kscans

Chapter 240 - The Snake Wine Debate (Part 1)

Now, the scene changes to dinner at Adon’s mansion. Adon had been listening to the report of the day’s conquests, mostly from a grumbling Dona, when he got stuck on the topic of the snake wine.

"Tonic and revitalizing? ...Are you sure?"

"Yes. ...Ah... probably..."

Yuri was about to say that his Appraisal master was never wrong, but then he remembered that his ability to use Appraisal was a secret and hastily tried to cover it up, or so he thought. But Adon completely ignored it. It wouldn't be strange for Yuri to have a skill like Appraisal, and he probably did. But if Yuri was trying to hide it, then it would be boorish to press the issue. More important than that was...

"Tonic and revitalizing..."

This. Adon was reaching an age where fatigue was setting in. He regularly took various tonic medicines, but there were many whose effects made him tilt his head in doubt. Into this situation came the news of a "Yuri-approved tonic medicine." It was impossible for him not to be interested.

Meanwhile, Yuri, seeing Adon lost in thought, grew worried that he had misspoken. It was true that it had tonic effects, but he would be in trouble if Adon was imagining something like Popeye’s spinach. It was, at best, on par with the energy drinks of his past life. According to his Appraisal master, it contained taurine and vitamin B, so it would likely have some efficacy, and the alcohol would speed up absorption. But that was all there was to it. In this world, there were outrageous medicines like potions. He was deeply concerned that it would be misunderstood as something superior to them. But when he glanced around, both Adon’s wife and Old Man Audel were shaking their heads, gesturing for him to just let it be.

The truth was, Adon’s faith in tonics had reached an incurable stage. Every time a new product was released, he would rush to buy it, becoming a source of wry amusement among his acquaintances. For such a man, hearing magic words like "tonic medicinal liquor" from Yuri meant he would jump at it without a second thought. Old Man Audel had anticipated this development from the beginning, so he wasn't surprised in the least. One might think he should have given Yuri a heads-up, but in fact, the old man had intended to. It was just that Yuri’s magnificent and bizarre shopping spree had driven it completely from his mind. And Yuri, unaware of these circumstances, said,

"Um, Adon-san... with things like this, you can’t be sure if they’ll have the effects written on the label... and there are things like body constitution and compatibility... and things you can’t tell just from the Appraisal text..."

A comment suggesting he could use Appraisal slipped out, but Yuri had no room to notice, and Adon hadn’t heard it in the first place. The others seated with them could only look on with faces that said "oh, well," and remain silent.

"Um, Adon-san..."

"...Hmm? Ah, my apologies, Yuri-kun. ...I was wondering... would it be possible for you to share a sip of that snake wine?"

"I-I don’t mind, but... as for whether it will have the effects on the label..."

"Ah, yes. With these things, you never know until you try them."

It seemed that in Adon’s mind, tasting the snake wine was already a settled matter. Yuri didn't mind that part, but he didn't want Adon to have excessive expectations. Something that made you burst with energy the moment you drank it wasn’t a tonic, it was a stimulant. ...Wait... did this world have potions? If so, why not just drink a potion instead of being so particular about snake wine?

To prevent others from making the same mistake as the perplexed Yuri, let us take a moment to explain the position of potions in this world.

First, Yuri seems to be influenced by the image of potions from the light novels he read in his past life, but at least in this country of Rivairein, there is no clear distinction between what Yuri calls "potions" and other medicines. Yuri vaguely thinks that "potions are things made using magic power or skills," but that is not the case. Whether made by skill using magic power or by hand without magic power, they are treated the same as medicine. This is because for the inhabitants of this world of Forea, magic power is something that exists close at hand. Therefore, magic and skills are treated the same as tools, and the stance is that if the final product is the same, no distinction is made regardless of the process by which it was made.

In the first place, even the word "potion" that Yuri uses originally means "a single dose of medicine," not the medicine itself. In this country, too, the word "potion" is used to mean "a product adjusted to a single dose for convenience of use." It is like the energy drinks of Earth. The reason Yuri hadn't felt any discrepancy in conversation until now was because his image of a "potion’s" usage was precisely that, which was, to put it simply, a mere coincidence.

And so, with this misunderstanding left unaddressed...