CHAPTER 09
Marsha placed the rattan basket full of herbs on an empty wooden crate with a thud.
“Hmm.”
Patro, the herbal shop owner, crossed his arms.
A small fire of determination lit up in his eyes, showing he wasn’t going to lose the negotiation.
“100 cents.”
“300 cents.”
“150 cents!”
“I think 350 cents is reasonable.”
“Alright, I’ll give you 200!”
“365 cents. That’s about the average price.”
Every time they started bargaining, the price went higher.
Patro frowned, but Marsha pretended not to care and grabbed the basket again.
“If you don’t want to compromise, I’ll go elsewhere.”
Patro quickly uncrossed his arms and begged in a trembling voice.
“Okay, 300 cents!”
Marsha sighed and took her hand off the basket.
“Honestly, with herbs in this good condition, you could get 400 cents.”
“You’re right.”
“Then why do you always try to bargain so ridiculously?”
“A merchant has to bargain. If not, it feels like needles are growing in their mouth.”
Patro shivered.
“Grandma taught you well.”
“Yes, she did. Otherwise, I’d always lose money selling to you.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have done that on purpose.”
Patro laughed awkwardly, exaggeratedly.
“Oh, by the way, the book you asked for from Gloem arrived.”
Gloem was where Gloria Duke’s family estate was, a city more bustling than the royal capital.
“This is the book on pharmacy, right?”
Marsha checked the first pages and nodded.
“Yes. Please deduct the price from the herbs.”
“No, I’ll give it to you for free.”
“Why?”
Marsha eyed him suspiciously, but Petro just chuckled and began transferring the herbs into his basket.
“Remember? You made that burn ointment for me before.”
“That wasn’t a proper medicine. It wasn’t anything special…”
“It was! Thanks to it, my wife’s burn scars faded a lot. Oh, speaking of which, why don’t you try selling medicines too? You’d have to take the pharmacist exam, but I think you could easily pass.”
“I’m not planning to do that right now.”
Marsha put the book in an empty rattan basket.
“Well, I’ll be going.”
“Wait a moment. Next time, bring some herbs that help digestion. When the Duke came on vacation before, the doctor looked for a lot of that kind.”
Patro thought it wouldn’t hurt to prepare in advance, even though Marsha might bring a lot after this event.
“…Alright.”
Marsha bowed lightly and turned to leave.
Patro sighed deeply as he watched her small, thin figure walk away.
How did she manage to live alone? He felt sorry for her.
“Making medicines would be better than just picking and selling herbs. You’d earn more and be treated better.”
She wouldn’t have to return alone to that dark forest.
Maybe she’d be hired by a noble and live in their mansion.
Patro sighed again and walked away.
***
When Marsha reached the forest entrance, she walked while checking the ground as usual.
“The Duke’s visit is going to make me lose money.”
Herbs that aid digestion were common and not expensive to purchase.
Even with a full basket, she might barely make 200 cents.
“Others are happy because they think business will boom thanks to the Duke, but I…”
“Ugh…”
Marsha sighed deeply and looked up.
“A pharmacist, right…”
Marsha wanted to try, but she couldn’t.
Strabane, especially the Gloria Duchy, was known for showing no mercy to illegal residents.
If caught, it was prison or, even at best, deportation.
All the money earned so far would be taken away, too.
“I don’t want to cause trouble by getting greedy.”
Marsha had no particular reason to study pharmacy.
She had found a basic pharmacy book among the books her grandmother collected and started reading it by chance.
She learned to make one or two medicines.
The more she made, the more she wanted to make better ones.
So…
“…Maybe it’s pointless.”
Making medicines she couldn’t sell might be useless; selling herbs could be more helpful.
“Money is always short.”
Since she started saving money…
The first thing Marsha did was hire an informant.
Marsha sent a note to a pub where she could hire informants, and, as promised, three months later, the informant left a letter at the pub.
The letter said that the Emelide Count’s murder case was no longer being investigated, the count’s position was still vacant, and Lucas was acting as the caretaker.
After paying 50 gold and waiting three months, this was all she got.
Marsha was shocked.
When she left a complaint note at the pub, the informant replied with an even more annoyed message.
“What do you expect from me in such a small village? Do you know how challenging it is to get information about a foreign country? Especially about something that happened years ago! Honestly, I didn’t even have to tell you about the current situation of the Count’s family, but I did, and you don’t even appreciate it! Anyway, I can’t dig up anything more even if you pay me more. If you want, hire an informant in a big city. But keep in mind, their fees are way higher than mine.”
The 50 gold Marsha paid was all the money she had saved for two years.
Right now, the money she earned by picking herbs day and night was only about 60 gold, so hiring an informant in a big city was impossible.
“How much do I have to save to hire someone like that?”
No, even if she hired a very expensive informant, would she catch the robber who killed her father?
Marsha knew that the guards wouldn’t have ignored obvious evidence.
It had been four years, and even if she hired an informant now, what good could they find? The robber might have already fled to another country or even died.
“I waited too long.”
From now on, whatever she did would be useless.
“…Then why am I still alive?”
Marsha’s reason for living that day was to catch the criminal who had hurt her father.
She endured thinking only about that.
“What am I doing now…?”
Just then, as sticky thoughts clawed at her mind, a big bird suddenly took off from the bushes with a loud flutter.
“Ah!”
Startled, Marsha screamed.
Maybe because of her or the gigantic bird, the birds sitting in the trees cried loudly and disturbed the sky.
“W-what a scare.”
Marsha held her chest tightly.
The forest was noisy for a while but soon became quiet as if nothing had happened.
“What’s going on?”
It had already been four years since Marsha started living here, but she had never experienced anything like this before.
‘…Why does this feel so ominous?’
She suddenly felt a chill in the forest, even though it was broad daylight and wolves never came out at this time.
Marsha swallowed the uneasy feeling and hurried toward home.
But then, something caught her eye to the right—a familiar purple flower.
‘That’s the iris.’
The root of the iris plant helped with indigestion, inflammation, and fever.
It was already more expensive than other herbs that aid digestion, and if she carefully dug it up without damaging the root, dried and prepared it well, she could sell it for a much higher price.
The uneasy feelings that had weighed on Marsha just moments ago disappeared completely.
Filled with excitement, she began digging up the irises.
Marsha eagerly followed the trail of irises.
As she strayed from her original path and kept going farther, she suddenly noticed something—plants lined up with bright red spots on their leaves.
‘What is that…?’
Something—head in confusion, then froze.
That wasn’t some red pattern.
It was blood.
Fresh blood that hasn’t dried yet.
Marsha stiffened with tension and followed the blood trail with her eyes—and then she saw it.
“!”
A man was leaning against a nearby tree, not too far away.
He had blood all over his left side.
