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Chapter 2

The shop closes three hours before sunset. Thanks to the Flower Knight Hector showing up today, sales of tea leaves were incredible. In other words, a lot of women came for fortune-telling. I lost count of how many times I had to repeat the phrase, 「That love won’t succeed.」

I really wish those girls would understand just how pointless it is to fall in love with the Flower Knight.

After flipping the 「Open」 sign at the entrance to 「Preparing」 I headed out for shopping. Food, daily necessities, and whatever medicine ingredients I could buy, I went from shop to shop, but at every stop the shopkeepers would ask for advice. I’d look at their prediction lines, tell them something, and then receive 「thank you」 gifts or discounts, so by the time I got home, both hands were always full of extra things.

I never intend to buy much, but somehow it always ends like this. And every time, my reputation as a fortune-teller goes up again. …Completely against my will. I want people praising my medicine, not my fortune-telling.

(But today I finished early… In that case, it should be fine to go into the forest.)

Today, I managed to finish errands relatively early. There should still be two hours or so before sunset. Normally I’d start preparing dinner and then do some medicine mixing afterward, but when I happen to have spare time, I head into the forest to collect ingredients.

This town sits between the sea and the forest, a nearly ideal home for someone who makes medicine. Trade flourishes thanks to the sea, and right beside us stretches a forest full of plants useful for medicine. It’s convenient whether I buy ingredients or gather them myself.

(I’m running low on ointment ingredients… Better go gather some.)

There are ingredients I can purchase, but there are also some that won’t work unless I gather them myself. That’s probably related to the magical power I have. Plants useless to others can become excellent materials in my hands. Those, I have no choice but to collect personally.

I stuffed my waist pouch with first-aid medicines and emergency-use items, slung a collection bag with many compartments over my back, and headed out. Since time was short, I wouldn’t go deep into the forest, just gather near the entrance. Deep in the forest there are far more materials, but places where sunlight barely reaches are places where magical beasts dwell. If something happened and I couldn’t get out before sunset, the risk of being attacked would skyrocket.

(I can’t see my own prediction lines, so I have to be extra careful.)

Magical beasts were originally just animals. They mutated after a certain event and reproduced. Long ago, this world was filled with 「monsters」, magical beings unlike animals, and when they bred with animals, magical beasts were born.

Animals and magical beasts look almost the same, but magical beasts always have twisted horns, so you can recognize them. And above all, magical beasts are violent. If they’re hungry, they will almost always attack.

One of the knights’ most important duties is exterminating magical beasts. They are hunted constantly, yet their numbers never seem to decrease. But if left alone, they will multiply endlessly, the forest animals will disappear, and if their prey runs out, they might attack human towns. So the hunting never stops.

Fortunately, magical beasts hate light. Most stay deep in the thick, dark forest and rarely come out. Occasionally one wanders toward town, but knights deal with those quickly. So going slightly inside the forest isn’t terribly dangerous, but still, I avoid entering when sunset is near, just in case.

If it’s just plants treated as weeds, plenty grow near the forest edge. Since no one but me uses them, I can take as much as I want.

(…Alright, that’s enough. Let’s stop for today.)

I headed back before the sky turned red, but by the time I returned to town, the sky was already indigo. Lights glowed in windows and the street lamps were lit, so it didn’t feel dark, but night was close.

The smell of soup drifting from someone’s house stirred my appetite, and I quickened my pace, eager to get home and eat, when it appeared, wandering out of a side street.

A tall man, hunched over in a shabby, dirty cloak, hood pulled deep over his face. He looked like a vagrant at first glance, but the clothes peeking from beneath the cloak were clean, so I guessed he was only disguised. An extremely suspicious man.

But what kept me from looking away wasn’t his clothes, nor his suspicious air. It was the astonishing prediction line above his head.

(That’s… death color…!?)

I clearly remember the first time I saw it. The day my parents went out together, there had been pitch-black, ominous prediction lines rising above them. Back then, I didn’t know what that color meant. Without understanding, I watched them leave while telling me, 「Be a good girl and watch the house」, and they returned as cold, lifeless bodies.

There is no mistaking it. That man will die at this rate.

(Why is he going to die? Is there any way to stop it?)

With every step he took, the death line stretched further, and the injury line grew at twice the speed. He must not go that way. If he does, he will either die or be terribly injured. So all I had to do was stop him.

「Wait!! Don’t go that way!!」

Of course he didn’t stop. He probably didn’t even realize I was talking to him. He didn’t react at all, continuing forward, and his lines continued to grow. So I ran to him, grabbed his arm, and yanked him back.

「You mustn’t go that way!! You’ll die!!」

Looking back now, a woman suddenly grabbing a stranger and shouting something like that must have seemed extremely suspicious. The man I forcibly stopped looked surprised beneath his hood, and I was just as shocked when I saw his face. Because beneath that hood, widening honey-colored eyes, was a face beautiful enough to be compared to a flower.

(The Flower Knight…!?)

Both of us froze in confusion, when suddenly, a shrill scream of a horse split the air, drawing our gazes.

A horse pulling a carriage suddenly went wild. The driver was thrown off, the carriage lost control, veered off the road, and crashed violently into a stone wall.

Right where this man, Hector, would have been walking if I hadn’t stopped him. That must have been the cause of his predicted death. The proof was that the death and injury colors above his head vanished completely.

「…Who are you?」

「Questions can wait! Help comes first!! Call for reinforcements!!」

He stared blankly at the accident, realizing he might have been caught in it, and began to question me suspiciously, but I cut him off. I might seem suspicious, but saving lives came first.

I’m a pharmacist, and a healing magician. I have at least some medical knowledge. If needed, I’d use my power secretly. With that resolve, I rushed toward the accident.

「Are you alright!?」

The horse was crushed horribly between wall and carriage, but thankfully no one had been inside. Only the driver, thrown from his seat by the rampage, seemed to have bruises. With no one critically injured, the rest could be left to professionals.

After confirming no one was gravely hurt, I dragged the man to the roadside, told him not to move much until knights and doctors arrived, slipped him some bruise medicine, and fled. Truly fled.

I hated abandoning an injured person, but I wanted to vanish before the knights arrived to handle the accident. The knight disguised in that shabby cloak had disappeared too, perhaps to call help, or perhaps because he didn’t want to be seen. Either way, he was gone. I pushed through the crowd and ran straight back to my shop.

Breathless, I slammed the door shut, locked it, then slid down to sit on the floor. I suddenly felt exhausted.

(Of all people to save today… the very one I was determined to avoid…)

Who would ever expect that dazzling symbol of beauty to be wandering town in a filthy cloak? I neither knew nor wanted to know what he’d been doing, but really, he shouldn’t scare me like that.

(…He only saw my face a little. I only behaved a bit suspiciously. It’ll probably, hopefully, be fine. I’ll never approach him again anyway…)

That was how my encounter with the Flower Knight, Hector Alderde, ended. Or so I firmly told myself.

And those confident words would soon be shattered completely.