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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: A Simple Solution
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‘Four-leaf clovers.’
One hundred Heaven Coins was a very small reward.
But the fact that it was a repeatable quest, and that all I had to do was collect four-leaf clovers and give them to someone, was strangely appealing.
Besides…
[Blessing of Luck: None]
The memory of seeing the phrase ‘Blessing of Luck’ when drawing the coin donation reward came flooding back.
‘What if this Blessing of Luck is something I can get by earning Platus's favor...?’
What if that Blessing of Luck helps me draw better donation rewards...?!
I drew a legendary-grade intuition card with nothing, so I was already getting excited just thinking about how much better the rewards could be with a Blessing of Luck.
‘I might even be able to draw the highest-grade reward, a mythic card.’
I grinned and closed the ‘Quest List’.
I had a gut feeling that if I worked hard on this quest, I could hit another jackpot.
‘And I...’
I already know this intuition leads me to good things!
‘Alright.’
I sat down and started racking my brain.
The conventional way of thinking would be to go to a grassy garden to find four-leaf clovers.
But my plan was completely different.
‘Who has the time to search that entire vast garden for a four-leaf clover?’
I'd be lucky to find even one that way.
Usually, you'd just end up wasting time finding a bunch of three-leaf clovers.
‘Wasting time on something uncertain is the thing I hate most.’
What is the motto of a black mage?
Efficiency.
The modifier 'former' might precede the title 'black mage' now, but I still held that motto close to my heart.
‘It said to collect four-leaf clovers, not that I had to find them myself, right?’
In other words, as long as the four-leaf clovers end up in my hands, any method is fine.
In that case…
‘I'll just cultivate them!’
* * *
In my past life, I was a black mage.
After defeating the Mad Dragon, I spent my time leisurely, researching magic in the quiet north.
People were very curious about what kind of magic I was researching, cooped up in my small mansion.
They asked if I was researching terrifying curses or offensive spells to fight enemies even greater than the Mad Dragon.
But in that quiet little mansion in the north…
<...Master. Is that spell really what you've been diligently researching for a month? Is that what I helped you with? Just that?>
I could vividly recall my apprentice, Hazen, shaking his head with a weary look and sighing deeply.
He used to lament that his life was ruined, thinking he'd learn incredible magic as the apprentice of a great archmage, only to end up helping with research on untying knots.
Even so, he always helped me diligently with my research.
Spells to pick beans out of food, spells to clean clothes, spells to wash hair.
‘And...’
There was also a spell to turn weeds into flowers!
‘I dreamed of a life where I could tend to my own garden in my old age.’
But isn't landscaping difficult and tedious?
Pulling weeds, in particular, was the worst.
You have to squat all day, wondering if something is a weed or a budding flower, and pluck out only the useless ones.
That's why I ended up researching the 'spell to turn weeds into flowers'…
It seemed I could easily modify it to create a 'spell to turn weeds into four-leaf clovers'.
‘So this is coming in handy here.’
I never imagined I'd end up using it as a four-year-old kid, having never gotten to enjoy my retirement.
The problem is, it's difficult for me to use magic right now…
But I could just ask Axel, so it wasn't a major obstacle.
‘Hehe.’
I chuckled and got up from my seat.
‘I'll go ask Axel to make me some four-leaf clovers right now!’
* * *
“Four-leaf clovers?”
“Uh-huh.”
“All of a sudden... four-leaf clovers?”
“Uh-huh.”
As I nodded firmly and held out the paper with the magic formula, Axel's eyes narrowed.
“Is this another quest?”
“Yep. There's a romantic god who wikes luck.”
“You're truly unbelievable.”
Axel sighed deeply but took the paper from my hand to check its contents.
“You were researching this kind of magic back in the countryside?”
At his dumbfounded reaction, I shrugged my shoulders proudly.
“Tho now I can use it.”
“It's just a case of a blind squirrel finding a nut.”
“Then what did *you* wesearch at the Magic Tower?”
“...A spell to make cold food taste like it was freshly made.”
“Whaat?”
So we're on the same level, aren't we?
When I shot him a look that said, *'And you had the nerve to criticize me?'*, he looked away, embarrassed.
“I just wanted to be able to eat a warm meal anywhere. We usually had to eat cold food when we were hunting the Mad Dragon.”
Coming from the slums, I was used to eating cold, dried-out food, but our other companions weren't.
‘They always picked at their food as if it didn't suit their tastes.’
Did that leave a lasting impression on him?
As I giggled, Axel cleared his throat and placed the paper with the formula on the table.
“The spell itself is simple.”
“Uh-huh. Owiginally, it turned weeds into flowers, tho I changed the fowmula a wittle.”
The core of it was changing weeds into something else, so modifying it from flowers to four-leaf clovers wasn't very difficult.
‘My skills are just that good!’
I lifted my chin at Axel, as if to show off.
“Tho just go somewhere with lots of weeds and use the magic!”
At my confident declaration, Axel's expression turned strange.
“Somewhere with lots of weeds. And where would that be?”
“Huh?”
It was a very fundamental question.
I blinked and tilted my head.
“Aren't weeds everywhere? If we go out to the gawden wight here...”
Weeds grow tenaciously wherever there's soil and grass can grow.
The phrase 'the vitality of a weed' didn't come from nowhere.
But Axel tilted his head as if he didn't know what I was talking about.
“This is the Elpinade ducal estate. Five gardeners, along with numerous servants, tend to the gardens 365 days a year without rest. Do you think a single weed has time to grow here?”
“...Nope.”
No weeds.
How could there be no weeds?!
Such a thing was absolutely inconceivable in my thoroughly commoner mind!
“Th-Then... do we have to gwow weeds first...?”
As I broke out in a cold sweat over this unexpected obstacle, Axel crossed his arms and looked down at me.
“No. I don't understand why you're trying to solve this with magic in the first place. Is there really a need to grow weeds?”
“Then...?”
In response to my question, Axel shrugged as if to say, *'You really don't get it?'*
“You can just order the gardeners. Tell them to make a four-leaf clover patch.”
