SWNOVELXO Volume 1 Chapter 5 - Nice Idea
“When I returned to my cheap apartment, I put the shopping bag on the table and took a breather.
“Haah… I’m tired.”
I checked the time on my smartphone.
It was still only 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
“Hm? There’s a message.”
I fiddled with my smartphone and opened the messaging app.
“Good job today. Although we only adventured for an hour, going to the frontier tends to make fatigue heavier, so make sure to rest properly.”
The message was from Asakura.
“What a nice person. But, looking back at our message history like this brings back memories…”
I hadn’t realized at the time, but we had quite a few exchanges.
“It really does bring back memories. We had so much fun back then… playing mahjong with friends, going to karaoke, drinking… It’s been 4 years since then… It was tough.”
Ah… It’s getting to me.
Seeing this cheerful exchange between Asakura and me makes me nostalgic for the good old days, I could cry.
“No! It’s supposed to get more fun from now on! I’ve quit that shitty company, I’ll become an A-rank adventurer and make money! Then, I’ll enjoy myself!”
I need to stay positive about things.
Otherwise, I might start feeling down…
“But looking at these exchanges with Asakura really brings back memories… We were really good friends. In fact, I even called her Kaede-chan towards the end.”
I guess my job was so tough that I forgot about this.
Am I… already worn out?
It was probably the right choice to quit that company.
Thinking it would be rude to leave her message on read, I quickly replied to Kaede-chan.
“It was nice to see you again after so long, Kaede-chan. I look forward to working with you again.”
I sent this message and closed my phone.
“She’s probably still at work, so I should start testing…”
By testing, I mean alchemy, of course.
“Now, which one should I make first?”
What I can make are level 1 health potions, gender-swapping potions, sleep medicine, and pure water.
“I need pure water for the health potions, so I’ll start with that…”
I got up, went to the kitchen, filled a cup with water, and came back.
Then, I placed the cup on the table and started staring intently at it.
“Alright! Become pure water!”
As I stared intently, the water in the cup shone for a moment.
“…Is it done?”
The water doesn’t seem to have changed at all.
“…I wouldn’t know if the water turned into pure water. Okay, onto the next one!”
This time, I added the herbs I brought back to the water and stared at it intently.
“Become a health potion!”
This time, it shone even brighter than before.
And when the light stopped, for some reason, the water and herbs that were in the cup had turned into a blue liquid in a flask.
“Huh!? The cup changes too!?”
I understand that the herbs and pure water turned into a health potion, but the cup also turned into a flask.
“Well, it’s okay. It’s from the 100 yen shop… But, this is a potion…”
I picked up the flask and looked at it closely.
“What’s this like, I wonder? Can I sell it?”
I put the flask on the table and opened my phone.
Then, I searched for information about health potions.
“Oh! So, it drops from monsters…”
But it seems to be at a low rate.
There are also different levels.
It seems there’s a skill called Appraisal, and there’s always an employee with this skill at all guilds.
The appraiser appraises the items you bring back.
“I see… How much is it… Wait… What?”
I let out a strange voice.
That’s because the buyback price for a level 1 potion was 500,000 yen.
“What!? 500,000… this?”
I moved my gaze from my phone to the flask from earlier.
“500,000… For a herb that dropped from a slime and some water… It’s easily surpassed the most money I’ve ever saved.”
Hey, hey, hey!
That’s amazing.
Something that’s this easy to make is worth 500,000!?
I’m amazing!
I’m a winner!
“Yahoo! I’ve made back my investment in a day!”
Yes, I think the 150,000 yen fee for the lecture was cheap!
“Is this real… Amazing. Oh, right. I should look up the Alchemy skill and the star mark.”
I operated my smartphone again and searched for information about the Alchemy skill and the star, but nothing came up.
“Hmm, it’s all just game information…”
This is impossible.
When I search for Alchemy, all I get are game walkthrough sites and I can’t find anything relevant.
But considering the price of the potion, Alchemy is unlikely to be a major skill.
And it wasn’t visible to Asakura… I mean, Kaede-chan.。
“Even if someone else has this, they wouldn’t report it. Well, I don’t think there’s anyone who would do that.
If they don’t report it, they can monopolize it, and if they mess up, they could get the guild to limit the use of the skill.
There’s no way anyone would miss this chance to make money.
“The problem is… how many of these to produce and sell…”
Selling 10 would make 5 million.
Selling 100 would make 50 million.
But when I looked into the potion, it seems that the drop rate is low and it’s really a rare item.
Even a potion at level 1 seems to be able to close wounds and somewhat deal with illnesses.
Can I sell 100 of such items?
It’s certain that they will investigate the source.
“Darn it! Maybe I should level up and sell a super expensive potion?”
As my alchemy level increases, so do the recipes.
Right now I can only make level 1 potions, but eventually I’ll be able to make more expensive potions.
“Hmm, but money…”
Money is important.
That’s something I understand well from working at a black company.
It’s fine to consider money as the measure of happiness.
“Well, I guess I’ll sell this for now…”
I’ll think about it later.
If I have 500,000 and the savings I have left, I can live for 3 months.
There’s also the income as an adventurer.
“More importantly, what’s next…”
I took out flour and salt from the shopping bag and sleepy grass from the paper bag I received from Kaede.
Then I went back to the kitchen, poured water into another cup, and put it on the table.
“I need to buy a cup… Well, which should I start with?”
Hmm, gender change potion?
I don’t know the effects of the sleep medicine, and it might make me sleep.
I’ll start with the one where I know the effect.
I start putting flour into the cup with water.
“Well! So, shall Hajime-kun become Hajime-chan!”
I stared at the water and flour in the cup.
“Turn into a gender change potion!”
Then, the cup began to glow again, and in an instant, it turned into a flask filled with a white liquid.
“That’s really incredible. But, it looks like milk because it’s white…”
Is it white because of the flour?
“Well, shall I try drinking it…”
I looked up the gender change potion when I was researching alchemy, but it wasn’t listed.
Well, that’s to be expected.
If there was such a thing, it would be in the news.
I picked up the flask, stood up, and uncorked the flask.
Then, I pressed it against my hip and started drinking without hesitation.
It might be dangerous, but for some reason, I knew this potion was safe.
Probably due to the influence of the skill.
“Hmm, it doesn’t have a taste! It’s just water!”
When I finished drinking all the potion, my vision suddenly dropped.
That’s not the only problem.
I felt heavy, and there was a strange feeling in various parts of my body.
I looked down at my body.
I was wearing a jersey, but there was definitely a bulge that wasn’t there before.
And when I put my hand in my crotch, there was nothing that was supposed to be there.
“That’s amazing! I’ve really turned into a woman. With this I can peep… no, what’s the point of this?”
Should I go on a ladies day?
That’s pathetic, damn it!
I suddenly touched my own hair.
“It’s long! What’s happening!”
My hair is black, but it reaches my waist.
I don’t see such long black hair very often.
“Hmm, this is a useless potion. Only people who want gender reassignment surgery would buy it… well, let’s move on to the next.”
I start making the last potion, the sleeping potion.
The ingredients for the sleeping potion are sleepy grass and salt.
This time it’s not a liquid.
I put the sleepy grass on a tissue paper and started sprinkling salt on it.
“It’s like cooking…”
When I finished sprinkling it randomly, I stared at the salted sleepy grass.
Then, the salted sleepy grass started to glow and transformed into a pill.
“So this is a sleeping pill… Shall I try it?”
I put the pill in my mouth and swallowed it in one gulp.
Then, I picked up my smartphone.
“Let’s see, it’s 4 o’clock now――”
◆◇◆
I suddenly woke up.
“Wait, was I asleep… huh, what!?”
I was surprised at my own slender arm.
“Oh, right, I’m still a woman because I didn’t change back from the gender change potion… But it’s dark.”
I stood up and turned on the room light.
Then, I checked the time on my smartphone.
“Past 10 o’clock… I’ve been asleep for about 6 hours.”
But this sleep medicine is amazing.
It worked instantaneously.
It does have a rather criminal scent to it.
“Hmm, maybe it could be sold as an anesthetic… But making money off it might be difficult.”
In that case, the healing potion is the best bet as things stand?
“What to do… Well, I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Feeling the urge to urinate, I headed for the bathroom.
Then, I thought to urinate standing up in front of the toilet and lowered my pants.
“Ah, right. I don’t have the necessary equipment anymore. That’s hilarious.”
I had no choice but to sit down to urinate.
“What a pain. I better make another potion to change back quickly.”
After finishing urinating, I washed my hands at the sink.
Then, I inadvertently looked at the mirror in front of me.
“Is that me…?”
What reflected in the mirror was a beautiful woman with an annoyed expression.
Frankly, I don’t see any trace of my old self.
“Hmm, I look like a completely different person. With this, I could even play a prank… Wait!”
That’s it, I can sell the potions in this form.
That way, it would be this woman who sold the large amount of potions, not me.
“Hahaha! I’m such a genius!”
“Shut up!! Next door!! Next door… huh?”
My loud laughter caused the usual shouting from the next-door neighbor.
“I’m sorry!”
“… …”
Huh?