I didn’t intend to put my garden right behind Alys’ house. I headed closer to the forest, up to its very edge. Admittedly, that still wasn’t very far away, but we did want the garden to be easily accessible. Two minutes of an easy stroll was much better than hours of foraging.

  Once I’d decided on the site, though, I did not immediately begin preparing the garden. I needed to produce more nutritional supplements for Grafton, so I set up my tent a short distance away. It would be a bit tricky to manage both activities, but as I’d contemplated that morning, I had to make the most of every minute.

  Besides, if I finished a few more batches before meeting up with Ritsu, I could have him deliver them to Grafton! Any day in which I didn’t have to put up with the human elder’s abrasiveness was a good day.

  Once everything was set up to my specifications, I had no reason to keep delaying. So, I strode to the center of my chosen site and proceeded with step one of creating a vibrant garden: eradicating all plant life around me.

  I was being a little dramatic, but the truth wasn’t far off. I wouldn’t tolerate weeds and grass encroaching on my garden plot.

  I unleashed my mana in a churning wave that swept over the area, careful to keep it from seeping into the forest. I didn’t want to hurt the trees. Everywhere else, however, mana seeped into the plants and placed them firmly under my sway. I didn’t force them to grow, since I didn’t want them to drain more nutrients out of the soil. Instead, I focused on inducing mutations.

  It was a brutish technique and overwhelmingly prone to failure, even when a fae was trying to nurture a plant and mutate it with great care. Since I was indiscriminately stuffing the plants with my poisonous mana, they soon started to tear apart from the inside, actively decaying all the while. Thankfully, mana poison wasn’t a pollutant. The instant the plants were dead and had been reduced to nourishment for the soil, the poison fizzled out.

  I looked at the wide circle of bare earth around me with a smile, already planning the best layout for my garden. Then my eyes landed on something thoroughly unexpected.

  I froze.

  A single stalk of stinging nettle stood proudly at the edge of the circle. Inside the circle, mind you.

  That wasn’t the only notable point. The plant was also a muted purple in color, with the slender veins of its leaves standing out in a stark black.

  I stalked over and knelt in the dirt without hesitation, running a finger experimentally over the plant and letting it sting me on purpose. I was startled at the intensity of the prickles that ran through my palm before fading away quickly. The plant had no hope of poisoning me, but the sheer fact that I had felt its attempt so strongly meant that this was a potent mutated plant.

  And I had created it entirely on accident.

  More importantly, stinging nettle was considered a weed. This wasn’t some finicky plant I would have to put a lot of effort into nurturing. I could leave this specimen alone, and my garden would be full of it in no time at all.

  “I’m going to have to talk to Alys about making some dividers for my garden,” I muttered under my breath, giving the little plant another pat on its leaves like it was a favored pet. I paused, then corrected myself. “Our garden.”

  A happy smile spread over my face as I stood, shaking my head. This was certainly a fortuitous start to the establishment of our garden, but I couldn’t waste time sitting around and petting the greenery.

  —

  “Listen here, you horrid example of flora: you are going to take proper root in this soil, or I am going to eat you!” I snarled at a particularly frustrating patch of wolfsbane that was trying its best to commit suicide.

  I knew very well that the plant was fussy about its soil conditions and had maddeningly fragile roots, but I was supporting it the entire way with my mana, and the ground was almost ideal for it.

  My irritation briefly spiked, as did my mana, almost overwhelming the plant’s roots and threatening to blow them apart instead of strengthening them. Thankfully, this seemed to be what the plant needed. I immediately sensed it beginning to draw nutrients from the soil, which it had been refusing to do until that point.

  I felt my left eye twitch in anger. I had wasted over twenty minutes on this one single plant. Wolfsbane wasn’t even supposed to be difficult to grow in this climate. Some of the other items in the garden would require a great deal of mana and careful nurturing, and yet it had taken me far less time to plant them.

  I let out a huff as I stood up, not bothering to brush away the dirt clinging to my knees. My clothes would need to be washed thoroughly anyway. I might have thrown them away entirely were I still living on my family’s estate, but there was no sense in wasting valuable fabric out on the frontier.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Letting my frustration drain away, I slowly looked around me.

  What had once been a barren circle of dirt was now the beginnings of a garden, dotted with various types of plants in tight groupings. Some of said groupings were made up of a singular plant, such as my patches of hellebore, foxglove, and lily of the valley. Others contained two or more different plants, such as my pairing of poison ivy and jewelweed.

  It was an interesting combination, actually. Jewelweed itself was not poisonous, yet the plant almost always grew next to poison ivy in the wild. As it so happened, jewelweed was also the perfect antidote to poison ivy. My family had noticed long ago that such paired plants, of which there were several examples, grew best when planted together.

  It was also remarkably easy for me to link the natural mana of the two plants together. This introduced a virtuous cycle that fed both plants equally. They would grow faster this way, and their effects would be even more potent. This was a bit of an issue, since I didn’t have a trellis for the poison ivy yet, but I had found several branches for it to climb until I could set up something more permanent.

  “I must admit: this is not how I expected to find you, dear customer.”

  Ritsu’s voice rang out right behind me. While I narrowed my eyes, I was careful not to flinch. I just turned slowly and gave the fox an unamused look.

  “Oh? And what did you expect?”

  “Wondrous fumes and illusionary hazes! Beakers bubbling, cauldrons simmering!” The kitsune threw his arms out in a theatrical gesture. “This is distressingly mundane!”

  I felt my lips starting to twitch into a smile. “Well, I packed up the tent I use for alchemy half an hour ago. Otherwise, you might have seen some of the things you listed.”

  “Ah! Defeated by my own punctuality! I should have come sooner.” Ritsu’s entire body slumped. He looked particularly pitiful as his tails sprawled over the ground and his ears bent over his face. Then, in a startlingly rapid change of posture, he bounced back up with tails churning and ears straight. “Oh well! I am here now, and prepared to brave any danger that might come our way for the sake of that delicious honey! Including my disappointment!”

  “Very brave of you, indeed.” I started walking past the kitsune. “Follow me. I will let Alys know, and then we can head into the forest.”

  I found my dragoness exactly where I’d known she would be. The heat radiating from her place of work made me stop well before I could peek into the pit. The kitsune, however, seemed to suffer no such problem. He strolled closer and gasped in delight at the gout of flames that rose up.

  “Alys!” I called. “Can you please stop that for a moment?”

  “Hrrrrm? Oh, it’s you.” I couldn’t see her expression, but she sounded amused when Ritsu waved down at her. “It’s noon already?”

  “Quite so, dear customer! I am ready to acquire some honey of my own. The cruel elf still refuses to let me experiment with any!”

  Alys huffed. She sounded like she was holding in a laugh. “Did you ask nicely?”

  “Well… perhaps?” the kitsune demurred, fooling absolutely no one.

  “I see. Well, give me a second, and I’ll be up there with you.”

  That, admittedly, caught me off-guard. “You are coming with us?”

  “Of course I’m coming with you,” my dragoness scoffed. “I am not letting you go into the forest on your own.”

  “And what of me, dear customer? I would be right there with him!”

  “Yes, I know. That actually makes things worse,” Alys retorted, making the fox clutch dramatically at his heart.

  I nodded. “That is quite fair.”

  My smile only grew at the exaggerated look of betrayal on Ritsu’s face.

  —

  I could admit to a measure of anticipation as we entered the forest. I hadn’t returned to its embrace since the last time Alys and I had ventured in together. That particular occasion had been marked by the appearance of a creature so ancient and powerful, each of its steps spawned a brand new plant while the forest twisted around it.

  In spite of that encounter, the forest around Swiftband was still considered remarkably safe for the frontier.

  Were we less fortunate, we might have been forced to put up with a constant stream of hostile creatures emerging to assault the town. Such a siege could last for months, even years, until the locals were all dead or nature eventually accepted that the town was part of the land now. The settlements unlucky enough to encounter such fierce resistance were usually wiped off the map long before they could earn that acceptance.

  In contrast, our hunters were free to explore the forest. Its bounty was rich and potent. We only had to deal with a few threats to our lives and the occasional encounter with long-forgotten nature deities.

  Truly, the frontier was kind to us.

  It was not kind enough, however, to reduce a kitsune’s curiosity to acceptable levels somehow.

  Ritsu was flitting all over the place at speeds that nearly matched Nasha’s, looking under every bush just in case some unique and tasty plant was hiding there. Worse, he actually found a couple of the plants the town was regularly harvesting, which only encouraged him.

  “You know, those are really not that special,” I remarked, watching him marvel at the cobalt blue ginger and purple turmeric.

  They were two of the very first plants I had found and harvested, after seeing past their strange colors. I couldn’t blame the hunters for overlooking them before I came along. It was always better to leave odd plants alone if one didn’t have the skills required to make sure they were safe for consumption.

  “Ahh, but I disagree! The added potency is a significant boon already, and their slightly different properties are a true blessing as well!”

  “You mentioned that.” I frowned, resisting the urge to feel offended. “I, however, noticed no real difference in their properties when compared to the regular versions of the plant. And I am an alchemist.”

  His expression was pure smugness as he turned to look at me.

  “I am not surprised, dear customer! You were likely focused on the effects of the plants, while I am focused on the taste. No matter how similar their taste is to the ‘regular’ turmeric and ginger, as you put it, the difference is still notable for a cook such as myself!”

  I shook my head with a sigh. “Come on. We are nearly to the hive now. Do try to contain yourself until I tell you it is safe, all right?”

  “I will try!”

  Somehow, his reassurance did not fill me with confidence.