Chapter 2:
Back to Zero
I PASSED NOELA her usual freshly concocted potion.
“Roo, roo, rooooo!” She happily chugged it down.
Watching, I reflected, Nobody ever complains about my potions. If anything, people just talked about how this world’s old potions had stunk and tasted like trash. They really seemed to appreciate the potions I made.
Noela flipped the bottle upside down and tapped the bottom to get the last drop out, then gazed at me. “What wrong, Master? Want drink?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Noela tilted her head, prompting me to ask, “Do you have any complaints about the drugstore’s potions?”
“Nope.”
She did love them, after all.
“But yes,” Noela added.
“Wait. Really?”
“Tasty too tasty!”
I stroked her head lovingly, then headed to the storefront. There, I found Ejil, uh, dealing with Annabelle.
“Hey! Woman! Are you here for the doctor’s drinks?!”
“What the hell’s your problem?!”
I pulled the demon king’s ears. “Stop calling her ‘woman.’ It’s rude.”
“Gah gah gah! Ow! D-Doctor?! Good morning!”
“Yeah. Morning. Morning to you as well, Annabelle.”
“Hey… Mornin’.”
Annabelle set the five potions she held against her chest on the counter. Like Noela, she loved potions so much, she practically couldn’t live without them.
“Those’ll be 6,000 rin!” Ejil snapped. “Not that you’ve got the cash for that.”
“Shut up. I don’t recall askin’ you to worry about my finances.” Annabelle handed Ejil six bills from her wallet. “Oh—and I’ll put the empty bottles outside the store like always.”
“That’s a huge help. Thanks.”
“No problem.” She turned to leave.
“Oh! Actually… Annabelle, I have a question.”
“Hm?”
“Have you got any feedback on my potions?”
“Feedback? Um… Not that I can think of.”
I hesitated. “All right.” I’d been considering tweaking the potions, but everyone seemed happy with them now.
Suddenly thinking of something, Annabelle clapped girlishly. “Actually, there’s one thing!”
“What is it?”
“They’re delicious.”
That was what Noela had said. “That’s good feedback, isn’t it…?”
“It’s not good or bad. See you later!” And with that, Annabelle left.
Can deliciousness be negative? Confused, I cocked my head.
“It’s true. The potions being too delicious might be a drawback,” I heard Ejil whisper.
“Why?”
“Well… When I first sipped one of your potions, I was flabbergasted,” he replied. “I thought, ‘How could this exist in the human world?’ I actually peed my pants a little!”
“Was that last part really important to tell me?”
“I’m the demon king, you know,” Ejil continued. “If I desire sweets, I have them brought to me. But those beneath me don’t have the same access to desserts. For Noela and that redhead, sweet foods and drinks could be wildly addictive!”
I generally liked sugary things. Candy, fruit, all of them. Although Ejil referred to sweets as “addictive,” I couldn’t help feeling that described them a little too harshly. At the same time, I understood the idea that Noela and Annabelle loved sweets so much they just couldn’t stop consuming them.
Most rural towns in this world didn’t have access to desserts, although they were apparently sold in the capital. However, the syrup I’d developed sold like crazy, so people clearly wanted sweets in their lives.
“All told, what I’m trying to say is that the drugstore’s potions needn’t be as delicious as they are,” Ejil concluded.
“I think I see what you’re getting at.”
My potions healed external wounds and stopped blood loss. It was great that they were easy to drink, but at the end of the day, they were supposed to be medicinal. They didn’t have to taste good. And they cost 1,200 rin each—that was a fair price for medicine, but pricey for people who drank potions as beverages like Annabelle or Noela.
“If someone needed a potion to save their life, it’d be awful if somebody else was sipping on it as a refreshment,” I mused.
“Precisely,” Ejil agreed. “Imagine if the drugstore ended up low on potions when people needed them most?”
“I get your perspective now. In that case…” Thinking, I went silent for a moment.
Ejil gazed at me respectfully. “Doctor, have you got an idea?!”
“Yeah, a basic one. Watch the store for me?”
“Of course!”
When it came to Noela, Ejil was pretty much worthless, but he really was great to talk with about more serious topics. I patted his shoulder, turning to head to the lab.
“On Earth, those were really getting popular,” I recalled. “So, if I do this with that…”
My medicine-making skill told me what ingredients I needed and how to mix them. I followed its internal instructions carefully, and bam, I was done.
Potion Zero: Stops blood loss. Works on external wounds. Zero calories.
It looked exactly like a potion. I took a sip; the flavor was totally different.
Potion Zero had just the faintest hint of sweetness, but it wasn’t nearly as saccharine as a normal potion. Its aftertaste was probably more refreshing, and creating it was much cheaper.
“It’s like flavored water,” I murmured. “A less sugary potion with the same effects…”
We’ll call Potion Zero “PoZe” for short and price it at 800 rin.
Noela entered the lab, sniffing the air. “Master make another potion?”
“Yup. A brand-new type.”
“Groo! Noela try!”
I handed her the PoZe bottle. She held it in both hands and took a big gulp. Now, how will the fluffball react?
After finishing the potion, Noela looked at me meaningfully. “No worry, Master.”
I paused, bemused.
“Everyone make mistake. Everyone.”
So that’s why she’s staring at me. “That wasn’t a mistake.”
“Groo?”
“It was exactly the kind of potion I wanted to make.”
“Tasteless. Not tasty taste.”
“I flavored it like that so people won’t just buy it as a refreshment.”
“Prefer regular potion.”
“I’d call this successful, then.”
“Aroo?” Confused, Noela cocked her head.
In the drugstore, I arranged several PoZe bottles on a shelf, putting up a small sign that read, “Unsweetened PoZe shares a regular potion’s health effects and costs only 800 rin.”
“So, Doctor, you made a slightly less flavorful potion?”
“I’d call it significantly less flavorful, truthfully,” I replied.
“And it’s even cheaper,” Ejil observed. “I knew you’d come up with a magnificent idea!”
✦ ✦ ✦
A few days after I launched PoZe at the drugstore, our clientele was unsurprisingly split between people who liked the original potion and people who didn’t mind PoZe, so long as it was cheaper and its effects were the same.
Annabelle herself wasn’t fond of PoZe. “Hey, Pharmacist, these new potions of yours ain’t too appetizin’! Still, they’re definitely the ones to pick for my men.”
After all, as mercenaries, the Red Cat Brigade needed tons of potions—and Annabelle’s forces had complained about her drinking too many.
Frowning, Annabelle reached for the PoZe bottles. “I’ll have to buy normal potions with my own pocket money from now on…” she muttered.
Man, she really is addicted to potions, huh?
At any rate, the drugstore’s normal potion sales dipped a little, but PoZe sold well enough to make up for that.
“For this price, I can always keep two or three bottles in the house, just in case,” a customer had said.
Among our buyers were also folks who truly enjoyed the cheaper alternative; it was quite popular with customers who lacked a sweet tooth. One told me, “PoZe’s refreshing and even easier to drink than the other flavor.”
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. There are people who aren’t crazy about sweet things. I just forgot because I’m not one of them.
So, just like that, the drugstore’s lineup got a power-up.