Proud.
Even within , it was known as the most vicious city of all—a place crawling with crime, violence, and dangers lurking in every shadow.
And of all places, this was where the hidden mastermind of the story had been born and raised.
Not merely raised here, either. Befitting a true final villain, he was the ruler of Proud itself.
The king of the underworld.
The butcher of the continent.
No way.
I felt a little sorry for the villain, but I genuinely, sincerely, absolutely did not want to meet him.
Wasn’t that only natural?
I still didn’t know who had killed Amelia. But everyone with half a brain already knew she had probably died because she stayed close to the mastermind.
Put nicely, she had connections to power.
Put bluntly, she was the villain’s weakness.
Maybe someone had assassinated Amelia to get to him.
Or perhaps to take revenge against him.
And if they were capable of killing a mage like her, then they had to be someone incredibly influential.
This is bad.
But making guesses was pointless.
No matter how much I thought about it, the reality remained the same—
I had walked straight into the very headquarters of the villain I’d desperately wanted to avoid.
I should drag that auctioneer out and beat him to death.
Damn it.
I’d gotten too excited at the thought of finally buying a house. Never imagined I could misread the address itself.
“Ugh… my life…”
Sniffling, I pulled a glass bottle from my bag. I uncorked it roughly and drank straight from it.
Of course, it only contained juice.
“This seriously sucks…”
Without thinking, I slammed the bottle down onto the table.
The man flinched.
The suspicious fellow who’d asked if something was wrong earlier was currently hanging upside down from the ceiling.
Why?
Because he’d tried to kill me.
Pretending to be an antique dealer so he could steal my house.
Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t some innocent little child.
No way I’m letting a scammer take it.
Sure, I’d been scammed myself, but the house was still mine. I wasn’t about to hand it over to trash like him.
At that moment, the upside-down man spoke.
“M-My lady…”
“What?!”
“I was wrong, alright? So maybe you could let me dow—”
“No!”
“R-Right. You don’t want to.”
At my shout, the man immediately shrank back.
I glared at him and sniffed loudly.
A cotton-candy-pink mist tightly bound his body.
He let out a sigh.
At the same time, a dagger slipped from his pocket and clattered to the floor.
What a miserable life. Seriously miserable…
In the end, life was something you faced alone.
What am I supposed to do now?
Honestly, the answer was obvious.
Escape this underworld city.
But right now, that was impossible.
Because all my money’s gone.
To seek asylum in another country, I’d need to be an adult at minimum. Even without asylum, adults had freedom minors didn’t.
And nothing was more dangerous than a defenseless fallen noble wandering around alone—
especially a minor.
I had to survive somehow until adulthood.
And of all places…
Here.
“Damn it.”
I’d originally left home with one hundred gold.
Then I spent half of it buying this house.
That meant I currently had fifty gold left.
Even if I lived as frugally as possible and only spent five gold a month, it wouldn’t last a year.
Proud’s cost of living was insane.
Damn these prices.
Pointlessly realistic.
First, I need money.
Let’s say I managed to stretch my savings for a year.
Even then, life was unpredictable—as I’d already learned from getting scammed.
Anything could happen.
I needed some kind of reliable source of income.
Living alone means money disappears just from breathing.
My eyes darted around restlessly.
Not that thinking this hard would magically produce a solution…
Thunk.
“Hm?”
I picked up the bottle that had rolled to my feet.
It was something the man had dropped.
What’s this?
“Hey!”
As I tilted my head and examined the bottle, the man shouted urgently.
“That’s a potion! A potion! A healing potion, and it’s insanely expensive! Put it down right now! Hey!”
“Oh.”
Thank you kindly for the explanation.
Ignoring the merchant’s screams, I inspected the bottle again.
The blue liquid inside certainly looked expensive.
“Huh?”
Expensive?
I shook the bottle lightly.
Somewhere above me, I heard the sound of someone nearly fainting, but I didn’t care.
A brilliant idea suddenly struck me.
“Right. This is it!”
My lovely little money-maker.
…Yeah, right.
“I’m doomed.”
I collapsed onto the floor.
What had I called it earlier?
A lovely money-maker?
“Hah.”
Money-maker, my ass.
I’d gone completely bankrupt instead.
Turns out protecting myself was the absolute limit.
Wasn’t there a saying about pride coming before a fall?
I’d trusted too much in my knowledge of the original story and completely overestimated myself.
Time to reflect.
A tiny burst of pink light popped from my fingertips.
It looked ridiculously cute.
“Haah…”
In the world of , everyone possessed mana.
But no matter how much mana someone had, I was still just a hatchling.
Because I never practiced.
I’d finally gotten used to using magic itself, but potion-making was an entirely different field.
Far more difficult and delicate than I’d imagined.
So that’s what he meant earlier.
I tapped the bottle beside the potion the man had dropped.
The small amount of liquid inside sloshed gently.
After exhausting myself for five whole hours, all I’d managed was enough potion to barely coat the bottom of a tiny vial.
…Well, beginnings are always hard.
No need to get greedy.
Reflecting on my previous arrogance, I tried to stay humble.
Still, there was at least one comforting thing—
for a first attempt, the potion’s quality was surprisingly high.
See? There’s hope after all.
Humans really do repeat the same mistakes.
The moment I looked at the potion I’d created myself, pride started swelling in me again.
Besides, my body still feels fine.
Everyone had a fixed amount of mana.
Use too much at once, and exhaustion was inevitable.
Push further, and you’d faint.
In severe cases, your life could even be in danger.
Thankfully, I wasn’t anywhere near that point yet.
Good. For now, it’s all about control.
If I practiced hard enough, eventually I’d be able to produce much more.
Maybe even several bottles a day.
And high-grade potions can apparently sell for whatever price you want.
Healing potions themselves weren’t rare.
But the ones sold publicly were all low- or mid-grade at best.
Anything high-grade or above was controlled by the state.
Which meant that ordinary people wanting superior potions had only one option—
the black market here in Proud.
Expensive things are expensive for a reason.
Creating high-grade potions required tremendous power, which naturally limited how many could be made.
And most people capable of producing them either worked as royal mages or secretly sold them in hiding, making them incredibly hard to obtain.
Because if you’re not careful, you’ll get kidnapped without anyone ever noticing.
In Proud, talent was a double-edged sword.
It could make you filthy rich—
while also turning you into prey for every threat imaginable.
That was why the man had panicked so badly.
High-grade potions were hard to find.
Even the people capable of making them were rare.
So naturally, their value was practically limitless.
“Actually… this works out perfectly.”
After all, limited editions were always more valuable than mass-produced goods.