Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

The heavy rain had stopped, but the weather was still sulking.

The air was damp, the sun still hidden, so drying herbs in the sun would have to wait.

“We nyeed to gather some food, but…”
“Sufi’ll head into the forest.”
“Then I’ll… no, I’ll go to the forest too, nya.”

Thanks to that lively talk about our past, the relationship between Sufi and Noche was showing signs of improvement. At the very least, they no longer clashed openly. Filia and I let out a sigh of relief.

“Alice, big sis is going out, so be a good girl, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Filia, I’ll leave the house to you, nya.”
“Yes.”

When she finished getting ready, Sufi stretched up and bumped her nose gently against my forehead.

After seeing off the two, brimming with energy as they headed toward the forest path, Filia and I set about preparing lunch.

As usual, the menu was skewers. Nothing new in the recipe, but since no one was complaining, I figured it was fine.

■■■

We’d just finished cooking the stocked ingredients and were taking a short break when Sufi and the others came back.

“Alice, Alice!”
“Hmm?”

For some reason, Sufi came running over in high spirits. Her tail was wagging left and right like crazy, clearly showing her good mood.

“Look, look! Sufi found something amazing!”
“…Seriously?”

Proudly, she pulled something from her pocket — a plant bathed in light, sparkling, bearing countless small blue flowers. Three distinctive rhombus-shaped leaves grew around the blossoms.

“Rainyblue.”

It was a flower that bloomed only in the early morning after a night’s rainfall, and once picked in that state, it would remain open for a while. Not only were the blooming conditions strict, but just finding one at all was rare, and in bud form it was indistinguishable from other similar plants.

Many experiments had been made to cultivate it, but every single one had failed so far.

In other words, a precious plant.

“Hey, is that rare, nya?”
“It mainly has the property of dyeing ether into water-aspect.”
“Nya?”
“In other words, it’s a material used to make magic tools that generate water. If we took it straight to the Alchemists’ Guild, it’d be worth… umm—”

The main currency circulating on this continent is called the Gregorius coinage. There are six denominations in total: small copper, copper, large copper, silver, gold, and large gold.

It’s a decimal system, each ten coins equaling the next higher denomination. Colloquially, they’re called Greds.

If I remember right, in this country… a decent inn in a fairly big town costs about one silver coin, and… let’s see, a water-producing magic tool goes for at least two large gold coins. Since the other materials are all easy to get…

“Probably around four gold coins…?”
“Nya…?”

The amount must have been so far beyond what they could imagine that Noche and Filia both went blank-eyed. Ignoring the two of them, Sufi shoved the Rainyblue into my hands.

“Alice, preserve, preserve!”
“…Alright.”

No point in saying “don’t just dump it all on me.”

This flower keeps its freshness for only a short time, and if you put it in ordinary water it wilts within a day. Which means you either immerse it right away in a preservation solution, or quickly process it into a core with special tools.

Grandpa had drilled the basics into me, so I could do the processing—unfortunately, I didn’t have the tools for it.

Right now, my only option was to prepare a preservation solution.

“I’ll be tied up with this, so can I leave the rest to you, Filia?”
“Eh, y-yes… i-it’s worth four gold coins, after all…”
“I-is it really gonnya be okay, nya?”

Why are they the ones panicking? Don’t they think I might just be making it up? Still, they believed me without question, so I stepped away from them and began preparations.

Using a leaf as a makeshift spoon, I scooped up some ash from the campfire remains. Then I poured water into a suitable container and mixed in the ash.

While stirring it with a stick and waiting for the mixture to settle, I scratched a rough circle onto the ground with a stone, carving lines into the surface.

Within the circle, I arranged the necessary symbols to construct what’s commonly called an “alchemy circle.”

This alchemy circle is indispensable for the activation of alchemy.

Magic, as it’s known, is a technique that distorts reality by transmitting an image into the element called ether that fills the atmosphere, using the mana that living beings generate from ether within their bodies.

Normally, it’s handled barehanded, and for control, chanting and an activation keyword are considered essential. Research has been done, but apparently the chant itself holds importance, and so neither omission nor replacement seems possible.

Alchemy, however, is a technique born from research into such magic. Inspired by rune techniques that activate spells through the flow of mana into shapes and symbols instead of chants, the magical system was developed and spread by Gregorius Dorma, the “Alchemist of Gold.”

Events caused by magic can, to some extent, ignore the laws of physics—but the world’s corrective force kicks in, and things immediately return to normal.

For example, you can kindle a fire where there was nothing, but the moment you stop pouring mana into it or your mental image wavers, the flame goes out. The changes caused by the heat remain, but the heat produced by magic itself does not.

Alchemy, by contrast, cannot produce phenomena that transcend this world’s physical laws the way magic can. But it specializes in processing and manufacture—changing shape, separating, and combining.

It can extract iron from a pebble rich in iron, or interfere with the components of a stone to turn it into another ore. But it cannot create a stone from nothing. In exchange, even after the technique’s influence ends, the result does not revert.

In the hands of someone skilled and well-versed in techniques and materials, it’s even possible to transform something into another form while retaining the material’s inherent properties. Alchemists use that to make tools and reagents with special effects.

It’s no exaggeration to say that most magic tools and medicines in existence were created through alchemy.

…Hearing only that makes it sound convenient, but in reality it isn’t such a forgiving craft.

First, to assemble an alchemy circle, you must understand the meanings carried by each of the complex, arcane symbols and figures, and the accuracy of what you draw directly determines the precision of the technique. Even a slight misalignment can radically change the effect.

If you merely use the wrong symbol and it fails to activate, that’s a cute sort of mistake. But if you get the combination wrong, or things shift so the structure itself changes, depending on the materials involved, it can even explode on your face.

That’s why many alchemists keep on their person some instrument etched as precisely as possible with the basic arrays they often use. As a rule, such instruments are obtained by commissioning specialist craftsmen through the Alchemists’ Guild for a hefty fee.

To reduce wear, they’re generally carved into sturdy metal or stone and then coated by means of magic tools or enchantments to preserve their precision. Those advanced fabrication techniques are monopolized by specialists, so they’re not easy to acquire.

…Right now, the tools I inherited from Grandpa have been taken from me. I have no choice but to construct the circles by hand.

I know the combinations and symbols by heart, so I understand the circles’ structure, but no matter how hard I try, drawing them precisely seems impossible.

There’s no scale or templates here, so it can’t be helped.

As carefully as I can, I struggle through and finish drawing the alchemy circle.