The day after I had been summoned by the king, I was having my magic class at the palace when Grand Magus Yuri Drewes casually said, “Oh, by the way, it will be a while before our next lesson.”
“Are you going on an expedition?”
Yuri was obsessed with magic, so he saw our lessons as a bit of private fun for himself—especially because our practical lessons gave him a chance to observe the Saint in action. In short, he never canceled lessons unless he had to go out monster-slaying, which led me to my question. But by the sounds of it, he wasn’t going anywhere nearby.
But the king had only just recently announced that the monster threat was over now… It was this very doubt that had led me to ask.
His response took me by surprise. “Of a sort. To Zaidera, this time.”
“What? Zaidera?!” I raised my voice unthinkingly—we’d only just been discussing that country yesterday. The king had said he would be dispatching a mage. Did that mean he was sending Yuri?! “Does this have to do with Holy Magic?”
The king had said that this matter was strictly confidential, so I wasn’t sure how much I could say.
But since he’s been told enough to know where he’s headed, it should probably be okay to bring up that they were looking to send someone like him, right? I thought before I asked, only for him to respond with a similar question in turn.
“Oh? Did you receive the same request?”
“Not quite. They asked for one of my potions.”
“Ah, I see.”
I didn’t mention the panacea by name, but Yuri seemed to grasp what I meant and nodded to himself.
In short, Yuri was probably the one going to Zaidera, since he was a mage and could call on Holy Magic. He had been selected because, of all the mages in the Royal Magi Assembly, he had the highest level in that element.
I had heard that he could use all known Holy Magic spells, but today I learned for the first time that he had also reached Level 10 in every elemental category.
Level 10 is the highest level you can reach for elemental magic, right? So, wait a minute—does that mean he’s hit max level for everything? At this realization, two thoughts popped into my head simultaneously: “Well, that’s no surprise,” and, “Addict.”
By the latter, I definitely meant the kind of person who gets so obsessed with something that it negatively impacts their lives—like someone who gets addicted to games. But while Yuri wasn’t addicted to games or drugs, he was so obsessed with slaying monsters that one could say that it had definitely had an unfortunate side effect on the rest of his life.
At any rate, I was surprised that Salutania was sending the grand magus himself. He was one of the strongest assets in their military, so I would never have assumed they would just allow him to waltz over the border.
Perhaps it’s because they don’t have to worry as much about monsters? On the other hand, Zaidera is pretty far away. So it makes sense to send your strongest mage from the start, as you can’t just blithely send more if the first doesn’t work out.
“I hear that Zaidera practices magic that we don’t even have, so I’m very much looking forward to this trip.”
While Yuri was being sent to go cure someone of their illness, his mind was on other matters. He was all smiles as he described these new arcane secrets.
At least he’s predictable… But is this really okay? Although I feel like pointing it out would only be an exercise in futility. I think I’ll just keep my mouth shut, I thought as I watched him weakly and held up my end of the conversational bargain with an appropriate response. “Unknown magic, huh?”
“That’s right!” he said excitedly. “They have these things called talismans. Enchanted objects.”
“Talismans?” The word made me think of the Chinese talismans I had seen in old movies. I couldn’t really remember any particulars, but I tried to conjure an image in my mind.
As I was mulling over these memories, Yuri’s eyes sparkled. “I hear that they draw some manner of pattern on them using a special ink. The pattern is what determines the nature of its magical effect.” Then he clapped his hands together as if something had just occurred to him. “And they have rice dishes too!”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure they must have an entire region dedicated to growing it.”
“They have all the dishes you’ve made for us already—and so many more. I can’t wait to use this opportunity to try them!”
Depending on a person’s Cooking Skill, their dishes could come with all sorts of effects, such as HP recovery or increasing the might of physical attacks. The effects differed depending on the ingredients of the meal, and meals made with rice happened to be particularly effective with enhancing magic. As a result, Yuri loved rice.
As it happened, this very main ingredient for these dishes wasn’t cultivated in the Kingdom of Salutania. However, they did grow it in Zaidera, so meals with rice were considered Zaideran. A lot of Zaideran cuisine reminded me of Chinese food. Of course, there were sure to be dishes I had never tried before there too. The grand magus was so excited specifically because he wanted to eat these foods he had never been able to try.
This is great and all, but he hasn’t forgotten the primary purpose of going to Zaidera, right? He’s going there to heal a sick person. Can we really leave this mission in his hands? He’s not going to forget to help the patient and just spend all his time on some kind of restaurant crawl, right?
Driven by this concern, I said, “Right, but make sure you actually see to that patient.”
“Of course I’ll see them,” he assured me.
Yeah, I’ll just try to believe in him…
The next day, while I was stirring a cauldron full of potion ingredients, for some reason, my thoughts started drifting to Zaidera.
I didn’t spare too much thought for the unconscious patient, because I had no choice but to entrust the task to the grand magus. I figured it ought to work out in the end, given his gift in Holy Magic; he would surely be able to cure the most pressing symptoms.
The previous day, our conversation had mainly turned to the topic of rice, but Zaidera also had other ingredients that couldn’t be found in the kingdom of Salutania.
They had vegetables and spices that I recognized from Chinese cuisine, as well as seasonings like miso and soy sauce. Prince Ten’yuu had also told me that they cultivated all manner of tea, such as non-fermented green tea, semi-fermented oolong, and even flower teas like jasmine.
I mainly drank herbal teas these days, but I sure would have loved to drink some green tea. And oolong and jasmine too, of course. But imports were exceedingly expensive, so they weren’t easy to get ahold of. This was why I wanted to start growing tea plants here in Salutania, but unfortunately, I didn’t know how. I couldn’t stop thinking about how nice it would be if I could go to Zaidera and learn how to grow rice, how to make miso, and all kinds of things like that.
Come to think of it, I’d had a similar conversation about herbs once. Prince Ten’yuu had sent a ton of herbal seeds and seedlings that were native to Zaidera as a thank-you for letting him observe us at the institute. They were being grown in the fields of the institute and annex, but some of them weren’t taking very well, probably because of the climate.
My coworkers and I were trying to figure out exactly why, but we weren’t making much progress. The problem was that we had never seen healthy versions of the plants, so there were a ton of things we had yet to learn. I would have loved to see them growing in their natural habitat in order to solve this riddle—or to interview people who knew how to properly cultivate them, if possible.
While I was full of desire to do just this, it would probably prove pretty difficult to actually make it happen. While we had magic in this world, methods of transportation were much more limited, so it was no mean feat to travel to other countries—to say nothing of the fact that I was the Saint. My position alone made it doubtful that I would be allowed to just hare off wherever I pleased.
Plus, I had so many other things on my plate—first on the list being my wedding ceremony. I had to coordinate with not only the king, who was my guardian, but everyone in House Hawke, so it all weighed heavily on me in terms of workload. There was just so much to do!
For now, I need to figure out a good spot for Albert and I to discuss things. Then I need to schedule a time to do so.
“All right, done.”
I’d finished brewing my potions while I was lost in thought. It was amazing what I could get done now that I was used to it. At this point, I could make mid-grade potions while my mind was entirely elsewhere.
Now all I had to do was wait for the pot to cool and then bottle its contents.
As I took the pot off the burner, I inadvertently let my guiltiest, innermost thoughts slip out, “But I really do wish I could go.”
No one else was in the institute with me. I had spoken this private wish aloud because I knew there was no one to hear it.
But it turned out that I had miscalculated.
“Go where?”
I recognized the voice terribly well. I whirled around to find the knight commander standing right behind me.
H-how long has he been there?!