Songstress of Schwarzwald: The Secret of Zoe, the Exiled Music Mage Chapter 22 : The Odd Apothecary

Maggie guides to the apothecary. While the tailor was on the main street, the apothecary is one street back—on the side roads.

“It doesn’t get much sunlight, does it?”

In Lang Village, there aren’t any houses with poor sunlight. They’re just scattered along the roads.

Of course, since everything’s within the walls—or the fence, rather?—the roads curve gently and intersect here and there.

Lang Village has dozens of houses dotted around. Behind them are livestock pens, storage sheds, and barns, but there aren’t enough houses for them to overlap.

“Well, Carlton is more crowded with people,” Maggie says.

“I see.”

Since I’ve never seen a big town, I just nod along with Maggie’s words.

And there are people walking the streets! In Lang Village, I rarely pass anyone, but just getting here I’ve passed more than ten people.

And that’s during a random morning hour—not morning rush, lunch ti, or evening!

“Hey, hey! What’s everyone doing?”

I can’t help asking Maggie, but she doesn’t seem to understand my question. How frustrating!

She makes a puzzled face. “What?”

“Um, well, it’s still morning but there are people walking around on the streets. I don’t understand what those people are doing.”

Maggie laughs. “Oh, oh!”

“Oh, right. Zoe, you grew up in the Great Forest, didn’t you? Even in Lang Village, people don’t just go to the fields or chop wood—they also run errands for others. And in Carlton Town, there are lots of shops, plus inns and boarding houses for adventurers, so there must be plenty of shopping and chores to do too.”

Hmm, I guess during snowstorms you couldn’t even go out in Lang Village. But usually, villagers do walk around sotis. Well, that makes sense! Winter musta kept them indoors more than usual.

“I see.”

While we’re talking, we arrive at the apothecary on the back street. Since so people here can’t read, the signs show what they sell with pictures.

The tailor has clothes. The restaurant has a bowl and spoon. The liquor store has a wine barrel. The blacksmith has a hamr. The apothecary has… What’s that? So kinda herb, I guess?

It doesn’t look anything like the herbs I know. I can barely tell it’s supposed to be a leaf.

“Can you tell it’s an apothecary from this sign?”

“The apothecary uses dicinal herbs, doesn’t it?”

I don’t know any herbs that look like this, but it does look like a leaf.

Maggie laughs. “I reckon it’s clearer than the general store’s sign.”

The general store’s sign sure is confusing, yeah. It has clothes, a hoe, a pot, and so round things—seeds maybe? It’s so cluttered that you think “oh, it’s a general store” just from the ss.

Then again, Lang Village only has a general store, tailor shop, and blacksmith, so everyone knows them anyway.

“Good afternoon!” Maggie calls out. She’s apparently been here several tis before, so she strides right into the apothecary.

I hurry in after her.

The sll of dicine hits . Not like the antiseptic from my past life, but like herbal decoctions. The sa sll when Selina makes dicine.

“Ah, the young lady from Lang Village. Co to sell herbs, have you?”

The white-haired old man sitting behind the counter has thin, long fingers. The tips are stained brown.

When you chop herbs, that residue sticks to your fingers. Sotis when I help Selina with herbs, my fingertips turn brown too.

When that happens, Selina casts Purification on , so the brown cos right off.

While I’m thinking about this, Maggie has already sold two baskets worth of herbs.

Here, there isn’t the kind of back-and-forth negotiation like with the tailor shop proprietress. I do wonder why, but I leave that question for later.

I gotta sell my herbs too.

“Is that young lady also here to sell herbs?”

“Yes,” I say, offering my basket. I’m really not cut out for business.

“These are very fresh. They look like they were picked just this morning.”

Of course they are! Selina used storage magic to keep them fresh-picked. So of the herbs I gathered this morning are mixed in too.

If I hadn’t fed so to the goats, there would have been more, but they’re like my parent figures, so it can’t be helped.

“I post standing requests to the Adventurers’ Guild, but it’s rare to get high-grade herbs this fresh. Young lady, would you consider becoming an adventurer?”

Hmm… I do plan to beco an adventurer eventually, but I’m still only seven.

Anyway, turns out the herbs I picked with Selina are high-grade! I know about herbs from reference books, but I thought they were all the sa.

“She isn’t old enough yet,” Maggie says.

Maggie knows more about adventurers than I do.

“Ah right, you can only register with the Adventurers’ Guild from age ten. So children do beco apprentices from age eight, however. They gather low-grade herbs at the forest’s edge, do yard work, and collect trash. Various odd jobs to earn daily wages.”

So I see! Maggie’s father said orphans can only stay in the orphanage until age ten, but it’d still be terrible if they get kicked out imdiately.

So they start doing odd jobs around age eight to save money!

Since I’m an orphan too, I should learn from this!

But honestly, I might go on a little splurge. I an, co on… my herbs sold for way more than I hoped for. Double what I got at the Lang general store during winter, actually.

I briefly wonder if Maggie’s mother ripped off. But then I realize in Lang Village, they just dry the herbs and brew them into tea.

Here, the apothecary makes healing potions from them and sells them to adventurers at high prices.

“Healing potions made from fresh high-grade herbs turn out really well. Please bring your herbs here whenever you gather them.”

Hahaha… With the way Maggie’s glaring at , I don’t think I can keep coming to sell here.

Besides, even the dried high-grade herbs I sold throughout winter fetched quite good prices.

Seems to herbs from deep in the Great Forest really are quite valuable.

They’re more effective than the low-grade herbs from the forest’s edge. The herbs don’t look very different, but apparently the leaf thickness is different.

This apothecary is a gentle man despite being an elderly male. Since Selina was the only old person I knew, I had an image of them being difficult. Turns out there are mild-mannered folks too.

Learning how to make healing potions from Selina and becoming an apothecary might be good. It’s safer than becoming an adventurer.

Well, my first choice was to beco a bard… but being a girl bard sounds… kinda dangerous?

In the stories, the guy bards are super popular with highborn girls and noble won—they run off together or get caught cheating and end up getting killed by so angry husband… I feel like the girl version of that would be way worse.

Just because they're bards in those stories doesn’t an they’re all like that in real life… but nobles are scary.

Selina scolded for reading a book I wasn’t supposed to, but then she warned , “You should probably give up on being a bard. Unless your goal is to beco so noble’s mistress, that is.”

Anyway, eighty copper pennies at the apothecary!

Once Maggie’s done picking out secondhand clothes at the clothing shop, it’s shopping ti! Oh, and lunch too!