This time, Ethan had openly and unabashedly declared who he was. His manor would still take a while to finish. But that wasn’t particularly important to him. He’d never been picky about where he lived.

But after officially declaring his identity, he stopped showing his face at the Witch’s House. Of course, he still helped Tori with a few things. But more than anything, he was shouldering the task of restoring Blackwater Town to its former glory.

Had Blackwater Town ever been prosperous in the past?

As it happened, it had. When the town was named Blackwater Town, it was home to an exceptionally powerful Potion Maker. Blackwater potions were highly sought after, though it was the Blackwater Knight who truly became famous. But that was no longer important. What mattered was that the town had been left with a fairly complete system for development from that era.

In other words, whatever you needed, this town had it. It might not be especially developed, but there weren’t any glaring gaps.

Ethan had come with a task: double the town’s tax revenue without changing its tax policy. It was easy to say, but hard to do—and also hard to say, but easy to do.

Raise tax revenue without changing the tax policy?

Then all you could do was expand the town’s industries, right?

More industries meant collecting taxes from more people. Keep the rate the same, and you could still increase the tax base. Investing in Tori was part of the reason, too. Why else would he keep bringing up advanced Potions and Potion series? If Tori could create a Potion series, it would attract a huge number of Mages.

And the taxes on Potions were high.

That was why he’d been so delighted when he discovered Tori. And besides—Tori’s obsession with wealth was, honestly, incredibly valuable to Ethan.

He often wondered if he was being too calculating. After all, Tori was only an eight-year-old girl. And his own ideal was to become a knight, distinguish himself in the service of the royal palace, and prove to everyone that he had what it took—that he had the ability to do it.

Wasn’t this sort of mercenary behavior inappropriate?

But Tori saw things even more clearly than he did. “Let go of your urge to help, and respect other people’s fate”—what kind of saying was that...? He didn’t quite understand it, but the story Tori told him afterward about great good and small good really had given him something to think about.

There was nothing shameful about pursuing profit and accumulating wealth. There were certainly noble people in this world, but making a profit wasn’t something to be ashamed of. It wasn’t as if pursuing profit automatically made you this or that. There was no need to hold yourself to such an impossibly high moral standard. Just as Tori had said, if you wanted to do a small good deed, do it. If you wanted to do something great, then do that, too. But before you acted, you had to think through the consequences instead of waiting until things had happened to complain and point fingers—

“The more I think about it, the more I feel like she’s some ancient mage from history. I just don’t know who. Maybe I should look into it,” Ethan muttered to himself.

Meanwhile, Tori was researching miniature healing potions. The economic prosperity Ethan wanted wasn’t all that difficult for her to achieve. For one thing, if Ethan was willing to invest, she could guarantee that tax revenue would more than double. Compared with people from her old world, people here simply weren’t as sophisticated when it came to financial methods.

For example, she could start enforcing immediate restrictions on home purchases in Dais City—no, never mind. That was too harsh. She didn’t want to turn this world into her old one, too.

She couldn’t afford to take things too far in this world.

She’d heard there were powerful lone operators in this world. If someone found out who was stirring up trouble, they might destroy an entire city with a single spell. What would be the point of playing around with leverage then?

She didn’t really understand just how powerful the Witch’s so-called Ruler of the Demon Realm was, but in a world where one person’s strength could change the course of an era, it was probably best not to court disaster—no matter who you were or what kind of economic game you were playing. If you were dead, none of it mattered.

After thinking it over, she decided to stick to making Potions.

There was something she hadn’t told Ethan: she already had an idea for her own Potion series. But she still lacked the experience to make what she wanted.

She didn’t need overwhelming combat power. The protagonists of all kinds of novels were usually invincible among people at their level, after all. They wore that title proudly.

But she was a Potion Maker, and she had the talent to become one. Which meant that beating someone at the same level in a fight was, realistically, out of reach.

If they were just talking about combat ability, she didn’t think she could beat an ordinary Mage who could cast spells instantly, or an ordinary Mage whose combat ability had been boosted by drinking a Potion.

Even if she drank a Potion herself.

So here was the question: if she already knew she’d have trouble beating other people, did she really need to improve her combat ability? Sometimes choosing the right path mattered more than working hard.

Tori knew exactly what she needed.

She had an advantage, after all!

Why make money? Because making money was a way to increase her combat power! She’d browsed the shops in town and seen things like “small magic scrolls.” Those things were useful! All she had to do was pay up! Become rich... What else was money for, if not to spend? Just tear up a scroll and get it done!

So what if drinking a Potion gave you an innate spell? She could just wear a whole set of gear with innate spells! Again... what was money for? She was sure every Potion Maker thought the same way.

So the only problem was—her affinity with every element.

The Potion she planned to make was an all-purpose Potion, which she’d call the All-Purpose Series. It would have no other use than steadily increasing affinity with every element, so that she could use any kind of magic scroll and wear magical gear of any type at any time. She wouldn’t have to pick and choose just because her affinity with a particular element was too low... That was Tori’s plan.

That way, she could keep making every type of Potion. She guessed that, depending on the nature of the Potions they consumed, perhaps Potion Makers didn’t necessarily make a particular series because they wanted to. Maybe they were limiting themselves, able to make only certain types of advanced Potions. That was definitely taking a narrow path.

For Tori, being all-purpose was the best way to make money. Specializing in one area could certainly make money, but it wouldn’t make the most money. Every company in her previous life, no matter how it got started, eventually became a diversified conglomerate. You couldn’t just stick to one path forever; that made it far too easy for others to hold you by the throat.

If you didn’t have the means, then specializing in one area first and rounding out your strengths later wasn’t a bad option.

But in this world of magic, she might not get the chance to make up for her weaknesses later. Could you wash out a Potion after drinking it? She didn’t know. She’d never heard of such a thing. She still knew far too little, and it was only August. She wished time would speed up and bring next August sooner, so she could start studying at the Magic Academy.

Even though she already knew quite a bit, and could get some knowledge out of Ethan, she still felt the same way: she didn’t want to owe him too much. She told Ethan a few things, too, so she wouldn’t end up owing him too much.

After failing to brew a Potion yet again,

she stood in front of the mirror.

She looked at the girl in the mirror. Brown hair like a country girl’s. Braids like a country girl’s. Clothes like a country girl’s—she was the spitting image of one!

It was enough to make her sad. Her face wasn’t bad, at least, and judging by how her mother looked, she had potential. But she hadn’t grown into her looks yet.

Honestly, looks mattered a lot. Good-looking people often saw a much kinder world, because everyone was willing to be nice to them.

Of course, that could also attract a certain kind of nasty attention. But people who weren’t good-looking faced cruelty, too—and that cruelty could last longer and come in more forms.

To be perfectly honest, she felt that if she were prettier, she could probably seduce some all-powerful prince, use him to control the economic lifeline of the kingdom, and eventually become empress—

She indulged the fantasy for a moment, then came back to her senses.

At best, she was kind of cute—for now, as long as she didn’t grow up funny-looking. She was taking Potions all the time. It wouldn’t be surprising if one day they made her grow up funny-looking. She thought it was quite possible.

Oh, well. She wasn’t planning to find a man anyway. Women didn’t actually have that low a status in this world, either. After all, there was a Witch. Though she had no idea who or what the Witch was. She wasn’t some primordial with the surname “Qi,” was she...?

“?”

At that thought, she suddenly froze. If—if her transmigration had something to do with this Witch, did that mean... the Witch had turned her into a little girl like Tori?

Did she need to go check out the Witch Church? Don’t tell me the nuns in your Church are actually men, and after being oppressed generation after generation, they all turned into girls or something!

That made Tori think something was wrong. Very wrong. She couldn’t help but start questioning the Potion system in this world.

But the more she thought about it, the more different it seemed from the system she’d first learned about. The way Potions worked in this world was more like alchemy.

It was hard to say. She still couldn’t be sure. She felt she really ought to visit the Witch Church.

If there was any faction in this world stronger than the various kingdoms, it was probably the Witch Church. The Witch was the Ruler of the Demon Realm.

Maybe she could learn a lot of what she wanted to know from the Church.

Just as she was thinking that,

someone from the Church came to visit.

A blonde woman wearing a pure-black habit and a headscarf arrived at the Witch’s House and asked to see the boss.

The boss was, of course, Ethan. But Ethan wasn’t there, so Yabu came out to receive the woman first.

“Hello, I’m Tori, the acting shop manager, ma’am. Our boss isn’t here at the moment. You can tell me what you need.”

Then Tori greeted the woman with a bright smile.