Sozai Saishu 27

Chapter 27: Searching for Kikyou Flowers

The next day after receiving the request from Claus.

Immediately, I headed towards the Eastern forest to search for the requested materials.

As usual, I used Detection with magic stones as the keyword and proceeded on a safe route far away from monsters.

According to the information provided by Claus, it seems that Yamadokoro, Kikyou flowers, and Kurtz fruits can be found in this forest.

I took out the memo I jotted down yesterday and confirmed the information I have on the materials.

The material called Yamadokoro is a root that grows underground. For me, the illustration in the encyclopedia made me think of it as burdock that branched out like a fork.

Since its roots meander, it is necessary to dig carefully to remove it from the ground.

It seems that it grows naturally in locations where the soil contains a lot of moisture. In this forest specifically, it has been discovered to be growing near the lake.

The Kikyou flower is a light blue flower with petals that resembles the Cosmos flower.

Normally, it will have four petals, but ones with three petals can grow rarely.

And, somehow, it seems that the ones with three petals are more effective to be used as medicine.

Since it grows naturally over a wide area like Mint leaves, it is not difficult to find.

However, it seems that’s not the case for the ones with three petals.

According to Claus, sunny places tend to have more of the three-petal variety.

Lastly, the Kurtz fruit.

It is a small round purple fruit that can swell up greatly when magic power is poured in.

It can absorb a considerable amount of magic power, and it can enlarge to as big as a human face.

It grows naturally in shady areas and seems to be located deep inside the forest, where many monsters reside.

From the above information, let’s search for the commonly found Kikyou flowers first, then Yamadokoro, since I know the specific location of the lake where it grows next to. Finally, I should dive deep into the forest to collect the Kurtz fruits.

After deciding my order of actions, I started my search for Kikyou flowers.

“Kikyou, Detection.”

Since I have seen its illustrations in the encyclopedia, maybe Detection would work.

Having such expectations, I operated Detection, but no material was displayed in my view.

Keeping my hopes up, I tried again outside the previous range and repeated the spell.

However, the result was the same and I could not find any Kikyou flowers.

In the end, it seems to be useless without actually seeing the material with my own eyes. There’s a possibility that there are no Kikyou flowers within range, but if my hypothesis is correct, then it’s impossible to find any using Detection.

Let’s give up using ‘Kikyou’ as the keyword and just use Detection.

Then, materials with colours such as purple, blue, and red were displayed within my sight.

Ah, so many materials I’ve never seen before and yet….! As if seeing a mountain of treasure, I get so excited and I want to appraise and collect everything on impulse, but I have to be patient.

Since my goal today is to collect the requested materials after all.

I shook my head as if to shake off the temptation.

Among the displayed materials, I looked for flowers that are shaped like cosmos.

I compared the silhouettes displayed one by one with the illustrations I had in my memo, and I discovered certain purple-coloured flowers behind the bushes.

When I approached the bush, I saw many light blue flowers blooming among the trees.

【Kikyou】

Flowers that grow naturally in a wide area. Wash it, dry it in the sun, boil and drink it to help with stomachaches, and promote appetite.

There are four-petal and three-petal varieties. The three-petal ones have stronger medicinal properties and the effect is shown more quickly.

Using Appraisal, it seemed that I’ve found it already.

This place is still inside the range where I used Detection earlier. The fact that it did not react to that meant that I can’t use Detection with materials I haven’t seen the real thing before.

Regretfully, my hope of just looking at pictures to use Detection is gone now.

Well, this means that I can enjoy finding it with my own two feet. I’m not that disappointed.

“Now, I only need to find the three-petal ones from all of these–oh?”

About to search for the three-petal one, I suddenly saw a blue-coloured material amongst the cluster of purple ones. I wonder if other materials are mixed in, but probably not.

Reflexively picking it up, it turned out to be a flower with three petals.

“N-no way…. I found it so quickly….”

The rare three-petals Kikyou. I was secretly looking forward to the act of searching for that single item from a myriad of things, like searching for four-leaf clovers when I was young.

To think that it would be this easy to find….

I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown.

…..What is it? It felt like the heart of the excited boy inside me was cooling down all of the sudden.

“That didn’t count! I won’t use Detection and find it with my own eyes!”

I was careful to cover my eyes with both hands and stopped using Detection.

Then, when I gently opened my eyes, I no longer saw any outlined materials.

“Yoshi yoshi! With this, I can search with my own eyes!”

Without Detection, it is now a fair game.

Feeling my tension rising again, I resumed my search for three-petals Kikyou.

“Four-petal, four-petal, four-petal, four-petal…..ah! Three-petal! Nope, a petal fell off ….”

It is difficult to find three-petal ones out of this many flowers.

Either a petal was hidden, or was torn off. It might be ridiculous for me to be happy and disappointed over the number of petals.

However, it was nostalgic and fun and made me reminiscent of my childhood, to be focused on only one thing while crawling on all fours like this again.

“Found it! A three-petal one!”

Finally, after counting the number of petals endlessly, I found one with three petals.

A perfect flower with three petals, with no overlapping petals or small petals growing on the side.

I think it took a little over an hour to find just one.

However, since I was able to find it with my own eyes, I felt a strong sense of accomplishment.

“Well, let’s get back to work.”

If I continue at this pace, I will need half a day to reach my Kikyou quota.

I might collect it myself leisurely if it was a normal request, but it’s a nominated request this time.

Let’s finish early so the impatient Claus won’t have any complaints.

“Detection.”

With Detection, I could see many purple-coloured Kikyou, however, here and there were ones in blue.

Picking one up, as I thought, it had three petals.

It took me about an hour to search for one manually, but I was able to collect 5 three-petal Kikyou in less than 10 seconds with Detection.

Comparing them like this, Detection is clearly foul play.

I once again give my thanks to the awesomeness of Detection.

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