BXBX NOVEL Chapter 77
“… I-I picked it up from the ground.”
Heinz showed tremendous wits.
“Really?”
“Yes, I saw it lying on the ground in the forest near the greenhouse. Is there something wrong…?”
“Give it to me. No, wait. Wash it till it’s squeaky clean, then bring it back to me.”
“…Understood, Your Grace.”
Heinz gulped.
He barely escaped from death.
* * *
As promised, Caville caught a bucket full of fish.
Thanks to that, all of the servants were able to enjoy excellent fish dishes made by the mansion’s chef.
In the late afternoon, Elody was trying to make various types of alcohol drinks with her maids.
Peaches, black raspberries, magnolia berries, mulberries, raspberries, and mushrooms were used as ingredients to make the alcohol.
She also decided to make jam with the raspberries tomorrow.
“Finally!”
“I’m so excited for this, madame!”
“Me too!”
Marie was really excited because she really liked alcohol.
“Shall I make the plants grow quickly again with my magic?”
“Yes! Good luck, madame!” Marie exclaimed.
“What do you want to eat the most?”
“That!”
What Marie pointed to was a large bottle of black raspberry.
‘She sure is a drinker, she knows what kind of wine tastes the best…’
Elody laughed inside and took a reagent out of her drawer. It was a reagent used to speed up aging in herbs and to ripen fruits faster.
She opened the lid of black raspberries and added a few drops of reagent. The black raspberry quickly ripened and gave off a sweet scent.
The maids who remained in the greenhouse enjoyed the black raspberry wine with Elody.
“Madame, does this wine have health benefits? If so, what are they?”
“Huh?”
Elody paused at Anna’s question.
The black raspberry had lots of effects. However, it was well known to reinvigorate…
Virility.
In Elody’s previous life, the wine was called “Bokbunjajoo” which means Korean Raspberry Wine. There was an old saying that said the black raspberry wine could make one’s manhood very powerful.
‘It’s insanely embarrassing to say though…’
“That…”
“……”
Everyone stared at Elody with anticipation.
A sweat dripped down from her forehead.
“Men, it’s good for men.”
All the maids giggled as Elody spoke in a shy manner.
“For men? Good how?”
“Uh, well… I-I’m sure you guys know! B-but it’s good for women too!”
At Elody’s answer, the maids laughed all the more.
In the meantime, Marie’s eyes glimmered with hope.
* * *
The next day, someone knocked on the door of Caville’s office.
“Come in.”
It was Marie who opened the door to Caville’s office.
“What’s going on? Is there something wrong with my wife?”
“No. The madame is perfectly fine. However, I have something to give to you, Your Grace.”
Marie laid down a bottle of black raspberry wine on top of Caville’s desk. It was one of the bottles she got from Elody yesterday.
“What is it?”
“Your Grace the Duke.”
“……”
“As your humble servant. I kindly ask you to drink this… No, you must drink this at all costs.”
“…?”
“This is crucial for your future, my lord.”
Caville could only blink his eyes out of confusion.
* * *
Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the Temple of Cernoir was barely completed.
After returning to the temple, Priest Amos immediately summoned Theodore.
“Sir Theodore, how dare you lay your hands on the duke’s wife… What were you thinking?”
“……”
Priest Amos clicked his tongue.
Sir Theodore was famous as a cold ice-block when it came to treating or dealing with ladies. Most women in the capital had tried to seduce him, but many failed. Everyone knew that talking to him was like talking to a brick wall. He was… very closed-off and guarded.
But…
‘Why is this apathetic paladin suddenly showing interest in women? And in the duchess at that!’
Priest Amos just couldn’t understand.
‘Hmm…?’
But then again, it wasn’t a bad thing.
One of the Temple’s goals was to take away Caville’s spirit.
Meanwhile, the duchess was a mage who was being watched by the Temple. She wasn’t from the tower but had outstanding talent in magic…
The Temple didn’t want the Duke of Cernoir to get involved with Princess Larissa…
However, even if the Duke and the Duchess continued to be together, there was nothing they could gain from it.
If so, then it would be better to bring the duchess to side with the Temple.
‘Well, we had another goal in mind anyway, so it should be easier this way…’
Priest Amos had received another order given by none other than the High Priest.
Priest Amos glanced back at Theodore who stood silently with a blunt expression on his face.
He was definitely good-looking. Handsome enough to make women fall in love with only his face. Furthermore, if Sir Theodore also had feelings for the Duchess…
“Sir Theodore, have you fallen for her?”
“……”
Theodore with his eyebrows creased stared at Priest Amos.
The corners of Priest Amos’s mouth curled up viciously.
The Commander of the Paladins was the perfect chess piece he needed to use.
In the distant past, there were five high priests.
They sealed the power of the spirit after the death of the legendary archmage, Magnaponithesia.
After using all of their divine powers to seal the spirits, all of them died at the same time.
The Temple of Thysser carved massive statues on their grounds to pay respects to their lost souls.
But why did they seal the archmage’s spirits?
Well, it was simple.
It was to hide the spirits’ powers and to further enhance their divine power.
But that was just an old story.
The current high priest was a man called Zion, and he, unsurprisingly, had different views with the old high priests.
He thought that rather than sealing the spirit’s powers, it would be better to use them to enhance their divine power.
If he knew how to break the spirit’s seal, he would have done so earlier.
However, the Duke of Cernoir suddenly summoned a spirit on the battlefield. And what’s even more shocking was the fact that the spirit was ifrit, the Spirit King of Fire!
To think that the spirit would appear once again…
High Priest Zion had always been visiting the statues of the five high priests every day. Not to pray for them, but to curse at their idiocy.
‘Those fools…’
They should have tried to control the spirits, not seal them away!
High Priest Zion truly wanted to covet that power.
Furthermore, he knew that spirits can create elemental crystals.
This was confidential information that even the emperor didn’t know.
If that greedy emperor knew of this, he would go crazy and do everything he could just to take control of the spirit’s power.
‘But such power should never be taken by someone like him…’
High Priest Zion decided to take the power of the spirit for himself.
He did not know that Ifrit and Caville were connected to each other and were bound by mana. He simply thought that he had to kill the duke to get the spirit.
Thus, Zion sent a top-secret divine magic tool to Priest Amos.
The magic tool was made by taking and remodeling other magic tools they had gotten from the war with the Empire of Urta.
‘Those barbarians have finally proven to be useful.’
Zion immediately used it to create a more powerful magic tool. Then, he experimented the efficacy of the tool on a junior priest.
“Ahhhhh!”
The junior priest screamed loudly in pain before quickly becoming a lifeless corpse.
High Priest Zion showed no guilt whatsoever. Instead, he smiled at the fact that his magic tool had worked perfectly on his lab rat.
“Magnificent! Hahaha!”
Thus, a powerful magic tool was born. One that was able to suck the life and magic out of the most powerful mages and priests.
In order to elevate the name of the gods throughout the continent, this was something that High Priest Zion had to do.
He recalled the order he had given to Priest Amos.
“Be sure to take the spirit’s power from the duke, and absorb the duchess’s magical power into this magic tool. Do you understand?”
“Yes, High Priest.”
Caville Cernoir wasn’t the only one he needed to use the magic tool on.
Elody McClaire was also their purpose.
* * *
The next day.
Elody cooked and ate pine mushrooms with Anna and Solar.
“How’s the taste, Anna?”
“Ha…. it’s insanely good, madame!”
“What about you, Dame Solar?”
“It’s delicious…!”
The juiciness of the well-cooked pine mushrooms was truly splendid. Anna and Solar couldn’t stop telling her how much they liked the taste.
After eating, Elody worked on her research again.
From today onwards, she would be busy with work.
She had to make various medicines from the mushrooms and fruits she collected.
Elody had just finished making a medication to decrease blood pressure and even made a strawberry flavored cold medicine for young children. She had also made several more magic tools but most of them still had to be massed-produced.
Next to her was Anna and Solar who were making jam from raspberries.
“Are you selling this too, madame?”
“Well, there’s no harm in selling it.”
Elody intended on raking in a lot of money from all over the continent.
After Elody was done doing research, she headed to the greenhouse.
She was there to see the growth of the fruit seeds she modified using elemental crystals.
But someone had already come before her.
“Ifrit, what are you doing here?”
“You said that something better than peaches was growing here. But why aren’t they growing?”
“Hmm…”
Because of the mushrooms, she was distracted and didn’t have time to care for the seeds.
Elody reached out her hand and blasted more energy into the place where she had planted the seed.
Ifrit watched silently.
“It seems that the growth is a little slow…”
“…….”
Ifrit was utterly disappointed.
However, he looked cute, so Elody started stroking him again.
But then.
“Huh?”
Tiny sprouts began to grow through the soil. It was growing so fast that Elody could not believe her eyes.
“What the?!”
Ifrit was startled and stepped back.
The shoots began to take shape. And before long, the fruit she had been waiting for finally appeared before her.
Elody blinked as she watched the red strawberry.
It was huge. The strawberry was as big as her palm.
And then, Ifrit quickly ran to the field and began to bite the strawberry.
“Delicious!”
It tasted different from peaches.
Ifrit began to gobble down the strawberries like a starved dog.
The purpose of making this seed in the first place was to develop it as a special product of the duchy.
But looking at Ifrit… it seemed that she might have to plant more of these soon.
‘I’ll plant more.’
Elody then experimented on planting only the ordinary strawberry seeds that weren’t enhanced with elemental crystals.
Likewise, a large strawberry plant grew.
To Elody’s taste buds, it tasted the same. But Ifrit’s reaction was completely different from hers.
“This one’s mine!”
Ifrit was madly obsessed with the strawberries that were enhanced with elemental crystals.
Fortunately with this, Elody knew that it was unlikely that ifrit would seek for more strawberries by scouring the whole area.
Elody began to mass produce the regular strawberry seeds.
If she distributed it to the younger people and promoted it as a specialty of the duchy, the younger people would also be able to earn a lot of money from it.
In order to make the duchy rich, the number of the citizens had to increase.
‘That’s why I’ll need to reinforce more soldiers and knights.’
Ever since that day, Elody had been busier than ever.
Elody’s goal was to make as many pills as possible before Sirka returned.
Meanwhile, Caville was worried about Elody, who worked late every day.
As if fainting, he fell on the bed and rolled around while watching Elody sleep.
In the meantime, he couldn’t sleep because of the black raspberry he drank every day. He didn’t know why, but he felt energized whenever he drank it. So he would have trouble falling asleep.
But one day, when everything seemed to be going smoothly…
A big problem arose.
“The strawberries! All of my strawberries are gone!”
: Hello everyone. So I have made a mistake. All this time I wrote Amos as a high priest when in fact he was a normal priest (I thought 신관 was high priest and turns out I was wrong, 대신관 is high priest). So yeah, I’m sorry for the mistranslation, I really should’ve looked it up on google before writing it down. And lastly, I am unfortunately too lazy to re-edit the s (cause there’s a lot ). So I hope you guys can forgive me this time. Thank you.