For the upcoming week they carried their usual routine. Guardian were gathering from the early morning to the very night, Aiu would assist him while it was not raining. They have managed to store good amount for herbs, a few furs too. She had skinned two direwolves and four boars. Their fat was rendered to tallow, the rest went to waste. It was such a shame they could not sell it easily.

She would visit hunter for training, even if it rained, and she was getting better at her practise. She purchased some arrows and used practise bow to further develop her skills at home.

During this week a lot of stuff was brewed and made.

She made 3 barrels of low grade stamina potion. It was basically an energy drink laced with caffeine extracted from plants.

Two boxes of healing salves.

A box of predator repellent.

Four sacks of medical herbs which were currently still drying.

Five jugs of special plant oils. They were quite concentrated, she used the distillery kit for that.

A bottle of concentrated perfume.

7 bottles of flower petal water. This was infused water which smelled nice.

Four flasks of low grade poison.

7 bottles of weak poison antidote.

A sack of spice leaves and a sack of tea leaves.

With her master’s help she made a barrel of weak herbalists solvent. It was liquid which extracted the essence out of a plant.

A sizable batch of fragrant soap was also made. It was high grade soap, not only it smelled nice it made the skin smooth as a bonus. She had 50 bars of it plus 10 bars of plain soap she made before.

This was a lot of stuff and she did not even scratch the surface of what an alchemist could make, for that she needed to get better at it. She still needed to improve at reading and calculations.

Also, there was a slight problem. The nearby supply of herbs was getting low and they needed to go further and further to gather them. So Guardian decided to give the forest some time so it can regrow back.

All in all, the week was productive and pleasant, even though the weather was mostly miserable. She has even been rewarded with relaxing cleansing session again.

Today’s goal was to trade in the goods. This was the time she regretted not owing a wagon to haul all of that stuff. They lived in a forest and there was no road just a small path leading to the town. Wagon would not be able to pass anyway.

They reached the apothecary. Aiu came inside first.

“Hello Dnea.”

“Hello, long time no see. I thought you have forgotten me.” she had wrongly suspected that the small girl found some other place to peddle her goods.

“Never! I have brought a lot of stuff.” She started to line up the small containers and bottles she had in her massive backpack.

Her guardian squeezed in late to conversation; he was carrying a full barrel. He had to unbuckle a lot of stuff from his back before entering, otherwise he would not have fitted through.

“Ah big man himself, I have heard you bested a Corpse Serpent. Any other heroic achievements?” her words were slightly sour. She was upset not receiving any organs from its body, since he sold it somewhere else. Definitely not to her.

“No, not really.” He kept bringing more and more stuff in, barrels, boxes, sacks.

“Wow, that is quite a lot of stuff.” She rubbed her hands in glee. These two were making her rich, she would resell everything at a x1.5 price tag. Some of it would be priced even more then that. She would divide it into smaller shinier containers and rack up the price. Dnea would also refine and process the herbs to better grade products.

“Yeah. We work from sunrise to sunset.” Aiu said proudly puffing her chest.

“That is the spirit.”

“Hard work pays up” her guardian added.

They have coined in their stuff in.

Item

Grade

Container

Value

3 x stamina potion

Low

Barrel

3g

2 x healing salves

N/A

Box

5s

1 x predator repellent

N/A

Box

2s 6c

4 x medical herbs

Low

Sack

4s

5 x plant oils

Basic

Jug

5s

1 x Perfume

Potent

Bottle

1g

7 x petal water

Basic

Bottle

1g 9s

1 x poison

Low

Flask

1s

7 x antidote

Low

Bottle

3s 6c

1 x herbal tea

Low

Sack

1s 6c

1 x herbal spices

Basic

Sack

2s

Total money they got for that was 91 silver and 3 copper (7g 7s 3c). Roughly eight times more a poor farmer would make in a month. Herbalism and even basic alchemy were quite lucrative, after all. It was the case only if one was working in the forest from sunrise to sunset, and did not need to worry about beasts and monsters, while other helped or processed the goods.

Aiu imagined that once she gained more experience they would make even more money.

“This perfume, I have never smelled anything like that. What is in it?” Dnea said as she were inspecting the bottle of it.

“It is made from a special plant which it is…” Aiu started to explain.

“A trade secret” big beastman cut her off.

It was made from a juice extracted from a plant imitating a plain weed; it was a bother to find it. The spoken weed was completely insignificant but the plant which masqueraded as it was very different. Its juices had special effect and worked well when mixed with fragrant oils. If Dnea did not know this, it means that they can capitalise on this knowledge.

“No way getting it out of you?”

“Nope.” He replied plainly but sternly.

Dnea knew that it is impossible to argue with him once he made his mind. She plotted to trick the girl into revealing it later.

Guardian took the money and encouraged the girl to leave by a pat on her shoulder.

“Bye bye.” She said leaving while the door made a ding.

“Pleasure doing business. Come again.”

“why does that door make that sound? Magic?” she was still intrigued by that.

“There is no magic involved, it is just a bell in a special box. It is to inform that Dnea has a customer.”

It would be bad if someone sneaked in, quickly grabbed small stuff and leave unnoticed. Someone small, sneaky and hard to notice, like an orphan.

“Ohhhhh. You know so much stuff yet no one taught you.”

“I look and observe. Then I think, if I can’t find answer… I ask just like you do.”

A simple answer like this pleased the girl. She will not remain ignorant, she will learn and catch up. However, thinking was hard; she preferred to be given answers.

She went to the city marked there she had a special task, a task she proposed herself. Her guardian went to tanner to get the rest of the money and a part of the serpent leather.

She was meant to find a buyer for the meat they would get now and when. It would be a hard task as the delivery would be irregular. She knew that the best bet would be someone like a beast man as they were not picky about the meat they ate.

She went along the food vendor stalls asking if they would accept deliveries. She asked some humans and elven kind too, it did not hurt to try. They shot her down straight away.

She asked the beastmen too, but they trusted little of someone they did not know. They were too warry to take unknown raw meat from a stranger. She even got shouted to bugger off. The peddlers wanted to do business and not chit chat.

Aiu did not look like homeless slum dweller anymore, but still she still looked quite poor. Being skinny did not help, but she would be able to pass as a farmer’s daughter now.

She kept asking around and some said that if it was preserved meat they would think about it.

Aiu decided to find a way to preserve it, smoking probably would be the best. She wanted to sell as many resources they could.

She got the information she needed by asking vendors how fresh their meat was and how did they preserve it. She was pretending to be a servant working in a kitchen for a rich family. This did the trick. They would go into detail about how they did it. Praising their product as the best, being proud of their techniques.

She got a hint that she would need to use some special wood. Different wood infused the meat with different flavour. She could also spice and salt the meat before drying it. Salt was expensive so she ruled out that option.

Maybe then they had more money she would consider it. Smoking it was then. However, she knew little about the actual smoking technique.

While she was thinking where she could get that information she noticed Guardian walking in a market. Good thing he was very tall and easy to notice. She ran towards him.

“Hey, you done?”

“Yes. Got the money for wolf and boar hides as well.” He received remaining 6 gold for serpent leather as he did not keep much of it, and over a silver for hides.

“Do you have enough money to buy what you wanted?”

She knew he was saving for something, but he did not tell her for what. Whatever it was it must be very expensive.

“I do.” He said pleased. “By the way, did you have any luck in finding a buyer?”

“No, not really, as you said this proved to be very hard. But if I smoked the meat people would be more willing to purchase it.”

“It is because you did not think it through. If you flaunted my name as Corpse Serpent killer and that you were my apprentice, people would have reacted differently.”

“I did not think about that.” It was too late now, vendors would probably remember her and not believe her story.

“How much money do we have again?” She asked.

“Close to twenty two gold.”

“Do you plan to spend it all?” she wanted to ask for some of it, she worked hard for it too and she wanted some stuff.

However would she get looked down for being ungrateful? She thought of him as a kind person but she was unsure if he was that kind.

“Most of it yes.”

“Could I get some of it?” She looked at him trying to judge his reaction. “I don’t need much just a bit.”

He remained silent and kept thinking. His look and facial expression was neutral and the girl did not know what to think of that.

‘I will get shouted for being spoiled and ungrateful.‘ she thought.

“Sorry.” She said meekly she could not bear his vacant look and silence.

“…” he pondered about it some more. “I prefer to take care of money. You are young and unexperienced and you don’t know the real value of it, and how to use it best. If you want something just ask. I will consider it and then maybe buy it.”

He did not like that the girl wanted money. He invested heavily in her, and she wanted more. He needed to set some sort of boundaries so that she does not get spoiled.

“Then you get older I might reconsider it. For now you work under me. I provide you with food and shelter, not to talk about other thinks. Don’t you have it better than others already?”

“I do…” she knew she messed up, it was because of greed. She felt very bad about herself.

“I won’t ask for money ever again.” She wanted to fix that.

He patted her head.

“So what do you want, I will buy it if you keep working hard.” Somehow he was spoiling her again. No this was necessary motivation for her to keep giving her all.

She just shrugged. She wanted some money just because, she did not have any particular item in mind.

“Salt? Yes salt would be good. It would make food taste so much better. I don’t need much just a little.”

”I will get you some salt then.”

“Mhm. The meat you bring and vegetables I gather will taste so much better.” She was salivating.

“Excuse me, Master?” an unknown young man addressed her guardian all of a sudden.

She has never seen anyone approach him so casually. Strangers kept their distance from him. ‘does this man know him?’ she wondered what kind of relationship the two have.