Edited by: bafflinghaze
When Quill had proposed using hogroot powder and snakeweed nectar against the fickle nature of the Slave Emblem, he had been rather casual about the suggestion.
–and then grew very concerned by Neo’s reaction… or lack thereof.
But what did Quill expect? That he would tell him off for even daring to utter the names of two plants banned by the Church?
Nazareth had already come across several different poisons and toxins. There was not one substance he hadn’t experimented with.
Many of the seals and poisons he had made in the past had one unique trait, and the Slave Emblem was no different.
To prevent his products from being traced, Nazareth had the habit of using medicine as the main component of the poison and poisonous plants as the healing factor of the product.
In this world, poisons, medicines, elixirs, and draughts were produced through balance.
Although one plant was poisonous on its own, it could be turned into life-saving medicine when enough healing plants are added to the brew.
The scale between poison and medicine was a fine line many herbalists and healers had to walk in their research.
Nazareth simply took this rule and bastardized it.
If the theory stood that poison was the secret ingredient to making effective medicine then the same could be said for healing plants for poisons.
He called this the Theory of Poison, the basic principle of toxicology.
Interestingly enough, this theory was also discovered in the Modern World five hundred years ago in their own history.
It was said by a Swess chemist and scientist, “all things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.”
This type of theory was groundbreaking for many researchers, but while the Modern World was a scientifically advanced society known for its law and order, this world was not.
Trained healers lived by the rule of doing no harm. To even think of making poisons through the use of medicinal plants was practically blasphemous to their profession.
Alas, Nazareth had no moral restraints and lived by a rule of his own making.
He had been blessed with a talent for medicine and was nearly on par with the standards of the healing institute.
Resources and money weren’t a problem since he was the son of a duke.
It could be said he was a very lucky person.
Herbalists, healers, and poison experts required years of academia, theory, and practicums to earn their certification. If their research ever led them to the theory of poison, those experts were more likely to keep the secret under lock and key in fear of the dangers the secret could inspire.
Nazareth should have been the last person to gain such insights, but the gods were unfair.
When Nazareth came to the same conclusion as the Swess chemist… well, many not-good things happened…
The journals he had written were still hidden away inside his desk drawer. He had thought to burn it, but it would have been a waste. Some of the experiments he had written down could better the society of this world, and he wasn’t being overly arrogant when he thought of this.
Plagues and illnesses were common, and there was only so much the healers could do.
Neo felt there was more to be done for this world than simply repaying all his debts.
—
The dingy-looking apothecary looked on the verge of collapsing.
It was a dilapidated thing, emitting the smell of mildew and something sweetly rotten.
The Young Master calmly climbed the small set of stairs leading to the door. The old decaying wood creaked dangerously beneath his feet.
The worn door shrieked when it opened, and then, what looked to be hundreds of flying creatures screaming at their faces emerged from who knows where—
That was the last thing Rainier remembered before everything went black.
Neo heard a small thud behind him and realized belatedly he forgot to warn Rainier about Ortho and Artho’s new security measures.
Green vines suddenly appeared from the door and shot past him toward Rainier, wrapping the servant up like a human sushi roll before dragging him inside. The door slammed shut with a bang! and left Neo standing outside like an idiot.
Huh.
The shop swallowed Rainier.
“… Fuck.”
Neo opened the door again and was met with the musty scent of dried medicinal herbs and something like sweet decay.
Just by the smell alone, he could tell the apothecary was using hallucinogen and chloroform plants.
The door swung shut once he stepped inside.
The lights were dimmed and the lobby was deserted and run down with no one staffing the front besides an old and broken-down grandfather clock. Shelves were lined with jars and bottles and across the room sat a variety of plants positioned so that their blooms faced the door.
Neo took one look at the flowers and sighed with a depressed air about him.
His first priority was finding Rainier. The hogroot powder and snakeweed nectar could wait.
The apothecary was deceptively small from the outside, barely the size of a tiny cottage.
On the inside, with all the cluttered plants and shelves, it appeared even smaller.
For most civilians, it looked like a place to sell snake oil.
Neo casually stepped behind the front desk and banged on the top of the grandfather clock a couple of times.
The clock came back to life. The time read 5:34.
Tick
Tick
Tick
Bong Bong Bong
The time read 5:35, forming an upside-down letter V.
Neo opened the clock body and was greeted by a long winding stairway guiding him down into total darkness step by step.
When he was younger, the shop owners would hold his hand and help him down, but later, Nazareth had to walk himself. The first few times, he had fallen, but the vines cushioned his fall.
Later, he stopped falling and trusted himself to the darkness.
How could he have forgotten these happy memories? In his madness, did none of the happy moments outweigh his desire to further sink into ruin?
—
The air gradually grew humid the further he went. For those who don’t often venture further than the main lobby, they would usually turn around.
Ortho and Artho were fans of sensory deprivation. According to them, this was the time when doubt came in, lingering in the back of people’s minds once they found themselves in pitch black darkness.
Neo had no doubt about rescuing his servant from becoming fertilizer. He trusted Rainier’s ability, but Ortho and Artho were on another level.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Neo heard a water clock in the distance and knew he was close to his destination.
A few more steps later, the darkness was covered by light.
—
In the dark underground apothecary, there was an artificial light that could even outshine the hottest day of summer.
Raised nursery beds were scattered throughout the large open space, filled with herbal plants and poisons alike.
Few knew the truth of the apothecary. Rather than a mere shop, it was more of an underground horticulture space with its own laboratory.
Long ago, Nazareth accidentally stumbled upon this place through sheer stupid luck. It was his good fortune when he had recognized some not-so-legal plants being sold in some bottles on a back shelf meant for the “special clients.”
After pointing out the Morphine Poppies to the owners, the rest was history.
Hogroot powder and snakeweed nectar were two poisonous plants he had purchased in the past, but they were comparatively lesser evils than the ingredients he bought later on.
Yes, he was that trashy scum who once demanded the Serpent’s Pearl from the shop.
Serpent’s Pearl, otherwise known as Rosary Peas back in the modern world, was a deadly poison.
Its appearance was like a small ruby pearl, but its seeds contained a toxalbumin known as Abrin, a lethal protein with a toxicity level of 3 micrograms.
This was less than the amount of poison in one seed. Once the protein entered the human body, either through consumption, or a simple prick of the finger, it prevented protein synthesis within the cells and could cause organ failure in four days.
Now, one could be asking, why would he buy a singular poison when most, if not everyone, knew he would rather brew the poison himself?
Because he was lazy and wanted something efficient, but slow.
Why else would he put in all that effort just to kill some worthless bug? The intended victims weren’t significant enough to be bothered with, but they had earned his ire through other means.
Nazareth wanted his brother dead, but he didn’t appreciate others doing the job for him, especially when it wasn’t on his orders.
He was a contradictory little shit.
(Now that he was thinking about it, had he killed them already at this point?)
“…”
(Nah, it should be next year. That was when all the shit hit the fan.)
There was a table located in the very center of the underground apothecary. It was surrounded by numerous white flowers, blooming beautifully under the bright light.
As Neo walked closer, the scent of sweet rot became even more overwhelming to his senses.
Quiet footsteps echoed from across the room. From behind the shadow of an unusually large carnivorous plant, a man stepped out.
His posture was slouched over, his white shirt was wrinkled all over. It was fitting for the dusty and dilapidated shop upstairs.
“Ortho and Artho Apothecary… how may I help you?” His voice had little to no energy as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.
“Uncle Malark, it’s me.”
The man blinked tiredly at him a couple of times as if he was trying to figure out whether or not Neo was telling the truth.
A few seconds later, he finally nodded like a tortoise.
“Nephew,” the man finally acknowledged, “…How are you?”
Neo approached him and stabilized him by the arm, worried he would collapse at any moment, “I’ve been well, Uncle. Are you and Artho experimenting with Asteraceae plants again?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Before his uncle could reply, his entire body seemed to shut down. Neo felt his weight leaning into him.
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Once again, the man greeted him with a deeper yet chipper tone of voice, “I’m delighted to see you, lad! Immune to the Delusion Daisies, I see. I’ll try something else next time.”
“Uncle Artho,” Neo responded with natural ease despite feeling slightly exasperated, “Uncle Malark is going to be mad.”
Artho made a tsk sound, as if he feared nothing (which was a total lie), and patted him on the head none too gently, “He’ll get over it. What brings you in today?”
“I made an order for hogroot powder and snakeweed nectar—”
Bang!
Cling! Cling! Cling!
Tskkkk!
The sound of a struggle could be heard somewhere in the distance behind the living plant nursery.
Artho didn’t so much as twitch despite the noisy violence in the background.
Neo heard glass shattering and an inhumane yowl echoing through the room. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Also, your Boa Vines kidnapped my servant.”
“Huh,” Artho replied with little interest.
Neo gave him a look, “I need him back.”
Artho waved his hand, “Let Boey play with him a little more. The cow I ordered will be here any second now.”
More bangs and booms, followed by a psshew continued.
Neo raised a brow, “What is going on back there?”
Artho sheepishly grinned, “So Boey might have challenged your servant to a light spar…”
Neo was already drawing his knives and rushing over to the chaos before Artho could even finish his sentence.
The very back of the nursery was where all the live plants lived. They were not to be confused with the other carnivorous plants. The difference between a live plant and a carnivorous one was rather obvious. One was essentially a plant and the other was more like a pet that ate meat.
When Neo arrived at the scene, he was met with the sight of Rainier somehow valiantly fending off Boey’s vines with a small shovel. The vines were a little worn in some places, but Rainier was still somehow immaculately dressed with barely a tear on his coat.
When it looked like both opponents were about to clash again, Neo ran in between the two of them and blocked the vine with the back of his knives.
“Boey!”He shouted, his voice laced with a hard tone.
The vines immediately froze.
There was a moment of silence as Rainier drew back half a step, his posture rigid and tense. Boey meekly slithered on the ground, shuddering and warbling like an overgrown snake-whale hybrid.
Neo glowered at the little eyes blinking innocently at the wide base of each vine.
Eventually, the vines were stared into submission and retreated with a tiny warble.
“Are you alright?” Neo asked, checking Rainier over for any injuries.
The man hadn’t looked any worse than he did before, albeit he was slightly disheveled by the entire situation.
Perhaps he had heard something in Neo’s tone, but the servant offered a small and charming smile, “I am fine, Young Master—”
“Cow’s here!” Artho declared, his voice echoing down from the shop. At some point in time, he had gone upstairs to greet the delivery man.
Boey’s vines shot up the stairs with the excitement of a dog seeing a stranger at the door.
The cries of a cow were heard and then Boey was all but dragging a giant cow down to the nursery and right into his personal garden behind a sectioned-off area. The vines closed the curtains to its chambers and no other noises could be heard soon after besides the desperate moo of an unfortunate cow.
“That was rather horrifying,” Rainier commented with false cheer.
“It’s the circle of life,” Neo responded with fascination. He had never seen Boey eat before.
“Artho, that is not how you handle a situation,” a voice like ice reached their ears, followed by slow and steady footsteps down the long winding stairway.
The man that came back had changed from his rumpled shirt to a well-ironed button-down and light brown coat.
He took a pair of gold-rimmed glasses from his pocket and placed them over his half-lidded green eyes. He gave off an impression of cold indifference as he swept his hair back to the front to hide the scar on his eye. After checking his clothes for non-existent wrinkles, he approached them with a quiet and studious demeanor.
“Step-Nephew,” the gentleman said softly.
“Uncle Ortho, how are you?”
“You’ve made it past the Delusion Daisies.”
“And the Lumiere Dream Blossoms,” Neo added, thinking back to the smell of chloroform. Mixing both plants together usually created the scent of rotting fruit. “Is everything alright? The security has been even tighter than usual.”
Ortho casually took out a pair of sheers and snipped off the blooms of one of the Dream Blossoms.
All the flowers on the table closed in fear after witnessing the man mercilessly cut off one of its beautiful blooms, halting the distribution of its knock-out gas temporarily.
“They won’t affect you if you’re immune,” Ortho explained with a small smirk, “Would you like to stay for tea? I can lock up the shop.”
“Yes. I would be delighted.”
Ortho went up to the shop to close it and when he returned, Artho emerged.
“Right, lad. Ortho wants me to give you the hospitality treatment while he goes to argue with Malark about something important in the back,” he tapped himself on the head with a knowing look. “If you could follow me to the tea room…”
—
The strange store owner led Rainier and his Young Master to a completely different room in the back of the underground nursery.
Rainier didn’t know if the man was completely right in the head. He spaced out, argued with himself, and fidgeted the entire time he spoke with the Young Master.
Rainier had seen him go limp five times since he’d been here.
Somehow, the man was able to prepare tea for all of them.
Now, Rainier wasn’t one to be arrogant, but he had perfected tea-making since he was sixteen. He had little to no expectation of the abomination his young master’s friend had barely managed to put together without going into a faint every few minutes.
When he took a sip out of obligation, the servant felt the urge to upturn the entire table!
Rainier couldn’t believe it.
Someone was actually better at brewing tea than he was.
And they weren’t even a Capable Servant!
What would his Young Master think?
Rainier was the one servant solely responsible for brewing his Young Master’s tea. Knowing how often his Young Master visited this apothecary, he couldn’t help but think his Young Master was secretly coming in to drink tea.
Cornflower eyes intensely followed the tea cup in the youth’s hand.
—
Neo took a small sip of the tea Artho had prepared and set it to the side expressionlessly.
He could feel Rainier’s gaze burning a hole into his hand. If the servant kept it up, he felt the hand would be gone for good.
“How are sales? Are the clients troubling you?”
Artho shrugged, “It’s been rather dangerous. We’ve been strictly selling to long-term clients recently.”
“Does that have anything to do with the recent activities in the black market?”
Artho nodded, “Something like that. I heard there’s a group creating quite a stir. Many people are coming in for this and that.”
“But you’re staying neutral,” Neo said rather than ask, his eyes narrowing slightly with a thoughtful look.
“Yes.”
“Wise choices,” Neo agreed, “The Crown Prince will soon come of age and the Syndicate has an expansive network. We will be entering into a state of chaos.”
“Pfft,” Artho laughed, his lips widening to show a pair of tiger teeth glinting in the artificial light, “Lad, never doubt a single generation won’t experience chaos. Peace is merely the illusion created by the powerful.” His eyes sharpened, like a jaguar eyeing a would-be prey, “It is the same people in places of power who also drive the world into hell.”
Neo hummed, “What else is there if we are not made to suffer?”
Artho laughed again, “Right you are, lad!”
—
Malark Ortho Arcadia was the Owner of Ortho and Artho Apothecary.
During the Lesser Krieg War, he made a name for himself as the Herbalist of the Rhine. This name was often intertwined with his younger sister’s reputation as the monster of the battlefield.
That’s right.
Malark Ortho Arcadia was the physical manifestation of Vespera’s two older brothers and brother-in-law, all within a singular body.
In other words, they were Neo’s step-uncles.
“—You know, just the other day, Malark and I were experimenting with these Figment Figs and we wondered if we could breed them with the Delusion Daisies—”
“That’s impossible, Uncle. You can’t breed a fruit to a daisy.”
“Well, there was an attempt, and nothing exploded—”
“Did Ortho approve of this?”
“Well—”
Artho cut himself off and twitched. The playful grin dropped like a debt collector on the verge of breaking and entering.
It seemed like Ortho had thrown him to the back of their mind.
Ortho put his glasses on and scowled, “Excuse me for the intrusion. Artho talks too much,” he said, “Step-Nephew does not need to concern himself with us adults. We can solve our own problems with our own solutions. Step-Nephew should need only to worry about school and friends, understood?”
Neo nodded, “Of course, Uncle.”
Ortho made a low noise, satisfied by his answer, “It has been a while since you’ve requested snakeweed and hogroot. I thought you’ve long outgrown handling these two substances.”
“I need them for an experiment,” Neo admitted.
“For a spell?”
“On the contrary,” Neo replied, “It’s a counterspell for that… Friendship Emblem.”
“Cough, cough, cough…” Rainier suddenly had a coughing fit.
Both Neo and Ortho asked if he was alright, but the servant held up a hand and assured them he was fine.
Neo avoided his deadpanned stare.
Okay, so he might have told his uncles that the Slave Emblem was a friendship seal, to, er, further deepen the relationship between those who wore it.
Technically, he wasn’t lying. He just wasn’t outright honest about what that deepening relationship was.
Neo didn’t want to tell his uncles the full truth because he knew he would break their hearts.
For years, they trusted him and believed he was just a little off, perhaps a little like them.
There was nothing more his uncles cherished than family, and it was this love that blinded them to the reality of who Nazareth was.
Despite being so smart and cunning, a war hero, and the Lord of the Arcadia Family, they still fell victim to rose-tinted glasses.
Perhaps, deep within themselves, his uncles knew his true nature. The deceptive snake they allowed to rest on their bosom to ward off the winter chill had still bitten them to death.
Yet, they were in denial of what poison Nazareth had been, believing they could treat it with simple kindness.
Nazareth, the anomaly, the bastard son of the Odum Family, a child who was raised in a brothel, who survived the violence of the Western Slums, had appeared so pitiful.
He was a child in need of love and so they gave him some affection and allowed his talents to blossom and grow, ignoring his fervent interest in poisons and the bodies piling up in the shadows and their biological nephew falling ill and bedridden every once and a while from food poisoning.
Neo’s uncles were smart and cunning, but they were so horribly flawed.
When one looked at the overall picture, Nazareth was almost like the favored son of heaven… and poor Aurelion was a mere foil to show how wicked his older brother could be.
“Step-nephew has done some soul-searching. You have given up your past goals, I presume? This Uncle is proud you are not taking the path of a deviant.”
Neo was caught off-guard by those words all of a sudden.
He blinked, eyes wide with surprise as he stared at his uncle.
“What?” Ortho sounded a little smug, “You really thought we wouldn’t know?”
Neo slowly shook his head.
“Huh,” his Uncle took a sip of his tea, “I’m hurt you think you could fool us so easily. We’ve known you for years, Nephew.”
“But…” Neo’s voice trailed off and broke into a whisper, “Why didn’t you stop me…?”
He met Ortho’s verdant gaze. There was something unspeakable behind the man’s eyes, something deeply complicated and hard to decipher.
Finally, his uncle sighed, “I think we were hoping you would try to be better. Now, if we were more pretentious, we might have denied you everything, but that would make us hypocrites, right?”
Neo didn’t know if he should nod or shake his head. To finally hear from his uncles that they were in denial all along was more shocking than his own speculations.
Of course, Neo had always wondered if his uncles knew he was using them. There had to have been a bottom line, a reverse scale he shouldn’t have touched, but the further he tested those boundaries, the more pliant he realized those boundaries were.
But Ortho had admitted it, and no matter how much Neo prepared himself to hear the truth, he now realized he still wasn’t ready to hear it.
“Step-nephew, do you know how low the bar was set for you? A child fresh out of the slums, who was once raised in a brothel, was a child meant to be pitied and then envied once he took his place as the son of Duke’s household.”
“At least, hm,” Ortho paused.
“At least what?” Neo asked.
The man smiled, “At least that’s what the narrative demands of you. As a bastard son, it would be far easier to put you in your place, for the rest of Noble society to belittle you, yet, you made them quiver in their boots just by the mere sight of you.”
“… And was I wrong for doing that?”
“Of course not,” Ortho immediately denied, “Who hadn’t dipped their hands in blood at your age? Your stepmother and I fought in a war fresh out of the Academy. Your father detonated mana bombs and killed plenty of people. Virtues, sins, those who have their principles only keep them when they’re not trying to get stabbed in the middle of a war or hungry for scraps. Why do we kill? Why do we save? People die and we mourn and laugh and move on. Nothing is paradise, nephew. Even now, behind that glimmering and golden world, dangers lurk in the shadows. Silence who you must, kill for a price, life could be snuffed out in the blink of an eye.”
It was the first time Neo had ever heard Ortho speak for such a great length.
But he wasn’t wrong.
For those who never had to survive the treacherous waters of the nobility, who never had to fight for the last scraps of food, who had to remain subservient to the powerful, kindness did not feed and rigid moral principles were useless.
That was the world he was living in, a world where society was dangling at the cusp of chaos and civilization.
Neo couldn’t forget that.
“I have come to realize my actions have been excessive.”
“Oh yes. You forget every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The worse you do, the harder they’ll try to swim upstream. Haven’t you ever felt that way before?”
Neo remembered the Western Slums and the way everyone fought for a bite of food. He remembered the cliffside and the roaring waves beneath it. The wind and rain were hard against his face and that Sutton boy laid beneath his feet.
He remembered the sword piercing him through, the terrified face of his brother, and the way he slowly bled out until dawn.
He remembered creating a miracle against the virus in his second life and dying from pure exhaustion.
“I think I do.”
Ortho snorts. “Better now than never. You remind me of your uncle Artho. He used to be quite the troublemaker back in our day—”
“He’s your husband, uncle.”
“Yes, but I don’t think he’s absolutely perfect—Artho, go back inside, love. It’s my turn.”
Neo looked on with an air of acceptance as he watched Ortho and Artho speak with one another through one body, with Malark sometimes coming out to referee.
“Step-Nephew, you go water the plants. I need a moment with your uncles,” Ortho ordered once he took command of the body.
Neo obediently stood up and left, Rainier trailing behind him with cautious steps.
‘Watering the plants’ was a code word for ‘leave us alone for fifteen minutes while I give both my husband and older brother a piece of my mind.’
—
“Young Master, is he Madam’s brother?” Rainier asked.
“Brothers, yes. You could tell?”
“There was a slight resemblance.”
A very slight resemblance. Rainier saw moments where the ax-murderer expression would suddenly appear between the annoyingly boisterous laughter and elegant way of speech.
The sudden appearance of Madam Vespera’s older brother was quite a shock. Rainier heard rumors that the man was crazy, and now he was starting to doubt they were rumors at all.
“The three of them share the same body,” his Young Master explained, “Ortho, he’s the one who was speaking to us, takes care of the accounting. Artho was the one that kept laughing; he’s an herbalist. And I don’t think you met Malark, yet, but he’s the actual apothecary.”
Ortho was the elegant one, Artho was the laughing one, so that made Malark the ax-murderer-looking one–was what Rainier concluded from his previous observation.
“Malark is the original owner of the body and the oldest. He’s married to Lady Elleanor.”
“Lady Elleanor?”
His Young Master nodded, “She’s a healer from the Polska Nation. Uncle Malark married her after the Lesser Krieg War. Apparently, despite being on opposing sides, the two of them had a really intense love affair. There was a scandal after the war when Malark eloped with her.”
Rainier almost choked on air. He knew his Young Master never cared for gossip, but he didn’t think the man could be so involved when it came to family.
With the way he was recounting the story, it was like he had witnessed everything first-hand.
“Ortho is Mother’s second older brother. He was formed when Malark fell into a dream-walking array during his brief internship at the Magic Tower. The array wasn’t properly drawn, so long story short, his soul was cleaved in half and Ortho was born. Artho ended up splitting off from Ortho during the Lesser Krieg War. He’s Mother’s brother-in-law.”
Rainier tried to keep a straight face while his mind did mental gymnastics to understand what exactly his Young Master was trying to say.
“Artho technically isn’t related to Ortho and Malark. Since Malark’s soul was already malleable after the soul split, Artho manifested to shoulder the traumatic stress responses he was having in the trenches. After the war, he just stuck around and never left.”
“Oh.” What else was Rainier supposed to say to that?!
“But anyway, Artho and Ortho are lovers.”
How?!
—
By the time Neo and Rainier returned to the tea room and saw that the man in front of them was still immaculately dressed.
“Your snakeweed nectar and hogroot powder are ready for pick up. Was there anything else you needed?”
Ortho, who was ever so generous, displayed several items before him.
The corner of Neo’s lips twitched.
“Did Mother tell you about the Glasshouse?”
“Your Father, actually,” Ortho showed a small smile, “He held us hostage in the shop the other day for a couple of hours and wouldn’t let us leave. I think it was the longest conversation I ever had with him.”
Neo automatically bowed his head, “I’m very sorry for his behavior.”
Ortho waved his hand, “We could see why sister married him.”
Oh.
Oh!
Oh, by the gods!
Too much information!
“We enjoyed speaking with him, so to show our appreciation—”
Please make it stop.
“—here are some things that might help you with your Glasshouse.”
Ortho opened several pouches of seeds and showed them.
“These are purely medicinal plants. We use them often in the shop, but you should follow the rule of poisoning. Too much of this will kill you,” he said meaningfully.
There was a long stretch of silence.
“I’m sorry,” Neo said, not daring to meet his uncle’s eyes.
A warm hand fell on top of his head.
Ortho smiled, “I know. Now, I’m sure your Uncle Artho—”
At the mention of his name, Artho swapped with Ortho in an instant, “Lad, let me tell ya. Getting your life together was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, and it was all because of Ortho—Malark and Vespera were there, too—and the in-laws. Can’t forget the in-laws.” He chuckled nervously.
The man cleared his throat and was back to smiling like an idiot again, “Ortho got you the seeds for the healing plants, so here’s my gift. To new beginnings.”
He opened a small box and revealed what was inside.
“Careful with the special ones. You can propagate them in water before transferring them to a soil bed. Malark threw in some instructions, so I guess that’s his present to you.”
There were twelve different rare black market grade plant trimmings lying innocently inside the box.
“What’s the poisoning dosage?” Neo asked.
“Small. Barely a teaspoon. You would be dead within a day.”
Neo couldn’t help but smile, “You’re really letting me grow them?”
Artho smirked. “We trust you, lad. You look happier than you’ve been in years.”
Neo felt his eyes water slightly, “Thank you…”
“Enough, enough,” Artho waved it off, “On the house, this time. Come back any time.”
“En.”
—
Nazareth met his step-uncles when he was about nine or ten. It’s been so many years since he could recall the exact age, but he was certainly young enough to need someone to hold his hand while descending into the underground apothecary.
Old enough to know what Morphine Poppy was, yet small enough to the point where he still needed a hand when walking down the stairs. The entire situation was ridiculous, but his uncles didn’t mind. They were kind to the child who only saw the world as unkind.
The expected narrative for Nazareth was a pitiful child who would never fit into the aristocracy. Although this was somewhat true, everything else was against expectations. He should have been a lesser being, someone to be made fun of, to push around, like many other bastard children.
But he fought against the grain, and sowed anew a field of his own making, unable to follow the flow of the river pushing towards another direction.
His birth was a misfortune, for both himself and many others. Yet, those who took part in conceiving him, accepting him, and guiding him step by step into the light were unaware of the monster lurking underneath his skin.
In his pursuit of a selfish dream, he had forgotten how many others were willing to hold his hand.
His uncles cultivated his talents and provided him with the materials to set their downfall into motion.
In the end, they, too, disappeared like the wind.
The story started similarly to the people’s expectations, but how did it end?
How did the story of this poor boy end?
Truthfully, Nazareth and Neo only wanted to know how it started.
The end was over and done with.
The middle was obscured and covered by fog, blinded by the impending madness in his mind.
They could only trust the beginning, and so the beginning had to be told, again and again.
—
Mummy wanted to keep him because she wanted something to call her own.
Father was only a teenager freshly graduated and dragged to a brothel before he got carted off to war.
When it came to the issue of consent and conceiving bastard children, the mothers were usually put in a pitiful light.
But his mother wasn’t exactly a pitiful woman and his father, being the inexperienced virgin that he was at the time, was likely eaten.
(Not that being inexperienced would have changed anything. Gareth married Vespera, so that said more about him than Alouysia.)
In the jungles of the Red Light District, a Duke’s son was prey, not predator.
And then the war came and his father and stepmother met against the backdrop of a battlefield soaked in blood.
They loved, they wed, they had children.
And when the rest of society eyed his stepmother with smug satisfaction at the revelation of an illegitimate child, she went against their expectations and accepted the child with open arms.
Was there a need to hate a child conceived before she even knew her husband?
She was the one who consented for him to be brought back.
His stepmother had always been like that. She fought in the war. She saw the orphans. She wouldn’t leave an unfortunate child if she could help it.
Life was a funny thing, but by the end of that lifetime, everything had spiraled into a chaotic tragedy. They were only children, too young to play adults, yet…
It was all very unfortunate.
—
“Let’s go buy some flowers for Mummy.”
Neo suggested on their way back to the carriage.
He and Rainier went to Graham’s Florist.
“You’re back!”
Sutton Graham greeted them at the door with a wide and sunny smile.
Neo could see a soft pink backdrop manifesting from behind him.
“The usual?” Sutton asked.
“Yes.”
Sutton grabbed the flowers and made the bouquet before ringing it up.
“Your total is a silver.”
Neo handed him a coin, “Has the price gone up since last time?”
Sutton smiled sheepishly, “Pa said to start implementing a luxury tax for all the noble customers coming in since most of them can’t tell we’re overcharging them—”
The mousy-haired boy clamped his mouth shut and cringed, “I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
Neo chuckled with amusement, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear anything,” he promised.
He had noticed how popular Graham Florist was becoming, but this didn’t happen back in his first life.
Was this what they called a butterfly effect?
Sutton flushed a deep shade of red and brought his hands to his face.
Neo smiled sympathetically, “So why are you guys overcharging noble customers?”
“It’s for school,” Sutton admitted, “With all the money we’ve been making from noble customers, I won’t have to get anything secondhand. The scholarship I received for the school I’m transferring to will only cover the tuition. Pa was able to pay the dormitory fees, but he didn’t have enough for textbooks and uniforms.”
Neo nodded with understanding. Sutton was a scholarship student at the Noble Academy, so everything he owned was secondhand. For things he couldn’t get, such as replacement uniforms, or school supplies, he had to reach out to other classmates for help.
It wasn’t just Sutton. A lot of scholarship students had to do that.
According to the Academy, this type of interaction was purposefully forced to improve the relationship between most noble children and commoner children.
As long as the scholarship students weren’t requesting anything too excessive, noble students were not allowed to reject their requests.
(Unless you were Nazareth Odum. This was an unspoken rule after someone supposedly stepped out of line and promptly disappeared the next day.)
Neo was an exception for all the wrong reasons.
(In Neo’s defense, the student was very rude and thought he could be a big bad bully just because he could make any noble give him their school supplies. Neo had him shipped off to another country to study abroad.)
But anyway, the forced interactions between noble and scholarship students served an objective.
The scholarship program’s main purpose, introduced three hundred years ago during the Great Dying of the aristocracy class, was to push commoners into noble society.
In other words, it was to prevent incest among the aristocracy…
Neo grabbed the beautifully wrapped bouquet and offered Sutton a small smile, “They’re lovely, as always. She will love them.”
Sutton shakes his head. “You say that every time!”
“Because it’s true. You are talented in your craft and I am grateful to have you in my life.”
“Young Master…!”
“You…!”
Two voices overlapped as Rainier and Sutton shouted at him.
Neo tilted his head.
Huh?
Sutton flushed a deeper shade of red, having yet to recover from his first bout of embarrassment.
“You…” He sounded oddly frustrated, “Make sure you don’t talk like that to strangers. There are a lot of creepy old guys out there who will take advantage of you.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Neo responded with some difficulty.
If they’re being creepy, he’ll just drag them off to the nearest knight patrol.
The bell at the door rang as it opened, taking with it the awkward atmosphere.
Sutton looked over, “Welcome to Graham Florist! How may I help you?”
Neo looked over and met a pair of vermillion eyes staring straight back at him.
All of a sudden, he felt like he was submerged in water.
“Julius?”
—
Step 34. Visit your uncles, even if they’re not blood-related. They’re family, after all. When you’re finished, you may choose to pick up some flowers for Mummy. That boy you tried to kill in your last life is very endearing and makes the loveliest bouquets. Finally, if you find yourself in an awkward situation, just remember, it could be worse...
The author has something to say:
Thank you, kanae, roseyposies and haruka for the beautiful fanarts. You guys can find them on the fanart page.
If you are interested in some of the subjects mentioned in the chapter, please look up the Theory of Poison and the article The Power of Poison: Poison as Medicine. This author is not a toxicologist, but for mediocre accuracy, research is a must.
kanae
roeyposies
haruka
Our Nazareth is so smart and stupid at the same time.
Thank u for the update, Author-nim. <333
Wahh I still don’t get the uncles situation lmao thank you for the chapter!
Whoops sorry I accidentally replied 💀💀
The Uncles were fun, and slightly sad with the history. But war does that.
Thanks for the chapter! The uncles were definitely unexpected…. Nice addition to the cast.
The more i read the more i feel life is worth living (つ✧ω✧)つ thanks for the chapter
Thank you for the chapter!
Thank you for the update Author. The uncles are really cool!
Uncles are awesome. dad was eaten, metaphorically.
Rainer is best boy,
flowers are a nice touch.
Neo is truly blessed for having so many lives.
thank u for the chapter!! its lovely as always <3
LMAO Neo really shipped a student abroad 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Anyways, we get to see Julius soon (´∇｀)
No words can explain how interested I am in this novel. The world building, the sad pasts, the way their traumas are shown. I have very soft spots for children with trauma haha.
Anyway, this is amazing. I absolutely love the way it’s written!
Noooooo I’m all caught up. Thank you for the chapter!