CH 28

Episode 28 – The Results of Magical Grass 

TL Note: Sponsored chapter (1/3), other 2 coming tomorrow along with the normal chapter. Thank you to Al for your support!

Before eating the Magical Grass, I started with an appraisal just to check on the plant a little bit.

[Name: Magical Grass]

[Level 14]

The appraisal of a typical medium quality Magical Grass looked like this. The first time I appraised Magical Grass, that second sentence explaining the increase in magic power capacity was not there. That supplementary sentence suddenly appeared one day out of the blue. At that time, I thought it was just a rare effect of that one individual Magical Grass, but, after I appraised some other Magical Grasses, they all had it. So I was able to confirm that it was something along the lines of a hidden effect. This effect could be discovered pretty easily, but the fact that no one had noticed was probably because the effect of Magical Grass was in the class of “Very Low”, just like the Dumbbell Weed’s effect. Although it was a popular plant, unlike Dumbbell Weed, the market price of Magical Grass was still 2 copper coins each. Plus, normal people wouldn’t be taking a large amount of it when their magic power wasn’t reduced to some degree.

After lightly confirming the effect and pondering it for a while, I decided to start eating. I had prepared some water to go with the Magical Grass as well as a table knife, since the Magical Grass leaves were fairly large.

“…Bon appétit.” (Lewin)

★　　　★　　　★

About an hour had passed since I vigorously hyped myself up for eating the Magical Grass. At the start, I had wanted to eat as much Magical Grass as I could without having to use the ingredients I bought, but I was already reaching my limit. I was shredding the Magical Grass into fine pieces with the knife and then washing down the Magical Grass with water without trying to taste it too much. However, the bitter plant extract from the Magical Grass was starting to permeate the water I was drinking along with it. I’d been putting up with it for an hour, but there was a limit to what I could tolerate. Although it wasn’t nearly as bad as Dumbbell Weed, the terrible taste was starting to drive me crazy. I was only 6 portions in… with 136 portions left to go.

…After suffering so much, when I looked over at the massive pile of Magical Grass left, I started to lose heart. From then on, I decided to shift to using the ingredients I had bought. When I was buying things at the market, I was kind of just selecting things at random, so I went to go look at what I had that I could use.

Two hours passed. I was 17 portions in, with 125 left to go. After trying the various ingredients I had bought, the only ones that I thought were actually bearable were the Killer Bee Honey and the Stray Cowbird’s Milk. The other ingredients were weaker than the bitterness of the Magical Grass and started introducing some really nasty tastes into the mix.

The worst one was probably the Wild Boar Steak à la Grilled Magical Grass. I heard there was a culinary method of grilling the herbs, so I tried to apply this method to the Magical Grass. It turned out that when Magical Grass was heated, it started to give off a soul-rending stench which was just out of this world. When this happened, the innkeeper who didn’t even say anything that one time I dumped the contents of my herb bag on the floor, came knocking at my door, saying I was causing a ‘great deal of inconvenience’ to the rest of the guests at the inn.

Leaving aside those…horror stories, I figured it was good to just go with using copious amounts of the honey and milk for now. When using those ingredients, the bitter suffering from the Magical Grass was reduced to a more tolerable level. But… the problem was the cost of the Killer Bee Honey. The honey I bought this time was 1 silver coin for one small bottle. It was the cheapest ingredient that would add sweetness to a dish, but I couldn’t really afford to buy it in substantial amounts. I decided to go with this way of eating for now: wash down the shredded Magical Grass with Stray Cowbird’s Milk, and throw in a spoonful of some Killer Bee Honey every once in a while if I got bored of the taste.

As I continued to eat Magical Grass, half a day went by. The dappled rays of sunlight beating down through the window were seen off by the tranquility of night. I wasn’t sure if it was because I drank too much milk or had too much Magical Grass, but my stomach was a total wreck. Today alone, I had somehow managed to ingest 50 portions of Magical Grass. There were a little under 90 portions left, but I seriously had to give myself a pat on the back for today’s performance. Despite the sharp pain coming from my stomach, I continued to eat, all the way up until this point.

Phew… my stomach was dying, but at least it was full. No matter how much I struggled, there was no way I would be able to eat even one more piece of Magical Grass today. It was pretty obvious that I didn’t want to see Magical Grass or milk for the rest of my life at this point, but tomorrow, I would have to eat Magical Grass yet again. It was depressing just to think about that, but I had to properly do this in order to carve myself a path to my future.

Oof. If I stayed awake, I would probably vomit, so I decided to call it a day and just go to sleep right then and there. As I thought that, I reached up to put out the lantern, but my hand suddenly stopped. I remembered that I hadn’t yet synthesized any herbs for today, which was my daily routine at this point. I thought for a moment about skipping it today, considering my current state, but I decided in the end it would be better just to do it to see if the effects of the Magical Grass had kicked in yet.

With that said, I started to synthesize some Medical Herbs. I was feeling fine through my first and second ones as always, but when I finished synthesizing the third one, I could still move normally. I wasn’t feeling the weakness effect from consuming all of my magic power!

After not experiencing any noticeable improvement from the Dumbbell Weed, I was totally ecstatic about this visible increase in my abilities. I was curious to see just how much my magic power capacity had increased, so I continued synthesizing more Medical Herbs. I didn’t feel any weakness after finishing the fourth, fifth, or even the sixth one. At this point, I could confirm that my magic power capacity had more than doubled.

However, when I synthesized the seventh one, I was hit with the usual weakness symptom, causing me to collapse backward onto the bed. This much of an improvement in magic power capacity was more than enough to convince me. I strengthened my resolve to continue eating Magical Grass tomorrow.