Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 103
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 103
The apprentice servant found himself at a new crossroads that day.
It was because of the malt right in front of him.
He’d been wondering what the young master had been up to, going back and forth to the well lately, and it turned out he was making malt, the main ingredient for beer.
‘I don’t know why he’d do it himself, but…’
After asking around for a few days, he’d learned that the eldest young master was quite the eccentric.
He’d only found out now, since he’d lived far from such rumors before becoming an apprentice servant of House Asteri.
But…
‘I think this has gone wrong.’
The barley had grown—far too well.
So well, he almost wondered if good barley simply grew better.
The problem was that this young master, apparently unaware of such details, was beaming and saying how well it had grown.
‘Should I just tell him honestly?’
Judging by his character, he didn’t seem like a prickly person, so if he phrased it properly, he thought he’d probably take it well enough.
In the end, the apprentice servant spoke what he knew.
“Um… Young Master. I’m sorry, but if it’s for beer, it should be a bit shorter than this…”
Before he could even say “…is better,” Lion answered first.
“Ah, it’s not for beer.”
“It wasn’t?”
“That’s right. But you seem to know a fair bit about beer?”
“Ah. My father runs a brewery. I just picked up a little over his shoulder.”
“Oh-ho. What’s your name?”
Luckily, Lion didn’t seem offended.
“Ah, my name is Buck, sir. Yes.”
Lion’s eyes gleamed with a slightly overwhelming intensity.
‘I might just make a very useful new contact here.’
Buck, who hadn’t caught that look in his eyes, continued examining the germinated barley.
‘But if this isn’t malt, then what on earth is it?’
As far as his own common knowledge went, nothing else came to mind.
“You look curious?”
“Yes, yes sir. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Heh-heh-heh… If it turns out well later, I’ll give you a glass.”
“Yes? Ah…”
With that stuff, nothing’s going to come of it at all.
It’d be a relief if it just doesn’t spoil, really.
“Anyway, can you keep an eye on that barley while it dries completely?”
Well, no matter how eccentric the young master was, he wouldn’t hand me something spoiled and tell me to drink it.
The apprentice servant bowed his head—bobbing deeply—and answered.
“Oh my, you’ve asked me yourself, young master, so of course! You can count on me!”
“Good. I’ll see you around, then.”
Lion left the barley with Buck and walked off without a backward glance.
“…Huh? But, he didn’t leave any food today?”
Buck, who had been bowing bob-bob-bob, realized that Lion hadn’t brought any meat dish that day.
‘Was it for some kind of special ritual?’
As Buck was fretting, a younger servant appeared and poked him in the side.
“They say you’ll get in trouble if you try to guess what your superiors are thinking.”
“Ah, right. You’re right.”
Buck nodded and returned to his original task.
Yes. In any case, as long as he did his own job well, that was all that mattered.
* * *
That night.
Varg slowly lifted his closed eyes and surveyed his surroundings.
‘Looks like… everyone’s fast asleep…’
Without moving rashly, he rolled only his eyes to confirm that everyone was truly asleep, then Varg rose very quietly and left the residence hall.
Silently, step by careful step, he moved to open the door…
“Mmmngh… Where are you going?”
“Hrk.”
Jake called out to Varg in his sleep.
“Th-the, the bathroom.”
“Okay.”
Close the door when you go… muttering those words, Jake fell back into a deep sleep.
‘Phew.’
As expected, he was no ordinary man.
Varg barely managed to let out a breath, quietly closed the door, and came outside.
“Sssip.”
Hoooh.
Varg let out a deep breath. The moonlight was exceptionally bright tonight, and Varg frowned slightly.
‘Is it almost the full moon?’
It was known as a day when a wolf beastfolk’s wild nature grew stronger, but for Varg it wasn’t a particularly pleasant day.
‘Strangely, just seeing the moon makes my body feel off.’
His mood sank, and he grew sensitive for no reason.
His hidden ears and tail popped out of their own accord, his body flooded with excess strength, and his muscles and bones screamed.
Whine.
Varg tapped at his aching arms but kept moving his feet.
His destination was the very spot where Lion had regularly been leaving meat.
‘There wasn’t any today.’
Maybe he’d finally gotten tired of it.
And besides, meat was precious food. It wouldn’t have been strange for it to stop at any time.
Of course, he felt disappointed, and it gnawed at him that it had ended without any acknowledgment, as if things had just finished like that.
So Varg had decided to repay the kindness in his own way.
Clack.
At that usual spot, Varg set down a small, round bead.
It resembled a round full moon and shone faintly.
“I’m sorry. I tried to prepare lunch too, but it didn’t work out.”
Varg spoke while writing on the ground with a twig lying nearby.
It might be crooked and might disappear by the next day, but he still wanted to repay him in his own way.
And with the greatest compensation he could offer, at that.
Lunar Essence.
It was a very precious treasure that only beastfolk connected to the moon could create.
With Lunar Essence, one could recover from most ordinary wounds, and it made strengthening one’s abilities easier.
But—
‘I don’t need it.’
Strangely, whenever Varg had anything related to the moon, its power weakened.
The strength would definitely well up, but then it would drain right out, or rather, he would grow weaker.
Since he didn’t know the cause, he’d lived assuming it was just growing pains.
There were no other beastfolk nearby to ask, and certainly no others of the Red Wolf Tribe.
So he had created the Lunar Essence, which normally could be produced easily if only there was moonlight, over the course of several days.
Even its size was very small… but still, he wanted to repay the value of the goodwill he’d been shown.
“If only I’d been a little faster.”
Just as he was berating himself and attempting to rise from his spot…
“Tweet.”
A clear birdcall came from somewhere.
‘Mm…’
And somehow, his body felt at ease. At the strange sensation, Varg looked around.
And he discovered a small yellow bird.
No, wait, this was…
‘That’s… not a bird?’
Varg realized instinctively that this creature was not a bird.
‘Is it a spirit?’
That question suddenly surfaced, but that was all. He had no further information.
“Chirp-chirp.”
The yellow bird grasped the small Lunar Essence Varg had set down with one foot, then lightly fluttered up, as if telling him to follow.
Ordinarily, you weren’t supposed to follow anything suspicious, whether person or animal, but perhaps due to the spirit’s energy, Varg followed behind Nature as if spellbound.
When he took one step and then another like that, before he knew it, he’d naturally ended up leaving the mansion grounds…
“Uh-oh…”
He hadn’t expected it to ask him to leave the mansion grounds.
Wasn’t this pushing it a little, even compared to skipping class?
This was just leaving on his own! Isn’t this deser, desertion…!
As Varg hesitated briefly.
Peck!
Peck, peck!
Nature pecked the bridge of Varg’s nose in displeasure, like a woodpecker.
No, it even opened its beak and bit him.
Though the effect was minimal.
“Ah, alright, I got it.”
Varg moved his feet again and soon reached Mimir Forest.
‘I really shouldn’t be doing this…’
He’d probably catch a huge scolding.
“Huh?”
But something was strange.
Once he came this far, his body, which had been reacting strangely to the moonlight, settled down quickly.
Was it because the leaves were blocking the moonlight?
That wasn’t all.
A lovely scent wafted into Varg’s sensitive nose.
And then.
‘M-meat, the smell of meat?’
The smell of meat at this deep hour of the night?
And wasn’t this the middle of the forest?
At the puzzling situation, Varg moved his feet of his own accord.
Having come this far, he didn’t feel like turning back.
At the very least, he had a premonition that he should check what was going on before leaving.
And Varg’s premonition, luckily, proved correct.
Just as he began to feel a warm humidity.
“You came.”
From one side, someone sitting at ease greeted Varg.
It was a familiar face.
The young master whose barley he’d taken,
the person who had been giving him delicious food all along.
Lion Asteri. He was here.
It was a truly mystical sight.
Though the forest was dark with even the moonlight partially blocked by leaves, the place where the young master sat and the hot spring itself glowed subtly.
That wasn’t all. Strange plants giving off a lovely fragrance were planted lushly nearby.
Despite such a splendid backdrop, the young master somehow shone brighter than anything else in this place.
To a strange degree.
It was a dreamlike sight. As if he were dreaming.
Could it be that he’d simply fallen asleep right there, since it was the early dawn?
Just as that thought formed.
Sssssizzle.
A curious sound reached him.
He lowered his head a little and saw…
The young master was grilling something on a stone plate.
It was sausage skewers.
“Aha. So it’s a dream.”
Varg felt relieved.
Because it was an absurd sight!
He’d followed a spirit that resembled a bird and arrived at a dreamlike space, and there was the person he wanted to apologize to.
Even looking like he was personally grilling delicious food.
There was no way this could be reality.
‘Phew.’
If it was a dream, that was actually a relief.
Varg privately felt relieved and slowly walked over to where Lion was.
Thinking how lucky he was to at least see his face in a dream and apologize!
* * *
A few hours before Varg met Lion.
“Hoooh.”
Lion finished all the preparations.
That is, his preparations to definitively lure that wolf beastfolk.
‘Operation name: Wolf Fishing.’
He’d made it sound grandiose, but the plan itself was simple.
First, when that wolf beastfolk appeared, Nature would step up and act as bait.
Since a red wolf beastfolk definitely had the potential to awaken a druid’s power, he would feel an instinctive affinity for Nature, an ancient-class spirit.
She would guide him well to Mimir Forest like that.
And after that, she’d make him come to this hot spring…
‘And we meet.’
Well, just meeting would be a little boring, so this time he’d prepared a more special dish.
And that was this sausage.
‘Thanks to Alex’s help, I could prepare it quickly.’
Sausage was not as easy to make as one might think.
To be precise, it was because of the casing.
Before his possession, he’d mainly used casings made of edible plastic, but here he had to use pig or sheep intestines.
He wasn’t squeamish about intestines, since they were already eating tripe and large intestine anyway, but freshness was a major problem.
Because it could spoil in the blink of an eye if he wasn’t careful.
If he was going to eat it immediately without salt-curing, that was even more the case.
Because of this, sausage was typically handled at slaughterhouses or butcher shops.
But where were they?
This was House Asteri, a family that would consider it an insult to be called second-best in the empire.
Alex had already had fresh intestines cleaned and neatly prepared.
“I can do it myself, though…” “Absolutely not! No matter what, I cannot let you handle something like this, young master!” “But…” “Absolutely not.” “Th-thanks?”
Honestly, he’d cleaned fish in the labyrinth until he was sick of it, so what did any of this matter. But he couldn’t reveal that fact, so he just decided to accept it gratefully.
So all that remained was to stuff the well-minced filling into these well-prepared skins.
But since the tool for it wasn’t ideal, it was actually quite… difficult.
“Huff.”