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Chapter 12: The Black Losing Potion
「We’re inspecting our equipment.」
Equipment? So, they were checking their garments to see if there were holes or frayed ends.  Simple things like that might lead to a serious injury. If we wore armor like Rofas-san, then there would be more things we needed to check, like whether the cords that held the armor together were damaged or not.
Everything had to be perfect before we entered the dungeon.
That way, we would live and return home safely. We could also learn about what needed to be prioritized and what to prepare for at this potion field.
That was very educational.
I cleaned and polished my husband’s shoes even if there was just a speck of dirt on it. I also ironed his collared shirts every day with starch. When he came home, I sprayed his suit jacket with deodorizer and pressed his dress pants.
A bitter smile surfaced when I remembered all of that.
「Now we check our weapon.」
Even if they called it a weapon, it was nothing more than a makeshift slipper. Everybody checked theirs seriously.
I wished we had something with a longer reach, like a flyswatter.
No, if I could experiment with other things, then I wanted a plank or something. A plank would be nice.
「Bryce-kun, I want a different weapon. Are there any large planks around?」
「No, there isn’t.」
Of course there wouldn’t be any. I didn’t know if there were households out there that had a giant board laying around.
「Let’s check our status.」
Everybody muttered status open. However, I didn’t see anything. I guessed that meant we could only see our own status.
「Status open.」
I mimicked what they did.
I was still stuck at level 1.
「Huh? I lost 1 stamina point since this morning, even though it’s usually at max… Oh, I know why, it’s because we went to the field…」
Kurtz-kun looked a bit surprised.
By stamina, was he talking about his HP? Let’s see, mine was 7/10… Ahaha. I used up 30% of my stamina already? W-will… will I be alright…?
「Dungeon rule.」
「I know. Only face the dungeon when we are in perfect condition. I’ll be fine, I’ll recover it by the time we finish eating.」
I see. Entering the dungeon with less stamina would endanger one’s life. I should probably recover mine too…
「Okay, all the checks are done.」
The rice didn’t look ready yet. I wondered if the children ate bread after their checks and headed straight to the dungeon. I felt bad for delaying them.
「Onee-chan, you should clean up your bad potions while we have the time.」
Kirika-chan took my hand and took me to the place where we left the bad potions we gathered yesterday.
Uuu. My level was even lower than a five-year-old girl. She was even teaching me all sorts of things.
In terms of experience, I would be considered a newborn child in this world. As an adventurer, I would be like a first-grader in elementary school.
The bottles we left in the room didn’t disappear. They only disappear when we empty them out. In other words, we had to empty out every single bottle so we wouldn’t create a lot of trash. It’d be problematic if the bottles accumulated, so the children learned to tell the difference between good and bad potions, and stopped picking up the bad ones altogether.
However, it took some time to tell the potions apart in the dim cave, so when they weren’t sure, they picked it up just in case. Soon, I should stop bringing back the obvious ones, like the ones with black-colored liquid.
The two of us took off the corks of the bad potions and emptied out the liquid.
Kirika-chan picked up the last potion, and started pouring out the black liquid. Then, I had a thought.
It wasn’t poisonous, but tasted bad enough for them to puke it out.
As I thought about that, I smelled something tasty.
Haah. It smelled good…
「Eh?」
Wait a second, this smell was good, and awfully familiar!
「Kirika-chan, stop, stop!」
I grabbed Kirika-chan’s hand to stop her from pouring out the liquid.
There was about a centimeter of liquid left inside the palm-sized bottle.
There was a faint smell coming from the black liquid.
This “losing” potion was bad enough for the children to puke, and did not recover their stamina. However, it wasn’t poisonous either.
So, that meant one thing.
I poured a bit of the black liquid onto my hand and brought my mouth close to it
「Onee-chan, don’t drink it, it tastes bad. Even one sip will hurt your throat. We told you not to drink it even if you’re really thirsty, didn’t we?」
Kirika-chan tried to stop me, but I gave her a smile and licked the liquid on my hand.
「Ahhh!!!」
「O-oneechan, are you okay? Kirika will bring you water.」
Instead, I gave Kirika-chan a firm hug.
「Thank you for worrying about me. And sorry for raising my voice like this, but it’s not like that. I yelled out loud because I was happy.」
I took a deep breath. Calm down, me.
「This isn’t a pity prize, it’s the grand prize!」