Act 3: Experiments

Act 3:
Experiments

 

“ALL RIGHT! These little guys are looking really good.” I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at the herbs in the pots I had blessed. Their leaves glistened in the rays of the morning sun.

They were growing well. Maybe too well. Actually, I had a feeling they were growing faster than normal. I also had a feeling that Corinna, who was monitoring their development with me, had noticed as much.

It would soon be time to move to the next stage of my experiment: blessing a small field. We would head back to the capital as soon as we fixed the monster problem in Klausner’s Domain, so it wasn’t like I had forever. Optimally, I would fix both problems quickly.

Meanwhile, since reinforcements from the capital had arrived without warning, Albert was busy working

out the new squad formations. Although Grand Magus Yuri had come along with the reinforcements, he wasn’t exactly backup for Albert, so to speak. He often went monster hunting on his own, so he was no help figuring out a team-based strategy. More accurately, he had no experience with teamwork.

I had my doubts about whether someone like that should hold a leadership position, but the whole matter was complicated. Probably.

Other mages had come with Yuri as well, although not in nearly the numbers we had requested. Therefore, Albert had to assign a mostly mage squad to tackle the slime wood while the remaining mages would be scattered among the squads taking care of other regions.

Albert had a lot of experience organizing teams, so ordinarily this wouldn’t have taken him too long. But the knights from the Second Order had complicated things. All of them wanted to go to the slime wood, so things were getting messy. I learned about this from a Third Order knight who liked to gossip with me. According to him, things certainly didn’t sound good.

In any case, we were sure to head out again once Albert got the squads figured out, so I wanted to make as much progress as I could with my experiments now. No time to waste, as they say.

Once I checked the plants, I headed straight over to the brewery. There, I updated Corinna on their condition and told her what I wanted to try next. Corinna had also kept a daily eye on the pots, so she knew it was time for the next stage as well. She immediately accepted my request to try blessing a field. In fact, she already had a field ready for me to bless and said that we could head over there right away.

Corinna seemed over the moon to be able to start growing plants she had lost the ability to cultivate. She had that skip in her step all the way out to the field.

“Wait, it’s okay if I use this whole thing?” I asked when we got there.

“Yes. We already have Lord Klausner’s permission.”

She had brought me to a wide, tilled field. I could see the forest way off in the distance, but this field truly was vast. I supposed you needed this much space to properly experiment with a variety of herbs.

But was it really all right for me to use so much space? I hesitated, but Corinna urged me on, so I pulled myself together and called up my magic.

It was embarrassing to cast the Saint’s magic in front of others, but I set those feelings aside for now. And anyway, Corinna had seen me bless the original experimental pots. Better not to think too deeply about it either way.

I inhaled and concentrated on the magic. After a few moments, I sensed my power floating lightly in the air. Not good enough. I continued concentrating, pushing the scope of the magic farther and farther. I stopped it only when the magic had spread to cover a healthy fraction of the field and released the held power, all while wishing for the herbs to grow.

“Was that the Saint’s magic just now?” I heard someone ask just as the earth of the field glowed white.

I turned with a jolt to find Yuri walking toward me from the direction of the city with that ever-lovely smile across his face. Corinna looked surprised as well. She hadn’t expected him either. After all, this whole blessing business was classified information for Klausner’s Domain. Corinna had even given strict orders telling no one to come by our field for the next few hours. It appeared that Yuri had missed the memo.

While we hadn’t exactly been able to loop him in on the instructions to stay away, since he wasn’t part of Klausner’s chain of command, we were potentially in a bit of trouble.

“Good morning,” I said as brightly as I could.

“And a good morning to you as well. So, what was that just now?”

“Well, you’re right,” I said reluctantly. “It was the power of the Saint.”

“I knew it! So you can use it at will now!”

So much for coming up with a diversion. His face glowed even more than it had before.

Then I frowned. Wait, did he not know I’d finally made a breakthrough?

Yuri interrupted my thoughts with yet another question I didn’t want to answer. “By the way, why are you using it in a place like this?”

Uhhh, what do I say here? Telling him the truth was off the table, since that would mean exposing Lord Klausner’s deception to the palace. “I asked Lord Klausner for a place to practice casting, and he suggested out here.”

“Is that so?”

“This field is enormous—and there’s nothing growing here. And we figured, you know, the Saint’s magic won’t do anything bad to a field.” A pretty weak excuse, if I did say so myself. But for Lord Klausner’s sake—and Corinna’s—I had to evade the truth. When I glanced nervously at her, her expression remained unchanged.

“I see,” said Yuri. “Perhaps the fields wouldn’t suffer for your practice, but you might have already affected the soil.”

“Huh?”

“For some reason, I feel an unusual power in the soil now,” Yuri murmured as he touched his chin and studied the dirt.

I couldn’t feel any difference at all, but Yuri sure seemed to detect something with all his expertise.

Yet Corinna’s brow twitched. I had a feeling she didn’t know who this guy making all these pronouncements was. She glanced at me, so I nodded.

We’re okay. He knows magic, but he doesn’t know anything about agriculture—I doubt he’d know I “blessed” anything. Although, he might have an inkling as to what we’ve been up to.

It wasn’t like I could convey the particulars, though. I’d have to explain everything to her later.

To the point, the unusual power Yuri sensed had to be my Saint’s magic. Yuri had once told me that all living creatures carried magic within them, but was it normal for a nonliving thing like soil to be magical, too? And while we think of soil as just being dirt, it has all sorts of organisms and stuff in it, so did the blessings affect that stuff as well? Or had I enchanted its mineral components? There seemed to be no end to the possibilities once I started thinking about it, and all of it seemed feasible.

When I brought this up, both Yuri and Corinna listened with keen interest. Actually, they had kind of similar expressions. As we discussed, they began exchanging opinions and seemed to both get something out of the conversation. I thought they got along pretty well. That was good and all, but…

“Shall we head to the next location then?” Yuri asked. As he urged me to do more blessings, he wore a smile that would have left any other woman spellbound. He was beyond delighted to finally get a chance to observe the Saint’s magic.

For some reason, Corinna nodded in agreement.

It might have been a mistake to tell him I was practicing.

Oh. Hey. Wait. You mean I have to summon the magic with Yuri watching me? No, uh, it takes too much time, and he’s a busy—no, that’s not right. I-I need to do my own preparations, mentally speaking, or—no. Tell him i-it’s just for training? But, I, like, I, what… Nooooooo!

 

***

 

With the occasional break between casts, I used my Saint’s magic to systematically bless the whole field. The plan had been for me to perform the blessings and then let the gardeners at it to plant the seeds. So with that done, I left Corinna to direct the gardeners and went with Yuri to the knights’ quarters.

I had actually wanted to watch the planting, but Yuri wanted to discuss something, so I had to go with him. In all likelihood, he wanted to talk about my Saintly powers. He had asked me a ton of questions even during my breaks.

When we got to the knights’ quarters, Yuri swept through the hall and up to the second floor. I followed behind him, past the knight commander’s office, to a room that appeared to be for his personal use. That had to be a perk of being (somehow) the grand magus of the Royal Magi Assembly.

The furniture arrangement was pretty much the same as in Albert’s office. The only difference? The number of documents on the desk. Naturally, Albert always had a ton of management-related paperwork. Meanwhile, I was pretty sure the ones scattered on Yuri’s desk exclusively related to his own research.

As I looked around the room, Yuri encouraged me to take a seat on one of the sofas. A moment later, a retainer brought over some kind of herbal tea and cookies.

Is this chamomile? It has such a nice fragrance. I gazed at the light amber color in the cup, and just as I took a sip, Yuri started in on pursuing his real interest.

“The Saint’s magic uses even more magic power than I had predicted.”

“It does,” I agreed. In fact, it ate up quite a lot.

Area-of-effect magic usually cost more MP, the cost increasing with potency and range. The Saint’s magic was also area-of-effect magic and was likewise affected by scale.

That said, it wasn’t like I had been blessing truly big fractions of the field at any given time. Nevertheless, after two rounds, I’d been left nearly drained of MP. That meant blessings required a whole heck of a lot to begin with. Although, I couldn’t discount the possibility that blessings used a lot of MP due to their potency more than their range.

Basically, for every two parts of the fields I’d blessed, I had to take a break to recover MP. Yuri had been impatient, but what was I supposed to do? I could have drunk MP potions and kept going, but I didn’t want to waste potions during an herb shortage. Besides, MP recovered over time just like HP. You just had to wait a minute.

We weren’t in a rush either, so waiting had been no problem. Both Yuri and Corinna understood the consequences of wasting potions, so Yuri had accepted the necessity of a wait…to an extent.

Yuri, being who he was, had asked me questions nonstop while I was resting. He wanted to know everything I had discovered while we’d been apart.

“The next time we go on an expedition, we’ll need to ready a number of MP potions, I suspect. Especially now that we have more mages,” Yuri said over tea.

“That’s true. I think we should probably prepare as many high-grade ones as possible, even with the shortage.”

“And perhaps you should train more so you can cast the Saint’s magic a bit faster. From what I’ve seen, you should be able to do speed it up a bit, yes?”

I sank into silence and looked away from Yuri, who had a hand on his chin.

Cast it faster? That would be a bit hard! Or maybe I should say that’d be really hard. I had to do so much mental preparation before I cast. But he was probably right that it would be best if I trained a bit more. I could use the magic now, but my timing was actually all over the place. If training could help me be more consistent, then it was a no-brainer.

Before I was even sure of my conclusion, Yuri launched his next attack. “By the way, what did wind up being the key to casting the magic at will?”

“Huh?” I turned to him in spite of myself. He repeated the question.

Th-the key, he asks? He’s asking me to tell him what I have to do? As in, the thing that makes the magic work? Like, what I have to think about? There’s no way I can tell him that!

“Uh…” I said.

I was painfully aware of Yuri’s intent and silent gaze as I fretted, my eyes darting back and forth. It wasn’t like there was a specific entry in the Great Alchemist’s diary—not that I could even share that with him. I wish she had written a little more about it. Then I could at least say something else!

“Is it something you find difficult to say?” Yuri pressed.

“Um…” I clammed up.

Yuri nodded. “I see. So it is.”

“Uhh…” I knew my behavior was only confirming his suspicions, but the embarrassment made me avert my gaze from him again.

“Well, that’s all right. Let’s call it here for now.”

“Huh?” I looked at Yuri in surprise. Since when had he so easily dropped the subject? He only smiled at me. “Are you sure?” I asked.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No…”

“No need to feel bad about it. You needn’t force yourself to answer. I really don’t mind.” The extremely beautiful grin he shot my way sent a chill down my spine.

What’s he thinking?!

As I shuddered, someone knocked on the door. Yuri invited them in—and just my luck, it was Albert. My heart tried to leap straight up out of my chest.

“Come in, come in,” said Yuri.

“Sorry to bother you in the middle of your research,” Albert said as he entered. He looked surprised to find me there. From the cookies and the herbal tea on the table, one might have thought we were taking a break, but Albert knew better than to assume Yuri would ever be doing anything but feeding his curiosity.

“I don’t mind at all. What can I do for you?” Yuri asked.

“Oh, if you two have something to discuss, I’ll excuse myself,” I said, and I half-rose to my feet before Albert stopped me.

“No, you should hear this as well,” he said. “I finished drawing up the new squads, so I was hoping to get another pair of eyes on the plan.”

Is that really what he wants to discuss with me? I gave him a puzzled look as Yuri encouraged him to sit down.

He did. Right next to me.

“Here are the new formations.” Albert handed over the sheet with the lists.

Yuri scanned it and nodded. “I take no issues with it.”

“Thanks. Then we’re set.”

“Shouldn’t Lady Sei take a look as well?”

“Huh?” Why me, though? “Is that okay?”

“I don’t mind. Take a look, Sei.”

At Albert’s permission, Yuri handed the paper to me. As I looked it over, I realized why Yuri thought it warranted my attention: knights from the Second Order were among those going into the slime wood with me.

Ah, those guys… I found a number of names I recognized. These were the knights who always insisted on carrying my books from the palace library to the research institute. Oops, I was getting distracted.

As slimes were so resistant to physical attacks, I had a lot more mages on my team this time around. To be more precise, I had every single mage who could use offensive magic. A few more knights were with us, too, adding up to a much larger group. Albert explained that more mages always meant more knights to protect them. Naturally, the chosen knights had all established reputations for their defensive skills.

Not all of the Second Order would go to the slime wood. The rest would be heading to other parts of the forest at the same time, and since we had more people now, we could run multiple expeditions concurrently.

The other squads also differed from the norm. They either had one mage who could use Healing Magic or they had no mages at all. The squads without magical support would have to power through on potions alone.

I should probably up their potion quota then, I thought.

“So there are a lot of slimes in this forest? I can’t wait to take them out,” Yuri said.

When I looked up from the paper, Yuri had the most ecstatic look on his face. I knew what that look meant. Those slimes were in critical danger. He had held himself back in Ghoshe Forest, but this time all bets were off.

Please, oh please, don’t burn down the slime wood! I begged. That look was dangerous.

 

***

 

After that, I returned to the brewery. Now that the new squads were assigned, we would probably head back into the slime wood in a few days.

I got myself pumped up to get potions and stuff all prepped, but Corinna caught me before I could get started. In fact, the second I entered the brewery, Corinna beckoned me over. I followed her into the back room. There, she closed the door. It seemed that whatever she wanted to talk about, she didn’t want others to overhear. That probably meant it was about the blessings and Yuri. She had seemed rather concerned about him back at the fields, after all.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“That person we saw. It sounded like he came from the capital, but just who is he?”

“You mean that man with the navy-blue hair?”

“Yeah, him. The pretty boy. You guys seemed to know one another.”

“Yes, he is Lord Drewes, the grand magus of the Royal Magi Assembly.”

“The Royal Magi Assembly? It’s no wonder then.” She nodded in understanding.

Just as I suspected, Yuri’s observations had piqued Corinna’s interest. When he had pointed out the magic in the soil, she had worried my blessings would be found out, but talking with him after, she realized he hadn’t quite caught on.

“You didn’t tell him anything, right?” Corinna asked.

“No, no. I understand this is a confidential matter.”

“Thank you. I was only asking to make sure.”

“Of course. It’s part of your job.”

“Sorry. For a moment there, I actually thought you might have told him. He was quite the character.” Corinna chuckled dryly.

Yuri had gotten really into their conversation and dug into some rather technical arcane concepts. To me, Corinna had seemed to enjoy the conversation, too, but apparently he’d gone off on a number of complex tangents far outside her realm of expertise. For myself, since I’d found everything they were talking about difficult to grasp, I had tuned out halfway through and focused on casting instead.

“He’s one we need to keep an eye on, though. I get the feeling he might figure it out even if we don’t tell him,” Corinna said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”

We had to assume he would. Yuri had done a ton of research on the Saint in order to perform the Saint Summoning Ritual. He probably knew there had been a Saint in Klausner’s Domain. And he had noticed the magic power in the soil after I used the Saint’s powers. If he put that together with the fact that Klausner’s Domain was uniquely able to cultivate certain herbs that couldn’t grow anywhere else, then he would soon suspect that past Saint had something to do with it. Soon enough, he’d link the famous Great Alchemist to that past Saint as well.

I had needed the Great Alchemist’s diary in order to figure how all those things connected, but Yuri was smart enough that he’d probably be able to put two and two together on his own. He had incredible deductive powers. Given what a research nerd he was, he probably enjoyed the process as much as the result.

Huh?

“What’s wrong?” Corinna asked.

“Uh, nothing, I just got this sneaking feeling.”

Why? What was the cause? But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe it’ll come to me later. I should focus on preparing for the expeditions.

We dropped the topic of Yuri and blessings, and I finally set about making potions. I consulted with Corinna about the types of potions to prepare—and how many—as we returned to the adjacent workroom.

Then I checked the brewery ledger that listed the herb stock and discovered they didn’t have a number of the herbs I needed to make MP potions. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I asked Corinna, and she said she’d scrape some together from other distributors in the domain.

We hadn’t yet seen the black swamp, but I agreed with the popular opinion—it likely lay in the slime wood. Given this, we could expect our expeditions would soon come to an end, and therefore, now was not the time to be stingy with potions. If we didn’t actually find the swamp in the slime wood, we’d just have to bring in herbs from the neighboring towns.

With all this supply chain stuff on the table, I opted to ask Lord Klausner to take care of the logistics. I also asked the brewery alchemists for help—there was just so much that needed to be made. Corinna gave the alchemists one order after another. The brewery soon buzzed with a flurry of activity.

One person went to alert Lord Klausner while others headed to the storehouse for extra herbs and others pulled out their potion-making apparatuses. I was in charge of readying the equipment so I could start making potions as soon as the ingredients arrived. I thanked the folks who had gone to the storehouse when they returned and got to work.

“There’s more where that came from. We ordered more in after you started making all those big batches.” The alchemist who brought the herbs immediately turned on their heels to get another load.

We had a ton of potions to make and minimal space to put them, so I needed to use up the herbs already on hand to clear precious counter space. To the point, I couldn’t lose focus. I rolled up my sleeves and threw the available herbs into a cauldron.

As I stirred, I heard some lively voices behind me. I glanced back to find the mercenaries helping the alchemists haul herbs to the brewery. Leo was among them. He spotted me and raised a hand in greeting. “Hey there!”

“Hi, Leo. What are you up to?”

“Well, I saw some official-looking people carrying a bunch of boxes. When I wandered over to check it out, I realized it was all herbs. You guys are always saving us with your potions, so we decided to pitch in a bit.”

“Thank you very much.”

I chatted away with Leo and his men while making potions, and they continued to pile wooden boxes along the walls. I began to fear that if I didn’t make these potions faster, before long, the whole room would overflow with ingredients.

As I picked up my pace, Leo spoke again. “I’m still amazed by how many you make, you know. You don’t usually go for this many, right?”

“Mm-hmm. But there’s more knights now, so the next expedition is going to be a bit of a special case.”

“Oh, you mean what with the slimes?”

“You heard about those?”

“’Course I did. I’m the leader of the local mercs, in case you forgot. I heard all about it from Lord Klausner.”

“I see.” Well, duh, that made sense.

“You goin’ slime hunting, too?”

“That’s right. After all, I can use…some kind of offensive magic?”

“Why you tiltin’ your head like that?”

“It’s just that my powers are kinda weird.”

“Oh, yeah.”

It feels a bit wrong to call the Saint’s magic offensive, but it’s probably accurate, seeing as it does work on monsters, right?

Leo seemed to get what I meant even with my vague answer. “Any mage is a better bet for taking out slimes,” he said, helping me cover.

“Yeah… I guess they really don’t feel physical hits at all.”

“So the knights are just with you for protection?”

Spot on again, Leo. The knights going to the slime wood would be there to escort the mages. However, I didn’t think I was strictly authorized to tell Leo exactly what the squad makeups would be, so I just smiled ambiguously. Leo didn’t seem to mind the lack of a straight answer and just crossed his arms, looking thoughtful.

What’s on his mind now? I absentmindedly glanced at him, curious.

After a few moments, Leo looked up again and frowned a bit. “You stopped working.”

“Huh?”

“Shouldn’t you be finishing that up as fast as you can before too many boxes pile up?”

I stared at the counter space from where I had just taken my ingredients. It was already entirely covered by more supplies. We really would run out of room soon. Whoops. I gotta get this done.

As I returned to busily working away, Leo went to go get even more herbs.

In the end, I didn’t get a chance to ask Leo what he’d been thinking about. It wasn’t until the day of our departure for the slime wood that I found out.