Published at 22nd of January 2024 4:54 pm

Chapter 375 Part 1

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

Among the stars twinkling in deep indigo, can fly like a bird in the sky long after the sun has set, you will see a cluster of lights on the ground so bright that they illuminate the clouds from below.

It is the royal capital. There are many people living within the high walls of the city.

「Okay, let’s start the family meeting right away. We have 『the maintenance of the new garden forest』 as our topic of discussion today.」

The light outside the city walls is like dots of light spread sparsely. In one of those dots of lights, about ten minutes west of the royal capital by golem carriage, to be precise is where Tauro lives.

「I want to create a main street that will be the face of the garden.」

As I sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, I looked at the caterpillar, dung beetle, and turtle sitting on a bath towel and on the wooden floor. All of them are spirit beasts and my familiars.

The reason I bring this up is because the other day, Imosuke asked me what I wanted to do with the garden.

(But he looked troubled when I tried to leave the task to him.)

Thinking back, it was like when someone asked you 『what do you want to eat?』, only for you to reply with 『anything’s fine』. After reflecting on the situation, I decided to give clear instructions.

「Take a look at this.」

I spread out a hand-drawn plan of the property, measured by my steps, in the middle of the three animals and myself, and continues.

「This is the specific plan I have for this project. Go straight from the gate to the pond in the center of the property, circle the pond there, and return to the gate.」

I slide my finger on the map, draw a circle, and pull it toward where the front gate is. Next, I tapped my finger on the shoreline of the pond opposite the gate.

「The medicinal tree where Imosuke is always around is here. So, it will be a round trip from this house by the gate to the medicinal tree and back to the gate.」

One side of this rectangular-shaped property is about 200 meters, and the diameter of the pond is about 50 meters. Therefore, this path would be about 300 meters to and from the property.

I would like to take a walk while patrolling the garden forest using this path. It would be a good waking-up activity in the morning.

「And then, I want you to make a tunnel of flowers in this straight line.」

The path is wide and high enough for me to pass through even surrounded by flowers on both sides and overhead. I had already explained it to Imosuke and Dangorou the other day, but for Zaratan, who was not there at the time, I used gestures to convey what it looked like.

It seemed that he understood and the knowledgeable and long-lived turtle nodded his head in interest.

「For how do you make it, Imosuke, can you explain it in my stead?」

It’s impossible for me to set up a flower arch that will be the framework for the flower tunnel in a straight line that will be about 70 meters long. However, after consulting with Imosuke who’s a specialist in plants, he told me that it’s possible.

It might be better to leave it to Imosuke to explain the details.

『Leave it to me!』

Imosuke lifts the front half of his body as if he were puffing his chest while moving his wart-like legs.

The wave that came from him was uplifting and positive. Looks like he’s happy that I asked him a favor.

『You do this here, and then…』

What Imosuke told Dangorou and Zaratan while wandering around on the plan laid out on the floor was 『We plant trees at equal spacing on both sides of the road to form a line of trees and make a flower arch with ivy crawling over the overlapping branches』.

When they were satisfied with the plan, they looked up at me from the top of the drawing.

「You want me to sprinkle potions instead of fertilizer after you planted the seeds? Sure, I’ll sprinkle as much as you want.」

The mysterious statue lent me the ability to cast magic to heal injuries, illnesses, and status abnormalities, and to create potions with the same effect.

To be frank, I can’t use it all before the day changes and the number of potions I can make resets, leaving me with a wasted surplus of energy.

(Hm? Well, whatever.)

For a moment, I thought I saw a glint in Dangorou’s eye. But it should be fine.

(Our house this time is built on top of the ground after all.)

It’s different from the house we lived in before, where a part of the rooftop on the three-story building was used as a garden.

There, digging too deep into the ground would cause leaks in the rooms below. But such a thing can’t happen here.

『Can I summon them?』

The wave came from Imosuke. When I asked him who he meant, he said, 『bees type magic beasts that live in the Spirit Forest』.

He wants them to help pollinate the many flowers that will bloom in our spacious garden.

「But aren’t they your natural enemies?」

When caterpillars eat leaves, the scent of grass rising from the cut will attract bees.

This seems to be the plant’s way of defending itself, and this is the reason why bees are attracted to the grass when it is cut.

『It’s okay.』

I was worried, but he said they’re honeybees so it’s all right. Now that he mentioned it, it’s true that the carnivorous bees are wasps and hornets.

『We can also get honey!』

What’s more, we can negotiate with them to give some of their honey to us as rent.

(Homemade honey collected from the flowers in the Garden Forest, huh…)

I bet it’ll be very tasty and nourishing. How could I refuse this offer?

「By all means, please. The one who will go is Zaratan and… who would be good to do the recruitment I wonder?」

For Imosuke’s summon to work, the consent of the other party is required.

Zaratan, the grandpa-like turtle, can use transfer magic, but he is too big of a spirit beast and I can imagine the other party running away because they’re scared of him. Therefore, we need a person in charge of talking to them.

『How about the goat with twisted horns?』

It was Zaratan and it’s as he said, Capricorns are agile and strong on rough terrain and if it’s them, they won’t slip and fall from his shell. It would be a good choice.

「Okay, I’ll leave it to you guys. Have a safe trip~」

The elves are now in tatters, so there should be no danger, unlike last time. Still, we should be on our guard.

After a little more chit-chat, I went out into the garden with my familiars. The garden was dark, but that was not a problem as there were mushrooms called the White Lady, which emit light, growing around the garden.

I walked to the medicinal tree with three of them on my body and dropped the caterpillar on the branch, the dung beetle at the base of the tree, and the turtle into the pond.

「See you tomorrow. Good night.」

I said goodbye to them while waving my hand and returned to the house by the wall, visualizing a tunnel of flowers in the night view of the garden.

***

The next morning, I walk through the garden forest with a watering can in my right hand, Imosuke on my head, and Dangoro in tow.

「Okay okay, this is enough, right?」

Imosuke scatters sesame seed-like seeds from his buttocks as feces, and Dangoro carefully buries each seed in the right spots, while I water them with the watering can as they tell me to.

What’s inside this watering can is a C-rank potion diluted with water.

(I have no place to use anything higher than D-rank after all.)

The reason is that the highest rank available on the market is D-rank. And to make a C-rank potion, a pharmacist professor at the Royal Magic Academy would have to put his heart and soul into it, and for an ordinary potion-maker like me to bring in a C-rank potion would be too conspicuous.

This is why I only deliver D-rank and lower to the merchant guild.

「You guys must be hungry, right? Let’s go to the medicinal tree to rest.」

Both of my familiars nodded their heads so I headed to the other side of the pond. Then, I scooped water from the pond with the watering can and looked around to see the state of the pond.

「Zaratan’s not here, huh.」

When those words slip out of my mouth, Imosuke, who had begun to eat leaves on the branch, replied that he had left first thing in the morning. He added that bees sleep in the hive at night, so it’s best to meet them in the light of day.

After a short rest, I got up and told my familiars.

「With this pace, we will be able to finish sowing seeds by the end of the day. Then, we can start working on the road tomorrow.」

The soon-to-be pathway was originally paved with bricks instead of cobblestones. However, since some of them are cracked or missing in places we need to replace them.

(It’s not that many by the looks of it, so it won’t take all day, but…)

There is no need to buy the materials in the royal capital. The bricks are stacked next to the building where I live, and the sand to fill the spaces between the bricks is placed in a bag next to it.

(Hm?)

As I was thinking about this, a magic circle floated on the surface of the pond, followed by the appearance of a turtle in the center.

「That was quick. You’re back already.」

I called out to Zaratan who was swimming toward me, and he nodded slowly.

A few small shadows jumped down from his back to the shore, which I assumed to be the Capricorns. It also looked as if something else had taken off, so that might have been the bee-shaped magic beast.

『We brought him to check out the place.』

Following my gaze, Zaratan, who seemed to have guessed what I was going to say, said that if the place is okay, the main group will move in all together.

However, by the time he said that, the bees have already seen the flowers in the garden forest, and they are already giving off waves of surprise and excitement. It seems everything’s looking fine.

『He will call them when the flower blooms.』

According to Imosuke, the flower tunnel will be ready in two days. As expected of a world with magic.

And the road repairs were completed the next day, just as I had predicted. All that remained was to wait for the young trees that had sprouted from the seeds to grow.

「So I just have to put a wooden box with a hole in it, and they will put honey in it?」

Wiping the sweat from my forehead with a towel, I sat down on the completed brick-paved path while looking at my workmanship, when Imosuke told me so.

By the way, honeybees don’t need nests because they make their own nests.

(How very kind of them. All right, I’ll prepare it.)

By the way, the box should be big enough to fit a mug, and they want me to drill a hole in the side for entry and exit.

(If I remember correctly, there should be an unused box from when I went to buy food ingredients.)

While trying to remember where I put it, I got up.

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