What Witch? This Alchemist is Breaking Bad!

At the same time, inside the Labyrinth Workshop.

Rena stood before the workbench and dissected a laboratory mouse that had contracted Saltification Disease and had been administered the special medicine for a period of time.

A special medicine formulated with eighty-five percent purity Mana was already capable of reversing the crystallization appearing on the bodies of mice afflicted with Saltification Disease.

However, judging from the results of several dissections, the progression of the illness within the internal organs was actually still continuing, only at a much slower rate.

Rena let out a soft sigh.

The current special medicine still could not completely cure Saltification Disease.

But based on the present experimental results, the medicine was already able to reverse surface symptoms, allow patients to regain mobility, and significantly extend their lifespan.

If similar effects could be achieved in humans as in animals, then for cases like Mrs.

Hesh, who had originally been estimated to have only about one year left, continuous medication should be able to extend that to five years, or even a little longer.

Moreover, before the internal organs deteriorated, patients would still retain the ability to move their limbs and live with a bit more dignity.

The efficacy of this medicine was already far beyond anything Holy Water could compare to.

Overall, it could actually already be considered a fairly decent treatment plan—only that it was still far from her goal of making Saltification Disease disappear entirely.

Her research had reached a bottleneck at this point.

No matter what she did, the purity of Mana could not be raised any further.

All that remained was to work on the formula itself.

Yet according to the inherited materials left behind by her grandmother’s lineage, research in this direction had also more or less been explored to its limit.

Without the addition of new knowledge, it would likely be very difficult to achieve any further breakthroughs.

Rena felt a trace of melancholy as she temporarily set aside her research and cleaned up the experimental table.

Next, she still had to handle the work of tending to the Magical Beasts.

As usual, she prepared water and feed, then pricked her finger with a needle and dripped her own blood into the water.

Finally, she placed the water and feed into containers and carefully lowered them into the Breeding Pool.

After winter arrived, the activity of the Magical Beasts slowed noticeably, and they would temporarily stop reproducing.

However, they did not go into hibernation.

They still needed regular feeding and care to ensure that there would be a sufficient scale to continue producing Mana in the coming year.

Furthermore, if she did not feed them a bit of her blood at intervals, the Blood Pact would lose its effect.

The Magical Beasts would become irritable and aggressive, and would even slaughter each other within the cramped Breeding Pool.

Out of concern for potential accidents, Leon had slaughtered all the adult Magical Beasts.

For the next half year, she would not need to refine Mana anymore.

With such careful tending and feeding them with plants collected from the Labyrinth, once the remaining Magical Beasts matured next year after accumulating through an entire winter in the Labyrinth, the Mana yield of the first harvest should be quite considerable.

This year, they had sold just over one million.

If they maintained the same scale of output next year, reaching a transaction volume of one and a half million should not be a problem.

That money-grubbing fellow would probably be ecstatic.

Thinking of this, Rena suddenly felt that her line of thought was a bit strange.

No—how much money they made, and whether he was happy or not, what did that have to do with her?

Her goal had clearly always been to develop a special medicine for Saltification Disease.

Making money had always been Leon’s goal.

Although, strictly speaking, there were not many people who disliked money, and she was no exception.

By now, she possessed roughly five hundred thousand.

Having that much money meant she no longer needed to worry about finances in daily life or research, which was indeed a good thing.

She had never actually enjoyed living such a frugal life before.

Still, she remained worried that the money might attract trouble.

She kept only a few tens of thousands of Fenni at home and placed the rest into a box, burying it in a concealed location—a place her grandmother had originally used to hide tools and books left behind from her days as a Witch.

She had even considered that, if necessary, she could redistribute the money she had earned back to Leon, allowing him to reach his financial goal sooner.

She also knew that Leon’s fifty-fifty profit-sharing terms had already been a concession made with their cooperation in mind.

Leon had protected her more than once, and she did not mind giving back a bit more of the money.

And that way, she could free herself from that fellow sooner, no longer needing to engage in this kind of tightrope-walking dangerous business with him—wasn’t that right?

Free herself…

At that thought, she unexpectedly hesitated.

Once enough money was earned, there seemed to be no reason for them to continue cooperating.

Although Leon had said he would continue providing her with protection, and she had agreed to develop medicines to treat injuries and illnesses for Leon—but after that?

If she developed the medicine Leon needed, and her research on Saltification Disease came to a temporary conclusion, would there really be any need for them… to have any further connection?

At this point, without even realizing it herself, Rena let out a soft sigh.

“Clang!”

The sound of a clay jar shattering rang out within the cave, crisp and loud, instantly interrupting Rena’s thoughts.

Rena jolted awake, her blood seeming to freeze throughout her body.

After Caron had broken in here before, in addition to digging out a new exit, Leon had also set up some simple mechanisms at this Labyrinth entrance.

Some inconspicuous threads were impossible to see in the darkness.

Without prior vigilance, they would inevitably be triggered.

Once triggered, jars hidden in the shadows would be knocked over and shattered, producing a sound that could be clearly heard throughout this underground space.

These were used purely as alarms.

To prevent himself and Rena from triggering them by accident, Leon had not set up any dangerous traps.

Of course, there was always the possibility that Leon himself might accidentally trigger them when entering, but that had never happened before.

“There’s someone inside, search quickly!”

A low shout shattered the last trace of hope in Rena’s heart.

The intruders had clearly realized this was an early-warning mechanism.

A burst of chaotic, hurried footsteps followed, and another mechanism was triggered.

The sound of shattering jars rang out once more.

Someone had broken into the Labyrinth! And it had to be when Leon was not here!!

Rena was momentarily terrified out of her wits, but her rationality quickly pulled her scattered soul back.

She had to run!

Rena immediately dashed toward the exit.

As she passed by the table, she hesitated slightly.

In the end, she did not take the Mana on the table, but instead grabbed the alcohol used for ignition and heating and splashed it onto the oil lamp.

Flames immediately spread across the table.

Then she rushed out of the Workshop and fled deeper into the Labyrinth, disappearing into the darkness.

This amount of fire was impossible to destroy evidence, but when the intruders reached this area, the firelight would draw their attention, forcing them to divert manpower to put out the fire and protect the scene.

That would at least buy her some time to escape.

She had learned this trick from Leon.

Back then, Leon had used this very method to lure her out of the house to put out a fire.

After escaping the Workshop, Rena could still hear the chaotic shouts behind her.

The faintly glowing plants and mushrooms provided her with barely adequate illumination.

She had practiced escaping with Leon several times, but when it truly came time to do so, she could not calm down at all.

Her head buzzed, and only one thought repeated over and over in her mind: “Get out—no matter what, get out of here first!”

Leon had taught her that the top priority in such situations was to escape the Labyrinth and avoid being caught red-handed.

She finally reached the end of the left-side fork and felt around until she found the passage Leon had dug.

It was low and narrow, well concealed, and only allowed one person to crawl through.

Rena crawled into the passage, inching forward in pitch-black darkness.

The dozens of meters felt endlessly long.

At last, she touched a pile of withered grass.

She pushed it aside, and a sliver of faint light shone through the gaps.

The withered grass had been used by Leon to conceal the entrance and exit.

The exit was offset by more than ten meters from the original one, and was further obscured by dense shrubs.

Rena clambered awkwardly out from the thick grass, brushed the dust from her cloak, and after confirming there was no one nearby, immediately moved down the slope toward the foot of the mountain.

She had finally escaped the Labyrinth.

Next, all she needed to do was leave this mountain!

The Hamel Inquisition had fewer than thirty people.

That number was more than enough to search the Labyrinth, but completely insufficient to search an entire mountain.

The slope here was not very steep, but without a mountain path, it was still dangerous to traverse.

She twisted her ankle several times.

Eventually, she passed through the trees on the hillside and approached the foot of the mountain.

This was another direction of the mountain, far from Estuary Village.

But just as she stepped out from between the trees, several figures abruptly entered her field of vision.

Rena froze in place.

What she saw was a squad of people wearing light armor, with the Church’s Four-Pointed Star Emblem on their breastplates.

These were… Church personnel!

The other side seemed to have already noticed movement coming down the mountain and was closing in to surround her.

Rena glanced around and discovered that there were many more people gathered in the distance.

From her vantage point alone, she could see at least thirty or more.

This was a mountain-sealing search.

What had been mobilized was an entire Knight Order of two hundred apprentice knights.

From the moment the search began, Rena—once she entered the Labyrinth—had no chance of escaping at all!

“Hello, miss. We are apprentice knights under the Church of the God of War, acting under orders to seal off and search this mountain,” a female knight stepped forward and said in a businesslike tone.

“May we ask for your cooperation in an investigation?”

Rena stood there blankly, unable to give any response.

The female knight did not wait for her reply, but instead turned to someone beside her and said quietly, “Notify Bishop Becket immediately.”