Published at 2nd of April 2019 11:23 pm

Oneshot

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

“Big bro, we’re in the red again today aren’t we?”

“Yeah we are. Maybe curio shops and such aren’t popular this late in the game I guess”

　

The younger sister, who was calculating our sales at the counter, talked to me with sighs mixed within. I was lured to sigh, while prying into the pot which was boiling while sending forth mysterious fumes.

My younger sister and I manage a curio shop that we inherited from our parents and we were making a living somehow. However, we continued to be in the red nowadays and we’re no longer able to earn our daily living expenses.

When our parents were alive, the store was crowded with adventurers challenging the dungeon in the north. We were in the black every month even when we didn’t try our best in particular and so we didn’t live in want.

This village became the first barrier point to new adventurers who began their adventures from the capital city. The monsters that appeared from the lost forest located north, became strong all around and would simultaneously come to attack with several of them.

The new adventurers would stay long in this town, raise their levels and while they became covered in wounds, they would break through the lost forest. Healing medicine becomes necessary when you get hurt, so healing medicine would sell well even if we left it alone. They flew off the shelves even when we sold them at a price thirty percent higher than in the capital.

So why were we no longer able to sell those?

The answer is simple, it’s because the dungeon disappeared.

Several months ago, an adventurer turned up in this village. Just one person, no party. The enemies came attacking on their own up to here, so if the adventurer could come and improve on their own if they’re strong.

But the enemy came attacking in a group from the lost forest. Solo adventurer like him would need extra time until he breaks through. He was surrounded by the enemy, lynched and ended up being send off to the church. And so he learned the importance of parties.

But he was alone up until now, so he couldn’t do something like cooperate. He was a good customer who consumed plenty of time and healing medicine. That’s what I was convinced in.

However, reality didn’t go like that.

In the blink of an eye. Why, he broke through the lost forest in just a single night.

“Mr Clerk, one cypress rod please”

“Hm? Cypress rod? I do have one, but if you’re going to the lost forest, then I think it’s better to go there after properly preparing a weapon and recovery medicine, you know?”

“No, I don’t need them. Because I can break through it with some room if I have a cypress rod”

“Is that so. I don’t mind it then, but I did warn you. One cypress rod is six gold”

I believed so while I accepted the six gold.

That this guy was a beginner who was making light of the adventurer occupation.

However, all of the adventurers who were stranded at the dungeon on the border that day disappeared.

When I thought it was odd and I went to take a look at the situation, I saw that the lost forest had disappeared. What remained was a burnt field as far as my eyes could see.

Yes, the guy set the dungeon on fire using the cypress rod he bought from us. The small fry monsters and the boss, both were equally massacred. What an inhuman thing he has done, I thought.

So, having that sort of circumstances, the recovery items in my stores isn’t selling.

If there are no adventurers kept here by the dungeon, then everyone would pass through this village without stopping by.

“Are there no other choices left but to close down?”

“Wait, big bro! Even if the dungeon is gone, it doesn’t mean that the items like the recovery medicine themselves have become useless, you know! If we can put on sale our very own groundbreaking recovery medicine, then surely the knights of the capital will come buy them, you know”

A groundbreaking recovery medicine huh… but you know.

“You say that, but isn’t the recovery medicine industry in decline?”

The recovery items at the present condition are too user-unfriendly. You take the bottle from your tool bag. You open the cap of the bottle. You hold it on the mouth and drink it. It seems easy, so can you do this process during combat?

The answer is no. If you take such actions that’s full of openings during combat, then you’ll get beaten to death. In the first place, you need both hands to open the cap of the bottle, so you need to store your weapon. It’s unreasonable to take that sort of action that’s full of openings during combat.

“As I thought, priest’s recovery spells are too useful I say! There are no odds of winning for the items”

Being able to close up wounds just by grasping tightly their staves and chanting the spell they decided on is too much of a cheat right? Recently adventurers rely on priests to recover and when the priest’s MP is exhausted, they would enjoy the evening at the inn and increase their levels again the next day.

Wouldn’t it already be better to create energy drinks and sell them wholesale to inns?

“That’s true. I knew it, if we’re going to make any, then we have to make recovery items that are more convenient than priest’s recovery spells!”

Even though her opponents are the unlimited cheat spells, my little sister is still not giving up. This emotional strength may be more suited for an adventurer rather than a curio shop’s poster girl.

That’s what I thought just for an instant, but being an adventurer is a tough job. As much as you can revive at the church even if you die when you have God’s divine protection, it doesn’t change the fact that you will meet a painful experience. And if you’re as cute as this girl, then you might get caught and violated by goblins.

I want to provide for this girl with the safe curio shop after all.

“Uhhm, could it be bad because it’s put in a bottle? It’s heavy and if it breaks inside the bag then the paper type items like scrolls will become useless. Both of your hands will be occupied when using them too”

“Ah, that’s right! If that’s the case then I came up with something good!”

My sister’s face instantly turned bright and began rummaging through the medicine ingredients shelves.

“I found it! These are the Viper Snake’s fangs and venom glands!”

“Hm? Is there something wrong with those? They’re ingredients of antidote medicine right?”

“I heard it from an adventurer mister, this person said he weakens his game by piercing them with the tusk and inject the venom from the venom gland! How about they inject recovery medicine instead of venom with this?”

Oh I see. So you stab your own arm and inject it directly into the blood vessels. If it’s just the Viper snake’s fang and venom gland, then it’ll be small and not bulky and you’re able to expect strong recovery effect even if the quantity is a little because you can inject it directly into the blood vessels. Taking it out and using it can be done with one hand too, so you can even use it while holding your weapon.

“That’s an amazing idea! It will sell if we do it this way!”

“No wait. But if we go with this, then we would make them prick their own arms, so it’ll hurt. Maybe the adventurer misters won’t like them. I think it’s especially tough for new adventurers who aren’t used to pain”

“In that case, how about we use this one?”

I take out the bewitching butterfly scales from the ingredient shelves and show it to my sister. These are the scales that are taken off the bewitching butterfly, a monster that tormented the adventurers at the time the lost forest was there. If you ingest these scales, it would stimulate the pleasure center and turn pain into pleasure. By doing so, the adventurers would hurt himself and end their own lives without feeling any pain. By the time they noticed, it’ll be when they’re in the church.

You’ll be capable of injuring and killing yourself if you ingest a large quantity of it, so let’s water it down and putting a moderate amount in it.

And like this, the sales were favorable with the sales of the artery injection type recovery medicine.

According to the adventurers who have used it even once, they don’t seem to feel like using regular recovery medicine ever again.

Being encouraged by the initial success of this, us siblings have decided to optimize recovery medicine.

We proactively listen to the dissatisfaction from the adventurers who visited our store and thought about goods that improved the point of dissatisfaction.

Faults were immediately found in the artery injection type recovery medicines. It’s the point where the tusk can’t stick on the knight type occupations, whose whole body is wrapped in tough armor, and is thus useless.

We were able to immediately launch goods that improved that problematic point.

We put medicinal plants that are crushed into powdered forms and firing grass, to burn the medicinal plants, into a cloth bag and sell them. Trade name is Suction type recovery medicine.

The firing grass hold a property that ignites when receiving strong impact. It’s an article where you can obtain recovery effects by burning the medicinal plants turned fine powder by colliding it with the ground, using the properties of the firing grass, and then by sucking in that smoke.

With this, you can obtain recovery effects just by having a priest or ranger, a rearguard who has a free hand, throw a bag at the feet of the vanguard. Even a new culture was complete where you would use recovery medicine for the sake of your companions.

If the vanguard knight has recovery items used on him by a rearguard adventurer lady(himechan), then I’m sure he would be happy and he would get a buff where their nether regions go rock-solid.

The buff that makes their nether regions, which are their vital spots, hard is essential isn’t it? This is the impression of an average beginner(cherry) though.

And then, I’m assuming the fact they will be using it on the knights who receive an attack, so I also added the highly popular bewitching butterfly scales as a painkiller.

These recovery medicines flew off the shelves and in the blink of an eye, the management of the curio shop shifted the balance in the black.

However, although it seemed as though everything would go well as it is, there was a trap at the unexpected place.

The ingredients ran out.

I’ve been using bewitching butterfly scales as ingredients, but I wanted to recall where the bewitching butterflies inhabited. That’s right, they inhabited in the lost forest. It is past tense.

Due to it being reduced to ashes by the cruel adventurer, the bewitching butterflies ended up extinct.

I launched products with no painkillers, but they weren’t well in demand. To maintain sales in our store, we needed the bewitching butterfly scales at any cost. Luckily there were adventurers who said they would buy even if they become expensive. In that case they should sell even if we make them by importing those from another continent.

While the cost to stock them increased, we somehow kept up the manufacture of the goods. In exchange, the retail price went up over ten times the price before, but that’s inevitable. Luckily, the store could keep on thanks to having prosperous adventurers who buy them at this price.

Hm? What happened to the penniless new adventurers who buy them you ask?

Come to think of it, it feels like the new adventurers who have used our recovery medicine have disappeared.

Well, wouldn’t they have started their trip to the next city? Continuing to the next city once they stacked up experience and raised their level are what adventurers are.

Parting with them is lonely, but they should have become splendid adventurers, now that they leveled up with the recovery medicines they bought from us. If they someday defeat the demon lord, then let’s advertise ourselves as the store who sold recovery medicine to the party who defeated the demon lord.

Several days later, when we visited the bar with my little sister for dinner.

We gazed at the quest board for adventurers until our ordered meal comes, and several quests entered my eyes. What was projected there were the portraits of the novice adventurers I’ve become used to seeing.

‘Urgently recruiting: subjugation of a band of robbers slipping into the fog at the lost forest site and attacking adventurers’

‘Capture mission of villains attacking adventurers, aiming for the new style recovery medicine’

‘Map creation of the lost forest site, which has turned into a lawless area’

It appears that the lost forest site has changed into a dungeon again as a stronghold for robbers. And thus, ironically enough, our village ended up prospering as the village in front of a dungeon again.

-The End-

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