My profession is that of a pharmacist.

Typically, when people think of a pharmacist, they imagine an easy and simple job where one just opens the pharmacy door, smiles brightly, and hands out medicines requested by healers or patients.

There are quite a few customers who complain, saying we overcharge for expensive medicines despite not doing much work.

It’s an unfair accusation. I do so much! Besides the murderous workload, endless study is needed to prescribe the right medicine for each condition.

And that’s not all. From the patient’s perspective, they may lump everything together as just ‘medicine’, but even the types of medicinal ingredients stored in the pharmacy now exceed a thousand. Each of these requires different handling and storage methods. Moreover, the method of preparing the medicine and its combination with other ingredients can make a world of difference in its effectiveness, so there are countless things to pay attention to.

Patients think healers clearly specify which medicines to use, but that’s far from the truth. There have been numerous times when I’ve been dumbfounded looking at the prescriptions patients bring.

Medicine for stomachache, medicine for headache, medicine to stop bleeding. Whenever I see prescriptions with such vague expressions written in a single line, I feel so exasperated that I want to find the healer who wrote it and pull out all their hair. If I had acted on my impulses, all the healers in the capital would be bald by now.

And that’s not all. Healers from noble backgrounds are so haughty that they often refuse to treat those who aren’t nobility. Those who can’t receive treatment from them have no choice but to come to me, a pharmacist, hoping for treatment. In the end, I end up doing both the diagnosis and prescription.

Commoners who have to do rough work with their own hands, rather than nobles wrapped in silk clothes whose only task is to hold forks and knives, are more prone to injuries.

Sometimes I have to make house calls for patients who can’t come in person.

Patients in need of help exist in truly diverse places.

I’ve gone to a logging camp outside the imperial city to treat a woodcutter crushed by a tree, visited the kitchen of a noble mansion to treat a maid who got burned while cooking, and rushed to a ranch to treat someone kicked by a horse’s hoof.

I’ve climbed a ladder onto a building’s roof to treat someone who collapsed from heatstroke while fixing the roof, and even entered a brothel to treat a prostitute who was beaten unconscious by a customer.

It doesn’t matter what the patient does or where they are. Wherever it is, I’ll go with my medical bag. Even if it’s inside the imperial palace.

“Jane! Isn’t it too long since you last visited? I’m starting to feel neglected.”

The person pouting with a cute smile in front of me right now was Ian. If there’s anything special about him, it’s that his status is that of the Crown Prince.

Ian brushed back his silver-gray hair that shone smoothly like velvet. Beneath his neat forehead, his bright blue eyes were clearly visible.

His sharp eyes might make him look irritable, but his well-balanced nose bridge, lips that were neither too big nor too small, and especially his smooth yet strong jawline were more than enough to tempt the opposite sex.

He was so captivating that I thought if the word ‘enchanting’ were to be molded into a person, it would look like this. Just looking at him made me smile involuntarily.

‘I need to snap out of it! I shouldn’t be captivated by his appearance. Think of him as a siren. A siren that enchants with looks instead of voice.’

If I were to fall for this face completely, I might end up having to come to the palace every day. I barely managed to compose myself and wiped the smile off my face.

“I’m visiting without fail once a week. How much more often can I come! If I had my way, I’d like to prepare three months’ worth of medicine at once.”

“If you give me that much at once, I wouldn’t be confident in storing it properly, nor would I take it regularly. It’s only when you come to check on me like this that I show improvement.”

“It’s not like you’re brewing and taking it yourself, you’re just ordering your servants around.”

“Still.”

He’s not a child, yet every time I offer to prepare the medicine all at once, he throws a fit like this… Ian always insists that he won’t take his medicine properly, that he’ll wait without taking anything even if he’s sick until I come, and that he won’t let other healers examine him even if they come. Using his health condition as a hostage to threaten me like this, I have no choice but to make these royal visits every time, albeit reluctantly.

It’s not that I dislike him, but visiting the imperial palace is a great mental burden. With my rough red hair and black eyes giving me an exotic appearance, I drew attention no matter what I did. So it was uncomfortable to come every time…

Everyone who sees me for the first time would find it strange that I, who doesn’t fit in with the Kalovanian Empire’s palace more than anyone else, am here, and moreover, being summoned by the Crown Prince. Even I, the person involved, haven’t gotten used to it.

* * *

“I’m tired.”

Feeling muscle aches, I patted my shoulders and legs all over as I prepared to go to bed early.

My muscles seemed shocked from wandering around the palace for a long time two days ago, and my whole body had been stiff for days. Even before the fatigue could subside, I worked non-stop to dry the damp medicinal ingredients. There was no leisure time to relieve the fatigue.

“If it weren’t for that gardener, I might have still been wandering around and died of starvation. This is all because the palace is so big and complex. How do the people working there find their way around?”

I couldn’t easily forget the look of great surprise on his face when I said, ‘Do you know the way out of the palace? I’m definitely not a suspicious person. I just came in for work and got lost.’

“His face was full of doubt, thinking ‘How could anyone get lost in a place like this?’ Well, even without that expression, he wasn’t someone I could easily forget. Because I had never seen such a handsome older man before.”

The middle-aged man was handsome enough to elicit admiration. To the point where I thought it was a waste for him to have the job of a gardener.

“His face did seem familiar… Who did he resemble… Oh no! This is not the time to be thinking about such things. I need to hurry and transfer the charcoal.”

I quickly extinguished the fires stuck to the wood with sand and transferred the charcoal to the brazier. Because the pharmacy was a wooden building and the gap between it and other buildings was so narrow, I always had to be careful with fire.

It had been raining for three days straight, so the building was soaked with moisture and the possibility of a fire was low, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. I took the brazier filled with charcoal to the room to maintain warmth instead of the extinguished stove.

“I’ll sleep warmly tonight.”

I pulled the blanket up to the top of my head to avoid the cold, damp air. As soon as I buried my face in the pillow, I fell into a deep sleep as if being sucked into a swamp.

* * *

I woke up before morning came. It was because I heard voices from somewhere.

“…found it?”

“It’s too… can’t find it?”

“Must… absolutely. Anyway…”

Although I’m not particularly sensitive to sounds while sleeping, ever since a thief broke in a few months ago, I would startle awake at the slightest sound at dawn. The only things I lost were tools needed for making perfumes and some herbs. There wasn’t much money in the pharmacy to begin with, and except for some particularly expensive herbs, there weren’t many items worth stealing, so there wasn’t much damage.

But the fact that someone had intruded into my space without permission was quite scary even for me, who’s generally fearless. Since then, I would wake up at the slightest sound.

Until now, it was mostly the sound of objects falling due to wind, or the ‘crack! crack!’ noise of the building contracting or expanding due to moisture, but what I was hearing now was human voices. And unfamiliar ones at that.

‘Conversation sounds? Is it thieves?’

At the thought that others had entered my space at will, I became frightened and my hands started trembling. I had prided myself on being quite brave, but I was tense at the intrusion of unfamiliar others.

I tried to calm down.

The conversation sounds from outside had stopped, but I could hear the sound of things being rummaged through.

‘Do they not know there’s someone here?’

The sound of them searching through things was quite loud, as if they were looking for a money pouch. They didn’t seem to worry about waking me up.

‘There’s nothing to steal, but it would be nice if they left quickly and quietly.’

I stayed quietly in the room, holding my breath. Fortunately, my sleeping room was located in a corner of the pharmacy and hidden by various shelves of medicinal ingredients, so outsiders wouldn’t easily know such a space existed.

‘I don’t like them messing up the medicinal ingredients I’ve just organized, but there’s nothing I can do.’

I tightly gripped a candlestick placed beside the bed, thinking it might serve as a weapon, and waited for them to find anything worth money and leave this place.

After a long wait, the presence outside disappeared. The pharmacy was only quiet.

“Cough cough! Why is it so spicy? Cough cough!”

Along with an acrid smell, I realized the situation was turning unusual. Although it was dark in the room and I couldn’t see clearly, smoke seemed to be coming in through the door cracks.

“Damn thieves!”

It seems they weren’t content with just stealing things, but had also set fire to the pharmacy. There was no separate window in the bedroom. If I stayed here any longer, I would die from smoke inhalation.