Chapter 115: The Mouse in the Flask

Hendrix was unwilling to commit upfront, and Ron was naturally unwilling to make empty promises. In the end, it was all just verbal sparring; the real transaction would fall to Delaford.

’Red... powder... crystals...’ Delaford moved from one shadow to the next in the unfamiliar city. Occasionally, when no one was around, he would stop to pull out a city map, confirming his position and the location of his target.

’Ron was willing to entrust him with such an important matter. He absolutely could not fail his boss’s expectations.’

The thought of Ron’s praise and the shock on that Half-Elf’s face made Delaford break into a silly, unconscious grin.

’This must be the place.’ Following the markings on Hendekueros’s map, Delaford quickly found the workshop of the Fernandez family.

It was an inconspicuous spice shop, with the workshop built on the second floor.

Unlike a typical perfumery, these workshops were usually very small. Only a few Alchemists and Alchemy Apprentices were allowed in or out. Even the proprietor was often barred entry by them to prevent the tragedy of a layman trying to direct an expert.

For an ordinary person, infiltrating such a place would be next to impossible. Both stealth and disguise would be easily detected.

But Delaford, of course, had his own methods.

’Don’t these idiots ever rest?’ Squatting on a treetop outside, the goblin waited for an hour or two, but the workshop inside remained brightly lit. The Alchemists showed no signs of finishing their work for the day.

’Six people on the second floor, and the attic is full of alchemy ingredients... Maybe I can get Big White and the others to help.’

The goblin’s figure vanished. The attic’s skylight, far too small for any medium-sized creature to pass through, was silently pried open and then closed. Soon after, he carefully carved a crack in the trapdoor leading down from the attic with his dagger, just large enough for a mouse to slip through.

"This smell is overwhelming!" Delaford grabbed two handfuls of potting soil from the attic and stuffed them up his nose, muttering in discontent. ’I’ll never understand why these self-proclaimed "civilized races" bother with perfume. Doesn’t smelling this stuff all day make their brains go dull?’

The Ranger summoned a group of local Rose City rats. From them, Delaford selected the smallest and cleverest one, a grey-furred specimen, and began to perform the Beast Perception ritual on it.

This Magic allowed him to touch a willing beast and switch his own sight and hearing to the animal’s for one hour. While perceiving the world through the beast’s senses, Delaford would also gain any special senses the creature possessed. The only drawback was that his own body would become deaf and blind.

The Alchemists below were completely absorbed in their experiments; none of them would notice a small mouse dropping from the attic. Besides, even if they did, they would never waste precious Magic on a rat.

"Who has any Magic prepared?" a gray-haired Alchemist shouted. "Damn it! If I can’t absorb the elemental energy, the cold will ruin my intermediate product!"

"It’s unstable in the air. I can’t wait until tomorrow. I have to proceed to the next step of the reaction immediately!"

"Master Mino, you should have said that this morning," a middle-aged Alchemist at the neighboring station said with a sigh. "Look outside, it’s already dark. Who has any Magic left?"

"I have one left. Looks like my experiment will have to wait until tomorrow." A young Half-Elf raised his hand. He was the most junior member of the group, so it was only natural that this kind of selfless act fell to him. "But honestly, Mr. Mino, is there really a need to rush so much?"

"That’s right! Your little trick in this trade war sent all their Alchemists packing!" the others hooted with laughter. "Adding a cursed flask to an Alchemy Experiment... only you could have come up with that!"

"Someone like Jill would never have figured it out!"

"We can’t get complacent!" the man called Master Mino said, his face stern. "This morning, it seems Hendrix hired a group of Adventurers to solve the problem. They haven’t emerged yet, but we can’t take that risk. We have to crack this as soon as possible!"

"That’s right! We’ll have it all then—bonuses, prestige, you name it. Especially you, Professor Mino. If this new perfume sells well enough, you’ll finally be able to hold your head high at Elden Academy, won’t you?"

"I wouldn’t be so sure," Mino huffed. "That Dwarf Dean is already afflicted with fading sickness. I don’t expect him to show much of a reaction to anything new."

"Hurry up. I’m about to begin the ritual. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can all relax."

They were completely oblivious. In the attic above, a now deaf and blind goblin was fumbling in his pocket, from which he produced a Gemstone.

It was one of Hendrix’s magical artifacts, capable of recording all sound within a certain radius—the perfect tool for gathering evidence.

The Alchemists below remained completely unaware that their idle chatter was being recorded, word for word.

Meanwhile, Delaford’s attention was focused on the little gray-furred mouse below.

’It would be best if I could get my hands on the physical evidence Ron mentioned...’ While the Half-Elf went to help Master Mino with the Casting, the mouse quietly leaped onto his workstation. Through the rat’s eyes, Delaford quickly found what he was looking for: the equipment, and the material inside a test tube.

As for the red powder, Delaford saw it, but it was sitting right on Mino’s workstation. With so many people and prying eyes around, it would be too risky to grab it.

’I can’t really trust a rat’s eyesight.’ It would be more reliable to get a closer look, and preferably a sniff, of the substance. ’If I screw this up, how will I ever be able to face Aive again?’

’But how can I get them out of the way?’

A bold, almost insane idea formed in the goblin’s mind. He had never been one to dwell on consequences.

The rat, with its keen nose, drew close to the opening of a flask containing a solution that looked particularly pungent.

SPLASH—ACHOO!

The instant the rat fell into the beaker, the goblin in the attic let out a massive sneeze!

"Who’s up there?!" The sneeze triggered an immediate chain reaction: the Half-Elf’s Magic failed, a blast of intense cold instantly ruined Master Mino’s intermediate product, and a layer of frost immediately coated Mino’s own beard, eyebrows, and hair.

The Alchemists had no time to worry about that. They scrambled to lower the ladder and swarmed into the attic, lighting lamps as they searched for any suspicious signs.

However, just before they could open the trapdoor, a shadowy form cloaked in a veil of silence leaped down toward the floor below, blocking all their methods of detection. After a very specific bit of pilfering, the figure swaggered out the front door and vanished.

By the time the Alchemists looked back down, they failed to notice that two items were missing from the workstations below—which were now in disarray from the failed Casting. A conical flask filled with red, crystalline powder from Master Mino’s station, and a beaker with a rat swimming in it from the Half-Elf’s, had vanished without a trace, as if they had never been there at all.