“What’s with this hostility?” I wondered aloud as Priscilla and the saints clashed in the parlor.
Not only were there fewer saints now compared to three hundred years ago, but they’d lost a good deal of knowledge and technique. Rather than bickering, they should have been sharing knowledge. Besides, fighting was no fun.
Priscilla turned on Charlotte. “A yellow snowdrop, a red sweetfruit, and an ocean perilla?! Not even the cathedral sees those very often! You’re telling me you found all three? I find that hard to believe. How exactly did you obtain them?”
“H-huh? Well…” Charlotte clammed up. It seemed she wasn’t sure whether to mention me or not.
Priscilla narrowed her eyes at Charlotte’s hesitance to speak. “Oh? You can’t say?”
“Charlotte said she got them from a knight who visited Sutherland,” another saint spoke up, affronted.
Lloyd immediately fixed me with a tight-lipped expression.
Why’d he reflexively think of me? Sure, I was a knight, but there were tons of other knights who’d gone to Sutherland. He was looking at me like I was the obvious culprit, even without evidence!
…Of course, this was only a problem because he was right.
Backed into a corner, I attempted to explain, speaking as calmly as I could. “Oooh, right, right! The knights brought little Charlotte some pretty-looking yellow, red, and green plants as a gift! Man, they were really surprised when they found out they were all rare medicinal herbs! They totally thought they were just random weeds, but Charlotte was keen-eyed enough to know otherwise!”
It was kind of true. I picked the red sweetfruit, but the people of Sutherland collected the ocean perilla from the deep ocean floor, and Kurtis found the yellow snowdrop when he was out collecting ingredients for the yellow-speckle fever medicine. I only chose them as gifts because I thought the mix of colors was pretty; they just so happened to be rare, and it was in fact Charlotte who pointed that out. All of which was to say, we should have been praising Charlotte for her deep knowledge!
For some reason, a heavy silence followed my explanation. Lloyd broke it, sounding dubious. “Is such an unrealistic coincidence even possible?”
He could just as easily have nodded along and let this pass. Why did he have to go out of his way to cast doubt on me?
I shot him a “just be quiet, will you?” look as I said, “Of course! I mean there’s definitely more than eighty-two kinds of medicinal herbs in the world, so if you picked plants at random, it’s totally reasonable for some of them to end up having medicinal properties—even yet-to-be-discovered properties. It’s an ordinary everyday occurrence, really.”
Even three hundred years ago, when we had about four hundred known medicinal herbs, many remained undiscovered. In that light, finding medicinal herbs that were actually listed in the field guides was hardly noteworthy at all.
Lloyd trembled, perhaps overwhelmed by my insistence. “I see…is all I can really say here. I’ve never known such an ‘ordinary everyday occurrence.’ It would seem you and I experience completely different everyday lives, Fia.”
What nonsense was this now? My life was completely normal and banal!
With the saints gone silent as well, I needed to deflect, so I patted Charlotte’s head. “The one you should be impressed with is Charlotte. She remembered all of the medicinal herbs in the field guide and identified her gift as medicinal herbs right away.”
“Fia, that’s…that’s only because I’ve learned from the other saints.” Charlotte raised her head to regard the other saints, who looked rather pleased with themselves. She could certainly read the room well for her age.
Some of the tension ebbed. Now might be a good time to ask Dorothée something that had been bugging me for a while. “By the way, you mentioned that saints spend a few days without using magic to recover their mana, right? Why not just drink magic restoration potions?”
It was mere idle curiosity, but Dorothée glared in response. “Absolutely not. Unless there was a truly dire need, we would never do such a thing!”
Huh? Did I say something wrong?
Lloyd’s mouth twisted in amusement. “Ha ha, you really don’t know anything, do you, Fia? Most saints refrain from using magic restoration potions because they cause them to feel many times more pain than healing potions.”
“What?! Many times more?!” I’d experienced the pain of healing potions when I tested one myself. I couldn’t imagine something many times worse than that. It hurt so bad I swore I’d never drink one again—but somehow magic restoration potions hurt many times worse? “I’d never want to try something like that!”
Lloyd nodded. “Right. And it can take a day for the effects to show. The amount of mana you recover is only around half one’s full capacity, so it isn’t very practical. If I were a saint, I’d rather spend three days refraining from using magic instead.”
“I totally get it! I’d just eat food myself.”
He grinned wryly. “Is that so… I’m not quite sure being out of mana and having an empty stomach are comparable, however.”
They were to me. At any rate, I never wanted to try those horrific-sounding magic restoration potions!
All that aside, it seemed like magic restoration potions had worsened over the years just like healing potions. That only made sense, though. If they were making common healing potions incorrectly, surely they were making the more uncommon mana restoration potions incorrectly as well.
“Hmm, but the pain’s many times worse, huh? I really don’t want to test that out,” I muttered. Normally I would use my own body to test a potion’s side effects, but I didn’t have the courage to endure that kind of pain. That was fine though. It was more efficient for me to recover mana by eating a whole lot.
Then again, there might be times when Charlotte and the rest of the saints had to drink magic restoration potions. Perhaps I should make a few proper ones for them? No, it’s not like I’d always be around to make them. It’d be better if they could make them themselves… Hmm…
“Fia, what’re you thinking about?” Lloyd tilted his head at me as I pondered with my arms folded.
Deep in thought, I answered, “I’m thinking about a way to make magic restoration potions that don’t cause pain.”
“Huh? Is that even possible?” he asked.
It was. In fact, I had a flash of inspiration and figured out just how! Oho ho ho. I must be a genius to come up with a solution so quickly!
In awe of my own greatness, I whispered, “We can use that one rose. You know, that rose. If we can find a petal with the effect of taking away pain and mix it with some magic restoration potions, we could create some that don’t cause pain when you drink them.”
Come to think of it, we could use this method for healing potions as well. My own genius scared me sometimes.
I looked at Lloyd with fresh hope, but he frowned. “I have to wonder if a rose with such a convenient effect actually exists. Don’t you think you’re being a little too optimistic?”
“Oho ho ho. Don’t worry, this’ll be easier than making water from ice!”
For me, at least.
Of course, it would be easier to simply make magic restoration potions properly—like I did with the spring of green healing potion—but then people would come looking for the creator and that would lead to its own set of problems. Already, I couldn’t publicly do anything with the green healing potion I made and had to use it to feed the familiars in the stables.
A number of people knew about the strange effects of the Rose of the Great Saint, however, so no one would find it odd to use its petals for a specific cause.
Lloyd eyed me doubtfully as I smiled, but eventually relented with a sigh. “It’s pointless to think about this. You always subvert my expectations, Fia, in one way or another. Luck seems to have a habit of finding its way to you.”
It must’ve seemed to him like I got lucky all the time, but there was no luck involved! In truth, I was hiding a lot from him. I carefully and thoughtfully planned everything I did…or so I’d like to say, but I’ll admit I did tend to dive headfirst into things—which was sort of the same as leaving it up to luck.
Regardless, my flash of inspiration put me in high spirits.