Diary entry 6

  I must’ve fallen asleep during my previous entry. The exhaustion in my body was pretty immense so I wouldn't be surprised if my body was forcefully put to sleep as a safety measure. I’m freezing. I fell asleep on top of my bed without the bed sheets on top of me. But that’s not as important right now. Right now I have to find a way to reclaim the equipment. Otherwise, I’ll get fired, I won’t get money to finance myself and my future, and I won’t be able to work at home. Where it’s mostly safe. I need to figure out where the equipment is. Now… yesterday, I confirmed that father would most likely use a much more profitable way to gain money off of my equipment… not the apothecary, because they would recognize him and assume that he’s returning it, and they wouldn’t even give him money if they didn’t recognize him because they’re in no need of more alchemical equipment. So he either went to a pawn shop or simply sold it to the “Underground” of the continent. Doubt that there even is the “Underground” but from what I could remember from my past life, on the other continents, they were connected since the distance wasn’t that great and they did give me things that I needed, such as the “anti magical ice” of the northern continent. Or golem pieces of the western continent. Regardless, this Underground is not connected to the other ones because no one from those continents has ever traveled here at this time. They must have a different way of commissioning deals and trades. But I’m jumping ahead of myself, my father wouldn’t have connections to the “Underground” just because he’s a gambler. If anything, he would sell it to a glassware shop. They’re probably in danger because I didn’t clean the beakers. I never got the chance to clean them since I only did one experiment on them which made me panic that I would break them. I’ll have to take a look around to see if there are any outbursts from touching the antidote that I brew. Since they didn’t have the symptoms of a horned demon snake venom they would be having a much more powerful response to the anti-venom. About 15 to 20 minutes of fury... I have to hurry.

  I see where the incident is occurring. It isn't a pawn shop nor a glassware store. It’s a tavern. Who would’ve guessed? I expected too much from my father. He’s just an absolute idiot. But now, it’ll be easier to cover up the incident. Because it can simply be put as: the man got drunk, started to lash out, and that resulted in a bar brawl. Hopefully, none of the beakers get damaged... I have too much hope. Of course, the majority of them would break. What to expect? That everyone in that bar is willing to break bones and smash noses… but are gentlemanly enough to leave any of the glassware untouched? Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’ll go in when the fighting will stop.

  The fight is already 2 hours long.

  Just came back from work and the fight isn’t over yet.

  How long is this going to last?

  This is ridiculous. It’s nighttime. The authorities didn’t show up to stop the fight, it doesn’t look like they’re stopping anytime soon… I think I know what’s going on. Since the first guy initiated the brawl, he somehow managed to transpose the anti-venom onto somebody else via a punch or something… Then that infected person continued on the brawl, someone punched him to get the anti-venom onto their fist, and the cycle repeats. Surprised that none of them managed to eat another, maybe it’s because they didn’t ingest it, but what can I say, at this point, the only thing in that tavern are animals who are going to continue fighting until there’s one left standing. I can’t let this outbreak. Otherwise, the entire town is going to be in chaos. I’ll have to sneak in from the back and find a way to wash them all down. There shouldn't be a single drop of that anti-venom on anyone. Otherwise, it’ll continue the chain reaction. Or I could put them all to sleep via a sleeping gas and the effects of the “anti-, no, “berserker juice” is going to run out.

  The conflict was resolved without raising too many questions. I should write everything down. How everything happened, how did I resolve it, and the consequences of this event. The way that everything started was that I entered through the back door, where there was no fighting occurring… I managed to go to the second floor just to be safe from any of the fighting and as it turned out, I was wrong. Two men were fighting on the second floor… one of them was a skinny blonde man having a rather messy hairstyle, with patches of his hair missing. Probably from being ripped off from the man he was fighting who had bright orange hair who had a stomach so big, I thought that it didn’t make sense why he was a commoner like me. He was stuffing himself with food. I’m not an expert on how people gain weight. I just know that the more you eat the fatter you get. And commoners don’t usually gain weight because they don’t get a lot of food. Case and point: me. But enough about me. The fight. The two of them continued to brawl with the fat man pressing on the skinny guy against the railing. Having the upper hand. Until eventually, the railing couldn’t support their weight. It broke, with the two of them falling. When they reached the bottom, there was only one of them left. The other was crushed from the weight of the fat man. I could tell. Because the fat man was throwing his head around looking for someone else to fight. Now that the way was clear I dashed to the end of the hallway to get to a door that was locked with people crying in it. There were three distinct voices. One of a small girl who was the same age as I am right now, a small child who is, by my estimations, 4 to 3 years old, and a young woman who was trying to calm the other two down. I knocked on the door telling them to let me in. They yelled back at me that they won’t let anyone in until everything is resolved. At that point, I was worried that her screaming would bring in the attention of the other berserkers. But they were so distracted by all the fighting that they didn’t notice a peep. Except for one. That fat man. I then told them to hurry up and open the door. Otherwise, this issue will never be resolved. I had a solution. That’s when the door flung open hitting me in the face. That caused me to fall on my back and instinctively move my hands to my head trying to ease the pain. My feet were then grabbed by two sets of hands. I was then dragged into the room with the door being shut off being me. Still wincing from my pain I continued to lie on the floor for another 2 minutes until I could properly stand up without having the pain in my head. They quickly asked me without apologizing for nearly causing me severe head trauma: “Can you truly stop this?” The woman who asked me was tall, having a tough build, with black hair curled up in a ball on her head. I was confused by the hairstyle since it’s not reminiscent of the town. Must be a migrant. I replied with a “Yes” followed by “but I need my alchemical set to do so. I know you won’t believe me since I’m only a child, but I have experience in the alchemical field. And theoretically speaking, I can create a sleeping gas that will only affect only people who are currently under the control of the “Berserker juice”.” The two of them could not follow but they did notice that I knew the name of the potion. I spoke too much. I told them the truth that I was partially the reason for creating this outbreak, but I didn’t want to lose their trust so I also added that it was my father who brought the hazardous liquid into the bar. I only used it on myself to cure my illness. They decided that they would deal with the consequences later. For now, we needed to manage the outbreak. They told me that there was a weird box full of bizarre glass containers that were simply not fit for drinking. Conveniently, the box was in the same room as us. I guess the glass beakers were mistaken for toys or something. The mere idea disgusted me. Tools for creating mystical artifacts and potions from base ingredients treated as simple trinkets of entertainment for kids… I wanted to choke the little kids sitting in front of me for such a grave insult. But I refrained from it. It would put me in a bad favor to them. I asked them if they had any blood from the people outside. They said no because they were bunkered down in the room and they couldn’t leave from outside because there was no building standing next to them and if they did indeed jump off they would injure themselves and possibly die. I couldn’t argue with that so I asked the older woman to get a sample. A drop would be enough. She was rude at first stating that I should go there myself, but once she saw how fragile I was, she thought otherwise and went outside of the room holding a glass shard from the window glass. A few minutes passed by and she returned with the glass and her hand holding it covered in blood. I asked nothing as I understood that she killed someone. Probably that fat man who was chasing after me for making noise. She gave the glass shard and asked me: “That’s it?” I responded with a more genuine tone: “I need something that helps with sleep.” Conveniently, that woman was the mother of the little kid so she must’ve had some medicine lying around to help her sleep when she was raising him. My assumptions were proven correct. She went to a cupboard and gave me a sack of beads that had a very powerful aroma that made me dizzy. I quickly placed one of those beads into the vial where the antivenom leftovers were, added a single drop of blood from the glass shard, cased it and I started to violently shake the vial. I told the to behind the bed as I stupidly ran out of the room while still shaking the vial throwing it into the lower floor shattering the vial and releasing a gas that made everyone on the lower floor fall asleep. That brown gas would continue to grow until it started to dissipate from the air coming from outside. I was glad that the crisis was averted but I was still sad that one of the vials shattered. Now I’ll lose my job for doing something good. And I don’t think that that lady had that many connections to the apothecary or anything higher in the hierarchy of this town. It’s only one vial though. I doubt that I’ll suffer that big of a punishment. I must say, I acted irrationally there. I could’ve just opened that vial and let its contents spill onto the second floor. I don’t have an excuse for doing something like that. I was in a panic, could not think straight… etc. I should get to bed. I’m getting tired.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I’m Karas Pesuto, and this is my sixth entry in this timeline.