Chapter 8
Chapter 8. Ugly Flower (4)
"...Haa."
Penelope dragged her heavy feet as if they weighed a thousand pounds.
Penelope is basically an active person.
Given that horseback riding and hunting were her hobbies, one night of camping outdoors wasn't worth complaining about.
The deflated sighs constantly leaking out were due to the disgraceful behavior she had shown Jurgen this morning.
Should she have apologized more properly?
But nobles don't apologize to commoners.
At most, with the greatest concession, ‘That incident was regrettable’ would be the limit.
Anyway, that's how it's decided.
Moreover, wasn't it thanks to her Emerald permit that he could come to harvest on the 4th floor of the Labyrinth Demon Realm?
Penelope had merely thrown a small tantrum while already having shown kindness.
Plus minus zero.
Now there are no remaining debts between them!
If anything, she'll give him a gift when they get out!
Unlike Penelope, who muttered this but felt no relief in her heart...
"How much further do we have to go?"
"...Just keep going this way for about 5 more minutes."
"Thank you."
Jurgen wasn't particularly bothered.
Though he was scolded first thing upon waking, wasn't she already a prickly young lady?
She probably had a bad dream, so it's understandable.
It's not like he showed consideration expecting profound gratitude.
Originally, at that age, people grumble and get irritated over trivial things.
Besides, Jurgen had a grand wish great enough to make her sudden outburst seem trivial.
Cola.
He needs to make cola quickly.
"We seem to be arriving soon."
"Oh, I see. Quite fast."
As a result of Penelope doing her utmost to guide the way to make up for her mistake, the two reached the Demon Realm's 4th floor faster than scheduled.
The lukewarm wind blowing through the passage gaps announced they were approaching the first farming location, the 'Cinnamon Reward Room.'
"We found it properly."
Thus, the structure of the Labyrinth Demon Realm was closer to an ant nest than a simple maze.
After passing through narrow, winding mazes, 'reward rooms' where various resources could be harvested would appear.
"Wow..."
After checking the map and turning the corner, Penelope exclaimed at the spectacular scene that unfolded.
To put it simply, that place was like a huge greenhouse.
A massive cavity with a ceiling nearly several dozen meters high.
From the ceiling, indescribable mystical light brightly illuminated the cavity like the sun.
Lush trees lined up over fertile soil, shaking their green leaves, and the humid air pleasantly tickled the nose.
"Amazing. Who could have made such a place?"
"The most surprising point is different."
"What is it?"
"Even if you harvest all of this, it grows back quickly after just a little time passes."
Perhaps it was thanks to encountering this greenery after wandering through mazes where no trace of natural scenery could be found?
Penelope's gloom also lifted a little.
Though she knew it intellectually, she hadn't realized it would be this mystical.
"Wait just a moment."
Jurgen temporarily put down his bag and headed toward the trees.
About 10-15 meters tall, with dark brown bark and leaves the size of an adult woman's palm.
When he picked up fallen leaves and rubbed them in his hands to smell, a subtle sharp fragrance spread.
Fortunately, they had found the right place.
Penelope, who had regained her energy, approached curiously.
"What are you checking so carefully?"
"To confirm if this is the tree I was looking for."
"Look here. Just by the smell, it's obviously cinnamon."
"There are types of cinnamon too. Ceylon and Cassia. This one is Cassia."
"Isn't it all the same cinnamon?"
"It's not."
Cinnamon is largely divided into Ceylon and Cassia.
First, Ceylon.
Distributed in the form of thin paper rolled up after being thoroughly dried, characterized by sweet fragrance and delicate softness.
Because both production and harvesting are difficult, it's classified as a luxury item.
If a menu with 'cinnamon' in the name appears at modern restaurants or somewhat expensive cafes, this type is usually used.
On the other hand, Cassia looks cheap from its appearance.
The distribution form is similar to Ceylon but much cruder in appearance, and proportionally cheaper in price, mainly used in industrial products.
It has almost no 'eugenol' component responsible for soft fragrance, so the spicy, sharp pungent scent is very strong.
If you think of the difference between cinnamon latte (Ceylon) and Korean cinnamon punch (Cassia), you can intuitively understand the difference.
So what was used as food ingredients in Britannia was only Ceylon.
Cassia had only very small demand for insect repelling.
"......"
Disappointment appeared on Penelope's face after hearing the explanation.
Despite diligently guiding to make up for her morning mistake, didn't she draw a dud among the reward rooms?
"Don't worry. You guided well."
"...Really?"
As I said again, Ceylon is a luxury item and Cassia is clearly an inferior product.
But the possibility of a beverage company staking everything on cost reduction using luxury items is very slim.
That is.
"This one goes into cola."
"Of course I knew that would be the case. My palate is quite accurate."
Only then did Penelope's asymmetrically distorted eyebrows straighten.
Seeing her return to being snippy after looking upset like a sick puppy all day, her mood seemed to have improved considerably.
Jurgen thought he was beginning to understand what kind of personality she had.
"Show me how to harvest. I'll gladly help."
"If it were Ceylon, I'd have to scrape only the inner bark of 2-3 year old young trees, but Cassia is much simpler. Older trees are fine too, and the outer bark is also used."
Penelope pulled up the corners of her mouth meaningfully.
Good.
Finally, the opportunity to show her skills had arrived.
The fact that the opponent for demonstrating alchemy was a tree rather than a monster was deflating, but where else could this be?
"To summarize, we just need to cut them all down, right?"
"Oho, can you do it?"
"I'm strong enough to peel more than tree bark."
Penelope took out a silver-coated wooden case from her waist.
A rectangular shape with rounded edges, slightly smaller than a forearm.
An elegant rose pattern was engraved in the center.
It's a 'palette' that alchemists carry to stably store alchemical catalysts.
"Stay behind me so you don't get caught up."
The catalyst she chose while opening the palette was a 'Wind Feather.'
A catalyst with lapis lazuli embedded in the tip of a white seagull feather.
Also, because it was made by a verified alchemical academy, both material and completion were excellent.
But good catalysts don't guarantee good magic.
Catalysts are ultimately just tools.
How you conduct them and what magic you use is purely the practitioner's capability.
As one alchemist, Jurgen was also interested in what level the regular young lady's skills would be.
"Huuuu..."
Penelope placed the feather between her crossed palms and blew her breath into it.
Then with a quite serious expression, she extended her horizontally stacked hands in front of her chest.
Using magic felt unfamiliar since it had been so long.
When she drew up magic power to activate the catalyst, familiar sensations wrapped around her body.
First, project magic power to draw out wind power from the catalyst.
Compression.
Forge that wind into blade form.
Launch.
Finally, fire in all directions.
"Running Wind."
Twung.
With the sound of plucking a low-pitched cello string, thousands of blades danced out from between Penelope's hands.
The identity of the blades was a compressed wind shot out.
The transparent wind's charge quietly swept through the reward room spanning about two basketball courts.
—Thudududuk
Shortly after, the Cassia trees poured down onto the floor in chopped cube form.
Because the cuts were so sharp, the results of the cutting appeared half a beat late.
"Oho."
Penelope's skills were quite good even from Jurgen's perspective.
Since she said she was a 4th-rank Alchemist, he thought she could freely handle wind feathers...
The completion of the magic was higher than expected.
The sharpness and transparency of blades woven from wind.
The control power to divide thousands of blades into uniform sizes and launch them simultaneously.
The concentration of power that chopped hundreds of trees at once without raising a speck of dust was also excellent.
However.
'Something's strange.'
He felt a strange sense of incongruity from the waves that rang when Penelope built her 'code.'
The magic itself was excellent, but somehow felt unnatural?
'Is there some problem with her magic circuits?'
To make an analogy, it felt like watching a unicycle rather than a proper bicycle with two wheels.
The result of pedaling forward is the same, but there was subtle incongruity in the process.
He couldn't know the details.
Perhaps it was just that Penelope's imagination for materializing magic was lacking.
He briefly went off on a tangent, but there's Penelope waiting for praise in front of him.
As a regular customer, he should give some lip service.
"Amazing. I can't spare my praise."
"It's nothing special."
Whatever her inner thoughts, Jurgen gave seal-like applause, and Penelope shrugged her shoulders and responded nonchalantly.
The wisdom heat that warms the brain when constructing magic and the thrill felt when magic power runs through body circuits.
The liberation felt when firing loaded magic and the pride that her skills hadn't rusted.
It's been the best mood in a long time.
With Jurgen's admiration and exclamations added on top, her starved need for recognition was filled, so Penelope's white cheeks flushed peach-colored.
She wanted to show off more, but doing so might make her seem weightless.
Acting like this level is routine would make her seem more special.
And Penelope hadn't shown all her competence yet.
"The processing seems to be done. So how do you plan to take the harvested items?"
Even if the wood is well-processed in cube block form, carrying it out of the labyrinth is another problem.
Moreover, today they don't just need to take cinnamon trees, but also pass through nutmeg, vanilla bean, and neroli reward rooms for harvesting.
Generally, this is solved by hiring porters for the party, but there are only two people here.
That is, a desperate crisis where Jurgen would be troubled.
"I do have a bag. If you need it, I could specially lend it to you."
Having set the stage, Penelope showed off her saddlebag at her side.
The ivory-colored saddlebag that matched her dress well looked like just a fashion item at first glance.
Because the design emphasized aesthetic beauty rather than functionality from the start.
"It's an enchanted item, so it should be able to hold everything."
However, this saddlebag was something that would make adventurers drool.
It's a luxury item combining expansion magic with weight reduction that adventurers of ordinary rank couldn't even dream of due to price.
You could say it was her ace in the hole prepared in anticipation of this situation.
However.
"Miss Penelope, sorry, what did you just say?"
Penelope soon witnessed an unbelievable sight.
Black tentacles were wriggling out of Jurgen's leather bag.
Tentacles that grabbed wood pieces like frog tongues were moving materials into the bag.
"A monster?"
"Ah, let me introduce you. This is my familiar Vic."
"A familiar? You were a beast tamer?"
"Not exactly that... Anyway, say hello, Vic. This is our regular Miss Penelope."
Vic waved one tentacle to greet the greatly shocked Penelope.
"No way..."
It's not that she'd never heard of it.
She learned in university that though monsters basically antagonize humanity, rarely 'beast tamers' who command monsters exist.
The legendary adventurer 'Ravina,' revered as the 'Queen of Monsters,' is the most representative example.
Since it's greatly influenced by innate talent, once you're a beast tamer, you're evaluated as having combat power equivalent to a 2nd-rank Alchemist.
Recalling that memory, Penelope flinched and asked.
"So... how strong is your familiar?"
"It's not particularly strong. As you can see, it's not combat-type, right? Still, it has the habit of storing items, so it's the very best as a bag substitute."
"So it's not more impressive than my magic."
"Of course not."
Though it was somewhat fortunate that the familiar named Vic—such an ill-fitting name—wasn't a powerful monster...
Still, she felt slightly disturbed.
She had laid out the mat and demonstrated her special skill, but the picture became ambiguous when Jurgen timely revealed his familiar.
The gap that was originally between a 4th-rank Alchemist and a civilian was neutralized by the gap between a 4th-rank Alchemist and a beast tamer.
[Candy]
"Good work."
About 3 minutes elapsed.
Vic succeeded in collecting all the Cassia trees that were in the reward room.
It was amazing speed incomparable to doing it by hand.
"Now, would you guide us to the next reward room?"
"Haa, alright, alright."
That day, Penelope and Jurgen went through similar processes to thoroughly clean out the 4th floor reward rooms.
Though it might have been an unsatisfying harvest for Penelope who thirsted for recognition, with this, all material collection was complete.