“……”

“St. Gabriel’s grass is abundant in the forest, not something difficult to find?”

“Then you should go pick it yourself.”

Erica sensed immediately from the herb merchant’s suspicious attitude.

It was interference from competing pharmacies.

Success always attracts jealousy.

Erica’s intuition was correct.

Not far from Erica’s pharmacy in the city center was the largest and most renowned pharmacy in the city.

This ‘large and renowned’ pharmacy started becoming merely ‘large’ when some unheard-of pharmacy suddenly gained popularity.

As customers decreased, so did the owner’s hair. Unable to bear her husband’s increasingly thinning hair, his wife one day handed him a jar of ointment.

“It’s hair growth tonic. I heard if you apply this, hair will grow like weeds after rain.”

The man who thoughtlessly accepted it immediately saw the shop name ‘Erica’s Pharmacy’ engraved on the jar and…

“Aaaaargh! Even you!”

He screamed as if having a fit, threw the jar, and…

“I can’t take it anymore!”

He stormed out of the shop.

He headed to a tavern in the most remote back alley in the city. It was a neighborhood teeming with petty thieves, pimps, gamblers, and so-called ‘fixers’—a place where the wealthy man had never set foot before.

The reason he came here was…

“Where can I find bounty hunters?”

When he asked the tavern owner, the man pointed to five burly men occupying three tables in the center of the tavern, noisily playing card games.

Fresh from a successful job, money pouches gaped open ostentatiously on the table.

‘They seem capable.’

The pharmacy owner approached them directly and unrolled a parchment scroll.

“I have good news for you.”

“What is it?”

“The news that I know the people on this wanted poster.”

The men, annoyed at having their card game interrupted by an unexpected visitor, smoothed their frowning faces and gulped when they saw the unrolled wanted poster.

“A blonde woman with green eyes, and a black-haired man. Both notably beautiful people. Plus, the man has the height, build, and muscular physique you’d expect from a knight.”

“Just because someone has that appearance doesn’t mean they’re the wanted people.”

“Hey, do you know how many times we’ve wasted our time because of false leads?”

“But that’s not all!”

Bang.

The pharmacy owner slammed his hand holding the wanted poster on the table, crushing the bounty hunters’ doubts.

“They insist they’re not a couple even if it kills them, but you should hear how they have two children who look exactly like them!”

“Hmm…”

“Seems right…”

After carefully examining the wanted poster, the bounty hunters had to nod.

“So if your information is correct, how much of a cut do you want?”

The bounty was a whopping 300 gold. That was enough to buy a territory in the country and become a lord, with money to spare. No one gives away a 300-gold tip for free. The bounty hunters had their own code of ethics and wouldn’t cheat an informant out of their share.

“Keep it all. Take everything.”

The pharmacy owner didn’t care about the tip, which would hardly be worth 10 gold.

His real goal was to shut down that unheard-of pharmacy permanently.

* * *

Erica managed to find materials by searching every corner of the city for a herb merchant on the outskirts. Still, the herbs fell far short.

But what if you can’t buy herbs? Then you have to gather them yourself.

Erica finally set a date and headed for the forest outside the city walls as soon as the sun rose. This time, she brought both the children and Roderick along.

Actually, she planned to go alone. It would be a shame to close the shop, so she’d ask Roderick to mind it.

But that would mean leaving Eric with the landlady, and it was obvious that Roderick would approach Eric in Erica’s absence.

So she had no choice but to take the child with her, but Eric had already blabbed to Elodie.

“We’re going to the forest tomorrow?! Elodie, do you want to come too?”

How could she say no to a child looking up at her with eyes that clearly wanted to go? It would be hectic to gather herbs while watching two four-year-olds alone, but she was still going to take them.

But it turned out that wherever Elodie went, her guardian Roderick always had to follow. Thus, the herb expedition grew to four people.

“I must always follow Elodie like a shadow wherever she goes.”

What a great father you are. And yet you raised your child in that kind of environment?

Erica had heard from Eric. Elodie had never had a place she could call home. She had always wandered from inn to inn with her dad.

Doesn’t the thought of settling down come first when a child is born? Why on earth had that little one been wandering until she turned four?

‘Could it be to find me?’

If he really raised his child in terrible conditions because he was blinded by women, he failed as a father, failed as a husband, no, failed as a human being.

“You know……”

On the way to the forest in a cart pulled by a mule, Elodie chattered like a kindergartener on a field trip bus.

“This is Elodie’s first picnic.”

This isn’t a picnic. It’s work. But she couldn’t pour cold water on the excited child.

‘By the way, what kind of dad never takes his child on a picnic?’

Erica glared at the back of Roderick’s head as he drove the mule from the driver’s seat.

“And… for the first time……”

Elodie kept talking to Erica, not Eric. It seemed she found Erica less scary now.

“Elodie has a room.”

It was heartbreaking to see her so happy to boast about this to a woman she barely knew.

“Mom, I want my own room too!”

Eric shattered the solemn atmosphere.

Come to think of it, Eric had never had his own room since birth either. Yet it didn’t feel sad because it wasn’t that he couldn’t have one—he simply hadn’t.

“Didn’t you say you can’t sleep without me?”

“No! I’m all grown up now.”

Eric insisted proudly, shoulders back and chest out. Not realizing that the coat made to last until he was five made him look even smaller.

“Oh my, is that so?”

“So I need my own time too.”

“A four-year-old already in puberty? Is being in puberty meant being four?”

Roderick’s shoulders shook as he drove the mule, silently listening to the conversation in the cart.

* * *

The moment they got off the cart and entered the forest, the chatter disappeared. Elodie approached Erica, who was busy cutting herbs and putting them in bags, and asked.

“What is this?”

“It’s called St. Gabriel’s grass.”

“Do you need a lot of this?”

“Yes, I need the most of this.”

St. Gabriel’s grass was an herb effective against infections and inflammation. Inflammation and infection medicines were consistently sought by customers, and it was the seasonal transition when colds and flu were prevalent.

This was when demand was highest.

“But it’s hard to distinguish from weeds, so you just need to gather those red berries and acorns over there.”

Needing all the help she could get, she had to assign the children the task of picking red berries from the bushes and gathering acorns.

Elodie answered, “Yes,” and walked away, muttering the name of the herb she’d been told.

“Ugh, I’m going to become a hunched grandma.”

And there’s no massage or physical therapy here.

Erica finally straightened her back after filling one bag. As she moved the tightly packed bag to a large tree not far away and went to get an empty bag from the pile there, she paused.

‘Are the bags multiplying on their own…?’

Just a moment ago, there were only two bags filled with St. Gabriel’s grass. Erica brought one, so there should be three, but now there were six in front of her.

While Erica filled one bag, three more had appeared.

“Did you do this?”

She asked Roderick, who was just arriving with a bag slung over his shoulder. He looked at the bags with unfamiliar eyes, just as Erica had, before answering.