Erica was struck speechless. Women she had never seen before were filing into the shop behind Roderick.

Like children following the Pied Piper.

“This is the pharmacy I told you about.”

“My, how quaint.”

The middle-aged woman who entered first used a polite expression for “tiny as a booger.” The pharmacy was so cramped that not all the customers could enter. Seeing people standing outside peering in, Erica became anxious.

“There’s room. Come in. Come in.”

Afraid of losing these rare customers, Erica hastily pushed boxes stacked in one corner of the shop into the preparation room and gestured for them to enter. A woman came in, wiped her sweat with a handkerchief, and clicked her tongue.

“Hidden in such a remote place, it must be hard to find.”

“True masters are always hidden.”

“Hohoho, that’s right.”

The woman cackled at Roderick’s comment, though Erica couldn’t see what was funny. Roderick politely gestured with both hands toward Erica, who stood dumbfounded, not yet adjusted to the situation, and began introducing her.

“This is the pharmacist who also works as a midwife. In our hometown, she was known as an excellent and reliable midwife, so our hometown has unfortunately lost a precious talent.”

To the customers, Erica probably didn’t look very reliable. She was staring up at Roderick with her mouth stupidly open.

‘Since when did he learn to speak so well, like a salesperson? What has he been doing for the past 10 years?’

Roderick didn’t stop there but personally took out various medicines to explain to the customers. He even added his own experiences.

All the medicines Erica made followed Grandma Greta’s old recipes exactly, so Roderick was familiar with them.

“Ah, this is what I often used when I was weak as a child……”

“My, you were weak? Looking at your body now, I can’t imagine it at all!”

“Thank you. It’s all thanks to this medicine.”

He even smoothly incorporated customers’ blatant compliments or flirtations into his sales pitch.

Erica just watched from the side like a sack of barley, bringing out more stock when Roderick said something was sold out, and handling the payments while he was busy with sales.

‘Where on earth did he bring these people from?’

It was too hectic to even ask.

“Our pharmacist will help you with the payment.”

“Yes, I’ll help you with the payment……”

Erica was surprised to see the next customer.

“Why are you here, ma’am?”

The next customer was her landlady. In the three years since opening the pharmacy here, she had never bought anything.

“What’s this? A new medicine? Eric’s mom, sorry but I’ve had my own pharmacy I’ve been going to for ages.”

She had said such cold words and even recommended medicines from a competing pharmacy, praising them to Erica. Perhaps feeling embarrassed herself, the woman blushed and said something unnecessary.

“Living under the same roof, I should buy from you.”

“Ah… yes……”

Whatever. Money is money. As she was counting change, the woman leaned toward Erica and whispered in her ear.

“I didn’t ask before because I was afraid of spreading rumors, but I’ve been dying to know.”

“What is it?”

“Is Elodie’s dad also Eric’s dad?”

At that moment, she forgot how much change she had counted.

“Why would you think that…?”

“He looks frighteningly similar to Eric.”

“No. What are you saying?”

What she was saying was the sound of a customer dropping.

Erica burst into laughter as if it were a ridiculous joke and counted the change again to return to the woman.

“Ahem, all this talking makes me thirsty. Let’s go to the tavern up ahead later for a cool beer.”

The woman said this and placed the money back in front of Roderick before leaving.

Only then did Erica realize what the pile of coins in front of Roderick was. More than one customer had directly given their change as a tip.

“Thank you. Please come again.”

Roderick paused from taking the next customer’s order to greet a departing customer.

“Y-yes! I’ll come again!”

No customer had ever responded to “please come again” with “I’ll come again” before.

“What did you say you needed?”

Roderick turned his attention back to the customer in front of him, curving his eyes gently into a smile. In other words, he gave them a soft eye-smile.

The customer who fell victim to that smile attack bought everything Roderick offered. Even hair growth tonic that a young miss wouldn’t need.

Erica could hear that customer, arms full of medicine packages, murmuring to her friend like someone in a trance.

“He’s really handsome.”

“I know, where did such a handsome man spring from?”

The woman’s friend checked her reflection in the window, groomed herself, and bought skin care ointment and tea.

“I’ll come again!”

That customer would probably really come again.

‘Goodness, look at those flirtatious eyes. There’s a day when that’s helpful in my life too.’

Erica looked at Roderick with an annoyed expression as he lavished eye-smiles on customers, but she absolutely did not tell him to stop.

“I’ll take everything from here to there!”

After all, customers like Erica in her heyday appeared just from a few words and eye-smiles.

“Will he be working tomorrow too?”

“Pardon?”

A customer asked, but Erica didn’t hear clearly as she was busy scooping money into a bag from the counter.

“I asked if he’ll be working tomorrow too. And what’s your relationship with him?”

When she looked up, the woman was scanning Erica with a suspicious gaze.

‘She seems to think we’re rivals… But I like something else entirely.’

Erica hugged the money bag and deliberately made an ugly face, furrowing her brow and flaring her nostrils as she smiled and answered.

“We’re employer and employee.”

As of today, that guy was her employee.

Erica had talent and outstanding experience in managing large corporations, but she had no experience running a small shop. So she didn’t know.

That all those grand business theories were useless for a hole-in-the-wall shop.

The best marketing was a handsome part-timer.

* * *

She wondered where all those customers came from, and the answer was the Weavers Guild.

An alliance of women who spin thread and weave cloth for a living. The commercial guild located in the nearest market—the very market where Roderick and Erica had run into each other after five years.

“How did you know there was a guild there?”

She asked in surprise, wondering how he knew the guild’s location when he hadn’t been here long. Roderick said he had noticed women mainly entering and leaving that building while going back and forth to the market.

Goodness, did his eyes wander to women or what?

What was even more astonishing than Roderick was actually the Weavers Guild. It wasn’t that Erica hadn’t tried marketing to them.

“Peddlers are prohibited!”

She had been turned away at the door due to the guild’s strict regulations and hadn’t been able to set foot there for years. Yet Roderick passed through at once. Was there an exception clause for handsome men in those strict guild regulations?

Anyway, Erica had to admit it. The fact that she earned three months’ worth of rent in a single day was all thanks to Roderick.

The materialistic Erica cheered that if she just put Roderick forward as the face of the business, sitting on a pile of money was only a matter of time, while the realist Erica said:

Would this luck continue? The miracle of customers flocking to the shop like a cloud might have been a one-day wonder. The special effect of a handsome part-timer couldn’t last that long, right?

But the next day…

“No cutting in line!”

“What do you mean cutting? Everyone in line knows I was standing here since dawn and just went to the bathroom for a moment!”

When she went down to collect eggs, women were already lined up in front of the shop. Word must have spread through the guild, as female customers from all over the city flocked in, eliminating the need for separate solicitation.

‘Strike while the iron is hot.’

The inventory, which she had deliberately not stockpiled much of since it would spoil, ran out in a day. Though she diligently made medicine day and night, the ingredients were depleted in just a few days as a result.

When ingredients run out? Just go to the market. Now she had enough money to buy herbs.

But why? She couldn’t buy herbs.

The large herb merchants in the city who had previously sold herbs to Erica were all saying, in unison, that they had no herbs.

“St. Gabriel’s grass is sold out.”

“When will it be restocked?”

“It won’t be coming in for a while.”

“But it’s in season now?”