Chapter 25

Chapter : 25

Bishot Puremoon let out a sigh of relief only after checking the results of the exams.

They were good enough that a scholarship was within reach. She had taken first place in her major, and she had held her own in her other subjects as well. There was no longer any need for her to keep accepting Gilbert’s support.

Gilbert had paid for the funds she needed for studying and for her alchemical materials. After thinking long and hard about why he would show her such special treatment, she had arrived at only one answer.

Earthroot Fleabane.

He must have felt guilty because, with Raphael’s help, he had stolen that information from her. Thinking of it that way, she saw no reason to reject Gilbert’s help. She regarded it as nothing more than getting back money that should have been hers in the first place, only after it had passed once through someone else’s hands.

“Whew…”

That did not mean she had any intention of depending on another person forever.

If she did that, then everything she had done to leave her family and come all the way to the Academy would lose its meaning. She had to live on her own and become independent. Bishot decided to find that path through alchemy.

She had talent.

She had a broad way of seeing alchemy, and a sharp instinct for finding brilliant ideas that others would never think of.

Earthroot Fleabane had been exactly such a case. If Raphael had not stolen the fruits of her work, she would already have been living a life that required no help from anyone.

This time as well, a new idea had come to her.

The question of what effect mana had on the human brain remained unknown.

In some cases, exposure to mana caused people to suffer short-term memory loss or even dementia. Several Magic Towers had researched it in an attempt to solve the problem, but there had been no real success.

Could she do it?

She had a basic concept in mind, but compared to the case of Earthroot Fleabane, it was more complex and would require much more time. She would have to endure countless trials and errors.

Could she hold out for that long?

The bare necessities of life and the minimum things needed for her studies were not a problem. Her meals and lodging were already taken care of, and she still had several sets of clothing brought from her family home.

And as for textbooks and materials for her studies, Gilbert was paying for them.

The problem was that once she began, she had no way of knowing how long it would take to complete.

A few months. Perhaps more than a year.

Could she really afford to devote herself to only this one thing for that long? And what if she failed in the end?

To leap to certainty too quickly would be foolish. She had to assess the situation objectively and draw a conclusion.

Bishot searched for related materials and read book after book, along with academic journals.

And then she found an unbelievable paper.

It was a recent publication, issued not long ago by an academic society, and someone had already reached the exact same conclusion she had.

Remarkable.

What was more, that person was already far ahead of her. He had apparently completed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of experiments and had already published clear results. His name was Raphael Isaac.

“No way!”

A light flashed through Bishot’s mind.

If this was true, if her eyes were not deceiving her, then perhaps Raphael had not stolen the Earthroot Fleabane information after all.

No, probably not.

Even to Bishot herself, the method by which he could have stolen her results had never made sense. In the first place, perhaps he simply had not stolen them.

In practical terms, taking her materials would have been almost impossible. But the circumstances had looked damning, and Raphael was exactly the sort of person who would have done such a thing, so she had assumed he was the culprit.

“Then why?”

Even if she assumed she had misunderstood, too many things still remained unresolved.

First of all, Raphael had not even attempted to explain himself.

Given his behavior up until now, it made no sense that Raphael would yield so quietly. Even if he had committed the act, it would have been the sort of thing he should have denied to the end. Yet instead, he had accepted it without resistance.

Why?

She didn’t know.

And there was another question.

If that was true, then why had Gilbert helped her at all?

She had thought that it was because he had wronged her, because the money had originally been hers, and therefore accepting the support had only been proper.

But if that was not the reason, then why?

It felt as though her mind might break.

She had always thought of herself as reasonably clever, but standing before a problem to which she could not find an answer, her head began to throb.

There was only one way to solve it.

She had to go to Raphael directly and demand an explanation.

This would be the first time Bishot went to him first, of her own will, in the long ill-fated relationship he had always forced upon her. Every time she saw his face, something unpleasant happened.

“There’s no help for it.”

Bishot decided that she would meet Raphael.

She had to know the truth of the matter.

---

If someone said that the most important thing in the world was money, objections would fly in from every direction.

If you considered happiness in a person’s life, some would say health or self-realization mattered more. Others would criticize it as crude materialism.

I, too, thought there were plenty of things more precious than money.

My life, for instance.

Even so, whatever anyone said, having money made everything easier.

There was more you could do, and you could do it better. That was true even when it came to protecting my own life.

If you had money, your options increased.

That was why I had been trying to use the knowledge I possessed to gather money in various ways.

Among those ways were the alchemical products Bishot would one day discover.

I had read how Bishot created them, but my memory was not perfect, and little holes had begun to appear in it over time. Gilbert filled those gaps for me.

Working together with him, I raked in money.

Anything that could be produced immediately was put on the market at once, and even when that wasn’t possible, I preemptively claimed the knowledge by filing for patents on portions of it.

By now, the money coming in through that channel far surpassed the income from my territory.

I was rich.

Then one day, Bishot came to see me.

“How have you been?”

The moment our eyes met, I froze for a moment.

It wasn’t because I was admiring her beauty or anything like that.

It wasn’t as though I had only seen her face once or twice. I was used to it by now.

What surprised me was her expression.

Her eyes were shaking left and right without pause, and her jaw trembled faintly.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick? Are you all right?”

“If you mean my physical condition, then I am perfectly fine. The reason I came to see you today is because there is something I absolutely must resolve.”

“Hm?”

“The Earthroot Fleabane you published earlier. I believed until now that you had stolen the result of my research.”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

Bishot had abruptly stabbed me in a vital spot.

Startled, I clenched my fist reflexively.

I endured the urge to let the pain of my nails digging into my palm twist my face.

“But recently, after reading a newly published academic journal, I realized that may not have been the case. You are truly very learned in alchemy, Lord Raphael.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you are. For that reason, I considered that perhaps the overlap with Earthroot Fleabane had been nothing more than coincidence. But then that gave rise to another question. If that was the case, then why did you allow me to continue misunderstanding the truth?”

The trembling in Bishot’s eyes stopped.

Her gaze fixed on mine.

Because I had done wrong, because I had something on my conscience, it was difficult to look her in the eye.

I forced my eyes, which wanted to fall helplessly toward the ground, back up to meet Bishot’s.

“Will you tell me? Was the new use for Earthroot Fleabane truly your idea, Lord Raphael? If so, then why did you let matters pass that way back then?”

How should I get through this crisis?

Let’s think it through step by step.

First, what if I answered her question honestly?

The moment I considered it, I immediately wrote impossible across that option.

Even if I said nothing but the truth, Bishot would not only fail to accept it, she would not believe me at all.

Lying was the predetermined conclusion.

That led to the next problem.

What exactly was I supposed to lie about?

“It’s difficult to answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know what I want to say. But when I think about how I’m supposed to say it in a way that you’ll actually believe, it becomes incredibly difficult to answer.”

“I will believe you.”

Bishot answered immediately.

“This once, no matter how suspicious your words may sound, I will try to believe them. Please tell me exactly as it is.”

Ahem.

I cleared my throat twice, moistened my lips, and then spoke.

“You’re right. The new use for Earthroot Fleabane was something I discovered. The reason I didn’t try to persuade you was because I didn’t have any confidence. Back then, coincidence piled on top of coincidence, and the circumstances looked too blatantly suspicious. No matter what I said, I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“I see. Then…”

Bishot lowered her head.

Her fine, thick black hair slipped down and spread like a curtain, hiding her face. She stayed that way for a moment. Then she suddenly lifted her head and said in a firm tone,

“I read the academic paper on a cure for Elzenic Disease. You seem to be stuck on the synthesis of the medicine at present. How should that be resolved?”

Elzenic, in Elzenic Disease, had once been the name of an actual patient.

Sometimes the body developed an adverse reaction to mana, causing mild inflammation throughout the body or, in severe cases, damage to the memory.

It was also the disease for which Bishot created a cure in the Original Work.

But what was she saying now?

Why was she asking me that?

I carefully analyzed what hidden intention might lie behind that sudden leap.

Right.

This was a test.

She was trying to gauge whether I really possessed knowledge of alchemy, whether I truly had the ability to discover a new use for Earthroot Fleabane.

If that was the case, then I ought to meet it with all my strength.

If I could.

“Well, who knows?”

All I knew about alchemy was the correct answers.

Why that answer worked, why it was the correct one, and all the surrounding questions beyond that—shrugging was the best I could do.

“I’ve read everything you’ve published over the past few months, Lord Raphael. You’re a genius.”

“Hm?”

“There’s no logical flow to any of it. Gilbert must have been the one to smooth out even that much for you, I imagine. Which only makes it clearer. Your conclusions are perfect, but full of gaps, reached through astonishingly original ideas and an utterly incomprehensible chain of thought.”

Bishot raised her hand and pressed it to her chest.

“I can fill those gaps. Would you consider working with me?”

“You and me?”

“I’m not asking for reconciliation. Nor am I asking to build a positive relationship. This would merely be a transaction. Only until the cure for Elzenic Disease is completed. Ah, and there is nothing Lord Raphael himself would need to do. If you would simply grant me permission to use the patents you’ve already published, I will handle the rest myself.”

After all, every bit of that knowledge had originally been Bishot’s to publish.

More than that, it was a proposal with no real downside for me.

I vaguely thought that accepting quietly would be the right thing to do.

Still, even a stone bridge ought to be tested before crossing. Especially when the matter was connected to my life.

After thinking it over carefully for about thirty seconds, I answered.

“All right. Fine. Let’s do that.”

But accepting her proposal did not mean I could relax.

To reassure myself that this meant we had reconciled would have been counting my chickens before they hatched. The negative feelings she held toward me would surely remain exactly as they were.

Even so, the reason she had offered such a deal was simple: she loved alchemy more than anything else in the world. She wanted to achieve a difficult goal under conditions that would allow her to display her abilities to the fullest.

This time as well, things seemed to have turned out well.

Probably.