Poison Tasting

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Mm, no problem at all.”

“Who would have thought I’d be eating grapes with a Divine Beast… life sure is full of surprises.”

When we gathered at Shekuri-san’s house for the meeting, he sat there with a tense look and hunched shoulders.

Simurg-san, casually plucking grapes and chewing, looked completely relaxed as if he were at home.

“All right, then—let’s finish this quickly.”

“Indeed. We don’t have time to dally over this.”

Of course, the topic of our discussion was the disposition of the sand bandits.

Was there any way to avoid killing those troublemakers?

If the three of us put our heads together, we should come up with some ideas.

“For now, we could make them do field work.”

“True. With a water source, we can raise wheat. But… will they actually put effort into it?”

“That’s a real worry. Those who made a living stealing likely won’t suddenly embrace honest labor…”

Rehabilitating bandits would be difficult.

Forcing them to work would only invite slacking somewhere along the line.

People rarely put effort in unless there was something in it for them.

“Rehabilitation, huh… if they kept bathing in the Sanctuary’s purification effect, they might improve somewhat…”

“Purification effect?”

“Yes. A Sanctuary not only banished evil but also removed malicious emotions. Of course, born villains didn’t suddenly become volunteers, but over a long time their hearts tended to grow purer.”

Apparently the Sanctuary had the power to reform people.

However, the Sanctuary’s effect alone wasn’t strong enough to force quick reform; to speed things up you needed people with aptitudes like ‘Priest,’ ‘Cleric,’ or ‘Nun.’

Aptitudes, huh… oh right.

Come to think of it, Simurg-san had said that with a Sanctuary, aptitude bestowal might become possible.

“Yes. If someone with a priest-type aptitude or the ‘Prayer’ aptitude is present, bestowal can be done. And, well, I the Divine Beast can do it too—technically.”

“Simurg-san… you can do anything, huh.”

“Yes. But to be honest, it requires conversing with the gods, so I would rather not. Being a Divine Beast comes with many strings attached.”

“I see… then we should look for other options for now.”

We’d have to wait until a nun or priest with the right aptitude drifted into this village.

Who knew when that would happen.

…No, stop. Thinking about gloomy things would only bring me down.

I’d better think of something else.

What could we do…? Then it came to me.

Since we had harvested them, we might as well have them try these.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out some fruits.

“Simurg-san, want to try these?”

“Hmm… wait—are those actually edible!?”

In my hand were four kinds of Element Muscat grapes: grapes that burned, grapes swollen with fire, grapes with a whirlwind inside, and one that was a flat brown—yes, the four varieties of Element Muscat.

For some reason, crossbreeding an Element Tree with a Grape Tree had produced grapes imbued with magic.

“I want to know if these are edible—so could you do a poison tasting… I mean, a sample taste?”

“Poison tasting! You just said ‘poison tasting’!”