Early the next morning, Angel arrived at Williams Street and found the Folk Herbal Medicine Shop Carlson had mentioned.
Common flowers and plants grew outside the shop, decorating it more like a flower shop than an herbal store. From a long way off, she could smell a fresh fragrance mixed with the pungent scent of various herbs.
She pushed open the unlocked glass door and entered the fairly spacious but somewhat cluttered Herbal Shop.
A fat man lay with his back to the entrance in a wooden recliner. His excessively wide waist bulged over both sides of the chair, making it seem liable to collapse at any moment.
The chair rocked gently as its occupant wandered through dreams. Beside him, a delicate-looking young man with messy hair hurried about the shop, sorting herbs, grinding dried plants into powder, packing them into glass bottles by category, and placing them on shelves.
Angel found the young man somewhat familiar. After thinking for a moment, she remembered seeing him at the Underground Market behind Evil Dragon Bar in Tingen City. She had even bought some essential oils for Ritual Magic from him.
Of course, that memory was one-sided. The young man clearly did not recognize the transformed Angel. Seeing a customer, he warmly greeted her, wiped his hands, and came over.
"Hello. I'd like to buy something that's hard to find elsewhere... um... Mummy Ashes."
After last night's awkward scene, she practically did not want to say those words aloud. But for the sake of her advancement, she could only cast aside her shame.
Sure enough, the young man wore the same expression as those two from Machinery Hivemind. However, he quickly recovered, turned toward the man in the recliner, and shouted,
"Teacher, come over for a moment. She wants to buy, buy