VRMMO no Shien Shokunin ～Top Player no Shikakenin～

In the compounding room, sunlight was blocked due to a curtain which made the room quite dim.

Riizu looked like a witch straight out of a book when she was stirring the boiling liquids inside a pot…

「…W-Wait a moment! Eh? Riizu, you, didn’t you say you were going to enter healing medicine in the contest!?」(Hind)

Riizu, who heard my voice, stopped and looked at me.

She was completely protected by wearing gloves and a mask, if you got closer to the pot, your eyes and nose would start to hurt.

This is definitely not healing medicine!

「What are you saying, Hind-san? This is healing medicine (poison), you know? Ufufu…」(Riizu)

「Even though you clearly said healing medicine, I get the feeling I heard something quite disturbing from your inner voice?」(Hind)

Are my ears defective? Besides, have you turned crazy because we were not making any progress with healing items?

For the time being, I opened the curtains to air out the room and just as I had expected, the liquid was of a muddy violet color and you couldn’t see the bottom of the pot.

No matter how you look at it, isn’t this poison…?

「Wouldn’t it be fine for you to consider just focusing on poison?」(Hind)

「Are you saying that even though Philia-chan can make them, I can’t make healing medicine!?」(Riizu)

「Like me being unable to go to the front as a vanguard, there are things people are just not suited for…

Poison also has its uses, is there even any need to become so pessimistic?」(Hind)

「…But Hind-san, you said last time that you’d be happier with healing medicine…」(Riizu)

「Ah…」(Hind)

Now that I think about it, I did say that.

In that regard, I was in the wrong because of my poor choice of words.

My own role within the party is that of the healer, so thinking from that point of view, I had decided to focus on healing items.

I definitely didn’t mean that poison didn’t have any use.

But even when I told Riizu that, her expression didn’t brighten up.

What should I do…?

「Poison is poison, Selene-san could use it to make poisoned bolts or the like. Obviously, you could use it normally and just throw it at the enemies, there’s quite a lot of uses for it? It’s not like I’m saying that healing items are superior. Don’t mind it.」(Hind)

「…」(Riizu)

「…That’s why, let’s develop healing medicine together. We’ll progress together and when our times don’t match, if you just follow the recipe and mass produce them, there shouldn’t be any problems.」(Hind)

「!!…Together?」(Riizu)

「Yeah. That was the deal from the beginning, right? We should have time for it after the contest, we can start developing healing medicine for real after that. Sorry for leaving all the work to you until now.」(Hind)

「You remembere-…no, you are right. There’s no way that nii-san would break a promise after all, it seems like I was just being hasty…I should be the one apologizing here.」(Riizu)

It was not something Riizu should lower her head for.

For the time being, I had been focusing on the agricultural side and blacksmithing with Tobi assisting me, so it turned out that I had left compounding to Riizu alone.

Leaving aside the product we’ll display in this contest, we agreed that we’ll take it easy and make healing medicine once the contest ends.

There’s no need to force her to do it if her aptitude for it is low. Especially if it would get in the way of her enjoyment of the game.

I thought Riizu would have understood that even if I didn’t say anything, it’s my responsibility because I didn’t voice it out. I’m reflecting on that.

「…In that case, I’ll tackle the contest with something that is not healing medicine.」(Riizu)

「Right. There are a lot of categories for status ailments after all. Poison, paralysis, burn, sleep etc.」(Hind)

「I’ll think of something.

…By the way, Hind-san. Regarding the Adeniums that you have brought here…」(Riizu)

「Ah, you mean the failed products that had their colors changed. There were quite a few that turned into medicinal herbs and poisonous herbs, I thought they would be useful to you so I brought them here.」(Hind)

「Really? Thank you very much. These Adeniums, instead of the petals, the vivid green parts are poisonous? I see…」(Riizu)

Having returned to normal, Riizu was now looking at the Adeniums I had brought and thinking about something.

I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this though…

For the time being, I placed the materials on top of the table and lined them up.

After that, I started cleaning the tools while Riizu was working. After I’m done here, I’ll go somewhere else again.

「Riizu, can I take some status ailment medicine?」(Hind)

「Ah, yes, it’s fine. There were a lot of failures while I was making healing medicine after all…fufu…」(Riizu)

「O-OK. These ones over here, right? Thanks. Starting from tomorrow, I’ll be helping you a bit with the poison you are going to display in the contest. Until then, you’ll be on your own.」(Hind)

「Yes, I’ll be waiting.」(Riizu)

I put the liquid with a suspicious color inside a bottle and put it inside my inventory.

Next, I headed towards a workshop without a furnace, it was where Tobi was currently working.

「Have you decided on what you are going to make? If you haven’t, I’ll make some nasty military provisions for you, you know?」(Hind)

「You are bringing that up again!? I don’t want them!」(Tobi)

After entering the room, I asked Tobi how his work was going.

Since the main character in this contest, Selene-san, said that she could do the rest of the work by herself, we returned to our own work but…

Honestly speaking, there was not much time left, we had to decide what we wanted to do by today and start working.

We had to choose something doable from the ninja tools that Tobi had in mind but…

「…I thought about making kunais that inflicted status ailments when thrown at enemies, however, it would be impossible to ask Selene-dono for help with them, right?」(Tobi)

「That would be impossible. She’s the one we have the highest expectations of from our guild, I would like to give her the best conditions possible so she can concentrate. It’s her after all, she probably wouldn’t refuse if you asked her for help, so don’t go and ask her, you hear me?」(Hind)

「You are right…yup, in that case, given our current situation…yup…」(Tobi)

Looking at how troubled Tobi looked, I started to think a bit.

I mean, we could just make improvements on the Bo-hiya we made before and go with that.

However, Tobi seems to be focused on the idea of making throwable kunais and even if I gave him more time to think about other ideas, it doesn’t seem like he’ll be able to do so.

Kunais, huh…

「…If it’s only that, should I go to the town’s blacksmith workshop and make them?」(Hind)

「Really!?」(Tobi)

「Yeah. I might not be as skilled as Selene-san but if you don’t mind them being so-so, I’ll make them for you.」(Hind)

「As expected of Wacchi! I can depend on you!」(Tobi)

「You sure are easygoing…」(Tobi)

With that said, we started to discuss the measurements and the details.

Throwing weapons are scarce products in the trading BBS, since it’s a category most people wouldn’t participate in, I have some expectations about it.

「We could not limit it to just kunais and go for shurikens also? Like stick type shurikens, they look like it would be easy to add poison onto them.」(Hind)

「Since those are pretty standard too, I’ll think about it. As for the drugging effect, we could use Riizu-dono’s stuff and…」(Tobi)

「The problem would be how to retain the drugs applied to the weapons. We could make a gap in them and pour it there, or maybe reform the drug itself into an high viscosity state…」(Hind)

「I guess it wouldn’t be enough to just apply them on top of them?」(Tobi)

「If what we were using were high rank status ailment drugs, I think that would work. However, the effect of each one isn’t that high, right? Especially since throwable weapons are single use, You’d want to use as fewer as possible to inflict an status ailment on an enemy.」(Hind)

Given the price of a single item being considerable, considering the effect they have, the times you would use them in a fight would decrease.

Furthermore, throwable weapons, while short, also have a short CD, there’s also the fact that you can’t continuously throw the same items in quick succession.

「Other than that, in order to differentiate it from throwing the poison directly, it’s important for it to have the “sharpness” that makes it able to inflict wounds and be able to be thrown a “longer distance” compared to a bottle. Please think of that sort of practicality.」(Hind)

「Understood! …Nunu? From how you are saying that, do you mean that I have to decide the rest of the minute details by myself?」(Tobi)

「Well, pretty much. I feel bad, but I have to procure materials for my sewing too so it would be impossible for me to do so. I’ll make sure to make time for the blacksmithing so…please make the designs by tomorrow and then hand them over to me.」(Hind)

「You are right. I’m grateful that you are going to make time for it even though you are so busy. So, you are going with sewing in the end as expected?」(Tobi)

「Yup. So, I’ll be heading to town now therefore, I’ll be leaving the rest to you.」(Hind)

「Understood!」(Tobi)

After that, I left Tobi, who had taken out a parchment and started working on the design behind and I left the guild home and headed towards the workshop.

I had the NPC Claris-san for the cloth that I would need for my sewing, so I had no choice but to head towards the town.