108 – Highly Poisonous Purple p.r.i.c.kles
As punishment, Liszt simply fined Marcus a month"s salary.
His main purpose for helping Kosto was to complete the smoke mission. Therefore, he ordered the knight squad to learn how to swim within three days. Swimming would surely be taught at sea, which could possibly lead to the discovery of the treasure shipwreck – he wanted to know what the treasure shipwreck was as soon as possible.
Was it full of gold coins, or full of bright gemstones?
Or, did it conceal a dragon egg?
“However, are dragons even born from eggs?” In knight novels, the opinions regarding the origin of dragons differed. There was no accurate answer to this question.
He had asked the count this question, yet the count was also oblivious regarding the origin of dragons.
It was a mystery.
The knight squad quickly started their swimming lessons. Liszt didn"t go over to do an inspection, that could wait until the treasure shipwreck was found.
Instead, he headed to the underbrush with the thorns sprite worm"s worm stalk. He wanted to do an inspection, to see whether he could get the reward for the new mission, the variant type of thorns, earlier. Although the previous fast-growing type of thorns was not a magic ingredient, but this time"s variant type of thorns was quite likely to be a magic ingredient!
A large tract of half a person"s tall thorns.
Yet after releasing Magic Eyes, he hadn"t discover any traces of magic power, leaving him disappointed.
“There are no magic ingredients… Maybe the mission has to be completed before the variation can succeed and the magic ingredient can appear.” He summoned the smoke mission, discovering that the mission had yet to be completed.
In other words, the att.i.tude of the youngsters still has to be corrected.
“Their ideological education is still lacking. It seems that I have to make a trip to the beach to see who is still clashing with the sailing teachings.” He turned to the gentleman"s valet Thomas. “Go back to the castle and fetch my horsewhip, then come meet me at the beach.”
“Yes, Master.”
Empty words were not very effective as ideological education.
In order for the lesson to be ingrained in their minds, it first had to be engraved on their bodies. A whip would do just fine.
……
Wapeesh!
Wapeesh!
With a gloomy expression, Liszt ruthlessly whipped two young knights who were afraid of water. Unexpectedly, these residents of a coastal town were afraid of going into the water.
Between the whip and water, the two young knights had at last chosen water.
As they began swim using dog paddle under the instruction of Kosto, Liszt summoned the smoke mission. There was finally a change.
“Mission completed. Reward: a poisonous variant of fast-growing type of thorns.”
“Mission: the newly rooted black nightshade doesn"t seem to adapt to the Flower Town"s soil. Although there is enough nourishment, yet it cannot absorb it very quickly. Its magic power, which is as mild as water, is being drained bit by bit. It is about to die. Please help it gather magic power. Reward: a sprite worm.”
Now that the black nightshade was included in the mission, it was proof that the sprite worm was conceived. The problem, however, was rather serious: “Hasn"t adapted to the soil, cannot absorb enough nutrients, and the magic power is being drained. In other words, the sprite worm is about to be miscarried… How should I help it condense magic power? It"s not Tremblingwoods, which managed to release its magic after being stimulated.”
He was baffled by this problem.
At this moment, Kosto, who was giving the knight squad swimming lessons, suddenly swam out of the sea and shouted: “Sir Lord, Sir Lord, I found a shipwreck!”
He trotted up to Liszt: “A shipwreck! Not far away in the sea, there is a shipwreck half buried in the sand!”
“A shipwreck?” Liszt roused himself and quickly reacted, “Captain Kosto, salvage it.”
“For that, I need manpower to cooperate.”
“I will let Teacher Gort a.s.sist you. How long will it take you to salvage the shipwreck?”
“Please rest a.s.sured. The shipwreck is not located deep underwater, and when the tide is low, it will be only about five meters below the sea level. At that time, I will dive and tie a rope to the shipwreck, so that people can pule it ash.o.r.e.”
“When is the tide going to be low today?”
“After three o"clock in the afternoon.”
“Get ready.”
With the countdown for the treasure shipwreck started, a weight was lifted off his mind.
As the shipwreck was temporarily unsalvageable, Liszt returned to the underbrush with the thorns sprite worm"s worm stalk. He wanted to look for the the smoke mission"s reward – the poisonous variant of fast-growing type of thorns.
“Poisonous variant, hmm…”
“I will just call it fast-growing poisonous thorns.”
It was still not a magic ingredient, which was a bit disappointing.
Still, Liszt thought that the reward might go far beyond that: “This seems to be a chain mission – a chain mission pertaining to the evolution of the thorns sprite worm. First was the fast-growing thorns reward and now is the fast-growing poisonous thorns reward, this thorns underbrush is becoming more and more interesting.”
After returning to the underbrush, he didn"t release Magic Eyes again.
Early in the morning, he used Magic Eyes to look for magic ingredients, yet now, he was searching for poisonous thorns. The vast tract of bushes, all thorns, was a bit overwhelming. He didn"t know how fast-growing poisonous thorns looked like nor where to start to look for them.
Thus, he deployed his retainer knights: “Look for any strange thorns. Remember not to randomly touch them, they might be poisonous.”
After receiving their orders, the six retainer knights started their search in the bushes.
Liszt and his gentleman"s valet Thomas also partic.i.p.ated in the search.
The search went on for a few hours.
The underbrush was combed three times and even their meal was brought over by servants. Of course, Liszt himself didn"t search for that long, and in fact, he had hidden himself in the shade of a nearby wild fruit tree early on. He watched the others work as he enjoyed the ice cream brought over by servants.
At last, in the afternoon, when the cruel sun reached its zenith, a serf, which was part of the group looking for strange thorns, found an unusual thorns.
This thorns had blended with the bushes. Unlike the cyan stems of regular thorns, it had a purple-striped stem. The purple stripes added a bit of mystery to it. Additionally, the p.r.i.c.kles growing atop the purple stripes were equally purple.
“Is this the fast-growing poisonous thorns?”
Liszt decided to give it a try.
He let someone bring a rabbit raised in the castle, then used a p.r.i.c.kle atop a purple stripe to scratch the rabbit. The p.r.i.c.kle instantly broke off, pouring purple juice into the rabbits wound.
After a while.
The rabbit twitched, fell to the ground and died.
“Tsk, Sir, this thorns is highly poisonous, the rabbit didn"t even last a quarter of an hour. If it was a person who was scratched by this thorns instead, I"m afraid that they would also have died.” Blair, who was responsible for recording the conditions and growth of the underbrush with the thorns sprite worm"s worm stalk, clicked his tongue and exclaimed in amazement.
Liszt was satisfied with the experiment: “Reward the serf with ten silver coins.”
The serf was very grateful, expressing his thanks upon departure.
Other serfs also expressed their thanks upon departure. Although they didn"t receive the ten silver coin reward, they were still remunerated with a copper coin. Earning one copper coin for less than two hours of easy work was a score in their books.
Looking at this fast-growing poisonous thorns, Liszt already came up with a way to use it: “Blair, I have a new task for you.”
“Awaiting your instructions.”
“Concentrate on cultivating these fast-growing poisonous thorns. In the future, I want to use these fast-growing poisonous thorns as a deterrent and plant them on both sides of the road through the Thorns Ridge as well as around my castle.”
Blair accepted the order: “As you wish.”