After sorting the potions, I asked Kirika-chan to check if I did it correctly.
ăIs this okay?ă
ăYup, thatâs right!ă
Kirika-chan checked and told me I sorted them correctly. I got five potions and twelve bad potions. There was definitely a lot more bad ones.
ăWhy are the bad potions bad? Are they poisonous?ă
ăTheyâre not, but they donât heal you.ă
I see.
Suddenly, the words âExpiry Dateâ appeared in my head.
âŠEven so, I was the type of person to ignore expiry dates.
I took one of the bottles with pale yellow liquid inside, and pulled out the cork with a pop.
ăWait, Yuuri-san, what are you doing?!ă
Bryce-kun stopped me before I brought the bottle to my mouth.
ăItâs not poisonous, but it still tastes really bad. Youâll puke it out.ă
It was bad enough to puke out?
Bryce-kun took the bottle from my hand and dropped it. The bottle landed on the ground, and its content spilled out. Once all of the liquid left the bottle, the bottle dispersed into fine yellow sand-like particles and disappeared.
Ah!
So you couldnât use the bottles itself then⊠Itâs great that we wouldnât create any trash, butâŠ
These bad potions were really a miss then. I thought itâd be nice if we could at least use the bottles for something too.
Hm? Whatâs this?
I smelled something familiar.
It was a good smell.
My stomach growled just thinking about it.
ăNext, we should explain how the hut works.ă
Bryce-kun smiled and took us to the hut.
The hut had ten bedrooms, a living room, and a dining room combined with the kitchen.
ăThis is Kirikaâs room. Onee-chan, which room do you want to use? The one next to mine is free.ă
ăIâll take that room then.ă
ăUm, letâs see. You do something called register by holding up your card close to the door there. Then itâll become your room, Yuuri-oneechan. Nobody else can enter the room unless you give them permission to.ă
Card?
ăBy card, do you mean the one I got for registering with the guild?ă
Kirika-chan nodded. I took out my card and held it over a slight bump on the door, trying to do what she said was registering.
Wasnât this system similar to a hotel card key?
ăPotions are picked up once a month. Please keep the ones you got inside your room. Nobody else can enter your room, so itâs safe.ă
Safe? I couldnât imagine any of these children to steal though.
ăThis hut and everything inside of it were all prepared by Rofas-san! Before, everybody had to work on the potion field while camping outside.ă
Kurtz-kun said, and began telling the story of Rofas-san, his eyes gleaming in admiration.
Wow, thatâs impressive. Even though they called this place a hut, it wasnât shabby at all. It was a properly built log-house. There were quite a lot of rooms too.
It was furnished well too. The living room had a table and many chairs.
ăYuuri-san, how much do you know about adventurers?ă
I answered Bryce-kunâs question with ăNothing at all.ă
ăRich people go to an adventurer training school. People with no money work at places like a potion field to earn money and to learn how to be an adventurer. Our level goes up too.ă
Ehh. Thereâs a school for learning how to become an adventurer?
I wondered if that meant these three had no money, and that was why they worked here.
ăPoor children earn money at the potion field while raising their level. They canât live as adventurers if they canât handle sleeping outside or only eating a small amount of food. We wouldâve been fine with camping outside.ă
Uu, really? Sleeping outsideâŠ
I imagined having an actual camping tent, but realized that was probably not what they meant. If I wanted to continue living as an adventurer, I had to prepare myself to sleep under the stars at any time.
ăBut if we sleep outside, thereâs a chance our hard-earned potions will get stolen. We might even get hurt. If we lived like that, weâd die before we even become adventurers. Thatâs why Rofas-san built this hut for future adventurers to live in.ă
Ah, so that was why a hut was made!
The reason the card system was put in wasnât to prevent the children from stealing each otherâs potions, but to keep bad people out. Mhm, that way, the children could live without fear of being attacked. Rofas-san, you wanted to protect these children!
What a good person.
Rofas-san was a really good guy.
He was the type of guy who would prioritize other things over marriage. Heâd probably go broke by using all his money for the children.
ăAlso, the beds are way comfier than the ones at a cheap inn. It makes it harder for me to leave.ă
ăEh? Bryce-kun, youâre leaving?ă
ăOnce my level hits 10, I can go to the beginner dungeon. That means Iâll graduate from here. Iâm glad you came here, Yuuri-san. I was a little worried leaving these two here by themselves. Listen, Kurtz, Kirika. You need to properly teach Yuuri-san the dungeon rules, okay?ă