[Solo/Crafting/Event] Basic Chemistry

[Aila]

anyone's any
was all to her

“A dinner party, huh? I wonder if there’ll be fancy food and dresses. Ahhh, I’d sure like to attend…”


Aila mumbled, looking up at the advertisement hanging on a bulletin board specifically designed for requests to adventurers. She’d come to see if there were any easy quests she could do to gain some quick pocket change and invaluable experience, only to find a rather popular request. It was from some sort of well-known chef asking for crafting items from all of the adventurers to serve a large dinner party. All in all, it was a rather fine idea from the chef, enlisting the help of a large and creative populace such as the adventurers to help with a grand dinner party. Managing the supply of materials and creation of specific items would be difficult by himself, or even with a committee of members, but requesting for all the required and desired results from a separate contractor removed much of the stress of the task. Why do everything yourself when you can just get people to do it for you? Smart and something that adventurers, who are used to a quest or event system, would easily do without much thought.

But that was enough of suspecting the manipulative mastermind behind the request. It’d do well to join in on the event while she could. It was a shame that she had changed her job from chef though, since there seemed to be a lot for chefs to do. Still, there were a couple of pharmacist items requested so she wasn’t completely useless here.


“Which one? Appetizer or Antacid…”


Aila bent over to take a closer look at the requested drugs. Her crafting options were to produce an appetite inducer or some stomach medicine. The appetite inducer seemed more useful but… the costs of the materials were a bit high for her wallet, even if she was recompensed later. On contrast, the antacid elixir was cheaper. Besides, she wasn’t too comfortable with making brain-controlling drugs. Some helpful medicine seemed like a much nicer idea.

---

WC: 342
Notes:


[Italics= English; Underline = German, Bold = Italian, Nothing = Japanese)

by sixsmith.

[Aila]

anyone's any
was all to her

“Good afternoon, miss.”


“Good afternoon, Aila-chan. Did you come for some herbs?”


An old lady smiled at Aila as the girl slid into the small corner store. The elderly woman sported dry, curly white hair, a large, wrinkled nose, and several missing teeth. The stereotypical image of a witch would fit her nicely, but the young Druid knew her as a kind, woman who treated her nicely.


The shop Aila had slipped into was an apothecary. Shelves and baskets lined the store floor, filled with herbs, roots, and miscellaneous plants. A farther corner, lighted only by a lone candle, held more grotesque ingredients, ranging from slime balls to monster organs. After visiting it once, Aila desired to never return.


“Yes, I’ll be brewing a few potions today. May I ask if you have the following ingredients?”


Of course, Aila’s motive was to acquire materials for the elixir. She had scribbled down a list of necessary materials beforehand from the distributed recipes. Luckily, as she had predicted, the ingredients were cheap and common. It’d be a surprise if the corner apothecary didn’t have any.


“Alright, let me see here… hmm, I’ve got everything but salt.”


The old witch took the grocery list, squinted at it for a few seconds, and checked off almost everything there but the mentioned ingredient.


“Ah, if it’s just salt, I have some of my own.”


Aila remarked. What she didn’t mention was that the salt was leftover ingredients from her time as a chef. What she would never mention was that she had thought she was buying sugar and ended up with the saltiest cake humanity had ever witnessed, or tasted. It was a tale never to be told… or recorded through text.


“Well then, let me get those herbs for you.”


The witch offered and began to get off of her seat to retrieve the requested materials. Evidently, she struggled to even get down due to her old age. This, of course, didn’t sit well with Aila.


“Ah, that’s okay. I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself, miss. I’ll go get them myself. Can you tell me where they are?”


She shot a generous smile at the old woman and energetically began strolling through the aisles to pick out ingredients.


“What a good girl…” The old lady thought, as she observed Aila’s shopping. “Still not giving her a discount though.”


In the end, Aila was charged a rather cheap fee for rather cheap ingredients.

---

WC: 409
Notes:


[Italics= English; Underline = German, Bold = Italian, Nothing = Japanese)

by sixsmith.

[Aila]

anyone's any
was all to her

"Now, then, time to pharmacize!!!"

Aila announced enthusiastically as she sat before a needlessly large pot…outside… on the ground… in the field outside the city… alone. It was to be noted that she was far from the richest of adventurers and owned no dwelling of her own. She currently resided in a relatively cheap room in a relatively expensive inn since she had yet to afford to buy land. Without private property or guild property to craft in, the amateur pharmacist resorted to using the most public property of all, the hunting grounds. Of course, she stuck extremely close to Londinium, bordering the outskirts of the city. It would be awkward to be stirring a giant pot in the middle of the streets so she satisfied herself with the delight of outdoor cooking (of potions). Due to her proximity to the city and general harmlessness, the neighboring monsters, mostly slimes, ignored her or curiously dropped by to see what she was making. Little did the slimes know that slime was an useful ingredient for simple potions and could be captured for use. Or perhaps they did know but also knew of Aila’s gentle demeanor. No slimes visited her without a pat on the head and a safe return, once she got used to their sliminess.


Inside the ridiculously large pot was plenty of water along with herbs that reduced acidic effects and plenty of alkalines like salt. It was like cooking a large stew, except without the appetizing aroma. Instead, the fragrance of medicine wafted around Aila, who stubbornly became accustomed to the smell and occasionally stirred the pot. Perhaps, having all the ingredients and the necessary level, Aila could’ve just used the menu to produce the requested elixirs, but that wasn’t as fun as making it yourself. Also, there were rumours that items crafted manually compared to through the menu had a higher quality since it was affected by real-life skills as well. On hindsight though, perhaps the menu was a better choice. Sitting and stirring was boring after the first enthusiastic couple of minutes, and her lack of experience in real life probably meant she was doing it wrong.


“Oh well… I’ll just finish these and do the rest the quick way.”


Aila muttered and returned to work.

---

WC: 380
Notes:


[Italics= English; Underline = German, Bold = Italian, Nothing = Japanese)

by sixsmith.

[Aila]

anyone's any
was all to her

“Hmmm… Note to self: Explosions are scary.”


The truly invaluable life lesson came out of Aila’s lips as she laid on a field of grass and dirt, face planted into the thick, hard trunk of a tree. Honestly, who would’ve guessed that a simple chemical release of thermodynamic forms of energy such as heat, light, and sound could produce enough force to startle and topple a human being? And who could’ve guessed that said human being would be thrown off her feet, across a field, and down a hill, where she would roll and accumulate kinetic energy before face planting into a conveniently placed arboreal construct? And nobody would’ve guessed that said explosion would be caused by the addition of a single drop of herbal extract to a lone, completely safe pot containing an equally harmless amalgam of miscellaneous chemicals and materials. Surely, such an incomprehensible event must be the work of a malicious divine power, such as fate or some demonic god. Either way, the tree bark was starting to dig into her face, so Aila should probably get up now.


“Ow, ow, ow, ow. I think I broke something. Hopefully, it’s not my face.” The young girl complained as she pushed herself off of the ground, rubbing all the sore spots, especially her face. Special care was spent removing dirt and grass from her hair and already shabby attire. As one would expect, she didn’t actually break anything, considering how her adventurer body worked, but a chunk of her hp had been removed without the aggressive assault of an enemy creature.


Journeying back up the slope she had been thrown down, she completely expected to find a small crater and the remains of her precious pot. Much to her elated surprise, no damage had been dealt to anything but her. Instead, a supply of liquid had formed inside of her pot, which summoned the item name description “Antacid Elixir Lv. 1”. There… was a lot less than she remembered adding to the pot, only enough for maybe two vials. Perhaps the explosion ended up scattering some of the liquid onto the grass beneath. Either way, she had managed to produce the requested ingredient. Hopefully, the chef would find her haphazardly produced potions to be satisfactory and give her a sizable reward… hopefully.

---

WC: 384
Notes:
TWC: 1515


[Italics= English; Underline = German, Bold = Italian, Nothing = Japanese)

by sixsmith.