Side Story: Golden Key – 3
Alchemy Workshop.
A place where drops from bosses defeated in Brightest Darkness 4 can be exchanged for weapons or other equipment.
Moreover, it was the only one of its kind on the entire continent, a gathering place for alchemists full of oddballs. It might even be comparable to Minerva’s Mage Tower.
Of course, comparing them to the mages of the Mage Tower would be a disrespect to the mages. While the mages were obsessed with new knowledge, the alchemists of the workshop were just plain crazy.
Not to mention that this was based on the standards of Brightest Darkness 4, not the real world.
BOOM!
Of course, no sane person would build an alchemy workshop on top of a cliff with only one path, decorating that path with traps.
“Ahh! Fetch, save me!”
Cowering beside me from the massive explosion, Fetch trembled. It was understandable considering she narrowly avoided the blast.
I continued walking calmly. I knew that the explosion just now wasn’t aimed at us. Traps targeting intruders were a bit further ahead.
In fact, trying to awkwardly dodge the explosion would only sweep you away. It was best to keep walking on the path as it was.
“Hey, can’t we take a break?”
Fetch, shivering, grabbed my sleeve and looked up at me with earnest eyes.
“I told you I know the positions and mechanisms of the traps. Why do you seem so weak-hearted when you’re older than me?”
“……”
Her hot pink twin tails drooped as if expressing her owner’s emotions.
In the end, Fetch kept her real age a secret. It was certain that she was over 200 years old, but no matter how much I asked, she would refuse to answer.
‘Maybe it’s not entirely wrong to say that all Fetches in the Brightest Darkness series are the same person.’
It’s a bit ambiguous since the worlds in Brightest Darkness 1 to 3 are different.
“Almost there, so let’s hurry up and rest. If we sit still, a rock will come rolling down!”
“Wha-?!”
At the mention of rocks rolling, Fetch jumped up and clung to my arm.
As I walked with Fetch dangling from me, I glanced at a small window on the front of the Alchemy Workshop, where the owner would surely be watching us. The mention of a rolling rock wasn’t just a metaphor; it was true.
The owner of the workshop was watching us through that window. In the game, if you stood still for more than three seconds, a rock would roll down, forcing you to move.
‘I really can’t understand some things.’
The cost of the traps alone would be considerable, yet they set them off like fireworks in front of potential customers. So how did they fund everything?
“Oh, we need to avoid this. Hold on tight.”
“Yes?!”
I leaped over, tugging Fetch with me. Sulfuric fire rain pelted down at the very spot where we stood moments ago. Fetch shrieked like a bird.
After effortlessly overcoming the dazzling traps, I stopped in front of the Alchemy Workshop. I let Fetch down; her legs seemed to give out as she collapsed and gasped for breath.
I could have just used teleportation, but the traps here were designed to not respond to the player character until they were passed through.
Since Brightest Darkness 4 was based on this world, there might be a similar design. I didn’t want to go back and forth for no reason after finishing the golden key quest.
THUD THUD THUD!
I left Fetch to catch her breath and knocked on the door of the Alchemy Workshop. As if waiting for me, the door opened.
“Ah, welcome, guest.”
A woman came out, greeting me with a sinister smile.
Her hair, dragged down to the ground, was all tangled and looked like a complete mess. Her jet-black eyes seemed close to being lifeless, and dark circles heavily covered her face.
Her robe-like clothing embodied grime, full of stains, tears, wrinkles, and even giving off a strange odor.
The absurdly large chest seemed like a bonus. She was generally slender, but that chest was unrealistically large.
Even if I brought Lize, Nix, or the Pope sisters, that one would obviously have the upper hand.
‘Even looking like that, she’s still pretty.’
Messy and tangential hair, dead eyes devoid of life, eyes covered in dark circles, filthy clothes, and a strange smell adorned her with debuffs, yet her appearance itself was outstanding.
She truly seemed like a creation that Eclipse put a lot of effort into.
‘Maybe she’s a lower version of Nix?’
To sum it up, she had the impression of being Nix aged in a corner for a few years, but a distinguishing factor was that she was really tall. Compared to me, her height wasn’t lacking at all.
“You’re the first guest to not trigger our traps upon your first visit. Normally, everyone dies or gets hurt at least once when they first arrive. I like you.”
Just from speaking, she certainly seemed mad.
“Come in. I can’t just leave a guest outside. Let’s talk inside.”
The gloomy lady grinned as she turned her body. I motioned Fetch, who had finally calmed down, to come inside.
“Ugh! What’s that smell…?”
As soon as Fetch stepped into the Alchemy Workshop, she pinched her nose. I frowned slightly as well. Just a whiff revealed that the smell was similar to that eerie lady’s.
Flasks bubbling with various liquids were scattered everywhere, and dozens of plants and minerals lay strewn across the workshop floor. It was stranger that there was no foul odor in such an environment.
“H-Hey, you seem fine.”
The woman glanced between Fetch, clenching her nose and pouting, and me standing indifferent, then grinned again.
“I can manage it.”
Compared to the smell of thousands of decaying corpses from when I played Brightest Darkness 1, this was nothing. I used magic to block the smell for Fetch and answered.
As the stench faded, Fetch started peeking at me, a bit shy.
“Ah, you only pick the words you like, huh? I liked that last bit too.”
We were guided to the innermost part of the Alchemy Workshop. The eerie woman shooed away other women who were inside, all of whom had that same gloomy vibe.
Each had a different appearance, but they all had messy hair, deep dark circles, and filthy clothing as if they were choreographed.
“Here, sit down. Hehe. I’ll get you something to drink.”
The chair she offered was covered in stains. Fetch sat down with a reluctant expression. I hesitated before sitting as well.
The woman, whose desk held a flask and a juice bottle, watched me intently, saliva dripping from her chin, falling onto her disproportionately large chest.
“Why are you here, guest?”
“Seeing it in person is quicker than explaining.”
I placed the golden key on the table. Her blackened dead eyes suddenly sparkled.
“Where did you get this?”
“Do you know anything about it?”
“I do. Of course, I do. Hehe, one of my former apprentices rushed out of the workshop saying he would make this. I thought he died since I hadn’t heard from him, but he succeeded.”
“…An apprentice?”
So how old could this woman truly be?
If I traced back the time Fetch used this key 999 times, from when a corpse found it and decayed to a skeleton, back through the time the supposed apprentice invented the golden key, back through his apprenticeship at the Alchemy Workshop, and back to when this woman became a master, I’d find her actual age.
I was taken aback by the enormity of that number. It was also difficult to gauge age based on appearance in a world where concepts of aging didn’t apply to either Fetch or this woman.
“Ah, I misspoke. Hehe. Not my apprentice, but an apprentice of my master’s master’s master… Anyway, an apprentice who’s been around for a very long time. When we die, we pass our knowledge to prevent it from disappearing, so sometimes memories get muddled. I’m not even thirty yet!”
Considering the appearance of the person who said that, I couldn’t feel much trust, but I decided to take her word for it. No point in overthinking and giving myself a headache.
“By the way, why this?”
“I came to ask if this key can be duplicated. And I have another request as well.”
The item I obtained from capturing a creature abandoned by God. I was thinking of processing it into a weapon.
It wouldn’t mean much now, with a Wingless Nightmare and Immortality at hand, but I couldn’t just let it gather dust in a corner either.
“Hehe, seems like there’s something wrong with it. Let’s see…”
With a sinister grin, the eerie woman suddenly shoved the key between her cleavage. Then, she squeezed her chest with her arms and started moving them up and down. BOING BOING!
Caught off guard by the bizarre display, I could only stare blankly. Surprisingly, Fetch looked quite unfazed, tilting her body and asking a question.
“Why is she suddenly doing that?”
“That’s how alchemists distinguish objects. Didn’t you know?”
“…Does that really work?”
“Is it weird to ask if it works? Do I seem lacking in common sense to you?”
“…”
I couldn’t help but be reminded of my first meeting with Stella.
After finishing her bizarre identification process, the eerie woman took the golden key from her cleavage and placed it back on the table. A bit of steam rose from her slightly parted bosom.
Her hand that was shaking her chest grabbed the flask and juice bottle on the table one by one. She tilted her left hand, as if to drop the liquid from the flask into the juice bottle.
“Seems like you only have one use left, so that’s why you asked me if it could be duplicated. It was meant to be used a thousand times, so you must have used it a lot, huh?”
That she correctly guessed that was key.
“I never used it even once. Right, Fetch?”
“Yeah! I used all 999 times!”
Of course, I made sure to clarify who held responsibility. The dark circles under her fatal eyes stared intensely at Fetch. Fetch became stiff.
“Then you two aren’t related at all, huh?”
“If I were to put it that way, we’re more like debtor and creditor. I’m the creditor.”
“Hmm, hehe. Is that so?”
The eerie woman set aside the flask she was about to pour into and handed the juice bottle to Fetch instead. Fetch’s face turned pale.
“Uh… what were you about to do just now…?”
“I was going to poison the juice, hehe.”
“What?!”
They say when a person’s feelings exceed a limit, they become calm instead, and that’s exactly how Fetch was now. Her pale face rapidly regained its natural color.
The woman glanced at me instead of Fetch and replied.
“You like me, don’t you? Hmm? Oh, you looked at me when you dodged the traps earlier, too. You’ve met my gaze three times already. I know, I know. My chest is big, so I’m sensitive to eye contact. And when you came here, you held back the smell because you liked me. Right? Right?”
“…What did you just say?”
Dazed, I accidentally responded with a casual tone, but the woman didn’t care at all.
“I like you, but hesitated because of the woman beside you. So, I was going to kill her instead. I don’t have any relation to her. Hehe. How many kids do you want? I can feed a lot since my chest is big, so twenty would be fine by me.”
‘Is this woman insane?’
The original version of the eccentric alchemist from Brightest Darkness 4 was surprisingly more unhinged than I had imagined.
