Chapter 45. Blue Poppy

“Stop him! He’s not in his right mind!”

Adellian, who was watching Maxim, shouted.

Piontek and Odekerkh clung to Maxim.

Right now, Maxim was in the middle of trying to smash the box with all his might.

“Let go! I have to check the contents to know what kind of bastard that Keller-or-whatever guy is!”

“It’s Professor, not bastard!” Adellian corrected Maxim’s words.

Maxim stopped struggling and looked at Adellian. His expression was one that said, ‘aren’t they the same thing, what are you getting worked up about?’

“I think he was better before.”

Adellian shook her head from side to side.

Piontek and Odekerkh nodded their heads in agreement.

“Your Highness. May I hold it?”

Michelle, who had been quiet until now, asked carefully.

Maxim looked at her with wide eyes.

“This isn’t food.”

“Yes, I know.”

At Michelle’s words, Maxim slowly exhaled and sank into thought.

In that moment, the look in Piontek’s and Odekerkh’s eyes changed. A shared will to not miss the chance, now that Maxim’s momentum had subsided, shone brightly.

“What are you doing? She asked for it.”

“Y-yeah. M-Michelle said sh-she wants to h-hold it.”

The two unhesitatingly tried to use Maxim’s hesitation.

Maxim looked back and forth between the box in his hands and Michelle.

Michelle held out her hand, meaning ‘give it to me quickly.’

“Alright.”

Maxim sighed and handed over the box.

At this, everyone, including Adellian, let out a long breath of relief.

It was at that moment.

Crack.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Adellian was aghast.

Piontek and Odekerkh were also at a loss for words, their mouths agape.

Michelle had smashed the box.

“The box is heavy. We just need to take the contents.”

Michelle explained the reason with a blank face, devoid of any emotion.

“No, if you break that…”

Adellian, who was about to argue with Michelle, lost her words when she saw the contents of the box. She had thought there would be something special, but what came out was a vibrant blue flower and a small pouch filled with seeds.

“What kind of flower is that?”

“Hey, it’s a poppy… I th-think, but why is it b-blue?”

Piontek and Odekerkh completed the broken sentence.

“A blue poppy.”

Maxim said with a cool expression. He then looked at the blue poppy Michelle was holding.

‘How is this still around?’

During Maxim’s time as Leonhardt, one of the plants he had tried to wipe off the face of the continent was that blue poppy.

The blue poppy is the key ingredient for making the drug, Blue Opion.

‘Professor Keller…’

Maxim recalled the exam details Professor Keller had given. It was to go to the building on the Chantres Highlands and retrieve a box. With the words, ‘You’ll find it if you look for a carriage with a yellow clover drawn on it.’

“Where are you going?”

Adellian asked Maxim, who was walking off alone.

Maxim let out a short breath and looked at her.

“To find out who the owner of that is, and why they wanted it back.”

After answering, Maxim started walking again. Towards the Chantres Highlands, where he couldn’t go because of the Amirios.

***

“U-um…”

On the way to the Chantres Highlands, Odekerkh approached me and tried to strike up a conversation awkwardly.

“Speak.”

“W-will it be very dangerous?”

It will be dangerous. It wasn’t a different exam from Michelle’s, and there was also the part about bringing along anyone who wanted to join.

“We’ll know when we get there.”

Still, there’s no need to create anxiety.

“But why are we suddenly heading there?” Piontek asked.

“Because a blue poppy came out.”

“What about it? Is it strange?”

It seems these guys don’t know what a blue poppy is. Well, this should be normal. Because I had gone to great lengths to erase it.

Blue Opion, made from blue poppies, is a highly addictive drug. As for how much so…

‘Was it Chimino that fell first?’

It wasn’t a very large country, but it was a nation nonetheless.

The working populace became addicted, the nobles who looked down on it became addicted, and the king who stood by and watched became addicted, leading to a helpless collapse. The neighboring countries, seeing this, hastily cracked down, but it wasn’t easily contained. The speed at which it spread was more than double the speed at which it was being blocked.

It had started to enter Rumenium, one by one.

‘It was the nobles at first.’

It wasn’t bad for the nobles to fall to addiction. The problem was the working populace. So I stepped in myself. I brought out severe punishment and dealt with it strongly. But Blue Opion kept popping up. When I was contemplating how to completely erase it, Alfred said, ‘We must find and eliminate the source.’ So I searched for the origin of Blue Opion.

‘It’s absurd even thinking about it again.’

The place where Blue Opion first appeared was the Duchy of Preidon.

The time it appeared was also in the early days of my war with them.

‘Saying they would wipe Rumenium from the pages of history. What utter nonsense.’

At that time, the leader of the Duchy of Preidon was Duke Gern Sigmund. The bastard was looking for a stimulant to feed his soldiers in order to overcome their numerical inferiority.

What came out then was Blue Opion.

‘If you drink just one bottle, you can fight for three days straight without sleeping, was it?’

I think that’s how Alfred explained it.

He said that even without sleeping, one felt no fatigue; even without eating, one felt full; and one felt no pain whatsoever. The amount of mana one could accept increased by more than threefold. He also said that there was a continuous, addictive sense of exhilaration, such as the sense of fulfillment from becoming stronger, the confidence that one could do anything, and the pleasure felt while moving to the extreme.

At this, Alfred had said, ‘It is a drug that gnaws away at life.’

It was true. For those who stopped taking the drug, the accumulated fatigue, hunger, and unfelt pain would rush in all at once, and not just rush in, but come in multiples, even larger.

To endure this, more Blue Opion than before was needed. Because other painkillers had no effect.

In the end, to overcome the problems brought on by Blue Opion, Blue Opion was needed.

There were those who struggled to quit… but they were only freed from Blue Opion after death.

‘Which bastard brought this disgusting thing out?’

A sigh escaped me on its own.

“Why the sigh?”

Adellian, whose eyes met mine, showed her displeasure all over her face. The fact that I broke the box, and that I’m making more work instead of going straight back, I suppose nothing is to her liking. I would feel the same way.

By the way, Professor Keller probably never dreamed that Adellian would be taking the exam. If he had known, he wouldn’t have commissioned an assassination.

If the daughter of a duke, the top student of the military academy, dies during an exam, a detailed investigation is bound to follow. Then Professor Keller would inevitably become a subject of the investigation. Since he was the one who gave the exam.

If even the slightest connection to this incident comes out during the investigation, he won't be able to escape punishment. If the connection leads directly to the Amirios, he might even be executed.

If he did it knowing all that…

‘He’s an even crazier bastard than I thought.’

Of course, it’s possible Professor Keller didn’t commission the Amirios clan for the assassination.

‘Even so, there must be a connection. Whether intentional or not.’

To dig into that, I need to slowly tighten the noose. So he can’t run away.

‘It would be convenient to just go find him and choke him right now…’

But if I did that, it would get noisy.

But isn’t it okay to be a little noisy? It’s going to get very noisy soon enough anyway.

“It’s too dark, wouldn’t it be better to move in the morning?”

A different kind of noise arose. Piontek repeatedly said to rest for a bit, to go after securing a clear view, that it’s dangerous to go now so let’s go when the day breaks, and so on, asking to stop.

The sun had set, so the surroundings were pitch black. But it wasn’t so dark that we couldn’t walk on the paved road. Because we had fire. And there wouldn’t be anything more dangerous than the fire-using Amirios bastards.

“Huh?”

Michelle, who had the sharpest eyes among us, stopped walking. We were not far from our destination.

We who were following also stopped walking. The loose tension became taut.

“Wh-what do you see?”

Piontek asked with a flushed face.

“The lights are on in the house.”

“How many people are there?”

“There are… no people.”

At Michelle’s words, everyone else looked at me. It was a look that said, ‘check it yourself like you did when you fought the Amirios.’

“Sigh.”

I don’t have much mana from using the Saga, but I’m not so heartless as to disappoint their expectations.

When one receives expectations, one must naturally meet them!

“There’s really no one here?”

I could feel a small, flickering flame, but that was it. Just as Michelle said, there was no sign of human presence at all.

“Still, just in case, get ready.”

Adellian, the model student who pursues safety, said. Piontek was the first to draw his sword. Then Odekerkh gripped his weapon tightly.

Michelle looked at me. So I nodded for her. Although we confirmed the situation with Michelle’s eyes and my mana, just as Adellian said, we don’t know what might happen.

“Huh? Oh!”

Piontek, who had run towards the house first, stopped in front of the door.

“What’s wrong?”

Adellian, who was walking right behind him, also stopped in front of the door with Piontek.

And Odekerkh also stopped at the same place, muttering, “H-huh! Wh-what is…” They were witnessing burnt corpses. The bodies were not completely burnt. Some had only their upper body, some only their face, and some only their face and lower body.

“Move aside.”

I passed my comrades who were blocking the doorway and stood in front of the corpses.

This wasn't an ordinary fire. It seems to be the work of the Amirios bastards we fought.

“Tsk.”

I clicked my tongue. There was no one left to ask where they got the blue poppies or what they were planning to do. Still, just in case, I looked around inside the house. It was a two-story building, so there were quite a few rooms. But I didn’t have to bother opening the doors. They were all smashed. It seemed they had fought quite fiercely with the Amirios bastards. Not a single room was intact.

“Your Highness, there’s a door here.”

While I was just sighing, unable to find any helpful information, Michelle found the basement.

“Uh… is it okay to go in?”

“There won’t be anyone there, right? Right?”

“D-do we a-all have t-to g-go down?”

We naturally pushed Odekerkh forward as a shield. With Terion’s ability, he could easily make a thick wooden shield, so he should be able to block a stabbing attack. Pr…obably?

“Th-that’s mean.”

With Odekerkh in front, we descended into the basement through the darkness. Fortunately, no one came out.

Holding a light, I slowly looked around the basement. Everywhere else was smashed, but this place was intact. It seems the hands of the Amirios bastards didn’t reach this far.

“Huh? What’s this?”

Adellian discovered something that looked like glass lab equipment. She blinked her eyes and was about to touch the equipment.

“Don’t touch it.”

I urgently grabbed Adellian’s hand.

Adellian looked at me with wide eyes. Not just her, but Odekerkh who was looking around the house with us also looked at me with surprised eyes.

Tsk tsk, these kids get easily surprised over nothing.

“You don’t know what might be on it. Don’t touch it carelessly.”

“...Sorry.”

Adellian blushed and apologized. I was about to say it wasn’t something to apologize to me for, but then I saw Piontek’s blazing glare and decided against it. If I said one more word, he looked like he might spew fire like those pervert bastards.

I shook my head and examined the lab equipment. A faint smell similar to Blue Opion wafted from it.

‘It’s similar, but…’

Is it because it’s too faint? It was similar, but it wasn’t a smell I knew.

I looked around the lab equipment. I saw red, yellow, and black poppies. They weren’t special flowers.

‘These bastards must have heard something somewhere and done something stupid.’

I desperately wanted to ask where on earth they heard it from and what they were trying to do by making it.

It can’t be helped. The only way is to find the person who ordered them to bring this.