and swelling and things like that. The spot where it pricked them probably only gets a tiny amount of poison, so… mix a Radet vine solution with a little poison orchid solution, then knead it together with wood ash to make a pill…”

The girl used a pair of chopsticks she’d made herself to pick up a tiny pill, small enough not to choke the mouse. She stuffed it into the mouse’s mouth, then poured in some water.

Once she was sure the mouse had swallowed the pill, she waited for its reaction.

Five minutes later, the mouse began to convulse. After ten minutes, its reactions had weakened. At twenty minutes, foam appeared at its mouth. Half an hour later, it was confirmed dead.

Great! This was it!

As for how to get the mice to eat it? That was easy. Just put it in some leftovers. If that didn’t work, mix in a little moon grass. The faint magical attraction was more than enough to draw mice in.

This couldn’t really be called a Potion, but it would definitely work on mice. The next question was whether it would kill a person who ate it.

Someone might accidentally eat it, after all.

Come to think of it, she’d been earning quite a bit lately. Killing mice was pretty profitable: in half a month, she’d made over 300 copper coins by killing more than 60 mice.

She was practically wiping out the village’s mice. The mice must’ve decided among themselves that this place was too dangerous. Someone had apparently seen them fleeing toward other villages.

That was the thing about a world with magic: living creatures could evolve further. So the mice were smarter than the ones in her old world too. They actually knew to run away…

But it didn’t matter. She hadn’t planned to sell it in her own village anyway.

So she started making another kind of little pouch, each one holding five of these pills.

To use them, you just crushed a pill, put it in some leftovers, and waited for the mice to eat it. If she could’ve found a material that wouldn’t spill, she would’ve preferred to sell the powder directly.

As for whether a person would die from eating it—if a mouse could hold on for half an hour, then a person should survive as long as they got their stomach pumped and made to vomit in time. And if all else failed, there were detox Potions and things like that. It’d just take a little longer…

It was a bit irresponsible to think that way, but Tori didn’t see a problem with it. This was a world with magic, after all!

Besides, rat poison wasn’t exactly some patented invention. Anyone could make it if they put in a little effort, so she probably wouldn’t be able to make money from it for long. And selling it herself wasn’t very practical. Her mother wasn’t very practical for the job either. So how was she supposed to sell it? Especially in other villages.

She was stuck on the problem of how to find customers.

At the end of the day, she was just too young.

Maybe the person she could rely on now was…

“Mom, I want to go to town. Will you come with me?”

“Go to town?” Xilika looked surprised. “Is there something you want to buy?”

Tori shook her head. “I just miss Dad!”

Xilika paused, then gently stroked Tori’s head. “That’s true. It’s been a long time since you saw your father, hasn’t it, Tori? All right. I’ll take you tomorrow.”

Well, that wasn’t really true. She did want to meet this world’s father of hers, but how should she put it? Her main priority was figuring out how to sell her rat poison.

She could also look around town for other business opportunities. In the village, there were few things people needed cash for. It was only because of the old village chief that everyone wanted to save up and send their children to the Magic Academy, so there was enough cash around. In some more remote villages, she’d heard that the village chief kept everyone’s money safe. Most villagers traded goods and services instead: “Make this for me, and I’ll work for you.” That sort of trade was common. Whenever they needed something they didn’t have, they’d tell the village chief, who would make a trip to town or somewhere similar to buy it for everyone.

That was what you got when commerce wasn’t developed enough!

Only when everyone had cash would there be chances to sell things and make money. Tori found the whole situation deeply frustrating, but it wasn’t a problem she could solve just yet.

In the middle of the night, she lay in bed gazing at the round moon. Even in a different world, it was still round. It was blue, but that didn’t stop Tori from letting her imagination wander.

She felt like she might be a heartless person. How long had she been in this world? A month?

She could barely remember the people from her old world anymore. What did her wife look like? She remembered her always frowning. And her son? Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen him for half a year before she died. And now, after transmigrating, her father in this world was a construction worker too. The industry really did cover a lot of ground.

She placed a hand on her chest. A girl this age obviously hadn’t developed yet.

She actually felt a little nervous! Her mind was restless. In fact, she was staring at the moon because she still couldn’t get into a meditative state.

She was well into her thirties. Couldn’t she be a little more composed? She was just going to town to see the sights. What was there to be nervous about? Selling the rat poison was what mattered!

She steeled her resolve and tried to meditate again.

And so the night passed.