Chapter 29

Chapter 29

“You don’t look well,” Duke Seymour commented gruffly, watching me fidget with the daisies. He was the second person to point out that I wasn’t looking my best.

Pilav, that bastard! You’ve ruined my baby-smooth complexion! This face was my greatest treasure. My irritation toward Pilav only grew.

Seeing my expression harden, the duke frowned. “If it’s on account of that Montes boy, don’t bother yourself with him. Deborah, you are my only daughter. Why would you behave so childishly and give the lowly gossips something to talk about?” he asked, visibly upset.

It seemed as if he had heard about what happened at the Academy. Ugh! After all my hard work to get myself in his good graces again, too! Something was bubbling angrily inside me. Staring directly into the duke’s cold eyes, I said, “I’m not upset by that stupid Montes, who can’t take a hint.”

“What?”

“I’m sure you’ll find this hard to believe, considering the way I’ve behaved in the past. But unlike before, this time, nobody actually saw me harass the lady, simply because I didn’t do it. That particular rumor only spread because Pilav Montes was seen carrying her around on the grounds after she got hurt.”

“That’s what the rumor does seem to focus on, I suppose...” the duke admitted somewhat dubiously. He seemed to accept my version of events, however.

That Pilav really made waves by storming around with her in his arms. The rumors going around had barely any concrete details about what I’d actually done. I was just a backdrop to their beautiful romance.

“You have a point,” he said. “If you’d really planned to make trouble this time, you’d have attacked the girl the moment he showed up with her.”

I guess Deborah being such a simple-minded villainess benefits me at times. Relieved that the duke seemed inclined to believe me this time, I pointed at the daisies.

“I looked pale because I was worried about these flowers. They’re special since you planted them yourself.”

He frowned. “The flowers? What an odd thing to say.”

“I mean it. As you can see, only the daisies’ leaves are withering.”

He bent down, studying the flowers carefully. “I think you might be right.”

“There’s a good reason for it. Daisies can’t grow in this soil.”

“How do you know that?”

I pointed to a patch of blue hydrangeas blooming nearby. “The hydrangeas are blue, instead of red. That means the soil is acidic. Daisies are not well suited to acidic soil.”

Curiosity flickered in his cold eyes. “So, Deborah. What do you suggest we do with these daisies now? If they’ve been planted in unsuitable soil, will you pull them out and return them to their original place? They’ll wither and die in the process.”

As a mage he was by nature technically minded, so he immediately began searching for a solution to the problem. This was exactly what I’d intended by bringing the daisies up since I’d wanted to steer the conversation away from Pilav.

“Father. The soil is the problem, so why would we pull up the flowers,” I said.

He tilted his head. “You want to change the soil somehow? I know of no spell that will make the soil suitable for growing flowers.”

“It’d be inefficient to use magic.”

People in this world tended to rely too much on mana and magic. Mana was infinite and magic could solve just about any problem, but sometimes there were much easier solutions that required just a bit of observation and thought.

“What do you propose, then?” he asked.

“We just need to scatter some soot over the ground and the problem will solve itself.”

“Soot? Why so?”

“It will neutralize the soil since soot is alkaline.”

“I suppose that is a much simpler solution than using magic,” he nodded, rubbing his thin lips. He glanced at me, frowning at me like I was an odd puzzle. “But I’ve never heard that soot could be used for this purpose. How did you come to know about it, Deborah? From the state of these daisies, I doubt even the gardener has heard of this method.”

“I... chanced upon it while reading in the library.” In reality, I’d learned about it during a science class in my past life, but I lied about where I’d heard about it. It wasn’t likely the duke would search through all those books just to confirm I was telling the truth.

“Ah. So that’s why you’ve been spending so much time in the library recently. So you can take better care of the flowers...” Having come to his own conclusions about my intentions, he suddenly cleared his throat loudly and shook his head. “Ahem. What are we going to do with you? Do you like the flower garden I created that much?”

“It’s a lovely garden you put a lot of effort into, more beautiful than any jewel. I’d like to take good care of it, as a member of the Seymour family.”

Why did I get the feeling that the only thing I’d gotten good at in this world was coming up with flattery on the spot?

“Frankly, I’d prefer it if you started taking more of an interest in your terrible grades, rather than the flowers, but I’ll admit that this is a welcome change.”

“I’m also more interested in my studies these days.” Seeing that he’d taken the bait, I began reeling him in. There was something I’d been meaning to confirm.

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t just been studying flowers. I’ve also been studying magical formulas.”

“You? Studying formulas?” Obvious confusion flooded Duke Seymour’s silver eyes. He seemed both mystified and shocked.

Wow. How insulting. I supposed it was only to be expected, though. Deborah had hated the mere sight of even the easiest formulas, all of which involved basic arithmetic. She had been practically allergic to them. I, on the other hand, was an engineering student who was used to solving calculus problems.

“Hmm. Deborah, what matters most is that you’re willing to try. Do your best, since no effort in life is wasted,” he murmured sympathetically, his tone heavy with pity. I detected a note of sympathy directed at the girl who had the least magical talent of anyone in his family—immediate or otherwise.

“But I have a question,” I continued solemnly.

“What’s that?”

“Why does everyone solve the formulas so slowly? Frankly, I was shocked that it took them so long.”

“What do you mean?”

“The other students took more than five minutes to solve something that I had finished in under a minute. It’s a little frustrating if I’m honest.”

During a recent magic formula class, the professor, Kyle, had once again shown a strong desire to actually teach as little as humanly possible. He’d thrown another problem at us, similar to the one he’d given the first class, and promptly left the room.

A support spell for magical augmentation? I was supposedly a formula for enhancing the destructive power of offensive magic, but to my eyes, it had been a simple arithmetic sequence. On the first day, I’d solved the problem and immediately left, not wanting to waste any time. But this time I’d lingered, looking around the room. And I discovered something interesting.

All of the students had been using an inefficient technique that had been created by an archmage of Tegea.

“They’re all slow, you say?” the duke said, looking interested.

“Yes. A simple example of this is a problem used to find the total amount of mana required for an area spell takes everyone else at least ten minutes. It takes me only five.”

“How would you solve it in only five minutes?” He sounded doubtful.

I smiled triumphantly. I knew it. As I’d guessed, this world did not have anything that was equivalent to the many established mathematical rules in my world. I’d have to look through some more formula texts, but Duke Seymour was supposed to be the best mage in the empire. If this was his reaction, I was probably right.

“Frankly, I don’t even need five. A minute will suffice.”

“Deborah, you don’t have a talent for jokes. That’s enough.”

“I wouldn’t dare joke about something like this. If you don’t believe me, I can show you myself.”

“Let’s go into my office,” he suggested quickly, seeing that I was being serious. He had his aide bring an area spell formula for me to solve.

As soon as I sat down at the table I cautiously asked, “Father, can you please show me how you would solve it first?”

“Of course.”

The duke proceeded with the same ancient technique used by the other students, the one developed in Tegea. It seemed there had been no developments whatsoever in this field since then. Or perhaps the long-winded equations were necessary to properly channel the mana? There was no way for me to know since I couldn’t control mana.

“Father. Why is such a slow, inefficient method necessary?”

The duke looked taken aback before regarding me with a pinched brow.