A few days after I’d bewitched Professor Rodelini—no, recruited him.
In the meantime, I’d learned something: there were quite a few guys in the Department of Alchemy I got along with.
For the simplest of reasons—we had a lot in common.
Basically, the Academy students who came to the Department of Alchemy could be broadly divided into two types.
The ones who came because they were tempted by the idea of turning stones into gold, and the ones who were interested in alchemy itself.
And what they had in common was that they had no money.
Alchemy itself was a field that cost an absurd amount of money while producing many things that weren’t all that practical, so those involved in it inevitably ended up poor. Apparently, even Professor Rodelini counted as someone who went hungry less often than most.
Many of them had mediocre status, or were outright commoners, and their goals were purely academic while they suffered from lack of funds.
Naturally, I had plenty in common with them, so the wariness they’d shown only on the first day quickly disappeared, and after that, I was able to get along with them without much trouble.
So, to commemorate that, every member of the department was currently gathered in the backyard of the workshop.
“There are potatoes, potatoes…!”
“If I eat this much at once, and put the rest in a basket… that’s about four days’ worth of meals solved…!”
“Free food, it’s free food…! Aizen is bestowing free food upon us!”
Because behind the workshop, there was a potato field I’d made out of boredom.
Back at the Arclight estate, the work I did was practically that of a potato-digging operative, so to be honest, I was pretty confident when it came to growing potatoes.
If I had unpleasant memories, those were related to the Arclight family, not to potatoes, so seeing potatoes didn’t particularly make my heart feel unsettled or anything. And there had only been one reason I grew potatoes in the first place.
“It’s nice to save money.”
What I’d gained from the Arclight family was probably magical training through digging potatoes, and the method of farming.
The magic I’d learned there was now being used to grow such splendid food.
In any case, it was impossible for me to eat all the potatoes in this field by myself, so a lot of them would end up discarded. If that was going to happen, it was better to just give them away. So when I told the students to dig some up as a sign that we’d gotten closer, every last one of them had gathered here, resulting in the current situation.
Even Professor Rodelini was leading the way, basket in hand.
“Then, begin!”
“Everyone, dig hard and help Aizen clear out his stock!”
With a rather plausible public justification, Professor Rodelini was the first to jump into potato digging, and soon, every member of the Department of Alchemy was eagerly digging up potatoes.
Mina, who had been looking at them with a slightly pathetic gaze, narrowed her eyes and said,
“My fried potato ingredients.”
“…You were planning to dig them up from my field and sell them?”
“Your field? This is my land.”
Mina spoke as if scolding me, but this was just her, as a merchant, feeling displeased that people were taking what had grown on her land as they pleased.
It seemed she’d been too busy to touch it right after coming here, but apparently, she’d been planning to make a bit of money using the potato dish recipes I’d sold back in the Phoenix County.
Still, for that, I felt like Mina was reacting a little too sensitively.
‘Looks like something unpleasant happened.’
Judging that something must have happened right before she came here to put her in a bad mood, I looked away from Mina for a moment.
Mina also had her work with the merchant group, and there were times when she suddenly received proposals or the like, so it wouldn’t be strange if something had happened without me knowing.
If she thought about it a little more, she’d realize she wasn’t taking any loss at all and calm down.
This was land she’d purchased along with the warehouse to use as a workshop site, and the leftover strip of land after using what she needed was an awkward size, making it hard to do anything with it. That was why I’d made a field there. So no matter how much they dug up, the quantity wasn’t that huge.
If I was working and mealtime came around but there was nothing to eat, I’d just come over, dig up a suitable one, shake off the dirt, steam it, peel it, and eat it. In short, it was nothing more than my own personal food storage.
“If they stay planted too long anyway, they’ll sprout and lose their value as goods, so if you think of it as giving away what you were going to throw out, it’s not really a loss.”
“That’s true, but weren’t sprouted potatoes something you needed?”
“I haven’t had any reason to mobilize those yet.”
Mina spoke in disbelief, and I answered with a shrug.
Rather than needing them, I’d made something because I thought it might be useful, but I hadn’t had any occasion to use it yet, so it didn’t matter.
And next to us, Noel, who had been watching the Department of Alchemy students digging up potatoes with Erika while wearing a slightly troubled smile, looked at me and asked,
“If you’re fine with it, Lord Aizen, and Mina isn’t really stopping them either, then I’ll stay quiet, but… this really is okay, right? They look like they’re about to overturn the whole thing….”
“I planted quite a lot here, so honestly, there are plenty I haven’t managed to dig up myself.”
On top of that, since I’d just returned from the Phoenix County, the field was in a mess anyway. If they dealt with it appropriately, I’d be grateful.
Then Rodelini, who had been digging potatoes for a while, approached me and said,
“Aizen, there are more sprouted potatoes than expected. I should give these to you, right?”
“I’ll take care of those, so don’t hesitate to hand them over.”
Even if a potato sprouted, it was still edible if you cut out the sprouted part and the area around it deeply, but if I gave those out and someone said, I ate what you gave me and almost died! then that would be troublesome.
They weren’t in such a desperate situation that they needed to go that far to eat in the first place, so it was better to just dispose of them.
If the field was completely overturned like this, I could just plant potatoes again tonight.
After some time passed, the students, knowing they couldn’t store them for long anyway, dug up as many as they could and began disappearing one by one with potatoes in their arms. When even Professor Rodelini left with a big grin, saying he’d saved on food expenses, Erika expressed what she couldn’t bring herself to say in a very roundabout way.
“The people in the Department of Alchemy are, um, truly very frugal!”
“Paupers.”
Mina said that and sighed.
Meanwhile, after I used magic to dig up all the remaining potatoes and buried only the ones suitable as seed potatoes back into the ground, completing Arclight-style farming, Mina looked at me and asked,
“How’s the Department of Alchemy?”
“Heaven.”
When I answered immediately without hesitation, Mina, Noel, and Erika all looked at me with surprised expressions.
Then Mina’s expression changed.
“I heard the entire department has been staying up all night lately to create a new alloy.”
“Even without that, there are lots of useful techniques. Lately, I’ve been learning all sorts of things and applying them like crazy.”
I was spending enjoyable days applying the techniques I’d obtained from the Department of Alchemy to my Cyclops in the workshop one by one, testing whether they were usable and whether there was room for improvement.
The Cyclops I’d used in the battle at the Phoenix County still hadn’t been properly repaired, since I needed to extract some data from it, so conversely, it was somewhat convenient for applying new techniques.
In short, the Department of Alchemy’s technology could be converted directly into technology for golems.
Mina knew that point well too, so while she would casually joke and grumble about the Department of Alchemy, she didn’t criticize it seriously.
“Still, you need to make sure you sleep properly while doing it, Lord Aizen.”
“And you need to eat properly too. You eat potatoes every day, don’t you?”
Noel and Erika were worrying about me.
I knew very well that having people care about me was truly something to be grateful for, but….
“But it’s fun.”
Since I could do what I wanted to my heart’s content, I was at the point where I felt even that time was a little precious.
Perhaps because they knew I wouldn’t listen even if they spoke more strongly, Noel and Erika merely smiled bitterly.
“But I am a little tired today, so once I plant the potatoes, maybe I’ll sleep.”
Still, I could give in for about a day.
As Noel’s and Erika’s expressions brightened again, Mina grinned and said,
“Then shall we eat together today?”
“Come to think of it, Lord Aizen, you’ve never used the Academy cafeteria, have you? How about going there this time? I’ve been wanting to treat you.”
At Mina’s words, Noel immediately cut in and said,
“The Academy cafeteria hires chefs famous even within the kingdom, so the food tastes quite good. The quality is good for the price too, so this time….”
“The Academy cafeteria seems to put more effort into desserts. For stamina, meat is best….”
“For Aizen, going to a cost-effective restaurant will be more helpful in the future.”
It seemed the three of them had different preferences even when choosing a single menu.
For a moment, I saw the women looking at one another and conversing with only their eyes.
And just as the conversation was about to intensify.
“If it’s a meal, I think it would be better to have it a bit later.”
Professor Reina had appeared behind us at some point.
None of us had sensed even a trace of her presence, so we were all startled, and I turned only my head as I said,
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I have reached the level of erasing my presence to catch you, but that’s not it, so stop getting scared first.”
Before that, don’t do anything wrong, Professor Reina said, taking medicine out from inside her clothes and swallowing it.
As I got the feeling that the headache medicine she was taking was becoming stronger and stronger than the previous ones, Professor Reina spoke quietly.
“In any case, I’m truly sorry to interrupt a scene so student-like that it’s hard to see from the four of you, but Aizen, you need to go to the Academy’s reception room. Saintess Mina as well.”
If even Mina was being called, that meant the business wasn’t only with me.
Feeling that this was something big, I quietly asked,
“What is it, Professor?”
Perhaps because she knew my expression wasn’t joking.
Professor Reina slowly opened her mouth and said,
“The royal palace has sent someone, saying there is something they wish to discuss regarding the contract between you and Saintess Mina.”
I see.
So what was bound to come had finally come.