Magic Tools Are Selling Too Well

The atmosphere in the workshop became icy cold.

Morphine kneeling, me with rising irritation, Delia fidgeting uneasily.
A suffocating silence enveloped this small space between us.
Suddenly, I felt like smoking.

I tried to maintain my composure as much as possible and asked Morphine.

“Morphine. Do you know what you’re saying right now?”

But I couldn’t help my question to Morphine from becoming sharp without me realizing it.
Anyone in the Alchemy Department would have become as sensitive as I did if faced with this situation.

Morphine flinched slightly at my words, then slowly answered.

“Yes. I fully understand that it’s a rude and presumptuous request. But…”
“See. You don’t know.”

Despite trying to pretend otherwise, my irritation rose and I ended up cutting off Morphine’s words.
I still felt that Morphine didn’t understand the seriousness.

Drrrr-

I pulled over a chair from the workshop and sat down.
Then, pressing my temples, I slowly continued speaking.

“Morphine. Let me explain it simply. What you just said is like asking a magician to take off and give you one of the magic circuits engraved on their body over a long time. It’s like asking a hero swordsman for one of their favorite swords they often use. To an alchemist, the manufacturing method and ratio have that level of significance.”

I was angry that a hero aspirant learning alchemy didn’t have this level of common sense.

This was a matter of basic mindset, regardless of being a freshman or not.

“I hate to say it myself, but my potion is the best-selling among the potions of all the top researchers. Because of its highest performance. But they all have their own manufacturing methods and ratios, and this is a title I’ve earned in that fair competition. You’re trying to take that without any compensation, just because you’re a junior close to me. Do you understand?”
“……”
“Even if I teach you the manufacturing ratio, will it really help you? I’ll guarantee you this. Once I teach you this, no matter what ratio you use to make health potions in the future, you’ll think of the manufacturing ratio I taught you. Even if you try to deny it, the method I taught will be stuck in your perception like a preconception. Do you think that’s normal? Morphine. Then you’ll become a half-baked alchemist who can’t even make a single health potion with your own strength. Does your conscience allow that?”

Only after pouring all this out did I calm down a bit.

Morphine was silently accepting my verbal outburst without saying anything.
Delia, a third party, was looking at us with teary eyes as if she had done something wrong herself.

Seeing that, I could finally turn my thoughts in a different direction.
I thought that maybe Morphine had his reasons too.
It was still an outrageous request no matter how you looked at it, but I was also overly emotional right now.

“Hah… Say something at least, you fool. You must have had a reason for blurting out a request you yourself thought was rude.”
“……”

Morphine’s mouth didn’t seem to want to open easily.
Instead, as if deeply regretting his mistake, he hung his head low.

I let out a small sigh too.

Actually, I could have said everything I wanted to say and just left the workshop.
But I didn’t really want to go that far.
Everyone can make mistakes, and I considered these two juniors in front of me as my people.
The bond I had built with them in a short time had grown bigger than I thought within me.
Although I was irritated and very angry, my honest feeling was that I wanted to resolve this nicely if possible.

“Sigh… I feel awkward when the guy who usually talks a lot is quiet. Be like this sometimes usually, will you? Get up now. Foxtail, you sit down too.”
“Y-yes…!”

I forcibly lifted Morphine, who was still kneeling, and made him sit on a chair.

Delia’s expression also brightened noticeably as she hurriedly sat down.
It seems she thinks I’ve calmed down a bit.

As the three of us sat down ready to talk with a desk in front of us, Morphine stared at the desk with a dark expression for a while.
Then he heavily spoke his first words.

“I’m… sorry, Senior. I made a big mistake…”
“Pfft. Ah.”

Ah.
I was greatly embarrassed by the strong sneer that surprised even me when I let it out.

This is bad.
I shouldn’t do this in this atmosphere.

Without realizing it, really without realizing it, it just burst out.
Morphine making such an apology with such a serious face didn’t exist in my imagination.
It was an unfamiliar sight that didn’t match his usual image at all.

Before I had time to react to this sight I was seeing for the first time, laughter just came out in an instant.

“Sorry. It was just too funny suddenly. Really sorry. Continue what you were going to say.”

It was the moment when my dignity as a senior, which I had been maintaining while lashing out just a minute ago, crumbled.

When I glanced at Delia, she too was desperately trying to hold back her laughter.

“Kuh… Kuh…”

Foxtail.
If you try to hold back your laughter while pinching your thigh like that, it becomes hard for me to hold back too.

I bit my lip and turned my head away from Morphine.
Then my eyes met Delia’s green eyes, who was also turning her head away.
We desperately turned our heads again, looking for another direction.

In the end, our lost gazes collided simultaneously in mid-air.

“Kuhk… Kuhk…”
“Puhahaha. Oh. I can’t hold it. Puhaha.”
“Kukukuh…”

Unable to hold it in, we burst out laughing heartily.

Even Morphine, who had been so serious, smiled and lightened up after watching Delia and me laugh for a while.

Thanks to this, the atmosphere could be refreshed like when we first entered the workshop.

“Whew, laughing makes me feel so much better. Foxtail. You can hold it in better than I thought?”
“I laughed because you laughed, Senior…”

In the lightened atmosphere, I tapped the desk and asked Morphine.

“So what is it? What you were going to say. Spit it out clearly.”
“First, I apologize once again, Senior. I was somewhat aware, but I didn’t realize it was such a disrespectful request to an alchemist. I made such a big mistake to you, Senior…”
“Morphine, please.”

This guy tries to write a letter in conversation whenever he gets the chance.

Why is he bringing up past conversations again while laughing and chatting?
It was a moment when I briefly missed the quiet Morphine from just a few minutes ago.

Morphine closed his mouth and interlocked his fingers, bringing them to his head.
Now that he was about to speak, it seemed to be a burden.

I calmly waited for that time.
I hadn’t thought about it earlier, but seeing him like this now, it seemed like there was some circumstance.

And Morphine painfully opened his mouth.

“My mother… is a bit sick.”

He calmly continued his story.

Many nobles and rich people live in Felix, the imperial capital of the Apelice Empire.
Various industries of the empire such as commerce, diplomacy, and politics were concentrated there, and above all, it was the city where the Imperial Academy was established, so it was natural for nobles and rich people to gather in the imperial capital.

But just like in any city, there were also poor commoners in the imperial capital.
Most of them were settled on the outskirts of the imperial capital, and even then, rather than living above ground, many of them rented small semi-basements in each house to live in.

Morphine was also an ordinary citizen living in such a semi-basement house with his mother.

His father left home when Morphine was five years old, saying he couldn’t stand the poverty, but his mother raised Morphine steadfastly alone.
As a woman, she worked at a mana stone factory to earn living expenses for the mother and son.
Although there were many lonely times in the small and cramped house, Morphine was happy during the short times he spent with his mother.

His mother, who had been so healthy, suddenly fell ill two years ago when Morphine was just sixteen years old.
His mother, who fell ill with an unknown cause, wasn’t sick enough to be on the brink of death, but she couldn’t easily get up from her sickbed.
The small economy of Morphine’s household that had been turning began to stop, and the food in the house started to run out.

From then on, Morphine started working whatever jobs he could find.
From the most basic newspaper delivery, to working as a waiter in restaurants and bars, running errands for occasional heroes, and even manual labor like repairing city gates.
Not many places would accept a young boy like him, but he somehow managed to get jobs and would leave for work at dawn and return home at night.
All the while trembling with anxiety every moment about whether something might happen to his mother lying at home while he was out.

“Mother. Do you know what happened today? Well, while I was delivering newspapers, I ran into Hajins who lives upstairs. Can you believe we just happened to meet while both delivering? I heard he came to deliver newspapers because his pocket money was too little. Can you believe it? That stiff and blunt guy delivering newspapers. Even a passing dog wouldn’t believe it, hahaha. Oh, and at the restaurant where I worked in the evening…”

Morphine always unraveled his bundle of stories for his mother who must have been bored all day.

He tried to stretch even short stories into long conversations as much as possible.
He made efforts to squeeze out seemingly interesting stories from boring daily life.

Fortunately, his mother listened to those uninteresting stories with a smile every day.
How could conversations with her son, who left in the morning and returned late at night, not be interesting?
Thanks to this, it seemed like the happy daily life of the mother and son was returning a little.

But betraying Morphine’s expectations, his mother’s condition gradually worsened.
She often had cold sweats and fever, and the frequency of her coughing increased.
There were countless times when she vomited the food and water she had eaten.

Even when entrusted to a clergyman at a nearby church, treatment was impossible with the power of a lower-ranking clergyman.
Morphine wanted to somehow find a high-ranking clergyman to examine his mother, but that was a cost he couldn’t possibly afford with the money he earned alone.

In a semi-basement house on the outskirts of the imperial capital, his mother was slowly dying.

“That was the first time. When I learned about potions and tried to do something by buying them and making my mother drink them.”

Morphine was calmly telling his gloomy family history.