Fort Geranium

Twelfth Chapter: Examination (Suspicion)

[Mariana Von Ulysses’s Point of View]

“Umm, mistress?” Charlotte calls out with a concerned voice.

“What’s up?” I asked as I continued to do the action that caused her worry in the first place. As a florist I just couldn’t ignore these things that were growing all the way out here so conveniently for me to pick up.

“I- I’m not so sure that you should touch those things so carelessly,” she tried to stop me but she only got as far as placing her hands on my shoulders. “Umm, do you need some help?” She desperately wanted me to stop messing with potentially dangerous objects so she offered to help me herself in order to quickly be done with them.

Without waiting for my answer she slowly reached for the plants. My heart jumped as I fell into a state of panic watching her reach out her hands, “Don’t touch that! Stop!” I shouted with all the air in my lungs.

At my sudden raise in volume she became startled and fell back. “A- ah… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” As if the world would end if she didn’t she apologized numerous times.

“Hah…” I sighed and paused what I was doing for a moment to address her. “Forgive me Charlotte, I didn’t mean to yell at you so suddenly like that, but you shouldn’t be touching these things without proper knowledge and preparation.” I raised my hands to reveal the gloves I was wearing.

“Sorry mistress,” she apologized once more and backed away to observe at a distance. “Umm, they look… disgusting, like ‘eyeballs’,” she grimaces at her own comment.

“That’s an apt way to put them,” I chuckled to myself. “Indeed, their colloquial name is ‘Doll’s eyes’ on the account of their ghastly look and resemblance to eyeballs. It’s actually a plant known as ‘Actaea-Pachypoda’, a severely dangerous plant that can easily kill a full grown adult with just the slightest bit of touch. Everything from its stems to its fruit contain powerful toxin that’d stop your heart.” I casually blurt out horrifying descriptions about the plants as I quickly uproot them with a carefree smile.

That being said, I wasn’t as careless in my approach and properly wore protective gloves and skillfully avoided all possible contact with my skin. These grotesque looking plants, they’re viciously dangerous but that’s the thing that also makes them that much more useful. I’m a simple florist that was thrust into the words of Gods and Demons, so something like this that probably no one outside of herbalists know would definitely come in handy.

“E- eh?! If it’s that dangerous then maybe you shouldn't mess with them! M- mistress, please stop!” practically on the verge of tears Charlotte tried to pry my hands away from the plants. However in fear that something might happen if she made such sudden movements she didn’t put much strength into her pulls, thus I could continue my extraction in relative peace.

“Don’t worry Charlotte, I know what I’m doing,” I say as I put them into a small leather pouch then stuff them into my pockets.

Charlotte breathes a sigh of relief but still gives me quite the concerned looked. “P- please… be careful.” The way she genuinely showed care about my well being, somehow it was all so honoring. I almost felt sorry that I gave her such a scare.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you like that,” I gently stroke her hair- with my poison riddled gloves off of course. “Come, let’s continue with the exam.”

“Yes, I’ll be right behind you, mistress!”

***

“Well, that puts a damper on things,” I commented to myself as I noticed a certain monster walking about before us. I took Charlotte and hid behind a nearby tree the moment I even glimpsed its hideous appearance, but that kind of monster was not one that should lurk around this forest.

I wasn’t an expert on monsters or anything but I had a good grasp of the type of monsters that lived around this forest. Goblins, horned rabbits and maybe some weak slime here and there but what I was looking at was neither of those. “Mistress, could that monster be?” Charlotte asked for confirmation.

“Yeah… that thing’s probably an Orc.” A bipedal boar with muscular structure on par with the bulk of an elephant, with every step there was a small tremor on the ground and the steel-like threads of hair that stuck out like an echidna made me not want to imagine the consequences of smashing into it.

“RAWWRRGHH!!” It shouted a glass shattering, chalkboard scratching, piercing roar that echoed through the forest. I shielded Charlotte’s ears as she clung onto me tightly burying her face into my chest. I could feel her subtly trembling through my clothes but the best I could do for her was return her embrace and try to calm her down.

“Hmm, this is going to be a little troublesome,” I whispered to myself. Uprooting all the trees and smashing boulders, the brutish Orc continued its rampage around the area but it quickly became obvious that it had no intentions of leaving it. This was a problem because in order to accomplish our objectives of making it to the heart of the forest we needed to go through that path. I did light reconnaissance earlier and there were no other alternatives. “Should we run?”

Honestly, an Orc was far beyond what we as mere seven-year-olds were capable of taking out on our own. Goblins and horned rabbits were frail so a few of those could easily be dispatched even with low ranking magic. Orcs were on a different level, that kind of berserker-like strength and stamina, even after what seemed to be thirty minutes of rampage it didn’t seem like it would tire out soon.

The smartest thing to do in this situation was to retreat but for some reason I felt like I could take it on. Of course not like this, right now I was woefully unprepared and needed to gather some equipment before I took on this gargantuan beast. I moved Charlotte to the side and took out the plants that I had gathered on the entrance to this forest. “What do you plan to do mistress?” she asked with a worried tone. “D- don’t tell me you want to fight that thing?! Please reconsider!”

“Shh, don’t raise your voice like that or it’ll notice our presence,” I whispered back to her.

“Ah… umm, mistress, we can’t fight that thing! It’s too dangerous!” she whispered, this time with a desperate tone.

“We definitely can. Or rather, we don’t really have a choice but to to progress with this test.” Though I say that, the main reason I didn’t want to back down was because I was a child of the Ulysses Dukedom. It wasn’t pride but calculated strategy; if I could beat this monster, then it would only improve my reputation.

“… I understand, if that’s what mistress wishes for then I’ll for you,” Charlotte obliges though a hint of dissatisfaction lingers in her tone. I felt sorry for her that she has to accompany me through this entire kerfuffle but without her power I didn't think I could do much.

“Thanks,” I replied. With that I ground down the Dolls Eye into a fine powdery format thus to be easily applied. I had to be extra careful with this especially because every part of the plant was a death sentence if I touched it the wrong way. The wind was no help in this regard either and I had to take that into consideration, dramatically increasing my stress. I slowly carved down the plant one by one and eventually got a small lump of brown and white powder going.

The unique strength of ice type magic was that it could be forged into different shapes. I noted that specific property and conjured up an ‘ice bolt’ spell. A small white sphere with a blue tinted glow hovered just off the palm of my hand. With a little more concentration it was possible to shift the form of this ice bolt by changing the shape of the mana. The other elements weren’t able to do this, well it technically was possible but since they didn’t have a solid base, they’d instantly revert back to its base form. I twisted the mana over and over to turn it into the vague shape of a dagger.

“What is that, mistress?” the tone of worry disappeared from Charlotte’s voice, now she was intrigued.

“A makeshift weapon,” I answered. “By giving it a specific shape like this I can increase its piercing power and ease of handling.”

“I didn’t know ice magic could be used like that,” she nods with enthusiasm as she takes mental notes.

“Aha~ well, since your power is plenty strong enough you don’t have to worry about compensating like this.”

“S- still! I think it is a valuable lesson for me to learn! Thank you very much!”

“Shh~ in case you’ve forgotten, we’re still in detection range of that Orc.” Realizing what she had done, she quickly forced her mouth closed with both hands. Now then, increasing its piercing power is good and all but something like this won’t be enough to take down that massive Orc. The dagger still needed to be a little more potent, thus I took the poison powder and carefully applied it onto the blade tip. I did this several more times before I ended up with 10 poison coated daggers though in retrospect that may have been too many. “Shit, I actually can’t carry this many.”

I can’t get Charlotte to carry this because of how hazardous that is. “Why don’t you use a ‘pouch’?” From a nearby tree branch, a familiar call of a snake cries out to us. Turning back was a small bird colored with death and eyes that reflected a raging inferno.

“W- wha! What’s that?!” Charlotte shouted as I quickly smothered her mouth to shut her up before the Orc really catches on.

“Aegis?” I spoke out its name. “I don’t think this small leather bag will help me with carrying all these daggers,” I claimed as I tossed out a ragged leather pouch I brought from home.

“No, no, not that kind of pouch, you silly goose. What I mean is a ‘dimensional pouch’ that allows you to carry numerous items, kind of like an inventory system you see in those retro RPG games you play so much.”

“How did you know about that?” I ignored his explanation about the dimensional pouch and jumped straight onto the part about me enjoying retro RPGs. “Er, no I mean, I don’t have something like a ‘dimensional pouch’, where the hell would I even get something like that?”

The crow looked at me as if I was retarded, “umm, didn’t you go shopping a few weeks ago? Why didn’t you buy it then?”

“I didn’t know they existed…”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk~ aren’t you a hopeless case. Whatever, I knew it would turn out like this so I’ll give you this on that I found for free,” he shrugged with his wings as though they were hands and dropped a small leathered pouch. “However, do not get into the habit of having me help you.”

This ‘dimensional pouch’ appeared no more different from an ordinary one aside from the small magic circle and gem attached to the side. Was it really that impressive? I took some of the poison daggers and placed them inside one by one and to my surprise they somehow all slipped right in. There wasn’t even a bulge or anything on the side and the weight hadn’t changed. “Hmm~ interesting. Wait, did you say you found this?”

“That’s right, just over this hill, I found it there.”

“What, you mean like it was just lying around for the taking?”

Aegis took his time to answer my questions, “I suppose in a manner of speaking that’s right. What would you say if I found it attached to a corpse?”