Chapter 8
〈Silent Witch〉 Monica Everett's (self-proclaimed) disciple, Isaac Walker, basically spent more than half of every month at Monica's house. Even so, in keeping with his promise to Monica, he returned once a month to the Duchy of Erin, which he governed, to attend to his duties.
He had chosen a trusted person to serve as acting lord, and Isaac himself was adept at administrative work, so it was hardly a burden.
However, when it came to receiving visitors, he couldn't leave everything to the acting lord.
Isaac's public identity was Felix Ark Ridill, the Second Prince of the Kingdom of Ridill.
Even if he had renounced his right to the throne and retired, there were still people who refused to leave him alone.
That day's visitor, Tobias, Felix's uncle, was one of them.
Tobias, who was destined to become the next Duke of Clockford, apparently wanted to make his position unassailable by marrying his daughter Loretta to the Second Prince.
(Even if Second Prince Felix Ark Ridill renounced his right to the throne, under this country's laws, any son bearing his blood could inherit the right to the throne... What an unpleasant thought.)
Sighing inwardly, Isaac headed toward the tea salon.
He was about to entertain the aforementioned Miss Loretta at tea.
When Felix stepped into the tea salon, the large-framed young woman seated before the tea table hastily looked up.
"It's been a long time, Your Highness... No, Your Grace, Duke of Erin."
"Hello, sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Loretta."
"No! I am terribly sorry for taking up the time of such a busy duke."
Loretta was nineteen. With brown hair and hazel eyes, she was a young noblewoman with a rather meek air about her.
The dress she wore was elegant as well, but its design was subdued for someone her age.
As Loretta was Felix's cousin, this was not Isaac's first time meeting her. He had seen her several times as a child—back when the real Felix was still alive.
Even so, Loretta had attended a girls' academy until last year and was apparently unaccustomed to being around men. She seemed terribly nervous even now.
She was relatively tall and large-framed, but timid by nature.
(...No, that wasn't the only reason she was nervous.)
Her father, Tobias, had most likely ordered her to win over the Second Prince.
"It's been quite a while since the two of us had tea alone, Miss Loretta."
"Yes, it has... Ah, please have some tea."
Loretta's voice was stiff with nervousness as she offered him tea. On top of that, her gaze darted restlessly from side to side.
Sensing that something was going on, Isaac lightly tapped his pocket, sending a signal to Wirdianu, who was waiting inside it.
Then, with a natural gesture, he picked up the teacup, and a faint rose scent tickled his nose.
"This is a lovely tea. I can smell roses."
At those words, Loretta's shoulders jerked.
What a poor liar, Isaac thought in exasperation as he lowered his gaze to the teacup.
──If you are served something scented with roses, be on your guard.
That was a saying secretly passed down among the royal family for generations.
Inside the pocket, Wirdianu discreetly used magic. As a high-ranking water spirit, Wirdianu found purifying water hardly difficult.
Once Isaac had drunk the tea Wirdianu had purified, he smiled at Loretta.
"This tea is delicious. The rose scent is wonderful... Ah, this rose scent reminds me of the roses in the palace gardens. I suppose that's why it makes me feel so at ease."
Even Isaac did not have a sense of smell keen enough to distinguish between different rose scents. He was making it all up.
Nevertheless, Loretta was visibly shaken by his words and looked away.
"...I-I'm so glad you like it..."
A sheen of nervous sweat appeared on Loretta's face. On top of that, she was blinking far too frequently.
Isaac raised the corners of his mouth slightly and returned the cup to its saucer.
"Speaking of the palace gardens, did you know that garden has been managed by the 〈Thorn Witch〉 for generations?"
Loretta drew in a sharp breath and stiffened. Her reaction was remarkably easy to read.
Isaac continued speaking while suppressing his laughter.
"The 〈Thorn Witch〉 comes from a family skilled in plant enchantment magic. Apparently, they imbue the flowers in the garden with all sorts of effects."
"I-I see..."
"Sometimes, they even use magically imbued plants to make potions."
Loretta's face had finally gone beyond pale, becoming ashen.
This tea contained a potion made by the 〈Thorn Witch〉.
And it was probably a potion with an aphrodisiac effect... No, since it was a potion made by one of the Seven Sages, the 〈Thorn Witch〉, it was safe to assume that its effects were powerful enough to rightfully be called a love potion.
A faint clicking sound reached him. It was the sound of Loretta's trembling teeth knocking together.
Isaac smiled at the pitiful young noblewoman with the expression of a merciful prince.
"Was your father the one who made you use this potion on me?"
"........... Nngh..."
"If you confess honestly and hand over the potion, I'll overlook this incident. We can say that you accidentally spilled the tea, perhaps."
At Isaac's words, Loretta burst into tears.
＊ ＊ ＊
Back in his room, Isaac placed the small bottle he had confiscated from Loretta on the table.
The bottle was small enough to cup in both hands, and a pale pink liquid gently swayed inside. This was what Loretta had spiked Isaac's tea with.
Wirdianu crawled out of Isaac's pocket and transformed into the figure of a butler. He glanced at the bottle and furrowed his brow.
"It has been imbued with an extremely potent aphrodisiac enchantment. Moreover, it possesses a targeted mind-control effect... Would it not be more accurate to call this mind-affecting magic?"
"Well, that's to be expected. This is the traditional witch's love potion, after all."
Isaac lifted the bottle and opened the lid. The rose scent that wafted out was strong enough to make him choke.
"I've developed a resistance to poison, but I can't resist a magical potion. I'm glad Will was able to purify it for me."
"...If the dosage were incorrect, it could cause magic poisoning. Why was something this dangerous circulating in the first place?"
At Wirdianu's questioning tone, Isaac groaned, "Hmm," and folded his arms.
As a spirit, Wirdianu was skilled at handling magic, but he was not particularly knowledgeable about the sorcery used by humans.
"To explain the circumstances behind this witch's love potion, I have to explain enchantment magic first. Enchantment magic, which imbues objects with magic power, broadly comes in two types: permanent enchantment and temporary enchantment."
Permanent enchantment was primarily used to create magical tools. It could imbue an object with powerful, complex spell formulas, but its drawback was that it took time for the enchantment to set.
Temporary enchantment, on the other hand, was used for enchantments with immediate effects. It could temporarily imbue a sword with magic power to turn it into a magic sword, or send magic power into an object to manipulate it, when an effect was needed for only a short time.
"In short, permanent enchantment can imbue an object with complex, powerful magic, but it takes time for the enchantment to set. Temporary enchantment activates quickly, but it is difficult to imbue an object with a complex spell formula."
"What does this enchantment magic have to do with the witch's love potion?"
At Wirdianu's question, Isaac picked up the bottle and gave it a light shake.
"Which do you think was used to make this witch's love potion: permanent enchantment or temporary enchantment?"
"...Given the complexity of the spell formula, permanent enchantment?"
Exactly. Normally, potions like this were made by permanently enchanting the ingredients with a spell formula and then processing them. With temporary enchantment, both the amount of magic that could be imbued and the resulting effect were limited.
But there was an exception—or rather, a family that could only be described as an anomaly.
"The 〈Thorn Witch〉 comes from a special family. For generations, they've been skilled at enchanting plants, and even with temporary enchantment, they can imbue them with spell formulas of vastly greater power than normal."
An ordinary mage could do little more than make a plant move slightly or strengthen its medicinal properties a little through temporary enchantment.
But the 〈Thorn Witch〉 could do things far more advanced than that with temporary enchantment.
They could harden plants until they were as durable as metal, strengthen their toxicity enough to kill a wild beast, or imbue them with complex magic such as sound-collecting magic.
"The 〈Thorn Witch〉 family is said to have an especially strong affinity with roses, making their enchantment magic even more powerful when applied to them. If he gave it his all, they say he could even use roses to block the 〈Cannon Mage〉's offensive magic."
Raul Roseberg, the fifth-generation 〈Thorn Witch〉, possessed the greatest reserves of magic power in the country.
He was poor at combat, but in a rose garden, he could be considered invincible.
"Now, back to the legal regulations. Permanent enchantment is subject to extremely strict regulations. After all, there are so many things it can do. Temporary enchantment, on the other hand, isn't subject to particularly strict regulations. The things you can do with temporary enchantment are limited, so there's no need to regulate it in the first place, right?"
"...So the exception is the Roseberg family, the 〈Thorn Witch〉."
"Exactly."
Potions made through temporary enchantment by the 〈Thorn Witch〉 were not subject to legal restrictions.
Even so, they were still made through enchantment magic, so they were the sort of things that could become subject to regulation at any time.
The reason temporary-enchantment potions remained unregulated was that the royal family had relied on the 〈Thorn Witch〉's potions in times of crisis. Consequently, the royal family did not want to regulate temporary-enchantment potions if it could avoid it.
The 〈Thorn Witch〉, meanwhile, would be in trouble if the potions became subject to regulation, so they did not advertise them openly.
As a result, the royal family protected the Roseberg family, while the Roseberg family returned the favor by not circulating more potions than necessary. This had been their tacit understanding for many years.
However, there was someone who had broken it.
"I can't say this too loudly, but the previous 〈Thorn Witch〉 was a problematic person. To put it simply, he secretly sold potions to the country's nobility for money."
Once the Roseberg family discovered this, they hastily dragged the fourth-generation 〈Thorn Witch〉 down from his position as head of the family and installed sixteen-year-old Raul as his successor.
And so, some of the potions sold by the previous 〈Thorn Witch〉 had ended up remaining in the hands of certain nobles.
The potion Loretta had given Isaac was probably one of them.
"I never expected that potion to come into my possession like this."
Saying that, Isaac put the small bottle of potion into a drawer of his desk.
Wirdianu gave Isaac a reproachful look for keeping the potion instead of disposing of it.
"...What do you intend to do with that witch's love potion?"
"I'm a mage apprentice now. How could I not research something as rare as a potion specially made by the 〈Thorn Witch〉?"
Even after Isaac gave a light shrug, Wirdianu's expression did not brighten.
If anything, Wirdianu, who had recently become rather sharp-tongued with his master, asked with an extremely suspicious look.
"...You aren't thinking of using it on someone, are you?"
"I won't. Because then it wouldn't be 'fun.'"
If he was going to make his wish come true, it had to be in a way that let him laugh from the bottom of his heart, or his late friend would surely be saddened.
Otherwise, he could never hold his head high before his late friend—or before Monica, who had kept Isaac alive.
"And besides, do you really think I would rely on something like this to win the girl I like, Wirdianu?"
"You do have a tendency to use any means necessary to achieve your ends."
There was far too much truth in that accusation for Isaac to retort that it was a cruel thing to say, so he merely gave an ambiguous smile and let the matter pass.