The fairies were hard at work in the garden tending to the herbs and vegetables. Before we opened, Miina had asked me if she could grow culinary herbs as well for the bakery and our meals, so our garden now contained more than just medicinal plants; we grew rosemary, chives, basil, and other herbs as well.
The fairies helped keep pests and animals out of the garden. Thanks to them, the plants here stayed vibrant and lively all year round, as if it were always spring.
Soon, it was finally about time to open.
The aroma of freshly baked bread wafted through the air, and before long I saw windows in the neighborhood swinging open one after the other. Residents peeked their heads out, curious about what was happening at the workshop.
Adventurers heading toward the dungeon city from the northwest gate also paused on their way, sniffing the air and glancing over at the workshop as they followed the source of the delicious smell.
The nearby church bell tolled, signaling that it was time. Leaf and I hurried back into the Alchemy workshop.
Our first customers were a group of four adventurers, two men and two women, who’d been drawn in by the lovely aroma of the bread.
“That smells incredible,” one of the women told Miina. “Is it coming from the food here?”
“Welcome in!” Miina said. “Yes, it’s bread made with Alchemy to make it soft and fluffy. This one’s airy and soft, while this one is crisp yet moist!”
The two women zeroed in on the strawberry Danishes.
“C’mon, buy me one. They look so good!” one pleaded.
It seemed this adventuring party was a group of couples, judging by how the women clung to the men’s arms as they begged. They ended up buying two strawberry Danishes and two salami flatbreads, and they happily ate their snacks as they walked down the street.
Not long after that, the Alchemy workshop also received its first customers. I stepped up to the counter to greet them. “Welcome!”
It was a party of three adventurers, one woman and two men. The woman pointed to a sign I had posted on the wall and asked, “Do the potions here really work like it says on the poster? Twice the normal effect?”
That was my workshop’s big selling point. Our potions were high-quality and more effective than normal potions.
“Yes, they’re double the strength,” I told her. “I sell them directly to the kingdom’s military, so you can rest assured that they’re genuine.”
“If they really work that well, that means fewer bathroom trips, right?” she said. “Chugging mana potions nonstop gets to be a bit much after a while. I’d rather have a more effective potion if I’m heading deep into a dungeon.”
“That’s what you care about?” muttered one of her male party members, clearly missing the point. He was rewarded with a smack to the head.
If I sold these potions at the same price as regular potions, it would undercut my competition and create all sorts of problems, so I had priced mine at five times the standard to reflect the difference in efficacy. The man grumbled that the price was too high, but their party still bought two mana potions before leaving.
Then another customer visited the bakery: a neighbor from across the street who’d peeked through their windows earlier.
“My kid wouldn’t stop bugging me about coming over. I’ll take four of the cheapest ones to try,” he said. He bought four basic fluffy breads from Miina and then went back to his apartment across the road.
And just like that, the morning of Atelier Daisy’s grand opening was a lively one.
A few days after our grand opening, we began to notice patterns in the flow of customers to each part of the shop.
Mornings were the busiest in the Alchemy workshop, where I usually handled the counter. Most of our customers were adventurers heading out to explore the dungeon in the nearby city or take other guild quests there. They typically left town early, which was why we had the most traffic in the mornings, but it quieted down a lot after that.
The adventurers who went out of their way to buy my potions were usually the ones trying to reach the deepest parts of the dungeon. For them, it made more sense to carry one expensive high-quality potion instead of a bunch of normal ones. There must have been more to the “bathroom concerns” than I’d realized.
Those were especially concerning for people like Mages and Healers, who typically stayed in the rear and didn’t sweat much to begin with. My mana potions were very popular with that group, especially the women. Dungeons didn’t have toilets, of course, so they would have to sneak off behind bushes or find a little dark corner to relieve themselves, which made for extra stress. That’s why my potions were such a big help: They were expensive, but they got the job done with only one dose.
Word began spreading through the adventurers’ guild tavern about my potions, thanks to my satisfied customers. We were already financially stable due to the government contract, but now the workshop was seeing steady traffic. We didn’t have to worry about slow days or the shop being empty.
Miina was also busy every day in the bakery. The fluffy bread was a hit with the other people in the neighborhood, while the crescent-shaped Danishes were popular with the wealthier merchants and servants of noble households.
The aroma and novelty of the two rotating daily specials attracted curious customers passing by. Miina was so overwhelmed during the breakfast and lunchtime rushes that she couldn’t keep up with all the customers on her own, so Marcus thoughtfully jumped in to help.
One of the bakery regulars was an elderly woman who lived at the far end of the street; her name was Anastacia, or Ana for short. She was an Alchemist too and owned her own workshop. Rumors were that she moved here from another kingdom, but I didn’t know why.
Ana was a petite, slender woman with a slight hunchback. Her hair, more white than gray, was always tied back, and she wore tiny round glasses that perched atop her nose. Her wrinkled face always seemed to be smiling, and the town adored her like a sweet grandmother. Whenever a child came down with a fever, people would say, “Go buy one of Granny Ana’s potions.”
“Hello, Ana,” Miina greeted her warmly when she came in one morning.
“Your bread is too good to miss out on, Miina. I just had to come by again today,” Ana said with a cheerful smile as she walked over to browse the display shelf. “Ooh, today’s savory bread is chicken and rosemary potato? That sounds delicious!” She seemed as cheerful as always until she let out a quiet sigh. “If only it had that soft melted cheese from my hometown on top. Then it would be just perfect! How I miss cheese…” she murmured with a melancholy look in her eyes.
She ended up buying one savory bread and one fluffy bread, then quietly left.
“Anyway, that’s what happened today,” Miina told me that night at dinner after the workshop had closed.
“The kingdom imports all its cheese, so it’s very expensive. I’ve never eaten it before either,” I said. “But Ana moved here from somewhere else, and it sounds like she used to eat it all the time back home.”
Cheese came from kingdoms under strong influence from the church, where monasteries owned a lot of land. They raised cattle and goats and used their milk to make things like cheese. There were also kingdoms in the mountains where large-scale farming operations were common. But the church didn’t own land in our kingdom, and farms were small. That meant there weren’t many people who could make cheese, and it was tough to acquire.
“Ana looked so sad. She’s always so cheerful, too. It just didn’t seem right,” Marcus said.
I agreed; I didn’t want Ana to be sad like that again. “Maybe there’s a way to make cheese with Alchemy? It might be in Delicious Dining with Alchemy!”
I decided to look through the book the next day when I had free time.
The next day, I leafed through Delicious Dining with Alchemy and was thrilled to find a recipe for cheese. The process involved fermenting fresh milk and then adding a coagulant to solidify it. Normally, the coagulant was a substance found in the stomachs of young goats or calves, which we couldn’t use. Luckily, the book mentioned other methods.
With that I decided to try making cheese. I wanted to make Ana happy after all!