Chapter 103…
Ellie brought the carriage to a halt.
“If you’ve got information more important than that, I’ll give you a ride.”
“Hey, peanut! How dare you treat this great archmage with such disrespect!”
Neelith shouted angrily after being kicked out of the carriage.
Ellie stuck her face out the window and shook her head.
“Bring me information related to the Rofen flower or the Assassin Guild, and I’ll let you ride again.”
“……”
Ellie’s reasoning was so clear-cut that Neelith couldn’t even get properly angry.
Then Ellie added one more thing.
“And just because we’re not riding in the same carriage doesn’t mean I’m disrespecting you. If it did, that would mean I’m also disrespecting Madam Laval, Girian, Marquis Simon, Bavian, Jurna, and Clearus.”
Neelith’s eyebrows twisted.
Obviously, I should be treated better than those guys!
…But Clearus was included on the list of those being “disrespected.”
At that point, the credibility of Ellie’s words shot up.
“Hmph! I’ll let it slide this once!”
Pretending to concede, Neelith turned proudly and walked toward the spare carriage.
When Neelith flung open the carriage door with a jingle, Madam Laval, Girian, and Marquis Simon all turned to look at him at the same time.
“Why are you coming to this carriage?”
Neelith plopped down in the one remaining seat, crossed his arms, and replied with exaggerated sulkiness.
“Aaaabsolutely, teeeerribly important story, apparently. From His Peanut Majesty.”
I get it.
Yeah, it’s just information. All I have to do is find it, right?
Neelith began diligently imagining the letter of urgent inquiry he would send to the Mage Tower, and the outline of the magic lessons he would start once he got his hands on Ellie.
Without him realizing it, Ellie’s place in Neelith’s heart had shifted slightly.
A precious talent of the Mage Tower.
A gullible disciple he could milk for the next twenty years.
Now someone so important that his heart would drop if she disappeared.
He didn’t know why she was so important, but for some reason his sinking heart kept sloshing around as if it had turned to water.
“Hmph.”
Hearing Neelith snort, the others instinctively crossed their arms as well.
They were all people whose hearts would similarly sink if Ellie were to disappear.
The carriage carrying them set off again.
With the rattling of the wheels, it almost sounded as though something inside was sloshing back and forth.
“Did you find out something about the Rofen flower?”
Meanwhile, Ellie was so focused on the Rofen flower that she had completely forgotten about Neelith.
If the sloshing archmage heard this, he would probably explode in rage and evaporate all the water again.
But Ellie was that serious.
Lombaton nodded heavily.
“Yes. We couldn’t conduct many experiments because the flower is hard to obtain, but we discovered a dangerous fact that I thought you needed to know, so I rushed here.”
“Hm?”
“Toxicity has been found in the Rofen flower.”
“!”
Toxic.
At that single word, countless clues connected themselves in Ellie’s mind.
What she had seen at the factory, and the stories she had heard from the children.
“And the production process for turning it into perfume is excessively complex and delicate. It’s absolutely impossible to mass-produce. Moreover, when it’s refined into a fragrance, the purification actually makes the toxin even stronger.”
Lombaton continued gravely.
When he had first received the Rofen scent, he’d thought of it as a child’s plaything.
It was a technique passed down only in Woodlock, but if mass production became possible, it could bring in a lot of money—something that might interest a king.
And since it was a request from a talent who might one day become a pillar of the Academy, Lombaton had begun the analysis half out of curiosity.
But the more he analyzed it, the more he wondered how such a thing could be circulating on the market at all.
“It’s far too dangerous. Please don’t take an interest in it.”
“No!”
“You mustn’t.”
“How can we stop it if we don’t know how dangerous it is?!”
It was already being released little by little into the market.
As Ellie said, if its danger wasn’t clearly revealed, it would establish itself as a luxury item—and it would only be a matter of time before countless people became addicted.
“…Very well. What would you like to know?”
“That toxicity—does it only affect adults?”
“It affects everyone. But it is indeed more lethal to adults. It’s also highly addictive.”
That matched what the children had told her.
“Then what does ‘addictive’ mean?”
Addiction was something Ellie had never experienced.
And something she should never experience in her life.
“Well, it means that even though it’s bad for you, your body keeps wanting it.”
“Like cake…?”
“It’s much worse than cake. If it goes wrong, you could die!”
“You could also die if you eat too much cake, get all your teeth rotten, and starve to death!”
“…Ah. When you put it that way…”
Adjusting his explanation to Ellie’s standards, Lombaton said,
“It’s as dangerous as a sweet that rots your teeth ten times faster than cake.”
“Gasp!”
Ellie covered her mouth with both hands, as if she’d been caught with cake in it.
A Rofen flower ten times more dangerous than cake!
“They were going to spread something that dangerous to people?!”
Ellie’s anger exploded in an instant.
If her fury had been visible, the roof of the carriage might have blown off.
“It must have been very profitable. Once people are addicted to the scent, they’ll keep looking for it,” Lombaton replied bitterly.
There are people who think nothing of harming others for the sake of selfish greed.
“…I’ll stop it.”
Ellie’s resolve burned brightly.
“Yes. For the sake of the country, it should be stopped if possible,” Lombaton said, cheering her on from a distance, unaware of Nerendis’s internal affairs.
Still, it was clear that whoever was moving while holding such secret information and procuring such hard-to-obtain materials must possess no small amount of power.
“Is there a way to stop it?”
Unable to simply watch the genius struggle, Lombaton stepped in.
Politics and intrigue weren’t his specialty, but as an adult, he intended to help if there was anything he could do.
“I’ll think about it from now on.”
Ellie stubbornly crossed her arms and began to hum thoughtfully.
There was definitely a connection between the Rofen scent and Duke Whitton.
She had uncovered the production site of the Rofen flower, the processing method of the scent, the factory, and even the problems with the fragrance—but there was still no direct link to Duke Whitton.
“Hmmmm…”
She still needed more information.
Ellie decided to press Lombaton a little more.
“Don’t you have any other information?”
“If I did, I’d tell you.”
“Didn’t you come all the way to Nerendis to find something out?”
Lombaton said he had come near the area to look into something else, and had stopped by the royal palace while he was at it.
Then wasn’t there more information he hadn’t mentioned?
“Ah… well, I didn’t actually come to Nerendis…”
For once, Lombaton, who always answered crisply, fidgeted and broke into a cold sweat.
“If not Nerendis, then where?”
“To Woodlock, the place of origin…”
“?”
Ellie drew a map in her head.
Woodlock was attached to the northwest of Nerendis, but… it wasn’t close enough to casually “stop by.”
If you started from the Academy, you’d practically have to draw a triangle to end up at the royal palace of Nerendis.
“‘Stop by’?”
No matter how she connected it, it was hard to call this a simple detour.
Unless the Academy had developed instant teleportation before the Mage Tower.
“…After leaving the Academy, I made a big loop around. …Haha.”
He couldn’t bring himself to say that he’d rushed over because he wanted to see Ellie.
Adults sometimes feel embarrassed about being honest with their feelings.
“Welcome back, Your Majesty.”
“We’re relieved to see you return safely, Your Majesty.”
Waiting at the royal palace were Duke Notman, Marundial, and Duke Whitton.
“I shall go and punish those lawless scoundrels who dared to block Your Majesty’s path.”
Duke Whitton delivered the most exaggerated greeting.
It seemed the news that Ellie had blown up the Rofen scent factory hadn’t reached him yet.
If he’d known, he wouldn’t be wearing such a relaxed expression.
“No. I already punished them.”
“Oh my, is that so? Then they must have been thoroughly taught a lesson and retreated. They won’t dare try again.”
Duke Whitton’s patronizing tone, as if speaking to a child, made Ellie’s mood steadily worse.
“Yeah. The royal guard and the Bernt Knight Order fought together and beat them all! And the archmage made fire and scared them a lot, so they definitely won’t attack again!”
“…I see. That’s very good to hear.”
Though he smiled and played along, the warmth vanished from Duke Whitton’s face.
The words sounded like a child’s fanciful boast, but the implications behind them couldn’t be dismissed as mere bravado.
The royal guard and the knights of House Bernt—forces that never joined hands—had fought together?
And on top of that, the Mage Tower had been involved.
It was a combination of power that couldn’t be brushed aside lightly.
How did this ignorant child manage that?
There is such a thing as beginner’s luck.
Surely it was just one of those accidental coincidences.
A single stroke of luck might line things up once, but such a state could never last forever.
Still, Duke Whitton’s fingertips were growing cold.
