Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing - Chapter 55

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Successor’s Unknown, But I’ll Just Heal — Episode 55

A medicinal herb that had fallen to the ground once was in worse condition than when it had been freshly harvested.
What’s more, buried among the dirt as it was, the quantity of herbs she’d picked up was far less than what she’d dug.

‘What a waste…….’

She understood perfectly what Lion had meant by his comment.
One fit of temper, and all that careful effort had scattered to nothing.
Freya’s lips pouted out stubbornly.

“There’s no point in picking them up again anyway.”

At this rate, everything would be headed straight for the trash — forget about alchemy…….

Suddenly.

A perfectly intact Aqua Rosemary appeared in her line of sight.

“……!”

It was truly strange.
It was the same herb, harvested the same way.
But how could the medicinal herbs Lion harvested be so pristine?
There wasn’t a trace of hand-pressure on them, and no sap had been squeezed out by the blade’s edge.

“How did you……do that?”

This time too, Freya asked in formal speech.

“Can’t you tell?”
“I can’t. What’s the secret technique?”
“You just harvest with sincerity.”
“…….”

He was spouting nonsense.
It sounded like something from a textbook — study by the book and get a perfect score.
If sincerity was what it took, hadn’t Freya given her all for the entire week?
But it hadn’t worked!

‘He’s definitely lying.’

He just wouldn’t tell her, would he?
Freya’s cheeks puffed out like a poison toad’s.

‘Maybe I really should kidnap him.’

She’d been reluctant to resort to dangerous methods because he was the eldest heir of House Asteri, but this was problematic.
Right. She could just kidnap him for exactly one month, extract the knowledge, and then send him back.
All she’d have to do was signal to the subordinates she’d stationed beforehand.
Or actually, that wasn’t it either.
She could have the Salamander blast him with gas until he passed out, then drag him along…….
While she was thinking such things.

“Come here.”

Lion had somehow moved a step forward and gestured to her.

“……!”

So you’re finally going to explain things properly?
You should have done that from the start!
I grabbed the pointed hat and hurried over to look.

“What is this?”

It wasn’t an alchemical herb.

“It’s not a food ingredient, is it?”
“Look carefully.”

Lion began his explanation in a calm, measured voice.

“You don’t need to pick up a hoe and start harvesting herbs right from the beginning.”

There was something soothing in that tone, and Freyana found herself drawn into his words almost at once.

“First you need to understand what kind of texture this plant has, how it should be harvested.”

Everything was different.
Mushrooms, leaves, roots, fruit—each had its own nature.
Whether it sprouts from soil or must be dug up.
Or whether it needs to be cut or pulled from branches.
Only by understanding the principle behind each can you minimize damage.

……

It wasn’t unfamiliar knowledge.
She’d simply heard it long ago.
The same thing her mother, the mountain keeper, had taught her.
The essence of things in the mountains, that they shouldn’t be harmed carelessly.
So many decades had passed that she’d forgotten without realizing it, and once she’d fled the mountains for the shadowed underworld, the memory faded entirely.
In the underworld, seeing plants in their natural state was like plucking stars from the sky.
Everything that appeared on the black market had been processed.
Weeds on the street lay trampled in filth, and flowers that decorated homes were arranged in vases—you couldn’t tell if they came from earth or sky without checking a book.
But now.
Being here like this, I’m starting to remember something……
Not knowledge exactly, but the feeling I had when I listened to my mother’s words back when she was the mountain keeper.
As Freyana listened with that uncertain, dawning awareness, Lion picked one of the berries he’d been explaining and slipped it into his mouth.
The red berry popped between his teeth with a soft burst, releasing a fresh, tart aroma that flooded his senses.

‘That smells delicious……’

Now that I think about it, I haven’t had a snack all day in this forest.

‘Maybe I should try one too.’

Freyana reached for a red berry, picked it with a soft pop, and was about to put it in her mouth when—

Smack!

“Oh!”
“No.”

Pitter-patter—

A red berry, even more perfectly ripe than the one Lion had eaten, rolled across the ground.

“No!”

How unfair! He already ate one!

“You have to look carefully before you eat.”

Before she could say anything, Lion picked up a fallen fruit from the ground and began explaining.

“Look here. See how the shape is a bit different?”
“Now that you mention it…….”

Indeed, the fruit in Lion’s hand and the one on the ground had subtly different stems.

“You have to pay attention when you eat. Even if they’re in the same place, they can be different fruits. Here, try this one.”

His tone was rather like he was speaking to a child…….
Realizing it would be faster to give up on pointing that out, Freyanya accepted the fruit Lion offered and ate it.

Pop!

It burst in her mouth like a pomegranate, but the juice flowed out like grapes.
A flavor that seemed to quench thirst and satisfy hunger for sweetness all at once!

‘How does Lion Asteri know everything?’

She was a half-elf, and despite having lived considerably longer than this Lion Asteri, there was so much she didn’t know.
Even things she’d read about in books were quite different from encountering them in reality.
Since they came from nature, the shapes and textures were all different!
Freyanya ate another bite of the fruit.
She’d never known this fruit could taste like this!
The popping texture as it burst, and the soft seeds inside.
If it were preserved in sugar, it could become quite a popular snack.
How had no one discovered this before!
Likely because similar varieties of fruit contained poison, just as Freyanya herself had learned through her mistake!

‘As expected of Lion Asteri. His eye for detail is remarkable.’

Perhaps kidnapping him outright might not be such a bad idea after all.

Nom.

Freyanya continued eating the fruits while devising her sinister plan.

“…….”

And Lion, for his part, simply kept handing fruits to the tiny half-elf and watching her quietly.

‘She’s eating quite a lot more than I expected.’

He’d only meant for her to taste it.
But she seemed to have taken a real liking to it.

‘Is she starving?’

He never would have guessed the one who used to send potions from the underground was like this.
When he first saw those potions, he’d thought she was quite a gloomy character, but seeing her in person, she seemed rather young, really.
If he’d known this would be the case, he should have at least added a “Nice work!” sticker when checking her score.

‘Is she perhaps being exploited forcibly in the underground?’

No, she seemed to be able to come and go freely, so that probably wasn’t it, but…….
Well, I’m not sure. At any rate, he didn’t seem like someone worth being that cautious about.
Of course, Elvia had said, “No matter how harmless he appears, he comes from the underworld, so you mustn’t let your guard down.” But…

Glance.

From Lion’s perspective, the half-elf was full of openings.
If Lion hadn’t stopped him just moments ago, he would have eaten a fruit that brought fever, stomach cramps, and diarrhea, and been laid up in misery.

“Still…”
“…?”
“This won’t do.”

In the end, after Freyanya had devoured every fruit in the surrounding area, she wiped her juice-stained lips with the back of her hand and resolved firmly.

‘I’ll kidnap him.’

Just one month, no more, no less!
If I invite him as a distinguished guest from the underworld and create a luxurious environment no less grand than House Asteri’s, wouldn’t that be perfect?

“Lion Asteri!”

Freyanya thrust her index finger straight at Lion.

“You will become my master…”

At the very moment she was about to summon a Salamander.

“That would be difficult.”

A desolate voice echoed from the darkness, and then…
Freyanya’s body vanished without a trace.

Thump.

Only the hoe and basket she had been holding remained on the ground.

“My goodness!”

Lion watched the scene and calmly expressed his disapproval.
There was a folk saying that in Mimir Forest, those who harbor wicked intentions are taken by witches.
A rumor that had only just begun.
At any rate, Lion wasn’t entirely sure, but that half-elf appeared to have harbored such wicked intentions.

“I suppose I should head back early today.”

Lion picked up the abandoned basket and hoe and left the forest.
Once the matter was settled, Elvia would inform him of the outcome, he thought.
Surely she wouldn’t kill him?

* * *

The detention chamber beneath the Asteri Family Estate.

“…Shall we kill him?”
“We cannot kill him outright.”

The moment the voices of a man and woman reached her ears, Freyanya jolted awake.

‘What on earth is happening?’

Freya couldn’t make sense of what had just happened.
She’d made up her mind to kidnap Lion Asteri, blinked once, and her vision had darkened before she fell unconscious.
When she opened her eyes again, the location had changed, and now she found herself bound to a chair, surrounded by a group of people.
Freya instinctively swallowed her scream and rolled her eyes carefully.
Grey eyes glinting through the darkness caught her attention, as did a violet gaze that made her skin crawl.

Ah.

She understood by pure instinct.
The heir to House Asteri.
Ricshel Asteri.
He’d acted personally.

Gulp.

So the rumor about the two brothers getting along well was true after all.

This couldn’t be happening.

Brothers from a noble house being close was impossible by any reasonable standard.
Even among ordinary noble families, succession disputes led to fratricide and worse with alarming regularity.
And this was House Asteri, a family of great mages.
Even if Patrick Asteri’s influence as an archmage prevented them from actually killing each other, there was no reason for them to be on such good terms as to dispatch enemies for one another.

Still, there had to be some way out of this.

The heir Ricshel Asteri and what appeared to be his retainer—a sorceress of unknown power.
These two alone were dangerous enough, but the real threat hadn’t shown himself yet.
Patrick Asteri.
The master of this estate.
If he appeared in person, she would undoubtedly meet a silent, ignominious end right here.
So she needed to prove her innocence before that happened.
Yes, she’d never had any intention to kidnap anyone.
Even if she had been thinking of kidnapping, it wasn’t the brutal kind they imagined—she’d only meant to take him on as a teacher.
And fortunately, she’d never actually spoken those true kidnapping plans aloud.
There was always a way out, even when the world came crashing down.

“Um, wait! I think there’s been some misunderstanding here.”

Freya opened her mouth, making her voice as frail and gentle as she could manage.

“You’re awake,” a voice said.
“More importantly—misunderstanding?”
“Shall we just kill her?”

They weren’t listening.
She’d just have to keep talking.

“I only wanted to take Lion Asteri as my teacher because I so admired and was amazed by his talent…….”
“A woman who wants to take someone as her teacher wouldn’t hide her retainers outside the forest. Your words don’t hold together.”
“That was merely a precaution for unforeseen circumstances, I truly had no such intention……!”

Though she had, of course.
She’d planned to abduct him outright and lock him away in the best-kept place in the underworld, forcing him to do alchemy for her.
But ultimately, she hadn’t done it, had she?
As she continued to lie even to herself—

-You hid retainers as well?

The lights in the basement blazed to life, and a figure emerged alongside a massive surge of magical power.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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