The setting sun slanted through the room, lighting the side of the girl’s face. “So, what exactly is this recipe of yours?”

Tori held the recipe and questioned Ethan.

The recipe read: Minor Meditation Potion: an appropriate amount of moon grass essence, two ice mint leaves, soak in water for an appropriate length of time before use, and an appropriate amount of bone worm powder. Keep at room temperature while preparing, stir slowly, and gently agitate the magic using the flushing method. Dilute the finished potion with an appropriate amount of water before drinking. The liquid should be pale blue.

It’s all “an appropriate amount”!!! The only thing it actually specifies is two ice mint leaves—and how big are these leaves, anyway?

“You can’t blame me for this. It’s a Potion Maker’s job. As Potion Makers put it, ‘If you’re a Potion Maker like me, you can make it just by looking at the recipe. If you know the ingredients but can’t figure out the amounts on your own, you might as well quit the trade.’ Potion Makers say that all the time. I guess it’s because you can distinguish the elements from the magic, so you should be able to figure out the amounts as you mix everything together.”

Tori was in despair.

“By the way, this flushing method is…”

“I don’t know. We don’t learn that.”

This recipe was certainly important, but it was far too vague. And what was moon grass essence, anyway? A cosmetic product!? She couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Ethan seemed a little embarrassed too. “Maybe you can go back and study it some more. There’s no rush. Anyway, what’s this thing you brought over?”

“Liquor.”

Tori was still thinking about the recipe. “I brewed it myself. It’s a grain liquor. I heard they brew it this way in other countries, so I gave it a try. You can taste it.”

Ethan gave her a long look, then opened a jug and took a sip.

“Oh! This is distilled liquor. I know it. It feels like it’s burning when you drink it. This is pretty good. You can brew this yourself? And it’s stronger than other liquors, too. It’d sell well.”

Tori puffed out her chest. “Well? You provide the capital, I run the business and sell it, and I give you a share of the profits. How’s that?”

“That’s tempting, but I’d rather buy your brewing process and recipe. What do you think?”

Tori gave a stiff little laugh. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Ethan laughed. “Are you really only eight? I’m starting to think you’re some old mage. I’ll have to investigate the mages who fell eight years ago.”

“Whatever~”

“You really have money on the brain!” Ethan said, though he seemed to be in a good mood. “How about this? I already own some property. You can move into town and run your distillery there. I’ll take thirty percent of the profits and provide the space and lodging. What do you say?”

Tori’s eyes went wide. “Seriously?!”

“Of course. Why would I lie to you? You’ve shown that you have the potential to become a Potion Maker, and you’ve proved your talent. Think of this as an investment. So, I have one condition.”

“...What is it?”

“Once you truly become a Potion Maker, you’ll make all my advanced Potions for me, free of charge. Deal?”

How arrogant!

Tori wanted to say exactly that, but after a moment’s hesitation, she replied, “I think that’ll be fine.”

Ethan laughed. Seeing Tori looking like she wanted to say something but didn’t dare, he couldn’t help patting her on the head. “Maybe you should have a little more faith in me. I may have been driven out to this town, but that doesn’t mean my story ends here. I still have plenty to do—including making certain people pay, and washing away my humiliation. What do you think?”

I think your plans sound pretty dangerous... Tori was a little annoyed as she brushed Ethan’s hand away. Did he think she liked having her head patted or something?!

“If you pat my head too much, I won’t grow any taller!”

She voiced her displeasure in a girl’s tone, then gathered up her things. “You can have all this liquor! I’m going home to study the recipe.”

“If there’s anything you can’t handle, come to me. I still have some influence in this town.”

Tori left without looking back.

Ethan shook his head with a smile, then picked up the jug and took another drink. Weren’t people usually allowed to drink only when they turned sixteen? Oh, well. He’d been banished to a place like this. Noble etiquette and all that…

…

When Tori got home, she discovered something horrifying: she had only a few silver coins left in her savings. It was frightening. She’d spent quite a bit lately, sure, but how had it come to this…?

So the next day, Tori was out and about once again.

“It’ll be hard to find a place closer by with ice mint. I can buy moon grass from another village, but the ice mint and bone worms…”

Just thinking about bone worms made Tori feel queasy.

They were a kind of worm that grew on corpses. In theory, you couldn’t find them in the village at all. Hunters often took care to deal with their kills and bury them, so bone worms wouldn’t grow. These creatures couldn’t survive without air… Of course, there was air in the soil. It was just a matter of out of sight, out of mind. People found the creatures unpleasant.

Where was she supposed to find bone worms?

A dead rat probably couldn’t support bone worms. There were only a few tiny bones, after all. The worms would eat them all in a couple of days, then die too.

Figuring out how to get bone worms was a real headache. Tori couldn’t exactly go dig up a grave and see if she could find any. She probably could—but even her own mother would beat her to death for it.

Think of another way, Tori. Why did bone worms need bones in the first place? The bones of dead creatures? Maybe they were a kind of microorganism unique to this magical world. They didn’t cause any trouble in a living body because the body cleared them out on its own. But after someone died, they would infect the bones and gradually grow.

Bones… She didn’t necessarily need to find a corpse herself.

But she couldn’t just go buy them in town again, either. Her savings were in dire straits. Yes, her mother was selling liquor—but the income wasn’t great, and Tori had never planned to treat that money as her own savings.

Oil toads.

She thought of the creatures she’d seen by the river in the village.

They were quite powerful—at least, they were powerful for an eight-year-old girl. Their body parts could be sold for money, though processing them was pretty gross. Would these creatures produce bone worms?

To be honest, she didn’t really want to deal with one of those things.

But if it meant making money—

Tori borrowed a bow and arrows from the hunter. Of course, she gave him some liquor in return. After warning her not to aim at people, the hunter let her take them to play with.

At that moment, Tori was crouched halfway down in the grass by the river. She’d already checked that there was nothing else in the bushes, except perhaps a few insects like ants—something she could live with.

Her eyes stayed fixed on the oil toad, about the size of a rabbit, slowly crawling out of the water. She drew the bowstring back, inch by inch. It was hard work, honestly. She didn’t even know if she could hit it.

She loosed an arrow.

Honestly, she was pretty lucky. The arrowhead grazed the oil toad, but it still managed to hurt it—

Usually, a creature like a rabbit would start running as soon as it was attacked. But oil toads were different. They weren’t the sort of creatures that ran away when someone attacked them. Adults usually told children to run as soon as they saw one, because they were highly aggressive. They had practically no natural enemies in the river, and their poison meant that few people dared to go after them. So they weren’t afraid of humans.

The oil toad was visibly furious.

It immediately spotted Tori as she tried to run, then came hopping toward her.

Then it dropped into a pit.

Water alone wouldn’t have bothered an oil toad at all, but the pit was filled with strong liquor. It was the potent liquor Tori had distilled, undiluted and flammable.

Still, she wasn’t going to set it alight. This liquor was lethal to many living things—especially creatures like this one, which could breathe through their skin.

The oil toad flailed in the liquid. Magic seemed to gather around it, then faltered. It struggled desperately, until little by little, it went still.

But Tori didn’t think the oil toad was dead.

Who knew how cunning magical creatures could be? She decided to wait a little longer.

Only after ten minutes did she take out a net and fish the oil toad out. Making this strong liquor herself was a hassle too, but using it to catch oil toads was—well, it was still profitable.

“Tori! That’s so gross!”

Tori had caught two oil toads. At the going price, they’d fetch nearly fifty copper coins. That was worth more than some plants, though it was definitely dangerous. After all, oil toads were poisonous.

A lot of people got hurt trying to catch oil toads.

Xilika couldn’t stand the sight of the two oil toads her daughter tipped out of the net. She stood well back. “Get those things out of here!”

“Mom~ They’re worth a lot. I need to peel off the skin first, then separate the bones. I have to get some bone worms.”

Oil toads were mostly skin. It seemed their hide could be used as an ingredient in some kind of Potion, though Tori wasn’t particularly interested in finding out what.

She asked Xilika to use water magic to form an ice knife, then used it to cut open the oil toad. Fortunately, she was pretty good at handling things like this. Those fish and little mice hadn’t died in vain.

After removing the oil toad’s skin, she breathed a sigh of relief, then started cutting out its organs and separating the flesh from the bones. By the time she’d finished everything, the ice knife had almost melted.

She let out a breath. “All done, Mom. We can have frog meat tonight. The village chief’s notes say this kind of toad is actually edible, as long as you pay attention to cleanliness…”

“No! I’m not eating that! I won’t eat that! Tori~ Let’s have fish instead, okay~?”

“You’ve never heard of frog and fish? We fry some red chili powder in oil, then cook it with the fish and this meat…”

“Tori~~ Just this once, please listen to your mother~”

In the end, Tori didn’t get to eat the frog and fish she wanted.

Of course, she wasn’t sure whether oil toads even counted as frogs. Anyway, the village chief had written that they were edible. How would she know unless she tried?