This Name Has a Hint of Curry

"Trading, huh? This is interesting."

The Collector licked the mustard sauce off her fingers. "If you need something to do something for the Black Tide Society, you can just use the organization's funds. But if I heard you right, you came here in a personal capacity, didn't you?"

"That means you want to do something you'd rather keep under wraps."

"Let me guess. Do you need some untraceable poison to secretly take someone out? Or an ancient weapon that can inflict irreversible injuries? Or maybe you just need a rare antique to bribe your superior?"

"Tell me if I got it right!" The Collector eagerly leaned toward Lude, and a foul stench immediately washed over him.

"I did come here for personal reasons," Lude confirmed, then changed tack. "But that's not what I'm after, so I'd say you were only half right, Madam Collector."

"Then what are you after?" the Collector asked curiously.

Lude only smiled mysteriously. "I think you'll understand once you see what I'm offering, Madam Collector."

"Tsk." The Collector clicked her tongue in displeasure. "So mysterious. But this is getting interesting. Come on, show me."

Under the Collector's eager gaze, Lude slowly pulled something from the inside pocket of his coat...

"...A book?"

The Collector raised an eyebrow. "Just a book?"

"It's no ordinary book." Lude smiled and handed it over. "You'll see."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk..."

The Collector clicked her tongue as she took the book. After flipping through a couple of pages, she froze for a moment.

"Oh! This is Leonardo da Vinci's manuscript of Principles of Alchemical Machinery! Judging by its condition, it's the original, too? Goodness, I'm sorry. I misjudged you."

As she spoke, the Collector looked at Lude. "This sort of thing isn't easy to come by. Where did you get it?"

"Professor Beshe's estate." Lude cheerfully lifted his coffee cup and took a sip. "The old man left behind quite a lot, and his grandson, Aleppo, happened to be my colleague. Most importantly, his grandson died right alongside him."

"So when I helped Aleppo settle his affairs, I managed to pick out quite a few good things from the estate."

The Collector nodded in understanding. "Oh, I heard Professor Beshe passed away recently, too. Tsk, tsk. As an alchemist, that old man was nearly as wealthy as I am."

"So you want to use Professor Beshe's estate to study Alchemy, right?"

"That's exactly right." Lude nodded.

He'd only made up this excuse on the way here, but it was convincing enough.

After all, there was nothing more valuable in this world than knowledge, and the mysteries of Alchemy were more than enough to draw anyone in.

"So what are you looking for?" the Collector asked curiously. "Ingredients? Equipment? Alchemical tools? Something else? If it's literature you want, you may be disappointed, because I don't usually collect that sort of thing. If your book weren't an original manuscript, it wouldn't even deserve a place in my collection."

"None of those." Lude smiled. "I was sent here on a business trip, too. You've probably heard about what happened on Market Street yesterday, so my visit to you was a spur-of-the-moment decision."

"Since it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, I naturally didn't have a specific goal in mind."

"So I just thought I'd see if I could get some basic materials for studying Alchemy from you. The way I came by this book wasn't exactly aboveboard, so I can't get those materials through the Black Tide Society's official channels."

"Hmm..."

"All right." The Collector grabbed a white sausage and stuffed it into her mouth without even peeling it. As she chewed noisily, spittle flying, she said, "Materials for Alchemy... That's fine. They're not one-of-a-kind, after all, and I have some stock. I won't mind parting with a few. Come with me. I'll take you to my collection room."

With that, the Collector's massive frame rose to its feet and squeezed through the doorway like a mountain.

Following behind her, Lude watched as her enormous bulk squeezed up the stairs. For a moment, he worried whether the building could bear her weight.

But after climbing four flights behind the Collector, that worry turned to astonishment.

He was astonished that, despite being so large that she could barely see her legs when standing, the Collector had made it up four flights of stairs without a hitch. She wasn't even flushed or breathing hard. It was as if she'd merely taken a short walk on level ground!

It seemed the Collector wasn't merely an obese woman, but the purest example of muscle hidden beneath fat. No, even that didn't do her justice. If she could move around with three tons of weight on her, her strength was probably on par with Lude's!

Lude followed the Collector all the way to the fifth floor. At the end of the stairs stood a single door. The Collector took three keys from her waist and used them one by one to unlock its three locks.

"Come along, Mr. Radvasch. Your name's a bit of a mouthful. It's not a common name in the Rhine Region, is it?"

At that, Lude smiled without replying. Radvasch was actually a distorted version of Ludwig, but once it had been twisted around like that, the name had naturally taken on a hint of curry...

Beyond the fifth-floor door stretched a long corridor. There were four doors along its sides, and a window at the far end. The corridor was a little narrow for the Collector; it had probably been built back when she was still thin.

"Come along, young man." The Collector unlocked the first door. "Let me show you something good."

The moment Lude stepped through the first door, he saw display cases everywhere, save for the support pillars. Inside were paintings and calligraphy, vessels, furniture, old cast metal objects, and a host of antiques whose names he couldn't even guess.

"These are eight full generations' worth of the Stras Family's collection," the Collector said proudly from the doorway.

"That's impressive," Lude couldn't help saying.

But then he realized something was off. "Though this seems to be nothing but ordinary collectibles?"

"That's right." The Collector smiled and patted the case beside her. "Everything in this room is an ordinary antique. These items have weathered the passage of time, but they haven't been tempered into anything supernatural."

As they spoke, they made their way into the second room.

Compared to the first room's dazzling array of treasures, the second was far less impressive to look at. Everywhere he looked, there were only dried leaves and roots, along with quite a few living plants.

"Not much to look at, right?" the Collector said with a smile as she looked down at the display cases. "This room is full of rare and unusual plants. Some are nothing special where they come from, but they're exceedingly rare in the Rhine Region."

"Like this." The Collector opened the glass door of a display case and took out a piece of root. "Look, this is a Mandrake root. It can only be used once it's made into a potion—what's wrong? You look surprised."

Lude nodded and answered frankly, "I am a little surprised."