The Alchemist’s Fluffy Island Getaway Vol 1

“Next, a word from the student with the highest scores on our recent exams, Freya Corvidge, who will be speaking about her aspirations for the future.”

The headmaster called my name, and I stepped forward, weaving through the crowd of students as I strode toward the assembly stage. This would be my time in the spotlight.

Not only had I gotten the highest grades in my whole class, but I was also an upperclassman. In other words, at that moment, I was the Royal Institute of Alchemy’s top student! It was my responsibility to stun the whole student body and deliver a perfect speech—one that would make me a role model for my peers and underclassmen alike!

“My fellow students,” I began, “it won’t be long until our time here comes to a close. Soon, we will spread our wings and take flight, each of us finding a place for ourselves at alchemical workshops near and far. There, we will learn of the working world’s true trials and tribulations as we refine our craft by leaps and bounds.”

I glanced over at Professor Mystille, my mentor, who was standing off to the side of the podium. She was a very influential alchemist, known for her striking long black hair—a rare feature in our country—among other things. Her arms were crossed, and the look on her face told me she thought my speech was going well so far.

All right! If the advisor from hell thinks I’m doing a good job, then I’ve got nothing to sweat!

“Now then, I’d like to pose a question to you all: What is our goal in becoming alchemists?” I slowly swept my gaze across the faces of my fellow students. “The answer is simple: We want a comfortable life!”

I made my declaration with confidence, and a slight stir began to spread through the crowd.

Um, rude much? Like there’s any other reason to go into this line of work.

“I didn’t grow up with any family, as far as I can remember. I was always so worried about my future. But then I took an interest in alchemy, began frequenting a workshop near the orphanage I lived in, discovered my talent, and finally, secured a spot at the Royal Institute! Now my path forward is set in stone: My grades guarantee me a place at the best, most well-located workshop possible, where I’ll live a life of complete and unshakable security!”

Phew! All my long, painful days of endless toil are practically flashing before my eyes!

“Just as humanity will always need to eat, so, too, will we always need to rely on alchemists to support us. Though the places of employment you’ll find yourselves in will be spread out all across the land, they’ll all share one thing in common: They’ll grant you a comfortable life! And so I urge you all to lead lives of stability! We don’t need the pains of the daily grind! Eat three meals a day, throw in a few snacks for good measure, work smarter not harder, sneak in a nap here and there, and live life to the full— Augh?! Please let go of my collar, Professor! You’re strangling me! My neck!”

“You are coming with me! This speech is over!” Professor Mystille growled as she dragged me offstage. All of a sudden, my life flashed before my eyes in a different way, thanks to my sudden lack of oxygen. That definitely wasn’t how I’d planned the end of my speech.

“B-but why…?” I moaned. “I did what I was supposed to. I was talking about my hopes for the future…”

“You can feel free to make your case in the faculty office, but until we get there, I don’t want to hear another word from you!” Professor Mystille snapped.

“Make my case?! Why are you making it sound like I’m under arrest? I’m innocent, I swear! Come ooon, just listen to me!”

Professor Mystille really did end up dragging me all the way to the faculty office and tossing me inside. She was my practical-training advisor, so I was already quite familiar with her chambers. In fact, I’d left so much of my own stuff lying around that I’d occupied a solid chunk of it.

“Freya, all you had to do was tell the audience to go out into the world and use their alchemy to contribute to society. I’m quite certain you’re aware of that.” The professor sighed as she poured me a cup of tea. She tended to speak rather harshly, and people mistook her as being real scary for it, but I knew deep down, she was a good person.

Maybe that’s giving her a little too much credit, actually? It’s probably more accurate to say she’s a good person who’s also real scary.

“Come on, Professor!” I shot back. “Sure, from time to time, you get a couple hypermotivated hotheads who are all, ‘I’m gonna dedicate my life to research and invent a new magic Artifact that nobody’s ever dreamed of!’ but most alchemists are in it for the paycheck, right? You can make a living selling basic potions any beginner alchemist can synthesize. Isn’t that the truth?”

We were the only ones in the room at the time, so I didn’t bother holding back. None of the other students made a habit of hanging out in the faculty office for long anyway.

Stability really was the core appeal of the alchemist profession. That wasn’t just my personal opinion; it was an established fact. It also happened that only graduates of the Royal Institute of Alchemy were legally qualified to do alchemical work. Trusting sketchy back-alley alchemists to make your medicines, potions, and whatnot with no oversight was much too risky! In other words, it was both a field that only certain people with very specific qualifications could work in and a field that would be in demand absolutely anywhere people lived. That meant that once you were in, you’d never have to worry about paying the bills again!

For someone like me—someone raised in an orphanage with no family—that made for an incredibly ideal profession. Alchemy was also a merit-based field, so it didn’t matter if your parents were nobodies, or if you even had parents at all, to move ahead.

After graduating from the Institute and becoming a formally licensed alchemist, I’d enter a mandatory three-year period in which I’d work at an alchemical workshop assigned to me shortly before graduation. People usually called that three-year time span your “public service period.” Fledgling alchemists would be sent out to regions that lacked a currently active alchemist, ensuring no area was left without an alchemical workshop to serve its populace…in theory. In practice, there just weren’t enough alchemists to cover every settlement, meaning there were places all over the country where alchemy was largely unavailable.

The primary function of the public service all alchemists had to complete was to balance the distribution of workers and to ensure that underserved regions had some access to alchemy. As a result, some new graduates, usually ones with less impressive grades, would inevitably find themselves sent to some sparsely populated regions. In other words, they’d be sent to the middle of nowhere! Thankfully, that wasn’t something I’d have to worry about. After all, I had the best grades in the whole school! Students were allowed to choose their postgraduation placements in order of academic performance, from best to worst, and since my grades were the best, I was guaranteed a chance to pick a workshop near the capital!

“You have the talent to be a top-class researcher if you wanted to, you know?” said Professor Mystille. “Or at least you would if it weren’t for your severe lack of motivation.”

“Leave it to my advisor to know me as well as I know myself!” I replied as I sipped my tea. It didn’t taste great, but that wasn’t her fault. The Institute bought tea leaves for the faculty in bulk, and they weren’t exactly top-shelf stuff. Some teachers who were particularly incensed by the flavor would go out and buy their own, but using whatever the school stocked was much quicker and easier, so the less picky teachers tended to not bother.

I could hear a commotion somewhere outside through the window. This definitely wasn’t the elegant, refined environment to enjoy a cup of tea in, but considering we were in a school, I couldn’t really expect much better. Cheap tea suited this place just fine. You had to be reasonably smart to enroll here, but it wasn’t the exclusive territory of well-bred nobles, and etiquette wasn’t part of the curriculum. As such, things could get quite noisy from time to time. It was also technically a coed school, but 80 percent of alchemists were female, and the Institute’s gender ratio reflected that. Apparently, girls were just more predisposed to work with magic for some reason.

“When the time comes for me to choose a workshop next month, I’ll pick a place in one of the classier areas near the capital,” I said. “That way, it won’t be all crowded and dirty like the business districts are, but the locals will still have plenty of money to spare for my wares! Oh, but not a big workshop with a bunch of other alchemists who’ll try to boss me around. I’m looking for the perfect place that’ll let me take it easy and live the alchemist life in style!”

Professor Mystille gave me a look that practically screamed, “It was a waste of time trying to talk sense into you.” If I were being completely honest, I’d have to admit that I did feel a little bad for her. It couldn’t have been easy to teach a pupil who didn’t have the slightest speck of ambition, after all. It probably would’ve been way more satisfying to train the sort of go-getter who’d, say, dedicate themselves to making a philosopher’s stone and unlocking the secret to eternal life, or whatever… Then again, a student like that probably would’ve been trouble in their own right…

Anyway, regardless of how bad I felt, I wasn’t about to give up on my dream of living a stable life on easy street. Unpredictability and insecurity were the enemies of happiness! Stability was the ideal!

“Well, do as you will. You’re hardly an unusual case—in fact, students who do take their futures seriously at your age are the rarities… Good heavens, what is going on out there?” the professor grumbled as she turned to look out the window, where the ruckus seemed to be coming from. I was pretty sure I heard a couple screams mixed in, so whatever was going on, it clearly wasn’t all fun and games.

“Sounds like it’s coming from the hills behind the Institute, if you ask me.”

“Perhaps one of the underclassmen decided to play with an Artifact like a Summoning Stone and found themselves with a wolf,” said the professor. She didn’t sound particularly alarmed by the possibility—the whole school was full of alchemists and alchemists-in-training, after all, so medical treatment was never more than a few steps away. Incidentally, Summoning Stones were one type of magical tool that did exactly as its name suggested: summoned an animal to the user’s location.

Summoning Stones had way more impact than Artifacts that spat a little fire or water, so it was fairly common for underclassmen to sneak them out of classrooms and use them for pranks.

“Tell you what—why don’t I go take a look, Professor?” I said. I stood up and threw on my alchemist’s robe, which had been hung on the wall nearby, then picked out a few medicines and chemicals I figured could come in handy and shoved them in my pockets.

“Planning to stick your nose in, are you?” asked Professor Mystille. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. You never know what could happen with incidents like these—better to leave it to the faculty. Someone’s bound to be nearby.”

“It’s fine! I can handle it,” I replied. “Heh-heh-heh! And, of course, I’ll be taking all the credit for tidying up this little incident, too! I’m the greatest student in this whole school, and I think it’s time to make sure everyone knows it!”

* * *

In retrospect, I really should’ve left this to the faculty.

I headed out to the hill and found that someone really had summoned a wolf. One slight problem: its size. The thing was so big that if it had stood up on its hind legs, it would’ve probably been as tall as two adults. Add the length of its tail, and that may have made it three!

“And just look at that pelt—it’s so majestic! That’s gotta be some sort of mythical beast, for sure,” I said to myself. A “mythical beast” was a creature that toed the line between god and animal. They were even worshipped in some regions. “They must’ve used one heck of a Summoning Stone to bring that thing here. What can I even do about this…?”

There was one silver lining: The beast wasn’t currently showing any signs of hostility. In fact, it mostly seemed confused. It looked like it was thinking, “Where the heck am I?”

“I hate to do this, but I’m gonna have to keep you still for the time being,” I said as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a spherical pill. “It’s coated in sugar, so I bet it’ll taste really nice! See for yourself!”

I tossed it into the wolf’s mouth, and it gulped it down without hesitation. Apparently, the pill really had been tasty, after all. It seemed to want seconds, even, but I waved my hands to show I had no more.

“That was all I had, bud! Plus in a few seconds, eating is gonna be the last thing on your mind.”

It wasn’t long before the beast staggered, then fell to the ground. A quadruped falling to the ground didn’t have quite the same impact that a person collapsing would, but there was no doubt that it was down for the count. The look on its face told me it had no idea what just happened.

“Graaaugh! Graaaw!” the mythical beast whined in protest, but that was the most it could do. The only body part it seemed capable of moving was its tail. That was exactly what I’d been aiming for. After all, I would’ve been in serious danger if it could still move! Now that it was immobilized, I could get to work.

“That ball you just ate was made of hellmoth powder,” I explained. “It would kill a human-sized animal outright, but considering your size, you’ll be just fine after the paralysis wears off. That’s actually exactly what these pills are for—incapacitating any huge critters that may pop up!”

Strictly speaking, the pill wasn’t an Artifact—it had been made with all-natural ingredients and didn’t have any magical properties. It was like a type of medicine that often came in handy more than anything else.

“Grrr… Grawr…,” the mythical beast growled.

“Sorry, but worst-case scenario, if something as big as you went on a rampage, the teachers might have to put you down. I don’t think you deserve that! This isn’t your fault—the harebrained student who summoned you is the one at fault here. As such, I’d like to propose a way of moving forward that’ll work out for both of us!”

The beast gave me a slight nod…or at least it looked like it did. It seemed to be understanding what I was saying.

“It won’t be long before you’ll be able to move again. In the meantime, I’ll dose you with a Transparency Tincture that’ll make you invisible. You can use that chance to get away from the school! I’ll give you a week’s worth of the stuff, too, so you should have no trouble getting somewhere safe. Sound good?”

I set a cloth bag down in front of the mythical beast. I knew I was giving it a pretty sweet deal, but I was the third party here. Sometimes, it took someone with no stakes in the matter to step in and resolve things peacefully—like how territorial disputes in feudal domains tended to be resolved by the lord who ruled over the area, not the people who were actually involved in the dispute.

The white-furred mythical beast nodded. Now that I had another chance to look at it up close, it struck me just how perfectly snow-white its fur was.

“If you have any complaints about how this has all turned out, please get in touch with me before you decide to attack the school. Ask for Professor Mystille’s pupil, Freya. I’m just a student, so I can’t promise too much, but my advisor is one of the country’s preeminent alchemists! She’ll be able to negotiate with you on even terms for sure.”

“Grrr… Rawr.”

All right! Sounds like I got the okay…probably.

“I think we have a deal, then! Now that we’re finished, I’ll go ahead and help myself to my negotiation-consulting fee,” I said before slowly stepping up to the mythical beast…and petting its fur!

“Grr,” the mythical beast growled in a fed up tone, and I could imagine it wanted to say something like, “Do you think I’m some kind of puppy?” It didn’t seem tremendously upset as I pet it, though, which only made it seem even more like an oversized dog.

“Yeah, okay, I can totally see why people say mythical beasts like you have a little god in them,” I commented as I stroked, petted, patted, and fluffed its fur. Then I petted, patted, stroked, and fluffed again for good measure! I got the feeling that the beast was thinking something to the tune of “Aren’t you feeling me up for a little too long? And what’s with all the patting?” but it was going to have to be patient for just a little longer. It wasn’t every day I got to pet such divinely soft fur, after all!

“Oooh, wow, this is great! So good! You’re like a big ole blanket!”

I hadn’t been this excited in quite a while. Its fur was just so soft and silky! Most creatures weren’t even big enough to grow that sort of fluff!

Petting the dogs and stray cats that lived near the school was one of my very few hobbies, incidentally. It wasn’t that I didn’t have an interest in other hobbies, to be clear—it was just hard to find the time and funds for them when you had to be totally self-sufficient and didn’t have a family.

Anyway, my point was that after feeling fur this next-level, I suspected there was a dangerous possibility that the local kitties and puppies wouldn’t satisfy me anymore. I mean, I’d still pet them if they let me, of course! Personal satisfaction was one thing, but I would’ve been a fool to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Aaah, this is too much! I can’t! This is the best feeling ever! Top class on a global scale! If you were a blanket, I’d trap myself under you forever!”

Turns out the only thing better than sticking your face in a dog’s fur and taking a deep breath is doing that to a wolf! Who needs potions when you’ve got a handy canine around to restore your vitality to the max in the blink of an eye? My heart and soul have been fully healed!

Unfortunately, my ecstatic rambling was about to be interrupted as a hand (or a paw, more accurately) came to rest on my head. The message was clear: I was overplaying my hand just a tad.

“Oh! I guess you can already move, huh?” I said. The mythical beast snorted in agreement. “In that case, I’ll go ahead and apply the Transparency Tincture!”

I poured a bottle’s contents onto the mythical beast’s fur, and the creature gradually began to fade from sight.

“Yup! Totally invisible. Worked like a charm!”

I could still tell where it was by the indentations it left in the grass, but only because I already knew it was there. I probably wouldn’t have noticed at all otherwise. I had no idea how it was going to get back home, but since it hadn’t asked for help, I figured it had some sort of plan—and as expected, the indentations soon began retreating as the beast went along on its way. Where exactly it was going would have to remain a mystery.

“And that’s a job well done! See you around, mythical beast—odds are we won’t be seeing each other again, though,” I said. I paused for a second to reflect on the comment, then turned around and started making my way back to the main building. “Anyway, if dealing with a rampaging mythical beast on campus doesn’t score me some extra points with the people upstairs, nothing will! Heh-heh-heh…”

Three days later, Professor Mystille tracked me down after my morning classes wrapped up and dragged me straight to the faculty room.

“Let me guess,” I said, “the headmaster asked you to personally thank me for dealing with the mythical beast problem the other day?”

“Quite the opposite,” Professor Mystille said before heaving a long, deep sigh. Her ire was nothing new, but she sounded oddly reflective this time. “You snuck a hellmoth powder ball and a massive quantity of Transparency Tincture—materials that students are expressly prohibited from using without permission—out of the medicine cabinets. As such, you’re to be suspended, effective immediately.”

“Wait, I’m getting punished?! Whaaat?!”

“Moreover, it’s been decided that you’ll be given last choice of the workshops for your public service period. You should prepare yourself. You’ll almost certainly be left with the least desirable assignment options.”

“Nooo, nope, nope, nope! How is that fair?! That’s way too harsh!”

I protested with all my might, of course, but it was no use. The professor just gave me a disappointed stare. “Your grades are exceptional, I’ll grant you that, but your behavior has been borderline appalling,” she explained. “The administration has decided that allowing you to graduate at the top of your class would be risky in more ways than one. An Institute graduate causing a scandal in a capital workshop would make the headlines within the day, so they’re planning to send you somewhere nice and far away where news doesn’t travel nearly as easily.”

“Those Institute bigwigs can’t stomach anyone with a little panache! I won’t stand for this! I’ll picket my own classroom if I have to, you hear me?!”

“If you’re looking to get yourself expelled, be my guest. Who needs an alchemy license when you can die on a hill instead?” Professor Mystille quipped with a sharp glare.

“Ugh,” I grunted. “I do. I really need one… That’s the whole reason I’ve been working so hard all this time…”

“Well, then it’s time to start considering your options. Here are the regions with workshops that tend to be passed over,” the professor said, offering me a bundle of informational documents.

…A workshop that’s basically an isolated hut way up in the mountains.

…A workshop in a forest that’s completely infested with monsters.

…A workshop marked with an X—wait, no, that one doesn’t exist anymore. It…got swept away by a flood, along with the whole village around it?

“In the blink of an eye, I’ve gone from wanting stability to just hoping I survive my first year!”

“Think of it as a demotion. It happens all the time. The world can be harsh like that.”

“Way to downplay the situation! Your pupil’s in a pinch! Do something, please!” I wailed. This was absolutely no time for dignity. I’d throw away every shred of dignity if it got me out of my predicament—after all, who knew what sort of effects this could have on the course of my life if it went through! “I’ll lick your shoes if that’s what it takes! I mean it! Just say the word!”

“Absolutely not. Ugh, that’s revolting. I would have to get them professionally cleaned afterward.”

“Okay, then I’ll lick the shoes of all the administrators, in order of seniority!”

“Oh, settle down! Lick one shoe, and that would really be the end of your academic career. Don’t even think about it,” warned Professor Mystille. I had been joking, for the record, but apparently, literal bootlicking was something she wouldn’t put past me. “My name carries a reasonable amount of weight in the alchemy industry. I do have some sway, when I wish to.”

“A ‘reasonable amount of weight’?” I repeated incredulously. “Are you kidding? People say you’re the single most capable alchemist in the modern era! You’re a big shot! All you have to do is put one finger on the scales, and they’ll tip in my favor!”

There wasn’t an alchemist alive who hadn’t heard the name “Mystille the Sharp-Eyed.” My professor was a genius, through and through, and if she really wanted to, I knew for a fact she could save me from being tossed out to the sticks!

“And so I’ve used some connections and pulled some strings to verify which of the remote workshops available to you will be the most pleasant. You’ll want to pick this one,” Professor Mystille continued.

“Who’d you ask, a boondocks connoisseur…?”

“Whining isn’t going to get you anywhere.” The professor sighed. “You appropriated prohibited substances, and this is your punishment. You haven’t even tried to deny it.”

“There was a mythical beast rampaging on school grounds! I was helping—”

“‘Rampaging’? I’m to understand it was quite docile. It certainly seemed that way from where I was standing when I went to check.”

“Th-that would be correct…”

Oh, come on! The mythical beast didn’t cause any damage, and now my rampage looks way worse by comparison…

“There is no cause for worry,” the professor continued. “None of these workshops will put your life at risk, and there won’t be any cruel senior alchemists, either. You’ll be far from the capital, yes, but considering you’re hardly the type to attend class reunions, I can’t see how that would be an issue for you.”

“Just ’cause it’s true doesn’t make it a nice thing to say…”

I had worked my way up on my own merit, not on my family’s alchemical legacy, and a fair number of people didn’t take too kindly to that. You’d think people would be more likely to take their frustrations out on the students who hadn’t earned their place at the Institute, but it was never a great idea to make an enemy of someone who had the potential to be politically powerful in the future. I, in contrast, was a risk-free target who had annoyingly great grades. It sucked, but it was the reality I had to live with.

It wasn’t all bad, though! After all, no friends meant nothing to do on days off, and nothing to do meant more time to study alchemy, and more time to study meant better grades. This vicious cycle ended up leading me to academic success, so as far as I was concerned, everything worked out in the end. You might even say my total lack of friends was precisely what made me a great alchemist! I wasn’t a loner—I was a lone wolf! I’d like to make that point especially clear, thank you very much! Ideally, I would’ve preferred to be thought of as the sort of girl who was hard to approach because of how beautiful she was. Every class had at least one, right? I did think I was pretty, and nobody ever approached me, so maybe the comparison was more apt than I gave it credit for!

“The administrators were prepared to lessen your punishment if your peers appealed to them on your behalf, incidentally,” said Professor Mystille, “but since absolutely no one spoke up, that idea ended up getting shelved.”

“This is the first time in my whole life I’ve ever regretted not making friends,” I moaned. Who could have imagined my antisocial tendencies would come back to bite me like this?

I slumped forward and hung my head, dejected, and the informational papers about the workshops once again entered my field of vision. Professor Mystille held one of them out. “I truly think you could do far worse. Take a look,” she said.

“The Seajade Island workshop…? That’s way down south, isn’t it? I thought jade was only mined up north, though,” I muttered. The document stated Seajade Island was, indeed, an isolated isle located in the southern seas.

“Jade is, yes, but seajade is an entirely different mineral, apparently,” the professor explained. “It has a beautiful green hue and was discovered on the island a long, long time ago—we have historical records of that. The stone was presented to the reigning king, who noted its resemblance to jade and bequeathed the name ‘Seajade Island’ to the place it was discovered. Nobody’s found any more of it since, though, so it’s possible the island got its name through sheer coincidence.”

“I guess there are plenty of types of rocks out there that people have only been able to stumble upon once. Can’t say it’d be too surprising for a weird green rock to get found one time, then never show up again.”

But if I did manage to find more, I bet I could make enough money off it to never work a day in my life again! I thought. I figured I should keep the idea to myself, though—the professor definitely wouldn’t approve.

“In any case, it appears Seajade Island has been without a resident alchemist for quite a while,” said the professor. “There are only three settlements on the island, and the local economy is based around farming, fishing, and ranching. Frankly, it seems like it would suit your ideal of a stable environment with decent options for food quite nicely.”

“A big menu is a pretty big upside,” I admitted. Aside from the small issue of how inconvenient it would be to actually get to the place, the lifestyle that would be waiting for me when I arrived didn’t sound all that bad. Of course, all the other options I had left were so abysmal that I’d be picking this one no matter how good or bad it seemed at first. “All right, then! I’ll try to live a comfy life on that island!”

“You can only do that if you’re able to get along with the locals, you know,” Professor Mystille commented. This was probably obvious by now, but she really didn’t pull her punches.

“I guess it would be tough to get by if the locals saw me as some sort of suspicious outsider,” I said.

“Actually, I’m more worried about you seeing them as hopeless yokels and failing to keep that opinion to yourself. But, well, hopefully, you’ll make do one way or another,” Professor Mystille said before popping a hand onto my shoulder. “You have your fair share of flaws, but your alchemical skills are a cut above the rest. Have faith in yourself.”

“I’d have more faith if you complimented my personality, too.”

“Lying is a breach of the alchemist’s code of ethics. You’ll get by with your alchemy. Your looks probably won’t hurt, either.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to thank my mom for that one—or I would if I knew what she looked like or what her name was. Wish she’d left me a thousand gold coins or so to go along with this pretty face of mine.”

“Yes, well…as I said, your personality’s the one thing that could use work. Quite a bit of work.”

“Help! My academic advisor’s too frank for my own good!”

And so my fate was sealed. My very first alchemical workshop would be in the middle of nowhere, on an island to the south.

A six-and-a-half-hour boat ride brought me from my country’s port town to Seajade Island.

Question: What happens when a person who isn’t used to being out at sea goes on a six-and-a-half-hour boat ride with zero preparation?

I would’ve figured the most common answer was “they get seasick”—but I would’ve been wrong. The truth wasn’t nearly that gentle. If it were that simple, there wouldn’t have been any point in asking the question to begin with.

The real answer: They get really, really, really seasick!

“Bluuugh… S-somebody, help me… I can’t take thiiis…,” I moaned within the passenger cabin where I’d collapsed. I’d had a feeling I’d get seasick, so I went out of my way to take motion sickness medicine in advance, but of course it hadn’t been anywhere even close to strong enough to help! Past Freya was such an idiot!

Then finally, I heard one of the sailors shout from up on the deck, “Land ho!”

I’m saved, I thought as I staggered my way over to somewhere I could actually see the outside. I’d be living on this island, so it would’ve been silly not to take my one chance to get a full view of the place.

My very first impression was straightforward.

“Sure is mountainy.” One especially large mountain rose out of the island’s center and looked exactly like the illustration I’d seen in a book I found. None of the island’s settlements were on the slopes of the mountain itself, supposedly, so I wouldn’t need to walk uphill every single day, at least.

At the bare minimum, I would have to live and work here for three years. That was what it would take for me to clear my public service requirement and be formally licensed as an alchemist. Three years from now, I could say buh-bye and move somewhere closer to the capital… That was my ultimate goal, after all. The big city was just so darn convenient compared to anywhere else.

“Please just let the islanders be nice people who welcome outsiders like me with open arms,” I half-heartedly prayed to no specific god.

Twenty minutes later, the ship made landfall, and I disembarked.

Seajade Island’s harbor was called…Seajade Harbor. They’d taken the island’s name and slapped it on, but seeing as it was also the only harbor on the whole island, there wasn’t any need to set it apart. It was also tiny, and as I stepped out onto the dock, I noticed a big banner being held up very prominently!

WELCOME TO SEAJADE ISLAND, MISS ALCHEMIST! ENJOY YOUR STAY!

Both sides of the banner were affixed to a pole, and each one was being held up by a middle-aged islander—one man and one woman. Maybe that wasn’t the comprehensive description, but making landfall had me a little agitated, so you can understand why I wasn’t super observant.

“Hello, hello! I presume you are our island’s new alchemist. My name’s Claire, and I’m a resident of Canon Village!” the woman said in a booming voice that was about 50 percent louder than I’d expected. Now that I took a second look, I noticed she was wearing what looked like a farmer’s outfit.

“It’s such a pleasure to see a new face move into town,” the old man said next. “My name is Makood, and I’m the mayor of Canon Village.” He was dressed as you’d expect a mayor to be. “It’s been so long since we’ve had an alchemist here, really. The whole island’s eager to welcome you!”

“I appreciate it,” I replied. “My name is Freya Corvidge, and I just graduated from the Royal Institute of Alchemy three months ago. I’m honestly relieved by your warm welcome.”

“‘Relieved’?” the mayor repeated, cocking his head.

“Oh. Well, um… This is just a dumb stereotype, but there’s this whole thing about how people who move to remote places like this never end up getting along with the locals… But I never bought that for a second!”

“Ha-ha-ha!” The mayor cracked up.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh, that’s rich!” Claire joined in. Their booming laughs were equally loud.

“We’ve been without an alchemist for a long, long time, Miss,” said the mayor. “If we decided to give you the cold shoulder, we’d be the ones who’d suffer for it! These are the sticks, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, so we might not be able to offer you the sort of lavish hospitality we’d like to, but I can promise none of us will be trying to make your life here uncomfortable in any way!”

“Our old alchemist retired—age catches up with everyone someday, you know—and we’ve been without one for nearly fifteen years now,” Claire added. “Having you around is a gift from the heavens, as far as we’re concerned!”

Their words really did put me at ease. Just like that, one of my big worries was practically swept away, and I had good reason to hope that it’d stay gone. Please, let the rest of the villagers be as friendly as these two!

“Oh, right!” I exclaimed. “It’s not much, but I brought a few small gifts for my new neighbors. Here!”

I handed each of them a string with a small green stone attached to it.

“Oh? What’s this?” the mayor asked as he peered at the stone. “Jewelry, perhaps?”

“Try cupping your hands all the way around it,” I replied. They did just that.

“Ah! The stone—it’s glowing!” Claire exclaimed. The fact that it was the middle of the day made it a little hard to tell, but if it were dark out, the stone would emit a light bright enough to illuminate an area about fifteen feet around her.

“They’re Artifacts called ‘Glowstones,’” I explained. “When there’s no light around them, they light up automatically! They’re not super hard to make at all, so please, feel free to keep them.”

“Well, I’ll be,” said Claire. “You must really be something to whip a handy little thing like this up! The alchemist who used to live here was awfully good at making medicines, but she never had the knack for Artifacts like this. They’re a real novelty for us.”

“That’s understandable! Plenty of alchemists specialize in medicine,” I replied. “Not me, though. I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades! I make little things like this all the time just for fun.”

People typically put alchemists into two categories.

There were those who focused on brewing potions, antidotes, and other magical remedies from herbs.

And there were those who specialized in creating magical tools known as Artifacts.

These two distinct categories reflected how many alchemists often did just one or the other. At the same time, while the two jobs seemed totally dissimilar at a glance, the essence of their work was identical.

When all was said and done, alchemists were specialists who used magic to imbue new value to ordinary items.

Alchemists who made potions from herbs used their magic to enhance the potions’ restorative effects, and those who made Artifacts did so by imbuing common objects with uncommon powers. Personally, I’d always preferred making totally new items of my own invention more than anything.

Stable work was something to be grateful for, but tedium was an entirely different matter! I was planning on making enough potions to satisfy demand, certainly, but once that was done, I’d have plenty of time left over, and I’d need to find ways to kill time. There were only so many people on an island like this who’d need potions to begin with, after all.

“Glowstones, eh?” said Claire. “This’ll come in handy when I’m strolling about at night! Much appreciated, Freya.”

She already knows my name! Looks like things are going smoothly so far.

“Well, then…would you mind showing me to a carriage that can take me to the workshop?” I asked.

The color mysteriously drained from the mayor’s face.

Huh? I don’t think I said anything that shocking, did I…?

“Oh, there it is! See that building over there with the pointed roof and the smokestack? That’s the workshop!” Claire said, pointing excitedly out of the carriage. We’d hitched a ride as it left the harbor, and judging by my internal clock, it had taken about fifteen minutes to get from Canon Village, where Claire and the mayor lived, to my destination.

All right! Time for the official start of my new life! I thought as I stepped up to the workshop and saw…

…a very impressive pointed roof…atop a building that looked to have been deserted for decades.

“This place is a wreck! Forget showing your years, this place is showing its centuries!”

Now that I’d seen my theoretical home, I could feel my so-called new lifestyle crumbling around me. From top to bottom, the entire building was covered in ivy, and a particularly impressive tree was growing right in front of the door, blocking off the entrance entirely.

“Ha-ha… Well, that’s what happens when a building sits vacant for fifteen years, I suppose,” the mayor replied shyly. “It’s nice and humid here, too, so the undergrowth does tend to grow a bit wild when it isn’t taken care of…”

I guess that explains the look of horror on his face back in town.

“Ha-ha-ha… Look on the bright side, Freya!” said Claire. “The roof’s intact, and all four walls are still standing. A little elbow grease to spruce up the inside, and it’ll be perfectly livable again…probably. The government did say it was old but still habitable, after all…a-and the government wouldn’t get something like that wrong, now, would it…?”

“Hrngh… If the government says this is where I live, then I guess that’s that,” I reluctantly admitted. As the saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers. The building itself looked sturdy enough—the walls and roof really did seem to have stood the test of time, so much so that the door’s lack of damage now kept me sealed inside. Frankly, that was the only real problem! I had to clean this place up and make it mine.

“Just one issue,” I said, glancing at the mayor. “Considering the state it’s in, it’s definitely going to take more than a day or two for me to get my business up and running. I can’t even reach the front door, as things stand! I hope you’re all right with me taking some time to prepare before I formally open?”

The door was completely blocked off by some slender-trunked, tropical tree. I wouldn’t be getting in there any time soon.

The mayor made a pointed effort to avoid looking me in the eye. “Yes, of course! Take as much time as you need,” he said. “We certainly wouldn’t want you to force your way in, break the wrong leftover bottle, and put yourself in danger… Feel free to handle the workshop in whatever way you see fit.”

Alchemists weren’t feared by the populace, but it was also well-known that you couldn’t blunder your way into an alchemist’s workshop and expect it to end well. Some alchemists made careers out of synthesizing high explosives, after all!

“Here’s the key to the workshop,” the mayor continued as he handed it over to me. “I went through the back door about six months ago to make sure nothing was locked up in here. I also made sure that the floor wasn’t rotted out and that no wild animals had taken up residence inside.”

I took the key, and it struck me that I was now, on paper and in reality, the official owner of an honest-to-goodness alchemical workshop. A workshop with a literal tree obstructing the front door, sure, but a workshop nonetheless.

“All righty, then! I’ll be working on getting this place open for business.”

Fortunately for me, there wasn’t any sort of specific rule about how quickly you had to open shop postarrival. I had to imagine that the Institute had omitted that sort of regulation intentionally since they knew perfectly well that some workshops would be in a terrible state. In the worst case, I could always make my medicines somewhere else and set up a stall—in front of the workshop, even—to sell potions for thirty minutes once a week until everything was in order. I figured that would be the soundest way to meet my obligations, at least.

“Though considering I can’t get in, I guess I’ll be camping for the time being,” I muttered.

I’d practiced roughing it outdoors during my time at the Institute, but camping in my own front yard felt strangely humiliating. I’d brought a tent with me—my occupation involved going out into the mountains and woods to forage from time to time, after all. I’d forgotten where I put the thing, but it was definitely somewhere in my pile of luggage.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Claire laughed. “That’s no problem at all—you can go ahead and take your time squaring things away, and until then, you can stay over at my place! My little ones all left the island to make their fortunes already, so I have plenty of room to spare!”

Salvation! Who knew there was a goddess so close by?!

“Thank you so, so, so much! Can I call you ‘Mom’? Please?!”

“You’re sweet, but it really isn’t that big of a deal.”

“It is, though! I would’ve had to camp out in the wilderness if it weren’t for you!”

This is a debt that I won’t consider repaid any time soon!

Just then, I happened to make eye contact with the carriage’s horse. It looked quite bored. Hanging out here for much longer wouldn’t do anyone any good.

“Shall we head back to Canon for now? We certainly won’t be moving your luggage into the workshop today, in any case,” the mayor suggested, looking at the ground. “Please take all the time you need to set everything up. I do hope you’ll stick around,” he added. When I first arrived, I was walking on eggshells worrying about the locals liking me, and now the mayor was doing everything in his power to make sure I stayed! “Would you mind keeping her bags at your place for the time being, Mrs. Claire…?”

Claire gave the okay right away—with a hearty laugh, of course.

Fifteen minutes later, I found myself back in the village, standing before a crowd to introduce myself. It wasn’t a planned event or anything—people had naturally started gathering around when I climbed out of the carriage, so a self-introduction seemed to be in order.

“Um,” I began, “my name is Freya Corvidge, and I’m an alchemist. I’ll be opening up shop just a little ways away from Canon soon, so I look forward to your patronage!”

The size of the crowd actually surprised me a little—all these people lived here?

“Good to have you!”

“We’ve had to treat our own scrapes with homemade poultices for years! Thank goodness there’s finally a professional around!”

“I have more onions, cabbages, and heads of lettuce than I know what to do with! You can have as many as you want!”

“This must be what it feels like to have a grandchild!”

Once again, their warm welcomes relieved me.

“There’s just one little problem,” I continued. “The workshop’s a bit of a mess right now, so ‘soon’ might not be as soon as some of you are hoping. I can still offer medicine in emergency cases before my store opens, though, so feel free to reach out!”

Judging by the audience’s total lack of surprise, I had a feeling that the people of Canon knew exactly how dilapidated the building was. They didn’t seem inclined to blame me for the delay, and that meant the last of my worries was finally dispelled. I’d try to open up as quickly as possible, sure, but bringing a place like that back to usable condition…? Woof.

I ended up leaving my luggage in a storehouse by Claire’s home.

“This is one heck of a shed,” I commented. It was probably the size of several rooms back in my old dorm, and it wasn’t some cheap hut made of lumber, either. The whole thing was built from stone, and it looked really sturdy.

“The sea breeze does a number on the wood—all the salt in the air, you see,” Claire explained. “My family decided a few generations back to build a nice storehouse that would last. Your stuff should be safe here, don’t you think?”

Maybe I should start calling her “Mom.” I’m already losing count of all the things I owe her for!

“I almost wish I could set up my workshop here,” I said. “Changing the local workshop’s address on a whim probably isn’t on the table, though, is it…?”

“Wouldn’t be much point in having an established workshop if you could just move it around whenever you felt like it!” Claire chuckled.

“Right? If only it were that easy to find loopholes in the system…”

Claire’s husband—a middle-aged man named Oguld—plus a few of their relatives who lived nearby helped carry my bags into the storehouse, so the work was done before I knew it.

“I really appreciate all this,” I said. “It’s incredible just how efficient work is when you have a few extra hands! This is practically its own form of alchemy!”

“Well, we’ll be happy to help get your workshop up and running whenever we’re not out in the fields,” said Oguld. He was a little taciturn and didn’t smile much, but I could tell he had a good heart. “Heavy lifting’s our bread and butter! Leave it to us.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’ll take care of the workshop myself. I can’t let you do everything for me, after all,” I said and bowed politely. Oguld had a full beard, incidentally, and a nimble, muscular build that made him look younger than he likely was. He looked more like a hunter than a farmer.

I couldn’t keep letting them do me favors as a matter of pure business practicality. Giving out all my goods for free wasn’t an option, after all, and the more I let the people of the village do for me, the more awkward it would become in the future to charge them for my services. It wouldn’t take much for me to get myself in a real pickle.

Then there was the fact that before I got to removing the so-called weeds that had taken over the workshop, I had to go about the tedious work of identifying them. In the world of alchemy, there was no such thing as a worthless weed. Every plant had its uses, and with the right know-how, many of the weeds most people wrote off could be used as medicinal herbs.

That was doubly true for plants growing in the vicinity of an old workshop. Who knew what sort of precious plants my predecessor might have been cultivating in their garden? Yanking them out of the ground without inspecting them first could ruin an incredible resource, so I had no choice but to do it myself, from start to finish.

Did any of that mean I wanted to do all that work on my own? Heck no! If I had my way, I would wake up to a clean, renovated workshop tomorrow morning!

Once I was all moved into my temporary housing, I decided to take some time to take a solo stroll around the village and get a feel for the place. Making my way up to a higher elevation revealed ample stretches of farmland, with homes dotted here and there among the fields, and the ocean looming off in the distance.

“‘Inland regions less impacted by sea breeze. Village slightly more comfortable than harbor,’” I muttered as I jotted my thoughts down in my notebook. “‘More homes inland than expected.’ I guess some people who live here probably commute to the harbor for work? ‘Expected quality of life: decent.’”

Observational skills were tremendously important for any alchemist. Sometimes, medicinal herbs and deadly poisons could be virtually indistinguishable. Nonalchemists often mistook young daffodil plants for chives, and eating daffodils was way more dangerous than most assumed—they were really quite poisonous. If people were just a touch more observant, a lot of poisonings could’ve been avoided.

Plants weren’t the only things an alchemist had to be vigilant about, though. I didn’t know the first thing about this island, and I had to learn everything I possibly could if I wanted my business to take off.

“I thought this place would be the absolute dead-end middle of nowhere, but it feels like the locals are actually decently well-off,” I commented. “The warm climate must be working in their favor. Good thing I didn’t get dropped in a place where every day is a struggle for survival.”

In some parts of the world, the only person you could ever trust to have your best interests in mind was yourself. If you got scammed or robbed in a place like that, people would say it was your fault for being an easy target. I was counting my lucky stars I didn’t find myself in such an environment.

“It looked like the stores around the harbor were nice and well stocked with lots of goods, so I think I’ll be able to get by just fine once I’m acclimated…assuming I can manage to get that workshop open anyway.”

I jotted a few quick notes on a map of the village I’d been drawing. I’d taken lessons in cartography back at the Institute, and Professor Mystille had taught me that if I kept accurate maps of the area around me, finding the plants I needed for any given project would be much easier. Just knowing where water was available and what regions were especially sunny could give me the hints I needed to track a particular species down. Plus I would have to venture out into the woods on a regular basis, and doing that without keeping a map was just asking for trouble.

“Of course, this map’s for helping me remember which shops sell what goods. I live just around the corner, after all, so it’s not like I’ll be getting lost here,” I said to myself as I wrapped up the notes I was planning on adding to the map. “Hm…? Now that I look at it, all the shops in this town only sell goods—I don’t see a restaurant anywhere. Where do people here eat…?”

Oh no. What am I supposed to eat? I can’t cook to save my life!

Three hours later…

“This is great! You’re an incredible cook, Claire! You could serve this at a restaurant in the capital no problem!”

“Ha-ha-ha! And you’re an incredible flatterer, Freya! If you like my cooking that much, you can have as much as you’d like! You can hardly cook for yourself if you can’t even set foot in your workshop, so I’ll feed you until it’s all ready. And don’t worry—I always cook with nutrition in mind!”

In the end, Claire had invited me over for dinner. Both the onions and the cabbage she served me were incredibly sweet, and it was seriously difficult to keep myself from overeating!

“At best, vegetables like these would be background ingredients in most dishes in the capital, but they work so well as the star here! And it’s all delicious!” I exclaimed.

Since when was the cabbage the most appealing part of a cabbage roll? With cabbage this good, who even needs the meat filling? Then again, I guess that would mean the cabbage wouldn’t get to take on all that meaty goodness from its juices.

“Oh, you’re hamming it up, ” Oguld commented with a slight chuckle.

Every time I looked at him, his beard caught my eye, and I’d learned he went out into the woods to catch deer from time to time, meaning he really was a hunter. For a moment, I’d suspected he was a fisherman, too, but apparently, that wasn’t the case. The coastline nearest to Canon was made of sheer cliffs, so having a harbor nearby wouldn’t be practical. The fishermen, it seemed, all lived by the actual harbor.

“You must’ve had a bunch of great food in the capital,” Oguld remarked. “Hard to believe our humble countryside cooking could do that much for you.”

“There’s a very simple explanation for that,” I said. “There are indeed all sorts of gourmet eateries in the capital, but high-class food comes with a high-class price! Students like me stick to affordable eats, and the cheaper your food, the less impressive its flavor.”

The wealthy students, of course, were a whole different matter. They were probably perfectly willing to foot the fine-dining bill all the time, but while they were stuffing their faces, I had my nose in my alchemy books, keeping my grades sky-high! I had to thank them for letting their guards down like that, really…though on the other hand, I let my guard down in the end and got sent to the sticks, so who was I to talk? What goes around comes around.

“I see,” said Oguld. “The capital’s far away from the places where goods are made, so I’m sure the common folk have to satisfy themselves with older crops.”

“Pretty much,” I confirmed. “But the veggies here are all freshly harvested, and they taste incredible!”

I finally understood what it really meant to eat local. Claire’s skill as a cook definitely helped, but no cook could make vegetables taste this shockingly sweet through skill alone. I was in no position to be picky, of course—after all, eating Claire’s cooking was my only practical option. I’d eaten in the dorm’s dining hall for every single meal while I was a student, and I’d never learned the most basic of the basics when it came to cooking. Blame the Institute for my incompetence! Granted, sure, it was a little silly for someone whose job involved so many huge pots and cauldrons to not know their way around a kitchen, but it always seemed like an entirely different discipline…!

“So, um, quick question,” I said. “You’re serving me an awful lot of food, but what’s considered good manners here? Should I refuse more helpings, or should I keep clearing my plate? Just let me know if anything I do is rude, please.”

“How about this,” said Claire. “Keep eating till you’re full, then call it quits!”

“Fair enough! I’m not quite there yet, so I’d love some more, thanks!”

As I polished off another round, I decided to pay Claire back for her hospitality. I knew she’d probably tell me I didn’t need to bother if I brought it up with her, but I would feel bad if our relationship ended up being so one-sided. The Glowstone I’d given her wasn’t anywhere near enough to cover it all.

All right, I’ll figure something out tomorrow!

The next morning was another bright and sunny day on Seajade Island. According to the locals, the weather here was mostly sunny but also mostly rainy. That seemed contradictory to me until someone clarified that it could be sunny one moment, only for a rainstorm to blow in the next with little to no warning. In that context, “mostly sunny but also mostly rainy” made at least a little sense, albeit paradoxically.

That morning, I headed straight for my workshop—or, well, the building that would hopefully become my workshop.

“I think getting inside’s gonna have to wait…,” I said, surveying the damage. I started by pulling up all the weeds (by which I mean the plants that grew everywhere and didn’t have much medicinal value) that were particularly in the way.

“Feels like I’m right back in my practical lessons from my first year at the Institute! Five years later, and I’m a lot smarter than I was when I was twelve,” I muttered, doing my best to encourage myself. The practice of alchemy was a lonely pursuit. Granted, I was practicing gardening more than alchemy at that particular moment, but the point stood.

The Royal Institute of Alchemy’s curriculum was set up to last for six years in total. Students were allowed to enroll starting at the age of eleven, so the earliest one could become a licensed alchemist was at seventeen. On one hand, that meant it was a field in which you could become a professional after just six years of study, but on the other, putting it that way severely downplayed just how much there was to learn. Plenty of students ended up repeating grades, and it wasn’t uncommon to run into eighth- or ninth-year students.

Before long, the garden was filled with the scent of freshly pulled plants.

“I think…I can juuust about make it to the back door…and I’m not giving up till I do,” I muttered. Partway through the endeavor, I started to tire out, so I paused to gulp down one of my homemade potions. It was nice and sweet without being too sugary and gave me the stamina I needed to keep weeding. “Kind of ironic that I have to use up my potion stock to get into my workshop.” Just how many empty bottles would I be left with by the time the shop was finally ready to open?

If I kept traveling along the path that took me to the workshop from Canon, I’d eventually reach a region that hadn’t been taken over by farmland yet. There weren’t any reasons for anyone to travel out this way—or there wouldn’t be until my workshop opened—and as such, nobody at all showed up to interrupt my work. I kept trucking along silently, pulling out clump after clump of weeds.

I wonder if this sort of work’s hard on the backs of older alchemists. I’m only seventeen, so that isn’t an issue, but I should be careful.

Thanks to my work, a path through the overgrown yard gradually formed. At long last, the path wrapped all the way around the building, where I discovered what looked like an overgrown field.

“There it is,” I said. “Finally, I’ve uncovered this workshop’s herb garden!”

Nearly every alchemical workshop had an herb garden, and in many ways, they were the workshop’s single most important feature. If you couldn’t grow the herbs you needed to manufacture your merchandise, there was no chance you’d stay in business for long. There were some exceptions—especially big-city workshops where land was just too expensive to have your own garden—and in those cases, the resident alchemists would be forced to ship their materials in, and their creations would be more expensive to make up the difference.

Countryside workshops like mine, however, generally grew 99 percent of their ingredients. The fact that this workshop featured a garden had actually been referenced in the informational packet I’d read. The presence or lack of a garden was something they were required to communicate to prospective placements…but even if that rule was followed in a technical sense, it wasn’t always strictly adhered to.

“This is more like a thicket than a garden,” I grumbled.

After fifteen years of neglect, it was impossible to tell where the herb garden ended and the wilderness began. The power of nature was really something, and in this case, “something” meant irritating.

“No foolin’ me, though. I technically graduated at the top of my class, and I know a thing or two about assessing gardens!”

I carefully inspected the plants growing in the garden, one by one, and discovered a number that were almost certainly not native to Seajade.

All right! There’s actually a decent stock left over for me to work with.

I harvested all the herbs that looked like they’d be usable, storing them in a little wicker basket. I had a plan for my first creation at my new workshop, and it would be a very simple way to kick things off.

“It’s time to brew up some specially made High Potions, fine-tuned to suit the demands of a farmer’s lifestyle!”

That was how I’d pay Claire back for last night’s room and board. It’d probably end up being more like three to ten nights’ worth by the time this workshop was livable again, though, so I’d really have to step it up.

“Just you wait, Claire! I’ll blow the fatigue right out of your aching body!”

I made my way back to Claire’s house, headed into the storeroom, and pulled my cauldron out from my luggage.

“It’s nice out today, so I might as well work outside,” I said.

I set the cauldron up on a netted pedestal, then placed a Flarestone beneath it. Flarestones were very handy Artifacts that would produce a flame when you activated them with a little of your own magic reserves. Even people who’d never learned how to use magic could use them, as long as they had the bare minimum magical potential. Alchemists relied on them on a daily basis.

“The magic circle on the bottom of this thing’s a little soot stained, but looks like it’s still working just fine,” I commented. It wasn’t like I couldn’t brew potions in an ordinary pot, but not using a cauldron just felt wrong.

I poured in some holy water, added the medicinal herbs, then prodded the Flarestone. It lit up and began heating the cauldron.

“Perfect—a nice low flame. Now I just keep it simmering away for a long, slow brew!”

I stirred the mixture, keeping it all moving in a slight but constant vortex. One of the most important factors in making a highly effective potion was staying slow and steady. That generally meant the longer a potion took to create, the more valuable it was.

The sort of cheap potions that adventurers bought wholesale for dungeon expeditions were something I could mass-produce in the blink of an eye. They had an invigorating effect, of course, but the downside was that they borrowed your future reserves of stamina, meaning a crash was inevitable. There was a difference between feeling like you’d recovered your stamina and actually curing your fatigue. If that weren’t the case, people would be able to go without sleeping forever if they just guzzled enough potions, and trust me when I say that wasn’t how it worked. Not that I could blame people for thinking that, considering how drinking a potion felt. The fact that potions that were essentially stimulants were so popular was a bit questionable as well…

Eventually, the contents of my cauldron took on a bluish tint and began to glow.

“All right, my magic’s worked its way into the herbs no problem. Looks like this cauldron still has some life in it yet!”

To create potions and Artifacts alike, alchemists had to infuse their works with magic. It probably looked like I was just mindlessly stirring the pot for most of the potion-brewing process, but the reality was I’d been channeling my magic the whole time. The longer you spent doing that, the more effective and efficient your potion would become. After that was done, it just needed a little more simmering time before it was complete.

“And now I can move the whole thing into the storehouse and wait for it to—actually, on second thought, I can let it cool down out here. Better to not take my eyes off it until it’s finished anyway.”

I ended up sitting by the cauldron, wafting cool air across it using a fan.

“Come on, potion. Be yummy, be yummy… No, that’s not quite right. Be potent , be potent! And not too bitter! ”

When the cauldron had finally cooled down, I ladled the syrupy mixture within into a set of bottles, then tightly capped each one of them.

“All righty, these High Potions are good to go!”

Conveniently, Claire and Oguld were both stooped over and hard at work in the cabbage field when I jogged out to find them.

“Hey, guys! I have some potions here I think you’ll like!” I called out.

“Oh?” said Claire. “Why, you didn’t have to go to the trouble!”

“She’s right,” Oguld agreed. “You won’t get by in the countryside if you worry too much about paying back each and every little favor.”

“Sure, sure, but potion brewing’s my job! Please give them a try!”

The flavor of potions was an acquired taste, to put it lightly, but Claire and Oguld both gulped theirs down with aplomb.

“Oh, that is a bit bitter, isn’t it? I do feel nice and refreshed now, though,” said Claire.

“You’re right! It’s like I’m only just starting the workday, fresh and rested!” Oguld agreed as he pumped his arms to show off what good spirits he was in now.

“I’m glad to hear it!” I said. “As long as you get a good night’s sleep tonight, you shouldn’t feel any latent exhaustion when it wears off. Some potions are all about giving you a quick buzz, but these are brewed with your long-term health in mind!”

“I’ve tried out the potions you can get on the open market before, and I have to say, the flavor of yours was much more complex,” Oguld said.

Sounds like someone’s got a discerning palate! Leave it to a laborer to have that kind of experience.

“And speaking of the market, these would fetch a fair amount of coin if you sold them, wouldn’t they? I hope you’re not giving us something you can’t afford to,” Claire added.

“Oh… Well, you know… I did use a big variety of herbs and put a lot more care into them than anything you’d find in a normal store, so… Erm…,” I awkwardly stammered.

I was only able to get ahold of all those herbs thanks to the plants that had still been clinging to life in the workshop’s herb garden. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to make such a complex blend without going out and foraging otherwise. I didn’t want to straight up tell them what the potions were worth—they’d be shocked, for sure—but I also knew that if I lied now, I’d have to keep up the ruse forever, and there was no way I’d be able to manage that. Better to tell the truth now and save myself the stress.

“In terms of the recommended list price, they go for a little less than ten thousand gold each…,” I admitted.

“That much?!” Claire gasped.

“You’re kidding me! We could never afford that sorta luxury—it’s wasted on us!” said Oguld.

“‘Wasted’? No way!” I replied. “I wouldn’t be able to make these every day unless I put all my other work on hold, but since I can’t do my proper job right now anyway, I’ve got the time for it.”

It’s not like I can spend all day every day toiling away fixing up the workshop.

“Not to mention the fact that you’re letting me stay in your home for free… Please let me do this much to thank you, at least! Making these doesn’t take anything out of me at all—it’s just a time commitment!”

“You’re really sure? Well, if you say so, we’re real glad for them,” Claire said with a deep nod.

And just like that, my debts are paid!

“In return, we’ll be giving you the full houseguest treatment!”

Huh? What could that possibly mean…?

That night, Claire served twice as many dishes as she had the evening before. I had to tap out long before the meal was finished.

“Claire, please! This is enough food to feed a whole party of adventurers! I appreciate the thought, but my stomach’s not ready! I’ll have the leftovers for breakfast and lunch tomorrow!”

“But cooking is the only way I have to show you hospitality,” Claire protested. “I can hardly swap your bed out for a luxury feather bed on such short notice.”

“I’m begging you—just don’t worry about it!”

That same day, I wrote a short letter to Professor Mystille, which I dispatched on a boat that was heading toward the capital.

Clashing with the locals likely won’t be a problem, but their hospitality is really testing my stomach. Let’s call this another learning experience.

Nothing else to report for now! I shall write again once I’ve managed to get into the workshop.

Would I be all moved in and ready to get to work in my new home when I wrote that next letter, or would I still be occupied by cleaning out the workshop’s interior? Until I finally set foot in that building, only the gods could have known.

On the third day on Seajade Island, I spent the day weeding outside my workshop.

On the fourth day on Seajade Island, I spent the day weeding outside my workshop.

Perhaps it seemed like I did the exact same thing two days in a row. And that’s because I did! That was how utterly lousy with weeds that workshop was, and I had no choice but yank them all out one by one! An alchemist’s workshop wasn’t your everyday store, but it was, at the end of the day, still a store, and no store should’ve looked like its owners hadn’t tended to their front yard in decades!

The ivy covering the building could wait until later. Even if I didn’t get around to cleaning it up before opening, the magical atmosphere it gave the workshop did seem oddly fitting for an alchemist’s home.

I couldn’t spend all day every day weeding, of course, so I took some time to help the people of Canon out with their farm work as well, focusing especially on lending a hand to the elderly. I’d helped out an old woman named Sahkya quite frequently.

On that particular day, I’d once again paid Sahkya a visit.

“Thank you for helping me carry all those vegetables, dearie,” said Sahkya. “I preserved some lemons that are good for eatin’ by now—feel free to help yourself.”

“Oh, thank you! I’m not one to turn down an offer like that, so I’d be happy to try them!”

“That’s the spirit, dearie! Young’uns like you should eat while the eatin’s good.”

The way I saw it, Sahkya’s offer was a way of repaying me for the time I spent helping her. Money had become somewhat irrelevant to me the past few days—in fact, I hadn’t spent a single gold. I also hadn’t had any opportunities to make money, so my earnings and expenditures were breaking even across the board. That was life in the countryside for you.

“I never thought I’d acclimate to island life quite this quickly…,” I muttered to myself as I lounged in Sahkya’s home. “Maybe I was an islander in a past life or something?”

I’d been a die-hard go-it-alone type back in school, but look at me now! I wouldn’t say I’d been isolated back then, but I certainly wasn’t particularly close with anyone either. I think every school had at least one or two students like me in that respect, and since alchemists generally ended up striking out to work on their own in the end anyway, I’d never seen my personality as a major obstacle in the way of my career. This wasn’t an industry where lacking connections could stonewall you out of work.

That, I assumed, was why Professor Mystille had never come down on me about my attitude toward my classmates. I could’ve listed a hundred great things about her teaching style off the top of my head, and one of the items on that list would’ve been that she never nagged me about how I should’ve made more friends. The fact that she wasn’t exactly a social butterfly herself might’ve had something to do with that. Thanks to her, my grades climbed higher and higher without issue. If I’d had a more prying advisor who stuck their nose into my personal affairs, it was possible I wouldn’t have achieved nearly as much academically.

Anyway, the fact that the same girl who spent her whole schooling career alone was now sitting in an old lady’s house, snacking on preserved lemons and sipping lemon tea to wash them down, was proof that you really never knew what life would throw at you next. I wasn’t quite ready to be all, “Actually, I changed my mind! Connections really do make the world go ’round! Bwa-ha-ha!” but the islanders were just so nice, and I found myself wanting to be accepted by them before I knew it. The fact that I hadn’t done much alchemy yet felt like a problem, so I’d taken a few chances to concoct and pass out some simple potions (and by “simple,” I mean much less fancy potions than the ones I’d given to Claire and her husband).

“I’m not exactly ready to settle down and spend the rest of my life here in Canon, but I can’t deny that this place is pretty comfy in its own way,” I muttered as I sipped my tea.

Just then, Sahkya sat down across from me at the table. “It’s takin’ some real time to get that workshop of yours spick-and-span, isn’t it? Way I see it, you should take it slow and steady.”

“That’s my plan, yes,” I replied. “The mayor already gave me the workshop key, but there’s a tree in the way blocking the front door…”

I was getting by just fine without being able to make it into the workshop, and I could brew potions and make Artifacts without it as well, so there weren’t that many downsides to my current situation. It felt weird to think I was living a comfortable life despite being locked out of my own workshop, but I had everything I needed, so I couldn’t deny that I was sitting pretty.

“It’s not all that often we get any real troubles ’round these parts,” said Sahkya. “This island’s divine guardian’s always watchin’ out for us, after all.”

A divine guardian?

“Hey, could you tell me more about that? Your guardian, I mean?” I asked. I did have a reason to pry, for the record, and it wasn’t something as benign as being interested in folktales. “I’m going to have to search all over the place for alchemical ingredients eventually, so if there’s anywhere on the island that’s sacred, it’d be nice to know, so I can avoid it.”

It wasn’t like I’d been planning on going, “Woo-hoo! Let’s strip this island of all its resources!” before I heard about this guardian, but if there was some sort of local deity around, I’d want to be particularly careful not to mess with it. Even if the divine guardian was nothing more than a piece of local folklore—which, frankly, I suspected—I still didn’t want to earn the resentment of any islanders who bought into the old tales. I’d have to live here for three years minimum, so I had to be aware of what the locals valued.

“The divine guardian’s a biggun,” said Sahkya. “With a real fine set o’ shag and a spirit as free as the sea.”

An image of a giant ball of hair floated through my mind’s eye. “Heyo! I’m the divine guardian,” it said. Would a divine guardian really be laid-back enough to say “heyo”? I wouldn’t have thought so, but she did say it had a free spirit, so who could say?

“And I’ve heard through the grape vine that the divine guardian’s a cook among cooks as well,” Sahkya continued.

“Wait, the hairball cooks?!”

“Hairball? Whuzzat?”

“Nothing! Ignore me. Not important.”

Apparently, my mental image would need a few revisions. I definitely couldn’t see a hairball cooking, so I’d have to come up with a better way to picture it.

“They say the divine guardian’s as beautiful as an angel,” said Sahkya.

“A furry angel?!”

The hairball theory was more out than ever. Maybe it was a fluffy-but-otherwise-humanoid sort of creature? I knew creatures called “yetis” lived on snowy mountains—maybe I was dealing with something like them?

Well, it shouldn’t matter to me regardless. Not like the divine hairball’s gonna stop by my workshop to do business or anything!

A week had passed since my arrival on the island. That morning, I found myself witness to a truly shocking development.

“Oh, that? I wouldn’t serve it to you again, of course—I’ll be throwing it out.”

“Whaaat?! You’re tossing it?! Why?!”

Claire was throwing out the leftovers from last night’s dinner. Oguld had gone out with his bow to hunt the day before and had come home with a wild bird, and I thought we’d be having it again for breakfast. I really liked the dish, too.

“Those things spoil in no time at all,” Claire explained. “Trust me, you’re better off not eating them the day after. You’ll give yourself a stomachache like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I think the morning after a meal’s usually still within the safe zone, isn’t it?” I countered.

“Maybe way up north in the capital it is!” said Oguld. “Down south on the islands, though, food spoils quicker than you might be used to. I guess the fact that she didn’t throw it out last night goes to show that part of her was hoping we could eat it again, too, though. That’s the mindset of a woman who knows how it feels to go hungry!” he added with a hearty laugh. Considering he was the one who caught the bird, it only seemed reasonable to take his advice. He had many long years of local experience to back his words up, after all.

“I would love it if we had a way to make them keep for longer,” said Claire. “It would make cooking much easier, too, since I could make bigger batches.”

“I feel bad whenever I can’t finish a bird I brought down myself, but food poisoning’s a scary thing. That’s the mindset of a man who’s lived without reliable access to medicine for years on end!” said Oguld.

Oooh, there’s a bit of Canon-brand humor!

“Not that I’m in business yet, but if you do ever get an upset stomach, just pay me a visit, and I’ll fix you right up,” I said.

“You know, I might just do that!” said Oguld.

All right! Followed up like a pro! Still, it sounds like both of them wish they didn’t have to waste so much food. It’d be nice if there was a way they could preserve it for longer—but is there something I can do to help with that?

I headed straight into the storehouse after breakfast…which probably made me sound like one of those helper fairies that showed up in folktales, but all my stuff was there, and I was on a mission. I rifled through my bags and retrieved a book titled Complete Artifacts. As you might expect, it was an ostensibly complete index of Artifacts and the manners by which they were produced.

“Ah, there it is! The Chillbox!”

An illustration on the page I’d flipped to depicted a small, safe-like object. It was a rather simple Artifact that kept its interior at a consistently low temperature, preserving any foodstuffs you put inside it. Why wouldn’t every family own an Artifact that convenient? Simply put: exorbitant maintenance costs.

“Getting a Chillbox made is easy enough, but then you have to keep it supplied with enchanted stones that absorb ambient heat,” I muttered. “And that power fades in just ten days or so… Making food fresh every night would probably be cheaper than paying an alchemist to recharge your Chillbox every ten days. Makes perfect sense why most people don’t bother with them.”

I didn’t have to worry about paying an alchemist to maintain the Artifact, though. After all, I was an alchemist!

“There’s gotta be some way I can extend the duration past ten days…”

I had a feeling the method I used to instill magical power into the stone could, potentially, lengthen its period of use. I hadn’t made one myself, so I couldn’t say with absolute confidence, but it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. I wanted to do whatever I could to lessen the burden cooking imposed on Claire…which probably made it sound like I had her best interests at heart, but the truth was that if Claire wasn’t around to cook, I’d lose my primary source of food. This was an issue that could impact my own meal schedule!

“Looks like the one thing I’ll need is an indigostone. Those turn up down here in the south, right? Time to get out there and search!”

Oh, right—come to think of it, there was still the whole thing about Sahkya’s divine guardian. Here’s hoping I don’t get body-slammed by a yeti while I’m out foraging…

If I wanted to find an indigostone, I’d need to search in an area where large quantities of rock were out in the open. The mountain was naturally the first place to search, so I set out, staff in hand, heading straight for Seajade Island’s central peak. The staff looked very much like the sort of implement someone in the magic business would carry around as a matter of course, but in my case, it was really more of a walking stick than a magical focus. Alchemists had to hike around areas with dangerously poor footing on the regular, and a good staff was an indispensable tool to keep yourself from falling over.

Seajade Island’s most prominent geological feature was the prototypical single-peaked mountain, so I didn’t have to think about my route too much—I just had to walk toward the mountain. Some maps represented mountains with a small triangle, and mountains like this one made it really easy to see why. The mountain had no name, but since it was the only one on the whole island, no one felt the need to give it one.

The harbor and Canon Village were both located on the northern side of the island, so a typical person’s day-to-day didn’t bring them anywhere near the mountain. There weren’t any real tasks that compelled people to regularly visit the southern half of the island, either.

There was a small settlement on the island’s southern side called “Wende Village,” but when people needed to go there, they just walked through the forest at the foot of the mountain instead of crossing it. At first, I thought taking the longer route around the coast would be nicer, but apparently, it was made up in part of sheer cliffsides, making a seaside stroll not very practical. Getting up to Canon from Wende seemed like it’d be tough, but it seemed people did make the trip sometimes to shop.

I walked along silently, following a path that led toward the mountain. A few smaller trails branched off from the main path along the way, which, I imagined, had been left by the local hunters.

“Even if I don’t run into the divine guardian, I feel like monsters are gonna pop out here,” I said to myself. “Sure would be nice if they decided to stay home, though!”

Monsters and animals were distinct categories of creature, but at the same time, the dividing line was a little fuzzy. In a classic, colloquial sense, monsters were nasty, violent creatures that attacked humans. Buuut there were also friendly, almost pet-like creatures that happened to fall into the monster category for whatever reason. Not to mention, there were dangerous, violent animals, too. The distinction could feel arbitrary sometimes.

If this were the sort of place where dangerous monsters could be found around every corner, then there’d be no way I’d venture out into the wilds on my own, no matter how reckless I was feeling. This island, however, was largely populated by monsters that weren’t particularly scary at all, like forkbeasts. Forkbeasts were deerlike monsters with Y-shaped antlers, not unlike their namesake, a fork in the road. Basically, they were just kinda weird deer.

My staff thumped rhythmically against the ground as I walked along for about fifteen minutes. Eventually, I came across a rocky outcropping of bluish stone.

“All right! There’s our first contender!”

I brought out my hammer and chisel and managed to break off a portion of the stone. I would’ve loved to call my gathering expedition a wrap then and there, but sadly, it wouldn’t be quite that easy.

“I can’t say for sure that this is the stone I’m looking for… Safer to try a few more places and get some other samples before I turn back.”

Finding a rock that looked like it was the one you wanted only for it to turn out to be something entirely different was a common occurrence. Sometimes, a visual inspection just wasn’t enough to distinguish them, and if I wanted to be certain I had what I needed, I’d have to put in the legwork. My alchemist’s instincts, honed by years of study, were telling me that an area by a mountain like this was the right place to find indigostone, but still…

“I’d really rather not carry too many big, heavy rocks back with me… Wish I could just ask the rock, ‘Hey are you an indigostone?’”

“That’d be ridiculous.”

I could’ve sworn I just heard something. I had plenty of reason to question it, considering I was out on a mountainside. Who would be talking to me here?

Just in case, I glanced around the area.

“Hello? Anybody there…?”

…Nobody. Not even any wild animals or monsters. No divine guardians, either, of course.

“If you’re out there, say something, please!” I shouted. Nobody replied—which made sense, since no one was around. “Eh. Guess I imagined it.”

With that mystery dismissed, I struck off toward the mountain once more.

The trail got rougher from that point on. I found myself weaving through the gaps between huge boulders as I worked my way up a zigzagging, unbranching trail. I could really tell it was a trail meant for hunters stalking their prey—some portions were so tight, I had to crouch to squeeze my way through. Then just when I was starting to very seriously consider turning back…

Huh? This wall has a bluish-black tinge to it…

“Ah! Aha!” I exclaimed. “This is it! This is definitely indigostone! So this is where it was hiding! Well, not really hiding, I guess. It’s lying in plain sight, after all!”

I was pretty beat when I finally found the rock, hence my overblown excitement. I spent a little while shouting out in celebration, and if there’d been any forkbeasts or other monsters around, my shouting would’ve almost certainly scared them right off.

This, it seemed, was prime territory to collect indigostones. I climbed a little farther up, just to check, and found even more lying around in the open. I jotted down everything about the location in my notebook, taking the time to clearly record my route. It never hurt to know where to find materials like this in a pinch. Records like these were worth their weight in gold for alchemists—according to Professor Mystille anyway. With any luck, this one would be earning me some real gold in the near future.

“Okay! I’ve got four samples of what look like indigostone now. One of them’s gotta be what I’m looking for, so time to head home!”

…And then I found a fifth potential indigostone site on my way back.

“If I’d just been a little more careful searching, I could’ve turned back ages ago.” I sighed. Back at the Institute, it had felt like nothing could slow me down, but now that I was out in the real world—in a totally new environment—it seemed things wouldn’t be quite so straightforward.

I did see a single forkbeast on my way home standing off in the distance. I responded by striking a menacing pose, holding my arms way up and making myself look as big as possible.

“Grrr! Grrr! Look how strong and big I am! Don’t wanna mess with me!” I shouted.

The threat must have worked as intended, since the forkbeast looked away from me, then dashed off into the distance. The danger had passed—or really, fled—and I was left standing alone on the mountainside, arms still raised like a weirdo.

“Hm. Felt like I was the one that lost that encounter, even though I drove it off… One of those tricks you can only use if no one else is around, I guess,” I said to myself.

“I saw that,” a voice seemed to say. I jerked my head around, surveying the surroundings, but of course, no one was there. This time, I considered that a very good thing.

I headed back to the storehouse and got straight to work.

To start, I needed to suffuse the water I’d be using with magical power. I drew a magic circle, filled my cauldron with water, and set it down in the circle’s center. I wanted to be absolutely sure that the process would be a success this time, which is why I drew my own magic circle instead of relying exclusively on the one the cauldron was already inscribed with.

The straight lines of magic circles were easy enough to draw, but the curves could be really tricky. I had no clue how many of them I’d drawn over many long years of practice, and I’d had plenty of nightmares about screwing them up over and over again on my final exams.

Working with rocks isn’t really my specialty… I hope this goes well, I thought.

Once the water was all magicked up, I moved the cauldron over to a second magic circle I’d drawn nearby. It had the exact same pattern as the first one, and while I didn’t understand why exactly I couldn’t use the same circle again, apparently, doing it twice played an important role in the process.

Why was I messing around with water to begin with? Well, the water would be used as a medium by which magical power could be transferred into stone. Some stones’ natures—or, well, their compositions—could make instilling them with magic easier, harder, or even outright impossible, and in this case, water would make it a little easier.

I didn’t know precisely why, honestly. I just knew it was true. Most alchemists tended to be caught up in the how of our work and didn’t pay much mind to the why. There were research-oriented people in the field—Professor Mystille being one of them—but most of us had the mindset that as long as the process worked, it didn’t particularly matter why. I would have fallen into that category, too, if it weren’t for the fact that understanding the fundamental theories that made Artifacts work made it much easier to improve upon their designs.

“No point in spending all your time researching when the money comes from practical application,” I mused. “You’ll make way better profits cranking out potions!”

Professor Mystille was, well, a professor, so her research was her job. Workshop alchemists, on the other hand, could do all the research in the world and end up without a single gold piece to show for it. You couldn’t sell alchemical theory to the masses.

The minutes had been ticking by as I contemplated the nature of research, and the water was finally ready to be used as an alchemical catalyst. To start, I dunked one piece of what I hoped was indigostone into the cauldron. Next, I had to suffuse that stone with the magical power to quench the heat of the area around it!

“Graaah! Swirl, swirl, swiiirl!”

I was using a pair of wooden sticks (called “chopsticks”) to swirl the stone around in the water. I’d heard that people used chopsticks to eat in some regions, which sounded needlessly difficult to me. When it came to this sort of alchemy, though, they were apparently the most effective tool despite how strange they were. There were Artifacts designed specifically to stir a cauldron, but they were made for liquids and only liquids. I had a feeling they’d probably break if I dropped a stone in while I was using one.

Eventually, my arm started getting tired. I pulled the stone out from the water, then carefully dried it off with a rag. It was still too early to say for sure whether the stone was genuine indigostone, but I’d find out soon enough.

“Please be the real deal…,” I muttered as I set the stone down in an airtight box lying around the storehouse. Claire had given me permission to use it.

I just hope it’s nice and cool in there by the time I open it up again…

Ten minutes later, I popped the box open to find that its interior was ever so slightly cooler than it had been when I closed it. “All right! Mission accomplished!” I shouted, clenching my fists in triumph.

I’d successfully made a basic Chillbox. I was not about to stop there, though. I still had plenty of indigostones left, and I had a theory I wanted to test.

“If I enhance the potency of the water I use as a catalyst, will that lengthen the stone’s effective duration?”

I got a new cauldron of water ready, then went through the magic circle process a full five times in a row, making it more than twice as refined as the last batch. My assumption was that a more powerful catalyst would result in an indigostone capable of draining heat for a longer period.

I dipped another piece of indigostone into the water, swished it around with my chopsticks, then pulled it out and touched it. It felt like it was draining heat already. Finally, I set it and the first stone I’d made in a corner of the storehouse where they wouldn’t be hit by any direct sunlight and wrote a note…

EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS!

PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH!

…which I left nearby, weighed down by a handy rock. Assuming my theory was correct, the indigostone I used to make the first Chillbox would lose its cooling effect sooner than the second.

And the result? My theory…was correct! I squeezed one stone in each hand.

“No doubt about it. The second stone I made definitely lasted longer, even after factoring in the time it took to make after the first one was finished!”

It was really satisfying to see my idea being validated like this. “Then again, it’s not like this was a massive leap in logic. Surely some other alchemist would’ve already tried this in the past…?”

That was when a terrible realization finally struck me.

“A Chillbox that didn’t need maintenance for a couple months would be much less profitable for the alchemist! One that needs regular charging would generate way more income!”

There were probably other reasons, too—like how if Chillboxes that could be used long-term ended up becoming too popular, alchemists could end up spending all their time recharging indigostones to the detriment of their other work, for instance…but that first idea that had hit me still felt like the most compelling explanation.

That evening, I enjoyed a dinner that consisted of a number of meat and vegetable dishes. Oguld had gone out with a few other villagers to hunt down a forkbeast, and the dish Claire had made with it was superb. It didn’t have that certain gaminess you’d expect from a wild deer at all. There was also a very simple dish that consisted of sliced onions topped with a dressing that was incredibly tasty as well, though the fact that the onions were grown locally and freshly harvested probably helped. The onion slices were as white as freshly fallen snow—it was a treasure trove of food!

Once the meal was over, we once again had a decent amount of leftovers on hand. Considering how many times this had happened, I had to assume Claire wasn’t just bad at planning the volume of her meals—rather, the local custom was to serve more food than you could ever possibly finish when you had a guest over. I’d heard that some cultures considered it rude to only serve your guest a quantity of food they could finish easily—this felt sort of similar.

Having to dispose of a bunch of leftovers would have been a shame, but thankfully, most of what Claire had made would keep until the next day. There were just a few dishes that would be dangerous to store at room temperature, even if they were already fully cooked.

“All right,” said Claire, “we can go ahead and have the rest for breakfast, then.”

“Actually, about that—I have an Artifact that should come in handy for this!” I said before bringing out my highly anticipated and personally modified Chillbox. “If you store the food in here, it’ll last overnight and be totally safe to eat again tomorrow. The cooling effect inside will start fading over time, but just let me know when that happens, and I can restore it. It should probably last for somewhere around a month, I’m guessing.”

That really was a guess—the time it would take for the Artifact to need maintenance was totally untested. It’s not like I was selling them, though, so a rough estimate would work just fine.

“Wait… A Chillbox?” said Claire. “I thought that only the nobility and wealthy merchants had these…?”

“That’s because calling an alchemist in to maintain them is expensive. I’ll handle the maintenance for ours for free, though, so that won’t be an issue for you! Think of it as my way of paying for room and board.”

“All this just to pay us back…? I haven’t even served you anything especially lavish. It just seems like so much for so little,” Claire said with a strained smile.

Oh, rats! I didn’t consider what a humble person she was. If I don’t give her one more push, she might try to turn it down, and I need her to accept it! “Think about it this way: I’ll be eating these leftovers, too, right?” I said. “And so that means that you having this Chillbox will work to my benefit as much as yours!”

“I…suppose I would prefer to serve you food that’s as fresh as possible,” Claire admitted.

“And taking that a step further, if you or your husband eat something spoiled and get sick, it’ll end up being a problem for me, too! I couldn’t cook a meal to save my life, so I need the two of you in good health for the sake of my stomach!”

The argument sure felt logical to me anyway. As long as I was freeloading, we had a closer relationship than your average acquaintances. Saying we were like family would’ve been a bit too far, but we certainly weren’t strangers.

“In short,” I concluded, “making the people I live with happy is directly linked to making myself happy!”

At that point, Oguld finally stepped in to settle the matter. “She’s already made the thing for us, so we can hardly turn it down,” he noted.

Claire let out a sigh of resignation. “I suppose that’s true. I’d be happy to accept it, then. I have a feeling our standard of living’s going to just keep on climbing the longer you stay with us, Freya.”

Yes! I’d successfully convinced them to accept the Artifact—another mission accomplished! It was worth going through the trouble of making it, after all!

“You’ve done so much for me! It’s only fair that I pay you back,” I said.

“But really, you should be using your time to clean up your workshop instead of wasting it on us,” said Claire. “You’re an alchemist, aren’t you? Your work deserves higher priority!”

Oh. Right…

Claire’s words dragged me right back to reality. I’d managed to get the herb garden fairly well sorted by that point, which meant it was finally time for me to make my way into the workshop’s interior. I really didn’t like the thought, but it had to be done…

It’s gonna be so dusty in there, I just know it… The last alchemist might’ve left trash lying around, too…

“I think I’m getting a stomachache…”

“What?! I don’t think I used any spoiled ingredients in our meal! Are you all right?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that. Just some anxiety.”

Are we sure I can’t just use this house as my workshop? I thought to myself, despite knowing full well the answer was no, I most certainly could not.

Fun fact about island living in the southern seas…

“It’s only been a few days, and the garden’s already overrun with weeds again!”

Once again, I found myself pulling up weeds by the clump outside my workshop’s front door. I was positive I’d already weeded that whole area, but they’d just grown right back.

“At this rate, I’m never making it inside my workshop,” I moaned. The alchemist in me noted that most of the plants I was pulling did have medicinal properties, but I just couldn’t bring myself to extract those helpful essences when I couldn’t even set foot in my own workshop. That would be getting way ahead of myself. “Ughhh. I need help, but who could even lend a hand with something like this…? Any stray cats or dogs around that need a job…? Maybe a rabbit that feels like eating up a garden’s worth of weeds…?”

Then as I grumbled and pulled up weed after weed, I felt it. Goosebumps. A chill running straight down my spine. Something was nearby—I could sense it—and it didn’t feel human. It was way too big for that.

Oh no. Did some sort of monster come down from the mountains? I could definitely see that happening here! Okay, keep calm, keep calm. This island shouldn’t be home to any monsters nasty enough to prey on humans. I can just flail my arms at it and scare it off! It worked just fine when I had to drive off that forkbeast.

I steeled myself, then spun around to look behind me! And there stood…

…a big white wolf…that was, in fact, most certainly a mythical beast.

Not just any mythical beast, but I was almost certain it was the same one I’d met back at the Royal Institute. I probably would’ve screamed if I saw a wolf under normal circumstances, but considering this wasn’t our first meeting, it wasn’t too terribly hard to hold it back. I was more confused than scared, really.

“Huh? Wh-wh-what are you doing here?!” I asked as I fell over onto my backside, which wasn’t much of a change since I’d already been squatting to get to those weeds. I hadn’t registered just how shocked I was until I realized my legs had given way beneath me.

The wolf let out a soft whining noise. Just like how the line between animals and monsters was ambiguous, so, too, were the distinctions between animals, monsters, and mythical beasts. As far as I understood, they were just called mythical beasts because they seemed too divinely majestic to have the same name as ordinary animals or monsters. They needed a term that sounded cooler, basically.

And now one of those mythical beasts was standing right in front of me. I’d gone out to find it last time, and assuming it hadn’t wandered past my workshop by pure coincidence, I could only assume that this time, it had come to find me.

“Um, hello, O most esteemed mythical beast,” I hesitantly began. “Do you need something from me…?”

One word came to my mind: revenge. I had tricked the thing into swallowing a hellmoth powder pill, temporarily paralyzing it. I’d meant well, of course. In terms of danger, facing down a creature of its size and apparent might was barely any different from facing down an angry soldier with a drawn sword. The beast may have seen itself as unarmed, but if a human thought of its very nature as threatening enough, there would’ve been no hope in a sensible discussion. As such, paralyzing it had been my way of bringing it to the bargaining table in a way that kept everyone safe and comfortable—not to mention that I’d helped it get away with the Transparency Tincture afterward.

On the other hand, the fact that I’d paralyzed it without explaining any of that could have been taken as an act of aggression in its own right… And what, exactly, would happen to me if it was here for revenge? I’d be dead. That, I really would’ve preferred to avoid! I might’ve been able to put up a decent fight if I’d had time to prepare in advance, but right now, I was an unprepared gardener sitting on my backside, being faced down by a mythical beast that would’ve been twice my height if both of us were standing up. I had no chance. I was an alchemist, not a legendary adventurer!

“I feel like ‘don’t eat me! I don’t even taste good’ would be the classic line to go with here, but that doesn’t really make any sense, don’t you think? So why would anyone believe that? It’s obvious that anybody saying something like that has never been eaten before. And the people who do get eaten usually die before they have a chance to ask whether they were tasty after all. Oh, maybe the goal’s to give deliberately unreliable information in the hopes that it’ll save them? That would make sense…but I have more important things to be thinking about now. What are you here for? Seriously, what do you want?!”

Per conventional wisdom, mythical beasts were highly intelligent. I’d managed to negotiate with this one before, and maybe it would work again this time? I sure hoped so, because if it didn’t, I’d be doomed!

The mythical beast let out another lower whine, raised its foreleg, and placed a paw on my head.

I-is this supposed to be some sort of attack…? Probably not, right? I thought. Even though I knew I was in mortal peril, I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering in a totally different direction: Even its paws are soft! It feels so nice!

Next, the mythical beast used the same paw to pat me on the back. The massive pads on the bottom of its foot felt like they were bouncing off me. It almost felt like it was telling me to relax. This wasn’t how you’d touch someone you considered your mortal enemy.

“Calm yourself. I have not come to settle a grudge.”

And then the mythical beast talked. I knew they were smart, and I’d heard that some of them were capable of human speech. This must have been one of those ones…?

“U-um, you…can talk, huh…?” I awkwardly stammered.

“I see you are still stricken with terror,” the mythical beast replied astutely.

“Well, you know…not every day I talk with a mythical beast, right…? I don’t exactly know what is and isn’t okay by your standards, so…”

“Speaking with me in this form is difficult? Very well, then. I shall change into something more suitable.”

The next thing I knew, a white mist had engulfed the mythical beast.

Is that some sort of magic? Or maybe something more like a special ability?

The mist dispersed as quickly as it came, and I found myself standing before a girl who looked like she was two or three years younger than me. The first thing I noticed was her white—no, silver—hair, and the next was her dress, which was plain and unadorned in a way that, combined with her graceful demeanor, made her look like the daughter of a noble. Considering the sequence of events that had led to her change in appearance, though, I knew she was anything but—and a moment later, she confirmed my assumption.

“I am the mythical beast with whom you were speaking,” said the girl. “It will be easier to converse with me in human form, I presume?”

“Totally. You’re much less intimidating now,” I confirmed with an emphatic nod.

The girl took my hand in hers. I’d sort of forgotten up until that moment, but I was still sitting on the ground. She pulled me back up to my feet with a degree of strength that I almost couldn’t imagine coming from someone with such delicate hands.

“I am the mythical beast Lilil,” said the girl. “I am the protector of Seajade Island. Some call me its divine guardian.”

“Oh, wow. So you’re basically a god, huh…?” I was apparently speaking with a genuine guardian deity. In retrospect, that did explain why the look on her face was so oddly imperious for a girl who seemed so young. “Wait, does that mean that while I was still at school, I just so happened to meet the mythical beast who protects the island I was assigned to work on? That’s not a coincidence—that’s a freaking miracle!”

“It would take some time to explain the whole story,” said the girl. “Brush off your rear end and listen to my words.”

Her manner of speech was a bit pretentious, but considering she was a divine guardian, I figured she got a pass. I brushed the dirt off my clothes as I waited for her to continue—which was harder than I’d expected, since said dirt was annoyingly moist and hard to dislodge.

“For many a year, I have dwelled on Seajade Island,” said the girl. “It would be strange were I to borrow a home elsewhere, would it not?”

“Well, if you’re a divine guardian for this place, yeah, it’d be a little weird if you spent most of your time at a villa in the capital,” I said.

“Indeed. However, recently, as I strode through the forest, a power beyond my understanding summoned me to a faraway land.”

“Oh, right. That’d be the work of a Summoning Stone. Seriously, though, just how powerful of a Summoning Stone did they have to use to call in a divine guardian…? That was one nasty prank.”

They were seriously lucky the mythical beast they ended up with was so mild mannered. If they’d summoned something with more of a temper, it might’ve leveled the whole Institute!

“Cast adrift as I was, I found myself at a loss—until you arrived. It was thanks to you the encounter was resolved without incident, and for that, I offer you my thanks,” she said, still in a rather pompous tone. She probably thought that being a mythical beast made her special…and she wasn’t wrong, so I guess it wasn’t really an issue!

“I’m glad to be of service, I guess. I do have a couple points I’d like to address while you’re here, though,” I said, crossing my arms. “First up, if talking is this easy for you, you could’ve said something back when you were summoned! It would’ve been so much easier to communicate if you’d just talked to me!”

“You ask the impossible,” said the mythical beast. “To be so entangled with another’s magic leaves one in a diminished state. There’s a period of inebriation, per se. I could not possibly avoid its effects, and speaking the tongue of man in such a state proved beyond me.”

“Grrr… Well, you weren’t in control of the circumstances, so I’ll let it slide.”

Lilil—I couldn’t keep calling her “the mythical beast” in my head, considering how weird that felt when I was talking to what looked like a human girl—stepped over to a nearby tree and clambered up onto one of its branches. She looked like the daughter of a noble household, but she acted like she’d been raised by wolves.

“It was clear to me that you were an individual of mighty nerve and spirit,” said Lilil. “And an alchemist, at that—just what I needed. I valued your potential highly enough to consider appearing before you in this human form.”

“Hey, I won’t complain about the compliments. Keep going, please! I happen to be the top-scoring student in my grade, so… Hm? Wait… ‘Just what I needed’? For what, exactly…?”

Something about what Lilil had just said was really nagging at me. She was almost making it sound like she’d had a hand in my getting assigned to this island.

“And so I spoke with the professor who advised you and asked that you be assigned to the workshop located upon Seajade island.”

“Not cool! Like, seriously not cool!”

Does this mean that my punishment was all part of a conspiracy to get me sent to this island…? My master plan to have a leisurely life in a workshop on the capital’s outskirts was trashed for this…?

“You ought to know, by the way, that your fall in status had already been determined before I intervened,” Lilil added.

“Oooh, okay. So they really were just punishing me for rocking the boat, after all. I guess that’s all right, then. Well, okay, no, it’s still pretty darn bad in its own right… Did I really make that bad of an impression on the Institute admins…?”

“I presume you made a habit of speaking with impertinence,” said Lilil. “Such behavior tends to only amuse the speaker.”

“Right, right, yeah, enough already.”

It was one thing to hear that sort of criticism from my academic advisor, but hearing it from a random person—err, a random…entity?—was a lot harder to take.

Hm? Hold on. Does this mean that Professor Mystille had already met Lilil by the time she recommended this place to me?

“I informed the professor—Mystille—that if she were to send her pupil to Seajade Island, I would personally take responsibility for your well-being. She agreed without hesitation.”

“Found her weak spot in an instant, huh…?”

Professor Mystille had a very strict demeanor, but deep down, she was very caring toward her students. If I’d ever gotten kidnapped, I knew she would’ve tracked me down and saved me, even if she had to delve to the bottom of a thirty-floor dungeon to do it.

I sighed. “Well, at least I know how exactly I ended up getting sent here,” I grumbled. I wasn’t totally sure I was happy with the circumstances, but at least I understood them. “So if I’d never met you, I never would’ve ended up on this island… Funny how things work out.”

That wasn’t exactly the most profound observation I could’ve made, but to be fair, I had quite a few questions that were still unresolved. For instance, I could understand why, say, the mayor of Canon Village would be enthusiastic about getting an alchemist to set up shop on the island—it would make life a lot more convenient for him and the other locals, after all—but why would a mythical beast like Lilil want an alchemist around?

“And now,” Lilil continued, “I task you with aiding me in spurring this island’s development.”

“I’m not going to tell you not to ask me for favors, but could you at least be a little less domineering about it…?” I sighed. “Wait, hold on. The island’s development? You sound less like a divine guardian and more like a local administrator right now.”

“Over the course of the past century, this island has gradually declined,” said Lilil. “The population has shrunk, and many fields lie abandoned. The people lack jobs to occupy them. As this land’s divine guardian, I simply can’t have this.”

I looked up into the tree to find that a very serious expression had come over Lilil’s face. I could tell that she took her role as the island’s divine guardian seriously, and that she earnestly wanted to help it and its people prosper. Her dedication impressed me, but there was just one problem: That wasn’t an alchemist’s job!

“I mean, I can make all the potions you want, but I think you’re probably better off looking for a politician if you want to help the whole island,” I replied.

Lilil leaped from the tree, gracefully landed beside me, and laid a hand on my shoulder. “No,” she said, “I choose to entrust you with the task.”

“I get that, but I’m saying I can’t.”

“I entrust it to you!”

“Entrusting’s a two-way street, okay?!”

This was way too much responsibility for me! I hadn’t even learned the basics of economic theory at school—the most I’d touched on it was a very simple crash course on how to run a workshop. In retrospect, considering alchemists did have to manage their own businesses, that seemed like a bit of a flaw in the Institute’s curriculum… But I was drifting off topic and turned my attention back to the point at hand.

How exactly could one encourage an island’s development? I had no idea. I was, however, almost certain that trying to force some sort of dramatic change on the island would lead to trouble. The locals probably wouldn’t be happy about a random outsider barging in and shaking things up, either. All of this was the opposite of the sort of comfortability I was hoping for!

“I’m just an alchemist! I can’t take on something this important!” I shouted.

“I have watched your work from the shadows,” said Lilil. “I have seen you forage on the mountainside for materials to create a Chillbox for Claire. You are an individual who understands the value of working for the sake of others.”

“Oh! So that voice I thought I was imagining was you…?”

Was she protecting me? Or maybe it was more like she was surveilling me…?

“Anyway, I can get the workshop up and running—that’s totally in my wheelhouse—but helping develop the island is way above my pay grade!”

“I implore you to try! All I ask is that you do what you are able. Manage your workshop but also take on the occasional side gig.”

“That doesn’t exactly sound much better, especially assuming I wouldn’t be getting compensated well for it. How am I supposed to bring myself to do jobs like that? No way can a single unmotivated girl solve this island’s problems on her own!”

“Oh? You seek a reward, then?” Lilil asked. She blushed, for some reason.

Huh? We’re both girls. There’s no way she thinks she can entice me with something spicy, right?

A moment later, Lilil shifted back into her snow-white beast form. The transformation happened in the blink of an eye—she didn’t bother with the mist this time.

“You like this fluffy pelt quite a bit, do you not?” Lilil said in a firm, decisive tone. “Well, should you choose to work for this island’s betterment, I sh-shall…act as your pet!”

“M-my pet…?”

I gulped. Not even the most influential of nobles could get their hands on a dog with fur as magnificent as hers—and she was huge, too! There was just so much fluffy goodness, no dog could ever compete!

“Ahh… Ahhh…” I relaxed as Lilil slowly pressed her big, white, fluffy, doglike body into my face. It felt incredible. My sense of reason completely melted away into her fluffiness.

“My fur would make an exceptional pillow upon which to take a nap,” Lilil commented.

“Ugh…! You fight dirty,” I said with a grimace. “How dare you hold your own fluff hostage…?!”

“I am doing no such thing. My actions are not nearly that cowardly.”

“You’re a monster for tempting me like this! How could I possibly resist an offer like that…?”

“I believe I left you ample room to resist. Perhaps I underestimated the appeal of my offer…”

“All right! I’ll do it!” I declared, despite my better judgment. I just couldn’t help myself. I might never get another chance to get my hands on fluff like hers!

“Then our contract is sealed,” said Lilil. “Now then—you’re stifling me. Back away, please?”

“If the contract’s sealed, then I think I should get to fluff you for a little longer! That’s your side of the bargain, isn’t it…?”

Haaah, aaah… Her fur is perfect… It’s as silky smooth as the velvet on a king’s clothes… I could keep petting her forever!

“Line my coffin with this fur when I die…,” I mumbled.

“You are far more eccentric than I previously anticipated,” commented Lilil.

Too late to back down now! Now that I know what your fur feels like, I’ve gotta go all in!

I spent about thirty minutes burying myself in Lilil’s fur before dragging myself back to reality. She was clearly moments away from snapping and telling me off, which may or may not have spurred me on.

“Hate to cut the petting party short, but we’ve gotta switch gears.” I stood up and faced my wreck of a workshop. “My first objective’s gonna have to be making this workshop habitable and ready to welcome customers.”

“It’s like a fairy tale witch’s hut,” Lilil observed in an incredibly disinterested tone.

“Not even a witch would want to live in a place like this,” I replied. “First things first—we’ve gotta do something about that tree in front of the door.”

“Can you not simply use the back door? It appears unobstructed,” Lilil suggested.

“I’m surprised you know about that. I don’t want the first step I take into my new warehouse to be through the back door.”

No customer would ever trust a store that could only be accessed through the back door. First impressions were vital when it came to this stuff, and I couldn’t have people deciding that my shop wasn’t worth their time before they even went inside.

“Doesn’t help that all these tropical plants are exactly as hardy as you’d think they’d be. I expected vegetation to grow quickly here, but even trees just spring up…”

The upside was that there were tons of medicinal herbs (which is to say, my alchemical ingredients) that I pretty much never saw available in the capital growing out in the open. At the moment, however, those herbs were getting in the way of my business, which made it hard to celebrate their abundance.

“Here’s our goal: to make this place livable within ten days and open for business four days after that! That should be doable.”

I heard a sort of dry popping noise and turned to find Lilil back in her human form. The mist was back this time, but now that I knew what to look for, I could see her silhouette as she clapped dust off her hands.

“Two full weeks is unacceptable. We will finish this far sooner,” Lilil said as she reached toward the tree in front of the door. “Hmmph!”

She yanked it straight out of the ground! She made it look so easy, you’d think its roots had been submerged in water, not buried in the earth.

“Holy— How strong are you?! And how did you do that without breaking any of its roots…?!”

“There is a trick to these things,” said Lilil. “You, too, understand how to control your strength and pull a plant’s finer roots out along with it, do you not?”

But pulling a full tree out of the ground is ridiculous—that looked more like magic than a feat of strength! Maybe it was?

“The door is unobstructed. Go on, then,” said Lilil.

“That was incredible! I might’ve been underestimating divine guardians! That must have been some sort of magic, right?” I asked.

“Who knows?” Lilil replied curtly.

“Talk about brevity… Even people in the capital are better at answering questions! Oh, is it some sort of mythical beast secret magic?”

Lilil shook a hand in the air in emphatic denial. “No, no—I truly do not know. Though I am a being of magic, I know little about how that magic functions. I became able to use my powers through experience alone. I have never learned magic in any formal manner.”

She only learned by doing? I guess that just goes to show how absurd mythical beasts are. Realizing out of the blue that you’re able to use crazy high-level magic seems par for the course for her, but there’s no way in hell humans could do that!

“You’re on a different level, all right,” I muttered.

“I will aid you in cleaning your workshop. Mythical beasts such as I have no shortage of free time year-round, so it will be no imposition.”

Unending free time all year… Way to casually reveal that you have the lifestyle of my dreams.

Lilil laid a hand on the door. “Give me the key. Oh, or would you prefer to open it yourself?”

“I’ll do it. It’s kind of a big moment.”

The key slid right into the hole and turned without resistance—it almost felt too easy after how much of a pain that tree was.

“Very good. Finally, time to step inside,” Lilil said, pushing the door open and slipping past me.

“Just bursting on in before the owner, huh?” I grumbled as I followed along. I figured she let me unlock it myself so I could take the first steps in, but apparently not.

Compared to the disaster that was the exterior, the inside didn’t seem all that bad. It was dusty, sure, but I’d half expected the humidity to have rotted out the flooring, and that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

“Okay, this is way less bad than I thought it’d be!” Just then, I noticed a square-shaped white stone lying on a countertop. “Oooh, there’s the culprit—they left a Desiccalcite when they locked the place up! Nice work, predecessor.” It was an Artifact that helped dehumidify the ambient air. “If it weren’t for this little thing, the roof might’ve caved in by now. Then again, if it had, maybe the government would’ve had to build me a brand-new, state-of-the-art workshop. Dang it, Desiccalcite, you ruined everything…”

“Why speak so pessimistically?” said Lilil. “A little cleaning will bring this workshop up to standard. Is that not good news?”

“Sure, but having a whole new building would be the dream. The dorms at school were a bunch of crusty, old—I mean, they were very traditional.”

“You are a woman of many words…which is better than a woman of too few, I suppose. Prattle on as you will,” Lilil said as she laid a hand on my head. I almost felt like her pet, and she was the one who was basically a dog!

I shook off my discouragement and started checking the interior.

“This section would serve as the store, yes?” asked Lilil.

“That’s right,” I replied. “The front door’s meant for customers.”

“And this door to the left leads to the living quarters, I assume? Ah, yes—I was indeed correct.”

And you have indeed checked out another room in my own house before me!

“It seems the dwelling is not especially decrepit, either,” Lilil called out. “With enough effort, you could live here now.”

“I’d rather not live somewhere that requires effort for the bare minimum of comfort,” I called back. The Royal Institute’s dorms and classrooms had been on the older side, so I’d never lived in a nice, new, modern building.

I’d sure like to break that streak one of these days.

“Where does that door at the back of the store lead?” Lilil wondered, once again moving ahead before I could get a word in edgewise.

You know, she really does act like a dog. It makes sense, considering her true form.

It went deeper than that, even—I hadn’t noticed until that moment, but even her human form had a dog’s tail. It was wagging excitedly, which, I figured, meant she was in a good mood, most likely?

“Hey, could I be the first one to go through at least one of these doors?” I asked as I chased after her. I managed to claim the door at the back of the room and opened it to find myself gazing outside at the (former) backyard garden, which featured its own little lake and a trail that ringed it. It would probably be more accurate to say it had once featured those things. The trail was just as overgrown as the garden, and the lake’s water supply was clearly not running the way it used to. The thing was all but entirely dried up, and what little moisture was left made it look more like a poison swamp than a body of water.

“Hm… A painful sight,” Lilil said, her tail drooping downward. She wasn’t so upbeat anymore.

“No kidding,” I said. “I’ve been around back a few times, though, so I’m used to the sight. I know gardens with lakes like this are popular, but normally, there’d be a cobblestone path you could walk around on.”

“If there was ever such a path, it has been consumed by the weeds.”

“Seems like it.”

Cleaning the garden up, however, was at the bottom of my priority list.

“And to the left of the garden is…a field? This, at least, is in order,” said Lilil.

“Well, that’s ’cause I put a lot of effort into cleaning it up. Oh, and I know it looks just like a field, but it’s technically an herb garden. Every alchemist’s workshop needs one.”

Professor Mystille always liked to say, “Show me an alchemist’s herb garden, and I’ll tell you how skilled they are.”

“No matter how stylish or comfortable a workshop may be, if the resident alchemist isn’t growing enough of a variety of herbs in their garden, they obviously don’t know their stuff. In other words, that was the absolute first thing I needed to put in order,” I explained.

“Surely getting the workshop in order would help as well.”

“I knooow! I am painfully aware of that, thank you very much!”

“Well, we now know the scope of our task. Let us begin by cleaning your living quarters. Find me a dustcloth.”

I wonder if all mythical beasts are as impatient as her? Not that I’d ever complain about having an extra pair of hands. It’s a lot less awkward having her help than it would’ve been to ask the people of Canon.

I’d been glossing over matters of money so far, but once my shop was open and I could actually properly sell medicines, I couldn’t just give away my wares for free. Medicines tended to be rather pricey, and I’d have to charge for them, so the less awkward I could make that transaction, the better.

“A dustcloth, huh? I saw a yellowish cloth bag somewhere over there that had a bunch of—” I began, but before I could even finish my description, Lilil had found the dustcloths, grabbed one, and gotten to work wiping everything down. “Uh, I appreciate the help and all, but you’re gonna get your clothes dusty!”

Lilil’s dress was a perfectly unblemished snow-white. I hadn’t been planning on asking her to do much in that dust-ridden room, considering what a shame it would’ve been to get her pretty outfit all dirty. Some people may be into dirtying beautiful things, but I sure wasn’t one of them.

“Hm? Oh, that won’t be a problem. These clothes are part of my body,” said Lilil. “So long as I bathe in my true form, any stains will be cleansed.”

“Wait, you mean your clothes are the same thing as your ultra-fluffy fur? Can you not take them off, then? How do you bathe in your human form?”

“You are overcomplicating things. Magic has its ways, and those ways are rather flexible. I do not understand the particulars, however.”

“That feels like a bit of a cop-out to me, but now that I think about it, only the absolutely most incredible, esteemed mages in the world could pull off a transformation that’s as perfect as yours.”

Lesson learned: Human logic doesn’t apply to the world of mythical beasts.

“All right, then! That means we’ve got twice the cleaning staff I was counting on! Let’s get this building spick-and-span!”

I grabbed a dustcloth, clenched it in my fist, and hyped myself up.

Time to get down to business.

Two hours later, I was running on fumes.

“I really underestimated how much energy it would take to wipe up all this dust…,” I groaned.

The building had been abandoned for fifteen years, which had been more than enough time for the dust to settle. Not only did it take some real elbow grease to get it off, but the dustcloths turned black with grime almost immediately, which meant having to wash them clean over and over.

Heavy lifting wasn’t in my wheelhouse, either, and I hit my limit in no time. The floor was still too dirty to fling myself onto, so I cleaned up a chair and flopped down onto it instead. Lilil, on the other hand, was still going strong—in fact, it seemed like she was enjoying herself. I would’ve felt bad treating her like a servant, though, so I decided to intervene.

“Hey, let’s call it here for now,” I said.

“You wish to stop? No need. I’ve energy to spare,” said Lilil.

“We’re gonna be in this for the long haul regardless, so we might as well take it slow and steady, right? I think we’ve gotten enough done for today.”

“Your bedchamber is still far too dusty to sleep in. What will you do tonight?”

“Spend the night at Claire’s house, of course.”

“Then I will do the same. They will recognize me if I assume my mythical beast form.”

“Great. Not like there’s that big of a difference between one houseguest and two, so I’m sure they’ll— Wait, what?”

I almost didn’t catch that—is that really gonna be all right? The village isn’t going to go into a panic if I tell them that a mythical beast wants to spend the night, will they? Wouldn’t it be easier if she stayed human and I just said a friend stopped by to visit for the night? Then again, it sort of sounds like she’s planning on sticking around for the time being, so maybe it’d be better to introduce her to everyone sooner rather than later…? This island barely gets any visitors, so if she’s going to be hanging around me in her human form, somebody would surely notice eventually…

“I assure you there’s likely nothing to worry about. Your fears are unfounded,” said Lilil.

“I wish I could take your word for that, but we humans have to be considerate of each other in a way I don’t think mythical beasts have to worry about. If the villagers are gonna see you, I need a good explanation…”

“As I said, this is needless. Why are you—? Oh, I see. You’re the sort of human who barely listens to what others say.”

“Oh, if it isn’t Lady Lilil! Hanging out with Freya today, are you?”

“Lady Lilil! It’s been way too long!”

“Hey there, Lady Lilil! I caught a fine-looking deer today—feel up for a steak? And howdy, Miss Alchemist! Sure was a scorcher today, and it’ll get even hotter when summer comes, so better watch out!”

“Why, Lady Lilil! You’re looking lovelier than ever today. Not that you’ve changed a bit since I was a little girl, of course!”

Everyone already knows exactly who and what she is!

“I told you there was nothing to worry about,” Lilil commented.

“Ugh! Grr… Guess I should say I was wrong, then.”

“You guess you should say that, or you will say that?” Lilil prodded.

So introducing the divine guardian, Lilil, to the villagers of Canon ended up being totally unnecessary. As I pouted, Sahkya happened to wander by.

“Looks just like how I described her, don’t she? Our divine guardian’s got a shaggy white pelt like nothing else! Not when she’s lookin’ all human like now, of course.”

“Yeah, you did tell me all that, didn’t you…?” It was true—I’d been informed about Lilil in detail long before I met her. I just hadn’t made the connection. “Every alchemist’s had the experience of looking for ingredients only to find a bunch right near their house. This is sort of like that, I guess. Ugh, the shame…”

“Aw, don’t sweat it! People never stop embarrassing themselves all the way till their dying day, so don’t let it get to you,” said Sahkya. Those were such wise words, I paused to jot them down in my notebook before moving on.

Introducing Lilil to the townsfolk had turned out to be pointless, but it still felt important to show people we were acquainted, so we took some time to walk all over Canon Village together.

The word “village” might evoke a tiny cluster of houses, but Canon was actually quite expansive. There were fields all over the place, high and low, and the houses were dispersed all throughout rather than being clumped together in a central location. The fact that the area was hilly meant that the distances from house to house tended to be fairly long, too.

After we finished saying our hellos, we made for Claire’s house. She welcomed us in without hesitation, paying no mind to the fact that Lilil and I had arrived as a pair, and served us so much food, there was no way we could have ever finished it. I’d been a little curious about what form Lilil would eat in, and it turned out that she kept up her human appearance. In retrospect, that made sense—if she knew what human living was like, then eating in her wolf form from a bowl set under the table would probably have been humiliating.

“Thanks to that Chillbox, I can make as much food as I want without having to worry about waste,” Claire told me as we ate. That was nice to hear—it really made my effort feel worthwhile. The food I wasn’t able to finish at this meal, however, went to Lilil instead.

“You look like a real glutton in your human form, huh?” I commented.

“You know my true size. I eat as I must,” Lilil replied.

As I ate, I planned out how I’d go about cleaning the workshop the day after. Having Lilil around meant I’d probably be able to finish up a lot quicker than I’d initially estimated, but I still wanted to work out an itinerary that would keep things moving along efficiently. Oh, and I wanted to make sure that by the time we were finished, the place was sparkling!

Were there any compounds I could mix up that would be good for cleaning? If I were at school, I knew for a fact I could get some, but it wasn’t such a simple matter on this island. I’d stopped by Canon’s general store—one of the very few shops in town—earlier that day, and they hadn’t had anything quite like what I wanted. In other words, I’d have to make something from scratch.

“Are you pondering something?” asked Lilil.

“You might say that.”

Right around then, Claire brought out a fruit platter for dessert. One of those fruits looked like an orange but turned out to be very different.

“Oooh! So sour…,” Lilil moaned, her mouth dramatically puckered.

“Dogs can’t eat citrus fruit at all, right? Are you sure you should go for that one?” I asked.

“I am a mythical beast. I can eat whatever I please—even onions,” Lilil declared so proudly, it came across as a little arrogant. “I don’t mind the flavor of these fruits, but the thorns adorning the plants they grow on are quite irksome. Would that they ceased to grow them.”

“I mean, plants grow thorns because they don’t want their fruit to get eaten. Just a difference of priorities between them and fruit eaters like us.”

Just then, I happened to remember one of my lessons from back at school.

Thorns. Thorns and fruit. Wait, I’m in the south right now! For all I know, they might grow here naturally!

“Hey, Lilil? I’m thinking about going into the woods for a bit tomorrow. Let’s take the day off cleaning, okay?” I said.

“What? Surely you must finish cleaning your workshop before you harvest herbs? Learn to prioritize.”

“I’m going out to look for an herb that’ll make cleaning easier, actually!” I explained.

Lilil gave me a look that told me she had no idea what I was on about.

We stayed the night at Claire’s house that evening. Yes, we—Lilil stayed, too. I was sure she had a bed of her own somewhere on Seajade Island, but since she was already here, she decided to stick around for the evening. Seeing as I was imposing on Claire myself, I was in no position to argue, especially since there turned out to be another vacant bed in the next room over that we could drag into the chamber I’d been sleeping in.

“Tomorrow will be an early day. Let us turn in early,” Lilil said as she climbed into her bed, still in human form.

“Oh, you sleep as a human, huh?” I commented. I’d been positive she’d turn back into her wolf form before bed.

“I would be far too large otherwise,” Lilil explained. “It would hardly suit the setting.”

“That’s a more logical answer than I was expecting… Hey, I’ve been wondering, which one is your true form?”

“You ask the strangest questions. If you dress in an unusually fancy outfit, does that mean you are no longer in your true form? Consider it the same principle.”

“Hm… Not exactly an answer, but I guess that makes sense.” I want to be the sort of person who can insist every one of my looks is the real me, too.

“And moreover…,” Lilil continued. For some reason, she seemed a little hesitant. “When I’m in my animal form, I shed. A rather considerable amount, I might add. Cleaning the bed afterward would be a terrible trial…”

“I didn’t expect divine guardians to sweat the small stuff quite that much.” Honestly, I was around 80 percent impressed and 20 percent disillusioned. She really was taking off that mask of divinity.

“Hm? ‘Small stuff’? You underestimate the fur of a beast my size. Simply sweeping the floor would amass more fur than you could imagine. Perhaps a human has no point of reference, having only the hair atop your head?” Lilil pouted as she sat up again.

“Oh, no, I wasn’t complaining! I like that side of you, actually. It’ll make living together way easier.”

“I do not feel entirely satisfied by that. You’re being truthful, but it feels as if you’re making fun of me…”

One thing was clear: Divine dignity and a housekeeper’s instincts did not go hand in hand.

The next morning, I struck out into the forest with Lilil accompanying me, still in human form.

“You don’t want to change for this? I was sure you’d be running all over the wilderness in your animal form,” I asked.

“I’m just as capable in this form. You need not worry. Also,” Lilil added, holding her hands out in front of her as she closed and opened them, “a human’s hands are far better suited for collecting small items.”

“So you’re even going to help me out with the collection part? Well, thanks,” I replied. I felt bad having her help out like this. I’d figured she could find a place to take it easy while I was working.

“I have nothing to do today anyhow, seeing as you’ve told me there is no need to clean,” said Lilil.

“Yeah, but it feels weird to say you’re my pet when you’re helping me out in so many ways—even if the whole pet thing is in name only.” I paused to consult my internal lexicon. “How about instead…I call you my apprentice?”

“Both terms are equally demeaning. I fail to see the point.”

“Fair enough…” Both options did seem sacrilegious, considering I was dealing with a divine guardian. “In that case, I’ll leave it up to you to pick your title! You can call yourself my apprentice, or my guardian, or whatever you want. I really don’t care, as long as I can get a face full of fluff every once in a while. That doesn’t cost you a thing, after all!”

“You’re being quite presumptuous,” Lilil grumbled. “So? What are we searching for? You have yet to explain yourself.”

Well, I didn’t realize you’d be helping. “Look for a thorny tree,” I explained. “Tell me when you find one, and I’ll come over and determine if it’s the kind we’re looking for.”

“A tree with thorns? There should be one right this way,” Lilil said before immediately dashing off, her steps light as she practically flew up the sloped ground. She looked like a dainty young lady, and I was a little scared her dress would get caught on the branches of all the trees around her, but she moved ahead with such ease, it was almost like they were phasing through her. Apparently, she knew this place well enough to dodge the undergrowth with ease.

“Here, is this the one? A young tree with ample thorns,” Lilil eventually said as she came to a stop.

“Oh, that’s a prickly ash! Its peppercorns can help raise body temperature, but more importantly, they make for a really handy spice. It’s a great material to have in stock.”

I bet this stuff would make for a great souvenir if I brought it back to the capital and framed it as an ingredient! Then again, if I went to the capital now, it would seem like I ran away and blew off my three years of public service. It’s gonna be a long, long time before I get to go back…

Still, it was, as a general rule, acceptable for me to spend reasonably long times far afield from my workshop, as long as I didn’t go missing for a full month or something. Alchemists often had to spend days in the wilderness collecting ingredients sometimes, and the system had to be lenient enough to allow for that.

“Unfortunately, we’re not after prickly ash this time. Maybe we’ll have better luck with the next one,” I continued.

“This wasn’t the one we were looking for? Very well, then. I will search for another.”

Lilil set off at a nimble dash once more. The sight of a girl with long, silvery hair flitting around a forest in a white dress was something I really wasn’t used to yet. If I had run into Lilil without knowing about her, I probably would’ve mistaken her for some sort of ghost. She just didn’t seem real, even though I knew she was currently in the forest looking for cleaning materials—maybe one of the most mundane reasons that could’ve possibly brought her here.

“There—the plant with the white flowers! It is covered in thorns,” said Lilil.

“That’s a baby rose! It’s a laxative.”

“Wrong again, then? What of that one, over there? It’s thorny as well.”

“That’s an angelica tree. You can peel off its bark and steep it in hot water to make a decent stomach medicine. It’s especially good when you’ve had a little too much to drink apparently, but it’s well-known as a high-class ingredient. Only the buds are edible, though.”

“Tell me something other than thorns to look for! There are countless thorny plants in these woods, and all these failures are irritating beyond measure!”

Oh, whoops. Guess we have had a few too many misses in a row. “It’s harder than you might think to describe plants. Amateurs go out and accidentally harvest poison all the time! It’ll be a little while longer before I can start teaching you the finer details, Miss Apprentice.”

“Fine, fine,” Lilil huffed, scratching her head before going back to her search for thorny plants.

Professor Mystille had once told me, “My students are not my customers—it is not my job to satisfy you with quick solutions. Take your time learning from my example, and eventually, we’ll move on to something more complex.” Whether or not that line of reasoning would work on a mythical beast was something I still wasn’t totally convinced of, though.

“Not to mention, it’s just hard to put a plant’s features into words,” I added. “Like, everyone knows what the word thorn means, but there are so many types! It can be next to impossible to identify a plant with certainty through words alone—after all, you can have two plants you’d describe in the same way, even though one’s medicine and the other’s lethal poison. It really does happen sometimes.”

It didn’t help that the dividing line between poisons and medicines could shift dramatically depending solely on how you used them. They weren’t absolute terms. It was super common for stimulants that would act as a little pick-me-up in small doses to be extremely fatal if you took too much.

Lilil gave me a long, appraising stare, then nodded. “Very well,” she said. “I will learn from this lesson and aim to be an apprentice you can be proud of.”

Looks like we’ve reached an understanding, then.

I’d barely ever had to teach anyone anything before, so the best I could do was be sincere when answering her questions.

“I found one other thorny tree—one that bears large, bean-like fruits,” Lilil said, jogging over to me to deliver the news before dashing off again. Her feet tapped rhythmically against the ground as she ran, this time, downhill.

“Ah—a little slower, please! You’re gonna leave me in the dust! Don’t strand me in the middle of nowhere!” I yelped. I had no mental map of the paths through these woods, so I’d been leaving navigation entirely up to her—meaning that if she left me alone, I would be completely lost!

“Surely you can keep up? This is hardly a fast pace.”

“Nope, no way! I’m a human, not a mythical beast! I might have decent stamina, but I am not a sprinter, I’m an alchemist!”

I frantically stumbled my way down the slope until eventually getting so scared of falling that I leaned back a little too far and plopped down on my butt. I still had a lot of momentum, unfortunately—though whether I’d been running or falling was unclear—and I ended up scooting along on the ground, sliding rapidly downhill.

I’ve only been on this island for a week, and my life’s already in danger!

Thankfully, the ground leveled out pretty fast, and I managed to stop. I heaved myself to my feet, relieved, only to find Lilil standing directly in front of me.

“You might look human, but I know for a fact that your body’s superhuman.” I sighed. “Not to mention, you have the energy of the most rambunctious little kid ever…”

“Is this the tree? This one with the odd beans on it?” asked Lilil, resting her hand on a tree as she clearly didn’t care about the disaster I’d just been through.

Somebody’s relaxed… Wait! Those feather-shaped, prickly ash–like leaves! Could it be?!

I didn’t even need to ask. The rocky ground around the tree was covered with a huge number of pods, which had probably fallen from the tree the year before. They were black and really did look a little like beans.

“This is it! This is the one! A king’s honey locust! And there’s plenty of mature pods on the ground, too—it’s perfect!”

I opened my bag and started shoveling the fallen pods inside.

“Hm? How will these be of use for cleaning?”

“You’ll see! It’s my turn to show off next. You can trust me on this one—I was a star student in school!”

I returned to my (still unopened) workshop and got right to work.

“The process is really simple, so watch closely, Lilil. First, you crack the king’s honey locust pods open and pull out the little black beans inside.”

“They look like nothing more than spoiled beans to me,” said Lilil.

“You’re not wrong! Next, we’ll throw them into a cauldron I use to make medicine and add in some holy water, plus a pinch of a powdered stone that enhances magical energies,” I said. That was all we needed. “Then you just stir, stir, stir!”

I stirred the cauldron vigorously using my stirring pole. Over time, a white froth began to appear around the beans, and the cauldron filled with more and more bubbles.

“What in the world is that?! Where did those bubbles come from?!” Lilil yelped.

“And just like that, it’s done! A holy water–enhanced, ultra-powerful detergent!”

I was sure the mixture I’d just made would make the cleaning process dramatically easier. I dipped a washcloth into the bubbles, pulled it out right away, then gave one of the tables an extremely quick, perfunctory wipe.

“What was the purpose of that? All you did was spread the bubbles on the surface,” said Lilil.

“Just wait for about fifteen seconds. Then you take a clean, dry rag and wipe it off…”

And just like that, the table was sparkling clean again!

“What?! Incredible! It’s practically a mirror!” Lilil squealed with glee as she stared at the table. She was acting like a little girl who’d just seen magic for the first time. She wasn’t exaggerating, either—her face really was clearly reflected in the table’s newly polished surface.

“Heh-heh-heh! You know what this means? No matter how thick the layers of dirt we have to deal with are, a quick soak and one wipe will take it right off! No more scrubbing the same place for ages—it’ll be one, two, done every time!”

Lilil gave her own rag a dip in the extra-strength detergent. “The way it sweeps the grime right away is incredible! I want to try! In fact, you take it easy. I will clean the whole room!” she excitedly declared. She also rambled a bit about how she’d clean the place so thoroughly, it would look better than new, which seemed a bit over the top, but at least she was happy.

I get it, though. Having a crazy-powerful cleaning solution on hand makes chores kinda fun. There’s just something empowering about seeing a floor get so clean that it shines after a single pass!

I did think it was a little odd for a whole island’s divine guardian to feel empowered by cleaning, of all things…but I also got the feeling she’d be mad if I tried to help, so I decided to take a seat in an armchair and let her do her thing until she wanted a break.

You know, the warm weather down south is nice. I can sit around without feeling like I need a blanket, I thought as I let out a lengthy yawn…

I woke up midway through a dream about my boat getting caught in a storm and rocking violently on the way to Seajade Island. I barely had time to think about what an ominous nightmare it had been before I realized Lilil was, in fact, rocking my armchair.

“Oh, you’re awake?” asked Lilil.

“Hey! Could you maybe find a gentler way to wake me up next time?! I almost barfed in my dreams!”

Waking up to real-world nausea is the absolute worst!

“I wished to show you how stunning I’ve made the place. Behold! An incredible change, is it not?”

Once she mentioned it, I finally registered the state of the shop. Every surface in sight practically sparkled. It was clean as a whistle.

“Y-you finished all this?! It looks even better than I thought it would!” I exclaimed.

“There’s more—look at your lodgings!”

I opened the door to the workshop’s living quarters, glanced downward, and saw my own face staring back up at me from the wooden floor.

“It really is a mirror… This is so much more than I expected…”

“My work was thorough! You could move in this very day, if you so choose,” Lilil asserted. She wasn’t exaggerating at all. The wreck of a workshop I’d walked into was no longer—everything was so polished and perfect. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have thought it was brand-new.

“I guess you really shouldn’t underestimate a good cleaning solution. Actually, you deserve the credit here, Lilil,” I said. Considering her face and dress were both a little darkened and dust stained, she’d clearly spared no effort. “Thanks for all your help! It looks like I’ll be able to open shop way sooner than I planned.”

“It was hardly an effort worthy of thanks. I did what I did because I knew full well the work you put in as well,” said Lilil, turning away from me as she spoke. “…Lending you my aid was only natural.”

She clearly put in more work than I had, but I decided to go ahead and keep that opinion to myself. I was coming to understand that going out of her way to help people, even when she didn’t have an obvious or compelling reason to do so, was just how she operated.

“Yeah, it really would be rude to call you my pet,” I said. “Let’s go ahead and officially name you my pupil. As of now, you’re the top apprentice of Freya the alchemist!”

“Very well. I shall do my utmost as your…apprentice…,” Lilil began, only to be interrupted by a very big, very lengthy yawn. “It seems that cleaning tires one out in a way that running and roaming do not. Allow me to take a thirty-minute nap,” she added before walking over to a corner of the room, turning back into her wolf form, and curling up into a ball.

“Huh. I guess it doesn’t feel weird for her to nap in a corner if she’s in animal mode,” I commented to myself. In that sense, having two forms seemed handy.

“A nice nap after hard work is quite satisfying,” Lilil muttered.

Meanwhile, the most transcendentally soft, fluffy blanket in the world had just appeared before me. Surely no one could blame me for claiming the one big perk our deal afforded me? And so I laid my head down right on Lilil’s belly!

Ah… I just sink right into her fuzz! Nothing could possibly be more comfortable to snuggle than this…

It wouldn’t have been any surprise at all if my eyes drifted closed and I sunk into a deep, comfortable slumber…except for the fact that that was not what happened at all.

“I guess I just woke up from a nap, huh…? I would’ve tried harder to stay awake if I knew I would’ve had this opportunity…” In the end, I still decided to indulge in Lilil’s fluff for a while, even though I was wide-awake. “Honestly, being awake and alert for this is nice in its own right.”

And the workshop’s nice and clean now! I just need to get this place stocked up, and I’ll be ready to open. I can start sleeping here, too…and… Hm? Wait…

I’d passed out in a chair earlier and was lying on Lilil’s side now, but I had yet to peek into the living quarters and see where I’d actually be sleeping long-term. I stood up, walked over to the door, and glanced into the bedroom to find that its walls and floor were as clean as could be. Lilil had gone above and beyond there, too…but then in a corner of that perfectly clean room, I saw the oldest, most ragged, worn-out bed I’d ever laid eyes on.

“Yup. That’s one thing I’m definitely gonna have to replace…”

Apparently, it would still be a little longer before I could move into my workshop.

The day my workshop was restored to a sparkling-clean state, we once again spent the night at Claire’s house. I do mean we, by the way—Lilil once again joined. Considering she was officially my apprentice, it wouldn’t have felt right to tell her to find somewhere else to sleep.

“Thank you again,” I said to Claire. “The building’s all cleaned up, but I don’t have a usable bed. I’m planning on heading down to the harbor to buy one tomorrow, so this will be the last night I have to stay here, I promise!”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Claire guffawed. “Come on, stop making it sound like I have you on a time limit! You could stay here all year if you wanted—make it all three, even!”

The workshop itself was livable, but all the things that would actually let me live there—a place to sleep, food, and the like—were still missing. Having to provide for yourself was harder than I thought, it seemed. I’d developed a newfound respect for all the people out there who lived entirely on their own.

I had, at least, confirmed that I’d be able to purchase a bed at the harbor. The people of the island’s two villages had to buy their furniture goods somewhere, and the harbor—essentially the island’s third settlement—was where everyone went for it. Furniture wasn’t perishable, so it was easy enough for stores to bring a stock in and keep it around indefinitely. They didn’t have enough stock to, say, sell a hundred beds at once out of the blue, but unless the island got a hundred-person influx without warning, that would never be an issue.

Before we went to sleep, I took some time to talk with Lilil about my plans for the next day. She generally stayed in her human form while she was in people’s houses. In her words, “Moving around indoors is a hassle when I’m in my wolf form.”

“So I’m planning on going out for furniture tomorrow,” I said. “Do you want to come along, or would you rather do your own thing?”

“I am your pupil,” said Lilil. “I will accompany you, of course. I haven’t anything better to do.”

I was a little jealous of how she could say stuff like that without even a hint of shame. People without relatives, like me, appreciated every moment of free time we could get, of course, but they also made me feel a little on edge. I always caught myself thinking I could be using that time to make some extra money, even though I wanted to spend the time I had off work doing anything but work.

“And once I move into the workshop, I’m probably going to start producing merchandise,” I continued. “I technically don’t need that much in stock to open shop, but it won’t be a good look to have most of my shelves empty on opening day.”

“I suppose I do have an image of every alchemist’s workshop having shelves full of innumerable bottles set up behind the counter. Your predecessor’s shop did, at least,” Lilil said as she glanced upward to the right. It didn’t seem like she was looking at something, so much as her gaze was wandering as she reminisced.

“Yep,” I said. “We have to keep a bunch of weird, obscure medicines around just in case someone ever needs them, after all. Honestly, it’s more about the image than them ever actually coming in handy. A little trick to make a workshop look more professional.”

“A ‘trick’ is a less-than-generous way to put it. You have quite the sharp tongue.”

“My professor got on my case about that all the time—which is funny, ’cause she’s just as bad as me. I might’ve picked up the habit from her, actually.”

I could almost hear Professor Mystille’s voice echoing over from the mainland. “Don’t blame me for your own failings, you imbecile!”

“When it comes down to it, the overwhelming majority of alchemists’ sales are made up of recovery potions,” I continued. “In fact, you could get by selling them exclusively without much trouble at all.”

“Does that not only apply to lands where adventurers are active? They guzzle potions by the bushel, to my understanding, but adventurers rarely frequent Seajade Island. You may find your sales less compelling than you hope.”

“Urgh! You’re right…!” My own pupil just schooled me! “How do you even know about that…? Have you traveled all over the place or something?”

“I have left the island in the past, but mostly, I have heard the tales of many sailors who have docked here. Travelers always wish to speak to me, on account of my looks,” Lilil said, grinning as she pointed toward her own face. I had to admit, she was a silver-haired beauty the likes of which were few and far between…even if she had a chunk of onion stuck to the corner of her mouth at that particular moment.

“Yeah, I can imagine them telling you anything you wanted to know if it meant they got to stare at you longer,” I admitted. Three years ago, I probably would have gone with a simpler response—something to the tune of “yeah, boys are the worst”—but nowadays, I had the awareness to admit I wasn’t any different. Of course it’d be more fun to talk to a cute girl than some stubbly old man.

“And as a result, I know more than you might expect about alchemy,” Lilil continued. “Though it’s all secondhand knowledge of the basics.”

“Speaking as your teacher, I should probably tell you not to get a big head, but that’s not really my style. Go nuts.” Not many teachers have pupils who are quite this esteemed, after all. “Anyway, if we really pick up the pace, we could be ready to open the workshop as soon as tomorrow! Assuming plans don’t change, which they might. Also, just because we’ll be ready to open doesn’t necessarily mean that we will open!”

“That was far too many caveats.”

“I mean, there’s no particular reason why we have to open the place as soon as possible. If people need medicine, I can just make it for them on the side—it doesn’t have to be a business thing. Opening the shop’s really going to be more of a formality.”

That was one aspect of tiny-island life that worked in my favor. In the capital, nobody would ever go to me for medicine if my store wasn’t actively open, and nobody would make dinner for me, either. The lifestyle I’d been living since I arrived here would have been completely unthinkable there.

“And anyway, when I really think about it, opening my workshop just two weeks after getting to this island is pretty darn impressive! Guess I wasn’t head of my class for nothing, huh?”

“I remind you, you have not yet begun to tidy up the garden.”

Great. My pupil already knows how to hit me where it hurts.

“I’d forgotten about that, actually…,” I admitted. The garden that lay behind the workshop was just way, way bigger than it needed to be, and at the moment, it was more of a thicket than anything else. Living on a big property wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, apparently. “Meh, we can put that off till later! Getting a bed takes priority.”

“In that case, we’ve nothing to do tomorrow morning, yes? I will go for a walk, and you will accompany me.” That felt remarkably doglike of her, but I decided to keep that to myself. “For now, however, I will sleep.”

With that, Lilil changed into her wolf form. I took the chance to pet her, which, of course, annoyed her.

The next morning, I awoke to the feeling of paw pads. Apparently, whenever Lilil wanted to get up for the day was when we’d both get up.

“It’s time for our walk,” she said. “It will be good for you to commit the paths to memory.”

She was in her wolf form, which made this feel exactly like I was taking my dog on a walk—maybe that was her intention? In any case, we walked around Canon.

“How do I put this…? It’s like someone took a painting of a rural village and brought it to life. There was actually one that looked exactly like this hanging in the faculty office at the Institute.”

The fields were vast, and houses dotted the landscape here and there. The effect was particularly striking when you climbed to higher ground and got a panoramic view of the whole village. The sea was just barely visible in the distance, since the village itself had been made far enough from the ocean for the sea breeze to not have any detrimental effects on the crops. I could understand why they’d decided to establish Canon here, even if it meant a thirty-minute walk from the harbor.

“It doesn’t have that remote feel at all, huh? I guess the climate might have something to do with that. And it certainly doesn’t feel like a wealthy town, but it doesn’t seem impoverished, either.”

“Your impressions are your own,” said Lilil, “and while impressions themselves can be neither right nor wrong, there is perhaps a truth to be found in your words.”

“Now, there was a roundabout way of talking. Was there something I said you disagree with?”

“I called you to this island to spur its development. It goes without saying I am dissatisfied with its current state.”

“Right, yeah. I guess that tracks.” Makes sense that the island’s divine guardian would be all about making it a better place to live.

“Right now, you are gazing toward the ocean,” Lilil continued. “If you gaze in the opposite direction, however, you will understand my discontent.”

“The opposite direction? You mean toward the mountain?”

Lilil walked off toward a small hill that stood within the village, and I followed along behind her.

A big, desolate plot of land stretched before my eyes. It wasn’t completely devoid of plant life—there were clumps of grass and shrubs growing here and there—but it wasn’t exactly thriving, either.

“Yikes. It’s just like how my herb garden looked… Even worse, actually, and on a totally different scale,” I said.

The desolation seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. Not literally, of course, but while all the plant life made it a little hard to tell exactly how big the area was, I got the sense it was fairly big.

“It’s like some sort of wasteland… Wait, no—we’re looking at an abandoned field right now, aren’t we?” I asked.

“Indeed,” said Lilil. “While the land was once farmed, it now lies neglected. To till the fields in the highlands is tiring work, and as the population shrank, so, too, did the capabilities of the local workforce. In time, this field was abandoned entirely.”

Unfortunate though it was, that was far from uncommon. I knew there were places like this all over the world, but seeing one with my own two eyes for the first time still came as a shock.

“You know, fields are about as artificial as plant life gets,” I said. “You could see this as nature reclaiming the land we took from it, even. Still, seeing land that looks this barren just feels…sad, I guess.”

Once, that field was probably full of crops. Maybe carrots, or onions, or something. Now that I knew what I was looking at, the seemingly endless reaches of nothingness felt like the physical manifestation of Canon’s imperceptibly slow, steady decline.

“This field was abandoned for good after Oguld’s father hurt his back,” said Lilil. “It has been in this state ever since. Villagers have claimed to intend to cultivate it once more, but none have put together a sufficient plan to maintain it, and so it has been left to decay.”

“There sure are a lot of shrubs, huh? It’s almost like the forest is taking over. It’d take a lot more than some weeding to sort this place out,” I said. Bringing the field back to a usable state would be an incredible undertaking.

“But if nothing is done, the island will continue to wither. If measures are to be taken, they should be taken soon. That is why I called you here. Can nothing be done to restore this place?”

“I mean, considering how much stamina you have, maybe we could…? No, that would be too much, even for you. Not to mention, it feels kind of wrong to have a divine guardian for the whole island out working a single field.”

“Quite. If I involve myself too deeply in the villagers’ affairs, before long, I will have become their leader. That cannot be allowed to happen.”

Lilil, still in her wolf form, gazed out over the barren land with me. There was desolation in her bearing and none of the intimidating aura I’d expect from a mythical beast.

“Your workshop will be your highest priority. I will not object to that—but when you have time to spare, will you lend me your aid?” Lilil asked, staring straight into my eyes as she spoke.

An odd feeling came over me. It didn’t feel like I was being coerced, but at the same time, for reasons I couldn’t quite pin down, it didn’t feel like I could just brush her off. It was a lot like the feeling I got back at school when underclassmen asked me for a favor…or it would’ve been, I imagined, if that had ever happened. I wasn’t the sort of person who ended up being popular with the lower grades, so I’d never had that chance…

They could’ve just asked. It’s not like I would’ve refused a direct request… Even I would wanna help my underclassmen out of a pinch—and that goes double for my apprentice!

I reached up to scratch my head. “Judging by your story, this land belongs to Claire and Oguld’s family, right? There’s no way I can ignore it, in that case. Gotta pay them back for all the favors they’ve done for me!”

None of the villagers had told me about the abandoned farmland. Maybe they just hadn’t felt like sharing a sob story with me out of the blue. Or maybe they’d given up hope on the problem ever being fixed. One way or another, now that I knew about it, I couldn’t just leave it alone. I wasn’t going to be the sort of alchemist who sold a few potions and called it a day, and it was clear that potions weren’t all this island needed. It needed hope—hope that it could prosper once more.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll take a shot at it and see what I can do before I open the shop! Announcing that I’d restore this land to a usable state would be a nice way to mark my grand opening, right?”

“You will?! Truly?!” exclaimed Lilil.

“I would’ve really had to think about it if this was just a personal favor for you, but since people I owe are involved, I feel like I have to do something.”

“Must you make excuses for your own generosity?” Lilil asked as she laid a paw on my head.

“I’m not making excuses for anything, actually,” I said. I knew she was just teasing, but her paw felt nice, so I decided to let it slide.

I’d committed myself to helping, but the question was: How, exactly, could I do that?

First things first, I bought a bed and brought it back to the workshop (which I didn’t even need to charter a carriage to manage, since Lilil could carry the whole thing in her wolf form). Then I grabbed a few books of alchemical theory and started paging through them. My goal: any information I could get my hands on regarding herbicide.

Making plants wither was relatively easy. All you had to do was spread a substance that was lethal to them. That being said…

“‘Any land that has been treated with this herbicide will remain infertile for the next three years’?! I can’t wait that long! I’m a busy woman with places to be!”

“Hm. It seems that in the case described here, the objective was to cultivate a vast swath of untamed wilderness. It hardly applies to this island’s farmland, and I do not relish the thought of your poisons making their way into the active fields below,” said Lilil, who was sitting in a chair beside me. She had returned to her human form, and having her there kind of made her feel like my assistant.

I guess apprentices are sort of like assistants, in a way?

“I guess that means you can read, huh, Lilil?” I asked. “And pretty complicated texts, too! This book’s full of specialized lingo.”

“Do not belittle me. Free time is something I have never lacked, and I made a point of using that time to study the human tongue in great detail.”

“Okay, see, every time you brag about how much free time you have, it makes me want to belittle you. Anyway, it wouldn’t be too hard to make an herbicide weak enough to ignore the side effects. Why not at least give it a try and see how things look?”

I picked out a few chemicals from my collection. The nature of my work meant that I had a fair number of poisons in stock, but it was all aboveboard. Being a licensed alchemist meant I had the certifications to handle hazardous substances.

“Oh? I see that bottle has a skull upon it,” Lilil observed.

“Most ingredients used in medicines can be poisonous if you get the dosages wrong,” I explained. “In fact, you can’t make medicine at all if you aren’t willing to work with any poisons!” Some poisons were too potent to work with at all, of course.

I started adding ingredients to my cauldron, then brought it up to a simmer. The heat came from a Flarestone I’d placed beneath the vessel.

“You might want to step outside for a minute, Lilil,” I said.

“No need. As your apprentice, I must watch you at work. A student learns by stealing the techniques of their teacher, after all.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s more of a craftsperson thing than an alchemy thing. Some methods of medicine making would be dangerous to try to replicate if all you’d done is watch them beforehand. It’s your choice, though.”

The cauldron began to glow a very faint shade of red. Magic was involved in the alchemical synthesis of medicines, and that glow was evidence that the magical infusion was working as intended.

“Tell me, Freya—it is possible to work with herbs and mix medicines without the use of magic, is it not? Could you not, then, practice alchemy through nonmagical means as well?”

“Good question! It’s theoretically possible, but legally out of the question. You need to make Artifacts to pass your alchemy exams, and if you can’t use any magic at all, you can’t make any Artifacts. That means you’ll never get your license, which means you won’t be able to practice alchemy legally.”

“Mhm…” Lilil noted my explanation down on a piece of paper.

“By the way, magic is what makes potions’ recovery effects so potent. If you didn’t use any magic at all while making them, they wouldn’t be any better than all those old folk remedies people used to rely on.” Alchemists didn’t tend to travel around in adventuring parties all that often, so it was easy to forget, but our profession relied on magic as much as full-blown mages or clerics. “Oh! Almost done brewing now!”

The liquid within my cauldron had turned a golden yellow color.

“Augh! What an awful smell!” Lilil yelped. She sprang to her feet and backpedaled away from the cauldron. She was in her human form, but the way she moved was extremely doglike.

“I know,” I said. “That’s why I said you might want to wait outside.”

“You could have been more specific! My nose is far more sensitive than that of a human!”

“Oh, that makes sense. This isn’t the only chemical that stinks, though—not by a long shot—so you’re gonna have to get used to it.”

“Ugh… Surely it must smell appalling, even to a human like you… Do all alchemists lack a sense of smell?”

“That’s gotta be in the top five things you should never say to an alchemist,” I said with a wince. “You’ll hurt people’s feelings…”

It was true: Alchemists were exposed to terrible odors on such a regular basis, we tended to become desensitized to them…and some of us ended up having a real chip on our shoulders about that fact. Nobody likes having it pointed out when a noxious odor doesn’t bother them. I wasn’t a big fan of the idea, either, though it was better than having someone come out and tell me that I stank. Depending on what exactly you were brewing, it was very easy to end up with some very unfortunate smells sticking to you. That was a risk we needed to stay constantly vigilant about.

“You don’t have to tough it out this time,” I said. “I can handle this job just fine on my own.”

“B-but…I must stay by your side to learn from your example… Unpleasant though it may be, I will endure!”

“I’m not so sure I like the implication that alchemists work in an ‘unpleasant’ environment all the time…”

The way I saw it, our work was way more pleasant than anything involving heavy physical labor. Well, except for the parts where we went into the mountains to search for herbs—that could get pretty exhausting…

Lilil did stick to it, in the end, and I ended up with a dose of weak herbicide for the trouble. We headed out into the overgrown back garden, diluted the herbicide with water, and splashed it onto a few of the weeds. However…

“Hm… Looks like it just doesn’t have the kick to deal with the shrubs… This could wilt some of the shorter grasses, I guess, but that’s about the best we can hope for.”

“It does seem like it would be unable to deal with the overgrown field, yes.”

It was starting to seem like herbicide wouldn’t be the answer to that particular problem.

“Do you wanna go take a walk over to the field again?” I suggested. I figured that taking another look at the actual site might spark an idea or two. And if it didn’t…well, I’d just have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

I ended up paying a visit to both the barren field and the field Claire and her family were currently cultivating. Lilil had come along in her human form—I was starting to think she made a point of using that appearance whenever she was acting in a sort of official capacity. Maybe she used her human form for formal occasions and her wolf form when she wanted to relax?

“The soil in this field is quite different from that of the field that’s still in use. There are more stones here, are there not?”

“I think more rocks ended up rolling in after the field was left abandoned. They weren’t always here,” I said. “The soil in the abandoned field should be the same as the soil in the current one. They said they hadn’t brought in new soil for that one, after all.” I didn’t have any reason to doubt the field’s owners at their word. “If there is any difference between the two, the issue is the soil’s dryness. It’s not like anyone’s been watering the abandoned field.”

I crouched and probed the abandoned soil.

“It’s fairly dry, right? That’s why all the grasses and shrubs growing here are types that can survive in low-moisture environments.”

Some plants were more suited to thriving in less-than-ideal environments than others. There were plenty of flowers that only bloomed in the desert or on beaches. The ideal environment was subjective, basically—it varied from plant to plant.

“Dig deep enough, and you will find your moisture. Our work would be easier, perhaps, if there were none at all,” Lilil said as she scooped up a handful of dirt.

“On paper, yeah,” I replied. “Even plants that are adapted to low-moisture environments will wilt if they don’t get any water at all… Hm?”

No real-world environment would ever line up precisely with theory. We could, however, make them line up with a little human intervention!

“I won’t know if this has any chance of working until I try it and see, but the theory’s sound… And even if it doesn’t work, there’s no chance it’ll harm the surrounding environment… Pretty sure I can get the materials I need easily enough, too…”

“What are you muttering about? If you have an idea, then share it with me,” Lilil said as she leaned in to peer at my face.

“This might mean some heavy lifting on your part, Lilil. Are you up for that?” I asked.

“So long as you do not intend to ask me to lift the entire island, I will do whatever you wish.”

Wasn’t planning on asking you to pull off a mythological feat, so we’re good on that front!

“All I need is for you to crush a bunch of rocks up. Relatively fragile ones, I mean.”

“Do you intend to demolish someone’s residence?”

“No! Way off! Think way smaller!”

All right, then, “heavy lifting” means something very different for humans than it does for mythical beasts!

When we got back to the workshop, I found a hammer for Lilil. It wasn’t a particularly remarkable hammer in any way—the sort you could find in any household, one even someone as scrawny as me could use without issue. Not that I did use it unless I really had to, since I really hated when I slipped and bonked my fingers.

“What a tiny hammer this is. I’m almost disappointed,” Lilil grumbled.

“I want you to use it to break this rock up into the smallest pieces you can manage,” I said as I set down a roughly fist-sized, bluish stone in front of her.

“Very well, then. It will be a pile of sand once I am finished with it.”

“That would be perfect, actually! The bigger the pieces, the harder it’ll be for me to spread them around later on.”

Lilil started bashing away at the rock with her hammer. I found that sort of work to be incredibly tedious and preferred to avoid it whenever possible…but she looked like she was having the time of her life.

“Ha-ha-ha! Shatter! Be ground to dust!”

She’s like a little kid whose parents asked her to help with the chores…

I couldn’t just let Lilil handle all the work, of course, so I started on my side of our preparations. I began by drawing a magic circle beneath my cauldron, one that would enhance the effects of the stone. I wasn’t about to slack off now and let the plan fail—it was high time that I proved why, exactly, I’d gotten such good grades!

Once I’d finished prepping the cauldron, I decided to get something nice and cold for Lilil to drink. I didn’t know the first thing about cooking, but squeezing a few lemons into some water was easy enough for me to manage. Just as I finished squeezing some lemon juice…

“There! I’ve finished! This should suffice, should it not?!”

“That was fast! Like, way faster than I ever imagined!” A pile of sand lay before Lilil. I couldn’t call it a stone anymore by any stretch of the imagination. “Thank you! Now it’s my turn. You can go ahead and take a break for now.”

“What is this stone, by the way? I believe you should tell me what it is we’re doing,” asked Lilil.

I’d sort of hoped to wait to explain until she saw the results in action, but it looked like keeping her in the dark any longer would spoil her mood, so I decided to spill the beans. “That rock was called a drystone. They’re naturally occurring, and I bet you can guess what they do from the name alone.”

A grin spread across Lilil’s face. “Shall we gather up an audience to observe when we test it, perhaps? It would make for a suitable opportunity to announce the opening of your workshop,” she suggested.

“Not a bad idea! It’ll be a disaster if the plan fails, of course, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Incidentally, the lemon water was a bit too sour for Lilil’s taste.

The next day, I headed out to the abandoned field, accompanied by Lilil in her human form. Claire was there to meet us, and she wasn’t alone. The whole village of Canon seemed to have gathered up with her.

“Good morning, everyone!” I said. “My name is Freya! I’m an alchemist, and my workshop will be opening for business in just a few—”

“And I, her apprentice, am the divine guardian of this very island, Lilil! On this day, you will bear witness as we restore these barren fields to their former, fruitful glory! Watch and be astounded!”

“It’s, err, really not set in stone that it’ll work that well, so please stop talking me up like that,” I whispered, knowing painfully well it was too late. If this didn’t work after a preamble like that, it would be a total embarrassment. I was confident it would all go as planned, though.

I put on a pair of gloves, then lifted a bucket I’d set down nearby. Touching the sand within directly would’ve dried my skin out something fierce.

“This is called ‘Weeding Sand,’” I said as I held the bucket aloft. “It may look like ordinary sand, but it’s an alchemical tool that I’d like you to think of as more or less a type of potion. And here’s how I’m going to use it!”

I grabbed a handful of sand from the bucket, then scattered it out across a patch of tall weeds. Its effects were so rapid, it felt like there was no delay at all: The weeds began to shrivel, then turned brown and withered away. It was like the dead of winter had set in within a matter of seconds. Well, the dead of winter in a colder climate, I mean—Seajade Island probably didn’t have much of a winter to speak of.

“Incredible! They dried up in a snap!” shouted one of the villagers.

“Can you go ahead and pull them out, Lilil?” I asked. She got right to it, and I knew that everyone who watched her work would be able to tell just how effortlessly she was able to yank out each clump of weeds.

“Oooh! It worked so quickly!” said a villager.

“That’s amazing!” exclaimed another.

Who wouldn’t be surprised by how quickly it works? That was what I’d been hoping to show everyone. It was the perfect piece of publicity to use as the launching point for my workshop’s grand opening.

“Weeding Sand is made by crushing up a type of stone that absorbs water, called drystone, then amplifying its absorbent qualities using magic. It doesn’t do anything at all aside from absorbing moisture, so there’s no danger of it leeching into the other fields like an herbicide might, and it doesn’t have any seriously detrimental effects on the human body. Well, it’d probably be really bad if you ate a bunch of it and it sucked up all your internal moisture, I guess…so, uh, don’t do that, please! Bad idea!”

While I was busy talking to the crowd, Lilil snatched the bucket from me. “What are we waiting for?! I will spread it across the field!”

Ah, there she goes. You really shouldn’t do that barehanded! It’s awful for your skin!

Lilil, however, seemed totally unbothered as she scattered the Weeding Sand in every direction. Within the span of three minutes, the abandoned plot that had looked like it was on its way to becoming a forest had become a perfectly ordinary field again. The villagers jumped in to help by pulling up the dried-out weeds, some of which were so withered that they crumbled to pieces at the slightest touch.

“Excellent! Some fertilizer is all it needs to be workable farmland once more! ”

Lilil raised her left arm and pushed it with her right. It looked like she was stretching—or maybe warming up for some sort of exercise? She must have been in a great mood, considering her tail was wagging like crazy.

At that point, Mayor Makood stepped up to the front of the crowd. The look on his face told me he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“The way you disposed of those weeds was incredible, Freya,” the mayor said, “but won’t the vegetables we plant here have their moisture sucked away, just like the weeds…?”

“Very good question!” I said. It felt like the moment merited some sort of pose, so I raised a finger in the air as I launched into my explanation. “Drystone does indeed absorb water very effectively, but not indefinitely. After a period of time, it’ll start to release that water back out into the environment—and since the stone we used was ground up into sand, it won’t take all that long for it to happen.”

“And that would mean…?”

“You’ll have no problem using this just like you would a normal field! Well, you should probably water it a little more heavily than normal, at first. The sand won’t last forever, though, and as its effect fades, it’ll absorb less and less water.”

“You mean to say that stone has a lifespan? But stones are not alive at all,” said Lilil.

“I won’t pretend I understand exactly how it works, but I think it’s a similar phenomenon to root crowding,” I said.

“How so?” Lilil asked.

“When the stones take in moisture, they also take in tiny amounts of dust and whatnot that the water carries in with it. That rock has tiny holes in it—too small to see with the naked eye—and all the dust and stuff starts to clog them up. I’m no researcher, so I don’t know if I’m getting that exactly right, but I’m pretty sure that when it’s ground down to this fine of a size, its lifespan will be much shorter than a larger rock’s would be.”

“Well, that sounds much easier to use than something we’d have to change out the whole field’s worth of soil for,” Claire commented.

“Right? That’s exactly why I decided to grind it up so finely,” I said.

“And I am the one who ground it,” noted Lilil.

“Uh, yeah,” I admitted, glancing away from her. It looked like she thought I was trying to take credit for her work.

“Impressive, is it not?! If you grow any particularly tasty onions here, be sure to offer some to me!” said Lilil. She seemed even more excited about all this than I was, but it wasn’t like she needed anyone’s permission to get worked up like that, so I decided to just let her enjoy herself. Being a divine guardian had probably given her plenty of chances to learn how to act like a big shot before.

Suddenly, an oddly serious look came across Claire’s face. She turned to the two of us and bowed.

“Whoa! What’s the meaning of this?” Lilil asked, a little frantically. That was rare for her—she must have been really flustered.

“I always thought this field was doomed to fade away, but thanks to you, we don’t have to abandon it, after all,” said Claire. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“It was hardly an achievement that merits this sort of formality! What a shock,” said Lilil.

“No, no, this isn’t something I can brush aside that easily,” Claire said before looking over at me. “We don’t have much saved up, Freya, but I promise we’ll pay you whatever that herbicide was worth someday.”

Oooh, she’s worried about payment?

I’d always been strict about saving and spending my money before I came to this island, but ever since I arrived, my perspective had started to shift. Simply put, I’d stopped thinking so hard about it—in a good way. I was barely spending anything, so what did it even matter how much I made? Plus raking in cash on a tiny island like this definitely wouldn’t be a good look.

“I didn’t say anything about a price before I went ahead and treated the field, and Lilil’s the one who asked me to restore it in the first place,” I said. “Not to mention, my workshop isn’t even open yet! And if that’s somehow not enough to convince you, let me remind you that I’ve been living in your house and eating your food the past couple weeks. So long story short—”

“You may consider this a freebie! Take it as a token of our thanks.”

“Yes, that’s what I was getting at. But couldn’t you let me say that?!” I really wish you wouldn’t steal my juiciest lines! “My workshop will be open for business in just a few days, so please be patient a little while longer! That said, if anyone falls seriously ill, feel free to visit before we officially open. I’ll work something out for you!”

All things considered, this was a solid publicity event! What goes around comes around, good deeds included.

I’d never really thought of myself as the charitable type, but I had to admit that helping people was surprisingly fun. If only I’d realized it sooner, I might have helped more people out during my time as a student—though the fact that nobody had ever asked for my help seemed to render that idea inconsequential…

“Hey, Miss Alchemist,” one of the villagers called out, “I’ve got an abandoned field on my land, too! Think you could sell me some of that herbicide if I stop by sometime?”

“Same here! Please—I’ll pay whatever it costs!” another villager exclaimed.

And just like that, we’ve discovered one of my customers’ needs! This is going great!

“I can do that, sure!” I said. “Grinding up the stones takes time, though, so it’ll be a little while before we’re stocked up!”

“Oh? Is it time for me to smash more stones, then? ” Lilil happily chimed in. “It made for remarkable stress relief!”

And so, much to my relief, my experimental weed-killer plan worked like a charm.

Lilil turned into her wolf form, and I rode on her back on the way home from Canon. She wasn’t thrilled about the idea of me mounting her, but she’d given me permission without argument.

“I’m not fond of being ridden by humans,” said Lilil. “I have only allowed the islanders to do so when circumstances demanded it—say, when one of them broke a bone and could not walk.”

“Why’d you give me permission, then?” I asked.

“Because today, you granted my request. It was only fitting that I grant yours in turn.”

“You really don’t have to keep score like that,” I said. “This isn’t a transactional relationship. We’re working together.”

It wasn’t the smoothest ride I’d ever been on, but it was also far from the worst. Compared to the rocking of the waves on the ship ride over, the swaying of Lilil’s back felt like nothing at all.

“The herbicide you made was truly impressive,” Lilil said. “And now your workshop will be restored to its former glory.”

“Huh? But it’s already so clean, it’s almost a little creepy. What else needs restoring?” I asked. As far as I knew, we were all but ready to open shop.

“The garden, of course! As it stands, I can hardly tell it from the forest. It’s an eyesore.”

“Oh, right. That’s true…” I guess it might finally be time to take the first big step toward bringing that garden back to life.

“Though, even if you cause the weeds to wither, that will not resolve the problem of the dried-up pond. I suppose returning it to its former state will take some time longer,” Lilil added.

The workshop may have been almost ready for business, but the path to turning it into a home was still a long one indeed.

“I have a newfound respect for people who live in houses with well-tended gardens.” I sighed.

A new day dawned, but it was just a touch too hot for me to call it nice out. Lilil and I had breakfast at Claire’s, then said our good-byes before setting out for the workshop.

When we arrived, my first task of the day was to do a final check on all my merchandise. That wasn’t a crazy task—basically nothing alchemists sold had a shelf life of a single day, so keeping stock tended to be straightforward.

My final checks on the building’s appearance, on the other hand, were a little less straightforward. We got a sign with a picture of some medicine on it and hung it from the roof, which would have been an absolute nightmare of a task if Lilil hadn’t been there to help, but thankfully, she was able to turn into her human form and bounce right up effortlessly.

“Oh, it’s a little tilted to the right! Can you lift that side up just a little more?” I called out.

“Is this better?” Lilil asked.

“A little too high now! Just bring the left up a touch, too. Ah, nope, that was too high again!”

“Must you be so picky?! Let it be slanted! The customers will not turn around and leave if the sign is a hair askew!”

“That’s not how it works! If the shop looks sloppy, people will worry that we cut corners with our merchandise, too, and sloppily made medicine can put your life at risk!”

Lilil kept grumbling about how the locals didn’t have any other alchemists they could visit regardless, but she still gave into my nitpicks. After a little more very careful work, the sign was perfectly level, and once that was finished, all we had to do was hammer a second sign into the ground, one with the store’s name painted on.

THE GIANT WOLF

ALCHEMICAL WORKSHOP

I also added a cute little drawing of a wolf in the corner by the word wolf, which, if I was being honest, was so stylized that it really just looked like a dog.

“Is it truly wise to give your store a name that has nothing to do with its owner?” Lilil asked as she helped tamp the dirt around the sign’s base.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I said. “Honestly, I might not have bothered giving my store a name at all if I could’ve gotten away with it. I need something to write on the reports that I send back to the government, though.”

“Then I suppose I shall have to accept my position as this workshop’s mascot. Every store could use a young lady to hawk its wares, after all.”

“I’m a young lady, too, you know…? But I’m not much of a charmer, so if you want the job, go for it. Today will be your first day, too, because as of this afternoon, we’re finally open for business!” I declared as I threw my arms into the air, spreading them like the petals of a flower in bloom. At last, our battle with the worn-down building was at its end: The workshop’s restoration was complete!

“You know what this means? I’m finally a full-fledged alchemist! The Royal Institute of Alchemy’s finest student is going to run a workshop worthy of her standing, I promise you that!” For the three years that I have to be here, at the very least.

“Incidentally, what are our business hours? You have yet to mention,” asked Lilil.

“From the afternoon to sunset! Those will be our permanent hours.”

“…Why the afternoon?”

“Because if we open in the morning, I’ll have to get up even earlier to get the shelves all stocked. I’m not sure I could wake up that early, even if I wanted to.”

“The Institute’s finest student indeed.”

“Have a problem with that? What’s it matter if we open in the afternoon? Farmers aren’t going to be free in the mornings most of the time anyway—they’ll be way more likely to stop by in the afternoon. And I need to block in enough time to teach you magic, too.”

“In that case, I, too, struggle with early mornings.”

Currently, Lilil’s studies consisted entirely of her sitting around, silently reading. She’d still need time for that if she wanted to make progress. For the record, I wasn’t uninvolved because I was neglecting her—there just wasn’t any point in me giving her one-on-one lessons until she’d gained a baseline understanding of alchemy.

A sufficient knowledge base and an interest in the field were both prerequisites to learning, and if you lacked either, then no amount of guidance would ever be enough for you to progress. Plus students with a solid foundation always grow at a quicker pace, and the faster your skills develop, the more you’ll find yourself feeling motivated. It might feel like a drag to hit the books first, but it actually ends up being the quicker route to mastery.

“I see the grass has grown in again, but at least it is a tolerable amount,” Lilil commented. “Oh, someone is here already!” she added, glancing up as our very first customer appeared down the road.

Rather, I assumed they were our first customer, despite being a little early…until they drew close enough for me to realize they were holding a bouquet. It was Mayor Makood.

“Congratulations on your grand opening!” he said. “I hope you’ll continue to serve our community for many a year to come!”

“Thank you,” I replied. “Personally, I hope that you’ll all stay so healthy, you won’t need to rely on my workshop at all.”

“Ha-ha-ha! I can’t argue with that!”

I put the flowers in a vase and placed it out in the open on one of our shelves.

The afternoon arrived, and customers began pouring into the shop. Some of them came from Canon, and some even trekked all the way here from the harbor. Before I knew it, The Giant Wolf was abuzz with activity.

Lilil was a huge help as my assistant—or, really, as a shop hand. She did great work, and thanks to her, we made it through the rush without being overwhelmed. It was on the busy side, sure, but considering this was our opening day, I couldn’t have asked for a better showing.

Ha-ha-ha! It’ll be smooth sailing from here on out!

“No one has come by at all. I am terribly bored,” Lilil grumbled off to the side, where she’d been reading a book.

“Yeah, I can see that,” I replied.

I was currently slumped over on the surface of the workbench I’d set up behind the counter. I figured I’d be standing, so my chair wasn’t tall enough to let me rest my head on the counter. I would’ve considered buying a taller chair, but letting my customers see me slack off right after opening would’ve been a great way to sabotage my business. I’d ended up deciding that if I absolutely must slack off, I could do it at the workbench where it’d be less obvious. I really wanted to completely give in and take a nap, but since the store was still officially open, I resisted.

“The rush really did dry up right after opening day, huh?” I said. “I guess we already got all of our new-store bonus sales…”

“Though they were substantial. You sold a remarkable quantity of household remedies and herbs,” Lilil noted.

“Okay, but think about it—now that everyone’s all stocked up, it’ll be a while before anyone needs to buy anything else,” I countered.

“While I’m pleased to think the townsfolk are healthy, will your business remain afloat at this rate?”

“Well, I won’t have to close up shop. I don’t have to pay rent for the building, and I can gather all the ingredients I need from the island. Sometimes, the government grants alchemists subsidies if things get really bad, too. Workshops sell medicine, after all, and that’s something every community needs access to.”

“But will you make a profit?”

“That’s where things get a little iffy,” I said, sighing heavily. I’d seen this coming, so at least it wasn’t an unpleasant surprise. “Pretty much all workshops end up like this, except for ones in really prime locations in the capital. It’s like you said a while back: This island doesn’t have any adventurers who need recovery potions boosting our numbers.”

A steady stream of adventurers who regularly came to buy potions greatly affected an alchemist’s bottom line. Some members of the clergy received permission from the authorities in their denomination to go out and join adventuring parties as healers, but there weren’t enough of them to meet demand, and even parties with healers needed to be prepared for cases when the party was split up. You never knew when a few of your traveling companions would fall down a pit trap. Hence, potions were indispensable for any party, and alchemists made a killing selling them.

I’d never minded spending a lot of time on simple, repetitive tasks—they were easy, after all—but that was back when I lived in the capital, where entertainment could be found around every corner. Out here in the sticks, I had more time than ever and nothing to do with it. I wasn’t so sure if I’d manage to last three years if I was already this bored a few weeks in…

“All I have done so far is read the books you gave me,” noted Lilil. “Will this truly be sufficient?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Every profession that’s related to magic is the same in one important way: The more you know, the better you are. You won’t find a single reference book out there that tells you to get out and start learning practical magic before you’ve mastered the fundamentals.”

“That I understand. What I mean to say is that every one of these books is prone to lengthy, sermon-like tangents warning me against an overreliance on pure power alone. It irks me.”

“That’s because a lot of alchemists put too much faith in their own power and make terrible, irreparable mistakes. They go rogue, basically.”

“I see. Nevertheless, I tire of this.”

I’m starting to wish my apprentice was just a little bit more trusting of the process. Then again, “apprentice” is just a fancy word for “roommate” in our case, so maybe I shouldn’t complain.

“In that case, how about we close up shop a little early today?” I suggested and stood up.

“You plan to violate your stated hours immediately after opening? I worry for your future as a manager,” said Lilil.

“Come on! There should be plenty of people walking around town this time of day, so let’s go ask around and see what our customers want from us. Plus we’ll pass people coming to see us as we’re walking into town, so there’s no way we’d miss anyone.”

I flipped the plate hanging from the workshop’s front door from OPEN to CLOSED. COME BACK SOON! That side, incidentally, had a cute little picture of a crying dog drawn on.

It was still bright out, but the sun sat low enough in the western sky that I figured this was a totally acceptable time to close up shop.

“Sun from the west bothers me more than sun at high noon, for some reason,” said Lilil. “It’s as if the later afternoon sun has some unique magic to it.”

“Totally. The afternoon sun is kind of obnoxious.”

It didn’t take long for us to reach the village, where we ran into Claire right away. She congratulated me on my shop’s opening, then followed up by asking, “And will you still be staying at our house, for now? You can come by for dinner, at the very least, can’t you?”

“Claire,” said Lilil, in her youthful human form, “the workshop’s business has begun. From now on, we will be living—”

“Oh, thanks, we’d love to! Feel free to think of me as your daughter, if you want! I don’t mind at all!” I quickly said, cutting Lilil off before she could refuse.

“What? You intend to keep staying at Claire’s house, even now that the workshop is complete?!” Lilil exclaimed in shock.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “After all, I can’t cook to save my life.”

Would learning a few recipes have been to my benefit? Probably, but the workshop was also a decently long distance away from the town, so going shopping was a bit of an ordeal. I didn’t see any harm in indulging in Claire’s hospitality for a little while longer while it was still an option.

“I’m contractually obligated to work out of the workshop, but nothing says I have to live there,” I added. “It’d be no issue at all if I wanted to commute from her house every day, even!”

“Ha-ha-ha! Sounds like a good idea to me!” said Claire. “That workshop of yours is too far out of town anyway!”

Lilil gave me a look that just screamed, “How shameless could you possibly be?” but I decided to ignore her.

“By the way, Claire, why were you out and about? Were you out shopping?” I asked.

“No, I was drawing water. See? Right over there,” Claire said, pointing toward the town well. A crowd of people was clustered around it.

“Oh, right, the town well,” I said. “I guess that’s one way to get your gossip, from the local watering hole.”

“Oh, no, they’re not all there to chitchat,” said Claire. “They’re lined up to take turns, that’s all.”

Looking a little closer, I quickly realized what she meant. I couldn’t quite tell why—maybe the well was just unusually deep—but it seemed to take each visitor quite a long time to draw their water. An old woman (Claire was by no means the only old woman in town) was pulling on a thick rope, using the well’s pulley system to haul water back out of the well.

Eventually, a bucket full of water was raised out. The old woman pulled it over to herself, then emptied it into a bucket of her own.

“Now, that’s inefficient,” I muttered. No wonder the line’s backed up. It must be exhausting to carry the water back home afterward, too…

“This village’s water source has seen better days,” Claire explained. “We used to have a functional waterway, but it stopped flowing back when I was still young.”

“What are you talking about? You’re still young right now!”

“Ha-ha-ha! It’d be awfully strange for me to think of you as my daughter if I was, now, wouldn’t it?”

“Good point!”

There’s that classic Canon humor!

While we were having our little exchange, Lilil trotted over to the cluster of ladies and started helping them haul up the well’s bucket. For a mythical beast like her, a bucket of water probably weighed about as much as a pebble, but from the villagers’ perspective, she was saving them an awful lot of work. It was exactly the sort of good-doing I’d expect from a divine guardian.

Eventually, Lilil finished helping the last of the crowd and headed back over to me. “Is there not something you can do about that, Freya?” she asked.

It wasn’t the biggest hassle in the world, but when you had to do it every single day, it would certainly add up.

“I know one thing that could make hauling the water up easier,” I said. “It won’t make the whole process dramatically more convenient, but if that sounds worth it to you, I can give it a try.”

“You look uneasy. Is this likely to be a challenging task?” Lilil asked as she peered at my expression. She was fairly short, which made it easy for her to look up into people’s faces like that.

“Not exactly,” I said. “I mean, I came up with a method right away—I was just wondering if there might be some other better way to solve it. I’m still new to this island, and I don’t feel like I understand its geography very well yet.”

“I understand your hesitation, but there’s no need to worry. If you need my help, you need only say the word,” said Lilil.

“Okay, then—this island has a decently sized fishing industry, right? Do you think one of the fishers might have a fine-mesh net they’d be willing to give to us?”

“I will obtain so many, not even a fisherman could use them all!”

Maybe just stick with a reasonable number, thanks.

The next morning, I awoke to find a white, crumpled-up something lying in a corner of the room.

“I obtained several fisher’s nets! Fishermen rise early, so I went out to meet with them before you awoke,” said Lilil, who was lying on her stomach on the bed next to mine, idly flutter kicking. Considering her attitude, I would’ve bet that Claire had already fed her breakfast.

“That’s great, thanks,” I said. “I think that should be plenty to pull off what I have in mind. Let’s head over to the workshop and see what we can do!”

I arrived at my workshop, then went over to my materials supply space to pull out a huge quantity of rocks. “We’ll be using these this time,” I said.

Lilil looked a little skeptical, probably because she recognized the stones I’d picked out. “Those are drystones, are they not? What will sucking the water into a stone accomplish?”

“It’ll let us get at the water easier,” I explained. “The fundamental principle is actually really simple, but setting things up so that we can get enough water out of it is going to take some trial and error.”

“I still fail to understand. How will you get to the water once it’s been absorbed into the stones?”

I picked up a fist-sized chunk of drystone. “What do you think would happen if I threw this into the ocean?” I asked.

“Well, the ocean would not dry up, surely. There must be a limit to how much water a single stone can absorb,” Lilil replied.

“Exactly—that’s the trick,” I said with a nod. “All drystones do is absorb the water around them for a short period of time, up to a certain limit. So if you drop a drystone to the bottom of a well, near the source of its water…”

“It will absorb water to a point and then expel what it cannot. But all that will do is move water around at the bottom of a well. It still would not be usable.”

“But what do you think would happen if you put another drystone right next to the first one? The answer: That second drystone sucks up water straight from the first one!”

“How very shameless of these stones.”

“It’s just what they do! They can’t help it. Anyway, what do you think would happen if you stacked a bunch of stones up, one on top of another?”

Lilil’s face lit up. “They would draw the water upward!” she exclaimed.

That’s my apprentice! Looks like she’s caught on already.

“That would indeed ease the labor of drawing water by hand,” Lilil continued.

“And that,” I said, “is why we’ll wrap drystones up in netting to make a long, looong, snakelike cord. If it all works as planned, the stones will draw water all the way up to the top of the well, where it’ll be spat out for people to use…hopefully.”

“You seem less than confident.”

“The problem’s that wells come in all shapes and sizes. There’s no telling how deep this one is or how much water is in it. I really can’t say whether this will be a big success or not.”

There’s always a chance that we’ll pull up way too much water and flood the place… Or the cord could end up spitting water halfway up, making it useless, or it could manage to draw water up but in such small quantities, it doesn’t even help…

“Long story short, we’ll have to keep remaking and adjusting our snake of drystones until we get it right. We can start by testing the theory out on the well behind the workshop and see if we can get it working here.”

A device’s structure being simple didn’t necessarily mean that it would be easy to put together. Just because digging was simple didn’t mean you could level a mountain with a single shovel, after all!

In our case, to start, getting the rocks neatly stacked up in the net turned out to be a huge pain. Not to brag or anything, but I had great confidence in the fact that I was a lousy seamstress. Fortunately for me, the netting proved to be a chance for Lilil to show off her remarkable skills.

“Will this do?” Lilil asked as she showed me a perfectly long, narrow snake that was stuffed from front to back with stones. There wasn’t really a commonly used term for devices like these, by the way, and we’d ended up settling on “snake” together.

“You’re really good with your hands, aren’t you…?” I said. “Which is especially impressive considering how much time you’ve spent without hands…” Her work was so precise, it put mine to shame.

“You should know, for reference, that I have lived for many a year longer than you. That understanding should make matters such as this much easier to accept,” said Lilil. In other words, there was no sense in a human like me comparing myself to a mythical beast like her.

“Still, I am your teacher,” I said. “But that’s a conversation for some other time. Let’s bring this to the well in the garden and try it out!”

We stepped outside and lowered the snake into the well. The surface of the water seemed much closer here than it was in the village’s well, and the well itself was shallower on the whole. It was the perfect place to run a test like this. Assuming a constant stream of water was flowing into the well, it would only be a matter of time before water began flowing up the snake.

And the result…?

Phwiiish!

I got a face full of water. I’d been standing by, gulping anxiously from time to time as I watched the snake, and then the next thing I knew, I was drowning. I’m not just talking a slight splash—it was like someone had nailed me right in the face with a whole bucket of water.

“Bwah! Jeez, that’s cold! Agh, I think I swallowed some!” I yelped.

“Look—the water is still flowing!” shouted Lilil. “What do we do now?!”

Oh, right… If we leave the snake where it is, it’ll keep pumping up water for as long as there’s water to pump!

“P-pull it up, please! It’ll stop once there’s no water for it to pull up anymore!”

The spray of water was so strong, it had actually forced me to take a few steps away from the snake. Lilil, on the other hand, seemed unfazed, despite how dainty her appearance was. Maybe she kept all the weight from her full-sized animal form, even as a human? One way or another, she grabbed on to the snake and hauled it out of the well, stopping the water’s flow.

“Thanks…,” I groaned. “I mean, seriously—if I’d been alone, that could’ve ended really badly for me. That snake’s not exactly light, after all.” If I hadn’t been able to muscle the snake up high enough to separate it from the water, then in the worst case, the underside of my whole workshop could’ve ended up flooded.

“Clearly, this will not do. We will have to alter the design,” said Lilil.

“That part’s easy. All we have to do is cut down on the number of drystones, and we can do that by making the snake narrower.” Making the drystones smaller would probably cut a few years off the snake’s usable lifespan, but that just meant we would have to swap it out for a new one a little more frequently.

Our second test snake was about twice the thickness of an actual living snake. It turned out to pull up way too much water, too, though, so we made another even narrower one.

“This one seems to be as functional as we could expect, doesn’t it?” asked Lilil.

“Yeah, it does—in this garden’s well anyway. We can use it as the basis for a new one that we’ll put into the village well. We won’t know for sure until we’ve tested it there,” I replied.

Lilil’s tail drooped conspicuously. “What a trying task this is… It’s profoundly tiresome.”

“Isn’t it, though? Making Artifacts is always a huge pain… Especially in cases like these where the artifact you’re making has to be order-made to match a specific well, or something.”

We’d spent so long messing around with the snakes that it was nearly time for us to open up the shop. We hurried inside and quickly ate a few fruits in lieu of a proper lunch. I was almost sure we’d barely get any customers regardless, of course, and I ended up being proven right. Everyone who’d wanted household medicines had bought everything they needed the day before.

While I was manning the counter, Lilil got to work crafting the long, narrow snake we’d test in Canon’s well. The netting’s mesh was so fine that it almost looked like she was weaving a set of socks.

“You know, you really look like a craftsperson,” I commented.

“I had presumed that alchemy would be more glamorous. I was not expecting this much mud and grime,” said Lilil.

“I mean, that’s most trades for you in a nutshell.”

Thanks to her, we were at least able to keep making progress while the store was open for business. That was a huge help. By the time I’d closed up for the evening, we had several long, floppy snakes lined up on the workshop’s floor.

“If someone walked in right now and saw all this, I bet they wouldn’t have any idea what we were doing,” I said.

“Frankly, I lost track of what in the world I was doing partway through the process,” said Lilil.

That evening, we had dinner at Claire’s house, then headed over to the village’s well for a test run. It was a success, broadly speaking (thanks to us testing design after design until they stopped failing, of course), and so we paid the mayor’s house a visit next to ask for permission to make some modifications to the well. While we were at it, we asked him to be there to observe.

The evening of the next day, we found the crowd gathered up around the well even larger than usual. This time, though, it wasn’t people waiting in line—it was people watching Lilil lower some sort of long, strange object into the well.

“This is called a ‘Spoutsnake,’ everyone,” I explained. “I kind of wanted to call it a dragon, but since it’s so thin, ‘snake’ sort of seemed more appropriate.”

I’d used a bit of dye to draw eyes and a mouth on the tip of the Spoutsnake. I’d been trying to make it look cute and endearing, but I wasn’t so sure I’d pulled that off very well… Anyway, I placed the head of the Spoutsnake on a wooden platform we’d set up next to the well. The platform was two tiered, and I left the Spoutsnake resting on the upper level.

“When you want water, just move the head of this snake to the lower platform,” I said. “I’d like the mayor to demonstrate, if you wouldn’t mind!”

Nobody in the village had ever seen a tool like this before, so I’d asked the mayor to demonstrate for them. He moved the Spoutsnake to the lower platform, and a moment later, a substantial but relatively gentle stream of water began to flow from its general mouth area, pouring into a bucket we’d prepared in advance. The village ladies who’d gathered up to watch oohed and ahhed in astonishment.

“Why, it’s so easy!” said one of them.

“No more tugging on that awful rope whenever we need water!” said another.

“That’s right,” I said. “And when you have all the water you need, just move the snake back to the upper platform!”

The mayor put the snake back in position, and the flow of water came to a stop.

“As you can see, what used to require all those pulleys, buckets, and rope can now be accomplished just by moving this snake down and up again! I think we all owe Ms. Freya our thanks,” said the mayor. He placed a hand on his breast and gave me a very slight bow—a gesture of respect typically given to ladies. It was an honor to have the city’s highest official bow to me like that, though I also felt a little uncomfortable, honestly.

“Yes, indeed! Sing Freya’s praises, one and all!” Lilil declared, prompting a round of applause from the gathered-up ladies. I was more embarrassed than ever.

I really wish you hadn’t, apprentice of mine!

“Ha-ha-ha-ha… I’m just happy to help,” I said. “Feel free to stop by my workshop any time you need something, everyone!”

“I’d love to, but I’ve already bought all the medicine I need for the time being,” said one of the villagers. “Instead, why don’t you come over for breakfast? I’ll feed you for the next two weeks! How does that sound?”

“I’ll feed you for three!” another villager shouted.

“And you can have lunch at my house!” said another.

At least I won’t have to worry about food expenses any time soon! At the rate things were going, it seemed like I’d be eating at other people’s houses for the foreseeable future.

That evening, I ended up heading to the mayor’s house rather than Claire’s. He’d invited me over for dinner—apparently, he wanted to take the chance to formally thank me for the improvements I’d made to the well. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t need to make such a big deal out of it, but I also knew that if I’d been in his position, I’d do the same thing, so I decided to play along.

It’s really handy that Lilil’s a huge eater who isn’t picky at all at times like these. That means I won’t have to worry about us looking rude because we didn’t eat enough.

At long last, the mayor politely saw us off. The sun had long since set, and Lilil and I walked through the dark streets of the village together. Almost immediately, she struck up a conversation.

“Tell me, Freya—are you unsatisfied with your creation? I cannot say you looked gloomy, but you did seem to be forcing yourself to enjoy the festivities, by my measure.”

“You can be surprisingly perceptive sometimes, you know that?” I said. “Either that, or I’m just easy to read.”

I deliberately guided us along a path that would lead us past the well on our way back. It was located in the very center of town, so it wasn’t that hard to make our way to it, especially since the mayor’s house was right nearby. I stepped up to the well and slapped the wall that surrounded it with my hand.

“We managed to improve the well,” I said, “but the fact that we had to improve the well in the first place was weird, wasn’t it? You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you, Lilil?”

Lilil turned her gaze upward. The moonlight complemented her appearance really nicely.

“I suppose, when you put it that way, that the flow of water was once so strong and clear that there was no need for such a thing.”

“Exactly,” I said. “This village used to have a waterway flowing through it—Claire said she remembers when it did, even. It’s run dry now, though, and the people of Canon have to rely on the well instead. The well is about a hundred and sixty feet deep. That’s not the deepest well I’ve ever heard of, but it’s definitely not shallow by any means, either.”

The villagers aren’t relying on the well by choice. They rely on it because they have no other option.

“Even if drawing water’s easier now, it’s still inefficient. If the waterway was still flowing, they could draw buckets from it whenever they wanted or even divert it to water their fields.”

“Perhaps the course of the water’s flow was diverted underground,” Lilil speculated. That was indeed what I’d expect the prevailing theory to be.

“You might be right—but it’s not like there’ve been any major buildings raised or projects started between here and the mountain, and the climate hasn’t shifted in a way that cuts down on rainfall. The ground is really damp around the workshop, too—you can tell from the plant life in that area alone.”

“You mean to say, then, that water is still plentiful?”

I nodded. “Right, and that’s why I think it could be possible to restore Canon’s waterway. If I could manage that, then making the well a little more convenient would look like child’s play. That’s why I think our next project should be—”

““—finding the water’s source,”” Lilil and I said in unison.

“Exactly,” I confirmed. “If we can just track the source down, I’m sure we’ll find a way to bring back the waterway. The water’s out there—it just isn’t flowing to Canon anymore. If we can bring it back, then life will be way, way easier for everyone who lives here!”

I owed Claire a lot, and if I was going to be living in the workshop, then anything I could do to improve the lifestyles of the locals would give my lifestyle a boost as well. And of course, the more comfortable the villagers were, the more likely they’d be to help out the nice young lady who ran the alchemy workshop! This was, in short, an issue that could make my life dramatically easier if I could just find a way to solve it!

Lilil took my right hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. I thought she wanted to walk hand in hand for a second, but that turned out to be wrong. Instead, she shook it with all her might—which happened to be enough to almost knock me completely off balance.

“Let us do it!” said Lilil. “I will help in whatever ways I can! You will see once and for all how valuable the protection of a mythical beast truly is!”

“G-great! The enthusiasm’s just…just awesome, so please stop yanking on my hand like that!”

And so the two of us returned to Claire’s house in the evening—or, really, Lilil returned there, and I was dragged.

The next morning, we stopped by the workshop and put up a sign that read CLOSED—MAY OPEN LATER IN THE DAY, just in case someone stopped by while we were out. Then we headed past the garden behind the workshop and into the wilderness.

I’d borrowed from Claire a set of farmer’s clothes that she didn’t mind getting dirty. Lilil was wearing her usual white dress. A pure white dress, when we were tromping out into an area that was all but guaranteed to be lousy with mud. It would have seemed completely insane out of context, but apparently, she could just turn into her animal form and wash herself off, and her dress would be like brand-new again.

If this world were populated exclusively by Lilils, I don’t think we’d have any laundromats.

“Yeesh… It’s even muddier than I expected,” I said.

The forest picked up right where the garden behind the workshop left off, but the ground within those woods was covered with little streams that seemed to slip in between rocks and across the earth, forming what were mini marshes here and there.

“Such a dismal place,” said Lilil. “I have come to see that workshop not as the dwelling of an alchemist, but rather the lair of a fiendish dark mage.”

“Can we not say stuff like that about my house? I get what you’re saying but— Gah!”

For a second, it felt like I was flying through the air. I must have slipped on a mossy rock.

Oh, nuts! This is one of those falls that’s gonna be a literal pain in the butt, isn’t it? I thought, but strangely, it felt like my body was sinking rather than falling—and before I even landed on the ground, I came to a stop. Lilil had leaped forward, catching me in her arms.

“That was nearly disastrous,” said Lilil. “You may have hit your head had I not been here to save you.”

“Well, thanks for the assist,” I said. “A-and, um… I’ve gotta say…even though I know what your other form looks like, this still feels…a little weird…”

At that moment, in terms of pure posture, Lilil was carrying me bridal style. It didn’t help that she looked like a rather young girl who was far more frail and delicate than I was. Her arms were like twigs! Getting carried by her made me feel like I’d somehow regressed to my ten-year-old self. Being carried like that was one thing, but the entirety brought with it a strange feeling I couldn’t put into words.

I wasn’t trying to beat around the bush—I legitimately had no clue how to describe it. I’d seen other students read romance novels about the love affairs between two women back at school, but those books had always been about students getting together with other students, or maybe even student and teacher couples. I didn’t think there was anything like this.

If I had to say, I guess being carried around by a girl far smaller than me was kind of like a guilty pleasure? No, guilty wasn’t quite right—that made it sound bad. It just felt strange…and the more I thought about it, the worse the romance novel comparison felt. None of the girls in those books had been strong enough to carry someone several sizes larger than them, after all.

“These slippery rocks continue for some distance, so it may be safer for me to carry you onward. For the time being, just relax.”

“No, it’s fine! I’ll just be more careful from now on,” I said. “Though, then again…if you’re offering…I guess I could enjoy it for a little longer…?”

What’s wrong with letting yourself get carried around like a princess every once in a while? It’s kind of nice, in a different way than fluffing her fur is.

“You’re making very little sense for a woman who did not hit her head. If you’re truly that out of sorts, then I’ll carry you, after all,” said Lilil. I decided not to argue.

Mental note: Next time you go out past the rear garden, be sure to wear a helmet.

We plunged deeper into the woods, but the moisture just wasn’t letting up. The opposite, in fact. The farther we traveled, the more frequently we ran into the sort of ferns and moss outcroppings you would usually find around the edges of lakes.

“Hey, do you have super hearing, Lilil?”

“I do not know how I compare to other mythical beasts,” Lilil replied. “Opportunities to meet others of my kind are not frequent.”

“I meant compared to a human’s hearing. Like, can you hear better than I can?”

“Certainly, yes. Why?”

“Would you mind listening really closely for a minute, then? We should be nearing the water’s source right now.”

“Hmm,” Lilil grunted. She raised her hands to her ears (in her human form), paused for a moment, then suddenly set off at a sprint. “There! It’s over there!”

“I didn’t say you had to run! Can you slow down?! I can’t keep up!”

I blundered my way through the gloomy woods until I eventually caught up. She’d come to a stop and had a very smug look on her face.

“There! See? There it is!” Lilil said.

“Oooh!” I exclaimed. “That’s no trickle, all right. The water’s practically gushing out!”

A remarkable amount of water was flowing out from a crack between two rocks. It didn’t seem like the water was coming from a nearby spring, but on the other hand, the whole area around us seemed to be soaking.

“Well, this explains why the ground in our garden is so wet,” I said. “I bet there was a flow of aboveground water there in the past, too.”

Lilil scooped up some of the water flowing between the rocks and took a sip. There was something downright picturesque about the image. A girl clad in white deep in the woods, drinking from a stream. If anyone saw her, they would assume she was either a fairy or a ghost. Either way, it made for a fantastical image.

“Hm! It’s wonderful,” said Lilil. “Fresh and clear, with no lingering odors or flavors. This would serve in the waterway, without question!”

“Meaning that if we can find a way to divert it to the village, it’ll make a huge difference for their water issue.”

Lilil took the opportunity to stick her face right into the water and roughly rinse off. The pure and elegant vibe she’d been giving off was starting to strain under the weight of her behavior, but, well, none of my business, right?

“However…,” Lilil continued after she looked back up again, her expression a touch less cheerful than before. “This place is rather far from the village, is it not? To lead the water there will be quite a challenge.”

“If we had to make a whole waterway from scratch, sure. That’s not even starting on the crazy amount of lumber we’d need,” I replied.

Good thing I’m not planning on doing this the hard way! What would be the point in me helping if I let her handle all the important parts?

I brushed aside a few of the nearby ferns, looking for signs of what I knew had to be somewhere nearby. “Hey, Lilil? Would you mind looking around for traces of anything man-made nearby? Start from right here and go to the left, if you can,” I said.

“Man-made?” Lilil repeated. “Why would there be any such thing here, so far away from the village?”

“The waterway was working up until a few decades ago,” I said. “If this really was its source, then there might still be some signs of it, don’t you think?”

“When you put it that way, I do recall something of the sort having been built within these woods long ago!”

“…Well, uh, not to contradict myself or anything…but considering how hot and humid it is, it’s likely whatever was here has rotted away completely,” I added.

“If there is nothing to find, then so be it. For now, I will search!”

Lilil charged off into the ferny undergrowth. I knew I wouldn’t be of much help even if I came along, but I also didn’t like the idea of standing still in the middle of the dark, gloomy woods, so I decided to follow her anyway. It wasn’t long at all before I heard her yelp with excitement up ahead of me.

“There! I found it! This must be what we were searching for!”

There, buried beneath clumps of waterlogged grass, was what looked like a long, wooden box without a lid. It was heavily weathered, of course, but there was more of it left intact than I’d expected.

“No doubt about it,” I said. “That’s part of the system that used to feed the waterway! You did it, Lilil!”

“It appears this will be quite hard to make use of, though. It’s full of holes,” Lilil noted.

The bottom of the aqueduct really was riddled with gaps. My best theory was that limbs from the nearby trees had broken off during downpours and damaged it.

“True, but most of the path the water used to take was probably natural,” I said. “My guess is that maintaining the man-made parts was too difficult. The villagers probably kept putting off repairs until the whole setup was unsalvageable, then switched over to using the well when the water stopped flowing entirely.”

“It would last longer if it were made from stone. Using wood was their downfall,” said Lilil.

“It was a question of finances, I’d bet. The lord of this area probably didn’t see a need to invest that sort of money into a tiny island that doesn’t have much in the way of industry.”

Come to think of it, this island must have a ruler, but I haven’t seen any sign of them at all.

“For now, let’s walk along the path the water flowed and get a feel for its overall state!”

Aside from all the holes, the upper portion of the waterway proved to be in surprisingly good condition, considering the damp environment surrounding it. The farther away from the spring we traveled, the drier the ground became. I wasn’t planning on following the path all the way back to the village—that would’ve taken ages—but there was something I was on the lookout for.

“I’m not totally sure what specific sort of wood they used, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s a type of cypress—hinoki or Thujopsis, maybe,” I said. “Whoever made this knew their stuff, looks like.”

“Why? Is there some merit to this variety of wood?”

“Trees like those have high oil content in their wood, and it’s a particular type of oil that’s helpful for sanitation. I’m not exactly a doctor, so I can’t get into the specifics, of course. The point is that if we repair the broken parts of the aqueduct little by little, I think we just might be able to fix it. It’ll be a long project, but it’s doable.”

“We’ve no choice but to get to work, then!” Lilil said, thumping her chest as if to say she could make quick work of it. “We must plug the holes—meaning this is a task for a carpenter, is it not? I happen to be quite skilled in such matters! You may feel free to return to the shop and wait for customers who will likely never come, Freya. In the meantime, I will set about repairing the waterway!”

I’d been planning on helping to repair the waterway, too…

“Oh, really? Be my guest!”

…but taking a shot at my business’s lack of, well, business might’ve gotten under my skin a little, so I decided to let her fix the thing on her own. Sure, it would’ve sucked if so many customers came by that I couldn’t deal with them alone, but I still didn’t appreciate the way she said it.

Fine! I’m an alchemist, so I’ll spend the day like an alchemist would!

I managed to make it home before our scheduled closing time, so I removed the temporary closure sign and opened the shop back up again. Removing that notice—and, for that matter, the notice itself—would’ve been totally pointless if nobody stopped by, so I was really hoping that at least one person would show up.

As I sat at the counter, I heard a rough grinding noise coming from out back in the garden. Lilil had borrowed a saw from somebody in the village and was currently hacking away at a piece of timber. I took a peek outside, just to see how she was doing, and it looked like her work on the repair materials was speeding along rather quickly.

“A portion of the aqueduct passes underground. I unearthed a section, and it seems to mostly remain intact,” Lilil shouted, loudly enough for me to hear her over the sound of the saw.

“Great,” I replied at a normal volume. Lilil’s hearing was good enough that I figured she’d hear me anyway.

“And I’m certain I will be able to seal the holes up to the edge of the forest as well!”

“You really look like you’re having a blast, huh? You’re a lot livelier now than when you’re studying magic.”

“That would be because I am this island’s divine guardian! Working to the island’s betterment is a far better fit for my temperament.”

“Well, if you ever want to use magic, you should try to focus a little harder on your studies… But nagging you about that would just feel silly, honestly, so that’s the last you’ll hear of it from me.”

It’s not like I ever listened to my teachers about that sort of thing back in school, so why should I come down on her for it?

Some of my teachers had treated me like a problem student, but the truth was that whenever I failed to pay attention to their lessons, it was because I’d already taught myself the material they were teaching and had decided to use that time to further my own independent research. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about alchemy, and I always wished they’d have understood that and let it slide. Any holes in my self-taught foundation would be exposed by the tests they had me take, so what did it even matter?

That was one of the ways in which Professor Mystille and I had a real understanding. Genuinely talented big shot alchemists just had a different perspective. Now that I had an apprentice of my own, of course, I was finally coming to understand how tough it could be to try to teach someone who made a habit of breaking every mold you tried to fit them into. Self-reliant learners were a bad fit for formalized education, end of story… Lilil would never need to use magic to make a living, though, so I figured it would be best to let her do and learn as she pleased.

Meanwhile, I could help out in my own way. To start, I headed out into the herb garden, plucked a few sprigs of mint, and used them to make tea, which I carried out into the back garden on a tray.

“Hey, Lilil,” I said, “how’s a quick break sound? I made some tea that should help you relax a little.”

“Oh? That is much appreciated,” Lilil replied. She set her work aside for the moment and took the cup I offered her, using it to warm her hands before taking a few sips. “Yes, this is quite refreshing. It soothes my agitation.”

“That’s the goal, yup! Life is all about balance. When it’s time to work, you work, and when it’s time to rest, you rest.”

“So you say, but I’ve seen you do very little when you’re ‘working.’”

“You could’ve kept that comment to yourself, thanks. Would you buy medicine from an alchemist who looks like she’s on the verge of passing out from exhaustion? Most customers wouldn’t, so a little extra rest is good for me. You just need to think about resting up yourself.”

“I was thinking about what I want to do once the waterway is restored. Cleaning up this garden feels like a proper next step,” Lilil said, looking out over the garden and the thicket that had largely encroached on it. It wasn’t a place we needed to look nice to get by, especially since it was hidden from our customers, and as a result, we’d neglected it so far.

“I wouldn’t mind if you feel like taking it on,” I said. “It’s going to take some major muscle to clean up, so there’s no chance I could manage it on my own.”

The fact that we’d gotten that worn-out, old workshop to a point where we could welcome in customers was a major accomplishment in my book. Plus, considering how Lilil located most of the holes in the aqueduct and said she would have it running into the village again within a few days, the waterway issue seemed like it would be resolved surprisingly easily—thanks mostly to Lilil’s skilled craftwork. Surely she was underestimating how long it would take, though.

Three days later…

“It’s hopeless! Help me, my teacher!”

I was sitting in my chair in the workshop, minding the counter, when Lilil burst inside and flung herself into my arms.

“I can’t help but notice that you only call me ‘teacher’ when you need something from me,” I said.

“Why would I not call you that? That’s precisely what you are, is it not?”

“I suppose so. Anyway, what’s the problem? I thought you were making good progress restoring the waterway?”

Honestly, where did all that confidence run off to?

“I plugged all the holes. I’m certain of it!” said Lilil. “But the water still just doesn’t flow. It barely travels at all. There must be a leak somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it…”

“Okay, I get the picture. I’ll come search with you once we close up for the day.”

And I’ll be taking extra care not to slip on any rocks this time…

Lilil and I walked the waterway’s course, carefully inspecting it as we went.

“Ah, okay, see right here? Look at it from the side,” I said, pointing out a section of the aqueduct where water was slowly dripping out onto the ground. “That’s your problem—the joint where the planks are joined together is leaky. I bet that same thing is happening in a bunch of places, and all together, it’s enough to keep the water from making it to town.”

There was a variety of reasons why making a waterway perfectly straight just wasn’t practical. Straight sections are typically linked by interconnecting joints. Those joints were generally rather large and square shaped, so they were easy to identify. The issue was that the more you had, the more likely it would be to have leaks. The fact that this waterway was so old meant leaks in the joints were especially unsurprising—if anything, I was surprised there weren’t more leaks.

“Would it perhaps be faster to rebuild it from scratch?” Lilil asked, peering up at my face with a look of concern.

“Hm…”

I crossed my arms and sank into thought. Rebuilding the waterway altogether would be a major construction project, and the old one wasn’t that decrepit. I wondered if there was some sort of Artifact I could use to resolve the issue instead. Plus…I didn’t want to let all the work Lilil had put in over the last several days go to waste. A teacher should never let their student’s efforts amount to nothing, if they can help it. I knew that if I’d gone through setback after setback when I was a kid, I might never have found the motivation to devote myself to my alchemical studies.

Conveniently, the workshop was scheduled to be closed the next day. We’d have all day to use on the waterway, if we wanted.

“I think I know a material that might help! We can go out and search for it tomorrow—just be ready to get muddy.”

Lilil and I set off into the forest with a huge amount of baggage in tow—though Lilil was the one who was carrying most of it, of course. She had a bag with a big box stuffed inside slung across her back. I wasn’t forcing my pupil to carry all my stuff because I was lazy—I was doing it because I absolutely did not have the strength or stamina to manage it, whether I wanted to or not. I’d also brought my staff along, just to make sure I didn’t slip and fall again.

“On the bright side, the material we’re looking for is easiest to find in wetlands,” I said. “If we look around the ground by the waterway for long enough, we’re sure to find some.”

“What exactly are we searching for?” asked Lilil. “Will we be hunting for river fish?”

“Nope. We’re looking for this,” I said, squatting to scoop up a handful of the earth beneath me. “That’s right—dirt!”

“But…we can find dirt anywhere. Why would we need to come to the forest for it?”

“Because we’re not just looking for any old dirt. What we need is something that’s closer to clay. That’s what we’ll use to repair the waterway!”

“Hm… Earthenware is made from fired clay—but we could never possibly fire clay that we’ve used to plug the leaks in the waterway, could we? It’s made of wood!”

Lilil was right, but pottery was not the solution I had in mind. “We’ll be treating the clay to harden it at much lower temperatures than you use when firing pottery. It’s not too hard with the right magic circle and a little power.”

I’d used that technique to repair a vase I’d broken back at the Royal Institute. The vase’s owner still found out and gave me a piece of their mind, unfortunately… But I’d grown a lot since then, and I was confident I could pull this off.

“Let’s go dig some dirt out from beneath the water,” I said. “We’ll want to collect it from the water’s edge, preferably a bit downstream. That should give us exactly what we need.”

“In that case, we should try digging right here!” said Lilil. She took up a shovel and was all ready to dig right in before I stopped her.

“No, not here. The dirt’s too finely textured. Let’s look around some more. I know we can find something better. Just keep your eyes glued to the ground!”

“Walking around staring at the ground will put me in a foul mood.”

“Well, considering how bad the footing is in these woods, it’s probably a good idea anyway.”

We slowly trudged along, paying special attention to the muddier areas we passed. Occasionally, I plunged my staff into the ground, using it as a probe to check the dirt’s texture.

“This isn’t bad,” I eventually said. “We can grab some dirt here as a fallback option.”

“I would say so as well,” Lilil agreed. “The way it clings to my hands feels promising.”

“This isn’t the best we can find still. There must be somewhere around here where higher-quality dirt’s flowed down from the mountain and collected.”

Alchemy involved the use of magic, but magical power never acted as anything more than a catalyst. If you weren’t working with quality materials, no amount of magic could make up that difference. In Professor Mystille’s words, an alchemist who didn’t know how to collect decent materials would never be more than second-rate.

I slipped off my shoes, then started walking again. Being barefoot would make it easier for me to feel the ground beneath me. I’d get uncomfortably cold getting my feet wet and muddy for this long, even on a consistently warm island like this one, but that was a downside I’d just have to bear.

If I was trying to mend one of my own vases, I wouldn’t have bothered. Any old dirt would’ve done the job just fine for that, but we were repairing a waterway. Even if it wasn’t currently in use, I felt obligated to find the best dirt for the job I possibly could.

And finally, around the time my feet started feeling so sodden, I was starting to lose motivation…

“Ah! Look here! This dirt should serve well, no?”

Lilil lifted the hem of her dress up slightly as she stomped her foot on the ground. I could see a thin layer of water, underneath which lay a sturdy layer of light brown dirt.

“This does have some real body to it!” I said as I inspected the dirt. “I think this should do the trick!”

“Then our search is complete! It was worth the effort, after all, it seems.”

“By the way, Lilil…is it just me, or are you shrinking? You look like you’re getting shorter…,” I asked.

“I appear to be sinking into the earth,” said Lilil. “And… Hm…? My foot seems to be stuck… Both of them, in fact…”

Oh. Is this what I think it is…? Did we just wander our way into a bottomless marsh?!

“This is a predicament,” said Lilil. “I haven’t the slightest idea how to escape… Freya, do something!”

“Like what?! I don’t have any good ideas, either! Can’t you do some sort of mythical beast trick to break your way out?!”

“I could try to brace my legs, but that would only cause me to sink deeper!”

“What if you turned into a wolf? Would that help?”

“It could very well do the opposite! I can’t risk sinking even faster!”

Come to think of it, she’s gotta weigh a ton when she’s in her wolf form. I’m not totally sure what happens to all that weight when she turns into a human, but I can’t imagine that going wolf would help now.

“Pull me!” shouted Lilil. “If you tug me to the side, I may be able to move more easily!”

The longer I spent waffling, the harder it would become for her to escape. I just had to go for it! I tossed away my staff, reached out to grab her right arm with both hands…

“Get over heeere!”

…and yanked with all my strength, trying desperately to pull her toward me! It looked like her legs were sliding free from the ground’s grasp. All right, it worked! I thought…only for Lilil to fall face-first toward me a second later.

Oof. Right. I guess that would happen…

I ended up sprawled out on the ground, trapped—crushed, really—beneath her.

“Ugh… Get up already, please… You’re really heavy,” I moaned. Seriously, she was so much heavier than she looked! It seemed like the her-weight-doesn’t-change-even-if-her-form-does theory was gaining some traction…

“That was nearly a catastrophe…,” said Lilil. “To think this island’s own guardian mythical beast would be struck by crisis thanks to the very place I protect…”

“I’m going through my own catastrophe right now! Move, please!”

“We have secured the best dirt we could ask for, at least. This worked out for the best.”

True enough.

Disaster averted, we started harvesting the clay we’d found.

Once the box we’d brought had a good amount of clay in it, I added in a tiny amount of a different sort of mineral and mixed it all together. Then I placed the whole thing on top of a magic circle.

“Okay, let’s get started! No point getting all fancy with this one,” I said.

“This did strike me as a more haphazard process than I’ve seen from you previously,” Lilil frankly noted.

“This process is about the quality of our materials. This step’s just a bit extra, really,” I said. “Using plain old clay would feel sort of dull, so I thought we’d make it into something a little more convenient.”

A light began to coalesce around the box—primarily around the clay itself. It glowed for a moment longer, then faded away again.

“Okay! We’ve got what we need to patch those leaks up now,” I said. “Guess we could call it ‘Self-Heating Clay.’”

“At a glance, I can’t tell that it has changed at all,” said Lilil.

“Let’s head for the waterway—I can demonstrate when we get there. Oh, and here! You’ll need this plastering spatula.”

Lilil took the wooden tool I held out to her with a look of blank incomprehension on her face. “You mean to say I should spread the clay on the waterway with a spatula? I suppose it would plug any leaks, but I worry about its durability. It seems likely to be a stopgap measure, at most.”

“Just wait and see! I’m almost sure there are a bunch of leaks, so take it slow and steady.”

Lilil picked up the clay-filled box and dashed off into the woods. The fact that she went pretty much everywhere at a run was, in a certain sense, a sign that she took her position as my pupil seriously. I did wish she’d at least slow down a little, though. I slowly followed along after her, not because that was the teacher-like thing to do, but rather because running would’ve tired me out, and I was afraid I might trip again if I ended up in a wetter portion of the woods.

By the time I arrived at the waterway, Lilil had already gotten to work smearing the clay across it.

“Oooh! This is indeed plugging the leaks,” Lilil said.

“Don’t apply it to just the leaky parts,” I cautioned. “You’ll want to smear it all around the surrounding area, too. If there are any gaps left, the water could end up leaking out of them all over again.”

Once Lilil got moving, she started making progress at an incredible rate. She filled gap after gap in sequence, but eventually, she seemed to realize that something was odd.

“Hm? Am I imagining it, or has the clay that I spread begun to turn slightly red?”

“Heh-heh-heh! Why not take a closer look and see for yourself?” I suggested.

Lilil cautiously reached out toward the reddened clay. “Hot! What in the world?! The water is flowing right alongside it, but the clay is piping hot!”

“That’s right! The truth is, that spatula I gave you is actually an Artifact. The clay reacts to it—any clay it touches begins generating heat on its own!”

Lilil tapped on the heated section of clay with a fingernail next. “Ah! It’s taken on the feel of earthenware!”

“I think you get the picture now, right? The clay you fill those holes with is going to be nice and sturdy by the time you’re done.”

“How very amusing! I’ll patch the whole aqueduct with this!”

She’s like a little kid with a brand-new toy. I remember back when I was like that, too… Err. Was I, actually? Okay, maybe I don’t actually remember, after all.

Lilil spread scoop after scoop of clay with her spatula, and the waterway’s leaks gradually vanished. Watching a dribbling leak get filled with a single stroke of her spatula, almost as if she was painting over it, was gratifying in the strangest sort of way.

“It feels like more water is flowing through the aqueduct now,” said Lilil. “If we carry on, then our dream of the flow reaching the village could very well become a reality!”

“I think you’re right,” I said. “It’ll take a long time to patch the whole thing up, though, so don’t rush! Take your time and do it right.”

It would still be a long while before the village’s water situation improved, but in the meantime, it was nice to see that Lilil had effectively found herself a new hobby. Just looking at the elated smile on her face, and knowing I’d helped put it there, made the whole project feel like it had been worth the effort.

I knew I’d been an obnoxious little terror back when I was a student, and looking back, I wished I’d made an effort to be more endearing. Even my demon of an academic advisor had a softer side, in the sense that she was always easy on her pupils at the end of the day, so why couldn’t I? Watching Lilil’s tail wag away as she worked made me realize that I had work to do on myself, too.

There’s something almost blindingly pure about girls who’re always as honest as could be, like her. There is also something about the way she’s wagging her tail that feels weirdly flirty, though…

I’d thought it would take a very long time for the repair work on the waterway to be finished, but this time, I was proven dead wrong.

“I’ve finished the bulk of the work! It will not be long before I’ve reached the outskirts of the village,” Lilil reported just three days after I made the clay. We were getting ready for bed (in Claire’s house).

“W-wait, seriously…?” I stammered. “How could you have possibly done that much that quickly? You’re not one of those people who always exaggerates their accomplishments, are you? Like how novels about historical battles always embellishes how many soldiers were involved by a factor of ten?”

“If you doubt my words, then tomorrow morning, I shall prove it by showing it to you myself! I swear upon my paws that I have not told a lie!”

“Since when were your paws oath worthy?”

Early the next morning, Lilil and I went out before breakfast—a rarity for me—and climbed onto a small terrace just outside of town. It was high enough to give us a good view of Canon’s outskirts, and as I peered out over them, I noticed that a grassy area seemed oddly wet. One closer look later, and I’d managed to catch sight of the waterway.

“It’s true… You really did bring it all the way here,” I muttered in astonishment.

“The damage to the waterway was insignificant in less damp regions,” Lilil explained. “There were some larger breaks in the aqueduct, but those sections were reasonably easy to remove and replace. It was as easy as playing with building blocks for me!” she asserted, flexing her biceps in a really showy sort of pose as she spoke.

“Now that you mention it, it looks like the waterway nearer to the village is made from hollowed-out tree trunks instead of the square portions they used up in the forest. They look a little like dugout boats, actually.”

“Indeed they do. I believed that making them that way would prove easier and chose to proceed accordingly. They may not impress, at a glance, but who would travel this far out of the village to see them regardless?”

“You know, leaks aside, I really do think you could’ve fixed the whole waterway on your own, Lilil.”

“I could have indeed! You were the only one who ever doubted me, Freya.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I think I have to admit defeat this time. I really did underestimate my own pupil,” I said, throwing my hands listlessly into the air in a gesture of surrender.

“You should mind the store on your own today, Freya. In the meantime, I will extend the waterway into the village and give its people the shock of a lifetime!” said Lilil.

Lilil’s declaration made me realize something I had yet to consider. “Ah… Now that you mention it, we never got permission to mess with the waterway at all. Do you think that’s gonna be a problem…?”

The waterway had been abandoned for decades, but that didn’t mean it was okay for us to go out and restore it without even mentioning it to anyone. In my defense, I hadn’t been totally convinced that it would be possible in the first place, and I hadn’t wanted to give the people of Canon false hope. Plus I hadn’t ever imagined that Lilil would manage to pull it off this quickly! Divine guardians were a force to be reckoned with, clearly.

We can’t really just start the water flowing again without warning someone about it, right…?

“Hey, Lilil? I’m gonna go pay the mayor a visit. Like, right now,” I said.

“Hmm? Do you not want to see the looks of shock upon the people’s faces when one day, out of the blue, the waterway begins to flow again? Think how amusing it would be,” said Lilil.

There’s that mythical beast perspective rearing its head again! “The thing about living in a society like this is that you’re really not supposed to just do stuff without going up the chain of command first,” I said. “Take it from the girl who got sent out to an island in the south seas because she dealt with a mythical beast without running it past the right people first. This is something I know painfully well!”

I set off at a sprint toward the mayor’s house and ended up running into him filling up a watering can at the town’s well. I told him we’d be able to get the waterway running again soon, and he was so astonished that he dropped his watering can.

Let’s hope that giving the mayor the surprise of a lifetime was enough for Lilil to call that goal accomplished.

Once the sun set, I closed up the workshop and made for Canon. I saw a crowd standing outside, waving toward me as I was nearing the village. I headed in their direction and eventually arrived to find Lilil standing with the locals in her human form, hands planted on her waist.

“You’ve finally arrived! We couldn’t start without you, Freya,” Lilil said as she took my hand.

“Start what? What’s going on?” I asked.

“Is it not obvious?! The commemorative ceremony for the waterway’s revival!”

At that point, I noticed that about eighty paces to the west of the well on a patch of level ground was a new square stretch of waterway extending into town. The top section was even nicely sealed off to keep leaves and other refuse from falling inside. At its end, water poured into a huge copper basin.

“That basin was used long ago, when the original waterway still flowed,” Lilil explained. “I retrieved it from the storehouse it was shoved away in!”

“That’s an impressive piece of equipment,” I replied.

“I worked with the villagers to construct the stretch of waterway extending into the town at top speed! Someday, we intend to replace it with a sturdier, more permanent structure. We will create branches in the system as well to distribute the water even more conveniently!”

As I listened to Lilil’s explanation, she led me to where the waterway connected to the forest’s aqueduct. The area was so crowded, it almost seemed like the entire village was here to see the unveiling.

“This is a little embarrassing, huh…?” I said.

“You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about,” said Lilil. “The people have gathered to praise you for your accomplishment! Stand tall and proud!”

“Okay, but I really don’t know how to deal with this much attention…”

I’d gotten exceptional grades at the Institute, but being praised still made me sheepish. I had no idea how to act in a situation like this.

“Enough of this hesitation. Allow me!”

Just like that, Lilil grabbed me by the waist and lifted me into the air. She held me like someone trying to comfort a toddler, and I could feel the eyes of everyone present focus on me in an instant. Once again, it struck me just how many of the villagers were here.

“People of Canon,” said Lilil, “sing now the praises of she who is responsible for the waterway’s revival: Freya! Even the contributions of I, a mythical beast, pale in comparison to her wonders!”

“You’re amazing!” shouted a villager. “You’re the greatest alchemist in the world!”

“Thank you so much, Freya!”

“We’ll never struggle to draw water again!”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha… Thanks, everyone,” I awkwardly replied. I really didn’t know what to say, and a fit of bashfulness overcame me. I was embarrassed, yes, but at the same time…

Why do I feel like I’m about to cry…?

Was there some sort of upper limit to the amount of gratitude I could handle all at once? Did crossing that limit make me break down in tears? The villagers had thanked me plenty of times before, but never on this scale. They weren’t shocked, it turned out—they were thankful from the bottom of their hearts. Thankful to me, a girl who’d lorded over the Institute like she owned the place… Sniffle…!

“I take it those are tears of joy?” said Lilil. “Good. Let them flow. Now is the time to cry as you wish.”

“How do you even know that…? You can’t see my face from down there…,” I managed to choke out.

“It was not hard to tell. Your human senses are terribly dull compared to those of a beast such as I.”

Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure this is the first time in my life that I’ve received this much gratitude.

I had only learned alchemy for the sake of supporting my own lifestyle—helping the people around me never came into it at all…but now I felt that working for the people of the world I lived in was the better option. Now I was truly glad to have been born.

“People of Canon,” shouted Lilil, “your lives have changed greatly since Freya’s arrival, have they not? Henceforth, it is your duty to carry on in her example and raise your home to new heights! Work hard, for all our sakes!”

“Yeah!”

“Hooray for Lady Lilil!”

“Keep watching over our village, please!”

Lilil had worked the people up into a frenzy, and they were singing her praises as well now.

I guess it’s fine for her to go a little crazy this time. Divine guardians are the sort of beings who get praised by default just for existing, so of course she’d be good at working a crowd like this. It’s amazing how she can be so far from humble but not make it feel obnoxious.

“So, um…think you could put me down sometime soon? I feel like I’m a criminal who’s about to get nailed to a stake or something.”

“Oh, have you calmed yourself? No need to hurry—now is the moment to let yourself be made a show of.”

“I’d rather not be a show at all!”

After some convincing, Lilil finally put me down again.

On the same day we brought the waterway back into operation, a feast was held outdoors by the water intake. Apparently, I was the guest of honor and was served so many different dishes, I could never have even considered finishing them all. Plenty were foods I’d never tried before, too! People were dancing with joy, and the whole thing felt like a real festival.

“I still feel so out of place. I just can’t get used to this sort of thing,” I said. I was sitting in a chair that had been hauled out of someone’s house, though I wasn’t sure whose. My stomach was stuffed to the brim, but the table was still packed with dishes all the families in the village had made for the event, some of which were clearly the sort of flashy cooking you’d only ever bother with on a special occasion.

“You are an unexpectedly humble woman, Freya,” said Lilil. “From what I was told before we met, you carried yourself rather pompously at your school.”

Lilil was holding a cup filled with some sort of alcohol. She seemed to have a much higher tolerance than any human—she’d been guzzling the stuff all night. Part of that was her accepting drinks offered to me on my behalf, which was a huge help. I’d never had a taste for the stuff.

“I—I don’t think I was pompous…,” I replied. “I was just proud of myself. My grades were really great…”

A look of newfound understanding came across Lilil’s face. “Ah, and the pieces fall into place. You had no friends, and as consequence, you never knew what it was like to be openly praised!”

“Just ’cause it’s the truth doesn’t mean you have to say it out loud like that!”

Lilil patted my head. “Worry not! Accepting the accolades will come naturally in time. You’ve done many praiseworthy things, after all. Just don’t let it all go to your head!”

“I’ll try,” I said. “I think it’d be silly for me to get an ego now, considering I haven’t even brought the workshop back to perfect condition yet.”

“Hm?” Lilil grunted. “Claire cooks your meals, and commuting from her house has posed no challenges, but is the workshop not in livable condition? I fail to see what might be lacking.”

“The backyard, that’s what. The garden back there’s still a total mess.” The pond was so muddy and miserable, I wasn’t sure if it was a shade of green or a shade of black. It looked like an actual poisonous swamp.

“Ah, the garden. I suppose we have yet to get around to it. Surely restoring it will be simple enough, though?”

“It’ll take more than a little cleaning, in the garden’s case. We’ll have to figure out a way to get the water clean, too.”

“That sounds simple enough. We know where the source of water is—we need only lead it to the garden.”

“…Oh. Right.” The single most important task in restoring the garden—finding a water source—was already finished, and I hadn’t even realized.

Lilil wrapped her arm around my neck and pulled me over to her. “And with that, the workshop will be as it once was! No need to cower in shame when a fellow alchemist comes by for an inspection!”

“I’m not worried about that. No alchemist is gonna come out this far,” I said. “Still, it is shaping up well.”

Lilil’s breath smelled like whatever she was drinking. Apparently, you didn’t necessarily have to get drunk to reek of booze.

The day after the waterway was restored, Lilil went all out setting up a second channel that led to our garden. I could hear the sound of her saw ringing out behind me as I sat at my workbench, grinding up herbs.

Then after work one day, Lilil called me out back. The thick layer of undergrowth had been cleared away, and the nasty, murky water that once filled the large pond had been drained as well. It was totally dry now, and I noticed that there were a few unnatural-looking indentations in its bed. It wouldn’t be complete until it was filled up with water, of course, but it already looked oddly elegant.

Lilil brought me over to the far end of the garden where her new waterway awaited me. A wooden blocker was installed in it, preventing the water from flowing out.

“Go on,” said Lilil, “pull it away! This will be the final task that marks the completion of the garden—no, of the whole workshop!”

“You really like these ceremonies—or rituals, I guess—don’t you, Lilil? Is that just a mythical beast thing, do you think?”

“I think this prattle has dragged on for too long. Pull away! You should appreciate that I’m allowing my teacher to complete the final task.”

I’ll just have to take her up on that!

I pulled the plank away, and the water surged forth through the channel. It first flowed into a small pond that sat behind the larger, central one, filling it with cool, perfectly clear water. It flowed onward into the larger lake from there.

I watched from a distance as the space behind the workshop transformed into the sort of elaborate garden you’d expect to find at a noble’s vacation home. When I first arrived, it had been so dismal and dreary, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it were actually haunted, and the water had looked like it had somehow decayed, but now the ponds were as pristine as could be.

“And with that,” I said, “The Giant Wolf Alchemical Workshop is officially complete.”

“And hardly half a month since your opening. Not a bad pace by any means,” said Lilil.

“It would’ve taken way longer if it weren’t for you. Thanks, Lilil.”

“I’ll take as much praise as you’re willing to give!”

I leaned over onto Lilil’s shoulder. “If you turn into your wolf form and let me use you like a mattress, I’ll heap tons of compliments on you.”

“Today is a special occasion, so I will allow it.”

The feeling of Lilil’s shoulder on mine shifted into something much softer and more animallike. I leaned in further, letting her fluff wrap around me as I watched the water stream into the pond.

“I could watch this forever,” I said.

“Yes, indeed,” said Lilil. “Strange how simply watching a pond fill can bring such joy.”

I’d thought bringing the workshop back into a functional state would take forever, but it just took a little work to get it up and running. There’s nothing people can’t accomplish if they put their minds to it. Well, okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but there’s an awful lot we can do! Maybe I’ll enjoy every day on the island like this, and my three years of public service will fly by in a flash. Maybe I’ll end up spending a fourth year here on top of it…

“Now that the workshop is complete, will this be the last evening we impose upon Claire?”

“That’s right!” I said. “We’re living in the workshop from now on!”

At long last, my life as the island’s alchemist had truly begun.

I felt something squishy on my face. It felt nice, but it was a little heavy. The second I wished it would lay off a little, it started getting even heavier, and the sensation was finally more uncomfortable than pleasant. I had no choice but to open my eyes.

“Thirty-four, thirty-five— Oh! You’re finally awake? It took you thirty-five seconds,” said Lilil. Her paw pad was currently resting on my forehead.

“Could you pick a less weird way to wake me up next time…? You could’ve just said something,” I grumbled.

“That was not enough to wake you up. I resorted to other means because words alone did not suffice.”

“Huh…? Weird. Haven’t seen that ceiling before… Are we at an inn by the harbor…?”

“It appears your brain is still starting up. Shall I cast you into the pond to wake you up?” asked Lilil as she transformed into her human form, making it very easy to read the exasperation written all over her face. Being a human, I hadn’t mastered reading her wolf form expressions as well as her human expressions. “We moved into the workshop yesterday. Have you already forgotten how we said our thanks and good-byes to Claire?”

Oh! That’s right!

Now that the workshop was complete, garden included, it felt wrong not to use it as the house it was meant as, and I’d decided to finally start living there. I’d even declared it out in the garden, and Lilil had heard me loud and clear. She had witnessed my moment of resolution—I couldn’t change my mind anymore.

Strictly speaking, however, there was one little flaw in Lilil’s description I would now have to correct. Precision and specificity were the name of the game when it came to medicine, after all!

“That’s not quite right, Lilil,” I said. “We said our good-byes to Claire—and I told her that I’d still stop by for meals sometimes and that I’d look forward to seeing her then. I only promised to start sleeping in the workshop. I’m still planning on going back to her place to eat whenever I get the chance.”

“Talk about overstaying your welcome…”

“Refusing to take what’s freely given to you doesn’t make you exceptional—it makes you a moron,” I bluntly replied.

Lilil could tell that this conversation was going nowhere fast. She beckoned me with a finger. “I have prepared breakfast for you. Hurry along into the dining room!”

I stepped into the dining room to find a plate with freshly baked bread waiting for me, plus a jar of strawberry jam. There was also a salad, cheese, two sausages, and the tea I’d brewed the night before.

“Oh, wow! It’s so proper! It’s a real breakfast!” I exclaimed.

“Excuse me,” said Lilil, rolling her eyes. “Were you perhaps expecting slabs of still-bleeding animal flesh?”

“I’ll opt to stay silent for now.”

“And there’s my answer… This is hardly the first time I’ve cooked, you know. I have borrowed the kitchens of villagers and prepared food many a time. Even without magic of my own, I can spark the flame of a Flarestone. I have visited restaurants far and wide during my time away from the island.”

Makes sense. Flarestones react to the magical energy flowing through people, so it’s not like you need any magic skills to start a fire you can cook with.

“So I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that serving that could feed a family of five is yours?” I asked. The seat across from me was set with the same dishes, just with five times the amount of food.

“I must eat at least this much, or I’ll hardly be able to move today.”

“I’d hardly be able to move if I did eat that much, but I guess everyone has their own appetite,” I said.

I sat down at the table and dug straight into my meal, thanking the heavens above that I would not, in fact, go hungry.

“I just woke up in the morning and ate a breakfast that was waiting for me in my own house. Who could ask for a healthier lifestyle?” I mused.

“Do you mean to say you were not living like this before?” asked Lilil.

“I spent my childhood in an orphanage, and I moved into the dorms when I started school. I never really ate at home. Actually, I’ve never eaten in a place I could call my own home before, period.”

“Well, in any case, you are my teacher. It is only fitting for your apprentice to prepare your meals. Moreover, seeing as I am the island’s guardian mythical beast and you restored the village’s waterway, the people of Canon will certainly provide us with all the ingredients we’ll ever need.”

“There’s a whole bunch of perks to being around you all the time, huh?”

“Your gratitude is always welcome,” Lilil replied.

“Boy, this bread is really well baked!”

“I…will also take that as gratitude.”

Maybe living in the workshop full-time won’t be so bad, after all, I thought, living it up on the first morning of my new lifestyle.

And then just one hour later, a new batch of problems would find their way to my doorstep…

A series of loud, rhythmic, very enthusiastic thumps came at the front door. It was still morning, so the shop wasn’t open yet.

“Someone must’ve woken up sick,” I said. “I’ll go see what’s going on, so you can stay here and keep studying, Lilil.”

I left her at the desk behind the counter where she was reading and headed for the door. There, I found Mayor Makood.

“Oh, Mister Mayor!” I exclaimed. “Good morning! How can I help you?”

Judging by his expression, he wasn’t here for anything pleasant. His kind-looking face was twitching with barely restrained discomfort.

Don’t tell me something in the waterway gave the whole village a case of food poisoning or something…?

“I’m sorry for calling on you so early,” said the mayor. “Truth be told, a messenger from the governor has arrived…”

“The governor?” I repeated. “Oh, right, wasn’t this island supposed to be part of the domain of some count?”

“Yes, exactly. Seajade Island is just a small, far-flung portion of the count’s territory, and so a governor was put in place to rule in a more direct fashion.”

I guess counts can end up with scattered territory. It’d be way too much for one person to handle all on their own.

“As for the message, well…it seems the governor feels you went over their head rebuilding the waterway, and they’re insisting you go to their estate to discuss matters.”

Gah! You can’t be serious—I ticked off another big shot?!

“I should have accounted for this,” Mayor Makood said, bowing apologetically. “Everything was happening so fast, it completely slipped my mind, but matters of irrigation are important enough that the governor is perfectly justified in expecting a report about any major changes.”

“No, no, this is my fault completely!” I replied. “We’re the ones who made everything move along that quickly to begin with. I’ll go handle the apologies.”

Is this the sort of thing that I should bring an apology gift along for? Some snacks, maybe? Considering I live on an island, I doubt I’d be able to find the sort of fancy snacks I’d need for a gift to a governor.

At that point, a terrible premonition flashed through my mind.

I really hope the governor isn’t some horny ape of a man… I don’t have a single relative on this island, so if he decides to go after me, I won’t have anyone to protect me! Then again, making the new alchemist so mad that she packed up and left would be a nasty stain on his record, so hopefully he won’t try anything too weird…

Lilil stepped up behind me. “Fear not,” she said. “If I claim to be responsible, the governor will have no choice but to accept it. Off we go!”

“Oh, right. I already have the best protection I could possibly ask for,” I muttered.

I stepped outside to join the mayor, and Lilil followed along, transforming into her wolf form the moment she was out.

“I do not enjoy dragging out unpleasant matters such as this. Get on. I’ll carry you and run there. Makood, please return home on foot.”

Part of me thought she could’ve offered the mayor a ride, too, but then again, maybe carrying two people at once would’ve thrown her off balance.

Lilil and I made our way toward a stretch of high ground that rose behind the harbor, upon which stood a mansion—referred to by the locals as the governor’s estate. The mansion stood alone and almost looked like a fort for lack of any smaller buildings to compare it to. Maybe even a small castle.

“You know, now that I think about it, I vaguely remember seeing some sort of steeple off in the distance when I first arrived here,” I said.

A building resembling a watchtower was connected to the governor’s mansion, which was what I had noticed back on my first day. Between that and the main building, the estate was without question the grandest place I’d seen on the island so far.

“I would normally have no reason to come here, and I’ve no desire to stay for long. Let us get this over with,” said Lilil.

A woman who looked like a servant was standing outside the front door when we arrived. She opened the hulking, heavy-looking castle door for us, which struck me as a little odd. That seemed more like a job for a guard than a middle-aged woman. Then again, maybe it was natural for a maid to take that role during peacetime.

The woman led us into the building and down a hallway. It was obviously an old structure but well maintained for its age. It reminded me of the Royal Institute, actually.

“The governor has quite some nerve summoning us here, especially after only having the job for a measly three years,” Lilil, who was in her human form again, grumbled. She had to transform to fit through the front door.

“Was I supposed to stop by and say hi when I first got here?” I asked. “I heard an alchemist opening up shop wasn’t a big enough deal to merit bothering the local ruler, but maybe the governor felt differently…?”

“I do not know what the standard practice outside of this island would be. Perhaps a meeting for every new store that opened would be irksome for the head of a large city, but on an island such as this, I don’t believe it would be as tiresome.”

At the end of the day, these things varied so much from region to region, the only way to learn the customs was to take them case by case! If most of the island thought something was rude, then it was rude. The same applied to lords (and governors)—one lord’s rules could be totally different from another’s.

Eventually, the woman who’d been leading us handed us off to a second woman, this one wearing a black hood. I couldn’t see her face, which was a little creepy, but I was in no position to turn around and leave on account of something like that.

Kind of weird that it’s another woman, too. What if the governor really is a raging pervert…? I should be safe since Lilil’s here, but if she ends up getting into a fistfight with the governor, I’ll be driven out of business for sure! I just had my first morning living in the workshop—I don’t want to shut it down the very same day…! Please, just let this end peacefully… I can just tell from the look on her face that she thinks she’s more important than some governor! Is this gonna be okay?

The hooded woman stopped in front of a door with a plate that read STUDY.

“Please enter,” she said.

“A-all right…,” I uncomfortably stammered, then took the knob and opened the door. “P-pardon me!”

And the room was empty.

“Huh? Is the governor out…?”

Did they get an upset stomach and have to run to the bathroom?

I was at a loss. I hadn’t thought there would be no one in there.

“Hey, Lilil? What are we supposed to do now? Face the hallway and wait for the governor to arrive, maybe?” I asked.

“Why would we do that? I’ve never heard of such a custom,” Lilil replied.

“But the governor’s not here, so…”

“Aha-ha-ha-ha! You haven’t noticed, have you?”

Suddenly, the woman who’d led us to the room burst out in laughter. She yanked off her hood, revealing a red-haired girl who looked like she was a little younger than I was—fifteen years old, maybe? Her hair was tied up in a very neat braid and had a number of ornaments worked into it.

“And now,” the girl continued, “the truth is revealed!”

Erm…was this the governor’s daughter? Maybe he brought her along so she didn’t have to live on her own? You wouldn’t want the local youth corrupting your daughter while you were away, after all.

“Uh…sorry, but is this some sort of prank? That the governor’s not here…?” I asked. I was way out of my comfort zone, and the atmosphere in the study was seriously getting to me.

“Huh?” said the girl. “You still haven’t realized?”

“Um… That’s a really nice outfit you’re wearing!” I said, taking a shot in the dark. “That wool is from up north, isn’t it? I didn’t think I’d ever see fabric like that all the way down on a southern island.”

“Good eye! I firmly believe that wearing high-class clothing in a casual manner is the best way to express your taste in— No, no, no! Not that!” The girl pointed at her own face. “It’s me. I’m the governor! I just let you believe I was a servant and led you to my study myself!”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay… Wait, but you’re so young! You look younger than I am! You’re a little girl!”

“How rude! The surprise has clearly made you forget your manners!”

She’s right! Technically, I was here to deliver an apology. I’d totally forgotten. Then again, she was the one who’d set me up with this little prank, so it wasn’t totally my fault.

“Well,” the girl said, starting over, “I am the governor of this island, Emeline! I am of the count’s family…but I am technically the child of his mistress…so I am most certainly not in any position to barge into noble power struggles,” the little girl (I was calling it as I saw it—she was a little girl) who called herself Emeline said as she pressed a hand to her chest.

“Indeed, and when she reached the age of twelve, she insisted she would manage this island and came here on her own,” Lilil said with an air of disinterest. She was trying very hard to make it sound like none of this was her problem.

“Huh? You knew about this, Lilil? You could’ve said something!” I said.

“Hm? Why? We came here so you could meet her yourself, did we not?”

Ugh! She’s right. It’s not like I asked her about the governor, either…

“Emeline may seem little more than a child, but she’s quite sharp,” Lilil continued. “Writing and bookkeeping are among her specialties, and it seems that ever since she was young, she longed to accomplish something by her own power.”

“Most lords are stuffy old men, and if I were surrounded by them, they’d probably look down on me for being a woman even though I am a governor,” said Emeline. “But out on this island with an ocean between us, that’s not a problem at all! This is the perfect place for me to be in charge of. It puts me far away from all the power struggles and lets me live in a much warmer place.”

Emeline (whom I probably should’ve been calling “the governor,” but considering she was younger than me, dropping the title internally felt appropriate) threw out what little of a chest she had and laughed once more. I noticed she had a different accent than the islanders. She spoke more like the people in the capital.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “In the winter, the Royal Institute of Alchemy’s hallways were even colder than the outside!”

“Oh? I think we might get along fabulously, Freya!”

Oh, good! Leave it to two city girls to get along, I thought—briefly.

“Now then, this study unfortunately lacks seating for guests, so I’m afraid you’ll have to stand. Being as I’m the one who has a grievance to air, though, that seems appropriate,” Emeline said as she walked past us and took a seat in the study’s sole chair. I thought we might get along, but it turned out we were here to be reprimanded, after all. “Let me cut to the chase: If you plan on starting any significant construction projects that will affect the whole village, you must get my permission first. Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to tell whether you’re doing charity work or laying the foundation for a coup!”

Emeline was still smiling, which told me this wasn’t as grave an issue as I’d been worried it was. Still, I had failed to check in with her and probably should have known better, so I apologized.

“I’m terribly sorry for the worry and inconvenience I’ve caused,” I said and attempted to make Lilil bow with me. I said “attempted” because her head just wasn’t moving, even when I really tried to push her down. “What are you doing?! You need to apologize, too!” I hissed.

“I am a divine guardian. I will do no such thing!” Lilil insisted.

Oh god, what is my apprentice doing?!

“Please, just do it! An apology’s the quickest and easiest way to deal with these things!”

“I have no need to apologize! For one, it should have been the governor’s job to resolve the issue of the village’s water supply in the first place—and yet she did nothing! If anything, she ought to be thanking us for accomplishing what she could not!”

Agh! mythical beasts totally suck at reading the room! You can’t speak without a filter to the local ruler—you gotta hold some stuff in!

Okay, so plan A is out. I’ll just have to give about five people’s worth of apologies on my own, then—

“Aha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” cackled Emeline. “Yes, yes! That’s more like it! It just feels wrong when you’re not acting as haughty as could be, Miss mythical beast!”

Huh? She’s laughing? It’s almost like she thinks this was some sort of show!

“Yes, yes,” Emeline continued. “This was a sign of my negligence as governor, and I certainly owe you my thanks for covering for me.”

“Well? We’re waiting! As loudly as you please,” said Lilil. “Then we will be on our way.”

“But,” Emeline said, carrying on as if she hadn’t heard Lilil, “it happens that the count had only just granted permission for the waterway to be restored. The project is scheduled to begin this autumn.”

“What? You mean you were going to repair it officially?!” I yelped.

“Yep! After many, many complaints on my part, the count finally gave in.”

Oh! So she really can do her job properly, after all.

“But then one day out of the blue, the waterway was restored all on its own, and I had to explain to the count that construction would not be necessary, after all! I pestered them for no reason and had to apologize through no fault of my own. Are you following me?”

“Ah…,” I grunted. I finally understood why what we’d done was such a problem. Of course eliminating the need for a new waterway without warning would cause some trouble! Not to mention, a governor apologizing to their count was a way bigger deal than, say, a normal person apologizing to their friend for being late. It would mean publicly admitting she had screwed up.

“It was not my intention to put you in a position of repentance, and you have my sympathies. For that, I will apologize,” Lilil said, finally bowing as well.

“Um, so…this is all our fault for going ahead with the construction without permission,” I said. “I’m, uh…not very experienced when it comes to this sort of real-world stuff…”

“Yes, I’m aware. I was told as much when I first got word you would be stationed here,” the governor (which, on second thought, I decided I probably should call her internally from time to time) said as she pulled what looked like a letter out of one of her desk drawers. The Royal Institute’s insignia was printed on the back of the sheet. “I was informed that a recent graduate from the Institute of Alchemy would be arriving soon and that her naïveté was likely to result in problems for me. I was also requested to welcome you to the region with open arms and ensure your safety.”

“I’m a little surprised the Institute puts that much effort into caring for its alumni,” I said. I hadn’t heard a word from them since I graduated, let alone been told any of this. Then again, if they had told me they’d asked the local governor to watch out for me when I arrived at my workshop, I probably would’ve told them to stop babying me.

“You’ve been surrounded by nothing but fledgling alchemists for years. You wouldn’t learn any of society’s rules in an environment like that,” said the governor. “Your job now is to learn a thing or two about how to conduct yourself with dignity and self-awareness.”

Getting lectured about society’s rules by a girl who was even younger than me was rather irritating, but it was an undeniable truth that I knew way too little about those rules. In terms of street smarts, she was my superior by far. “I’ll try to be careful from now on,” I said.

That, I assumed, would be the end of that conversation. Being treated like a poorly socialized brat wasn’t fun, but I got the feeling I was also being let off easy thanks to the kid treatment.

“Now then—I’m willing to put this matter behind us, Freya, but in exchange, I have a job I’d like you to do,” the governor said as she crossed her arms.

Is that a request? Feels more like a command to me. It’s not like I can tell her to buzz off, though…

“I’m guessing you want a particularly effective potion or something like that? I think we can work something out,” I said.

“No, not that. I want you to lend me your knowledge,” said the governor. “The reason why the village spent so very long with that waterway down was because this island is critically lacking in influence. If we were a relay station on a prominent trade route or the site of a mine, it would have been repaired almost as soon as it broke down.”

“Makes sense,” I admitted. Odds were good that the count hardly cared about Seajade Island at all.

“And so I would like to build up this island’s influence! How, you ask? By creating a local specialty that’ll put our island on the map! We won’t be neglected anymore if a Seajade Island–brand product becomes famous, don’t you think?”

“That makes sense. There are small islands that ended up bringing in tons of money because they had special stones or sulfur, so I could definitely see it working.”

“Exactly! And so I’d like you to make our special product! ”

“You’d— Wait, what?!”

“I’ll be waiting with bated breath for a wonderful idea! Aha-ha-ha! ” the governor cackled with a toothy smile so wide, I could even see the tips of her sharp canines. “Once that’s done, we can consider the matter of the waterway water under the bridge!”

Oh, this little brat’s really pushing it…!

Seeing as we’d already made our way out to the harbor, we stopped at one of the nearby restaurants for some lunch. The place took advantage of their proximity to the sea by serving all sorts of fried fish. The fishers apparently ate some of their catches raw, depending on the species, but that wasn’t listed on the menu, so we couldn’t try it out for ourselves. I was totally okay with that—fried fish sounded much less intimidating.

“‘A wonderful idea,’ really? I’m supposed to just come up with one of those like it’s nothing?” I grumbled as I gnawed on my fish. This is not what alchemists are supposed to do with their time! Oooh, this is horse mackerel, isn’t it?

Even when you fried them, fish really were tastiest right after they were caught. People ate fish in Canon, too, of course, but nothing beat sinking your teeth into one that came straight off a fisher’s line, and you could only get that at the restaurants by the harbor.

“If there was some sort of ultra-rare herb that only grew on this island, I could use it to make a medicine, but there’s no way it’d be that easy, right…? I have no clue what I’m gonna do about this,” I said. I did my best to grimace, but the fried fish was just so fresh and crispy, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. How could the outside be so crispy when the inside was so meaty?! There was no way anyone would realize that this was a cheap fish based on this texture! “If we were in the capital, I’d be calling the chef over to pay my compliments to them right now! The other food here is great, too, right?”

“Indeed,” said Lilil. “Ah! Perhaps we could turn this very horse mackerel into the island’s signature product?” she suggested as she excitedly stuck a fish with her fork and raised it for me.

“No good. The quality would be ruined in the time it took to ship,” I said, shaking my head.

“I do not mean to suggest that you ship raw or fried fish to the mainland. Imagine, for instance, if you were to dry them and market them as stockfish or preserve them in oil. There are many ways to turn them into a viable product!” Lilil said. I didn’t think she’d really thought the idea through. She sulked a little, which I felt bad about.

“Okay, that’s not too crazy an idea,” I said. “Here—I’ll let you pick what we order next to make up for it.”

“Wonderful! Two more plates’ worth of fried fish for us, thank you!”

As we ate, I considered the possibility of selling local fish packed in oil. They did taste good enough to sell, and with luck, I knew they could gain a following.

Maybe I should suggest it to Emeline and see what she thinks? I’d rather not let this bit of homework sit unsolved for too long.

“Oil-preserved fish? I’m sure they would be delicious, but I was hoping for something more unique to the island.”

Welp. She’s shooting this idea down for sure.

Emeline opened an elaborately decorated folding fan that, I assumed, she’d had imported from the far east and flapped away with it as she spoke. “Any old seaside town on the mainland will make their own preserved fish, won’t they? And unlike us, they won’t have to factor a trip across their ocean in their transportation costs. We’ll never stand a chance of beating them in the open market.”

“You’re exactly right,” I groaned. You could find fish anywhere in the ocean, not just around Seajade Island, and fishers on the mainland ventured far enough into the ocean to catch the same sorts that could be found here.

“I know this is a hard ask, but isn’t there something you could craft from materials on this island?” asked Emeline.

“I get what we’re going for here, but am I really the person for the job?” I countered. “The islanders would know way better than me, right? I’ve only been here a month!”

“That is precisely why I’m asking you. People who’ve lived on this island all their lives could never begin to guess what would be popular on the mainland.”

That makes sense. We both have good arguments, though, so this’ll just come down to who’s more insistent.

“I don’t plan on setting a time limit,” Emeline added. “Take as long as you need. In exchange, I’ll write that you’ve been working your tail off for the sake of the island in my next report.”

“Okay, okay! I promise I’ll make a real effort to— Wait, what? What was that about a report…?”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“When Institute graduates are sent far afield, the administration requests updates on each and every thing you do. Your efforts to restore the waterway will be in the report as well.”

“Huh…? Does that mean the Institute’s going to get on my case about that, too…?” I groaned. If they were going to learn all about the waterway, surely they’d be told I did it without permission?

“Get on your case? Why would they? You’re not a student anymore. Plus all I’m doing is reporting on the accomplishments of the island’s only alchemist. The Institute, meanwhile, will see no reason not to take the governor’s word as the formal opinion of the island! Aha-ha-ha! ”

The smile on Emeline’s face was disconcerting. Ah—there are those canines again.

“So you’re telling me whether the Institute is happy with me or not is completely up to you,” I said. She’s a crafty one, all right! A crooked governor! Actually, make that a bratty governor!

“Oh, settle down. I came to this island from the mainland, just like you, remember? I’m on your side,” Emeline said, this time with a much less malicious smile.

“You know, whenever I read books that had a character claiming to be on the protagonist’s side, they always ended up being a bad guy,” I jabbed. I was losing hold on my tongue.

“Tee-hee! ” Emeline giggled. “I’d very much like that product, but I’ll admit, seeing the face of a girl a few years older than me in a pinch is fun! ”

That settles it. She’s a problem child, for sure…

I couldn’t stop thinking about my task. I walked all over, mostly focusing on the fields, and talked to everyone in Canon I could, but at the end of the day, I’d reached the conclusion that there just wasn’t anything unique about the crops grown here. In retrospect, I’d been treated to dinner by a number of households at that point, and I hadn’t been served a single vegetable I didn’t recognize.

“Shall we try climbing the mountain, then? There may be some new species waiting to be found,” Lilil suggested. I ended up taking her up on that, and on a bright, clear day, we headed out to the mountain. I’d been there once before to collect indigostone, so I was sure it would be a nice, easy hike, but…

“Why would you choose that path? This way will be much better! Come along, now!”

…before I knew it, Lilil, who was in her human form, led me right off the path and started on her own trail. She leaped lightly up the side of what looked an awful lot like a sheer cliffside. She was basically rock climbing.

“Stop! Stop!” I shouted. “There’s no way that’s a usable path!”

“I’m using it now, am I not?” Lilil said as she turned around to face me. She probably didn’t think of it as anything crazier than climbing a ladder.

“Well, I can’t! I’m not ready for that sort of wilderness exploration! And, um…I can sorta see up your dress, which isn’t very modest…,” I added, averting my gaze. If I looked up just a little bit more, I might have accidentally turned myself into a voyeur…

“Hmph,” Lilil grunted. “Enough of that. I wouldn’t care if you looked, but the idea that you’re seeing something I wouldn’t want you to is distressing…”

“Why would I look at your—? Actually… I guess it would be weirder if I made a big deal about that when you’re in your wolf form, huh?”

“Precisely. However…when I take the form of a human, I feel some semblance of shame. It’s the strangest thing,” said Lilil. She was starting to fidget anxiously, and a tinge of red appeared on her face. A moment later, she turned around and shot up the rock face. “Avert your gaze!” she shouted.

“Slow down!” I shouted back. “If you keep running ahead at full speed, I’ll never catch up!”

“Descending is difficult! I am a specialist in ascent, so this is the only option!”

And she just kept on climbing. I couldn’t exactly follow the route she’d taken, so I resigned myself to walking up the mountain trail instead. It wouldn’t be quick, but it was the only reasonable choice for a normal human like me. Traversing up a nearly vertical mountainside was a no-go for me.

“I’m sure we’ll meet up again somewhere along the way…”

An hour had passed, and I had yet to find Lilil.

“Where the heck did she go…?”

I was just about ready to give up, turn around, and start searching more seriously when suddenly…

“Over here…here…ere…re!”

…I heard Lilil’s voice echoing out from somewhere in the distance. If I hadn’t already known what was going on, it would’ve sounded like something straight out of a ghost story. I headed in the direction it sounded like it had come from and eventually came across a river to find Lilil bathing. She was fully clothed but bathing nonetheless.

“Swimming with your clothes on, huh? You sure are something,” I commented. Considering wolves couldn’t just take their pelts off, this might have just been normal for her.

“You should come in as well, Freya! The water feels wonderful,” said Lilil.

“I’ll dip my feet in, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be too cold to— huh?”

It’s warm? I thought, then immediately amended my thought. The water wasn’t warm—it was hot.

“A hot-water river?!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, indeed! Hot water flows freely here,” said Lilil. “Beautifully rustic, is it not?”

“It’s almost too rustic. You’re bathing in wild, untamed nature.”

Lilil let out a long, relaxed “Aaah.” It was some mixture of a human’s and an animal’s sigh.

I dipped both my feet into the water. “Oooh! This really is the perfect temperature!”

I started out by leaning backward with my hands on the ground, but before I knew it, I lay flat on my back. My clothes were getting dirty, but I didn’t care a bit.

“This,” said Lilil, “is the mythical beast’s secret bathing grounds. Almost nobody knows about them, far-flung from the trail as they are. I thought they would make for a much-needed break from the panic you’ve worked yourself into over the search for a local specialty.”

That explained a lot. All of this had been Lilil’s way of looking out for me. This was the first time she’d seen me take on a problem and not come up with a solution right away, so it made sense she’d be concerned.

“Sorry if I made you worry about me,” I said. “I’ve always been the honor-student type, you know? I’m not used to having an assignment drag on like this…”

“You act modest, then turn around and brag about your honor-student status… That’s the sort of humblebrag that irks people,” Lilil pointed out harshly.

“Bragging’s still better than lying! I just got out into the real world—you could at least let me lean on my academic record for a little while longer…”

I got up and took a few steps toward Lilil. She wasn’t in her fluffy form at the moment, but she was talking as my elder, so I hoped she would forgive the grumbling of a little kid like me.

“When faced with a challenge such as this, the best ideas strike suddenly,” said Lilil. “It’s best not to force a hasty solution. That is a trap former honor students, such as yourself, fall into all too often. Unlike the assignments you had in school, there is never a guarantee that real-world problems can be resolved in a timely fashion.”

Ugh, great. She isn’t the sort of mentor you can rely on to bail you out. She’s the sort who lectures you, then lets you work it out for yourself… I backpedaled, stepping away from her again. I wasn’t in the leaning-on-her mood anymore.

“I get where you’re coming from, okay? It’s just that I can’t stand the thought of this stupid local-specialty hunt hanging over my head all day every day until I come up with something… I just know I won’t be able to relax until I get it done,” I said as I kicked my feet in the water, splashing away like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

“Think of it as a learning experience,” said Lilil. “Every child must someday be taught how strict and unjust society can be. Heh-heh!”

“Maybe I’d be okay with taking that from a more experienced alchemist, but I really don’t wanna hear it from a mythical beast who gets to be ridiculously powerful just because she was born that way.”

I knew she was just messing with me. This was all just a bit of friendly bath time banter. It wasn’t a bad way to relieve the stress, honestly.

“I know we have the bath at the workshop, but this is so much nicer,” I said.

Lilil had set up the bath back home for us. It used a long-burning fuel instead of plain old firewood, so it was efficient and easy to warm up. That fuel was my creation, by the way—it was technically a type of Artifact, putting it squarely within the realm of alchemy.

“True,” Lilil agreed. “Why go to the trouble of heating a bath when we could simply come here?”

“Considering how much effort it took to get here, and that I’d rather not get naked in the wilderness, I’m not so sure that… Wait. A hot spring? That’s it!”

I shot to my feet without thinking. I might’ve had something! A hot spring like this could be just the thing to bring people to the island…or so I thought for a moment before sitting right back down and dipping my feet into the water, my excitement quelled by cold, hard reality.

“No, that wouldn’t work.” I sighed. “How many people would go this far out of their way just for a hot spring…? And it doesn’t feel nearly big enough to be a tourist attraction, either.”

“Your burst of motivation lasted a matter of seconds,” Lilil dryly commented.

“It’d also be kind of rude to turn your hidden hot spring into a product, huh?”

Maybe we could sell the water itself? It might have some sort of health benefit… Probably not, though. The locals might drink it, but there’s no way it would be popular enough to carry crates over to the mainland, no matter how we advertise the thing.

I glanced up to find that, for some reason, Lilil was staring right at me. She looked amused.

“I’m guessing you have a comment?” I asked.

“I’m simply reassured that you do, in fact, fret over matters from time to time, just like everyone else,” said Lilil. “I thought that everything you’d accomplished had struck you in a flash of genius and that you knew nothing of the struggles that usually precede big accomplishments.”

“I’m no genius, thank you very much. I only got such good grades because I busted my hump. You can’t cut corners when you don’t have any family to fall back on, much less a rich one…”

Oh, right. I had never really made much of it, but there were times when people back at the Institute talked me up behind my back about how much of a genius I was. I only knew it happened ’cause they talked behind my back loudly. That told me they didn’t mean it as a sincere compliment. It could have been worse, though—I would’ve found it just as weird if they meant it sincerely.

Apparently, my classmates were under the impression I’d somehow metamorphosed into a super student overnight. Believing that gave them an excuse as to why their grades weren’t as good as mine. They were deluding themselves. I’d gotten to where I was by studying harder and longer than anyone else around me. That was why Professor Mystille had acknowledged me—she knew how hard I worked.

“I wouldn’t be wandering the wilderness for inspiration if I was really a genius,” I said. “I’d be back in the workshop, putting together the perfect solution.”

It was all so easy back in school. The effort I put in translated directly into better results. Managing a workshop wasn’t the same, though, and my only choice was to adapt to the environment I’d ended up in.

“Do not worry. Trial and error determines an alchemist’s worth. Today’s worries will become tomorrow’s advantages,” said Lilil. She lay down in the water, floating as she gazed at the sky above.

“Thanks, Lilil… That means a lot to—”

“…Or so claims the alchemy one-oh-one textbook you gave me. I remember it well.”

“You were quoting someone?!” Here I thought she’d just given me some sincere sage advice!

“Think of it like this,” she continued. “It would not have been written in a beginner’s textbook were it not a fundamental principle of the craft. I am certain that many an alchemist has faltered for lack of that understanding. You must endure and emerge stronger for it.”

“You’re right. I’ll figure it out eventually. For now, I think we should get moving!” I stepped out of the water. “We still have to search for any valuable plants that might be hiding up here, remember?”

“Speaking of which, Freya, I found a gift for you while I waited for you to find me!” Lilil said. She pointed at a dry patch of rocks…where I instantly noticed all sorts of unfamiliar minerals and relatively rare plants lying on the ground—so many, and in such variety, that going any farther up the mountain seemed immediately pointless.

“Wh-whoa. What a haul… Th-thanks, Lilil!” I stammered. She caught me so off guard, I figured I sounded more astounded than grateful.

“Did you expect anything less?” said Lilil. “My knowledge of this mountain exceeds yours by a thousandfold. Finding them was trivial!”

I think my apprentice is gonna end up taking care of me just as much as I take care of her.

Hard work and good intentions, unfortunately, failed to produce results. There were some rare materials among the rocks and plants that Lilil had found for me, but none of them were truly unique to the island, and none of them ended up sparking an idea for the island’s signature product.

“Shall we go wandering once more, then? There are still places on the island you have yet to see,” Lilil suggested.

“Sounds good to me. If we wanna get this done, we gotta put in the work.”

And so once the morning had passed and I’d finished my work for the day, Lilil and I set out once again. We’d already walked all around the areas near the workshop and Canon, so today, we decided to check out the coast just a short distance away from the harbor.

The word “coast” might evoke big, beautiful beaches of white sand, but this section of Seajade Island did not match up with that image. It was almost entirely made up of massive, rugged boulders. The waves were rough, and trying to go for a swim would put you in mortal danger. There were a few small stretches of beach that featured relatively fine sand, but they were few and far between.

“Perhaps this is a consequence of your profession, but I have noticed you tend to walk staring at the ground,” said Lilil.

“Yep,” I said, “and no. It’s not because I’m a naturally gloomy person. I keep an eye on the ground in case I happen to pass any interesting rocks.”

I’d been going out on walks every day lately, and thanks to that, I’d gotten a solid grasp of the island’s geography. I hadn’t figured out the evil governor’s assignment just yet, but I had deepened my knowledge of the area, so I couldn’t say the process had been totally fruitless. I was growing into my role as the island’s resident alchemist.

“Maybe we’ll find a cache of hidden pirate treasure that’s worth enough to cover the whole county budget for a year. That would surely put Seajade Island on the political map,” I commented.

“Regrettably, this island has gone two hundred years without any pirates,” said Lilil.

“Learn to dream a little, would you? Though I guess I’d be scared to live here if there were pirates here regularly.”

Just then, I spotted an oddly rounded, cream-colored object peeking out from between a few jagged rocks. Judging by its texture, it was obviously different from the stones surrounding it.

“Oh,” I said. “I thought that was some sort of egg, but it’s just a coconut.”

Turning to look up the coast, away from the ocean, I saw a palm tree sitting at the top of a narrow cliff. Trees like it didn’t grow on the mainland, and I’d only seen one for the first time after arriving on the island, but they were so common here that it wasn’t long before I was taking them for granted. The islanders—particularly the ones who lived by the harbor—ate coconuts from time to time, but in all honesty, I wasn’t a big fan. I knew their oil was useful, though.

“Ah, a coconut. Come to think of it, I have never seen one on the mainland,” Lilil noted. I’d seen bigger reactions from her when she spotted a stray cat on the side of the road.

“They probably can’t survive the winter chill,” I said. “Even the southernmost parts of the mainland get snow sometimes during the colder parts of the year.”

“Perhaps coconuts could be our local specialty? Though I suppose they would be on the market already if that were a viable option.”

“Yep. They’re big, heavy, and not suited for transit. We’d have to process them somehow if we— Oh.”

That was when it hit me. I could only describe it as a flash of inspiration that struck—no, that slammed into me.

“That’s it. Giant, nutlike fruits the likes of which can’t be found anywhere else… We could use its unique qualities, like the oil… It just might work…”

“What? What is it? Why have you started muttering out of nowhere?”

“We’re done with the coast, Lilil,” I declared. “We’re heading home—but grab a few coconuts before we go, please.”

“V-very well… They’re rather unwieldy, so I’ll need to grab a large sack from someone at the harbor.”

“I’ll be spending the next few days running some experiments on the coconuts. I think if I augment their natural qualities with a bit of magic, I just might have something we can work with!”

“I see,” said Lilil. “Then experiment away until your craft is refined! This island has more coconuts than we could ever dream of using up!”

“I’ll go ahead and ask for more if I run through this first batch, then. Oh, and there’s one other thing I’m hoping you’ll do for me.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’m gonna have you take a lot of baths.”

“You… What? Huh? How could that possibly be related?” Lilil asked before throwing her hands in the air in a show of defeat. “You’ve done it. I am completely baffled!”

Ever since that day, I’d spent my time cracking open coconuts, harvesting their oil, then repeating the process. My plan revolved around coconut oil—without it, I would never get anywhere. I conducted trial after trial, working toward a usable version of the product I had in mind. This time, the process involved a lengthy cooling period, so it was tough to get a batch finished in a single day. Still, I did what I could to get it all done as quickly as possible.

“Do you plan to sell cooking oil?” asked Lilil. “It would not be unusable, but I do not imagine it would be worth as much as, say, olive oil.”

I’d had Lilil furthering her alchemical studies over the course of the past several days, and I hadn’t told her much at all about what exactly I was making. Not for any major reason—I just wanted to see how surprised she’d be when she tried the final product.

“Not cooking oil, no,” I said. “I’ve been doing some experiments with magic circles to strengthen the effect of what I’m making, and I think today’s the day we should test it.”

I used some ink to draw a geometric pattern on the inside of a pot. I’d already made a few test products, but this time, I would have a third party try it out. The effects would be easier to notice with multiple uses, so this would be the first in a series of experiments. The batch I had bubbling away at the moment, for instance, would be test ready a few days from now.

“Is it some sort of food, then?” Lilil asked. “It certainly seems healthy.”

“Nope, nothing you’re gonna eat! Lemme adjust the heat… Okay, that should do it. Can you draw a bath, please? I’ll get in with you once it’s ready.”

“How frustrating your many mysteries are… A bath it is,” Lilil grumbled as she headed outside to start warming the bath. “If I were the only one bathing, I would have preferred to do so at my secret spring,” she shouted to me from outside. “Can’t we test there instead?”

“The experiments might impact the water quality, so that’s not a good idea!” I shouted back as I stirred the pot’s contents with a spoon.

Once I’d cooked out all the impurities, I’d set the mixture to chill, and once it had hardened, I’d cut it up into easy-to-use pieces…but it would be a very long time before the mixture had cooled down enough to use. I moved over to a different batch that had already hardened so I could slice it up. It was just barely ready to be used in the day’s experiment.

“The bath is at a suitable temperature,” Lilil called out again. “A touch hot, perhaps, but tolerable for me, at least. So, then? What will I be testing?”

“A few things! I put several of them out by the bath already—try them one by one, please!” I shouted back as I kept working away.

A short time later, I reached a good stopping point and headed out to the bath. Not to peek at Lilil, of course! I just needed to check on how the product we were testing was working out. Peeking was inevitable, but it wasn’t the goal… In any case, I stepped over to the bath and got a big ole eyeful…of some sort of enormous, pure white beast!

“Gah! I thought you were some new breed of monster!” I said. “Like, the type totally immune to physical attacks…”

“Surely this lather is excessive?” a voice rang out from somewhere within the white blob.

“Are you in your human form now? Or are you a wolf?” I asked.

“Excuse me? You can’t tell?”

“I really can’t. You just look like a big, white pile of suds to me!”

“I began in my human form, and as I washed myself, the bubbles grew less and less manageable, so I switched to my wolf form.”

Ta-da! The product I’d been working on was…soap! The foamiest soap around, to be precise!

“Having now tried your invention for myself, I must say it’s positively wonderful! I’ve never seen a soap that could cover me in foam like that. I’m confident it’s one of a kind!”

Emeline had come by carriage to tell me that herself first thing in the morning before the workshop opened up.

“Yes,” I said, “and it has those properties precisely because it’s made from coconut oil! It was boosted by a little magic, of course, but it couldn’t have had that dramatic of an effect if I’d been using any other material as its base. And it doesn’t just lather up well—the suds themselves are soft and gentle on the skin!”

“I see, I see! This really is impressive work! And the coconuts you used to make it—”

““—only grow on Seajade Island!”” Emeline and I said in unison.

“Are you satisfied, then?” Lilil asked. “This, surely, is a product worthy of the title of Seajade Island’s signature specialty, no?” She was in her human form, and her hands were clenched tightly as she grinned victoriously.

“It certainly is,” said Emeline. “Frankly, I can’t believe that you delivered such an incredible product less than a month after I made my request! Oh, and while we’re on the topic, I think this product deserves a name befitting of its wonder, don’t you? How about Seajade Island’s ‘White Kingdom’ soap?”

“‘White Kingdom’?” Lilil repeated skeptically. “Is it not unwise to declare our product a nation of its own?”

“Product names are allowed to be over-the-top,” Emeline said, brushing off Lilil’s concern. “And naming it after the island wouldn’t have the right oomph, would it? ‘Seajade Island Soap’ doesn’t convey how amazing it is!”

“I don’t really care about the name, so you can call it whatever you want,” I said. “You would know what sort of name would appeal to nobles and big-time merchants better than I would.”

Emeline stepped forward and clasped her hands around my right hand. “Thank you so, so much for this, Freya! You’re Seajade Island’s hero!”

“Oh, come on, you’re exaggerating…but I appreciate the compliment! ” I happily replied. Feigning modesty would’ve just looked weird, so I basked in the praise instead. “Not to brag or anything, but I was at the very top of my class when I was a student. I guess I’ve proven all those good grades weren’t just for show, huh?”

“Yeesh… To think someone would say ‘not to brag,’ only to do just that mere moments later,” Lilil said with a wince she didn’t even try to hide.

You do remember you’re my apprentice, right?

“Oh, right! Speaking of your school days, I just remembered,” Emeline said before pulling a letter out from her breast pocket.

One look at the envelope was enough for me to realize it was a formal missive meant for an eminent figure, which meant it must have been sent to Emeline herself. She was the governor, and that made her the closest figure to nobility on the island. Lilil was more important, sure, but she had no political power.

“Do you recall how I informed the Institute of your fine work the other day, Freya?”

“You mean your report? Is that their response?”

If it was, it definitely wouldn’t have been addressed to me. I assumed Emeline just felt like sharing since it said nice things about me or something.

“The reply was written by one Professor Mystille,” said Emeline. “Apparently, she was your academic advisor?”

“Oh! It’s from the professor?!” I exclaimed. “She was, yes! She helped me out a whole bunch.”

Maybe she wrote Emeline to express her gratitude for taking care of me? That would be so heartwarming!

“‘I have read your account of the waterway in great detail.’” Emeline read the letter aloud. “‘While it is clear to me that my student has caused a degree of trouble for you, I am relieved to hear that it did not cause a major incident, and that it did ultimately work to the benefit of your land. I’m sure her ignorance will cause you more trouble in the future, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would treat her with all due tolerance.’ There you have it!”

“Oh, good,” I said. “That’s a little embarrassing to hear, but not in a bad way.”

I just knew the professor had been sipping tea while she wrote that letter, smiling and shaking her head with exasperation as she imagined the exploits and misadventures her student was getting up to on the far-flung island she’d been sent to. Her words were as harsh as ever, but as always, her concern for me shined through.

“Oh, there’s more. ‘Furthermore, I have freed up some time in my schedule, and being as it will be necessary for the Royal Institute of Alchemy to both offer a formal apology regarding the waterway incident and conduct an inspection of my student’s workshop, I will be departing shortly for Seajade Island. While this incident may have ended without damage, I am well aware of my student’s carefree attitude and its propensity to cause trouble. I intend to provide her with a remedial lesson that should, ideally, rectify that issue.’”

“W-w-w-wait,” I said, “she’s coming here?!”

Emeline nodded happily.

I’d been thrilled to hear that Professor Mystille was thinking about me, but having to see her in person was a whole different can of worms. If I didn’t have my workshop in perfect working order by the time she showed up, I knew I’d be in for the lecture of a lifetime…

“That’s right! She’s coming here to ‘rectify’ your issues! Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha! ” The island’s snotty-nosed brat of a governor laughed, her mouth open so wide that I saw her trademark canines.

Why, you little… Sit back and laugh at my troubles, why don’t you…?! I realized something about you… Whenever you’re scheming, you smile big enough that I can see your canines!

“Does the prospect of seeing your mentor not please you? This seems like a good thing,” questioned Lilil, confused.

“I’m not sure, honestly,” I replied. “I mean, I want to see her, but I don’t want to get chewed out by her. It’s a mixed bag, okay?!”

“Then you ought to prepare yourself, because you are most certainly going to be chewed out.”

Yep. That much is inevitable…

“All righty, another useful plant added to the collection! Awesome!”

“I cannot comprehend why you’ve suddenly started taking everything so seriously,” Lilil commented as she chucked a lump of grass into a basket big enough to fit a whole person. It had straps attached to it, so it could be carried like a backpack, and since that required, well, shoulders, Lilil was currently in her human form. It was important to have your hands free when wandering around the mountains—though in her case, the danger was more theoretical. I doubted anything here could’ve harmed her.

“If I didn’t take things seriously, my professor would arrive and find my inventory super lacking,” I explained. “That would be real bad. Even if I don’t have a ton of customers, I still need stock!”

I was trying to make the shop look good. That meant going out to find valuable herbs, no matter how much of a pain it would be. And, okay, it wasn’t really that I wanted the store to look good—it was that if it didn’t look good, she’d get really ticked off. I knew for a fact that Professor Mystille would take an understocked store as a sign I’d been slacking off…which, I mean, I had been, but not all the time…

“Three more useful types of herbs, and we’ll head home,” I said. “I’m counting on you, Lilil!”

“I can handle that on my own,” said Lilil.

“Nah, that wouldn’t work,” I said. “What if she asks me where I found them, and I can’t come up with a good enough lie? She’s really good at picking up on that sort of thing—she’d call me out for sure…”

“Come to think of it, she’s already upset with you, is she not? Not that I can be entirely certain, having only heard her writing.”

The other day, after Emeline, the governor, informed me that Professor Mystille would be coming to the island, one other thing happened before we left her estate. She had her maid bring out a big crystal ball you’d think a fortune teller would use, but I immediately realized that wasn’t the case. Rather, it was a genuine Artifact.

“An Orb of Telepathy…,” I said. “You really are rich, huh?”

“No more comments from the peanut gallery!” said Emeline. “I need this to do my job. It’s how I get my orders from the mainland. I have three in total, counting the spares.”

Orbs of Telepathy were Artifacts that allowed their users to communicate with people over vast distances. You’d think it would be incredibly handy, but the catch was that they weren’t usable to people without magic. In other words, to a majority of people, they were just plain ole crystal balls. Maybe you could use one to fortune-tell with, but that aside, they’d serve no purpose to the nonmagical.

“I’ve received training in basic magic arts, you know,” said Emeline. “I may just be a distant relative of the count, but I’m a relative nonetheless! Magic training was part of my upbringing.”

“I’m guessing you want us to reach out to my professor?” I asked.

“Precisely! ” sung Emeline. “Getting her exact itinerary will ease your anxieties, no?”

Another thing I’ve learned about the evil governor: She was raised in an environment where she could get away with whatever hijinks she wanted.

“Go on, go on! Talk all you’d like!” Emeline said as she practically forced the orb into my hands.

I cleared my throat, put my left hand on the orb’s underside, and held it up. I’ll admit, I was nervous.

“By the way,” I said, “I thought these Artifacts only worked if the person you wanted to talk to used theirs at the same time. How will she know I’m trying to talk to her?”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem! Her orb will glow right when you ring. I’m sure she’ll notice!”

I held on to the orb, staring into it, and eventually, its front resolved into an image of Professor Mystille’s upper body. Luckily, it did seem that she’d been close enough to her own orb for the magic to function. I was worried that she wouldn’t be around and she’d miss the call entirely, even if her orb reacted.

“Ah, Professor!” I said. “Long time, no—”

“You absolute imbecile!”

Professor Mystille’s scathing bellow blared directly into my mind. That was how Orbs of Telepathy worked: The voice of the person you were speaking with traveled directly into your mind. Well, not their voice—it wasn’t sound in a literal sense, but it felt just like it.

“Don’t you think that insulting me before even saying hi is a little mean…?” I asked.

“I’m caught up on your exploits,” said Professor Mystille, ignoring me. “Stop disgracing the ruler of your island! Are you trying to get yourself in trouble?!”

“I’ve actually gotten mixed up in some weird stuff already,” I admitted. Emeline smiled and waved at me from the other side of the orb. I wish you’d cut me some slack if you’re that aware of all you’re making me do.

“I imagine you’ve been told, but I’ll be taking time off to come inspect your workshop soon,” Professor Mystille continued. “I should be arriving about ten days from now. This is an inspection, so don’t try and meet me at the harbor. I will find you.”

“Well, I appreciate the itinerary. I was worried you might ambush me,” I replied. Now all I had to do was make the workshop look as well stocked as possible for that day.

“Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ve decided to give you an assignment,” Professor Mystille added.

“Whoops! Sorry, emergency! Gotta run!”

I let go of the crystal ball, and the professor’s image vanished. A second later, however, it started to glow. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just ignore her.

“‘Emergency,’ my foot! Don’t insult my intelligence.”

“My bad,” I said. “My aversion to getting any more assignments took control of my psyche for a second.”

“Your assignment, yes. Which…will be…”

“If you haven’t thought one up yet, we could just skip it for now!”

“Prepare something unusual to show me when I arrive.”

Well, that’s kind of ambiguous. “I’ve got a mythical beast. Does that count?” I asked.

“I am, indeed, far from usual!” Lilil called out from somewhere behind me.

“No. It has to be something you made yourself. Good-bye for now.”

And just like that, the connection was cut before I could say another word. I got off with less of a slap on the wrist than I expected, but I knew that was probably a sign that she was saving her best material for when she saw me in person. She’d really let me have it then.

Man—“something unusual”? Hmm…

“Maybe I should just show her the soap if I can’t think of anything good enough,” I muttered.

“You really do refuse to do more than the bare minimum unless absolutely necessary, don’t you?” Lilil said with a tired sigh.

I’d already been through a light previsit scolding from my academic advisor before she even showed up on the island, and the idea that I’d get another more intense lecture the moment she showed up didn’t feel great. Meanwhile, our selection of mountain-exclusive herbs had grown to be quite substantial. When it came to gathering, Lilil was the best apprentice I could’ve asked for.

Going straight home after an herb hunt would’ve felt a little dull, so we ended up climbing onto a large rock to eat lunch while we enjoyed the view. Lilil had made today’s meal, beef sandwiches.

“You know, this is really good!” I said. “Simple but tasty. I love how the bread soaks up all the meat’s juices.”

“The simplicity is, perhaps, precisely why it’s tasty. I, for one, always crave something salty after a nice run-around,” Lilil replied. That last part sounded a bit gruffer than normal, but the way she sat on the rock was perfectly ladylike. The massive basket she placed nearby was, of course, a reminder of her nature as a mythical beast.

“Anyway, it’s all thanks to you that I have this many herbs to work with now,” I said. “If I use them to make a bunch of rare products, it just might be enough to put on a convincing show!”

“Of course you want to put on a show. The matter of the herbs aside, what do you intend to do about Mystille’s assignment?”

I grimaced. “I don’t have any good ideas yet. Why else would I be focusing so hard on herb collecting? Ugh… I think I’m gonna have to show her the soap, after all…”

The island’s signature soap would make a great souvenir, and I had been deeply involved in its creation. Sure, I had completed that before the professor gave me this assignment, so it wasn’t technically a valid submission, but it worked in every other way!

“I hardly think it matters what you give her,” Lilil commented. “I think I understand this Mystille, and if I am correct, she is the sort of woman who dotes upon her pupils. She will be delighted no matter what you choose.”

“You’re right, but you’ve missed the part where she’s also really strict and scary,” I replied.

“You’ve said as much before. From what I have heard, however, she hardly takes any students under her wing, and her reputation and status make many covet the role.”

She’s not wrong. I picked up a small rock and scratched the word fame onto the surface of the boulder we sat on. “Think about it like this,” I said. “Imagine you have a scale, and on one side is fame.”

“The scales would, of course, tilt in fame’s direction.”

“Then imagine you put strict instruction on the other side,” I said, writing that down, too. “In that case—”

“The scales would tip the other direction, I suppose?”

It was really helpful how quick on the uptake Lilil was. I drew a circle around strict instruction.

“You don’t need to go through all that intense, stressful training to become an alchemist. Most of us take normal lessons and become normal alchemists—it’s how it should be.”

“What of you, then?”

“I don’t have anything other than alchemy. I don’t have any parents, or any family, so it’s pretty much my one thing.”

Whoops. Didn’t mean to kill the mood there…

“Anyway, if the only thing driving me was the desire to be the best alchemist ever, I’d spend way less time slacking off and way more time practicing. My drive to be a better alchemist is just one side of me. That’s the thing about humans—we’re all full of contradictions. And that’s enough of that talk,” I said. “Let’s table this and get back to thinking up something that the professor will be satisfied with!”

“Why not present her with a portrait of her beloved pupil?” I could tell she was trying to match my energy and move us along from the touchy subject of my history. It was her way of being considerate, and I appreciated it.

“I know that was a joke, but that’s actually not a half bad idea,” I said. “I think she might like it, even if she’d never admit it. The one problem is that actually giving her a portrait of myself would make me look like a total egomaniac… Wait…”

If I take that concept and add in a touch of alchemy… That might be the most fitting thing I could possibly give her! This could work!

I clapped my hands together. “Thanks, Lilil! I’m going with your idea, after all!”

“Huh?” Lilil grunted. “Getting a portrait done, you mean? You should know there are no painters on this island.”

“That’s fine! I’ll just make like an alchemist and get it done in my own way. It’d be a lot easier if I could get help from someone who knew how to draw, but where skill fails, trial and error can fill in the gaps!”

“You’ve come up with yet another idea, I see. What will you need this time?” Lilil asked.

“Sand,” I said. “The finest we can get our hands on. Gathering sand by the ocean will probably work best. I’ll also have to pay a visit to the evil governor and ask if I can borrow her Orbs of Telepathy. My plan won’t work unless I can get access to a few of them!”

“I, meanwhile, will be telling Emeline that you called her ‘the evil governor.’”

She isn’t nearly purehearted enough to take offense to that.

Sand gathering was tedious and time-consuming, but it was fairly easy work and ended without any setbacks. The evil governor was perfectly happy to let me borrow her spare orbs as well.

Then, at last, Professor Mystille arrived on the island.

“Well, then. The moment you heard I would be coming, you ran out into the mountains to scoop up as many herbs as you could, I see.”

“Ow! That hurts! Ow! You’re gonna tear my cheek off! Please stop twisting it like that! How did you know that anyway?! You barely even set foot inside! At least interrogate me first! Now I feel like someone ratted me out!”

Professor Mystille casually strolled in through my workshop’s front door unannounced. It had apparently only taken a single look at the bottles arranged on my shelves for her to realize I’d prepared for her visit in a panicked frenzy, rendering all that effort a waste.

“All the herbs native to the south have been placed in the most conspicuous location on the left-hand shelf,” said Professor Mystille. “The arrangement’s visual target couldn’t be more obvious.”

She finally released my cheek, then set a wooden box of baked goods—a gift for me, I assumed—down on my counter. It would’ve taken a lot more than a box of sweets to make this worth it for me, frankly.

“Ugh… What’s the problem? It’s not like I’m selling failed creations or anything,” I groaned. My voice came out distorted, thanks to my poor stinging cheek.

“I have no complaints about the quality of your products,” said the professor. “That said, if you want to become a prominent alchemist, you need to focus more diligently on your studies. You’ve been given a golden opportunity to study the plant life of an environment totally unlike that of the capital. You should be enjoying your hunts for materials, not rushing through them at the last second.”

“What’s so fun about running around collecting herbs anyway…?” I grumbled.

Professor Mystille ignored me and turned to give Lilil a polite nod. Lilil was in her wolf form today, which, as far as I knew, was the only form the professor had seen. Her full-fledged mythical beast form definitely commanded more awe and respect than her little human girl look, but I knew that, really, there was barely a difference between the two. The wolf form just let her put on a front.

“It is a pleasure to see you again, venerable mythical beast Lilil,” said Professor Mystille. “I hope Freya has not been conducting herself poorly in your presence?”

“‘Poorly’? I think not,” said Lilil. “I have, in fact, become Lady Freya’s apprentice. In other words, I am your grandpupil, and there is no need for you to show me such deference.”

“Oh, yes—the governor did report something to that effect in passing. I wasn’t sure if it was worth taking seriously.”

“Perhaps this will help,” Lilil said before shifting to her human form. The fact that we were indoors made the mist produced by her transformation stand out even more. “Is it easier to accept that I am her apprentice now, perhaps?”

I’d been wondering how Professor Mystille would react to the sight—surely she’d be shocked—but as it turned out, she had no particular reaction. She fell silent for a moment, though. It probably wasn’t every day she saw a giant wolf turn into a human, and she was likely having a hard time finding an appropriate response.

“I see,” Professor Mystille finally said. “Well, if you would be willing to keep an eye on Freya and ensure she doesn’t spend too much time slacking off, I would greatly appreciate it. The rest, I leave up to your judgment.”

Oh, come on, did she really have to add that part? I wondered. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than Professor Mystille held out a hand, pointing straight at me without even bothering to look first.

“She’s quite capable when she applies herself, but regrettably, it seems she has lost all sense of purpose since she was given her own workshop. I hope you’ll have her back.”

Excuse me! I’m Lilil’s teacher, thank you very much! I’m the one who should be supporting her!

“Ha-ha-ha! My assessment of you was spot on. You truly are a doting parent—or rather, a doting instructor,” said Lilil. “You can’t help yourself from caring for your pupil, can you?”

I was so curious about how the professor would react to that, I almost wanted to circle around her, just to peek at her face. I was so curious, in fact, that I was about to do just that, but before I could get far, she turned around to face me.

“You only ever take initiative when your back is against the wall,” Professor Mystille said as she shot me a powerful glare. I gave up and sat down at my workbench. The professor grabbed a nearby chair and took a seat at the desk’s other corner as well. “I intend to spend today observing you at work. Impress me.”

“I wish I could close up shop early instead…”

I sat at my workbench, reading a book I’d brought over from the storehouse. I wasn’t dawdling, though. I never got many customers, and I had to find something to do with all the free time that left me. Granted, most of the time, that ended up being lazing around, but the point is that this wasn’t an issue unique to my workshop. My store wasn’t unpopular—every alchemical workshop in the sticks ended up like this.

Professor Mystille hadn’t told me off yet, so I was hopeful I hadn’t committed a major faux pas so far. Lilil had shown her around the garden and made tea for her earlier, but aside from those brief breaks (for her and me, since it took me off her radar for a brief, blissful moment), she’d spent the whole day watching me like a hawk. If the rest of the day passed by without any customers, I figured, I might just make it through without getting lectured—but then just before closing time, the front door burst open.

A woman who looked like she was likely in her midthirties stepped inside. I didn’t recognize her, at a glance—maybe she was from the village farther away from the harbor? She was breathing a little roughly, but I didn’t get the feeling that she was sick. She looked too lively for that to be the case.

“I’d like to see the alchemist,” the woman said. “My child has a fever…”

Oh. I’d better take this one seriously.

I stepped right up to the counter. “Of course,” I said. “Could you tell me how long they’ve had the fever and what symptoms they’re exhibiting? Also, have they eaten anything unusual recently?”

I needed all the information I could get before I prescribed anything. Alchemists worked with herbs and medicines, but we weren’t doctors. I wouldn’t be able to identify any particular diseases—all I could do was treat their symptoms.

“It started yesterday,” the woman said. “They took a nap after getting wet, and I think the chill was just too much… I could already tell something was wrong last night, but the fever only started today. They’re a little congested, too.”

Seems like the fever’s cause is clear, at least. “Mhm… That chill is likely what caused them to fall sick,” I said. “I recommend a potion that will give your child the extra energy they’ll need to power through. I also have a medicine that should help with the congestion, and I’ll give you something that will bring down the fever, but I recommend only using it if their temperature doesn’t go down after a while. Using medicine like that conservatively is safest. If those aren’t enough and your child doesn’t seem to be recovering, I highly recommend catching a boat to the mainland to see a doctor.”

It’ll be a bit bitter, but seeing as I have all these herbs in stock now, I might as well mix in a few helpful ones. That sort of adjustment barely took any time at all—I just slipped a few crushed leaves into the bottle, and that was it. Five minutes later, the potion was ready to go.

“Thank you so much! I’ll give this to them the moment I get home!” the woman said. She turned to leave, but before she made it to the door, I called out to her.

“Just a moment, please!” I said. I wasn’t quite finished giving my advice. “You should know that while the odds of this being a minor, passing illness are very high, developing a fever could be the sign of the first days of a more serious illness. Your child could start having diarrhea on the third day, for example, or develop a terrible cough. If anything like that happens, please come see me again.”

“I—I will!”

“And regardless of what the cause may be, they’ll need plenty of water and rest. Try to avoid solid food as well—bread porridge or anything soft is best. It’ll be much easier for them to digest.”

“Understood! Thank you so, so much!”

With that final cry of gratitude, the woman went on her way. Her frenetic energy made me worried she was going to trip on her way home, but I told myself she’d be fine.

I paused to sigh heavily. Selling household medicines was easy enough, but dealing with sick people was way more nerve-racking. The weight of responsibility was just so much harder to deal with in the latter cases. Lives could be hanging in the balance. All I could do was pray that in this case, it really was just a passing illness.

It felt like my encounter with the woman had taken ages, but when I looked at the clock on the wall, its hands had barely moved at all since the last time I’d checked.

“I made the right call. I know I did… Just let the kid get better…”

I glanced over at Professor Mystille, who was sitting in complete silence. It seemed she believed saying anything while observing my work would invalidate the assessment. I’d thought she would intervene in an emergency, seeing as she knew so much more about medicine than I did, but I could only hope the fact that she hadn’t was proof my prescription had been on point.

One more customer showed up after that (an old man looking for a nutritional supplement), and then it was time to close up for the day. I thought about saying something to the professor, but the timing didn’t work out—she’d gone outside with Lilil to look at the garden again. Just when I stood up to flip the plate on the front door to CLOSED, the two stepped back inside.

“You two sure were chatting for a while,” I said.

“I wasn’t speaking with Ms. Lilil the whole time,” said Professor Mystille. “Though, I’ll admit, speaking with a mythical beast has been quite the novel experience. I don’t have many acquaintances of her species.”

Does that mean she has some mythical beast friends? What sort of social circles does she run in?

“I, too, found our conversation fruitful. To speak with the one who instructed my teacher during her student days…,” Lilil said with an off-putting smirk.

“Why does it feel like you have something new to blackmail me with? I don’t like that look on your face,” I replied. Having people talk about my past when I wasn’t around was anxiety inducing.

“I’ll be spending the night at an inn by the harbor. I trust you’ll escort me?”

“Huh? But the harbor’s so far—”

Professor Mystille glared at me.

“Roger that! You can count on me!”

Guess I’ll get that assignment ready for her while I’m at it.

The professor and I ended up getting dinner together at the restaurant in the inn she was staying at. I’d never had need for an inn, so this was my first time learning of the place, and the shellfish soup I ordered ended up being delicious. I knew a dish like that would’ve been crazy expensive if we were in the capital.

At that moment, however, I barely even cared about how my dinner tasted. I was far too horrified by what the waiter who’d delivered our food had just said to Professor Mystille.

“We greatly appreciate you dining with us for a second day, ma’am.”

“What?” I said. “You got here yesterday?! I thought you said you’d just arrived today…?”

“Well,” said Professor Mystille. “I arrived yesterday, paid the island’s governor a visit, then asked around in the village to see what the locals thought of you. I lied to you about my arrival date,” she brazenly admitted. She didn’t have so much as a hint of shame.

For crying out loud… You didn’t have to go this over-the-top over a simple inspection!

“Judging by what the villagers had to say,” Professor Mystille continued, her gaze dropping to her grilled sea bream, “your reputation on this island is superb. It seems your Artifacts have had more of an impact than your medicines, but they’ve certainly been of benefit to the locals, and that’s what matters.”

I could feel the grin spreading across my face. Lilil was smiling much the same. Professor Mystille was always bashful when complimenting her pupils. It was one of her more endearing qualities.

“And what are you smiling about?” Professor Mystille asked, shooting me a look that could’ve made the capital’s most hardened criminals shiver in their boots.

“Oh, come on!” I said. “I’m not even allowed to smile when you compliment me?! That’s just not fair! There’s nothing wrong with a teacher praising her pupil! That’s a good thing all around!”

“Don’t let it go to your head. The way you handle your medicines is still in dire need of improvement. Your whole bearing is amateurish, and you still come across as a student.”

“You don’t have to balance out every compliment with criticism! That’s just rude…”

“It’s the truth. Your abilities are lacking, plain and simple,” said Professor Mystille. “You have an abundance of knowledge, but a deficit of experience. Unless you want your career to stagnate, you’ll need to devote yourself to a far greater degree than you’ve done so far.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d told me to apply myself more. I wanted to tell her that I’d never had the drive to climb to the heights of alchemical achievement in the first place, but I held my tongue—it was less that I wanted to act subservient and more that I just didn’t want to disappoint her.

I’d worked my tail off to keep up with the professor’s lessons when I was in school, but that didn’t mean I had any intention of surpassing her. She was, after all, considered one of the most capable alchemists in the world. Saying I’d surpass someone like her was a step too far for me. No one would have been surprised if she’d become the personal alchemist for the royal family—in fact, I’d heard rumors she’d received the offer and turned it down.

“I was thinking I’d focus on settling in and adapting to this whole new environment first,” I said, responding in the most inoffensive way I could come up with.

“Yes, indeed. Adapting should be your top priority,” said Professor Mystille. “In any case, I’ve seen how you work on a daily basis. What about the assignment I gave you?”

Before I could even reply, Lilil cut in with a smirk. “Worry not,” she said. “She has indeed prepared something for you. All will be revealed after we’ve visited the evil governor once more.”

And then Professor Mystille chewed me out for giving Emeline the nickname “evil governor.” Maybe I did go a touch too far.

The evil governor—I mean, Emeline—seemed rather excited to welcome us back to her estate. She once again led us to her study—the room where I’d previously spoken with the professor through her Orb of Telepathy.

“I certainly didn’t imagine I’d be back so soon,” Professor Mystille hesitantly commented. She had stopped by to apologize on my behalf, apparently.

“Well, today, you’re my guests! Please, make yourself at home. No need to act all reserved,” said Emeline. She was taking a very polite attitude with the professor.

“We were only here before because somebody failed to inform Emeline about the waterway,” Lilil noted. “This would be an appropriate moment to reflect on that mistake.”

“How was I supposed to know I had to keep her in the loop if you didn’t tell me?! You’re not totally innocent, either,” I countered, jabbing her with my elbow.

“I am, however, slightly confused as to why you’ve brought me here, Freya. Are we going to call someone?” Professor Mystille asked. Her eyes seemed to have drifted to the Orbs of Telepathy that were set up rather conspicuously on Emeline’s desk—two of them today. Even if she hadn’t known what an Orb of Telepathy was on sight, a pair of random crystal balls sitting on a desk would most certainly have piqued her curiosity.

“Nothing like that, no,” I said. “The orbs do have something to do with my assignment, though! I think that’s enough preamble, so let me just cut to the chase and show you.”

I brought out the item I’d prepared for my teacher in a small accessory box.

“Inside this box is my assignment, made just for you,” I said.

“Well then,” said the professor, “I see no reason not to examine those contents here and now. I assume they won’t, say, explode in my face?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I would never do that—I’d get caught in the blast!”

Professor Mystille still looked a little suspicious, but she opened the box…then took a long moment to stare at its contents.

“Is this sand art? A self-portrait drawn in sand?” she said. “It’s…remarkably intricate for sand art, isn’t it? In fact, it’s an almost perfectly accurate depiction…”

The professor pulled a block of wood—a cube, really—out from the box. It was slightly too large to be the sort of block a child would play with, and it was very obvious which end was supposed to be its top, since its four side surfaces each featured an incredibly detailed portrait of me. I had used sand—I didn’t have the artistic chops to paint something like that.

“This is a familiar size,” said Professor Mystille. “It’s quite close to the size of the image that would appear on an Orb of Telepathy. I assume you used the orb’s magical resonance to affix the sand in place in the shape of the image displayed, or something to that effect?”

“My! You could tell?” Emeline exclaimed with a gasp of admiration. I had already given her a rundown of the creation process.

“Exactly,” I said. “I gathered the finest sand I could find, sorted it by color, then imbued it with magic to give it adhesive properties. Then I had Emeline contact me using an Orb of Telepathy and sprinkled the sand onto the resulting image of my face. The portions of the orb actively displaying an image have a stronger magical reaction than the blank portions, so the sand only stuck to the parts that required shading, thus reproducing the image.”

“And by covering the crystal ball in a thin cloth beforehand, we were able to transfer it to a separate surface intact!” Lilil chimed in. After that, we’d just carefully fixed the sand-covered cloth in place on its wooden mount.

“And so, as a matter of technicality, I was the one who produced the portrait,” Emeline noted. “She couldn’t be next to the orb while her face was being displayed on it, after all!”

Gah! Did you really have to say that?! Now she might say it doesn’t count since I wasn’t the one who physically made it!

“Curse you, evil governor,” I muttered under my breath. “Um, Emeline did have a knack for distributing the sand, which certainly enhanced the final product! If she’d just dumped it all on randomly, there was no way this would have succeeded, but she did an excellent job and produced a piece that’s almost true to life.”

“Aside from the very slight distortion caused by the orb’s curved surface, of course—but I did my utmost to correct that once I’d transferred the sand to its final, flat resting place!” Emeline proudly declared. I had a feeling she might have had a basic education in the fundamentals of visual art. She’d managed to fix the fabric to the wooden block without leaving it wrinkled at all, too, which impressed me.

All four horizontal faces of the cube—excluding its top and bottom—had images, and each of those four images was of me, making a face that expressed a particular emotion. That hadn’t been the plan, initially, but Emeline’s artistic sense had run a bit wild, and it turned out much more elaborately than what I’d initially pitched. She’d also proposed that making it a plain block with nothing inside would be a waste and installed a music box within for good measure.

“Freya was certain you would be pleased by a portrait of your pupil,” Lilil chimed in again with a big smile. “She also claimed that incorporating alchemy into the process of its creation would make it much less embarrassing to present to you than an ordinary portrait.” By mythical beast standards, it was possible that Lilil saw us all as children. In other words, to her, Professor Mystille was just a little kid putting on a front of maturity. That would explain Lilil’s look of smugness as she spoke.

For a moment, Professor Mystille looked a little sheepish. It didn’t last for long, though. “Yes, you were spot on,” she said as she stepped over to me. “I am pleased. A portrait from the pupil I care deeply for is a welcome gift. Maybe this will help me resist the urge to rush off to the far-flung southern isle you were sent to for a check up again.”

See? I knew she’d be happy! I totally had the right idea about—

“However…”

Oops. I sense a tonal shift incoming.

“Just how egocentric does one have to be to gift someone a self-portrait? Surely a portrait of the person receiving the gift would be more appropriate…? Your wealth of confidence is going to get you in a lot of trouble one of these days,” Professor Mystille said, her face twitching slightly as she looked me in the eye.

“No, wait! Hold on!” I shouted. “Obviously, a portrait of you would’ve been the normal gift, but think of the creation process! I needed an image of the subject to be displayed on the orb, or it wouldn’t have worked at all! I couldn’t have made a portrait of you this way.”

I can’t let this be the thing that finally convinces her I’m some sort of freaky egomaniac! I never would’ve considered making a portrait of myself at all if she hadn’t sprung this assignment on me at the last second!

“I suppose that’s fair,” Professor Mystille admitted. “It would have taken an exceedingly unnatural conversation with me to keep my image displayed on an Orb of Telepathy long enough to reproduce, I’ll admit.”

A certain mythical beast and evil governor, by the way, were eating up every word of the exchange with my professor. You’d think we were putting on a show just for them.

“There really is nothing more entertaining than seeing someone laugh or cry—or do both! ” said the evil governor.

“Indeed,” Lilil agreed. “I do not care for high tragedy, but something like this was quite amusing, actually.”

Quit spectating us, dang it! I thought, but a moment later, one of those spectators came up with a helpful contribution.

“Oh, I know!” said Emeline. Why don’t we make a sand portrait of Professor Mystille right here and now? I’m sure we could get it done quickly.”

So thanks to Emeline’s stroke of inspiration, I was able to give the professor a small, framed portrait of herself as well. Now she wouldn’t have anything to complain about! Sure, the governor made it and not me, but it still counted in my book. Incidentally, I ended up standing nearby while Emeline was working on the portrait, and the professor took that opportunity to ask me about my submission.

“Well,” said the professor, “have you decided on a name for this…Artifact-type object?”

I haven’t, actually. Why would I?

“The Apprentice’s Memory Box,” I said, completely off the cuff.

“What an abysmal name.” The professor sighed.

Gee, thanks!

She pressed down on the top of the box, and the music box within began to play. I couldn’t decide whether the song was happy, wistful, or some combination of the two.

Professor Mystille was scheduled to head home the next day, and so I closed up shop temporarily to see her off. Lilil wanted to come along in her wolf form, but since that would’ve probably caused a commotion, I talked her into going as a human instead. Nonislanders weren’t used to seeing a mythical beast walking around, after all.

When we arrived at the harbor, I found the professor with the Apprentice’s Memory Box in hand. I wished she wouldn’t walk around with it in the open like that. I mean, it had my face on the thing.

“I shouldn’t be surprised you haven’t changed. You only just graduated,” said Professor Mystille. “Still, it’s a relief to see it for myself.”

“That’s right! No need to worry—I have everything under control,” I said, holding my head up high and giving her the perfect opportunity to prod me in the forehead.

“In case you’ve forgotten, I was also here to apologize for your mistake,” she said.

Oh. Right.

“As for you, Ms. Lilil,” the professor continued, “I hope you’ll continue to look after Freya. Assuming she keeps wandering around on the mountain, I imagine she’ll find herself in mortal danger at least once or twice a year. Try not to let it end too poorly for her.”

“Understood. I will keep a close eye on her and ensure her arrogance is not her downfall,” said Lilil. “I must say I am surprised by how composed you are. One would think she’d take after you…”

“Freya was simply born frivolous.”

Hey! At least wait until I’m not around to insult me!

“Though, flippant as she is, she has what it takes to help the people around her,” the professor continued. “I believe that ultimately, she will grow up to be a fine young lady. I may not know the circumstances of her birth, or even who her parents were, but her past has no bearing on her worth,” she added, balancing her earlier critique with kindness.

Just then, a powerful breeze blew through. Professor Mystille’s long black hair fluttered in the wind. The distinct alchemist’s grace she possessed shined as strongly as ever, even as far away from the capital as we were. If someone who didn’t know who she was happened to see her, they might have assumed that she was a big shot noble.

Was it even possible for me to surpass her someday? Maybe not, but I did have a feeling I could become an alchemist just as notorious as her—though maybe for different reasons. First things first, though, I had to keep my workshop running until I hit the three-year mark. I could figure everything else out after!

Lilil, who was standing behind me, gave me a push. I stumbled a few steps closer to the professor, and, unsure of what to do—it felt like the moment to wish her safe travels had passed—I ended up taking her hand in mine. As it turned out, our hands were just about the same size.

“Work hard, fellow alchemist,” Professor Mystille said with a very rare smile.

Oh. That’s right. I’m a professional now, too. We’re peers.

Then the professor’s boat slowly sailed off for the mainland, growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared beyond the horizon. I stood on the dock, facing away from Lilil, who held a handkerchief out to me.

“Here I thought the two of you were tougher than tough,” Lilil said, “and yet the moment her boat drifts out of sight, you break down in tears.”

“I don’t get it, either. I’m not usually this much of a crybaby… This is new for me,” I said, accepting the handkerchief and wiping away my tears.

Don’t worry, Professor Mystille. Your pupil’s doing just fine over here.

“I’d bet anything she’s bawling her eyes out, too,” I said. “She’s way too much of a big shot to have any friends, you know? Everyone she meets respects her too much to get to know her on a deep level. I know I’m her pupil, but it also sort of feels like I’m her friend—on some level, at least.”

“No need to explain,” said Lilil. “I understand very well the solitude of the mighty.”

Save for a few big clouds floating above us, the sky was bright and clear. I paused for a moment to say a prayer warding off any storms until the professor reached the mainland. That was pretty nice of me, if I do say so myself.

The day started out on an unusual note. I went out early in the morning for a stroll around the village. Was I turning a new leaf and embracing a healthy lifestyle? Not really—Lilil had just said, “The weather is lovely, so let’s go for a walk!” before dragging me out with her. It had happened completely spontaneously.

“The sweltering heat will set in by midday, but in the mornings, the air is brisk and pleasant,” Lilil—who was in her human form—said as she looked up toward the sky.

“I bet it feels even hotter when you’re in wolf mode,” I commented. “Do you ever wish you could just take your fur off?”

Lilil gave me a look. “I will have you know,” she said, “when warm weather comes, I shift to a summer coat, and my winter coat grows in when it cools. Beasts adapt to the seasons, just as humans do. Though, of course, the coldest it gets upon this island is lukewarm, even in the winter.”

“Is that…so…?” I said, cutting myself off with a yawn. Wish I could’ve gotten just one more hour of sleep…

“You slept for long enough, I assure you. Spend enough days bathing in the light of the morning sun, and your circadian rhythm will adapt.”

“That’d be great if I wanted to be a morning person…”

“Did meeting with Mystille teach you nothing? Now is the time for you to start taking this seriously! Know that if you spend too long slacking, I will contact her with that crystal ball and tell her what you’ve been doing. Speaking of, we shall take an evening walk today as well!”

Why do I feel like her pet dog these days…? Actually, she does help clean and cook for me, so maybe that’s not an inaccurate assessment of our roles.

“It’d be easy for me to take things seriously,” I said. “The problem is, actually doing it would involve violating a terrible taboo. I could never let myself cross that line.”

“What?! You mean to say alchemists have the power to manipulate their own personalities?”

“We can make a medicine that boosts our concentration ability to a crazy degree…but once it wears off, we crash and can’t do anything but laze around for hours on end. And the thing is—”

“No need to elaborate. I can only imagine the forbidden ingredients that would go into such a substance…”

We had a word for medicines that put people into an odd state of euphoria or enhanced their powers of concentration to intense degrees: narcotics. They tended to be highly addictive with terrible withdrawal symptoms and could devastate the minds of those who abused them. Even their production was outlawed.

“That’s why I laze around instead. It’s the lesser of two evils,” I said. “I may take it easy, but I would never skip out on work that needs doing! You can let a little sluggishness slide, right?”

It was early enough in the morning that the marketplace was still empty. There were, however, a few horses making their way from the port to the village, hauling goods that would be sold there later in the day.

“The horses seem quite energetic today,” Lilil observed. “Perhaps something exciting has happened toward the coast?”

Lilil assumed her wolf form and plodded over to the horses. She stood there for a moment, nodding silently as the horses snorted at her. I had no clue what she was doing, but before long, she walked back over to me and turned into a human once more.

“I’ve spoken with the horses!”

“How did that even work? What part of that was spoken language?” I probed. “Actually, you know what? I’ll just accept that human understanding has its limits. So what did you guys talk about? The weather?”

Lilil shook her head. She seemed a little subdued. Whatever she’d heard, it hadn’t put her in a good mood. “Recently, monsters have been sighted on the road on a number of occasions, and they were unsettled by their presence.”

“Monsters?!”

Now, hold on a second—hostile monsters skulking around on the island would be a really big deal!

Just then, Claire walked over to us. She must have noticed we’d been walking around the village.

“Were you talking about the monsters just now? They’ve been making a mighty mess of our cabbage field,” she said.

“I didn’t even know there were any dangerous monsters living on this island. Are they new?” I replied.

I’d paid a ton of attention to the island’s flora since it was directly related to my alchemical work, but I had hardly considered the fauna at all (monsters included—the distinction could be fuzzy sometimes). I’d assumed if there were any, the local hunters probably dealt with them. Now that I was thinking about it a little more clearly, though, I realized that if I’d run into a monster while out herb hunting, I could’ve ended up in serious danger. These were questions I should have asked a long time ago.

“There’s all sorts up on the mountain, I’ve heard,” said Claire. “You don’t see many of the nasty sort that attack people, though. I wouldn’t want to make a solehorn deer mad, but they’re scared of people and never fight when they can run.”

Is a solehorn deer an animal or a monster…? Again, that distinction line sure is thin…

“Solehorns and forkbeasts are akin to regular deer. It’s only natural they would help themselves to your cabbage. They’re all herbivores,” Lilil said as she crossed her arms. She seemed to know more about monsters than I did, so I figured I’d leave this to her.

“That’s the strangest part,” said Claire. “The bite marks don’t look anything like a deer’s. We could head to the field, if you want to see them for yourselves?”

Claire had been my absolute savior since I arrived on the island, so needless to say, I followed along to see how I could help.

We arrived at Claire’s field to find the remains of a cabbage head that had been almost entirely devoured.

“It really ate everything except the hardest part of the core, huh?” I said. “At least it’s not the sort of monster that wastes food. Shows some real respect for the farmers.”

“This is no time for frivolity, and theft shows respect to no one, least of all to those from whom it was stolen,” Lilil said, punctuating her scolding by giving me a light smack on the lower back.

“Freya has a point, actually,” said Claire. “We’re not looking at a few bites here and there—whatever came here scarfed the whole thing right down! If only it’d pay up, we wouldn’t have a problem at all.”

Classic farmer humor! I bet farmers all over the world make that joke daily.

“The losses haven’t been that bad so far, but we’ll be in real trouble if it gets any worse,” Claire continued. “I really hate to ask this after everything you’ve already done for us, but is there anything you can do to help us out, Freya?”

“A case like this falls under my jurisdiction, so I’ll give it some serious thought and see if I can come up with something,” I said.

Lilil snorted, possibly because I’d inadvertently used the word “serious” in my response. I said I’m not gonna slack off, didn’t I? I’m just not a morning person!

“How to drive monsters away from crops, though…? That’s a tricky one. I could develop an insect repellant, but those wouldn’t stop something big enough to snack on a whole head of cabbage,” I said. We weren’t dealing with a few wild mice—whatever had done this was big. “I could spray the cabbages with a sedative and put the culprit to sleep, but that could end up affecting any humans who eat the cabbage later on. The whole harvest would be ruined, so ideally, I’d like to come up with a chemical-free solution.”

“Perhaps you could spread a foul stench throughout the field?” suggested Lilil.

“Would you buy a foul-smelling cabbage?”

“Maybe a spear-lined pit trap?”

“What if someone from the village falls in?! I don’t want to commit manslaughter! Stop throwing out every little idea that comes to you!”

Lilil was the sort of creature who acted first and considered consequences later. I understood that mindset—I really did—and if I were a mythical beast with the sort of freedom over my body like she was, I might have acted the same way, but being the human I was, I just couldn’t.

“This cabbage thief has been striking in the dead of night or at daybreak, I presume. Shall I stand guard?” Lilil asked, pointing at herself.

Having a mythical beast hanging out would probably discourage any monsters from raiding the field—but I still had to shoot it down. “Nope, that wouldn’t work,” I said. “This isn’t the sort of problem that’ll go away after keeping watch for a day or two. The second you’re gone, the monster will be back.”

“True,” Lilil admitted. “In that case, we will simply have to deal with the culprit itself.”

“Not to mention, if you’re standing guard in the morning, you won’t be around to make breakfast or wake me up. It would throw my whole schedule off.”

“Is waking up on your own so unfeasible, it doesn’t even deserve consideration…?” Lilil sighed.

“What sort of question is that? Alchemists exist to make the lives of the people around them easier. That’s my job! You, meanwhile, are an alchemist’s apprentice, so your job is to support me!”

“Your ability to quibble, at least, is beyond dispute. I can’t help but think that quality makes you a bit unpopular, though…”

“I’m not looking for personal critiques right now, thanks!”

Claire chuckled as she watched us banter. I didn’t think we’d done anything particularly funny—we were both just being true to ourselves.

I’d found myself a new project, in any case, so in the end, the morning walk had paid off. Thanks for dragging me out here, Lilil.

I headed back to the workshop and lined up a wide assortment of chemicals and minerals on a table. Lilil was standing off to the side, ready to act as my assistant.

“First things first, poisons are out. We need to find some other approach that could solve this issue,” I said.

What would help us catch a huge beast, though? I’d glanced over the books on my shelf, but none of them seemed like they’d have relevant advice. Research wouldn’t help us here.

“I guess I have a big ole creature right here to interview,” I mused. “What do you think, Lilil? Any good ways to capture a giant beast?”

“I do not appreciate being likened to an oversized animal. Mythical beasts are far more advanced beings,” Lilil said before picking me up by the waist and lifting me into the air.

“I just thought you’d know better than I would,” I said. “My education was all specialized alchemy, so you have a better foundation when it comes to common knowledge.”

“You could have led with that,” said Lilil, still holding me off the ground. “Setting a trap would be the typical approach. Most activate after being stepped on. Surely even you are familiar with bear traps and pit traps?”

“Oh, yeah. Those are the things that clamp shut around your leg when you step on them? With really sharp metal teeth? Like, crunch?”

“A crunch would be excessive in our case. You said it yourself, did you not? We need to ensure that if any human happens to wander into our trap, they would be unharmed.”

“Right, right. Dismembering a villager would be a great way to get me driven off the island.”

“We could perhaps set our trap closer to the mountain rather than in the field, presuming we can get permission? The hunters likely set traps of their own.”

“That’s not a bad idea. A compromise that’ll let us go with the trap plan. There’s just one small problem,” I said, making an X-shape with my arms (again, still in the air thanks to Lilil). “That’s not a job for an alchemist! If that’s the solution, then it’s a problem for a hunter, not me!”

“The boundaries of your job perplex me. Are you not a jack-of-all-trades?” Lilil grumbled.

“Maybe, but I don’t think it’d be very nice of me to encroach on the hunters’ work,” I countered.

At that point, Lilil finally set me back down. “I do agree there. That being said, none of this island’s hunters are solely dedicated to the trade. They are farmers who fell the occasional deer in their spare time—not the sort to craft their own traps. That is why they brought the task to you to begin with.”

“That makes sense… I’m not sure I’m any better equipped to take on a wild beast than they are, though. It’s not really in an alchemist’s wheelhouse…”

Lilil grabbed me by the arm and tugged. “If you wish to ponder the question, do it while we walk! Walking always has a way of leading the mind to new solutions.”

“You’re just getting antsy, aren’t you?” I said. Sitting around at the table or by my bookshelves while hemming and hawing to myself didn’t sound fun, though, so I decided to indulge her.

We set out from the workshop, walking in the opposite direction of the village. That took us through our garden and then straight into the damp stretch of woodland. Nobody lived in this direction currently, and there weren’t any proper paths, but Lilil had strolled through the area so many times by now that she’d left a loose trail. I’d been told that was how trails were made—people walked, and they just happened—but it was still quite a sight to behold. It wasn’t settled enough for me to want to walk the path on my own, but Lilil being with me gave me enough confidence to give it a try.

“I can’t believe you’ve been walking around here on your own,” I said. “I feel like a deadly poisonous frog is gonna jump out at any second.”

“You would find a way to use it as a material if it did, I’m certain,” Lilil replied.

I knew walking around a place like this would get my clothes dirty no matter how careful I was, so I’d changed into an outfit it’d be fine to make a mess of. I would never go out for a walk in the lab clothes I wore when I made medicine, that’s for sure! I’d seen Lilil come home with her white fur stained brown enough times to know better.

“Frogs as materials, huh?” I said. “That’s not totally out there, but I’d rather not have to dissect them myself. I always have a hard time working with stuff that obviously used to be part of a living being. The Institute taught a style of alchemy that doesn’t involve working with animal components very often, so I got off easy.”

“Oh? Alchemists have distinctive styles, like martial artists? I was unaware.”

Oh, have I not mentioned that to her yet? Seeing as I was the only alchemist she saw on a regular basis, she’d probably been under the impression that my alchemical process was the only proper way.

“There are a bunch of different styles,” I explained. “Not as many as there are different types of frogs and snakes, though. There are five main schools, though not all of them are equally reputable. If you add in all the people who claim to have invented their own schools on top of that, who even knows how many there would be?”

Wasn’t any of this written in one of the books I had her read? I guess a beginner alchemy book wouldn’t mention the different schools too much, seeing as that would involve admitting interschool relations aren’t all sunshine and rainbows.

“Alchemy’s highly organized nowadays, but its origins trace back to a bunch of crazed mages researching all the herbs and ores they could get their hands on in the hopes of turning scrap metal into gold and make a killing.”

“The origins of the practice are rooted in unabashed greed? I am fond of such straightforward motives,” said Lilil.

“That’s how the different styles came about. There were early alchemists all over the world doing their own thing, and separate methods evolved naturally as time went on.”

“So rather than branching off from a single source, each style developed independently within its own region?”

“More or less, yeah. Sometimes, when an incredible teacher had an equally incredible student, they’d end up feuding and split up into competing schools, but all the important, influential styles came about in totally different parts of the world.”

I’d started getting wrapped up in my own explanation as I carried on. Back at the Institute, I found my eyelids drooping shut listening to my teachers drone on about their pet subjects, but being the one doing the talking was more fun than I’d expected. That was probably why it was so easy for teachers to forget to pay attention to their students during class. The lecturing was so fun, everything else slipped their minds.

“There are only two state-recognized styles of alchemy. The one they taught at the Royal Institute is called the Official Style—so not the most creative name. When you hear the word alchemy, that’s probably the style you— Gaaah!”

It felt like I’d accidentally stepped off a stair I hadn’t realized was in front of me. I looked down and found myself sinking into the muddy ground!

“You’ve stepped into a bog,” said Lilil. “There are quite a few of those in this vicinity. You should probably be careful.”

“Agh! Another bottomless marsh?! Seriously?!”

This time, I’m the one who wandered into it, not Lilil! Maybe I should’ve brought my staff…

“‘Bottomless’? Hardly. Look closer—it’s quite shallow,” said Lilil.

“Ah…,” I grunted. “I guess it is. I stopped sinking…”

I grabbed on to a nearby tree and pulled off my shoes to help slide my legs out. I had to admit, at a second glance, it felt a bit silly to call it a full-blown marsh when it was just barely ankle-deep. The fact that my legs were stuck had thrown me into a panic, if only for a moment, but it wasn’t that bad—even if it was an experience I could’ve happily gone my whole life without having.

Wait a minute… If getting stuck in a swamp is that terrifying and unpleasant…it could be fashioned into a warning.

I couldn’t just use any old mud, though. That would be far too easy to escape. I needed to find a type of mud that would trap its victims effectively but safely…and if I couldn’t find it, I’d just have to produce it with alchemy!

“So what factions are there aside from the Official Style?” asked Lilil.

“Sorry, class is canceled,” I said. “Let’s head back to the workshop!”

“Why? Has falling into the mud soured your mood?” Lilil asked. She sounded amused by my little spill, which annoyed me, but I simply gave her a toothy smile in response.

“Nope,” I said, “I’m in such a good mood right now, you wouldn’t believe it! I figured out how to solve our cabbage problem!”

Lilil gave an encouraging whistle. She was impressed, but what an unrefined way of showing it that was…and the idea of an unrefined divine guardian struck me as odd.

“To start, I need to do some experiments with some plants back at the workshop,” I said. “I’ll have more plants I’ll need to gather if that goes well. Think you could lend me a hand on our next day off?”

One drizzly morning, Lilil and I headed into the forest once more. I noticed that it had rained quite a few times since I moved to Seajade Island—enough so that trying not to go out in the rain would mean constantly running behind schedule. I hadn’t quite figured out how to deal with it yet.

“Hold on tight. I know exactly where the plant we’ve need of can be found this time!”

“I’d hang on tight whether you said to or not, because you’re going way too fast! Are you trying to kill me?!”

Lilil was yanking me by the arm as she charged into the forest at tremendous speed. It felt like I was getting kidnapped, and by a girl who was distinctly smaller than me. Every once in a while, I’d have to jump over a patch of tall grass for fear of face-planting and getting my feet tangled. Action-packed nonsense was not part of an alchemist’s job description!

The one upside: We managed to find the plant we were searching for without issue. The trip hadn’t been a total nightmare.

“And here we are! We’ve arrived!” Lilil said as she came to such a sudden stop, I ran square into her back. It kinda hurt—she was in her human form, which wasn’t fluffy at all.

I wonder if there’s anything we could do to make humans as fluffy as animals…? I idly pondered as I looked around, my eyes quickly settling on a cluster of plants with big heart-shaped leaves.

“There,” I said. “A relative of the mountain yam: demonwort! Their stalks tend to get big and bulbous when they grow in warmer climates, as you can see!”

The species was well-known for its use in nutritional medicines, so even though I’d barely ever seen them in the wild before, they still felt strangely familiar.

“I would recommend you not to eat those, Freya,” said Lilil. “Their roots and stalks are both poisonous. The islanders are aware of their dangers, which is why they leave them untouched.”

“I bet they do,” I replied. “I mean, it has demon in its name! I’d be shocked if it wasn’t poisonous. Don’t worry—I’ll only be using it to catch the vegetable thief.”

“Hm? Do you intend to use their vines to trip the thief, perhaps?”

Nope. The only person tripping on vines around here is me, just a few minutes ago.

“We’ll be borrowing its adhesive properties!” I explained. “That probably tells you everything you need to know, right? We’ll start by digging a hole right around here, and— Wait, no! Don’t dig with your hands! I brought a shovel!”

Before long, we were on our way back home with a full load of demonwort roots, as well as a few leaves that Lilil brought with her. Their shapes were cute, so she was planning on putting them in a vase to decorate the workshop. The fact that a mythical beast apparently had higher standards for elegance than me, a teenage girl, felt like it said something unfortunate about my priorities, but meh—graceful interior decor wasn’t what put food on the table.

A few days later, we installed our demonwort trap in the vicinity of Claire’s field. It would’ve been a disaster if one of the villagers wandered into it, so we asked Mayor Makood to spread the word across the village.

The next morning, I woke up before dawn. Rather, Lilil woke me up. I was able to sleep through the excitement of checking the trap, but the same couldn’t have been said for her.

“I was so curious about the trap’s results, I could hardly sleep a wink!”

That girl’s got the heart of a little boy. Which is weird, seeing as she has the looks of a little girl…

“We can at least wait until the sun’s all the way up before we go and check on the trap, right…?” I moaned.

“In that case, today, I will carry you!” Lilil insisted.

She turned into her mythical beast form, and I took the opportunity to give her a big hug before I climbed onto her back. I would always take the chance to fluff when the fluffing was good!

“I can’t move like this! Petting time is over—we are setting off!”

“Oh, don’t be so cheap! Think of how nice it’d feel to just doze off in your fur right now…”

“That would defeat the purpose of getting up early! The cabbage field awaits—let us go!”

I decided to don my lab clothes this time. I wasn’t going out for a walk. We were on the job.

As we neared Claire’s field, Lilil turned back into her human form. As we closed in, it was immediately obvious, even at a fair distance, that something was out there, sitting perfectly still. It was also very obvious that a crowd of townsfolk had already gathered up to stand at a distance and gawk.

“Oh!” I said. “It’s a giant monkey monster!”

The monster—which had a distinctly red face and looked like a monkey, roughly the same size as me—let out a series of screeches. It was covered in a sticky, mucus-like substance and clearly couldn’t move an inch.

“Looks like the Unrequited Ground worked perfectly, then!” I said.

“Why in the world did you give it such an outlandish name?” Lilil asked. My apprentice, it seemed, wasn’t a fan of my naming conventions.

“It’s simple,” I said. “The monster doesn’t want anything to do with the ground, but the ground won’t let it leave! It’s unrequited love. I think it’s a fitting name.”

“Such an obtusely poetic name for a malicious trap like this… All that flailing the monkey has done has made a horrific mess of its hair…”

“The adhesive extracted from the demonwort’s just that powerful! All you have to do is mush its roots up to get most of the way there.”

When you ground up the roots of a demonwort plant, a substance even stickier than grated mountain yam was produced. All I’d done was enhance that adhesive with a little magic, then set it up around the field as a trap.

“Oh, and if you think one-sided love is cutesy and poetic, you should really think again,” I added. “I’ve seen school romances get so out of control, they actually got kids expelled! I’ve always said that students have no business getting worked up over love. I sure didn’t, and I got all the way through my student career without taking any damage from all that nonsense!”

Lilil gave me a look I could only describe as pitying, but whatever comment she had in mind, she decided not to share it. “Incidentally,” she said instead, “when I grated the roots and some of their mucus touched my arm, the area became a little itchy. Why was that?”

“You probably got a slight rash,” I said. “Call it another of the dangers of unrequited love.”

My hands felt a little itchy, too, for some reason. Such were the sacrifices of alchemy.

“Then that would mean…” Lilil’s gaze turned to our victim (or our perpetrator, I guess, depending on perspective?). “Its whole body has been doused in slime. I shudder to think what that monkey is about to experience…”

“Hey, it’s better than if we’d actually hurt it, right? The problem’s solved, and nobody had to die! I’d call this a huge success!”

“You might be interested to know that the monkey is currently screaming, ‘Oh god, it itches so much! Somebody, help! Kill me now and put me out of my misery!’ among other things.”

“Heh-heh-heh! No needless killing on my watch!”

To be clear, I didn’t think torture was okay. This definitely wasn’t great, but if we didn’t give it a really bad time somehow, it would’ve just come back down the line. This method would ensure it never tried to steal from the field again—the perfect deterrent.

“I really do appreciate this, Freya,” said Claire, who’d stepped out of the crowd of onlookers. “It all makes sense now that I know a red ogre monkey was behind it!”

“Yeah, I thought it had eaten the cabbage too cleanly,” I said. “Monkeys eat with their hands! A deer never could’ve pulled that off.”

“What will you do with the monkey, by the way?” asked Claire. “I’d prefer to let it go, if it’s learned its lesson, personally.”

The more the monkey writhed, the more it worked itself into a sticky mess. I imagined it was flailing to distract itself from the itching.

“We’re gonna release it,” I said. “We already have a plan for setting it free.”

I pulled a small bottle of powdered medicine from my coat pocket. It was a chemical that would react with the sticky goop, turning it into something much smoother and easier to scrape away.

“Buuut,” I added, “if we let it go and it comes right back again to steal more cabbages tomorrow, then we’ll be back to square one. What do you think, Lilil?”

Lilil, still in human form, leaned in to peer at the immobilized monkey’s face. A moment later, she turned to face me again. “The monkey says it is sorry for its misdeeds. It knew it would be caught eventually, but it was so hungry, it simply couldn’t help itself and turned to a life of thievery.”

I guess she can speak animal even in human form, huh? Who knows if the monkey had any clue its words were being understood, though. Neither magic nor alchemy, nor the two of them put together, were capable of allowing people to perfectly communicate with animals or monsters, so having Lilil around for this sort of thing felt a little like cheating.

“I think it’s safe to say it’s telling the truth. But,” I said, digging just a little deeper for safety’s sake, “this island’s monsters live on the mountain, far away from any human settlement, right? What happened to all the food up there?”

Here’s a nasty little statistic: Most people who died of starvation did so right before the yearly grain harvest came in, because that was when everyone’s stores were at their driest. That said, starvation was generally only a threat when the previous year’s harvest had been especially poor.

“I haven’t heard anything about any cold snaps this year or the last, so I’m sure there must at least be some edible fruits around, right? All the trees on the mountain haven’t suddenly withered, either, as far as I can tell.”

“Fair point. Allow me to inquire,” Lilil said before turning into her wolf form. This time, she’d be having a real conversation with the monkey.

The monkey let out the occasional screech, and as the discussion carried on, a very gloomy look came across its face. Something had happened, clearly, and nothing good. Lilil’s tail was flicking up and down with irritation.

“I’m scared to find out… What happened, Lilil?”

“A colossal monster has made the mountain its home and has driven the monkeys away from their feeding grounds!”

I knew I’d regret asking…

I gazed vacantly up at the mountain.

Kraaaw! Kraaaw…!

Somewhere, far off in the distance, a pair of shrill, ear-piercing cries rang out.

“What was that…? I’ve never heard a cry like that before,” Claire said as she shook her hands anxiously.

This is turning into a big ole problem, all right…

In the end, I sprinkled the concoction that would turn the sticky mucus that was coating the monkey into something slicker and easily removeable. Not long after, the monkey returned home to the mountain. Telling it to just tough it out when a monster had invaded its territory and caused it to starve felt cruel, though, so after taking a moment to discuss the matter with the villagers, we reached an agreement: The villagers would start leaving damaged produce that couldn’t be sold on the outskirts of town for the starving monsters to help themselves to. That way, the villagers wouldn’t have to worry about their fields, and the monsters wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught.

The monkey thanked us (according to Lilil’s interpretation) before going on its way. All things considered, this was as good a compromise as I could’ve realistically asked for. That said, the fundamental issue that had caused all of this in the first place was still totally unaddressed.

“Just how large do you suppose a ‘colossal’ monster could be?” Lilil mused. She was standing off to the side while I worked on making sure the Unrequited Ground would keep doing its job.

Frankly, I had no idea why she thought I’d have an answer to that. “If not even you’ve heard of it before, then it must be some type of monster that’s new to the island, right?” I suggested.

I wasn’t actually totally sure if we were dealing with a literal monster, by the way—we were just calling it that. Until we got the chance to see it for ourselves, it would be classified as a monster for convenience’s sake.

“True,” said Lilil, “and if it had lived here since long ago, then the monkeys’ source of food would have been an issue long before now as well.”

“Oh, yeah, good point. Oh, and just to be sure, this couldn’t be one of your family members causing trouble, could it?”

“I have no such thing. Mythical beasts are entities more akin to gods than to mortals.”

Are you, really? I wasn’t convinced and was fairly curious about her family situation to boot, but it felt like prying would be a bad idea. For all I knew, her family life could be really complicated. Considering I’d been abandoned by my own parents, being nosy about somebody else’s family drama would’ve felt particularly silly for me.

“Let’s close the workshop early today,” I said. “We’ll open for an hour, then close up shop and look into this monster issue.”

“This is an emergency. I will make an exception for you shirking your work, just this once.”

Oh, good. My pupil’s making an exception for me. Yay.

We went out to ask around after lunch, and it quickly became clear that unbeknownst to us, the monstrous threat had been closing in for quite some time. The local horses reported having heard strange cries in the distance on a number of occasions, to the point that hearing them while traveling the path between the harbor and the village had become a matter of course. The cry in question was an eerie, piercing kraaaw booming out from somewhere in the mountain’s vicinity.

The people who worked at the harbor also reported having seen something big flying around the mountain. As we went around talking to anyone we could find about the matter, a familiar-looking maid approached us. “You are Freya the alchemist, yes? The governor has requested your presence,” she said.

Please let this not be about the monster. Please say she just wants to talk about the soap…

“Are you aware of the rumor that a strange, monstrous bird has been building its nest at the peak of the mountain?”

“So much for this being about the soap,” I groaned, clutching my head in my hands.

A drawing that looked a little like a wanted poster depicting some sort of bird was hung up on the wall of the governor’s study. Interestingly enough, it looked quite plump and feathery—not at all the vicious bird of prey I’d been expecting. Its chest in particular looked really soft and fluffy to me. My first impulse, in fact, was to think that it would make a really good pillow—but of course, the fact that it was causing problems for the island at large was undeniable. From the governor’s perspective, that bird was a fugitive from justice.

“We just learned about it today,” I said. “Well, we learned there was a monster anyway. I guess this confirms that it’s definitely a bird?”

“A bird, yes—and thanks to it, the red ogre monkeys, hairball boars, solehorn deer, lop-eared raccoons, and all sorts of large-bodied beasts and monsters have been fleeing from the mountain and causing no end of trouble to the local ecosystem. The way I see it, this is a state of emergency.”

“How many types of animals are there on that mountain?!” And what in the world does a lop-eared raccoon look like? I wanna see one!

“We have yet to gather any detailed information about the bird, but it does seem certain at this point that it’s come to roost on the mountain,” said Emeline.

Lilil gave the drawing of the bird a very long, up close inspection. “This is a roc. They are monsters, yes, and some of the mightiest that can be found,” she eventually said. I’d had a feeling that she’d know her stuff when it came to creatures like it. “When rocs locate a mountain or forest that seems ideal for them to roost in, they go to great lengths to define it as their individual territory. This island’s mountain features a single peak, from which the whole surrounding region can be seen. It’s the perfect place for a roc to survey its domain from.”

“I can’t say I care that much about it moving in, but the fact that it’s causing trouble for the locals changes things,” I said. “You’re supposed to make friends with your new neighbors, not drive them away…”

“Rocs are not the sort of bird that would spare such consideration for others,” said Lilil. “They are solitary beings that do not even flock with their own kind. It’s said that they can be as intelligent as humans as well. So long as it remains upon the mountain, the other beasts, unable to feed in their natural territory, will surely descend upon the village.”

That’d be a disaster, as far as Canon’s hunters are concerned. They’ll probably have monsters turning up in all sorts of weird places where they’ve never been sighted before. Actually, not “they”—this is a we problem if I’ve ever heard one!

“That means it’ll be too dangerous for me to go out harvesting plants in the woods and the mountains, doesn’t it…?” I asked.

“Indeed. The roc would surely attack you if it caught sight of you, and there’s no predicting where the other monsters may flee to or how they may react to your presence. It would be best to assume that you will not be able to gather ingredients until the issue is resolved.”

I tilted my head, turning my gaze to the sky…or, well, the ceiling. It had a chandelier that was just fancy enough to not come across as gaudy hanging from it.

“So what you’re telling me is that the workshop’s in huge trouble…?”

I could take some solace, at least, in the fact that the evil governor was aware of the problem and considered it just as big of an issue as I did. She had the count backing her, which meant it was probably only a matter of time before a troop of soldiers was sent over from the mainland to drive the roc away. All I had to do was hold out until that time arrived.

“Can you ask the count to gather some troops to deal with the roc as soon as possible, Emeline?”

“Would you be willing to drive that bird away for me, Freya?”

Emeline and I spoke at the exact same moment, our voices overlapping.

Hm? That’s weird. I must have misheard her. “Uh, hey, Emeline? This is the perfect time to use your influence as governor to have some soldiers sent over, right? It’d really spare us a whole lot of trouble if you could just—”

“Surely there’s some way you could drive it away with your alchemy?”

Yeah, this is weird, all right. It’s like we’re having two totally different conversations!

“Yeah, um…,” I began. “I know alchemists are sorta jacks-of-all-trades, and I did get the waterway working and helped out with other things, but this? This is beyond me. Surely a monster wreaking havoc in the count’s territory is a good enough reason for him to intervene?”

I’m no adventurer! I wouldn’t stand a chance against a roc!

“I appreciate your reasoning,” said Emeline, “but circumstances beyond my control have forced my hand.”

“Of course.” I sighed. “Well, if you’re really desperate enough to turn to an alchemist like me for this, then I’m not going to say I won’t help you at all. Speaking as someone who lives on this island, I do feel a responsibility to do what I can. But…” I said, pausing to shoot Lilil a sidelong glance. I turned back to Emeline a moment later, looking her squarely in the eye. My goal was to make it seem like I was interrogating her, and hopefully, the expression I made was driving that impression in. “Do you really think a single alchemist who’s fresh out of school is the best person to go to about this problem? You can’t think of anyone who’d be a better choice?”

“Yes, well. The fact of the matter, Freya, is…um…,” Emeline muttered uncomfortably. Her silence told me everything.

“Let me be frank, Emeline. The truth is that you don’t want to ask me for help. You’re hoping that my apprentice, Lilil the mythical beast, will drive the roc away for you, aren’t you?” I said, placing a hand on Lilil’s back as I spoke. I was squarely focused on Emeline and couldn’t see what sort of face Lilil was making, but I also didn’t care. I had a responsibility to look out for her, and all I was doing was fulfilling that obligation. “Lilil is a great and powerful mythical beast. Maybe she could drive the roc away with ease—but then again, maybe she couldn’t. We have no idea how powerful the enemy is, and I have no intention of sending my pupil out on a mission that could put her in danger!”

This was one point I had no intention of backing down on. This wasn’t a repeat of the giant monkey issue—this time, we had no clue whether Lilil or the roc was more powerful. Plus I was mad. I could deal with Emeline using me as her pawn, but I wasn’t about to tolerate her using someone I was close to in the same sort of way.

“Alchemists exist to help people with whatever’s troubling them, but that’s not how mythical beasts work at all! There must be a better, safer way to drive the roc away. Don’t you think it’s disrespectful to send Lilil out to take it on before you’ve even tried any alternatives? Doesn’t the island’s divine guardian deserve better than that?”

I’d said it in a sort of roundabout way, but my argument boiled down to “how dare you send my pupil into danger like it’s nothing?” The only reason why I didn’t say those exact words was that this was a moment for diplomacy, and that would have been less than diplomatic, to say the least.

No matter how isolated I’d ended up, Professor Mystille had never given up on me. She’d believed in her pupil’s potential. Am I acting like the sort of alchemist you hoped I’d become right now, Professor? Am I choosing the right path for my own pupil’s sake?

“I think I’ve communicated my position quite clearly by now, and I think everything I’ve said makes sense. If you’d like to disagree, then by all means, go ahead. I’m all ears,” I said. I was on pins and needles, just waiting for Emeline to put on a self-satisfied smirk and ask us to do the impossible again. I expected no less from the evil governor herself. It was basically her job—how else would a governor who was younger than me accomplish all her duties?

I was surprised, then, by the reaction I actually got. Emeline looked almost ashamed.

“You’re right, Freya. My territory has been invaded, and it’s the count’s responsibility to dispatch troops and drive the enemy away—I couldn’t have said it better myself. But that’s only in theory. In practice, convincing the count to do so would be difficult… No, it would be impossible,” Emeline said with an exaggerated shake of her head. “The count sees this island as nothing more than one of many small, isolated chunks of territory. What does one big bird making a nest on a mountain matter when you have a whole county to worry about? In the context of the county, this island is trifling in the same way that I, the daughter of a branch family, am trifling in the context of the count’s lineage.”

Emeline pressed a hand to her forehead, as if to hold back the pain of a headache.

“The count would not interpret our circumstances as an invasion. No force would be dispatched. It might be different if the threat was great enough to drive the people away from the island entirely, but it hasn’t reached that level so far.”

“So you’re saying that what we see as a disaster, the count would see as a big bird being a nuisance in some middle-of-nowhere hick island?” I asked.

“And that, I am afraid, is why begging Lilil to lend me her power was the only card I could play. The authority of a governor is far pettier than you might think. I don’t even have the influence to drive away a single bird…,” said Emeline. With that, she faced us once more and bowed deeply. “I beg of you, Freya the alchemist, please save Seajade Island. I, Emeline, the island’s governor, humbly and formally request your aid.”

Emeline spoke to me—me—with the sort of humble diffidence you’d normally reserve for nobility. I could tell that this was her way of giving the problem everything she had. I wasn’t talking to the snotty-nosed brat of a governor I’d come to expect. It was clear to me now that when the island ended up in genuine danger, she could be counted on to pull out all the stops to ensure its safety.

“Stand up, please,” I said. “I think you understand that I didn’t say all that stuff just to give you a hard time, and I understand very well that you’re just trying to do what’s best, of course. The problem is that we’re at cross-purposes with each other.”

Emeline slowly raised her head to look at me once more. “Yes… I suppose we are. I won’t try to pressure you any further,” she said, gazing into the palms of her hands and smiling bitterly. “It’s at times like these that I wish I were more influential. If only I were the count’s eldest daughter, something like this would be a trifling matter to solve.”

She may have been smiling, but I could tell that this was anything but easy for Emeline. If Lilil was the only person who stood any chance of driving the bird away, then what choice did Emeline have but to bet on her? I would have done the same thing if I’d been in her position.

“I will petition the count for aid as many times as it takes,” said Emeline. “If three letters isn’t enough, I’ll write another ten on top of them. Maybe there will come a point where enough badgering manages to break through. Or maybe if I, the island’s governor, were to be personally injured by the roc…”

“Nope! No sacrificing yourself! Don’t even joke about that—it’s not funny!” I snapped. I couldn’t put it past her to cross the line and attempt something like that, so I shut it down as quickly and firmly as I could.

“You have to admit that it’s not a bad idea,” said Emeline. “I’m not planning on dying, of course, but a broken leg just might be all it takes to convince the count that the roc has to go.”

“Maybe that’d be worth considering if we could guarantee it’d stop at a broken leg, but how is that supposed to work? Jumping to the most self-sacrificing solution possible at the drop of a hat doesn’t make you a good governor, for the record! If you’re really set on putting the island first, then making sure its governor is safe should be one of your top priorities! Imagine if we had to deal with that oversized chicken and suddenly lost the island’s highest-ranking official! We’d be totally—”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Suddenly, Lilil’s almost performatively dramatic laugh cut through our argument.

“What a fiery debate this has been! I am amused—amused indeed! This was a battle for the ages in its own rhetorical right—what a treat it has been to witness it!”

And here I thought she was just listening quietly. Turns out she’s been treating this like a show the whole time! “For your information, I’m taking this really seriously right now!” I said. “And why are you acting like it’s not your problem?!”

“Because, O teacher of mine, it is not my problem—it is ours. What say we put our heads together and find a way to drive off the roc as a team?” Lilil said. She didn’t sound worried about the possible consequences in the slightest. “You need only prepare a stunningly effective medicine that will enable me to defeat the roc with safety and certainty. Surely, then, you would agree that the task is worth undertaking?”

Way to make it sound easy! If that was how it worked, I would’ve said “sure, why not” the moment she asked us to help!

“Hey, um—you said rocs were really smart, right? Not just powerful?” I asked.

“Indeed,” said Lilil. “They are no birdbrains, you might say! It would be best to assume that this island has gained a new sovereign. Though some rocs have chosen to coexist with the humans in the land they live in, it would seem that ours has no intention of being so friendly.”

“Well, that means we can’t try fighting it, run away, improve my medicine, and try again! We’ve only got one shot before it realizes what’s happening, and then it’ll be hopeless!”

“Worry not! I will be just fine, even if you happen to err in your medicine making. I’ve no intention to lose to a bird that prides itself on its size and little else. I’m pleased to know that you worry for me, but I assure you, you are being overprotective.”

What does that mean? Is she saying that she’s so much more capable than the roc, it’ll be fine no matter how our preparations turn out?

“I am a mythical beast: a being second only to the gods. In fact, to call me a god-beast may be a more accurate specification. The likes of dragons and rocs may be mighty compared to their fellow beasts and monsters, but they could never compare to a mythical beast such as I.”

I wasn’t so sure about how all those definitions stacked up, but I did know one thing: Mythical beasts really were all that she was cracking them up to be. “I know you’re amazing, Lilil. I’ll admit that,” I said. “Heck, your cooking alone is good enough to get me on board there!”

“That is hardly the appropriate compliment for the moment.”

“And your fur feels like the highest-grade velvet I’ve ever touched! It really does the job!”

“Again, why would that be your choice of compliment? And what ‘job’? This is nonsense!” said Lilil. It seemed I’d knocked her out of her moment of confidence. “I know well that you do not wish to send me into battle, and you need not do so. I will fight of my own volition. To cower in fear and flee from a foe is unthinkable for a guardian mythical beast. The governor is allowed her self-importance because when danger looms, she will stand to protect the island, and I am no different.”

“I get that, I guess…,” I begrudgingly admitted.

“Your job is to create an Artifact that will guarantee an overwhelming victory for your pupil. Unless you would prefer to try to stop me from fighting? That, I highly doubt.”

Ugh… She’s talking circles around me…

I slammed a hand down onto Emeline’s oak desk. It didn’t make much of a noise at all, but it did hurt way more than I’d thought it would.

Okay. Bad move… But, well, whatever.

“Sheesh. Do you have any idea what sort of miracle you’re asking me to pull off…? Oh, I’ll make it happen, just you wait! I hope you’re ready to reward me handsomely when I pull this off, Emeline!” I said as I spun to face the governor.

“Please, Freya. I’m counting on you,” Emeline replied. She still hadn’t shifted back into evil-governor mode, it seemed. In a weird way, I actually had a harder time dealing with her when she was being all meek and decent with me.

“Just don’t get your hopes up too high,” I said. “Oh, and do keep asking the count to send troops over! Even if we don’t end up needing to use them, the more options we have to work with, the better.”

“I will! By my station as this island’s governor, I swear I’ll spare no effort!”

“Also, can you try to get one of the count’s people to look into roc ecology for me? There aren’t all that many books on this island at all, so there’s only so much research I can do. I’ll be learning what I can in the meantime, though!”

And then barely five minutes later, all those plans I’d laid were rendered completely pointless.

The instant I stepped out from the governor’s estate, I was buffeted by a tremendous gust of wind. I squeezed my eyes shut reflexively. We were on high ground, so I didn’t make all that much of it—strong winds were expected in places like this—but for some reason, Lilil stepped forward to stand in front of me. For a second, I thought she was taking it upon herself to be my personal windbreaker (which seemed really silly, pupil or not), but I was dead wrong.

There before us was the biggest bird I’d ever seen. Its plumage was colored a vivid crimson that seemed far brighter than the version I’d seen in Emeline’s picture, its massive body was oddly egg-like in curvature, and its beak was just downright enormous.

It could only be one thing. There was just no room for doubt. This was the roc.

Its presence was so imposing—almost divine—that it was hard to believe it was actually a bird that lived in the real world. It looked even bigger than Lilil did when she turned into a massive wolf. I found myself wondering, if it spread its wings wide-open, could it wrap them around her?

We’d been beaten to the punch. I’d never imagined that it would come to find us…and while I hadn’t heard anything about rocs eating people, large birds that ate meat weren’t rare by any means. I could not rest easy.

“Am I right in assuming you are the wolf mythical beast Lilil?” asked the roc. That’s right—the roc talked, and in a plainly human voice.

Lilil transformed into her wolf form. Maybe she thought she wouldn’t come across as impressive enough as a human? “I am, indeed,” she said, “and I see the rumors of your intelligence were true. So, then? What is it you need from me?”

“You’ve been this island’s guardian beast for a very long time now, haven’t you? The locals worship you as divinity, even. That means it’s only a matter of time before you climb the mountain to drive me away from my new nest, and if we’re going to have to fight eventually, I’d prefer to be the one who declares war myself,” the roc explained. It actually sounded like it was enjoying itself. “I challenge you, Lilil. If you want to drive me away, then come find me and give it your best shot! If I lose, I will accept my defeat with dignity and find some other island to live on. That’s the way of this world—the strong prey upon the weak, and only the fittest survive! Why complicate things when we can keep them nice and simple, don’t you think?”

“That was my intention from the outset,” said Lilil. “Where, when, and how shall we have our contest? I presume you don’t intend to challenge me to a friendly game of chess?”

The roc gestured toward the mountain with one of its wings. “I will wait for you at the mountain’s peak,” it said. “Feel free to come at me whenever you wish. I’ll gladly accept a challenge from anyone, anytime!”

Whoa, whoa, hold on a second! This is moving way too fast! Is any of this a good idea?

“Hey, umm, I have a couple of quick questions! Would you mind?” I shouted. The roc was clearly a little full of itself, so I tried to act as humble as I could. People with that sort of pride would usually at least listen to you, as long as you stroked their ego just right first.

“Oh, are you one of the islanders? Go right ahead,” said the roc.

“The way this conversation’s gone so far has made it seem like the two of you are in some sort of epic battle for control over Seajade Island, but just so you know, nobody’s going to have a problem with you living here as long as you’re a good neighbor and don’t do anything too crazy! There’s no law against migratory birds roosting on the island or anything like that.”

If it weren’t for the fact that the roc had been driving all the other animals off the mountain, nobody would have cared at all about it making a nest at said mountain’s peak. In fact, migratory birds stopping on tropical islands like this was par for the course, as far as I knew! And considering it could speak our language, I didn’t see any reason why things couldn’t end peacefully. That would’ve been ideal for me, to be sure.

“How terribly boorish of you,” the roc said as it gave me a disdainful glance. “This island has a mythical beast master, and now a roc has arrived with intentions of claiming the land for her own. How could this end in any manner other than battle? Where’s the drama and excitement in talking our issues through and reaching common ground?! Honestly!”

This bird wants to fight for drama and excitement?! Seriously?! “And, umm…you don’t think it might be worth sacrificing just a bit of that ‘excitement’ for the sake of being able to live together in harmony…?”

“Boorish, boorish, truly!”

I’m starting to think that’s just how rocs chirp.

“How dare a young lady speak like some two-bit politician! I told you I’d be waiting at the top of the mountain for you—the least you could do is provoke me or tell me how you’re going to crush me!”

By that point, I was starting to get pretty upset. “So, umm…can I take that to mean your declaration of war applies to me, too? So you wouldn’t complain if I helped Lilil out during your fight, say?”

“Do as you please! You’re one of this island’s residents, aren’t you? That gives you the right to fight to drive me away. So come—take back your island from me!” said the roc. “And now that that’s over with, lingering would be terribly boorish of me. Farewell! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Another gust of wind knocked me off balance. I could tell now that the roc wasn’t trying to send me flying—apparently, that just happened whenever she took off. I watched as she flapped her way into the distance, sailing off toward the mountain.

“She certainly found us with ease,” Lilil commented as she stared at the bird’s long, brightly colored tail.

“I guess mythical beasts probably stand out from a roc’s perspective. On the bright side, I feel a lot better about this now.” I paused to kick the ground as hard as I could. “We’re gonna beat that birdbrain! I’ll take this island back from her, no matter what!”

A few days later, a pile of documents regarding rocs arrived at the governor’s estate. Apparently, Emeline had been looking into measures she could take against the creature even before she went to us for help. She looked like a dainty little lady, sure, but she was also an exceptional governor. By that point, I was convinced that she was just as much of a genuine islander as anyone.

The downside: The documents weren’t as helpful as I’d been hoping. This wasn’t a situation where I could take one glance at them and immediately come up with a solution, after all…

“Hmm… None of these say anything about what a roc’s weak points would be,” I muttered. Humans hadn’t exactly slain a tremendous number of rocs over the course of history, so the information available to me was very limited.

It was still morning, and I had yet to open my store for the day. I crossed my arms and hummed to myself as I thought things through. I’d just gone outside to walk around the garden in the hopes it would spark some sort of inspiration, but all that had accomplished was getting me a quick chance to soak in some sun. Lilil was nearby as well in human form, and she’d been thinking as hard as I had been but didn’t seem to have come up with any good ideas, either.

“Perhaps you could feed the bird the hellmoth powder you used when we first met? Surely it would immobilize her?” Lilil suggested. It was a pretty aggressive idea, just like all the other ones she’d given me, but this time, it wasn’t a bad one.

“There’s just one problem I can see with that,” I said. “We’d have to figure out how to get her to eat the stuff. I guess we could put it in a little bag, strap it to an arrow, and shoot it into her? But I’m not so sure that would actually work at all… I figure she’ll probably keep her beak closed while she’s fighting, right?”

“If so, I can catch her and force it open!”

“It’d be great and all if you could pull that off…but be honest: Do you really think you could wrestle a bird who’s that huge to a standstill?”

Lilil fell silent for a moment. She glanced away from me.

“If I were to engage her in a direct contest of pure strength, then there is a chance I could lose,” she admitted. “Upon seeing her up close, I realized that she was far larger than I had estimated. Even among rocs, she is an enormous specimen.”

“Well, good on you for being honest about it. Arrogance is a scholar’s worst enemy.”

The roc was even bigger than Lilil. I wasn’t confident that she’d win a contest of pure strength, either. If we couldn’t render the roc completely harmless, our chances of victory seemed slim at best.

But how could we render her harmless?

The first idea that came to mind involved water—and then a second that involved water as well hit me. Both of them were pretty basic, in terms of pure theory, and I had no idea if either of them would really work, but my gut was telling me they had potential.

Potential, po-schmen-tial! If it might work, I just have to make it and see what happens! Testing it on a technical level’s the one thing I know for a fact I can do!

“I’m going to try making an Artifact,” I said. “It’ll be simple in theory, but I won’t be able to make it work unless I can get my hands on a really sturdy tube. Do you think we could get Emeline to have one brought in from the mainland for us?”

We began slowly and carefully laying the foundations for my plan. To start, we installed water tanks at a number of locations on the mountain. That was a trial, more or less, and once we’d confirmed that the roc didn’t seem alarmed by them and hadn’t made any attempts to destroy them, we started bringing as many tanks as we could toward the mountain’s peak.

Monsters ended up coming down from the mountain while we were working, but they didn’t end up causing all that much trouble in the end. My best guess was that the monkey from before had spread the news about the village leaving less-than-perfect vegetables out for the wildlife to help themselves to. The field I’d used my Unrequited Ground on was still untouched, at the very least. That said, I knew that if monsters kept being forced off the mountain’s upper reaches, it was only a matter of time before one of them would have the nerve and ability to make it past the trap and break into the field. We needed to take the roc down a peg before that could happen.

Then at long last, the day of our battle arrived. It was a bright, windless day—as tranquil of weather as you could ask for. We set out for the mountain’s peak, stopping to confirm that the water tanks installed nearby were indeed still all intact. The metal pipes affixed to them were all still undamaged as well.

“Okay—we’ve covered all our bases,” I said. “It’s up to you now, Lilil.”

Lilil, who was in her wolf form, slapped the ground with her paw. “That goes without saying. The roc’s many misdeeds end today, by my hand!”

Lilil stepped out onto a patch of level ground near the mountain’s summit, and the roc leaped out to meet her without a moment’s hesitation. Her nest, from what I could tell, was built even higher up than that, in a rather unstable-looking location I could only describe as the mountain’s absolute tallest point. Going that far to make your home in the highest spot possible felt silly to me, but maybe her wild-animal instincts had driven her to seek it out, no matter how much of a pain it was.

“You certainly kept me waiting!” said the roc. “But then again, it would have felt like you were underestimating me if you’d shown up unprepared and unarmed, so I suppose this was for the best.”

I was hiding nearby, behind a convenient tree. Well, I say “hiding,” but I was pretty confident that she already knew I was there. I had no intention of being a frontline fighter, but if push came to shove, I was ready to jump in and do what little I could to turn the tide. I’d brought along one of my personal Artifacts for precisely that purpose.

The one thing I hadn’t counted on was the fact that I wouldn’t be alone.

I didn’t think we’d have this big of an audience…

An outlandishly large number of monsters had gathered up around me. I knew for a fact that I wasn’t some sort of human monster magnet, so it seemed safe to say that they’d come to watch the fight. They must have been aware, on some level, that their own future lifestyles were riding on its outcome.

“You’ll be howling in defeat before you know it! Come at me!” shouted the roc.

“No need to encourage me!” Lilil replied.

The roc flapped her massive wings, and the next thing I knew, she was rocketing through the air toward Lilil. Lilil stood up on her hind legs, preparing to catch the roc’s charge head-on—but instead, she was blown away!

“Tch! Just how heavy are you?!” Lilil spat as she rolled across the ground, just barely managing to halt her momentum.

In the natural world, a creature’s size was a mark of its strength—and at that particular moment, Lilil was no longer the largest creature on the island. In terms of mass, the roc had her beat.

“Heavy enough—and as you know, size is equivalent to might!” the roc replied before going on the attack once more, this time, striking out with her beak.

The bird’s beak was so sharply pointed, it seemed more like a spear than a mouth, and she brought it down toward Lilil’s face several times in a flurry of attacks. Even just one direct hit would’ve left a horrific injury, but Lilil used her forelegs—I was tempted to just call them hands, at that point—to swat each strike aside, keeping them all at bay.

“Is that truly the best you can do?! I tire of these monotonous attacks—surely you have more than a beak to offer?!” Lilil taunted, but I had a feeling she wasn’t nearly as composed as she was trying to make herself look. She knew how painful just a single one of those beak strikes would have been.

Use the Artifact already, Lilil! It’s time! This will all have been pointless if you get hurt now! If it doesn’t work out in the worst case, we can always come back later to challenge her again with a new plan, assuming she agrees to a rematch!

Lilil fell back from the roc and grabbed on to the metal pipe that we’d set up in advance. It was time—she was about to use our secret weapon!

“Let me see…I start by pressing this button, I believe…,” Lilil muttered. We’d never tried using it in live combat, of course, and her movements were a little stiff. The roc tried to use that chance to go in for the kill, but Lilil dodged, tube still in hand. It was made of metal, but it had just enough give for her to move it around a little without breaking it. “And next, I break the wooden section that seals it off at its end!”

Lilil smacked away the cork-like piece of wood that was serving as the tube’s stopper—and at practically the same moment, water spewed forth from the tube, splashing directly into the roc!

“Aghyah! What is this?! Why, you devious little snake!” the roc spluttered. She tried to back away, but the water pressure was strong, and Lilil kept the pipe trained on her, soaking her from top to bottom.

“Looks like the Weaponized Waterway’s working as planned so far!” I said.

The principles behind the Artifact were extremely simple: You pushed a button, and a drystone instantly sucked up water from a source containing far more than it could hold. The water within the stone was then expelled out into a narrow tube, through which it traveled along before spraying out into the air at high velocity. I’d had to fine-tune other aspects of the design here and there with a bit of magic, but when all was said and done, all it did was spray a bunch of water really quickly at whatever you pointed it at.

The roc hovered in the air, trying to fall back away from the spray. She was hovering more or less directly above Lilil’s head, and unfortunately, pointing the Weaponized Waterway directly up would lower its range considerably. I’d hoped that we could get the roc a little more wet, but that was looking pretty dicey…

“Hmm—not as dangerous as I thought, so long as it doesn’t hit me directly,” said the roc. “If that’s all you can do, then I’ll just think of it as a free cleaning for my plumage!”

Lilil looked up at the roc and smirked. “Heh! In other words, the water was too much for you to bear, and you ran away! Your abilities fail to live up to your arrogant attitude, I see. Have you considered that life would be easier if you took on a more humble bearing that better fits your true strength?”

“Why, you—how dare you?!” exclaimed the roc. “Fine talk from a weakling who needs tools to fight!”

“I do not recall the use of tools being forbidden. Only a sore loser grumbles over the rules after they realize their defeat is set in stone.”

“Boorish, so miserably boorish! I’ll make you regret this!”

The roc dove in for another pass at Lilil—which was exactly what I’d been hoping for. If she’d stayed far up in the air, my plan would’ve been a wash. I gripped the Artifact in my hands tightly.

The roc dove in a no-holds-barred assault. Lilil’s taunting had left her in a rage, and she slammed into Lilil once more, sending her flying all over again…but Lilil didn’t let go of the pipe, even as she took the brunt of the impact.

“Ugh… I see how it is,” the roc growled bitterly. “You were planning to get under my feathers with your mockery, then soak me all over again when I flew into your range, weren’t you?”

Ah! She knows! We’re busted! This is bad!

What happens now…? Normally, if one side of a match like this refuses to fight anymore, it’d get counted as a loss, but who knows how the roc will see it if she decides to just fly away?

“Hm…?” grunted Lilil. “N-no, I was not… Wh-what sort of nonsensical plan would that be? Perhaps you’re hoping to justify your own retreat? Know that if you run away here, you’ll be nothing more than a weakling! Do you hear me? Weakling, weakling!”

Way to taunt like a toddler, Lilil! There’s no way she’d ever fall for that!

“I know perfectly well now that dumping water on me is the best you can do—but my pride is on the line, and so I’ll carry on the fight! What’s a little high-speed water anyway?! It might hurt, but it’s nothing I can’t endure!” the roc said in a weirdly high-minded display of determination. I was starting to wonder if we might actually have been the villains in this battle. “This time, I’ll sink my beak into your belly and tear you to shreds!”

The roc went into a dive, plummeting toward Lilil at tremendous speed!

“Come on, Lilil! You can do it…!” I muttered. My hands were clenched so tightly, it felt like I might crush the Artifact before I could use it. If Lilil didn’t make it out of the fight safe and sound, then I wouldn’t be able to call it a win whether we drove the roc off or not. I could tell, though, that it was working. The roc’s movements were slowing down—or at least it looked that way to me.

“It’s finally taken effect! Take this!” Lilil shouted. She leaped into the air, meeting the roc’s charge—and drove her forehead squarely into hers! The roc’s eyes went white as she toppled over backward, slamming into the ground. A cloud of dust billowed across the mountaintop, and I heard the sound of rocks crumbling under the creature’s massive weight.

“Agh…! What is this? Why can’t I put any strength into my limbs…? That counterattack would never have landed otherwise,” the roc bitterly growled.

“Perhaps it wouldn’t have! But with that much water sprayed all over you, it was inevitable that your speed would slow. After all—that water was dosed with a hefty helping of paralysis poison!” Lilil said as she retrieved the tube from the ground and raised it once more, grinning wildly as she did so.

“What…?! It wasn’t just water…?!”

“It was water with hellmoth powder mixed into it. In other words: poison!”

“That’s right,” I said. It was finally time for me to reveal myself and step onto the battlefield. Now that we knew the poison had begun to take hold, it wouldn’t be dangerous to expose myself anymore. “The same medicine paralyzed Lilil in the past, and since you’re bigger than her, I gave you an even stronger dose!”

“What need is there to bring up the past?” Lilil grumbled. I ignored her and kept talking.

“I bet you thought we were planning on taking you down with sheer water pressure, but that was never our aim at all! Our goal was to get poison-laced water into your eyes. Once enough of the toxin entered your system, victory was as good as ours!”

“You mean spraying the water that strongly was just a distraction?” the roc asked. She sounded really irritated.

“That’s close enough to right anyway,” I said. “You would’ve been pretty suspicious about what was in the water if we’d just tried to dribble it on you, right?”

“True. I would have fought without letting my guard down—as you did. I have to say, your mindset is impressive, indeed…but it’s too soon to say you’ve won. This battle isn’t over yet!”

The fallen roc pushed herself upright with its wings, seemingly with ease. Her massive frame towered over me.

“Even with your poison running through my veins, it seems I can still move at least a little—and before its full effects set in, I will have my revenge!”

What’s she planning? To hit me with her wing? Even just one blow like that would probably maim me, so I’m gonna have to say no thank you to that!

And that’s why I turned the pipe I’d been holding on to that whole time toward the roc. I hadn’t been careless enough to step onto a battlefield unarmed, and before the roc’s wing could touch me, a burst of tremendously cold air spewed out from the end of the pipe at high-speed!

“Insta-Freeze Cannon, go!”

The wing the roc had swung at me froze midair, petrified in an awkward, half-extended pose!

“Agh, cold! Wha…? My wing is paralyzed…?”

No kidding! It was dripping wet, so of course temperatures that low would freeze it solid!

“You thought we only had one reason to get you wet? Well, think again!”

The roc toppled over once more, falling to the ground in the same uncomfortable pose she had been frozen in.

“Gaaah…! How could this be? How could I face such a miserably boorish defeat?! Kraaaw! Kraaaw!” the roc screeched to the high heavens. She must have been incredibly frustrated, and our ears were now suffering for it.

“Agh! Cut that out! Bursting our eardrums after you’ve already lost is definitely not in the spirit of the rules!” I shouted as I plugged my ears. I had to muffle the noise somehow, and that was my only decent option! Just listening to her was bringing me to the verge of tears!

“What else could I do?!” wailed the roc. “Screaming is the only distraction I have left! Kraaaw, kraaaw!”

“I cannot suffer this! My ears will never recover!” Lilil shouted before charging down the side of the mountain like a scared rabbit.

Hey, wait! Don’t run! We’re not finished here!

And so on that day, I learned that there were even more means of attacking a foe than even I’d realized. I sincerely hoped that I’d never have to experience any other new ones in the future…

The roc finally screamed herself out eventually, and we were able to move on to the negotiation phase of our encounter (which Lilil was present for, since she climbed back up the mountain as soon as the screaming stopped. She really was acting like a particularly skittish wild animal).

“So do you have a name?” I asked. “Considering how properly you can speak, I’m guessing there’s at least something we can call you?”

“My name is long enough that I doubt you’ll remember it, so I’ll give you a simpler alias that I use for convenience’s sake,” said the roc. “You may call me Natia Hargott Smithiana Antmeileux. A name formed from each of my former lands!”

“Right, that’s really long. I’ll just call you Natia, if that’s okay,” I said. “So, Natia, you lost. That means we’re going back to how things have always worked on Seajade Island: Claiming an area as your exclusive territory isn’t allowed. In other words, you’re not allowed to drive other animals out of their homes! You can live on the island and use its resources as you please, though, as long as you’re reasonable about it. Got it?”

“Yes, I understand… I swear on my own name, Natia Hargott Smithiana Antmeileux, that I will abide by your terms.”

It seemed like we were on the same page, and the negotiations were going smoothly. Lilil, however, was giving the fallen roc a very suspicious stare. “Freya,” she said, “I believe a punishment will be needed if it turns out that she was lying. Otherwise, she may claim we never had this discussion in the future.”

“I would never do something so boorish!” said Natia. Apparently, boorishness was the standard by which roc behavior was measured. It was a pretty humanlike set of values, which made sense, seeing as she spoke the human tongue.

“Okay, then,” I said, “if you break your promise, we’ll spread the word far and wide that you’re nothing but a sad, pathetic little pigeon. You’ll be a laughingstock the whole world over! How does that sound?”

“You have a dangerously devious mind for a human,” Natia commented.

“It’s pretty clear that you take your good name seriously, so it seemed like the best thing to target if I wanted to make sure you’d keep your word. Oh…and while we’re talking, just for reference: What have you been eating since you got here?”

If Natia had been gobbling up wild animals, I wouldn’t exactly be able to fault her for it. That was just how it worked in the natural world, and I’d eaten plenty of pork and mutton dishes that Claire had made for me, so who was I to criticize? That said, if she told me she’d been eating fifty cows a day or something along those lines, we’d have to put limits in place if we didn’t want the island’s ecosystem to totally collapse. In short: I had to make sure that she had enough sense to not overdo it—which was definitely not a given, since what qualified as common sense could vary a lot from species to species.

“Fish, mostly,” said Natia. “I helped myself to a tuna just yesterday.”

She’s been fishing! “In that case, I think you and the locals will coexist just fine if you want to keep living on the island’s mountain,” I said.

“I lost, and so I have no right to argue. I’ll keep my peace and live as modestly as I’m able to,” said Natia.

I decided to take her word for it. If that ended up being a bad choice and trouble cropped up again, I’d deal with it when the time came.

“Great! In that case, we’ll be heading back down the mountain now,” I said. The sunlight was glaring at that high of an elevation, and there weren’t any toilets. I was itching to go home, frankly.

“Oh! One moment,” said Natia. “Will you tell me your name before you leave, human?”

I don’t think my name’s really worth hearing, but I guess saying that would sound pretty rude after she went out of her way to ask. “It’s Freya,” I replied. I’d always thought my name was as unremarkable as they came…

“Ms. Freya. That’s a wonderful name.”

…but apparently, by roc standards, it wasn’t bad at all.

No reason to turn down a compliment, I guess.

“Phew… Well, we did it. That’s one big job finished, and now we can rest easy again,” I said as I leaned into Lilil’s big, fluffy mythical beast form, then breathed in deeply. I was too exhausted to walk down the mountain myself, so I’d ended up hitching a ride on her back. All I could do was hope that she picked a route that didn’t involve plummeting down any sheer cliffsides.

“You should consider taking a nap after we arrive home,” said Lilil. “I can tell just how nervous you were throughout our battle—but take care not to sleep just yet.”

“By human standards, I think I did enough work today to get away with taking it easy for at least a few days straight. Gotta say, though, there’s nothing like some really nice fluff after you’ve worked your heart out!”

I took another moment to bask in the scent of Lilil’s fluff. I’d made that phrase up myself, by the way. You definitely wouldn’t find it in any dictionaries, no matter how hard you looked.

“Ahhh! I wish I could just melt down and meld with your fluff, here and now!”

“That is a sickening image! Cease that talk or get off my back at once!”

“No thanks. I’m staying right up here. I’ve already vented all my stress, and I don’t have any energy left to get me moving again. Ahhh, haaah, haaah…”

“I—I feel…tainted, somehow… Whatever you’re doing is scaring me, so I’ve changed my mind. Go to sleep, now!”

Lilil stopped to roll over, and I spilled off her onto the grass. It was weirdly soft—apparently, she’d gone out of her way to pick a landing spot that would be nice and comfortable for a human. A moment later, she covered my face with the pad of one of her front paws.

“Bwaaah! This is so weird! It’s like someone’s shoving a big, fluffy loaf of bread into my face!” I said.

“Sleep here,” said Lilil. “I would be too concerned to carry you while you were unconscious.”

“Okay, but move your paw first. Actually, maybe don’t—it’s so soft that it feels kinda nice…”

“I truly have to wonder what they taught you at that school for you to turn out like this.”

Whoops. It seemed I was doing some damage to my alma mater’s reputation—but considering I wasn’t particularly attached to the place myself, I was okay with that.

“It was a tough fight,” I said, “but all’s well that ends well, right?”

“Indeed,” said Lilil. “And being as you’ll be living here for years to come, I’m pleased to see that you’ve begun to abandon your strange pretense of self-importance.”

I felt myself suck in a sharp breath, though since Lilil’s paw was still on my face, she probably hadn’t seen it. Her words made me realize something. When I first arrived on the island, I’d been fully prepared to say my good-byes and move along the moment my three-year public service period was over. I’d had no interest in living the slow life on some inconvenient Podunk island in the middle of nowhere.

Now, though? I started to think that it wouldn’t be so bad to stay here permanently. It would mean staying with Lilil, for one thing.

“I might consider sticking around a while longer, assuming you’ll keep supporting me,” I said.

“You bear the responsibilities of a teacher, Freya. Do not think to flee from your pupil,” Lilil replied.

I guess that’s one way of looking at it, yeah. Anyway, I can’t leave before my public service period’s done, assuming I don’t want to lose my license, but nothing says I can’t stick around for longer once those three years are over. I can just put it off for the time being—the decision will still be here three years from now.

And so I drifted off to sleep and soon found myself dreaming about getting smothered by a loaf of bread. I really couldn’t tell you whether it was a good dream or not, honestly.

We stopped by the governor’s estate to give our report on resolving the roc issue, and she thanked us so profusely, you’d think we had saved her lover’s life.

“Thank you so, so much, really! Please, let me pay you back somehow! Any rare alchemy books you’ve been wanting? I’m sure I could get my hands on them!”

“Don’t worry about it, really… But I guess if you insist, a book worth about a million and a half gold would do nicely?” I replied. I had to decline at least once to be polite, but I was worried she’d retract the offer if I acted too humbly, so I had to put in my actual request before she could respond to my refusal.

“How surprisingly greedy of you,” Lilil commented, cocking her human head to one side.

Oh, let me have this! Call it an investment in my future as an alchemist. It’s not like I’m planning on using it to work my way into a life of luxury or anything!

“Oh, no need to worry. That’s nothing,” said Emeline. “Compared to the price of dispatching several hundred troops to slay the roc, it’s truly a small price to pay!”

“I suppose,” Lilil admitted. We’d resolved the biggest crisis to face Seajade Island in who even knows how long, so we’d earned this much of a reward. We were basically heroes!

“Just let me know if you would like something as well, Lilil,” Emeline added. “You fulfilled your duty as this island’s guardian mythical beast with aplomb, after all!”

“Tuna.”

For a moment, Emeline and I couldn’t comprehend Lilil’s words.

“The roc told us she had been eating a fish called ‘tuna,’ did she not?” Lilil continued. “Seeing as I have the opportunity, I would like to try one as well.”

Tuna were quite large. Sounds like the fishermen are going to have to work up a sweat pretty soon.

We left the governor’s estate, then wandered through the village before heading back toward the workshop. I glanced up toward the mountain as we walked, and I noted that the roc wasn’t flying around its peak. Maybe she was keeping a low profile, or maybe she’d gone out to sea to hunt for food. Either way, it was a nice, peaceful moment.

“This was one heck of a job to take on, considering I only just became a licensed alchemist,” I said. “I think I’ve earned a few days off, personally.”

“You spend most of your time lazing around. Every day is a day off for you,” commented Lilil.

“Well, that’s rude… And if that’s how it’s going to be, I think it’s about time you started trying your hand at mixing some herbal blends. It’d be illegal to sell your creations, but as long as a real alchemist like me is around to supervise, adding it to your training regimen should be no problem.”

“Oooh, yes! Yes, please! I’ve grown so tired of reading books day in and day out!” Lilil exclaimed. I thought she could do with a little more time to build up basic knowledge, truth be told, but I just couldn’t say no to her. I was starting to notice how soft I could be to my apprentice.

“I figure it’ll be a while before we have to deal with any other big problems, so might as well take the chance to drill the basics of medicine making into you. I think you might start respecting me a little more once you realize how hard my work is!”

“It is only because you speak so flippantly that I find it difficult to respect you now, in spite of how incredible you truly are.”

“Sorry? Didn’t catch that!”

We took a moment longer to say hello to a few villagers, then made our way back to the workshop. I’d once again only be opening for business in the afternoon…but for some reason, someone was already standing before the front door.

Does someone need emergency treatment? I wondered. They didn’t look like they were in any particular hurry, and they weren’t from the village. It was a woman with hair that had a bluish tinge and facial features that carried a distinctly elegant air. Her dress contributed to that impression as well—it looked quite expensive, like the sort of outfit a noble would wear on a day out. Not to talk down to the locals or anything, but it definitely wasn’t the sort of outfit any of the islanders would wear. She was also unusually tall—probably at least a head taller than I was.

Did the alchemy society send someone to check in on me? I wondered. The visit my academic advisor had paid me hadn’t been an official inspection, so it was possible I was due for one of those. Maybe the mysterious woman was here to make sure the island’s fledgling alchemist was doing her job properly.

“Hi! Can I help you?” I said, looking up at the woman as I stepped closer and struck up a conversation. I couldn’t help but look up to her in a literal sense when I looked her in the eye, since she was so tall.

“Ms. Freya!” the woman exclaimed. “You were out of the house! I see now!”

Okay, so she knows my name. Maybe she really is here to inspect the shop?

“Um, the workshop isn’t open for business just yet today,” I said. “Can I ask what precisely you’re here for?”

“Oh, I’m not a customer!” said the woman. “It just occurred to me that I’ve never studied alchemy in the slightest, so I decided it was time for me to try my hand at it! How would you feel about teaching me the basics?”

Huh? She’s here to ask for an apprenticeship? And she’s heard my name, which only people from the Institute should have any way of knowing…

“Well, uh, I’ve actually only just become a full-fledged alchemist myself! I’m not accomplished enough to have a bunch of students under my wing just yet…,” I said.

“‘Not accomplished enough’? That’s ridiculous! You defeated me in stunning fashion, didn’t you? I won’t deny—I have no intention of making excuses for myself!”

Wait, what?

At that point, Lilil leaned in toward the woman and sniffed. “I don’t like the way this woman smells,” she growled. “She reeks of roc!”

What?!

“Naturally. After all, I am the roc Natia, in the flesh!” the woman said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Wait just a second!” I yelped. “Rocs can turn into people?!”

“It’s a natural skill to pick up when you’ve lived long enough. The size of my true form can be quite inconvenient!” Natia replied. “Now then, back to business. How would you feel about taking me on as your pupil? I’ve become ever so interested in learning the ways of an art you humans have spent so many years perfecting!”

“No! Be gone!” shouted Lilil. “This workshop has room for only one pupil, and that spot has been filled! If you can take on a human form, go find yourself a school in the capital to study at!”

Natia sighed heavily. “If I were to live in the capital, how would I ever stretch my wings and fly about in my true form? It’s tremendously cramped there, isn’t it? And why would I ever travel so far when the perfect source of knowledge is right here at my doorstep?” Natia threw her arms in the air as if to say the idea wasn’t even worth considering. We hadn’t told anyone Natia’s name yet, so the fact that she identified herself as such ruled out the possibility of her being an imposter. “I wouldn’t dream of getting in the way of your work, of course! You can teach me whenever you have a moment to spare. How does that sound?”

It sounded hard. I had no confidence I could handle training multiple pupils at once. If Professor Mystille learned about this, I knew for a fact she’d tease me about how I’d become oh so respectable since she last saw me. But on the other hand, could I really drive away a bird who lived at the very top of the island, both literally and ecologically? If she got it in her head to get revenge, she could have probably torn down the whole workshop in three minutes flat…

“I’m sure I’ll be a much better student than the little wolfling you have under your wing now anyway. I have a much higher capacity for learning than her kind,” Natia added, pointing at Lilil without even looking at her.

“I have traveled to the far corners of the world, I’ll have you know!” Lilil shouted. “You, on the other hand, have taken up residence on this island without so much as bothering to pay your respects to its guardian mythical beast—what right do you have to be so arrogant?! Greet me properly, then we will talk!”

This discussion between two mighty creatures of legend devolved into a petty, childish shouting match as I, the mere human, looked on. We’d only just gotten to the workshop, and I already wanted to turn right around and go back to the governor’s estate.

Actually, maybe I should go back, borrow an Orb of Telepathy, and ask the professor for advice? This isn’t a problem I can solve on my own!

“Gimme some time to think it over, okay? I need to talk with the governor before I make any decisions,” I said.

“Oh, you need to go to the governor’s estate? In that case…”

The elegant woman standing before me transformed into a giant crimson bird.

“…I’ll carry you there in a jiffy! Come on, don’t be shy! Consider it a freebie, no repayment needed!”

As I gazed up at the roc before me, a thought crossed my mind: Small-time alchemists who live on isolated islands sure do have their fair share of unique problems, huh…?

I had more important things on my mind, though.

“Hey, so… Do you think I could hug your belly?”

“I—I beg your pardon?”

“Hug, please!”

“Well, if it’s just a slight touch, then I suppose…”

I stepped up to the roc and leaned right into her feathery body. Oooh, wow. It’s like being buried in an ultra-luxury comforter! Not that I’ve ever actually tried one of those for myself, but I’m positive this is pretty close to what it’d feel like. What other thing in this world could possibly envelop me with such a gentle, soothing touch?! It’s not quite like fluff, though. This is a smoother sort of texture. This is kindness given form! The physical manifestation of love and affection! Motherhood itself!

“Ah.” I sighed. “I get it now. This is that special privilege all moms have… I really get it now… I understand everything…”

“You’re, um, clinging a little close there, huh…? Maybe that’s enough for now…?”

“A mom… Everyone and everything’s mom… This must be how the most legendary Artifact in history, the philosopher’s stone, is synthesized!”

Suddenly, an incredibly powerful force peeled me off Natia’s belly.

“My apologies,” Lilil said after tearing me from my feathery heaven. “I sensed we would be here for ages if I allowed that to continue.”

I wanted to complain, but since Natia was nodding in agreement, I decided to keep quiet. I’d been ousted by majority vote.

“Ah, that was great,” I said. “I never knew birds could be so soft… All right, Natia. I’ll take you on as my pupil.”

“…I appreciate the offer. I’ll consider it and get back to you.”

“You’re the one who asked for it, aren’t you?! Why would you have to think about it?!”

Where’s the logic there?!

“I knew exceptional alchemists and mages tended to have unique personalities, but I didn’t think you’d be quite so eccentric…”

Hey, Professor Mystille? You know how you told me I had some personality issues? Well, I guess you were right. Twisted personality or not, though, I think I’ll get along just fine on this tropical island I’ve found myself on. It might be a while before I’m back on the mainland, what with all the students I’ve picked up and all, but you’ll be more than welcome the next time you have a chance to visit.

Oh, and when you do come by, feel free to bring souvenirs! Some nice sweets from the capital would be great, please and thank you!

The End

Hello, and thank you very much for reading The Alchemist’s Fluffy Island Getaway! I hope you enjoyed reading about the trials and tribulations of a fledgling alchemist as she comes into her own as a working professional.

A few years ago, I had a phase in which I went around looking at herb gardens. As I looked out over a frankly outrageous variety of herbs, it struck me that, when all was said and done, pretty much all plants in the world could be used for medicine somehow. The Japanese-style Royal Garden in Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima was especially impressive and left a real impression on me.

Now, when I was writing about the gardens on Seajade Island, I wasn’t picturing them as Japanese-style…but my visit to Aizuwakamatsu definitely planted the idea in my mind that every alchemist’s workshop should have a garden. This story is set on an island with a rather warm climate, though, so just try to imagine a garden with palm trees and the like in the background!

Oh, and I remember the souvenir corner in the Royal Garden featuring an area where you could sample interesting drinks, like medicinal or mushroom tea. I remember sipping the piping hot tea and truly feeling as though my stamina were recovering. That happened forever ago, though, so who knows if that’s actually what it’s like… You may be thinking to yourself, “I thought this was a special memory, and yet you’re sitting here questioning it? Did it really stand out at all?” and I promise you, it did! It’s just that a bunch of other memories have gotten mixed up along with it…

Anyway, that’s what inspired me to write this story. Freya’s a bit of a loose cannon, and I’m sure she’ll keep getting herself into all sorts of trouble, but I hope you’ll watch over her and her antics, no matter where they end up taking her.

I’d like to give my thanks to Matsuuni for providing the many wonderful illustrations for this novel! I especially love the cover—it has the exact relaxing atmosphere I envisioned. It’s perfect! Considering how exasperating Freya’s personality can be in the story, even I, its author, was a little shocked to see that she could smile so serenely! I have to imagine that mere seconds afterward, Freya probably said something infuriating to Lilil that totally ruined the moment. There were moments while I was writing the story when even I thought, Sheesh, she’s kinda the worst, (LOL). Then again, she really is a good person at heart despite her obnoxious tendencies, so I’m sure she’ll keep getting by. I hope that all my readers will keep cheering her and her friends on!

Freya never managed to make any friends in her student days, but with Lilil on the island to support her, I think her social life will take a turn for the better this time around. Deep down, Lilil certainly sees her as more of a friend than a teacher, and Freya doesn’t seem to have a problem with that.

I think there’s a bunch of ways someone could be bad at making friends. Lilil and Emeline are both lacking in the friends department, for instance. Their circumstances are almost totally unlike Freya’s, but they’re similar in the sense that they don’t have anyone they can casually chat and laugh about mundanities with. I hope I’ve created a world here where people like them can enjoy each other’s company at an easy, comfortable distance. Speaking as someone with few friends myself, I can truly appreciate the need for that!

Incidentally, the initial concept for this story involved Freya being a less abrasive, more easygoing person. When I tried to write her that way, however, her lack of emotional ups and downs made it really hard to make her story interesting, so I decided to ramp up her personality just a little and start fresh. Everything was so much easier after that one little change—the slightest tweak to a character’s personality can have a huge influence on the course of a story.

I went through the same thing about seven or eight years ago with a different story, actually—though in that case, I decided to tweak the personality of that story’s heroine just a little to make her a little gloomier. Sort of the opposite of Freya’s progression. It still made the story easier to write, though.

The strangest part is that when I was writing her in her initial upbeat manner, it almost felt fake. That made no sense—she was a character I had written myself—but it just felt like she was putting up a front, even to me. I felt like she needed to let her real personality shine through, or the story wouldn’t be any good. Then when I toned her energy down a bit and made her a little more sarcastic, it all clicked: That was her real personality. Every character has a personality that suits them best, and while tracking those down can be tough, it also makes for a really fun time. In Freya’s case, her current cheeky attitude feels much more fitting than how I initially wrote her.

One final note—this series currently has a collaboration ongoing with I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years! Please check it out! I hope that all those who came into this series fresh and all those who had already read Killing Slimes before picking up this book find something they can appreciate in both series!

That’s all for now! See you next time!

Kisetsu Morita

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The Alchemist’s Fluffy Island Getaway Vol 1

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