Chapter 35
I grabbed my head in fluster, and Baratheon clicked his tongue at me.
“Do you even know how much Sisé hates waiting?”
“Uh… I don’t, but I can guess….”
“Right?”
Sisé and waiting.
Just putting those words side by side feels wrong.
He’s the type who’d walk off if you were even a minute late.
No, not even a minute—he probably wouldn’t wait ten seconds.
“But that guy…”
Baratheon burst out laughing at my serious attempt to imagine Sisé waiting.
“Guess what? He waited forty minutes.”
“Forty minutes?”
Why forty? Class was supposed to start at three.
I blinked, puzzled. Baratheon grinned even wider and whispered in my ear.
“Turns out he was there way before class eve—ow!”
Before he could finish, Sisé smacked the back of his head and appeared.
“My ‘big bro’ sure talks a lot.”
“You only call me big bro when you’re bad-mouthing me or hitting me, huh?”
“Why? You don’t like it?”
“Who said I don’t? Just say it all the time!”
Ignoring Baratheon’s grumbling, Sisé casually tugged both of my cheeks.
“Danae Ashinov, you’ve got some nerve—making me wait like that.”
“Mmph-sorry…”
My apology leaked out like air through a whistle, thanks to my stretched cheeks.
Somehow he understood anyway, because he let go and folded his arms.
“So, care to explain why you stood me up?”
I rubbed my tingling cheeks and pointed to the freshly planted melobin.
“Well, I was planting flowers…”
“So you ditched me because you got distracted by that flower?”
“I didn’t ditch you. I just… forgot for a very short while.”
“A short while, huh…”
Sisé tilted his head with a meaningful smile.
“Want me to show you how much I can get done in thirty minutes?”
“…No thank you, I’ll pass.”
I quickly shook my head. He flicked my forehead lightly.
“Next time I won’t wait. Got it?”
“Yes, sir!”
He gave a short laugh. “So?”
“So… what?”
“Why are you planting flowers all of a sudden?”
“Oh, a bluebird gave it to me as a gift. I figured, since it was a present, I might as well plant it.”
“A flower? From a bird?”
He bent down to inspect the plant I pointed at, eyes catching on the vivid red petals.
Then his brows knit as he brushed the flower gently.
“Wait, this is melobin.”
He said the name exactly.
“How is this here…?”
With a deep frown, he crouched to examine it closely.
His face turned serious enough that even Baratheon stayed silent.
“Do you know what this is?”
Melobin, right? The root is supposed to help with fatigue recovery, I thought, but shook my head.
“Lucky or unlucky, hard to say,” Sisé sighed, rubbing his temple.
“How do you keep stumbling on such… sensitive things?”
“Sensitive?”
Did he also know about melobin’s effects?
But his next words blindsided me.
“If you add melobin leaves to a magic potion, it amplifies the effect.”
“Huh? Magic potion?”
“Yeah. At least doubles the potency, sometimes up to five times.”
Oh… so that’s why my master’s training worked so well when I took this!
It all fit.
“I heard it used to grow in the North, but ancient mages overharvested it to extinction…”
Extinct? My master’s garden was full of it!
Getting it was the hard part, not finding it.
I stared at the plant, dumbfounded. Sisé shrugged.
“If word gets out melobin’s around, mages will come running with bags of cash.”
Bags of cash!
My eyes lit up.
I was just going to make fatigue tonics for farmers and tired soldiers…
Cheap product, high volume—that was the plan.
But if mages were the buyers, that changed everything.
Mages are rich!
They sell their own potions and scrolls for steep prices; some earn as much as a rural lord.
I could sell this for a fortune—if I can grow it in bulk.
But things didn’t go as easily as I’d dreamed.
“It really looks like it’s dying, right? Not just me?”
“Nope. Anyone can see that.”
Sisé and I crouched side by side, sighing at the wilting melobin.
“You’re a mage—how come you don’t know how to grow it? Mages supposedly crave this flower!”
“If I were an ancient mage, maybe I’d know.”
He ruffled his hair in frustration and stood.
“I gave it proper water, perfect sunlight, even fertilizer. Why’s it drooping more every day?”
We’d set up everything a plant could want, even with a gardener’s help.
No matter how carefully we tended it, it just kept withering.
Another few days and they’d all be dead.
“You said a bluebird brought this?”
“Yes.”
“Figures the bird can’t talk… I’d love to ask where it found it.”
He sounded half-desperate.
In truth, Blanche could speak and understand, but that wasn’t the issue.
I already knew melobin’s natural habitat.
The Misty Mountains.
So it really only thrives there?
But large-scale harvesting there was meaningless.
Sure, the Mist Knights could collect some…
But I couldn’t send them every time I needed stock.
They’re monster-slayers, not merchants.
Is making money from this impossible after all?
It felt like finding an oasis in the desert—only for it to be a mirage.
The glittering cash in my mind’s eye was fading.
Seriously—when left alone for five hundred years it grew fine! Why won’t it now, when I’m caring for it?
Thinking back, my master hadn’t fussed over the garden either.
I hadn’t even known there was a melobin patch.
If there’d been chores, he would’ve dumped them on me.
Whenever anything happened, he always called me.
“Danae, there’s no water.”
“Danae, I want meat.”
“Danae, my clothes tore.”
Danae, Danae, Danae…
He said my name so often that eventually, if he so much as started with “Da—”, I’d come running.
Yet he never once asked me to tend the garden.
He wasn’t the type to do such tedious work himself…
Maybe melobin wasn’t an ordinary herb and he didn’t want me to know how to grow it.
But the reason didn’t matter.
What mattered was: if even he could grow it easily, why can’t I?
I glared at the plant, scowling.
Listen here, melobin. Keep this up and I’ll cut off your water. I’ll stick you in the darkest shade—no more sun, no more fertilizer. Got it?
I ground my teeth at the empty threat.
Then a chill swept over me.
It felt like I was missing something.
Memories raced through my mind:
My master dumping every task on me,
the perfectly arranged conditions,
yet the melobin wilting.
But when it was left alone for 500 years, it thrived…
No way.
My mouth fell open as I stared at the plant.
…Are you the type that hates attention?
