Chapter One Hundred and Twenty: Fire
“Before I tell you this, I want to swear on the Gubert name that this is absolutely not the work of the Gubert Trading Company.”
“…What happened?”
“Your house is apparently on fire—not the alchemy workshop where you’re currently living. Your old family home where you used to live.”
There was no way a fire could break out in a house where she only occasionally visited for cleaning and hadn’t used fire for a long time.
“Arson—! Excuse me!”
“I’ll dispatch magicians for firefighting! I can’t have people thinking the Gubert Trading Company was behind this!”
“Thank you! It’s an apartment in the adventurers’ district! There are plenty of magicians there, so please send precious healing mages!”
“What a bold little girl! Hurry up and go!”
Shooed away, Karen rushed out of the store.
The roads were congested with carriages, perhaps people trying to escape from the source of the fire with its billowing flames and smoke, so Karen chose to run.
Natalia stopped Karen as she was about to dash off.
“Karen! What will you accomplish by going there!? If you want to distribute potions, wouldn’t it be better to return to the alchemy workshop first?”
“Good point—Natalia, could you bring my stock of healing potions? Bring everything I have! There are still plenty left from when I made a ton for the promotion exam practice.”
“And what about you!?”
Instead of answering, Karen waved to Natalia.
Natalia hesitated for a while, but eventually shook herself free and ran toward Karen’s alchemy workshop, which was in the completely opposite direction from the Gubert Trading Company.
“Ma’am! Are there any injured people?”
Karen found the couple from the neighboring house and breathed a sigh of relief. She had thought they would be out at work during the day, but she had been worried sick, thinking what if they were home and caught in the fire.
“—We’re fine! There are a few people with minor burns, but everyone should have evacuated.”
The woman who had started to call Karen’s name but then closed her mouth showed a cheerful smile.
Looking up, it was clear that the source of the apartment fire was Karen’s home. From the corner room on the fifth floor, particularly black smoke was billowing out. The fire had spread further from there, burning the fifth floor, and smoke was also overflowing from windows on other floors. Anyone could see that the fire was Karen’s fault, yet the woman wasn’t trying to blame her, which made Karen press her lips together tightly.
“I’m sorry for causing trouble. I’ll compensate you later.”
“Don’t worry about it. Fires happen all the time, don’t they?”
That was certainly true.
In this world with magic, fires could start for many reasons—children with talent accidentally setting off fire spells, mishandling of magic stones, magical tools malfunctions, and so on.
“But why hasn’t it been extinguished yet?”
“It looks like Trent fruit oil has been scattered around. And it seems magic stones have been added too.”
“That natural fire bomb…”
A Trent, a tree-type monster, not only lashed at adventurers with whip-like branches but also hurled its fruit at them. The fruit, from which this oil was extracted, burst into flames like a natural firebomb upon hitting an adventurer. No matter how much water is thrown on it, the oil’s magical power won’t stop burning until it runs out—rolling on the ground or jumping into a river won’t help.
A natural, vicious fire bomb. Something like napalm from her previous life.
When Trent oil was sold as cooking oil on the market, it was required to be mixed with additives to remove its dangerous magical properties.
However, it wasn’t as deadly as the impression from her past life. If you could shield yourself with magical power, fire wasn’t that great a threat. The countermeasure was to protect yourself from burns with magic while dousing yourself with water infused with magical power to cancel out the magically sustained flames.
However, even if you could protect your body’s surface with magical power, many people died from inhaling smoke from the flames. Magical power can’t coat the airways, so they can be burned raw; and even if one could shield the internal organs, carbon monoxide poisoning can’t be prevented.
Sometimes people died with their bodies remaining pristine.
“Right now, the neighborhood magicians are casting water magic to put out the fire.”
The woman stopped Karen as she tried to head to the scene.
“Stay here. All the local people know you’re not a bad child. You’re very kind to everyone, a really good child. But there are people who don’t know that. Recently, adventurers have been gathering from all over because of the strange situation in the dungeon, right? The ones speaking badly of you are those outsiders.”
“…So it wasn’t anyone from around here who did it?”
No one would leave flammable Trent oil or magic stones in their home they planned to leave vacant for a while. Someone had scattered Trent oil in Karen’s home and set it on fire.
And to ensure the flames wouldn’t be easily put out, they had scattered fire magic stones along with the Trent oil to preserve its magical potency. If they were people who could investigate and find out that this was Karen’s house, they probably knew Karen wasn’t home.
Even so, Karen shuddered at the malice directed at her.
“Of course not. I came home for lunch once. When I left the house and was going down the stairs, I passed some unfamiliar men. Those guys did it. They wore their hats pulled low, but I’m short, you see. I could see their arrogant faces. A blonde, young man—”
“Don’t tell anyone about that.”
While she had some idea who it might be, Eugene had sworn on the Gubert Trading Company’s name that they weren’t involved, so even if her suspicions were correct, it was probably a lone culprit.
“I see. If it wasn’t done by people from around here, that’s good.”
“Of course not. Everyone here adores you. So…”
Karen exhaled and smiled at the woman.
“Thank you for worrying about me. But this is my responsibility, so I’m going.”
She approached the apartment. The neighborhood magicians were all working together, hitting it with water magic.
Thanks to them, the fire hadn’t spread, but only the fire in Karen’s room wouldn’t go out easily.
And while it didn’t spread, the rising smoke couldn’t be dispersed, and the fifth floor in particular seemed to be filled with scorching smoke.
While she had known she would face disadvantages, she hadn’t wanted to cause trouble for others like this.
Still, she didn’t think staying silent just to avoid troubling anyone would have been the right choice.
That would just end with nothing changing—
“Let me in! My husband is still inside!”
“Give up already! Even without the fire, the smoke is dangerous. Are you going to get dragged down with him!?”
“That’s right! He’s bedridden and can’t move—this might as well be a good chance!”
“What do you mean, a good chance!? A good chance to abandon him!?”
A muscular woman with pink hair shouting with a red face, and the men trying to stop her.
They looked like adventurers and seemed to have just returned from work.
Karen approached them.
“Is your husband still inside?”
“Just stay out of our business.”
“That’s right! My husband is still inside! He can’t move!!”
Karen had never seen this woman before. Which meant she wasn’t someone who had been here for a long time.
She had probably moved in recently.
“Which floor is your room on? Could it be the second room after going up the stairs to the seventh floor?”
“Yes… How do you know?”
The woman finally seemed to notice Karen and looked down at her.
She apparently didn’t recognize Karen either.
“Because an old man who used to be an adventurer lived there alone for a long time—if it became vacant, that would be the room. When did he pass away?”
Karen said this almost in a murmur as she moved away from the women.
Different men stopped Karen as she approached the apartment. They were town guards.
“It’s dangerous, so don’t go inside.”
“I’m Karen. I’m the resident of that room that’s currently burning, an E-rank alchemist responsible for this fire.”
“—That E-rank alchemist?”
The guards’ way of looking at Karen changed.
It was eyes full of curiosity looking at the person at the center of the controversy.
“I don’t know which one you mean, but yes. Please let me go help the person trapped inside. This is my responsibility.”
“But—”
The guards looked at each other, but voices rose from behind Karen.
“It certainly is your responsibility! Go help him! It’s your fault!”
“That’s right! If an E-rank alchemist dies, who cares!”
“How can you say such things!?”
“You’re a C-rank adventurer! Your life has a different value than hers!”
“Jan, just let that woman go help.”
Hearing the voices of unfamiliar male adventurers, one of the magicians who had been hitting Karen’s burning room with water magic stopped and shouted angrily.
“I’ll blow you guys away! This girl is also a victim who had her place set on fire!”
It was the magician who lived on the third floor of the same apartment.
Of course, she had known him since childhood.
“It’s her fault for opposing the Gubert Trading Company! She’s holding everyone back!”
“The Gubert Trading Company is the one at fault for trying to kill a child working at Karen’s place to threaten and make Karen obey!”
“That’s right!”
Karen gasped at the number and volume of voices that rose up.
More voices were taking Karen’s side than she had thought.
Most of the people forced out of the apartment by the fire—caused by Karen’s dispute with the Gubert Trading Company—were still raising their voices in her support.
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