How to Use the Lord’s Future Diary-Chapter 52

Chapter 52
The usual work of alchemists was mana crystal synthesis and potion crafting.
The production of magical adhesive, essential for reinforcing the castle walls.
This time, the task to be assigned to the alchemists—preliminary preparation for the crafting of the knights’ magical weapons.
And even the special mission I had entrusted to them in the past.
‘Looking at it like this, it does seem a bit much.’
Peter, who was already a workaholic, now had dark circles deepening under his eyes.
It seemed he had been busier than usual lately.
Especially since synthesizing mana crystals from the massive haul of Heartstones collected during the great escape of the Rabbit Tribe was bound to be a dull and tedious task.
In fact, in my previous life, this would have been enough to trigger a strike.
That was why, when I faced Peter, my tone naturally grew gentler.
“You’ve been busy these days, haven’t you?”
“Ah, well. Busy is always busy. You know how much work there is.”
“That’s true.”
“Still, I’ve finished extracting all the Raptor Heartstones.”
“All of them? Already?”
“Already, huh. If it weren’t for the other work, I would have finished it ages ago.”
His tone wasn’t bad.
So it didn’t seem like anything was wrong.
And since he claimed to have already extracted all the mana crystals, he really was a capable fellow.
-Just like a machine for pulling out crystals.
I nodded at the rabbit’s grumbling and waited for what came next.
A guy who often skipped regular meetings under the excuse of research wasn’t the type to come find me just to say he’d finished extracting mana crystals.
“So what brings you to me?”
“Why else would I come? I came because I finished the job.”
“Finished the job?”
“What you ordered. It’s done.”
“…Really?”
And just as I expected, Peter had another reason for coming.
He had successfully completed the research I had ordered him to do long ago, and now he had come to the results.
‘Much faster than I thought?’
-That male was an exceptionally capable machine.
Considering how tricky my request had been, the speed of his progress was quite surprising.
Let’s turn back the clock for a moment, to when Iron was leading the Rabbit Tribe’s escape and they had just arrived in Johnson Territory.
Upon returning to the territory, Iron gave Peter an order.
-You know that potion, right? The one where, if an unconscious patient drinks it wrong, they choke to death? Is there any way to inject the potion directly into the body instead?
Iron hadn’t had high expectations.
Having seen potions from Johnson Territory fetch high prices on the market, he began to place more expectations on the alchemists.
Thanks to the Horned Rabbits, the territory had more resources now, so he had assumed the alchemists would be less busy than before.
It was an issue he had been pondering since the Spring Defense Battle, so the intent was just to encourage them to try researching it.
And this order ended up burdening Peter with no small dilemma.
“Yeah, choking. It’s been a problem for a long time. But this one’s really unsolvable.”
Feeding liquid to an unconscious person was a very dangerous act.
Peter knew this fact well.
In fact, during the recent Spring Defense Battle, a few patients had died while being given potions.
But just knowing the cause didn’t mean every problem could be solved.
“As for the potions themselves, they’re fine. These are crafted using alchemy formulas preserved since before the Great Cataclysm.”
The potions used in the territory were advanced enough that they could be drunk, sprinkled on wounds, or even injected directly into the body.
And, before the Great Cataclysm, there had even been a device called a potion injector, used to inject potions directly into the body.
But that was merely a record of the past; in Johnson Territory’s current situation, it was impossible to recreate such a device.
“This is a magical artifact we’re talking about. Even before the Great Cataclysm, it was considered high-grade. How could I possibly make something like that?”
The wisest solution would have been to honestly back to Iron that such a device could not be made.
But doing so would wound his pride.
Iron, the lord, had created a bizarre yet unexpectedly useful item—the Mana Bomb.
And Peter, the master of the alchemy workshop, would just give up without any achievement?
That was unacceptable.
“Oh, is that so? A potion injector, you say. Certainly a troublesome problem.”
As Peter agonized, the one who approached him was none other than Johnson Territory’s dark horse, the hidden power (or so he believed himself to be), Dr. Nickel.
Always wandering around the territory mingling with people, Dr. Nickel had found his way to the alchemy workshop and listened to Peter’s worries.
“But you see. Does it really have to be a potion injector?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the goal is simply to find a way to administer potions to unconscious patients, right? That doesn’t necessarily mean it must be a potion injector.”
“Hm.”
“Do you think the Lord wouldn’t know that? With our current level of technology, how could we possibly make something like a potion injector? It’s not as if you’re an Item Maker, Peter.”
“Well, that’s true.”
“So this is where you need to change your way of thinking.”
“Change my way of thinking?”
As Dr. Nickel explained, Peter’s expression grew peculiar.
It wasn’t that Nickel was wrong—but if they made something based on this idea, it felt like they’d end up with something utterly strange.
And did that bother him…?
“This… is exactly Iron’s style, isn’t it?”
On the contrary, he actually liked it.
Something absurd, but once you thought it over, surprisingly practical.
It was obviously in the same category as Iron’s Mana Bomb.
“Maybe this is what Iron really wanted.”
“I think so too. Isn’t this the kind of thing Johnson Territory needs more than a potion injector?”
Peter finally realized the truth.
What Iron wanted wasn’t some complicated device like a potion injector, but something efficient and ingenious like this. (Or so he thought.)
Come to think of it, when giving the order, Iron hadn’t even mentioned the term “potion injector” once.
Because Iron had no idea such a device even existed, he had only spoken vaguely.
If Iron had known this, he probably would have been dumbfounded, but Peter became all the more certain.
Honestly, I was surprised.
What I had asked for was something like a simple syringe, yet he was saying he had already made it.
So in Johnson Territory, the solution really was to grind down the alchemists, huh?
How had he managed to make it already?
Excited, I checked the item Peter had brought me.
‘…What the hell is this?’
-Something’s off, this is…
But what Peter handed me wasn’t anything I had imagined.
It was something bizarre.
A cylindrical, horn-shaped body about the length of my middle finger.
The transparent body sloshed with liquid that seemed to be a potion.
I couldn’t easily guess what this was.
“…This is the finished product?”
“Yeah. What you asked for. A way to inject potions directly into the body, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“Then this is how you use it. It prevents unconscious patients from choking when you try to make them drink potions.”
“That’s true. But… how do you use this?”
With each question, Peter’s expression grew more rigid.
And when my final question struck, Peter finally stood up, holding the mysterious potion in his hand.
“This isn’t for the mouth. It’s for another opening.”
“Another… opening?”
-Another opening? Don’t tell me……
Now that I thought about it, the shape was quite familiar.
Though larger in size, the cylindrical horn-shaped body was unmistakable.
When children refused to take medicine, or when there were problems in the anus, they used suppositories that looked exactly like this.
“…So, what you’ve made is a suppository potion?”
-…That crazy male.
Maybe it was because my expression was so strange, but Peter hurriedly began to explain the usefulness of this thing.
It was the first time I realized Peter could even speak this fast.
“So, Johnson Territory’s potions work no matter how they’re administered, right? As long as they enter the body?”
“That’s right.”
“Then obviously, even if they go in through the… backside, they still work?”
“Correct.”
“Then what about the body(?) of this potion?”
“It’s made from modified Mountain Slime gel. At body temperature, it melts away. At room temperature, it hardens, so it’s perfect for use.”
“You actually found something like this?”
“Dr. Nickel gave me the hint. He said if you specially process slime gel, you can use it for various purposes.”
“Ah, Dr. Nickel……”
He had always been spouting strange things about Otherworld Studies, and now it seemed he knew a lot about monster by-products too.
And here I thought he had been lying low recently—but it turned out he was up to this with Peter.
Somehow, that felt very much like Dr. Nickel, and I found myself nodding.
-Something else, something else indeed.
‘True. But still, this……’
Wasn’t it actually pretty good?
At first, I had been utterly dumbfounded.
I asked him to make a syringe, but he came back with something bizarre.
But setting all that aside, if I thought only about the usefulness of this object, it was far greater than I expected.
Perhaps even more than a syringe.
‘A syringe would surely be difficult to make. And even harder to store.’
-It would require a lot. And if the needle broke, it’d all be for nothing, wouldn’t it?
‘But this, you could mass-produce as long as you hunted slimes. Easy to store, too.’
-Easy to administer. Just shove it in the butt—bam!—done.
The more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me.
Maybe I should just officially adopt this.
The usage was… questionable, but it was far better than risking a patient choking to death while swallowing a potion.
“…Alright. Well done.”
“Oh, so it passes?”
“It passes.”
“Just as I expected.”
“What do you mean?”
“I figured this would be exactly the kind of thing you’d like.”
No, that wasn’t it.
What did he take me for?
-…A pervert?
‘Shut up.’
Anyway, this was an incredibly fresh idea and a unique item.
Of course, it wasn’t something I’d proudly recommend to outsiders, but for use within the territory, it was more than sufficient.
“My goodness……”
“A suppository potion?”
The newly invented suppository potion was revealed to everyone in the territory.
And the reaction, in every sense, was explosive.
The knights, in particular, had very strong reactions.
“My word, now we’re really doing everything under the sun.”
Rudick shook his head as if he’d just seen the craziest thing ever.
“…Bear, do you perhaps have… unusual tastes?”
Leisha doubted my preferences.
“As expected of a lord. A true leader needs at least this much madness.”
“I knew it the moment he built a prison in front of the smokehouse. That male is the real deal.”
“If I use that thing, it feels like I’ll lose something precious.”
“Or maybe it won’t be so bad?”
The beastmen’s reactions were mostly the same.
A few strange comments slipped in, but the majority leaned negative.
‘Why does this feel so unfair? I didn’t even invent it. Why’s everyone looking at me?’
-Maybe it’s just your image, Master?
If people treated me like a bastard, then I was confident I could act like one with pride.
But this situation felt too unfair, so I had no choice but to make a decision.
“From now on, all wounded will use the new potion. Everyone, remember this.”
It was a kind of clinical trial.
In emergencies, it would be too risky to try it, so the idea was to use it when things were safe and test its effectiveness.
There were no health laws or pharmaceutical regulations in this world anyway—so why not just experiment?
If something went wrong, we could just administer a regular potion to fix it.
“Absolutely not me! I can’t get hurt!”
“As long as it’s not me!”
“Absolute safety. Absolute safety.”
And so, knights and warriors, unwilling to become the first guinea pigs of the suppository potion, fought monsters with their lives on the line to avoid injury.
As a result, the first trial of the suppository potion didn’t happen until quite some time later—but that was another story.
The suppository potion made even the tough men and women of Johnson Territory shudder, yet it contributed greatly to minimizing the number of casualties.