Ellaine’s mother clapped her hands together, eyes sharpened into business mode. “We need to prepare several objects before you leave, my dear. Protective equipment and catalysts—function over form, especially. I must also commission some mana robes for you and enchant them, and some gauntlets with pavise and auracoil. Oh! Madam Saori, I remember you made that lightning cloth for my husband, correct? Would you consider some work?”
“My Lady, Miss Saori has already finished a brilliant dress out of mana threads for the young lady. The quality is of no concern,” Manuela interjected.
“Fabulous, my dear. Josine, set it out for me to see it later.”
“Of course, Madam.”
Seeing her mom work, though, made Ellaine only blush. The flush on her face was barely hidden by her hands. “Mother… why must you say all of this in front of Lady Hestia…”
Welp, parents embarrassing their children is universal, huh?
After Ellaine’s spar with her brother Jonathan, their mother Marianne guided us into her workplace, a room equipped for Marianne to perform her work as an enchanter and artificer. Jonathan left us to get a shower after Marianne gave us a tour through the room. She was now in the process of repairing Tasianna’s catalyst, the orb Kiiro once resided in.
Ignoring Ellaine’s flustered face, Saori responded to Marianne’s offer, “Of course, I will. Since Lady Ellaine will be joining us, preparing appropriate equipment for everybody is essential.”
“Fantastic. Let us do this once everybody arrives in Griffonpeak, since Ellaine must focus on her preparation to return to the academy. I do not know what excuse I will give the academy’s administration to grant Ellaine leave from her studies yet, but I will think of something. Foremost, she must return to school before she may join you,” Marianne stated.
Despite recruiting Ellaine to Aurora, she couldn’t join us on our journey just yet, as she had a responsibility to at least show up at the academy and announce her departure. Just imagine what rumors would end up starting if Ellaine were to suddenly disappear? I mean, the stigma of giving up your succession rights without a fight was already causing her trouble, the last thing I wanted to do was to cause people to think she was also an academy dropout.
So, it was decided that Ellaine would go to Griffonpeak with her brother before officially joining Aurora. As we didn’t have any more plans in Firwood, outside of saying our goodbyes to Lorena, Zeather, and the dwarven blacksmiths, it was also time for us to leave the town. Ellaine had a ton to catch-up on, and the engine of my EXP carry bus was ready to roll.
“All right, this will take a while. Manuela. Josine. My daughter requires a bath after playing outside, so please be so kind and help her clean herself up.” Marianne was right that Ellaine sweated quite a bit during the spar, and she hadn’t changed out of her gambeson yet. She was quickly escorted back to her room.
As they were about to leave, Tasianna and Svena returned from the kitchen with a cart full of snacks and tea, much to Ellaine’s dismay. Her forlorn gaze, as she watched all the snacks and tea move away from her, was a sad sight, but I quickly recovered once I caught a whiff of the assortment of snacks, causing the glutton inside me to be awakened.
“Lady Hestia, we have returned. Which tea would you like to drink today?” Svena asked me as she opened the tea box. After I chose mine, Svena served Marianne, in the meantime, Tasianna placed some snacks on a table beside Marianne’s workstation.
“Oh, what a treat! Lady Hestia, have I already mentioned how much I loved the pastry you presented to us during our first meeting? Absolutely scrumptious,” Marianne sang praises for the snacks laid before her, before taking a bite of some cake. “Mhmm, this is just enticing me to eat more! Thank you, and compliments to the pastry chefs for this creation. I would like to continue enjoying this, but I should get back to work.”
Marianne then took out a monocle from her drawer, which looked similar to the one the High Bishop had, and put it on. She then picked up Tasianna’s orb and began analyzing it, inspecting the crack in detail and the overall form. Since making catalysts and other magic tools was a specialty for alchemists, I didn’t expect Marianne to offer to help, since Ellaine said her mother wasn’t an alchemist.
“My elder sister is my family’s [Alchemy] specialist, and I managed to learn how to repair catalysts from her, since having an alchemist repair anything would be expensive. Andre was elated to hear that when I told him, since none of his relatives are alchemists. Speaking of, I heard that Miss Tasianna began working on creating potions just recently. How was your experience, Miss Fairy?” Marianne asked while her eyes were glued on the catalyst.
“Hard work,” she replied immediately before elaborating on it. “Grinding ingredients, making sure the flame is at an appropriate temperature and also having the correct alcohol for the tonic. It also takes patience until the mixture finishes brewing, similar to cooking or tea making, but failure during alchemy can result in an explosion, or so I’ve heard.”
“That is right. My sister described alchemy similarly.” Marianne then placed the blue catalyst down and directed us to her enchanting table. “Meanwhile, enchanting requires less labor. Inscribing enchanting formulae and then implanting them onto mana clothing with mana is less arduous. Due to the hard work, alchemy, runesmithing, and manatech creation are less popular amongst us nobles. Even amongst Morgiana and Myrddin nobles, enchanting and custom spell creation is considered the ‘fairer’ practice.”
“Elves practice alchemy a lot,” Tasianna remarked.
Marianne nodded with a wide smile, holding back a chuckle. “What irony, correct? We wish to be similar to elves, but our culture still developed differently despite bordering Saelariel. ‘Alchemy is a commoner practice,’ is sadly a common attitude among the lazy and the martial nobles. Thank goodness I became an artificer like my father and learned some alchemy, otherwise the expenses for manatech and catalyst repairs would make Andre go bald.”
I can kinda imagine Marianne putting on a technician’s outfit and just going around the mansion repairing stuff, hehe.
“Alright, let us begin,” Marianne then pulled out an alembic and a pot before she began grinding some white rock in a mortar. “The composition of a catalyst requires some fairnite to prevent mana from escaping the orb outside of the mage’s control. We then mix in arcanuit, the most essential mineral component of a mana battery to store the mana. Most arcane ores can absorb mana, but they cannot store it for a prolonged time or in large quantities since they would just explode. Even eoriant, the dwarven alloy between steel and euorinium, isn’t suitable for a mana battery, but it’s a better material for weapons and armor since it far exceeds arcanuit in toughness.”
“How tough?” I asked.
“If you crack a mana battery, the escaping mana alone causes the alloy to shatter and explode. That’s how fragile arcanuit is, unfortunately. But they have such a long shelf-life that prevents them from degrading like eoriant when they store mana. If the dwarves could prevent mana batteries from exploding from just a crack, then it would be revolutionary,” Marianne lectured us while she was diligently grinding all the materials—which included monster and plant materials—needed to repair the orb. “Oh my, oh my. Goddess Zephira has blessed this orb. This is such an honor for somebody like me to repair it. I should make sure this doesn’t break.”
She then placed the ground materials into the alembic, added some “potion-making” alcohol into it, gave it a good shake, and lit up the bunsen burner. “Alright, the gel requires some time to make, so in the meantime … Lady Hestia, the payment, please.”
Regardless if I was royalty or not, good work deserved payment, especially when it required Marianne to use up her alchemical ingredients. Thankfully, it was a pretty easy deal to fulfill for me.
I took off my white mage robe and activated [Humanize]. Instead of transforming back into a dragon or my minor form, I simply brought out my wings. Glistening crimson red, it was good to see my wings healthy and strong despite not using them as often as I wanted.
“Oh my, they are quite large!” Marianne exclaimed, worried I would knock something over with the sudden appearance of my wings. Still, she stopped worrying the moment she inspected the scales on my wings. “…So this is [Humanize]. I heard that the strength and durability of a dragon’s scales were a testament to their strength and age. Logical, since vitality and wisdom exists, but it’s also because of their tremendous mana.”
My body was literally a tank full of concentrated mana that was strong enough to affect plant growth and also produced strong potions through my blood. It really wouldn’t surprise me if my scales were drenched in mana, especially since most monster parts retained mana after harvesting them off a monster corpse.
Speaking of my wings, I should also ask Marianne about it, even if she couldn’t do it. “Lady Marianne, would it be possible for you to repair my mana paths?”
Unfortunately, she shook her head. “Sadly, I do not have the credentials of a surgeon, nor do I have the tools to begin such an operation. I do remember from your ID copy that the mana paths around your wings were injured? If you wish, I can ask Lady Duchess Morgiana to heal you. She might not consider herself as talented as the elves, but she is still a capable mana surgeon.”
“Really? That would be fantastic! Another reason to go to Griffonpeak on top of all the other reasons.” In a good mood, I pulled out some of my shedded scales from my storage and handed them over to Marianne. “Here you go, Lady Marianne. They are younger scales, but they are mine nonetheless.”
The payment for Tasianna’s catalyst repair was some of my scales. I shed them a while ago and basically treated them like fallen hair, so I didn’t really care about them.
“Thank you very much, Lady Hestia. They aren’t enough for scale mail or a weapon, but I bet they will be good enough for some alchemical tests or jewelry,” Marianne commented, noting that she wanted to present them to her children as presents. One for Jonathan’s graduation and the other for Ellaine’s departure. “Oooh, they grow up too fast. Haaaaaaaaaaa …”
It was a deep sigh. I gave her my blessing. Even if my scales were like “hair” to me, they were as beautiful as small gemstones, if I was allowed to praise myself.
We then spent some time enjoying some tea and pastries while we waited for the alchemical mixture to finish. Once it was done, Marianne poured the content into a beaker, then added the catalyst. She asked Tasianna to pour her mana into the beaker, mentioning that since the orb was made with faefolk mana initially, the magic of a strong fae like Tasianna could further strengthen the catalyst’s durability.
Tasianna frowned for a second, probably remembering how Davison placed Kiiro inside this orb while it was still an onnikai. Was that why the description of the orb mentioned it was “drenched in the mana of a rage-filled onnikai?” It would make sense. Regardless, Tasianna didn’t let that thought stop her as she pressed her hand on the beaker, pouring some of her mana into the gel covering her catalyst.
The gel suddenly began glowing blue. Marianne assured us this was the correct reaction and asked us to continue having patience. “That reminds me, Andre asked me to buy the yeast recipe from you, Lady Hestia.”
“Hmm? Your husband, Lord Helvas?” And I instantly frowned as I remembered Andres Helvas, Ellaine’s father. His first impression wasn’t good.
“Lady Hestia,” Svena nudged me, reminding me that I was inside his house and living here for the moment. Rent free, in fact.
“Ohoho, there is no need to worry, Svena. I can agree that my husband’s behavior was a bit rough for Lady Hestia during our first meeting. He truly only had the mind of a merchant when he saw your cake. He only had eyes on your yeast,” Marianne excused her husband’s behavior during the dinner a few months ago. “Nevertheless, I would ask you to forgive him for his underhanded manner in finding your real identity out. He did want the yeast recipe for monetary value, but he is also a patriot who wanted to make sure you were who you were. It was a logical gamble he made from learning your personality from Barathan, his spies, and the village chief.”
Hearing all of that did make me giggle, as I had already figured he must have prepared himself for the dinner. More than just making a goodnight, he was a noble through and through, which I accepted on that night.
“To be honest, I did chastise him. Reckless fool, won’t you say?” I laughed at Marianne’s comment, agreeing with him. Considering he knew I was a dragon princess when he gave me that bad ID deal, he sure was crazy to be truthful to me. “Goddess protect me, woo … I thought my heart would give out when I also guessed your identity … So, let us forget about it.”
for the moment, if you would please. This deal would benefit House Helvas as a whole, since yeast is desired by all nobles and wealthy merchants to be a scarce luxury until we can re-establish our relationship with the elves. Even then, Artorias wishes to be able to produce yeast independently if possible.”
“It’s fine. I might have a grudge, but not with your family as a whole. I reflected on that day, and it made me aware how much of a ‘fish out of water’ situation that was. I decided to become better, not only as a dragon and idol, but also as a person who has power.” Count Helvas humbled me when it came to social cues, but from failure came growth, which I appreciated somewhat. “Now … speaking of, I must say that the value of yeast must be immense if one of his reasons for angering a ‘possible dragonewt noble or dragon’ was to string me up into a bad deal.”
I still couldn’t understand how Artorias had to rely on the elves for yeast considering how much was right in front of their noses. Yet, nobody had thought of using some beer to make sourdough or something?
“Yes, as an otherworlder, your knowledge is unique. A value cannot be placed on you or Madam Saori purely for this reason. Please, I ask you to sell us your information on yeast.”
I nodded and pointed at Saori. It was time for her to do her thing. She said, “Lady Marianne, if I may ask, how valuable are enchantments?” If there was something to gain from this deal, then Saori would know it better than me.
“Do you mean the cost? Quite a bit, since enchantments are more flexible than armor. It can be worn without armor, prioritizing appearances, or it can further improve defenses and apply stat increasing effects while you are wearing armor. Since enchanting requires training and it’s more exclusive than blacksmithing, enchanters can demand higher prices,” Marianne explained. “Hmm, can I assume you are interested in enchanting your clothing, Madam Saori?”
“Yes, that would be so. Lady Hestia and I still require catalysts, too, so we would need an alchemist’s help,” Saori stated, but she quickly pivoted from her point. She was prodding Marianne for information first. “Nevertheless, from the sound of it, if yeast is this valuable, then we need to look at the bigger picture, correct? If we have the money ourselves, we wouldn’t require a middle-man, so, why not make the money with our knowledge?”
“… I believe I understand what you want,” she smiled.
Saori nodded, also looking happy. “A partnership. We have the ideas and memories, while your family has the capital we need to set everything up. If Artorias considers yeast a luxury product, then we shall sell them at a premium price. We cannot be self-sufficient here, as we are adventurers, so we need somebody we can trust who can handle our facilities as our investors.”
“And House Helvas is trustworthy because we know Lady Hestia’s true status as a princess of Kargryx, and our own daughter is now part of your party. Meaning, this money goes to her protection, allowing my husband and I to support our daughter, indirectly.” Marianna opened up her fan, unable to stop herself from laughing. “… I see I can trust you with my daughter, Madam Saori.”
“Of course, my lady. I will cherish her as a friend and our newest member.”
… Am I the only one who thought that last part sounded weird? No? All right.
Usually, such a deal required a mana contract, binding both parties to fulfill their part of the deal, but Marianne said it wasn’t necessary. House Helvas owed me after the Chezaic affair, since it increased their house’s standing, while Saori mentioned how we had Ellaine as a “hostage” to make them comply. Oi, I just wanted yeast to spread so I could eat more pastries and soft bread, while also helping Ellaine’s house out, not become some overlord prone to kidnapping random girls.
“Let us iron out the details later in Griffonpeak when my husband is around. I will begin allocating funds, though, to acquire the necessary tools upon your request. In any case, by my authority as House Helvas’s matriarch, I shall consider this deal sealed. I swear to the God of Oaths, Kargryxmor, that my words are my bond, that if I or House Helvas were to break them, we would be subject to punishment by Kargryx laws.”
Did you have to make it so dramatic? Why is everybody like this today? Sheesh.
Regardless, I just ignored it as I already trusted her enough. Besides, having had to hold it in for this long since it was a good bargaining chip, I couldn’t help myself from finally revealing the truth. “… So, it’s finally time for me to ask. Lady Marianne, you do know that yeast has been right in front of your nose this whole time, right?”
“Pardon?” Marianne responded with questioning eyes.
Instead of me, Saori stepped in to explain, “Yeast is made through the cultivation of small organisms, which is then used to allow the dough to grow air pockets, which creates the sponginess in our pastries here. To cultivate, yeast requires nutrients. Fruits, wheat, toffels, anything that contains carbohydrates, uhm, sugar—in any of its various forms—is an ideal source.”
I then pulled out my bottle of cultivated yeast from my storage and showed it to Marianne. “Here you go, this is the yeast that Saori and Tasianna used for our cake. It’s made with fragassa, so it has a very fruity taste. There are two versions of yeasts used in bread, the fruity yeast in this jar and something called ‘sourdough,’ which is made with wheat and some salt. As you would expect, the bread would then have a slightly sour taste if we used the latter.”
Saori continued, “Simply leaving some dough in water in an enclosed jar is enough to begin yeast cultivation. Beer also utilizes yeast in its creation.”
“This is yeast?” Marianne asked with doubts filling her voice. “This … I apologize if this sounds rude, Lady Hestia, but this cannot be yeast.”
Now I was tilting my head. “What do you mean?”
“We sometimes receive yeast through less legal sources, and what we receive are small, dry granules that are pinkish in color. It even has a very gem-like appearance. Your ‘yeast’ does not fulfill any of those conditions, and is rather foamy. I cannot help but question this, Lady Hestia,” Marianne looked as if she didn’t know what to do. Her expression was a mix of doubt and confusion.
Ahh, so this is the reason why Artorias still haven’t figured out that yeast was in front of them the whole time! The elves have been supplying them dry, portable yeast this whole time, leading them to have a different idea of how yeast should look!
Although, that does beg the question—how has a baker or any commoner not figured this stuff out yet? You just need one lazy or forgetful baker to leave the dough on the table and boom. ‘Revolutionary!’
“Is something on your mind?” Saori asked me. I explained to her what I just thought, causing her to question the situation too. “In Earth’s history, yeast was used even by the Egyptians, but they believed it was something like a miracle from the gods as they could not understand the fermentation process. Men then began baking bread with beer foam, as they didn’t know about the existence of yeast, but knew beer foam would make bread more delicious.”
“Holy crap! You actually had this in your memory?” I was astounded that Saori would remember something this obscure and uninteresting.
“My professor during university loved traveling, and he knew how dull history can be, so he tried making the seminars more interesting with trivia facts like these. Most Japanese don’t travel a lot like you, Hestia, so it was quite fun for me. Some stuck in my head, and some were forgotten. All this talk about yeast simply jogged my brain.”
Seeing as my parallel minds could dig up any info I forgot from certain subjects like physics and chemistry in the depths of my mind, Saori’s reasoning did make sense.
“Anyway, that still does not explain how Artorias has not discovered it yet. Hmm, that does make me think. We have not tried making sourdough, right, Lady Hestia? Maybe the wheat in Peolynca is different from Earth’s?” The question was directed at Marianne and Barathan, but they couldn’t say anything since it wasn’t like they knew anything about Earth’s wheat in the first place.
I shrugged. “Well, theorizing here won’t make us wiser. Lady Marianne, please trust me on this. As you can see, we manage to make these pastries, and I can assure you that if you try this yeast yourself, you will gain similar results. This fragassa was grown with my mana, but I am sure normal fragassa would also work, and we just used water created through Tasianna’s water magic.”
“Understood. I will trust you, Lady Hestia. You have no reason to lie to us. If you could show Barathan the cultivation process, I would be very thankful. In addition, if your remarks are correct, then it would be best for Artorias if I began experimenting with your theory. It would certainly be an eye-opener if yeast was this easy to make when we had been considering it a luxury up until now. What an embarrassment it would be.”
After performing the cultivation process in front of Barathan, I gave him a set of instructions and the recipe for both sourdough and fruit yeast for future reference. By then, Tasianna’s catalyst repair was finished, the gel hardened and showed no signs of any previous damage. Thankfully, Kiiro’s last gift remained—the orb could absorb mana from others through the mana slime.
We ate some lunch and then went to the market to open our restaurant until it was time to go back and sleep. On the next day, we said goodbye to all the different people we met during our stay in Firwood. Lorena and Ruld, the villagers I met at Carine Village, were surprised to hear I was leaving and a bit sad.
We then said our goodbyes to Zeather and the dwarven blacksmiths, thanking them for everything they had done for us. We wanted to say goodbye to Cernust too, but we couldn’t find him at his inn, so we had to delay it for a different day. We weren’t leaving Firwood just yet.
Our last stop before opening our restaurant was the hunter’s guild.
“The vice guild master left this note for you, Saori,” Melia mentioned, handing us a piece of parchment.
The moment we read it, we rushed out of the hunter’s guild and entered the mercenary guild. We greeted Rachael, one of the guild’s receptionists, and asked her about a certain Quest. It was a recently commissioned Quest and carried a good reward, but every single merc avoided it like the plague, at least according to her.
The reason was clear.
Our departure would have to be delayed.
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Ellaine’s mother clapped her hands together, eyes sharpened into business mode. “We need to prepare several objects before you leave, my dear. Protective equipment and catalysts—function over form, especially. I must also commission some mana robes for you and enchant them, and some gauntlets with pavise and auracoil. Oh! Madam Saori, I remember you made that lightning cloth for my husband, correct? Would you consider some work?”
“My Lady, Miss Saori has already finished a brilliant dress out of mana threads for the young lady. The quality is of no concern,” Manuela interjected.
“Fabulous, my dear. Josine, set it out for me to see it later.”
“Of course, Madam.”
Seeing her mom work, though, made Ellaine only blush. The flush on her face was barely hidden by her hands. “Mother… why must you say all of this in front of Lady Hestia…”
Welp, parents embarrassing their children is universal, huh?
After Ellaine’s spar with her brother Jonathan, their mother Marianne guided us into her workplace, a room equipped for Marianne to perform her work as an enchanter and artificer. Jonathan left us to get a shower after Marianne gave us a tour through the room. She was now in the process of repairing Tasianna’s catalyst, the orb Kiiro once resided in.
Ignoring Ellaine’s flustered face, Saori responded to Marianne’s offer, “Of course, I will. Since Lady Ellaine will be joining us, preparing appropriate equipment for everybody is essential.”
“Fantastic. Let us do this once everybody arrives in Griffonpeak, since Ellaine must focus on her preparation to return to the academy. I do not know what excuse I will give the academy’s administration to grant Ellaine leave from her studies yet, but I will think of something. Foremost, she must return to school before she may join you,” Marianne stated.
Despite recruiting Ellaine to Aurora, she couldn’t join us on our journey just yet, as she had a responsibility to at least show up at the academy and announce her departure. Just imagine what rumors would end up starting if Ellaine were to suddenly disappear? I mean, the stigma of giving up your succession rights without a fight was already causing her trouble, the last thing I wanted to do was to cause people to think she was also an academy dropout.
So, it was decided that Ellaine would go to Griffonpeak with her brother before officially joining Aurora. As we didn’t have any more plans in Firwood, outside of saying our goodbyes to Lorena, Zeather, and the dwarven blacksmiths, it was also time for us to leave the town. Ellaine had a ton to catch-up on, and the engine of my EXP carry bus was ready to roll.
“All right, this will take a while. Manuela. Josine. My daughter requires a bath after playing outside, so please be so kind and help her clean herself up.” Marianne was right that Ellaine sweated quite a bit during the spar, and she hadn’t changed out of her gambeson yet. She was quickly escorted back to her room.
As they were about to leave, Tasianna and Svena returned from the kitchen with a cart full of snacks and tea, much to Ellaine’s dismay. Her forlorn gaze, as she watched all the snacks and tea move away from her, was a sad sight, but I quickly recovered once I caught a whiff of the assortment of snacks, causing the glutton inside me to be awakened.
“Lady Hestia, we have returned. Which tea would you like to drink today?” Svena asked me as she opened the tea box. After I chose mine, Svena served Marianne, in the meantime, Tasianna placed some snacks on a table beside Marianne’s workstation.
“Oh, what a treat! Lady Hestia, have I already mentioned how much I loved the pastry you presented to us during our first meeting? Absolutely scrumptious,” Marianne sang praises for the snacks laid before her, before taking a bite of some cake. “Mhmm, this is just enticing me to eat more! Thank you, and compliments to the pastry chefs for this creation. I would like to continue enjoying this, but I should get back to work.”
Marianne then took out a monocle from her drawer, which looked similar to the one the High Bishop had, and put it on. She then picked up Tasianna’s orb and began analyzing it, inspecting the crack in detail and the overall form. Since making catalysts and other magic tools was a specialty for alchemists, I didn’t expect Marianne to offer to help, since Ellaine said her mother wasn’t an alchemist.
“My elder sister is my family’s [Alchemy] specialist, and I managed to learn how to repair catalysts from her, since having an alchemist repair anything would be expensive. Andre was elated to hear that when I told him, since none of his relatives are alchemists. Speaking of, I heard that Miss Tasianna began working on creating potions just recently. How was your experience, Miss Fairy?” Marianne asked while her eyes were glued on the catalyst.
“Hard work,” she replied immediately before elaborating on it. “Grinding ingredients, making sure the flame is at an appropriate temperature and also having the correct alcohol for the tonic. It also takes patience until the mixture finishes brewing, similar to cooking or tea making, but failure during alchemy can result in an explosion, or so I’ve heard.”
“That is right. My sister described alchemy similarly.” Marianne then placed the blue catalyst down and directed us to her enchanting table. “Meanwhile, enchanting requires less labor. Inscribing enchanting formulae and then implanting them onto mana clothing with mana is less arduous. Due to the hard work, alchemy, runesmithing, and manatech creation are less popular amongst us nobles. Even amongst Morgiana and Myrddin nobles, enchanting and custom spell creation is considered the ‘fairer’ practice.”
“Elves practice alchemy a lot,” Tasianna remarked.
Marianne nodded with a wide smile, holding back a chuckle. “What irony, correct? We wish to be similar to elves, but our culture still developed differently despite bordering Saelariel. ‘Alchemy is a commoner practice,’ is sadly a common attitude among the lazy and the martial nobles. Thank goodness I became an artificer like my father and learned some alchemy, otherwise the expenses for manatech and catalyst repairs would make Andre go bald.”
I can kinda imagine Marianne putting on a technician’s outfit and just going around the mansion repairing stuff, hehe.
“Alright, let us begin,” Marianne then pulled out an alembic and a pot before she began grinding some white rock in a mortar. “The composition of a catalyst requires some fairnite to prevent mana from escaping the orb outside of the mage’s control. We then mix in arcanuit, the most essential mineral component of a mana battery to store the mana. Most arcane ores can absorb mana, but they cannot store it for a prolonged time or in large quantities since they would just explode. Even eoriant, the dwarven alloy between steel and euorinium, isn’t suitable for a mana battery, but it’s a better material for weapons and armor since it far exceeds arcanuit in toughness.”
“How tough?” I asked.
“If you crack a mana battery, the escaping mana alone causes the alloy to shatter and explode. That’s how fragile arcanuit is, unfortunately. But they have such a long shelf-life that prevents them from degrading like eoriant when they store mana. If the dwarves could prevent mana batteries from exploding from just a crack, then it would be revolutionary,” Marianne lectured us while she was diligently grinding all the materials—which included monster and plant materials—needed to repair the orb. “Oh my, oh my. Goddess Zephira has blessed this orb. This is such an honor for somebody like me to repair it. I should make sure this doesn’t break.”
She then placed the ground materials into the alembic, added some “potion-making” alcohol into it, gave it a good shake, and lit up the bunsen burner. “Alright, the gel requires some time to make, so in the meantime … Lady Hestia, the payment, please.”
Regardless if I was royalty or not, good work deserved payment, especially when it required Marianne to use up her alchemical ingredients. Thankfully, it was a pretty easy deal to fulfill for me.
I took off my white mage robe and activated [Humanize]. Instead of transforming back into a dragon or my minor form, I simply brought out my wings. Glistening crimson red, it was good to see my wings healthy and strong despite not using them as often as I wanted.
“Oh my, they are quite large!” Marianne exclaimed, worried I would knock something over with the sudden appearance of my wings. Still, she stopped worrying the moment she inspected the scales on my wings. “…So this is [Humanize]. I heard that the strength and durability of a dragon’s scales were a testament to their strength and age. Logical, since vitality and wisdom exists, but it’s also because of their tremendous mana.”
My body was literally a tank full of concentrated mana that was strong enough to affect plant growth and also produced strong potions through my blood. It really wouldn’t surprise me if my scales were drenched in mana, especially since most monster parts retained mana after harvesting them off a monster corpse.
Speaking of my wings, I should also ask Marianne about it, even if she couldn’t do it. “Lady Marianne, would it be possible for you to repair my mana paths?”
Unfortunately, she shook her head. “Sadly, I do not have the credentials of a surgeon, nor do I have the tools to begin such an operation. I do remember from your ID copy that the mana paths around your wings were injured? If you wish, I can ask Lady Duchess Morgiana to heal you. She might not consider herself as talented as the elves, but she is still a capable mana surgeon.”
“Really? That would be fantastic! Another reason to go to Griffonpeak on top of all the other reasons.” In a good mood, I pulled out some of my shedded scales from my storage and handed them over to Marianne. “Here you go, Lady Marianne. They are younger scales, but they are mine nonetheless.”
The payment for Tasianna’s catalyst repair was some of my scales. I shed them a while ago and basically treated them like fallen hair, so I didn’t really care about them.
“Thank you very much, Lady Hestia. They aren’t enough for scale mail or a weapon, but I bet they will be good enough for some alchemical tests or jewelry,” Marianne commented, noting that she wanted to present them to her children as presents. One for Jonathan’s graduation and the other for Ellaine’s departure. “Oooh, they grow up too fast. Haaaaaaaaaaa …”
It was a deep sigh. I gave her my blessing. Even if my scales were like “hair” to me, they were as beautiful as small gemstones, if I was allowed to praise myself.
We then spent some time enjoying some tea and pastries while we waited for the alchemical mixture to finish. Once it was done, Marianne poured the content into a beaker, then added the catalyst. She asked Tasianna to pour her mana into the beaker, mentioning that since the orb was made with faefolk mana initially, the magic of a strong fae like Tasianna could further strengthen the catalyst’s durability.
Tasianna frowned for a second, probably remembering how Davison placed Kiiro inside this orb while it was still an onnikai. Was that why the description of the orb mentioned it was “drenched in the mana of a rage-filled onnikai?” It would make sense. Regardless, Tasianna didn’t let that thought stop her as she pressed her hand on the beaker, pouring some of her mana into the gel covering her catalyst.
The gel suddenly began glowing blue. Marianne assured us this was the correct reaction and asked us to continue having patience. “That reminds me, Andre asked me to buy the yeast recipe from you, Lady Hestia.”
“Hmm? Your husband, Lord Helvas?” And I instantly frowned as I remembered Andres Helvas, Ellaine’s father. His first impression wasn’t good.
“Lady Hestia,” Svena nudged me, reminding me that I was inside his house and living here for the moment. Rent free, in fact.
“Ohoho, there is no need to worry, Svena. I can agree that my husband’s behavior was a bit rough for Lady Hestia during our first meeting. He truly only had the mind of a merchant when he saw your cake. He only had eyes on your yeast,” Marianne excused her husband’s behavior during the dinner a few months ago. “Nevertheless, I would ask you to forgive him for his underhanded manner in finding your real identity out. He did want the yeast recipe for monetary value, but he is also a patriot who wanted to make sure you were who you were. It was a logical gamble he made from learning your personality from Barathan, his spies, and the village chief.”
Hearing all of that did make me giggle, as I had already figured he must have prepared himself for the dinner. More than just making a goodnight, he was a noble through and through, which I accepted on that night.
“To be honest, I did chastise him. Reckless fool, won’t you say?” I laughed at Marianne’s comment, agreeing with him. Considering he knew I was a dragon princess when he gave me that bad ID deal, he sure was crazy to be truthful to me. “Goddess protect me, woo … I thought my heart would give out when I also guessed your identity … So, let us forget about it.”
for the moment, if you would please. This deal would benefit House Helvas as a whole, since yeast is desired by all nobles and wealthy merchants to be a scarce luxury until we can re-establish our relationship with the elves. Even then, Artorias wishes to be able to produce yeast independently if possible.”
“It’s fine. I might have a grudge, but not with your family as a whole. I reflected on that day, and it made me aware how much of a ‘fish out of water’ situation that was. I decided to become better, not only as a dragon and idol, but also as a person who has power.” Count Helvas humbled me when it came to social cues, but from failure came growth, which I appreciated somewhat. “Now … speaking of, I must say that the value of yeast must be immense if one of his reasons for angering a ‘possible dragonewt noble or dragon’ was to string me up into a bad deal.”
I still couldn’t understand how Artorias had to rely on the elves for yeast considering how much was right in front of their noses. Yet, nobody had thought of using some beer to make sourdough or something?
“Yes, as an otherworlder, your knowledge is unique. A value cannot be placed on you or Madam Saori purely for this reason. Please, I ask you to sell us your information on yeast.”
I nodded and pointed at Saori. It was time for her to do her thing. She said, “Lady Marianne, if I may ask, how valuable are enchantments?” If there was something to gain from this deal, then Saori would know it better than me.
“Do you mean the cost? Quite a bit, since enchantments are more flexible than armor. It can be worn without armor, prioritizing appearances, or it can further improve defenses and apply stat increasing effects while you are wearing armor. Since enchanting requires training and it’s more exclusive than blacksmithing, enchanters can demand higher prices,” Marianne explained. “Hmm, can I assume you are interested in enchanting your clothing, Madam Saori?”
“Yes, that would be so. Lady Hestia and I still require catalysts, too, so we would need an alchemist’s help,” Saori stated, but she quickly pivoted from her point. She was prodding Marianne for information first. “Nevertheless, from the sound of it, if yeast is this valuable, then we need to look at the bigger picture, correct? If we have the money ourselves, we wouldn’t require a middle-man, so, why not make the money with our knowledge?”
“… I believe I understand what you want,” she smiled.
Saori nodded, also looking happy. “A partnership. We have the ideas and memories, while your family has the capital we need to set everything up. If Artorias considers yeast a luxury product, then we shall sell them at a premium price. We cannot be self-sufficient here, as we are adventurers, so we need somebody we can trust who can handle our facilities as our investors.”
“And House Helvas is trustworthy because we know Lady Hestia’s true status as a princess of Kargryx, and our own daughter is now part of your party. Meaning, this money goes to her protection, allowing my husband and I to support our daughter, indirectly.” Marianna opened up her fan, unable to stop herself from laughing. “… I see I can trust you with my daughter, Madam Saori.”
“Of course, my lady. I will cherish her as a friend and our newest member.”
… Am I the only one who thought that last part sounded weird? No? All right.
Usually, such a deal required a mana contract, binding both parties to fulfill their part of the deal, but Marianne said it wasn’t necessary. House Helvas owed me after the Chezaic affair, since it increased their house’s standing, while Saori mentioned how we had Ellaine as a “hostage” to make them comply. Oi, I just wanted yeast to spread so I could eat more pastries and soft bread, while also helping Ellaine’s house out, not become some overlord prone to kidnapping random girls.
“Let us iron out the details later in Griffonpeak when my husband is around. I will begin allocating funds, though, to acquire the necessary tools upon your request. In any case, by my authority as House Helvas’s matriarch, I shall consider this deal sealed. I swear to the God of Oaths, Kargryxmor, that my words are my bond, that if I or House Helvas were to break them, we would be subject to punishment by Kargryx laws.”
Did you have to make it so dramatic? Why is everybody like this today? Sheesh.
Regardless, I just ignored it as I already trusted her enough. Besides, having had to hold it in for this long since it was a good bargaining chip, I couldn’t help myself from finally revealing the truth. “… So, it’s finally time for me to ask. Lady Marianne, you do know that yeast has been right in front of your nose this whole time, right?”
“Pardon?” Marianne responded with questioning eyes.
Instead of me, Saori stepped in to explain, “Yeast is made through the cultivation of small organisms, which is then used to allow the dough to grow air pockets, which creates the sponginess in our pastries here. To cultivate, yeast requires nutrients. Fruits, wheat, toffels, anything that contains carbohydrates, uhm, sugar—in any of its various forms—is an ideal source.”
I then pulled out my bottle of cultivated yeast from my storage and showed it to Marianne. “Here you go, this is the yeast that Saori and Tasianna used for our cake. It’s made with fragassa, so it has a very fruity taste. There are two versions of yeasts used in bread, the fruity yeast in this jar and something called ‘sourdough,’ which is made with wheat and some salt. As you would expect, the bread would then have a slightly sour taste if we used the latter.”
Saori continued, “Simply leaving some dough in water in an enclosed jar is enough to begin yeast cultivation. Beer also utilizes yeast in its creation.”
“This is yeast?” Marianne asked with doubts filling her voice. “This … I apologize if this sounds rude, Lady Hestia, but this cannot be yeast.”
Now I was tilting my head. “What do you mean?”
“We sometimes receive yeast through less legal sources, and what we receive are small, dry granules that are pinkish in color. It even has a very gem-like appearance. Your ‘yeast’ does not fulfill any of those conditions, and is rather foamy. I cannot help but question this, Lady Hestia,” Marianne looked as if she didn’t know what to do. Her expression was a mix of doubt and confusion.
Ahh, so this is the reason why Artorias still haven’t figured out that yeast was in front of them the whole time! The elves have been supplying them dry, portable yeast this whole time, leading them to have a different idea of how yeast should look!
Although, that does beg the question—how has a baker or any commoner not figured this stuff out yet? You just need one lazy or forgetful baker to leave the dough on the table and boom. ‘Revolutionary!’
“Is something on your mind?” Saori asked me. I explained to her what I just thought, causing her to question the situation too. “In Earth’s history, yeast was used even by the Egyptians, but they believed it was something like a miracle from the gods as they could not understand the fermentation process. Men then began baking bread with beer foam, as they didn’t know about the existence of yeast, but knew beer foam would make bread more delicious.”
“Holy crap! You actually had this in your memory?” I was astounded that Saori would remember something this obscure and uninteresting.
“My professor during university loved traveling, and he knew how dull history can be, so he tried making the seminars more interesting with trivia facts like these. Most Japanese don’t travel a lot like you, Hestia, so it was quite fun for me. Some stuck in my head, and some were forgotten. All this talk about yeast simply jogged my brain.”
Seeing as my parallel minds could dig up any info I forgot from certain subjects like physics and chemistry in the depths of my mind, Saori’s reasoning did make sense.
“Anyway, that still does not explain how Artorias has not discovered it yet. Hmm, that does make me think. We have not tried making sourdough, right, Lady Hestia? Maybe the wheat in Peolynca is different from Earth’s?” The question was directed at Marianne and Barathan, but they couldn’t say anything since it wasn’t like they knew anything about Earth’s wheat in the first place.
I shrugged. “Well, theorizing here won’t make us wiser. Lady Marianne, please trust me on this. As you can see, we manage to make these pastries, and I can assure you that if you try this yeast yourself, you will gain similar results. This fragassa was grown with my mana, but I am sure normal fragassa would also work, and we just used water created through Tasianna’s water magic.”
“Understood. I will trust you, Lady Hestia. You have no reason to lie to us. If you could show Barathan the cultivation process, I would be very thankful. In addition, if your remarks are correct, then it would be best for Artorias if I began experimenting with your theory. It would certainly be an eye-opener if yeast was this easy to make when we had been considering it a luxury up until now. What an embarrassment it would be.”
After performing the cultivation process in front of Barathan, I gave him a set of instructions and the recipe for both sourdough and fruit yeast for future reference. By then, Tasianna’s catalyst repair was finished, the gel hardened and showed no signs of any previous damage. Thankfully, Kiiro’s last gift remained—the orb could absorb mana from others through the mana slime.
We ate some lunch and then went to the market to open our restaurant until it was time to go back and sleep. On the next day, we said goodbye to all the different people we met during our stay in Firwood. Lorena and Ruld, the villagers I met at Carine Village, were surprised to hear I was leaving and a bit sad.
We then said our goodbyes to Zeather and the dwarven blacksmiths, thanking them for everything they had done for us. We wanted to say goodbye to Cernust too, but we couldn’t find him at his inn, so we had to delay it for a different day. We weren’t leaving Firwood just yet.
Our last stop before opening our restaurant was the hunter’s guild.
“The vice guild master left this note for you, Saori,” Melia mentioned, handing us a piece of parchment.
The moment we read it, we rushed out of the hunter’s guild and entered the mercenary guild. We greeted Rachael, one of the guild’s receptionists, and asked her about a certain Quest. It was a recently commissioned Quest and carried a good reward, but every single merc avoided it like the plague, at least according to her.
The reason was clear.
Our departure would have to be delayed.
AbyssRaven Hey, remember Aurora's bad luck? Well, at least they are making money now.
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