A Tale of the Secret Saint Vol. 6, page 17
Together with Charlotte, the two girls began to proceed deeper into the forest, examining trees as they went. A handful of knights followed closely. I tagged along as well, taking care not to fall behind.
Gerda seemed to be looking for a tree with green fruit, working off the name “greenglobe fruit.” This was quite the stroke of brilliance considering that the greenglobe fruit did, in fact, happen to be a green fruit.
Charlotte shot me a worried glance. Indeed, it was probably about time I gave the princess a hint so she wouldn’t get too anxious. In an exaggerated manner, I clapped my hands like I had just remembered something. Loudly, I exclaimed, “Ohhh! Come to think of it, a knight buddy of mine once gave me some yummy green fruit from around here! Yeah, it was really good fruit, so I made sure they told me where they found the tree it came from.”
Desmond immediately drew closer so he could tower over me with his height. “There you go again, saying random nonsense out of the blue. Enough!” He bent down to whisper in my ear, saying, “I don’t know what you heard in the carriage, but Her Highness is looking for a fruit nobody has ever heard of. The illustration in the field guide she showed us is too worn out to grasp its shape, and none of the saints nor doctors we’ve checked with have heard of it. With such meager information, it’ll be straight-up impossible to find it. We’re just going to let Her Highness look around until she’s had enough. If you say something weird, all of us knights will get blamed when she turns up empty-handed.”
Oh my, I thought. Being a captain, Desmond had to be careful as he was burdened by a great deal of responsibility. Unfortunately for him, I was but a regular knight not so burdened by responsibility. Sorry, but I’m just going to do what I want!
“Um…” Hearing a faint voice, I turned around to see Gerda. “If you’d be so willing, could you lead me to the location of that tree? I have no other leads to work with currently. I won’t blame anyone if things don’t work out, so please…”
Desmond frowned for a brief moment, but quickly made the knight salute. “Of course, Your Highness. Allow us to lead the way.”
After we walked for about an hour, the tangle of tall trees opened up to a clearing. Here, we found only a few scattered short- and medium-height trees around.
“The wind sure comes through nicely here,” Desmond said, narrowing his eyes agreeably. I felt a bit of admiration for his strength. We had encountered a number of monsters along the way here so far, even some C-rank ones, but Desmond handled them all almost entirely by himself. He wasn’t called the Tiger of Náv and compared to Cyril for nothing!
Still…I did feel like something was off while he was fighting. I stared at him and wondered if perhaps he were deaf in his left ear? I didn’t get that impression before, so maybe something had happened to him recently. Worried for him, I continued to stare.
He noticed my gaze. “What’re you squirming for? Gotta pee?”
“Wh-what?! No!” I quickly said. My chance to ask, if I ever had one, had passed. It would be too awkward now. With nothing further said, our exchange ended.
Gotta say…Desmond’s greatest weakness is his serious lack of delicacy.
Meanwhile, Princess Gerda’s face lit up the moment we entered the clearing. Looking around, she said, “My, the vegetation in this area is different!” Excitedly, she took her time examining each and every one of the trees. After a while, she exclaimed, “Miss Fia, I found some green fruit! It’s the same size as recorded in the field guide… This must be it!”
And it was. However, if it took her this much effort just to find one ingredient, I had to worry whether she could finish the potion she wanted to make at all. The process of making status ailment recovery potions was a bit complicated. In fact, three hundred years ago, I was initially the only one that could make them. It took some considerable effort to teach other saints how to make the same potions. Even then, I only ever managed to teach the easier ones, although that thankfully included hearing restoration potions. My teaching style was apparently hard to grasp for many saints, so I asked the few that did grasp my techniques to leave easy-to-understand records behind for future generations. I had no idea how much of that knowledge got passed down in the end.
Charlotte glanced my way, seeming similarly worried about whether Gerda could really finish her potion. I gave her a reassuring nod and spoke to Gerda. “As Your Highness says, I do believe this is the fruit you are after. It is probably better to make your potion while the ingredients are still fresh, so would you like to hurry back to your country or perhaps quickly make it here in Náv?”
“Oh…um…” Her face clouded. From the look of things, she didn’t actually know how to make the potion. She probably saw the effects listed in her field guide and rushed to gather the ingredients, intending to trial and error her way through potion-making later. But this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you could luck your way through…
As I racked my brain for a solution, Charlotte hesitantly spoke up.
“U-um, maybe I could try making it for you?”
Gerda’s eyes went wide. “Really?! I’m trying to make a hearing restoration potion, a long-lost status ailment recovery potion. Can you really help me with it?”
“I can’t make any promises, but I can try. B-but, um, I’ll need a knight I trust to help me though. Someone reassuring to have around, like Fia.”
I glanced Desmond’s way, expecting him to find fault in what Charlotte said. Sure enough, he was listening and seemed in disbelief. In a low voice only I could make out, he muttered, “Fia? Reassuring? You gotta be kidding me. Greatest troublemaker on the planet!”
You know, maybe Captain Desmond doesn’t deserve to have his left ear healed. I was planning on helping him out after noticing his deaf left ear, but now I was reconsidering.
Charlotte and I began to prepare for potion-making at once. Princess Gerda watched from the sidelines, her hands clasped together before her in prayer. I figured I might as well make some potion for Desmond while we were at it, so I mixed in some extra ingredients, split the result into two vials, and handed them to Charlotte. As she held them, I put my hands over hers.
This potion only took a second for me to make as it wasn’t too difficult, but I do recall it taking longer for other saints. Thinking it’d look suspicious if it were done too quickly, I adjusted the rate my magic flowed out. Hmm…five minutes ought to do it.
Right at that moment, a shadow passed over me. I looked up, wondering what was overhead, and saw a Dream Bird flying.
“Now? Really?” I groaned.
A Dream Bird was an annoying monster that made illusions. Not too long ago, we’d encountered one while looking for Zavilia in the forest.
It showed up right when we’re potion-making… What should I do? From the corner of my eye, I saw Desmond begin running with his hand on his sword’s handle. I spun around to watch him. Wait, what?
He anticipated the Dream Bird’s trajectory and leapt, drawing his blade and swinging it down.
“Whaaat?!” I exclaimed.
With only a single, sharp swing from his sword, he had slain the monster.
I stared at him, jaw dropped, making him frown.
“What? Killing a single bird is nothing to gawk at. Just how weak did you think I was? Whatever, just get on with it already.”
So he said, but even Zackary, the captain of the Sixth Knight Brigade, had trouble with a Dream Bird last time! It’s a B-rank monster, for crying out loud!
Despite my shock, Desmond nonchalantly returned his sword to its scabbard and took a few steps back.
W-well, I guess that’s just the Tiger of Náv for you.
Having fought one myself, I knew the fact that Desmond killed a Dream Bird in only one attack was nothing short of incredible. But out of consideration for the princess and Charlotte, both timid children, he was playing down how dangerous the monster had been.
Still full of admiration, I said, “Wow, I had absolutely no idea you were such an amazing captain!”
He grimaced. “Do you treat all captains so rudely, Fia? I don’t know if Cyril’s into that sort of beratement, but it is absolutely not my thing.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to be rude,” I said, bowing my head. “As an apology, allow me to tell Captain Cyril what you just said.”
A bit panicked, he replied, “Wh-what, Fia?! I was obviously joking, c’mon! I’m an openhearted captain who can take whatever you say in stride! Man, all you First Knight Brigade knights are just as uptight—I mean, uh…straitlaced! You’re all as straitlaced as your captain! Would it kill you to joke a little?”
I watched as he frantically piled on words and thought to myself that he really was a fine captain, even if he was kind of rude.
After I took my hands off Charlotte’s, she looked at me with soft, uncertain eyes.
“A-all done…?” she said without confidence, half asking me. She certainly didn’t seem like a saint who had just made a potion.
Though it was kind of sidelined as an objective, my initial goal was to pass on my hearing recovery potion-making process to her. It didn’t seem like she grasped it yet, so I’d have to teach her some other time.
I put my hands on my cheeks and exclaimed, “Charlotte, that’s amazing! You’ve perfectly made two hearing restoration potions! You must be a genius to do so well on your first try!”
Desmond frowned for some reason. “Fia, quit subjecting us to your terrible acting! Everyone might be kind enough to look the other way when you’re like this, but nobody ever actually falls for it, y’know?” He sighed. “The potion-making failed, right? Then just say so. We can’t give the Skerno royal family failed potions, so hand ’em over to me and I’ll dispose of them. Don’t worry about it Lady Charlotte; chances were low from the start.”
I looked up at Desmond and beckoned him to crouch down.
Being the kind man that he was, he actually did it. “What?”
I moved around to his left side, covered my mouth with my hands, and whispered, “Captain Desmond, could you please treat me to dinner for a week?”
He visibly stiffened, then quickly distanced himself, seeming wary of me.
I put on a cherubic smile. “Well?”
He hesitated for a moment. After reading my expression however, he seemed to deem whatever I said to be safe and slowly nodded. “Sure…?”
I triumphantly exclaimed, “Mu ha ha ha ha ha! You fell for it! I just asked if you’d be okay with buying me dinner for a week straight, and you said yes! All these knights here are my witnesses!”
The other knights seemed a bit taken aback and far less enthusiastic than me. One half-heartedly said, “Er…I suppose he did agree?”
Desmond matched my energy, however. “What?!” he hollered. “That’s playing dirty! Don’t you feel terrible making such a selfish request with a purehearted smile?!”
“Yeah, well, you reap what you sow for pretending like your hearing was fine despite your left ear being deaf! You wouldn’t have fallen for it if you weren’t putting on airs!”
The instant I said that, everyone froze.
“What?! But how did you know?!” Desmond exclaimed.
“Wait, it’s true? You can’t hear out of one ear, Captain?!” a knight exclaimed.
Desmond grimaced like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He seemed to accept defeat. “Ugh…come to think of it, you even noticed the commander’s old injury, didn’t you, Fia? All right, it’s true. My left ear has been getting a bit hard to hear out of for a while, but I’ve been too busy to really do anything about it. Before I knew it, I had gone deaf in it. When I finally got it checked out by a doctor, they told me it was stress. Apparently, if you don’t take care of hearing problems quickly, they’ll become permanent after a month or two.”
“C-Captain…” The knights swayed a bit, seeming unsteady on their feet.
“I’m fine,” he said nonchalantly. “I still have another ear to work with.”
So he said, but he likely knew full well how big of a problem losing hearing in an ear was. With just one ear, it was harder to judge the direction and distance of sounds—a fatal drawback for a knight. Furthermore, if the cause was stress, then he had every right to complain to the knights under him, and yet he made a point not to. Even if he grumbled about this and that, he never pushed blame onto people when things got serious. Such a man was deserving of respect.
I handed one of the potions to him. “Here, why don’t you test for yourself if this potion is fake or not? The only ingredients used were harmless herbs and fruit, so nothing bad can come from drinking it.”
“Fine…but if it doesn’t work, we’re not letting the Skerno Kingdom bring back the other.” In a quieter voice I couldn’t quite make out, he muttered, “Man, why have I always been made the test subject since the whole Black King thing?!” He downed the contents of the vial in one go. “There. Nothing’s changed.”
“Well, of course not,” I said. “Its effects aren’t instant like healing potions. Should we leave the forest for now, seeing as our business here is done?”
Following my suggestion, we left the forest.
The moment we returned, Desmond rode up to me without even bothering to get off his horse first.
“F-Fia, my left ear can hear!” he exclaimed.
I put my hands on my hips and triumphantly exclaimed, “Well, of course it can hear! Would you expect anything less from a saint as great as Charlotte?”
“O-oh, right! Thank you so much, Lady Charlotte!” He clasped his hands together and bowed his head with gratitude. His earlier comment about being fine with one working ear was just bravado, it seemed.
Having overheard, Princess Gerda was overjoyed. “Wait, the hearing restoration potion actually worked?! Th-that’s incredible!”
In the carriage on the way back, she’d told me that her older brother had similarly lost his hearing in one ear from overwork, which was why she was here looking for a way to help him. With the other hearing restoration potion held tightly in her hands, she returned to her country that same day.
Of course, no good deed goes unrewarded. For a whole week afterward, Charlotte and I were treated to luxurious dinners by Desmond. Miraculously, Desmond didn’t utter a single word of complaint the whole time, no matter how much we ate or drank. Far from it, he seemed eager to order us more.
Cyril seemed a little put off by all this, muttering something about it only being natural that knights look out for each other, so the idea that one should get special treatment for doing something that was a given was wrong. He had a point, but…surely a teeny-tiny reward like this was fine, right?
I continued to stuff my cheeks with the highest-grade meat there was, basking in the worldliest of joys.
Side Story:
Sirius Questions Serafina on the Similarities Between Dolphins and Jellyfish
I WAS TAKING A STROLL with Sirius in the garden when I happened across Canopus frowning intensely as he read a letter. Worried about grim news, I stopped and observed him for a bit.
Sirius, seeing that I was worried, decided to ask Canopus directly. “Canopus, what is that letter? Has something happened?”
Canopus looked up from the letter with a start, his eyes widening when he noticed us. “Please excuse my inattentiveness. I was just reading a report from my hometown.”
“That’s fine, but has something serious happened?” It wasn’t often he had such a grim look to him, so I was worried.
“No, it’s just a normal report, but…it seems they will be hosting a festival every year in Sutherland to commemorate the day you visited. They’re hoping to showcase our folk dances at the festival and seem to have decided our best dancers will do a jellyfish dance first.”
“Oh…oh!” I understood at once why Canopus was so hesitant. He was trying to protect me from Sirius—or to be more exact, one of Sirius’s lectures. My gut instinct was telling me this topic was dangerous, so I quickly moved to end it. “I-I see! Well, that festival sounds like it’ll be a lot of fun.”
I tried to walk away then, but Sirius stood in my way, crossing his arms with deep creases in his brow. “Canopus, why would your best dancers go first? Isn’t it standard to have the children perform first at such an event?”
Gahhh! Sirius is just too sharp… I thought, flustered. It was honestly crazy how he could fish out something wrong from Canopus’s fairly unassuming words.
Canopus cast his gaze down. “Normally, yes, that would be standard. However, it seems the people of Sutherland wish to have their best dance first, specifically to commemorate Lady Serafina’s visit.”
He spoke fluidly, saying nothing I could find unnatural. I thought I was in the clear and mentally thanked my capable knight for getting me off scot-free, but my royal guard captain was sadly even more capable and somehow derived the truth from what Canopus said.
“I see… Serafina, you fell asleep midway through the first dance when the Sutherlanders performed for you, didn’t you?” Though he framed it as a question, it was a statement. How he could be so certain was beyond me, but he was indeed correct.
I knew better than to give him a clear yes or no and instead kept my mouth shut, trying my best to smile. But I quickly realized that even if I didn’t say anything, he could just question Canopus and extrapolate even more problematic truths from what he said. I had to get us away from Canopus before this hole we were in got deeper.
“S-Sirius,” I said, “look! There’s some yummy-looking white fruits over on that side of the garden…”
To my surprise, he flat-out ignored me for once and questioned Canopus again: “And why is the dance being performed a jellyfish dance? Weren’t dolphins worshipped as divine messengers in Sutherland because the area was home to so many? I’d understand if it were a dolphin dance, but I just can’t recall that locale having anything to do with jellyfish.”
