Chapter 05
My sharply raised voice dropped into the narrow, dark alley.
“What are you looking at?”
The man standing below raised one eyebrow.
His face was covered except for his eyes, so I couldn’t see his expression, but his gaze clearly said he found me utterly bewildering.
Sweat began to seep from my palm, which was tightly gripping the branch, soaking into my glove.
A thought occurred to me.
Could he be one of the guild members sent by that mysterious man?
Could he have followed me so I wouldn’t be able to escape?
However—
“……”
The man who had been looking up at me let out a short, incredulous laugh, then turned around and disappeared into the alley.
Huh?
“…What?”
I stared blankly after him from my perch in the tree.
So I guess he wasn’t with the guild.
Well, if he really had been one of them, there was no way he would have openly revealed himself like that right in front of me.
Judging by how they secretly left potions at the Grand Duke’s residence without making a sound, they didn’t seem like the type to reveal themselves easily.
Phew. I got scared for nothing.
I let out a sigh of relief and slid down the tree trunk.
I should hurry up, buy what I need, and go back.
I didn’t want the innocent escort knights to get punished or reprimanded because of me.
Sure, I was playing the role of a crazy princess, but I had never intended to cause that much trouble.
Today really couldn’t be helped. If I couldn’t make the hemostatic medicine, a lot of people could get hurt…
I hurried deeper into the alley.
Fortunately, my memory had been accurate.
Before leaving the Grand Duke’s residence, I had casually asked Celine about the location of a jewelry shop, coaxing her into describing every single shop in the surrounding area.
How could a child explain things so clearly and precisely, as if she were unfolding a map right in front of me?
Oh, what a clever little thing.
I should buy her a present on the way back.
Ding-a-ling—.
Remembering Celine’s directions, I opened the door of a herbal shop painted green and stepped inside.
Wow.
The moment I entered the shop, every cell in my body seemed to cheer.
The sharp yet fragrant, slightly bitter scent that rushed into my nose was exactly the same smell I had always breathed in at my little cottage in the southern region.
Ah, this is exciting.
This is it. This is exactly what I needed.
Glass bottles and wooden drawers lined every wall of the shop.
Each bottle contained leaves, roots, flower petals, or powders of different colors, while bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling.
There were small scales, mortars and pestles, metal tweezers, and even sealed boxes designed to keep fragrances from escaping.
Ah, seriously. If I wanted to, I felt like I could spend the entire day playing around in here.
I never expected to find such a gem tucked away in some corner of the Grand Duchy.
I took out the piece of paper I had prepared beforehand and approached the counter.
“Would it be possible to get the herbs on this list?”
The shopkeeper, who had been sorting a batch of newly arrived herb pouches, took the paper from me.
His fingertips were stained green, and the skin on the backs of his hands was rough and cracked. They were unmistakably the hands of someone who had been handling herbs for many years.
He scanned the list, then made a low sound.
“Hmm. I should have the others, but I’ll have to check for Crovein. Please wait a moment.”
“Yes, of course! Please look carefully! I really need it!”
“Certainly.”
The shopkeeper gave a warm chuckle and headed up the stairs to the second floor.
The moment he left, I began casually inspecting the herb pouches beside the counter.
Judging by the way the pouches had been left open, these must have been newly delivered. The shopkeeper had apparently been in the middle of sorting the herbs that had just arrived.
That was when—
Creeeak.
Someone came down the stairs from the second floor.
Thinking the shopkeeper was already coming back, I turned my head without much thought—
—and froze.
Huh…?
A dark navy hood.
A black mask covering more than half of his face beneath it.
And black eyes.
It was the very same man who had stared intently up at me from beneath the tree in the alley a little while ago.
I looked back and forth between the man and the staircase.
Oh. What?
He wasn’t following me. He was just another customer who happened to come to this herbal shop?
Well, I supposed it must have been pretty strange to see some woman climbing a tree on his way to buy herbs.
Only then did I understand why he had stared blankly up at me earlier.
Feeling awkward for no reason, I lowered my gaze before our eyes could meet.
Just then, the man walked over to the counter and reached for one of the herb pouches the shopkeeper had been sorting.
The moment his large hand picked up a red leaf from inside the pouch—
Oh!
You can’t touch that like that!
I instinctively rushed over and smacked the back of his large hand.
“Hey! You’ll go blind if you handle that carelessly!”
“……”
The leaf fell from his fingertips and slipped back into the pouch.
Then the man slowly turned his head toward me.
He looked at me as though he had no idea what had just happened, then tilted his head slightly.
“…Go blind?”
“Yes. It hasn’t been processed yet, so it still contains toxins.”
The man asked,
“Do you know much about this herb?”
“Of course I know a lot abou—”
I was about to answer proudly when I suddenly looked up at him.
“But when did we become so close that you can speak informally to me?”
The man looked at me dryly.
“You were the one who spoke informally first.”
“Oh.”
He was right.
Lately, I had gotten so immersed in playing the role of a crazy princess that I had unconsciously slipped into it again…
Ahem.
I cleared my throat and hurriedly lowered my voice into something more calm and demure.
“I’m sorry. It’s become a habit.”
“Speaking informally?”
“Well, something like that.”
“……”
When I brushed it off so vaguely, the man didn’t press the matter any further.
And I changed the subject back to the herb.
“This is Redoct. The bright red leaves are so pretty and eye-catching that people don’t suspect anything and just reach out to touch them, you know? But beautiful things are always poisonous, right? This one is too.”
Since I was finally talking about my field of expertise—herbs—I happily chattered away.
The man didn’t interrupt me.
Instead, he quietly asked questions as though genuinely interested.
“So it isn’t an herb, but a poisonous plant?”
When I switched to polite speech, he naturally did the same.
“Hmm, that’s a little ambiguous.”
I pointed at the leaves of the Redoct.
“Officially, it is considered an herb. But that’s only after it’s been processed.”
Normally, Redoct was sold in processed form.
It was extremely rare for unprocessed red leaves like these to circulate as they were today.
“Once it’s processed, the toxicity disappears, but its analgesic effect drops to one-tenth. At that point, it becomes nothing more than an expensive painkiller for relieving nobles’ migraines.”
“……”
A strange glint appeared in the man’s pitch-black eyes as he listened to me.
Apparently, he found what I was saying rather interesting.
“Most people don’t know what kind of toxicity those unprocessed red leaves contain. So if I had to classify it, I’d call it a poisonous herb. Of course, there is a formulation that can remove the toxicity while preserving its strong analgesic effect, but…”
I stopped midsentence when I suddenly remembered something more urgent.
“Ah! Wait! That’s not important right now!”
I pulled a handkerchief from beneath my cloak.
Then I grabbed the man’s wrist.
His large, calloused hand stiffened for a moment at my touch.
“Wait—”
Ignoring his attempt to stop me, I began carefully rubbing his palm with the handkerchief.
“There’s an invisible powder clinging to the leaves, you see? Washing it with water would be best, but since this is urgent for now…”
“……”
Perhaps he was nervous because I was wiping away the poison, but the man remained silent for a while.
I carefully wiped between his fingers and even along the lines of his palm.
Then I looked up and smiled brightly.
“All clean!”
Hehe.
I looked into the man’s black eyes.
Aside from his large physique, they were practically the only part of his face I could see.
“Still, just in case, don’t rub your eyes with your hands or put your fingers in your mouth for a while, okay? Understand? Bad! Bad!”
I also added that he shouldn’t go around carelessly touching things in a herbal shop like this.
The man quietly listened to my torrent of nagging before eventually answering in a slow voice.
“…I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You don’t have to take it that seriously.”
I let out a small giggle.
Just then, the shopkeeper came back down from the second floor and returned to the counter.
“I’ve brought the item you were looking for, miss!”
“Oh, really?”
I quickly hurried over to the counter.
The shopkeeper set down several small bundles and said,
“I did find a very small amount of Crovein left. How much would you like?”
“All of it!”
Before someone else could take it, I quickly answered.
Completely forgetting about the man standing behind me—
—and the handkerchief I had left in his palm.
Ding-a-ling—.
The shop door opened with a clear chime, and a small woman whose face was tightly wrapped in a scarf dashed out like the wind, clutching a pouch of herbs protectively against her chest.
The door closed, and silence returned to the shop.
Then a man who had been standing in the corner of the second-floor staircase silently approached Baron from behind.
It was his aide, Roan Meyer.
He adjusted his glasses and asked Baron,
“Do you know her, Your Grace? You seemed to have quite a long conversation. You even held her hand rather affectionately.”
Baron answered curtly.
“…I’ve never seen her before.”
Or perhaps this was the second time.
Once in the tree, and once here.
When she had skillfully climbed the tree, clinging to a thin branch and giggling, she had looked every bit like a madwoman.
But just now, she had been different.
She had recognized Redoct and even knew that poisonous powder clung to its surface.
A pharmacist, perhaps.
Baron briefly looked down at the handkerchief the woman had left behind in his palm.
Then he folded it and placed it inside his inner pocket.
“She seemed to know a great deal about poisonous herbs.”
“Poisonous herbs? You mean the woman who just left?”
Roan’s eyes gleamed with interest as he looked toward the closed shop door.
“She looked like a commoner, judging by her clothes.”
Roan spoke with a puzzled expression.
In fact, within the Castillo Empire, anyone wishing to receive an education in herbs or poisonous plants had to either attend a specialized institution or acquire extremely expensive books on the subject.
For a commoner, it was almost impossible.
Even throughout the entire empire, there were very few people who could perfectly understand and handle the properties of poisonous plants.
That was why, from the perspective of the Grand Duke’s knights—who were constantly exposed to monster poison—and Baron himself, an individual possessing such knowledge was more valuable than anything.
“If Your Grace says so, she must have some rather useful knowledge… Shall I follow her?”
“No.”
Baron answered firmly.
“This is more important right now.”
He held out the pouch containing the Redoct that the woman had just been scolding him not to touch.
“Is this all of it?”
At Baron’s question, the shopkeeper bowed his head.
“Yes, Your Grace. That is all the Redoct we currently have. I had it set aside because I thought Your Grace might come looking for it today.”
“Give me all of it.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Redoct.
Baron also knew exactly what kind of plant it was, as well as what kind of toxicity its unprocessed leaves contained.
Even so, there was a simple reason he had gone to such lengths to obtain it.
There was no better painkiller.
Especially for knights writhing in agony after being poisoned by mutated monsters, it was important to retain the full analgesic effect of unprocessed Redoct, even if that meant risking its toxicity.
Just before Baron left the shop with the herbs, the shopkeeper spoke.
“If I manage to obtain more of the herbs you requested, I’ll contact you immediately! Take care on your way back, Your Grace.”
“I’ll be counting on you.”
“Yes, Your Grace!”
After leaving the herbal shop, Baron mounted his warhorse and tossed the pouch of Redoct to Roan, who was standing beside him.
“Give this to Silier. Have him use it on the knights immediately.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Silier was a physician belonging to the Grand Duke’s household, stationed at the encampment established for the monster subjugation, where he treated the injured knights.
Roan carefully accepted the pouch before asking,
“Where will you be going? Are you returning to the encampment?”
Baron gripped the reins and stared for a moment at the tree at the entrance to the alley, where the woman had been clinging earlier.
After a brief silence, he turned his horse around and said,
“…I’m going to the Grand Duke’s residence.”
