At the End of the Experiments

How much time had passed since the experiments began?

Sheets of parchment were piled into small mountains. Each one was nothing special on its own, but this many… how many gold coins?

Every last one was filled with detailed experimental results.

I'll probably get billed for this later, he thought, his brain barely functioning.

He could hardly think straight.

"I'll take over, so go to sleep already… Your eyes are so bloodshot it's scary. You look like a zombie."

"Y-yeah. Sorry. I'll leave it to you."

He'd stayed up all night at Ramiza-san's side doing his best imitation of an assistant, but he'd finally hit his limit.

When he tried to write, his letters came out as unintelligible squiggles.

When he tried to prepare the next batch, his hands trembled so badly he nearly knocked everything over.

No wonder Finn was exasperated, telling him to sleep.

Having gotten a full night's rest, Finn was completely recovered. Leaving things in her hands wouldn't be a problem.

"You're wearing an apron. Cute."

"Tch, he's completely delirious… At least say that kind of thing normally. You really don't know how to treat women, you know that?"

Finn looked at Yohane with a flash of surprise, then clicked her tongue and tied the apron strings behind her back.

"Priestess. He's in the way, so put him to bed."

"Roger that. I can't do anything about exhaustion or sleep deprivation, but I can help you relax, so get some good rest."

Elza led him by the hand to an old, worn sofa set against the wall.

Wondering if she might sing him a lullaby, he lay down on the sofa as guided.

Elza sat down beside him and shifted his head onto her lap.

A soft, warm sensation cradled the back of his skull, and above him he could see Elza's face and chest.

"This helps people sleep really well. It was very popular with the children."

"I'm not a chi—"

Before he could finish, a crushing wave of drowsiness hit him.

Whether it was the comfort exceeding his expectations or his body simply giving out, he couldn't tell.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep as if blacking out.

When Yohane next opened his eyes, it was late afternoon, just before sundown.

Having pushed himself to the absolute limit, he'd been dead to the world.

Elza, who'd been giving him the lap pillow, had fallen asleep too.

Moving carefully so as not to wake her, he slowly sat up and slid off the sofa.

He then eased Elza into a lying position and draped a blanket over her.

The sound of her steady breathing reached his ears.

She usually wore a smile, so her sleeping face had a different air about it. His gaze was drawn, almost involuntarily, to her lips.

No one would fault him if he kissed her right now, but then he remembered this was Ramiza-san's laboratory.

Tearing his eyes from Elza's lips, he stretched his arms wide.

Noticing he was up, Ramiza-san came over.

She hadn't slept at all since this started, yet her mind seemed sharp.

The dark circles under her eyes, however, were unmistakable, undermining her good looks.

He owed her more than he could say.

"Awake?"

"Just now. I'm starving. Want me to go get us some food?"

At this hour, even the street stalls would be closed. He'd have to go home and cook, then bring it back.

But that was nothing compared to the work Ramiza-san had put in.

"That's fine, but could you help me first? I've narrowed the combinations down quite a bit."

"Sure."

It seemed she needed an extra pair of hands.

Approaching the table, he found Finn sorting through sheets of parchment.

"Finally awake. You were sleeping with the dumbest look on your face."

"Sorry. Left everything to you."

"It's fine. This level of work is nothing. I can go a whole day without sleep."

Finn said this while glancing his way intermittently.

Was there something she wanted to say?

Now that he noticed, she was wearing an apron with animal embroidery on it.

She looked about the same age as Azu, so the apron suited her well.

But if he carelessly told her she looked cute, she'd probably get annoyed. A difficult age.

"What? Got something to say?"

"No… I was just thinking the apron suits you."

"Shut it."

Sure enough, she took offense and he caught a kick for his trouble.

Women were a mystery.

"What are you two doing? Here, look at this."

Ramiza-san laid out plates on the table with a grin. There were six, each containing finely ground herbs and plant seeds.

"I've narrowed it down to these. Combining all of them should produce the desired effect. The remaining problem is adjusting the proportions to fine-tune the efficacy."

"But?"

She trailed off. Something must be wrong.

She was hesitating, clearly reluctant to say it.

He met her eyes and waited for her to continue.

"If the proportions are off, the medicine could become poison. And since we're not having people take this directly, since we're mixing it into food, heat will be applied."

"That's right."

"Meaning we need a taster to verify it works. This is one thing we can't get around."

Now he understood Ramiza-san's reluctance.

They couldn't very well submit something to Jacob that hadn't been tested. It was a necessary step.

Nothing could be accomplished without risk, it seemed.

"I'll do it."

"Don't you dare."

The moment he volunteered, Finn shut him down.

"I thought this was why you brought me along… Drop the misplaced sense of duty. You've been acting weird enough over this whole business."

Quite the dressing-down.

He had to admit the whole sequence of actions was out of character for him.

Finn glanced sideways at Ramiza-san.

Ramiza-san didn't know Finn's true identity. She likely assumed Finn was just helping out.

"I happen to have a bit of a resistance to poisons, for various reasons. I can ingest twice what a normal person can before showing symptoms. Right person for the right job, wouldn't you say?"

"… If anything happens, I'll make sure you get treated."

"Good. Then let's get on with it."

"I wish I could do it myself, but if something goes wrong, I need to be available to make the antidote. Sorry about that."

"No, that's the right call."

A short time later, Ramiza-san finished the compounding, dissolved the result in water, and heated it.

"And with that, it's complete. Ingesting this produces no symptoms on its own. If the person then takes a narcotic made from poppy seeds, it neutralizes it. The effect lasts about two days."

"That's the best we can hope for, I suppose."

Since it was taken internally, the body would eventually flush it out.

They'd need to keep distributing it over the course of several days.

"Aside from silver Dragon grass, none of the ingredients are particularly exotic. I'll bill you later for materials and compounding. Now then, bottoms up."

The medicine, cooled to a warm temperature, was placed in front of Finn.

To be safe, Yohane woke Elza, and together they watched as Finn drank it down.

"If there's going to be a reaction, it'll be from the silver Dragon grass toxin. If it's a failure, symptoms should show within ten minutes."

Ramiza-san set down an hourglass.

Apparently that was how she'd measure the ten minutes.

"Finn, how is it?"

"Bitter as hell. Needs some flavor adjustment. Other than that, nothing in particul—"

She stopped mid-sentence, her face contorting.

Panicked that it might be the toxin, Yohane rushed forward, only for Finn to pull a sharp fragment from her mouth.

"Looks like a sliver of the silver from the silver Dragon grass got mixed in."

"Give me a break…"

His heart was pounding.

Apparently it was nothing to worry about.