Chapter 128

Who is Your Accomplice?
Sigh… I thought I had kept it hidden, but to think Brother Gerald had seen right through me.

“What you wanted to ask in the tent—was it about this?”

“That’s right.”

When I learned that the land around the dragon was withering, I thought it was either because the dragon's mana was too strong, or it was some kind of curse.

If purification was necessary, then holy water would be required. That’s what I thought, and that’s what the books said too.
But I figured it would be bad if the church found out that I—or rather, Westland—wanted holy water, so I started looking for alternative purification methods.

That’s when I came up with the idea of using slimes.
If I had a slime drink only my healing magic water, maybe the slime's fluid would work as a substitute for holy water.
When I poured the resulting liquid onto a World Tree fruit, it absorbed it, so I kept feeding the liquid to the World Tree fruit every time I made some.
The result is that massive size.

“So you're saying you tried to make use of the slime’s ability to purify dirty water and turn it into plant nutrients. A slime that only drinks your healing magic water. It’s not in your room, is it? Where are you keeping it? Who's your accomplice?”

“It's Georges. I'm having him keep it in his room.”

As Brother Gerald suspected, I thought that perhaps my healing magic water could be further refined into something closer to holy water.

So I went with Georges to find a slime that could purify water, poured my healing magic water into a container, and searched for a slime that would drink it.

I couldn't go alone, and I didn’t even know where to find a water-purifying slime.
When I asked Georges, he pressed me for an explanation, and I ended up confessing everything.
Then Georges said he would take responsibility for managing the slime and agreed to help.

“If this gets found out, won’t it put us at odds with the church?”

“Even if it helps with purification, I don’t think it will assist in healing wounds or illnesses.”

“You haven’t tested it, right? … No, don’t test it.”

He said he wanted to speak with Georges, so I called him.

“Georges, I’m sorry that Hardt dragged you into this. But if you had just talked to us, we might have come up with a way to obtain holy water. Why didn’t you stop him? You do understand that you could’ve been in danger too, right?”

“I knew that Young master—no, Westland—wanted to avoid too much involvement with the church.”

“This isn’t like you. Normally, you’d have stopped Hardt and told him to consult us.”

“… Lately, I’ve been feeling like I haven’t been of any use. Even if I couldn’t go to the dragon’s location with you, I thought I could still help out, so I offered to assist on impulse. I’m sorry,” he said, bowing his head.

“You’ve done well. I’m truly grateful to you for protecting this reckless-thinking little brother of mine. It’s precisely because it’s you that Hardt can act so freely, coming up with wild ideas without worry. So don’t ever think you’re useless.”

“Young master Gerald…”

“We can’t consult our parents right now. Brother’s school friends are staying with us. It would raise suspicion if the family seemed to be secretly meeting. Make sure neither he nor the household staff find out about the slime.”

“Yes, understood.”

“I’ll be starting school life myself in half a year, so I won’t be able to stay close to Hardt. You’ll have to be the one to keep him in check. I’m counting on you to continue watching over him.”

“Yes. I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused,” Georges said, bowing again.

“Hardt, if you keep acting without consulting anyone, the people you care about might get dragged into danger. I’ve told you again and again—don’t forget to talk things through.”

I was shocked that Georges thought he was useless.
I was even more shocked that I had put him in danger.
Watching Georges get scolded because of me, I realized I had been relying too much on everyone.

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