Time to Act!

Having secured the bare minimum of authorization, the tension drained from Yohane's shoulders.

But he couldn't let his guard down yet.

There was still the possibility that after seeing the finished product, Jacob would say no.

Before entering the room, he'd been shivering from the cold, but now his palms were sweating from the heat.

He took another sip of the hot wine to keep his throat from drying out.

The sweetness and the strong aroma of cinnamon relaxed him, if only slightly.

As if sensing he'd caught his breath, Jacob spoke.

"Are you well-versed in the Kingdom's laws regarding poppy seeds and narcotics?"

"Of course."

"Well, to put it simply: you may not grow, possess, transport, process, or trade any designated plant material without state authorization."

"That's right. That's a good summary."

Yohane agreed with Jacob's summation. There were countless finer details, but that was the gist of it.

Incidentally, Ramiza-san was a state-certified alchemist, so she held a license for processing poppy seeds. She didn't, however, have permits for cultivation or transport.

Each was handled separately.

Anyone with a drug-related criminal record could not become an alchemist, and any alchemist who committed a drug-related offense would have their license revoked.

He'd heard that was exactly why unlicensed alchemists existed.

In hindsight, he'd asked something outrageous of Ramiza-san. He was grateful she'd agreed at all.

The reason poppy seeds and other drug-producing plants weren't outright banned was simple: their medicinal properties were too valuable.

Painkillers and anesthetics were the primary uses, but they also went into treatments for various ailments.

The number of people who fell ill wasn't huge, but any city of reasonable size couldn't avoid it entirely. From what he'd heard, symptoms varied; some people looked perfectly fine while suffering immensely within.

His own shop stocked several such medicines, and they sold steadily enough.

The healing miracles used by the clergy were largely physical in effect and offered no mental or emotional recovery.

A priest-level cleric could calm someone's nerves or ward off psychic attacks from monsters, but even that was more like field first aid.

Such were the necessities of maintaining the Kingdom, one of the largest nations on the continent.

"Does your shop have a sales permit for these?"

"I hold a permit limited to selling medicines only."

"I see… Whether to distribute the food is, as I said, something we'll decide after seeing the finished product. When that happens, distribute it for free. A handout, like a soup kitchen. If money enters the equation at all, no one above me will approve this. To be more specific, a certain member of the royal family will absolutely put a stop to it."

"Money…? No, understood. I'll do it that way."

"In a sense, perhaps this is a stroke of luck. If the people you're talking about had managed to spread the drugs first and everything came to light afterward, the bloodshed would make the last incident pale in comparison. Factor in collateral damage, and it could very well wipe Luido off the map."

Jacob let out a heavy breath.

It was practically a sigh. He had his own share of difficulties, it seemed.

Luido was small, but it was still a proper city. Its population exceeded a thousand.

If a crisis could threaten a city of that size, then the situation was bigger than Yohane had assumed.

He'd only ever seen members of the royal family from afar, during parades and the like, and knew nothing of their personalities.

Rumors trickled in now and then, but rumors were just that.

The King, the Queen, and three children.

Apparently one of them had been absolutely furious over the previous drug scandal.

What would have happened if Azu and Kazusa hadn't discovered those poppy seeds, if events had simply run their course?

Fate, perhaps.

"Keep this as quiet as possible. We'll cooperate where we can. The more smoothly and quietly this wraps up, the better for everyone."

"Agreed."

If they could prevent this before it happened, it might fill in some of the regret Yohane carried from those days when he couldn't do anything.

That was what Yohane would call his own form of revenge, his goal.

Knowing he'd never have had the chance without Azu and the others, he truly felt they were goddesses of fortune or something.

Not that he'd ever say that to their faces. Far too embarrassing.

The broad strokes had been covered and his cup was empty.

They weren't on terms for idle small talk.

Yohane bowed his head to Jacob and rose.

"Then I'll take my leave."

"Mm. This city of yours gets damned cold. Can't stand it."

"This year is especially bad."

He opened the door and stepped out.

Time was precious.

He headed for the exit at a brisk walk.

When he returned to Ramiza-san's shop, Finn and Elza were slumped face-down on a table, completely spent.

They'd been worked to the bone, it seemed.

Ramiza-san worked harder than anyone herself, so no one could really complain, but she was an absolutely merciless taskmaster.

"You're late… The smell in here is killing me."

"I'm exhausted, honestly."

They greeted him without lifting their heads.

"Leave the rest to me and get some rest. I'll take over as her assistant."

"Obviously, you idiot. I'm going to nap for a bit."

"Me too. Zzz…"

The sound of their breathing told him they were already asleep.

At the same time, Ramiza-san emerged from the back carrying several cooking trays stacked in both hands.

Inside, the ground materials had been dried and reduced to powder.

It appeared the bulk of the preparatory work was done.

"All right, preparations are complete. How did it go, Yohane-kun?"

"I got permission to produce. Beyond that, he wants to see the finished product before deciding anything."

"Fair enough. Man, I was this close to being an illicit manufacturer of contraband."

She laughed heartily at that.

It was no laughing matter, but Yohane was the one who'd brought this to her, so he was hardly in a position to say so.

"The issue this time isn't so much the poppy's medicinal effects as its addictive properties. Getting a mild high isn't enough to create dependency on its own. In plain terms, the medicine we're making is something that, when ingested, converts the narcotic into the equivalent of a medical-grade drug."

"Hearing it put into words like that makes it sound incredibly difficult. Can it actually be done?"

"Processing poppy seeds into medical-grade form isn't impossible, but since this is a preventative against narcotics that have already been ingested, it's not simple. But it can be done. Interestingly enough, nature provides opposing toxicities. There's this thing called a chemical reaction that… oh, never mind."

Ramiza-san had been leaning forward across the table to explain, but stopped mid-sentence. She probably assumed he wouldn't follow. He wasn't about to argue the point.

Her ample chest pressed against her robe and changed shape under the pressure. The sight was rather impressive.

"What we're about to do is test which combinations produce that reaction. This specialized magic instrument can identify them, so no taste-testing required. Normally you'd spend months on this kind of work, but we don't have that luxury, do we? I'll be going hard, so you'd better not sleep either, Yohane-kun."

"Understood. I'm the one who made the unreasonable request. That much I can handle."

The actual compounding was no place for an amateur.

Ramiza-san placed a tiny amount of poppy seed on one side of a balance-shaped magic instrument and a compounded reagent on the other.

He didn't fully understand the mechanism, but apparently when the correct combination was found, the balance would reach equilibrium.

Yohane's role was recording and preparation.

He kept everything ready so that Ramiza-san's hands never had to stop as she experimented and verified at a staggering pace.

They repeated that process, on and on, without end.