Thanks to the golden rose Asella brought, I was able to enhance the candy.
―――――――――――
· Golden Honey Candy
· Effects when consumed
- Heals 1.5 HP over 6 hours from internal bleeding damage
- Reduces abdominal pain
The taste will melt your tongue!
―――――――――――
I've created an excellent candy that not only covers the reduction but provides additional recovery.
Putting it directly in my mouth, I feel like I've escaped a race that was heading straight toward death.
'Even yellow roses aren't enough anymore.'
Thanks to Asella gathering quite a few golden roses, I can manage for a while.
I need to find a way to cultivate golden roses, but the only land available in the Imperial Palace is the backyard of Wolgwang Palace, so I should send seeds to my family home.
If I entrust Neria with greenhouse construction methods, she'll soon fill an entire mountain with golden roses. She's a reliable little sister.
'Anyway, I owe my life to Asella this time.'
Indeed, after hundreds of repetitions, all sorts of strange things happen.
Since I'm indebted to her, I should repay her.
"Princess."
"Yes?"
"I've received a great favor this time. The grace you've bestowed upon a mere court physician..."
"Shh."
Asella pressed her index finger to her lips with an annoyed expression.
"I told you. I hate stuffy speech."
"You did. Actually, so do I."
Ten years in the future, Asella would immediately crush the fingers of any noble who showed the slightest disrespect.
She must not have fully tasted power yet.
"Then how should I repay you for today?"
"Repayment, huh."
Asella rose from her seat.
Her hand gripped her staff tightly.
"Young Lord, will you become the greatest court physician?"
"I don't know about the greatest, but I'd like to be the most famous doctor."
"I see."
I'm not sure what her intention was with that question, but she seemed to have found the answer she wanted.
"Then I will become the Emperor of the Empire."
"What?"
I don't understand how she reached that conclusion.
Asella's thought process was not easy for an ordinary person like me to follow.
She pouted at my reaction, pushing out her lower lip.
"Is that not enough?"
"No, of course it is."
Go ahead and unify the continent if being Emperor isn't enough.
That would create a new path to destruction and increase the bad endings to a thousand.
[No. 012: The Empire's Destruction 30% → 8%]
Conversely, the system notified me of a decreased probability for the Empire's destruction ending.
This meant Asella's hatred for the Imperial Palace had diminished, and she now saw it as a place worth living in.
Today, most of the knights cheered after witnessing Asella's heroic actions at the end.
Though she doesn't show it, Asella loves praise. Perhaps that's why she decided the Imperial family was worth keeping around.
"I think I can use Recall one more time now."
Asella concentrated.
After completing the casting, a hatchling from her earlier demonstration perched on her hand, fluttering its wings.
"This should be enough."
Shortly after, a flash of light partially destroyed the crudely built hut.
An old man walked in, stepping over the collapsed logs, flicking his comical beard.
"Well, I've been looking all over for you. Couldn't you have revealed your location sooner?"
Seymour approached us with a hearty laugh.
"Master."
"Thanks to you, my vacation is ruined. Though I'm relieved to see both my disciples safe. Oh my, should I have arrived later? I seem to have interrupted a nice moment."
"Stop joking at a time like this. I feel like I could collapse into bed at any moment."
"By yourself?"
"Of course?"
Seymour was asking strange questions. The old man was clearly senile. Even Asella was getting irritated, her expression turning fierce.
"If you're ready, let's head back. High Teleport."
Seymour waved his staff, drawing and connecting six magic circles.
I could only sigh—another teleportation.
Though motion sickness medicine needs to be taken hours before travel to be effective, it's better than nothing, so I searched my coat pocket.
"Hmm."
Many things were missing.
"They got wet in the rain earlier."
The Princess explained calmly without a hint of guilt.
Sure, take everything.
After returning to the Imperial Palace, I ended up groaning in sickness until the next day.
***
"A court physician collapsing before his lord? How pathetic."
After safely returning to Wolgwang Palace via Seymour's teleportation, Asella hurled insults at Lars.
Lars swallowed his cough behind his mask, burying Asella's abuse along with it.
Seymour chuckled merrily as he watched Lars struggle with the aftereffects.
"Take the rest of the day off. I'll check Asella's magic circuits myself."
"I couldn't possibly trouble the Sage..."
"Go when you're told to go."
Only after Asella's command did Lars shuffle away.
Only Asella and Seymour remained in the study room of Wolgwang Palace. Seymour smiled broadly like a traditional mask.
"You showed quite an impressive spell, Asella. I hear you vanquished a dragon."
"Yes."
"Let's talk calmly. The main party from the tournament will return tomorrow as scheduled."
"They return tomorrow."
Despite such an incident, the Emperor intended to fully enjoy his flower viewing.
Well, it would look worse if an annual event were canceled because of mere monsters.
It might give enemy nations the impression that the Empire had weakened.
She decided to accept that he wasn't personally searching for her.
"Recall will be forbidden. You'll be placed under a spatial magic seal. All the mages who were at the tournament will be included. I'll be the one to do it."
"I see."
Asella responded calmly.
Seymour slowly walked around the room but didn't sit down. Having no physical sensation, he felt no discomfort.
"I can guess the construction formula. It's obviously a spell only you could use. You penetrated the fifth magic circle from a higher dimensional direction, didn't you?"
"That's right. As expected of my master."
"We needn't worry about Recall being leaked to other countries, but the Emperor will think differently. That friend has grown more fearful with age."
"But someone teleported the dragon."
"Camilla, I presume."
Silence fell when that name was mentioned.
There were only two people in this world who had taught Asella magic and could understand her spells.
One was here, so the culprit must be the other.
"No evidence would have been left anywhere. The dragon's nest wasn't in the middle realm but beyond the eastern mountain range in unexplored territory. An unexpected location. It was also true that it wasn't far from the tournament grounds."
"...Why would Mother have done this?"
"To ask that question, Asella, we must first ask why Camilla entered the Imperial Palace in the first place."
Seymour spoke matter-of-factly.
"With this incident, it's safe to say Camilla has definitely become your enemy. Be careful for a while. You must distinguish well between allies and enemies."
"Are you my ally, Master?"
"Haha, what a clever child."
Seymour grinned and tapped Asella's crown lightly.
"You know well. I side with the more valuable mage."
"Yes."
Having interacted with Seymour for a long time, Asella knew he was eccentric and obsessed with high-level magic.
He wouldn't show excessive affection even to his best disciple.
"If you want a reliable ally, you should take care of your court physician."
"Lars is..."
Asella thought of him and shook her head.
"I'm not sure. What he's thinking."
"Do you know what you yourself are thinking?"
"The unconscious becomes contaminated the moment it's observed."
"Conversely, if you don't observe it, you'll never know. We call the observation of thoughts 'conversation.'"
Seymour meant that she should have an honest conversation with Lars.
But Asella didn't want to.
He was her subject but also her politically entangled fiancé.
She didn't want to lose the upper hand.
She wanted to keep herself unknowable to him while uncovering everything about him.
'The notebook.'
She remembered the strange sentences written there.
"Master, what would you think of someone who constantly imagines countless ways the world might end or how they might die?"
"One of two things. Either a patient or a prophet."
Asella questioned the unexpected term.
"A prophet?"
"Yes. One must prepare countless possibilities to lie about having foreseen events when they occur. Ninety-nine out of a hundred prophets are frauds."
"Hmm..."
Somehow, Seymour's words struck Asella.
"Then what about the one true prophet?"
"Wouldn't that be a skilled mage who can use Clairvoyance?"
"Clairvoyance."
Asella's eyes sparkled with curiosity at the new term.
"What kind of magic is it?"
"It's time-based magic. It observes all possible events that could occur in the future."
"All possible events?"
"Haha, it only shows countless hypotheticals. We can't say it shows the future that will actually come to us. It's a useless spell."
"For example?"
"Say I roll a die now. Do you think there are six possible outcomes, from one to six?"
"I would think so."
"Clairvoyance shows everything—the die falling to the floor, breaking when it hits the table, someone barging into the room while I'm rolling it. Of course, these are all possibilities. In other timelines, they've already happened."
"So you can't know which number will actually come up when you roll the die."
"Right. To know what comes up when you roll a die, you have to actually do it."
After hearing Seymour's explanation, Asella fell into contemplation.
At any rate, it was magic that derived possibilities based on the present.
She thought it would be quite useful for planning all political scenarios before and after becoming Emperor.
"I'd like to learn it."
"Is that so?"
"Since spatial magic will be forbidden anyway. You said I have a good sense of space-time."
"If not space, then time. Hmm, alright. I'll have to dig through my old texts. For now, rest today. Your magic circuits are completely dried up."
If she learned Clairvoyance, she would see countless futures where Lars meets a miserable end.
She should record them in a crystal ball and tease him thoroughly.
Then he might cling to her skirt in fear.
Imagining Lars's reaction, Asella couldn't help but snicker with delight.