Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 54
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 54
“E… eek!”
It wasn’t like I wanted to copy it!
More importantly, how did he figure out it was copied?
I hid it cleverly by reinterpreting it in my own way…!
Lion Asteri.
He was a much greater alchemist than I thought.
“This won’t do.”
Freyania turned away from the alchemy potion with its miserable score and approached some documents placed nearby.
They were the results of her background check on Lion Asteri.
Rustle!
It was a compilation of everything about Lion Asteri around the time of his coming-of-age ceremony,
“Hm?”
“D-did something go wrong?”
The Information Guild executive asked, cautiously gauging her reaction.
“…”
Freyania flipped the page without answering.
‘It doesn’t add up.’
She had checked every piece of information available, both from the criminal underworld and the Information Guild, just to be sure.
But it was different.
The intel from the past month was strangely twisted.
‘A smokescreen, then.’
House Asteri had closed its gates temporarily after Lion Asteri’s coming-of-age ceremony.
Was that the reason?
‘If I want to know more about him, I’ll need older information than this.’
Freyania wasn’t curious about House Asteri.
Only Lion Asteri!
She was only curious about that alchemist.
Why would she care about the rest?
“Do you have any older records than these?”
“O-older than this, you say…?”
The Information Guild executive pulled out a bundle of documents from his inner pocket.
“We do have them, but any records before this are rather unsubstantial…”
“Give them here.”
“Yes.”
Freyania snatched the papers from the executive’s hands and checked the contents.
The contents were indeed sparser.
Things like staying cooped up in the mansion or occasionally visiting the village.
A smithy?
This seemed useless too.
And then…
“Mimir Forest?”
“Yes. That is, a forest not far from the Asteri Mansion.”
“Hm.”
A forest.
A forest, huh.
A faint smile curved up on Freyania’s lips.
“Right. Why didn’t I think of that?”
So it’s this place.
‘Yes, I just have to meet him in person!’
Mimir Forest, huh.
I’ll go there myself.
* * *
Freyania pulled her conical hat down low and warily scanned her surroundings.
It had been a very long time since she went outside alone without an escort, let alone into a forest.
It was ironic for an elf, even a half-elf, to feel this way about returning to a forest, but what could she do?
She had lived in the criminal underworld, and at its very top at that, ever since she was old enough to understand.
She had led a life far removed from nature, let alone a forest.
Maybe that was why…
This Mimir Forest.
‘It’s a rather unpleasant forest.’
The thick, sprawling trees and leaves blocked out the sun, leaving it dark and gloomy.
She had entered knowing there were no large beasts, yet it was so eerily desolate that she couldn’t help but shrink back.
‘It’s as if someone is watching me.’
Who would ever watch someone in a forest like this? But she kept sensing a genuine, chilling sensation.
It felt as if the temperature was dropping sharply the deeper she went.
“A-anyone! There’s no one there, right…?”
Freyania muttered softly, forgetting she had come here in secret.
“…”
But the forest remained silent.
“Y-yes! No one would be there.”
Freyania calmed herself down and stepped carefully toward the center of the forest.
And then.
“…”
In the darkness, Elvia’s eyes, which had been watching Freyania, glowed like a dokkaebi’s fire before slowly fading away.
* * *
Around the time she reached the center of the forest where Lion Asteri was frequently sighted.
Whoosh!
“Eek!”
Something swift darted past her eyes.
It seemed like a bird…
It wasn’t a giant insect, was it?
‘G-gross!’
Why on earth was Lion Asteri in a place like this! Why did he insist on holing up here!
“Ugh…”
Freyania clenched her fists tightly and walked deeper into the forest, one step at a time.
The forest grew denser, and the gnarled roots on the ground became more rugged.
Swish—
Swish—
A chilling sound reached Freyania’s pointed ears.
“Eek…!”
Freyania instinctively hid behind a thick tree.
Dub-dub.
She had heard there were no large beasts here, hadn’t she?
But wasn’t this clearly the sound of a massive creature’s claws?
Could it be that he had a family beast guarding him?
‘I-it’s possible.’
If so, she had to avoid being noticed at all costs.
Freyania held her breath and carefully peered outside from behind the tree.
And there…
was a giant beast raised by House Asteri…
…Huh?
Swish— swish—
Dig!
“Phew! It’s been a while since I’ve dug up one of these!”
“…”
It’s not a beast?
If it’s not a beast, then that’s…
‘Lion Asteri?’
It was Lion Asteri, holding a hand hoe and a sickle, harvesting plants clinging to the ground.
She couldn’t even get angry.
She was just dumbfounded.
She had come here wondering what he was up to in Mimir Forest.
She had naturally assumed he’d set up a personal laboratory; she never dreamed he’d be digging in the dirt.
In this dark place, all alone and grinning!
Wasn’t he supposed to be the eldest grandson of House Asteri?
‘No, it’s not like he can’t get good ingredients, so why come all the way to a forest to gather them himself?’
She was here in secret, but she wanted to ask him outright.
Why on earth was he doing this!
Her startled heart felt wronged, too.
But then.
“Oh, here’s one too.”
“These ones over here have already grown this much?”
“…”
…He looked really happy, didn’t he?
Freyania, who had been hiding behind the tree, stepped out into the open.
She wanted to see if he would react at all if she revealed herself.
Because she felt that if she stayed hidden, there would be no reaction forever…
“…”
Glance, swish.
Lion looked at the revealed Freyania once, then promptly ignored her and went back to his work.
“Ha?”
It was less like he was deliberately ignoring her, and more like he just didn’t care. Simply ‘Oh, a squirrel in the forest.’
That was exactly the
degree of his reaction.
At a loss for words, Freyania decided to speak to him first.
“Hey. Do you know who I am?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Wh-what?”
If she said yes here, it was she who would be in trouble.
Right. From now on, I don’t know him.
I don’t know Lion Asteri.
“…”
Lion’s behavior remained the same after that.
He dug up herbs and picked berries.
If there was one slight difference,
his movements had slowed down enough for her to watch and follow along.
‘W-was this the passing down of a secret technique?’
Maybe, though she didn’t know why he was here, he found it admirable that she had come and was teaching her his secret techniques?
Well, the background check on him said he had a rather gentle disposition, so it was possible!
‘Heheh! Good! I’ll soak up every last bit of it!’
Freyania, not missing the chance, discreetly tried to imitate his actions.
Just in case, she used the hand hoe she had brought to dig up rosemary and tugged at stems she guessed were sweet potatoes.
Perhaps because she was half-elf, she was quite talented at handling plants.
‘It’s almost the same, isn’t it?’
Of course, just a tiny bit!
Setting aside the broken root hairs and tattered stems, they didn’t look much different from what Lion Asteri had gathered.
And above all!
‘But what use is this for alchemy?’
The thought that this was a waste of time never left her.
If freshness was key, wouldn’t it be better to contract directly with herbalists?
It would be easier to get good quality materials that way, and there’d be no need to go through all this trouble.
Would a potion’s effect really change drastically just because an alchemist did what an herbalist should do?
“Hmph.”
He wasn’t doing pointless work just to discourage me, was he?
Freyania soon lost interest.
It was boring.
Her interest lay solely in alchemy.
‘But since it’s something Lion Asteri does, I’ll endure it a little longer.’
And so, an hour passed.
Two hours.
…
“Why won’t this thing come out!”
“Ah! I got it!”
And like that, a week went by.
“So you pull this one out like this!”
“Phew! My whole body aches!”
…And three days after that, it had been ten days.
“Huh?”
S-something was strange.
Why had she been digging up herbs for ten days?
Me, the genius alchemist of the criminal underworld, Freyania?
“E-eek!”
Thud!
Finally, on exactly the tenth day, Freyania threw the bundle of herbs in her hands onto the ground.
The herbs she had worked so hard to gather scattered messily across the forest floor.
Something was wrong.
‘Yes. H-he must have done something.’
Otherwise, it made no sense that the great Freyania was digging up plants like this.
Lion Asteri! What on earth did you do!
Clank!
Freyania even threw her hand hoe on the ground and pointed a finger at Lion!
“Y-you! What did you do to me!”
“…?”
Lion looked at the half-elf whose ears, poking out from her conical hat, had turned bright red.
To be precise, he was looking at the wasted herbs she had thrown and scattered on the ground.
‘They’re lower grade, but still all useful…’
Why would she pick them with such effort just to throw them away?
The moment they fall to the ground like that, their commercial value drops.
In other words, it was as good as having their stars plummet.
“What a waste.”
Of course, they were herbs without stars anyway.
But wouldn’t they end up as ‘Unusable’ grade like that?
-Aqua Rosemary (Pulped)
Flinch.
At Lion’s words, Freyania’s expression filled with bewilderment.
‘H-he spoke?’
For what felt like an eternity, Lion hadn’t said a single word since then.
Aside from talking to himself, that is.
Neither when Freyania gathered enthusiastically.
Nor when she ruined them and fumed alone.
He had never said things like ‘You came again today’ or ‘Let’s gather together.’
“…”
She got goosebumps for nothing.
Maybe it was because the person who had been consistently indifferent finally paid her attention, and it was when she had done something wrong.
Of course, normally she would have shouted back asking what she did wrong, but having seen how much Lion treasured the herbs for the past ten days, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
“W-well.”
Should she pick up the scattered herbs now?
As she hesitated, Lion Asteri strode over from afar.
And then.
Swish.
He bent down, picked up the hand hoe Freyania had dropped, and dusted it off with a tap-tap.
The dirt on the blade fell away, and he rubbed the grimy handle clean against his clothes.
“No… I mean.”
It would have been better if he got angry. His quietness was scarier.
She felt like a little kid who had caused trouble.
Gulp.
She swallowed dryly and found herself gauging his mood.
It isn’t that big of a mistake, is it? She thought this, yet…
‘…But it also felt like a big mistake.’
She found herself reflecting.
She should have just let her temper tantrum go.
“Hey…”
Lion placed the hand hoe in an empty basket, handed it back to Freyania, and opened his mouth.
“Pick them up again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Freyania, who had inadvertently used formal speech, picked up the herbs scattered on the ground.