Three days after leaving the dungeon, I opened a small apothecary shop in a corner of the city.
I lined the shelves with bottles and ground herbs in a mortar. I took orders from no one. I didn't have to cut into my sleep. I just made good medicine. That was all.
"Welcome. What can I do for you?"
When I smiled across the counter, the adventurers who came in stared wide-eyed. Word of my medicine had spread faster than I'd imagined.
"Can you really cure the Bonemelt?"
The one clinging to the counter as he said it was a scout. His fingers were trembling, and his skin was starting to turn an ashen, earthy color. Early symptoms of exposure to the miasma.
"Yes. With our antidote potion."
Lately, the miasma from the lowest floor had begun eating away at the city's adventurers. Ares and his party had torn through that floor, the seal had broken, and the miasma had leaked up to the surface.
I held out a small blue bottle. The scout drained it in one gulp.
"...It's hot. I'm burning up inside."
"It's pushing the miasma that built up in your bones out with your sweat. You'll feel better in about thirty minutes."
Sure enough, before half an hour had passed, the man was back on his own two feet.
"Incredible... The pain in my joints is just gone!"
From the next day on, there was a line.
For a warrior whose knees had swollen so badly he couldn't walk, an ointment to rub on the affected area. The swelling went down that very night, and by the next morning he could swing a sword again.
For a young mage who wept that the miasma had clouded her vision white, eye drops to wash her eyes. After only three applications, she could read magic circles again.
For an old scout who had been bedridden for three days and had resigned himself to death, a decoction to help his bones regenerate. He grimaced at the bitterness as he drank it down, and that night, the man wept that he had slept without pain for the first time in forty years.
One after another, they got back on their feet. And every one of them was saved by my medicine.
"You're a god. You saved my life."
—A small fry who can't fight, huh.
Wiping down the counter, I gave a faint smile.
That night, there was a knock at the shop door.
When I opened it, a girl with silver hair and the ears of a beast was standing there. She was soaked from the rain, her lips blue, shivering.
"Help me... I want your medicine."
The girl, who said her name was Noel, was apparently the last survivor of the legendary beast-eared folk. From birth she had been afflicted by a curse peculiar to her kind, and she didn't have much time left.
I took her pulse, checked the color of her tongue, and caught my breath.
"This is different from the miasma the adventurers have. This is an old curse, carved into your blood before you were even born. It runs deep. If I draw it all out at once, the poison will rage, and your body won't hold out first."
I told her that, then spent three days preparing medicine just for her.
Morning, noon, and night. I had her drink medicine whose strength I changed little by little, thinning the curse while letting her body adjust. Each time I drew out one more layer, I checked her condition and reworked the next prescription. It was slow, delicate work.
On the morning of the third day, the moment the curse lifted, the light returned to Noel's eyes.
Color came to her cheeks, and warmth filled her cold fingertips.
"You... you let me live."
Her small hand gripped my sleeve tightly.
"Hey. Can I stay by your side? If anyone ever hurts you—"
A glimpse of Noel's fang.
"I'll crunch them to pieces for you."
I'd gained a poster girl. The shop was packed every single day. Quietly, I was content.
Then one day, the guildmaster, Gard, rushed into the shop with a grim look on his face.
"Kurt. The Hero's party that kicked you out—Ares and his lot are back from the dungeon."
I looked up from the counter.
"Their bones are all starting to melt. Once that miasma passes its limit, it hits all at once. They've got almost no time left. They've figured out you're their last hope, and they're headed this way."
Slowly, I reached for the shop's sign.
Noel's curse, I had drawn out carefully over three days. But the time left for Bonemelt that has passed its limit—is less than half a day.
"Perfect timing. We're open for business."