13 — 2

That day, Noel had taken the cat magical beast out of its cage for an experiment.

“Come on, stay still.”

The scent produced by the secretory glands behind this cat magical beast’s ears became an ingredient for precious potions.

It was one of the ingredients needed for his next experiment, and the Magic Institute managed several magical beasts as potion ingredients, including this cat magical beast.

As he wiped behind the cat’s ears with a special cloth, the cat suddenly began to struggle.

“Ah! Hey!”

This magical beast had an extremely fierce temperament.

Normally, it was kept in a cage, and he took it out like this only when necessary, but today it slipped out of Noel’s hands, and the cat magical beast dashed out of the laboratory.

“Hey, wait a second!”

Noel stopped his experiment and chased after the magical beast.

Despite being a small magical beast, it was surprisingly quick on its feet. It slipped out of the building by accident.

“Wait, hey, damn it, you’re fast.”

Noel ran after the magical beast.

Far ahead, after he had chased it for quite some time, he could see the private greenhouse Noel had left unused.

He was getting out of breath.

(Ah, that was Beth’s greenhouse…)

“Mrrrow.”

“Oh my, Shiro-chan, welcome.”

Apparently, the magical beast’s destination had been the greenhouse.

With a click, the greenhouse door opened, and from a distance, he could see Beth come out.

Beth seemed to have been in the middle of some task. With hands covered in dirt, she welcomed in the fierce-tempered cat magical beast.

Apparently, Beth had named it Shiro.

(It certainly was a magical beast as white as snow, but was that name not far too simple? Surely there were other options…)

Then Noel realized that he had not even given this cat magical beast a name himself.

As he caught his breath and walked toward the greenhouse, Beth also noticed Noel and gave him a broad smile.

“Oh! Noel-sama, how rare. I’m glad. Naranda-sama is here too, so would you like to have tea with us?”

“Ah, so you were appraising the mandrake.”

“Yes. Beth told me that today would be about when it reached its best condition.”

There had already been a visitor in the greenhouse. It was Naranda. Noel was the one who had placed the plant order with Beth the other day.

It was indeed just about time for the appraisal.

In Naranda’s hand was a plant that looked like a small carrot.

It was a juvenile mandrake, before it had gained the ability to vocalize.

Mandrakes were not especially difficult plants to propagate, and they even grew wild in forests with abundant magical essence, but juveniles in good condition were rare.

Because juveniles in good condition became precious alchemy ingredients, they were often cultivated in magicians’ greenhouses.

(Eloise was right.)

When Noel stepped into the greenhouse, he unconsciously took a deep breath.

Indeed, there was no mistake about what Eloise had said. Noel found himself captivated by this beautiful sight.

Truly, every plant was growing freely, spreading its leaves wide, blooming as it pleased, and bearing fruit.

None of the plants seemed strained.

When he took one step into this pleasant greenhouse, filled with light and healthy plants, he felt as if the various burdens he carried, the ties that bound him, and the many things chaining him down were all coming undone.

(They are completely different from the plants in my laboratory.)

Noel had never questioned extracting potion ingredients from plants infused with magic power to their limits or from plants that had been forcibly crossbred. However, Noel’s plants seemed extremely unhappy, while Beth’s seemed so very happy.

And the finished quality of Beth’s plants was far higher than those Noel had spent years tending without regard for sleep or meals, continuously giving them rare compost and magic power.

When he looked toward the corner of the greenhouse, the cat magical beast that had escaped from his laboratory was comfortably showing its belly and letting Beth touch it.

It was a creature he had recognized as a ferocious cat magical beast.

Beth urged the dumbfounded Noel along and made him sit on a comfortable cloth sofa.

“Shiro-chan, stay nice and quiet over there.”

Beth said that to the cat magical beast and poured milk into a small bowl.

The cat magical beast, Shiro-chan, ran happily toward the bowl of milk. Incidentally, cat magical beasts and cats were completely different creatures.

Cat magical beasts were truly ferocious and intelligent. They could tear out the throat of a human they disliked as easily as eating breakfast, and yet before Beth, it behaved exactly like a pet cat.

With a soft glow, Naranda floated a bright light with magic, then made the juvenile mandrake shine.

Something seemed to appear within the light, but of course Beth could not see it.

Noel and Naranda exchanged frozen looks.

Naranda wrote “S-class” on the paper in his hand, then carefully wrapped the juvenile mandrake in silk cloth.

(Unbelievable.)

Noel had never in his life laid eyes on an S-class juvenile mandrake.

He had placed the order thinking that it would become a good ingredient if she submitted a juvenile finished at about C-class at best.

When Noel looked toward the corner where the mandrake pots had been grown, only several ordinary pots with nothing particularly unusual about them were lined up there. Beside them were gardening supplies such as lime, eggshells, and horse hooves, none of them especially rare materials, and there was not a single thing Noel had never seen before.

Leaving the two speechless men behind, Beth stood up with no particular emotion and began preparing tea.

“Beth, there is an unspoken rule that magicians do not pry too much into each other’s affairs, but you are not a magician, so may I ask you something rather personal?”

After the appraisal was over, the three of them sat around the small table placed in the corner of the greenhouse.

The herbal tea Beth served was popular.

It was tea brewed by casually blending, according to her mood that day, herbs grown in this greenhouse that were not particularly rare, but when one drank it, it felt as though all sorts of things accumulated at the bottom of the heart melted away, so the magicians, who were always exposed to high tension, were delighted by it.

Once, Eloise had received some tea leaves and tried drinking it in her room, but she had said that although the flavor was the same, it was not as delicious as what Beth brewed.

While the three of them drank that herbal tea, Naranda hesitated for a moment, then began with a serious expression.

Beth had her mouth full of sweets, so she nodded repeatedly to show “yes.”

Beth, a country girl, did not understand table manners.

Noel likely wanted to ask the same thing.

He took over from Naranda, who was struggling to bring up the main point.

“Hey, Beth. I’ve wanted to ask you once, but why do you understand plants so well in the first place? It’s as though you can understand the words of plants that do not speak. You are a miller’s daughter, are you not?”

In other words, he was asking her to reveal what was behind her methods.

Between magicians, especially in a conversation between high-ranking nobles, this would have been an absolutely impossible breach of manners.

These two noble magicians were swallowing their shame to ask a country girl.

Beth finished chewing, then connected the words she finally spoke, seeming not especially bothered.

“…I’m sure it was because my grandfather took me in.”

“I heard that your grandfather was a miller.”

The two men could not understand.

If Beth’s grandfather had been a famous gardener, or if one of her parents had been a magician specialized in plants, then Beth’s abilities would have been understandable, but Beth had no magic power at all, and Beth’s grandfather was a retired soldier and miller.

Without Beth knowing, Noel had investigated her background in detail, but no matter how he turned it over, there had been nothing that explained Beth’s abnormal ability to improve the condition of plants.

Beth began speaking calmly.

“My grandfather could not hear, and he could not speak. It seemed his ears were damaged in the previous war against the demon race. I do not really know whether he was a former knight or something like that. So he could not rely on sounds, and before I learned letters, I had no choice but to understand everything with my grandfather through gestures. While that was happening, the war began getting worse.”

“Beth’s Mill was away from both the town and the village, so it was inconvenient, but safe, right? My grandfather had been strong enough to be a knight in the past, and when someone asked him to shelter a foreign refugee child, just for the duration of the war, saying it was enough if he took in the baby, more and more foreign refugee children were entrusted to him one after another. My grandfather was not able to refuse, so looking after them really was difficult back then.”

During the previous war against the demon race, stories like that had not been unusual. The investigation report had also recorded that a total of eight children had temporarily been looked after at Beth’s Mill. They were all refugee children from foreign countries. All of them were children of fishmongers or innkeepers and the like, and even here, there were no magicians, nor even farmers.

Beth continued speaking.

“Everyone had been separated from their parents. They were small foreign children, so our words did not get through. My grandfather could not speak either, and there were still several babies, and some sick children, so I was desperate because I could not let anyone die. I had no choice but to desperately read every little breath and movement from the babies and children.”

“So I became able to understand what living things that do not speak want, really easily. I’m good at communicating with dogs and cats, and even birds too, but it seems I’m best with plants.”

“How do you understand?”

With his voice rising a little, Noel sought the answer to the heart of the question.

As though it were nothing at all, Beth answered while stroking the cat magical beast’s belly.

“First, I match my breathing with theirs. Then I bring my awareness closer and closer to the very edge of the boundary between us being ourselves, and then I slowly let go of being myself, and the other party and I become the same living thing. Then I naturally feel what the other party is feeling and what they want. That is all.”

Beth said that and smiled.

“I see. That is all, is it…”

That was all. Just that. That was what Beth had said.

It seemed she herself had no idea just how difficult a feat that was.

When high-ranking magicians mastered high-level magic, they were assigned similar training. Users of wind magic became one with the wind, and users of fire magic erased the boundary between themselves and flame, becoming flame themselves.

Beth, who possessed no magic power, had desperately learned the same thing in order to protect children’s lives.

The two men exchanged looks.

“Ah, I have the cookies Ezra-sama gave me yesterday. Let’s eat them together.”

As though the conversation from just now had already left her head, Beth happily went to fetch the box containing the cookies.