8 – Traumatized junior and foxtail (3)
The atmosphere in the studio became as cold as ice.
Morphine on her knees, me irritable, Delia restless.
In the meantime, a suffocating silence fell over this small space.
I suddenly wanted to smoke.
I asked the morphine, remaining as calm as possible.
“morphine. Do you know what you are talking about?”
But I couldn’t help it, as my questions shot at the morphine became sharper without me realizing it.
Anyone in the Faculty of Alchemy would have been as sensitive as I was when faced with this situation.
Morphine flinched a little at my words, then answered slowly.
“yes. I am fully aware that this is a rude and presumptuous request. but… ”
“Look at that. You don’t know.”
Even if I pretended not to be, I suddenly got annoyed and cut off Morphine’s words.
I still felt that morphine didn’t know how serious it was.
drooling-
I pulled a chair from the workshop and sat down.
Then, pressing down on his temples, he continued to speak slowly.
“morphine. Let me explain in an easy way. What you just said is that, in terms of a wizard, you asked for a magic circuit carved into your body for a long time. He asked the warrior, the swordsman, for a favorite sword he uses often. To an alchemist, recipes and production ratios have that much meaning.”
I was angry that the aspiring warrior who was learning alchemy didn’t have this level of common sense.
Regardless of whether this is a freshman or not, it was a matter of basic mindset.
“I don’t know what to say, but my potion is the best seller among the potions of researchers who claim to be long. for the best performance. But they all have their own recipes and proportions, and this is a title won in that fair competition. You’re just trying to take it for nothing, just because you’re a close junior to me. understand?”
“… … .”
“Even if I taught you the manufacturing ratio, would it really help you? I’ll bet you. If I teach you this once, you will remember the production ratio I told you no matter what ratio you make your health potion in the future. Even if you try to deny it, the recipe I taught you will stick in your perception like prejudice. do you think that’s normal? morphine. Then you become a half-penny alchemist who can’t even make a single health potion on your own. Does your conscience allow it?”
After pouring it out, I calmed down a bit.
Morphine didn’t say anything, just quietly accepting my verbal abuse.
The third party, Delia, was looking at us with weeping eyes as if she had done something wrong.
It was only then that I was able to turn my thoughts in a different direction.
I thought maybe morphine had a reason.
It was an embarrassing request even after cutting the front and back, but now I was also overly emotional.
“ha… Say something, dude. There must be a reason why you insisted on making a request that you yourself thought was rude.”
“… … .”
Morphine’s mouth didn’t think it would come off easily.
Instead, he hung his head, as if he was acutely aware of his mistake.
I too let out a small sigh.
In fact, I could have just said everything and left the workshop.
But I didn’t really want to do that.
Everyone can make mistakes, and I think of these two juniors in front of me as my own.
The bond I had built up with them in a short period of time was bigger than I thought.
I was annoyed and angry, but my honest heart was that I wanted to solve it in a good way if I could.
“Ugh… I feel awkward because the guy who always talks a lot is quiet. Do it normally, usually. stop getting up Foxtail, sit down too.”
“yes yes… !”
I forced Morphine, who was still on her knees, to stand up and sit in a chair.
Delia’s expression brightened noticeably as she hurriedly sat down.
I guess he thinks I’ve let go of my anger.
When the three of them sat down in front of the desk and were in a position to talk, Morphine looked at the desk with a dark expression for a while.
And he uttered the first word heavily.
“crime… I’m sorry, senior. I made a big mistake… ”
“Poop. ah.”
ah.
I was greatly taken aback by the shockingly strong ridicule I spewed out.
ruined.
You shouldn’t be like this in this atmosphere.
Unknowingly, without realizing it, it exploded.
It never existed in my imagination that Morphine would make such an apology with such a sincere face.
An unfamiliar appearance that does not match the usual image.
There was no time to react to the first sight, and laughter came out in an instant.
“sorry. it’s so funny all of a sudden I’m really sorry. Keep talking.”
It was the moment when the dignity of my senior, who had been shooting while holding weight just a minute ago, collapsed.
Glancing at Delia, she too was desperately holding back a laugh.
“Oh…ぅ… ”
puppy grass.
If I hold back my laughter while pinching my thighs like that, I can’t stand it either.
I bit my lip and turned my head away from the morphine.
Then, he met Delia’s green eyes, who were turning their heads in the same way.
We desperately turned our heads again, looking in another direction.
In the end, the eyes that had lost their way collided in the air at the same time.
“Keuk… Kkeuk… ”
“Puhahahahaha. Ah-oh. I can’t stand it. ha ha ha.”
“Keukkeuk… ”
I couldn’t stand it and laughed coldly.
Morphine, who was extremely serious, relaxed her mood with a smile on her lips at the sight of Delia and me smiling for a long time.
Thanks to this, the atmosphere could be refreshed like the moment I first entered the workshop.
“Ah, laughing makes me feel better inside. puppy grass. Are you holding up better than you think?”
“Because you laughed, I laughed too… .”
In a lighter mood, I tapped on the desk and asked for morphine.
“So what the hell is it? what I was trying to say Tell me something cool.”
“I’m sorry once again, senior. I was aware of it to some extent, but I didn’t seem to realize that it was an rude request to an alchemist. I made a big mistake with my senior… ”
“Morphine, please.”
This child tries to write a letter in conversation whenever he has a chance.
Why are you talking about the past while laughing and chatting?
It was a moment of longing for the morphine that had been quiet just a few minutes before.
Morphine closed his mouth, put a pod in his hand, and brought it to his head.
It seemed like a burden to talk about.
I calmly waited for that time.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but looking at it now, it seemed like there was something wrong.
And Morphine struggled to open her mouth.
“mother… You are a little sick.”
He calmly continued his conversation.
* * *
Many nobles and rich people live in Felix, the imperial capital of the Aphelice Empire.
It was a city where various industries such as commerce, diplomacy, and politics of the empire were concentrated, and above all, the imperial academy was established, so it was natural for nobles and rich people to gather in the imperial city.
However, as in any city, there were poor commoners in the imperial capital.
Most of them are located on the outskirts of the ecliptic, but even there were many cases where they paid rent and lived in a small semi-basement in every house, rather than living on the ground.
Morphine was also an ordinary citizen living with her mother in such a semi-basement house.
His father left home when he was five years old because he could not stand poverty, but his mother stubbornly raised morphine alone.
She went to work at the mana stone factory in the body of a woman and earned her mother’s living expenses.
There were many times when he was lonely in a small and narrow house, but Morphine was happy to spend time with his mother, even if it was short.
It was two years ago, when Morphine was only 16 years old, that her mother, who had been so healthy, suddenly became ill.
My mother, who became ill for an unknown cause, was not sick enough to wander about near death, but she could not easily get up from her bed.
The economy of Morphine’s family, which had been running small, began to stop, and the family’s food began to run out.
From then on, Morphine started working randomly.
From the most basic newspaper delivery, to an employee at a restaurant and bar, an errand boy for occasional warriors, and even manual labor such as repairing a castle gate.
Not many places accepted him when he was young, but he somehow managed to get a job, go to work at dawn and come home at night.
While I was out, I was afraid every moment that my mother, who was lying at home, might do something wrong.
“mother. Do you know what happened today? Well, you know Hodgins, who delivers newspapers and lives upstairs from us. Didn’t we just run into each other while making deliveries with him? I heard that he came to deliver newspapers because he was short on pocket money. Can you believe it? That naive and blunt fellow delivers newspapers. Wouldn’t you trust a passing dog, hahahahaha. Oh, and also at the restaurant where I worked in the evening… ”
Morphine always opened a bundle of stories for her mother, who must have been bored all day.
I tried to lengthen the short talk as much as possible and turn it into a long chat.
I tried to create an interesting story by somehow squeezing out boring everyday life.
Fortunately, my mother listened to the boring story with a smile every day.
The conversation with my son, who goes out in the morning and returns late at night, couldn’t have been fun.
Thanks to this, the happy daily life of the two mothers seemed to come back a little.
However, as if betraying the expectations of such morphine, her mother’s condition worsened.
Cold sweats and fever often occurred, and the frequency of coughing became frequent.
There were countless cases where she vomited up the food and water she ate.
Even if you went to a nearby church and entrusted it to a priest, treatment was impossible with the power of a lower priest.
I wanted to somehow get a high-ranking priest to treat my mother, but that was an expense I couldn’t afford with the money I was earning on morphine alone.
In a semi-basement house on the outskirts of the imperial capital, the mother was slowly dying.
“That was the first time. I found out that it was a potion, so I bought it to try something and made my mother drink it.”
Morphine spoke calmly of her gloomy family life.