The Saint went missing and, at the same time, plants burst through a wall in the Rationality Faction’s underground base.
This incident occurred right at the beginning of the new academic year and was said to have been quietly resolved in only a few days. Apparently, the whole thing had gone surprisingly smoothly.
“Oh. Long time no see, Kunon.”
Upon hearing these rumors, Kunon headed to the Rationality Faction base. He wanted to talk to Lulomet, their representative. The older boy had been missing when the incident occurred, but he was now in his room at the base.
“I’m curious about the incident from the other day. Can I ask you what happened?”
Kunon was visiting Lulomet for one reason: to get details. He was also hoping to find out anything that might cheer up the Saint, who was sure to be depressed when she heard the results. He wasn’t sure if word of the cleanup had reached her yet, but even one piece of good news might make her feel better.
She wasn’t the main reason he was there, though. Simple curiosity about the incident made up at least 80 percent of his motivation.
“Oh, you mean the thing from the other day,” Lulomet replied. “That wasn’t such a big deal. Cassis was just making a mountain out of a molehill.”
As expected of a faction representative. He was probably used to cleaning up other students’ messes.
“Part of the dungeon collapsed and the forest pushed its way in. There’s nothing more to it. Would you mind making clean copies of these documents, Kunon?”
“Oh, sure.”
Lulomet was telling him to work instead of wasting time talking.
“Is this for an experiment?” Kunon asked, readily agreeing. “Your experiments are always so fascinating.”
He was interested in Lulomet’s research. Any experiment involving an attribute other than water was always fascinating to him, and that was especially true of experiments involving the rare darkness attribute.
“I knew it,” Kunon said after giving the documents a quick scan. “To think you were performing such a fun experiment… You know you can invite me to help you anytime.”
“I reached out to you multiple times last year, but you were always busy. I gave up because our schedules seemed to never align.”
The more talented a person was, the busier they tended to be. That was part of what it meant to be a sorcerer.
“This most recent incident gave me the sense that light and darkness are opposing forces.”
Kunon wound up absorbed for some time in copying the documents. He’d reached Lulomet’s room a little after noon, but before he knew it, the sun was already setting. His curfew was approaching.
He’d nearly let himself get lost in the work. If someone hadn’t brought them tea and purple cookies to eat, he might have spent the whole day simply making copies.
Kunon and Lulomet sat at opposite ends of a table as the latter looked over the copies.
“The particular traits of dark magic are debilitation and decay,” he said calmly. “It is best suited for weakening things. Light, on the other hand, tends toward preservation and growth. I think that forest might be imbued with light magic. The plants are not growing at a normal rate.”
Lulomet didn’t know about the Sacred Tree—Kira Vera—and the true nature of the forest. But he realized the forest was abnormal.
Kunon knew about the Sacred Tree, but he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about it.
“By the way,” said Kunon. “I heard you were missing the day Miss Reyes emerged from the dungeon.”
Riyah and some other Rationality students had been racing around the school in search of him. Kunon was wondering where he had been.
“I was sleeping at an inn,” Lulomet replied.
“Really?”
“I needed to catch up on my sleep. I didn’t want anyone bothering me, so I reserved the room without telling anyone or even going home. I surely would’ve been woken up if anyone had known. That was a close call.”
So he’d been catching up on his sleep. What’s more, he’d gone to the trouble of reserving a room at an inn just to do it. That probably meant he’d devoted several days to this experiment. Kunon, too, was sure if anyone had known, they would have disturbed his rest.
“I ended up hearing about the incident the next day,” Lulomet continued. “I told everyone I didn’t want to be summoned for such trivial matters…which made the girls very mad at me.”
“They got mad? Why?”
“They were afraid of the basement becoming a breeding ground for bugs. They were fine with the plants, apparently, but drew the line at insects. They went on about how it would be ‘all over’ once they started multiplying. You wouldn’t believe how upset they were. I’d never gotten so harsh a scolding in my life.”
That explains it, Kunon thought.
Mirika didn’t like bugs, either. He wasn’t surprised to learn other girls had an aversion to them as well. Of course, some girls loved bugs enough to give them names—such as the one who’d worked on the water-dancing experiment with him.
“Then… Oh, I understand.”
Kunon almost asked how they’d solved the issue, but then he remembered what Lulomet was just talking about. The sorcerer before him was a dark magic user.
“You killed the plants using darkness.”
He must have used his magic’s traits of debilitation and decay to wither the plants. The members of Rationality weren’t looking for Lulomet because they wanted his leadership. They were looking for him because of his darkness attribute. They’d guessed he would be able to quickly handle the situation.
Because the outbreak had happened in the underground facility, they had multiple options for removing the plants. They could have burned or extracted them. If possible, however, simply killing them was the safest, fastest option, and likely to cause the least damage.
“Yes, I did. It took a few days of walking around the dungeon, but I cleared them out. I blocked the hole, too, which should prevent any more issues for now.”
The plants were dead.
Kunon didn’t know how far into the dungeon they had spread, but if it had taken Lulomet multiple days to kill them all, they must have covered quite a large range. In other words…
“The plants aren’t gone…?”
“We’ve removed nearly all the withered vegetation… Are you referring to the seeds?”
Lulomet was spot on. He’d quickly figured out what Kunon meant.
“Yes! Are there any left?”
“There are.”
“Yay! Thank goodness!”
The plants were unrecoverable. But the seeds could be used to grow more.
“The fruit was delicious, so we kept some. I imagine they’re full of seeds.”
Lulomet had apparently collected ripe fruit as he killed the plants.
Coming to his room had been worth the trouble after all. Kunon had gained a nice piece of information to share with the Saint.
Eighty percent of his motivation was simple curiosity, of course. The rest was just icing on the cake.
Kunon had the information he’d wanted. It was already evening, so he decided to leave Lulomet and head back.
When Kunon stood up, Lulomet asked, “Are you going to see the Saint next? If so, I have something to talk to her about, so I’ll go with you.”
“Oh, I’m actually going straight home.”
Kunon didn’t need the seeds right away, and since he’d only just spoken with Lulomet, he doubted the Rationality Faction was ready to hand them over yet. There was no reason to rush anybody. He could get the seeds another day, and talking to the Saint could wait for the next day.
For now, Kunon could simply head home. Besides, his maid would be upset if he broke curfew.
“You have something to tell Miss Reyes?” he asked.
“I did, but… Hmm.”
Lulomet had figured that if Kunon was headed to see the Saint, he might as well accompany him. But now that he thought about it, perhaps she wasn’t the one he really needed to talk to.
The Saint was part of the team investigating the forest. He didn’t know why, but she was given permission to join the team while the forest was still off limits to the rest of the student body.
But she wasn’t in charge of the investigation; the teachers were. And in that case, it would make more sense for him to speak to one.