I Told You I'm a Genius

It felt as though the herb shop itself had shuddered.

In the same instant, the man seated beside me drew his sword on pure reflex and sprinted to the mouth of the second-floor staircase.

"Wh-what was that sound?!"

I asked urgently, but the man only let his blade tip drag against the floor, his cold eyes fixed on the stairs above.

"Stay still."

He seemed to be fighting down the instinct to bolt straight up the steps. After carefully reading the second floor for movement, he called upward.

"Are you all right?"

Then, along with a strangled groan, a young man's voice drifted down.

"Do not come up. ……It's poison."

It was the voice of the man who had gone up ahead of us.

Poison……?

Why was poison suddenly showing up here?! No, fine—this was an herb shop, maybe it wasn't entirely out of the question……

While I was still reeling, the report from upstairs continued.

"There was a hidden mechanism built into the bottom of the box holding the Osnis talon. The moment we pried up the floor, something went off—"

The man's words were swallowed by ragged coughing, followed by the sound of him retching something up.

By the sound of it, he was poisoned badly enough to be vomiting blood.

As soon as the young man's voice cut out, the terrified old man beside him spoke up in a cracked, breaking tone.

"It seems to be smoke made from O-Osnis venom……!"

Osnis venom. There it was again—that name that kept cropping up.

That's the monster that appears in the north, isn't it.

The moment I heard the name, my mind went cold and clear.

It was a blessing, in a way.

I knew that poison. I'd been felled by it myself once, and I'd synthesized an antidote to survive it.

Besides, this particular venom took a fair while to spread through the whole body and melt the blood vessels, even when it entered through the respiratory tract.

Not that I'd nearly died back then anyway.

Which means the clock is already ticking now, too.

The moment the thought crystallized, I threw myself toward the second-floor stairs.

But as if he'd predicted my every move, the man thrust out a massive arm and barred my way completely.

"You cannot go up there."

And sure enough, through the gap in the tightly shut second-floor door, a bluish, acrid plume of poison smoke was seeping out in slow curls.

With both hands I shoved firmly against the man's solid forearm and shouted up toward the second floor.

"Grandfather! Is there still some of that Osnis talon left up there?"

"Y-yes…… it's here, all right."

"Open the door just a crack and throw it down the stairs. Don't touch it bare-handed, whatever you do—wrap it in cloth first!"

"What?"

"Hurry! And where are the Calusia and the Lonaria?"

"Wh-why do you need those……"

I clenched my teeth.

"If you don't feel like dying, answer the question first!"

At my shout, the old man gasped out an answer from above.

"Calusia's at three o'clock, second drawer of the red cabinet…… Lonaria isn't here right now……"

"Then what about Silvrin?"

"Seven o'clock…… glass bottles under the blue shelf……"

"Good. Now throw down the talon! Quickly!"

A moment later, the second-floor door cracked open just wide enough for a palm—and a billow of bluish smoke surged out with it.

The man moved to shield me, but I was faster, ducking toward the object clattering down onto the floor. It was a shard of the Osnis talon, wrapped in thick cloth.

I scooped it up, cloth and all.

"Keep both of those men conscious up there! The moment they pass out, it's a one-way road to the afterlife!"

Only coughing answered me instead of a reply.

With no time to hesitate, I sprinted to the drawers the old man had described and gathered up the herbs.

The man, following at my heels, asked:

"What exactly are you doing?"

Clutching the herbs to my chest, I ran for the preparation room at the back of the shop—I'd already scoped out its location—and answered over my shoulder.

"I wasn't planning on telling anyone this part, but…"

Kick! Slamming the preparation room door open with my foot, I flashed a grin at the man following me in.

"I'm a genius herbologist."

"……"

"Oh, and I'm also absurdly good at making antidotes. Insane, right? Even I think I'm completely off my head."

A snort of laughter escaped me.

It wasn't because the situation was funny. I had an ugly little habit: whenever extreme tension gripped me or my thoughts got tangled into knots, my lips would go dry, laughter would slip out, and I'd start chattering without meaning to.

The man, of course, had no way of knowing that. He watched me dump the herbs across the workbench and shook his head with a hard, frozen expression.

"As far as I know, there is no antidote for Osnis venom. It is a deadly poison the royal physicians themselves gave up on."

"Huh?"

My eyes went wide.

It doesn't exist? I made one years ago.

Granted, I'd only brewed enough for myself, and I'd never shared the formula with a soul. I hadn't needed to make another Osnis antidote since, so I had no reserves either.

But was he really telling me the entire empire still had no working antidote to this day?

I can't be the only apothecary in the empire capable of making one. How has nothing been developed or circulated after all these years? That doesn't add up.

I tilted my head for a moment at the sorry state of medicine in this world, then turned back to the man with my answer.

"Well, I couldn't tell you about any of that. What I do know is this: I can make one."

"……"

Then the man searched my eyes and said:

"That is my subordinate up there. The shopkeeper was poisoned helping me with my work as well."

His pitch-black eyes held mine.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Fingering the Calusia leaf in my hand, I looked up at him.

"Do you trust me?"

"I do."

"Why?"

He answered my question flatly, without a single second of hesitation.

"Because if I don't trust you now, I suspect there will never be another way to save those two men upstairs."

The gaze beneath the mask was unwaveringly, stubbornly honest.

I nodded.

"Good. You're a knight, so I'll put that strength of yours to work."

"Use me as you please."

I pushed the cast-iron mortar toward him and tipped the Silvrin out onto it.

"We need to squeeze out as much juice as possible. Pound it until the silvery sap turns thick and sticky. Don't stop, don't ease up. I'm counting on you."

"Understood."

The man rolled up his black sleeve with an easy motion.

The instant his grip tightened around the rough iron pestle, the veins along his forearm surged up as though they might tear through the skin.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The pounding was so heavy the preparation room floor shuddered beneath us.

The lethal intensity radiating from his entire body made it plain enough: as far as he was concerned, this room was just one more battlefield—and his subordinate's life hung on winning it.

I pressed in close beside him and set about grinding the thin, dried Calusia leaves into a fine powder.

At the same time, I extracted the venom from the Osnis talon.

Through a suffocating silence, the only sounds filling the room were the grinding of herbs and the strike of the pestle.

I couldn't say how long it took. I did my best, and the man gave everything he had.

If we were still too late after all this, and the two of them died upstairs, then it truly would have been out of our hands—that was all I could tell myself.

I blended the Silvrin juice the man had pounded out, the Calusia powder I had ground, and the Osnis venom together, in a ratio only I knew.

And before long, a potion reeking of something rank and sour was finished. Exactly two doses. Not a drop more.

"Wait here."

The moment my hand touched the doorknob, the man planted himself in front of me.

"I will carry it up."

"Nope. Do you want to get poisoned too, Sir Knight? I made exactly two doses. There isn't one with your name on it."

Even at my flat refusal, he didn't budge an inch.

"Are you not just as likely to be poisoned yourself?"

Under his gaze—was it worry, or wariness?—I hesitated a beat, then gave a little laugh and looked him dead in the eye through the mask.

"I'll be fine."

"As if."

"Oh, come on! I told you, I'm a genius, remember? You said you trusted me. Well then, trust me all the way through—no questions, no arguments, just trust."

Having sealed off his objections at the source, I grabbed the vials of antidote, slipped out of the preparation room, and flew up the second-floor stairs two at a time.

Thankfully, the room beyond the door had cleared enough that the poisonous fumes had mostly evaporated, and I could see.

But the air still hung thick with a concentration that would poison an ordinary person with a single breath or two.

"Here, drink this. Right now."

I pressed a vial to the young man first.

"Swallow, get it down. Come on, move!"

At my razor-sharp command, he drained it without delay.

I took the old man's chin in my hand.

"Grandfather, stay with me. You have to drink this."

The old man cracked open bleary eyes and chuckled.

"I did…… raise one fine granddaughter, it seems."

"I'm not your granddaughter. Drink. Now."

Thankfully, the young man recovered quickly enough after taking the medicine that he was able to walk downstairs on his own feet, swaying though he was, while I supported the spent old shopkeeper by the shoulder and carefully guided him down to the first floor.

Down on the first floor, Varkan had been waiting. The moment the woman came down supporting the shopkeeper, he bounded up the steps, took the old man onto his own shoulder, and brought him the rest of the way down.

After seating the two men against a wall, Varkan turned to Roan.

"How is your body?"

Roan nodded, still breathing hard and ragged.

"I will live. A moment ago it felt as though my organs were being torn apart, but I can breathe now. However…… the explosion destroyed every lead we had for tracing the distribution route. I beg your forgiveness."

Varkan shook his head.

"Evidence can be found again. Be grateful you kept your life."

"Yes, my lord……"

Then Varkan looked down at the shopkeeper.

"Shopkeeper."

"Y-yes, my lord!"

"I will bear the full cost of closing your shop, so shut your doors for a while and devote yourself to nothing but your recovery. I apologize for dragging you into affairs like this."

The shopkeeper, still coughing in fits, answered with tears welling in his eyes.

"Not at all…… You saved my life. How could I ever hope to repay a debt like this?"

Varkan shook his head.

"The one who saved your lives was not me. It was this……"

And as Varkan turned toward the woman of unknown identity, his words trailed off.

"……"

"……"

And there was no one there.