What Witch? This Alchemist is Breaking Bad!

Melissa’s hair was gone.

Even with her head wrapped in a scarf, Leon could tell at a glance that Melissa had sold her hair.

Hair naturally fetched a higher price the longer it was.

From the look of it, Melissa had almost had it cut right down to her scalp.

Beneath the headscarf was the outline of the top of her head, making it impossible to hide the fact that her hair was gone.

“I’d been growing it for ages and had already decided to cut it anyway. It just happened to be the right time,” Melissa said with a deliberately relaxed smile.

“Honestly, I’d long felt it was troublesome to take care of—hot and stuffy, too. This way it’s much easier!”

“……”

Leon had no words in response.

He truly had no idea what he could say.

When Melissa had been embarrassed over this sum of money earlier, he had not offered to help.

Now, to express sympathy would only seem hypocritical.

“After selling my hair, I also withdrew a little from the bakery. This should be enough, Leon, how much is it exactly?” Melissa placed the money pouch on the dining table, preparing to count the money out.

“Just twenty-one Thaler, that’s about right,” Leon replied softly.

“If there’s any odd change, you should just say it outright. This is our family’s debt, after all—we can’t keep letting you cover it for us…” Melissa first counted out two gold shields and one Silver Wolf.

“Aren’t you afraid the amount I reported was actually higher?” Leon asked.

“How could Leon do something like that?” Melissa shook her head repeatedly.

“Don’t trust people too easily, you’ll suffer for it. I taught you about interest—you need to learn to calculate it yourself too,” Leon sighed.

“The total was twenty-one Thaler and forty Fenni.”

Melissa likely could not imagine at all that the “Leon” who had always looked after them would seize every opportunity to extort others when collecting debts, skim fines for himself, and now had even gone so far as to cooperate with a Witch and get involved in Mana trading.

“Alright, Leon, check it,” Melissa said as she handed the counted money to Leon.

“Mm, it’s correct.” Leon carefully put the money away, then wrote out a receipt and handed it to Melissa.

“Then I’ll head back and continue working.”

“Leon.” Melissa suddenly called out to him.

“What is it?” Leon turned back.

“Will you… come back for dinner tonight?” Melissa looked up at Leon and asked.

“No. I’ve been a bit busy lately, I’m afraid I’ll be coming back very late,” Leon replied.

From now on, aside from handling the Inquisition’s work, he also had to make time to continue setting up the Mana production business.

This period was bound to be the busiest.

A flash of disappointment passed through Melissa’s eyes, then she quickly hid it deep down.

“Oh, I see. Then take care of your health, don’t get so busy that you forget.”

Taking care of a seriously ill and depressed mother alone at home, it was inevitable to feel stifled.

At times like that, even having one more person in the house to exchange a few words with would make the atmosphere very different.

During these days when Leon did not come back, Melissa still felt quite lonely.

“You’re the one who needs to take care of yourself. Remember to eat properly. I’ll find some time this afternoon to buy a few things and bring them back,” Leon said as he patted Melissa’s thin shoulder.

He decided inwardly to buy some eggs and put them in the kitchen.

After saying goodbye to Melissa, Leon returned to the street and continued running around for today’s debt collection work.

The plight of the Hesh mother and daughter was pitiable, but he himself was also suffering from injuries now and truly did not have much spare strength to help others out of their predicament.

If he was still struggling to crawl out of the Abyss, then Melissa and her mother could be considered to have long since fallen to the very bottom of the valley.

He had no extra strength to pull them up.

All he could do was sprinkle a bit of food down into the valley so that they could barely survive.

Kindness did not equate to selflessness.

He could look after the mother and daughter as much as possible in terms of his duties and daily life, but in the end, he could not pour everything he had into helping them repay their debts.

However, if he truly accumulated several million or even tens of millions in enormous wealth, and had a stable means of obtaining such wealth, such that taking out a few hundred thousand to help them break free of their debts would be no great loss, then he would not mind lending a hand.

But for Sally and Melissa, money alone was not enough.

The Saltification Disease was, after all, an incurable illness.

At that moment, he suddenly thought of what Bishop Weiss had once said to him—Witches sometimes possessed secret formulas that the Church did not have.

Since Saltification Disease was called Moilai’s Curse, could it be that some Witch held a method to treat Saltification Disease?

Leon did not think that a young Witch like Rena, who clearly lacked seniority at a glance, would have such a formula or any related clues, but…

He might as well ask without holding out much hope.

……

That night, at the temporary encampment of the original Church Knight Orders in the Hamel region Labyrinth, Leon struggled to set down a huge ceramic jar tightly bound with rope, panting heavily from exhaustion.

“Eight Slimes are actually this heavy!” he said as he wiped his sweat.

Inside the large ceramic jar were the Slimes that were being prepared for transfer into the Labyrinth for breeding.

Several fire pits he had installed along the walls burned fiercely, illuminating the empty space.

Just last night, they had finally finished setting up the workshop in the Labyrinth more or less.

Leon had dug out a breeding pool here, about the size of a small swimming pool.

That very night, Rena had used her ability under cover of darkness to relocate the Head-Hunting Rabbits from her home’s cellar into the Labyrinth.

But Slimes crawled far too slowly, so they could only be transported using containers.

“Alright, that takes care of transferring all the Magical Beasts. Next, we’ll observe them for a period of time. Remember to deliver the required food according to the list every day,” Rena said without turning her head, busy mixing potions at the newly set-up workbench.

“What have you been mixing all this time? Magical Potions?” Leon asked after watching for a while.

He noticed that whenever Rena had free time, she would tinker with those chemistry-like instruments, using materials collected from the Head-Hunting Rabbits and Slimes, along with a few herbs, to concoct potions.

As she worked, she also recorded things down, looking exactly like a graduate student rushing to finish a thesis project.

“That has nothing to do with you, does it? You only need to care about the Mana that will make you money,” Rena replied coldly.

“How could it have nothing to do with me? What if you’re brewing poison to kill me?” Leon probed half-jokingly.

“If I were to brew something like that, I’d definitely do it somewhere you couldn’t see!” Rena snapped irritably.

Leon shrugged and said nothing.

Although they had reached a basic cooperation, his relationship with Rena had not actually eased much.

Facing him, a strange man who had suddenly barged into her space, Rena merely handled the Magical Beast breeding matters in a strictly businesslike manner.

For anything beyond that, she mostly ignored casual conversation, clearly maintaining a sense of distance from him, evidently waiting for Leon to earn a satisfactory amount before cutting ties with him cleanly.

Leon did not really mind this.

As long as Rena handled her part of the work properly and allowed him to make money, that was enough.

Carrying a lantern, Leon strolled over to the breeding pool.

He removed an iron barred gate that the Knight Orders had installed nearby and covered the breeding pool with it, pressing it down with heavy objects so that the Head-Hunting Rabbits would have difficulty escaping.

Although Slimes could crawl along smooth walls, according to Rena, as long as a circle of salt was sprinkled around the edge of the breeding pool, the Slimes would not leave it.

A salt concentration that was too high would make their bodies difficult to maintain form, so Slimes disliked salt.

At the moment, only Head-Hunting Rabbits were in the breeding pool.

Leon took a glance and was somewhat surprised to find that there were precisely two pairs of adult Head-Hunting Rabbits mating inside, with the male rabbits constantly trying to climb onto the females.

“Rena, come take a look at this. The Head-Hunting Rabbits seem to have started mating already!” Leon turned his head and called out to Rena with some delight.