My Wife and I Became Sages in Another World-Chapter 192: New Alchemy Recruit

My group and I stayed at the Droman Capital for a few weeks, although we did travel to some of the neighboring towns to check them out.

We spent my 17th birthday there, with Empress Lysandra throwing a huge banquet for us at the castle.

Before the party even started, however, Lysandra called me to the throne room, where a bunch of nobles from the empire had gathered and gifted me an adamantite sword for my birthday.

It was a short, straight sword with a dark-greenish color that was so characteristic of adamantite.

Lysandra knew that I didn’t use large and slow weapons, so the sword’s length was perfect for me, as I could swing it with one hand while holding my mithril dagger in the other.

I politely bowed to the empress in front of the nobles, not wanting to make her look bad in front of them since she was my friend. I never had a problem treating nobles with their own customs as long as they were reasonable and didn’t force me.

That night, I went outside to one of the balconies to get some fresh air when Melina came to me with a gift, which surprised me when she pulled out the handkerchief that had been tainted with blood, dirt, and burn marks, now perfectly clean again.

"Huh? Did you make a new one?" I asked, checking my pockets to look for the old piece of fabric.

Melina chuckled. "Sorry. I took it so I could fix it back up for you..." she muttered, softly placing her hand on my chest and putting the handkerchief in my pocket.

"I... My bad..." I said, apologizing for destroying the handkerchief in the first place and not telling her about it.

"Dummy, do you think I was mad when I saw it?" she asked, gently caressing my hair.

"No, I know you wouldn’t get mad about something like this. I guess I was just embarrassed that it got so messed up..." I replied.

The princess grabbed the back of my head and pulled me in for an embrace, placing my face on her shoulder since I was just slightly taller than her.

"If anything, I’m happy you kept it all this time..." she whispered.

At that moment, I gently grabbed Melina’s cheeks and made eye contact with her, losing myself in her beautiful eyes as I went for a kiss under the moonlight.

The princess had always been the one to initiate, but that night felt like it was my turn.

__________

A week after my birthday, it was time for us to return to the Sephyr Kingdom before Winter started.

Jen joined us for the trip as Melina stowed away all of her belongings inside her void pocket so she wouldn’t have to carry them around.

The plan was to go to the Sephyr capital and announce our arrival to Melina’s family, but before we did that, we teleported to the border between the empire and the Illusive Forest.

Reinar had been researching a blue herb that came from the area, but I knew that there were more materials that we could find if we managed not to get caught in any trap.

I wanted to build a road that crossed the forest and connected the empire and the kingdom, but I needed to find a way to completely block the illusions, at least on the road area.

After telling the group to wait for us, Vespera and I went inside the forest to look for more herbs, staying close to the border so that we could escape quickly in case anything strange happened.

I asked Vespera to come with me because I knew that she was the most capable of blocking out the illusions. I didn’t know if it had to do with her being a Legendary Beast or her power level, but she could resist most of the antics that the forest threw at her.

Thankfully, we were able to gather a few more herbs before leaving the place and returning to our group.

One of them was a purple flower with blue stems called "Dream Flower."

<Dream Flower

Eating it will make the individual sleep and have vivid dreams.

High doses can lead to permanent sleep.>

It didn’t look like it would have a good use besides maybe helping people with insomnia, but that was something we would have to find out.

Another herb that we found was these red weeds growing close to the trees called "Vermilion Vines."

<Vermilion Vine

If ingested, the individual’s sanity will not suffer due to illusions.

Can block illusions from covering its perimeter.>

It was quite an unusual herb to find, but it looked like it could be extremely useful with its "illusion-blocking" capabilities.

After we were done collecting the materials we were looking for, we teleported to the capital of the Sephyr Kingdom, giving Jen a tour of the place as we made our way to the castle.

We could have appeared directly there, but we wanted to show Jen around before taking her to End Forest, where she would be quite far from other towns for a while.

When we got to the castle, Queen Diana greeted me with a hug, which caught me off-guard but felt quite warm.

I never got to feel the love of a mother in my past life, so the fact that the queen treated me like her son was almost bringing me to tears, but I was able to keep myself together as I hugged her.

We stayed at the castle for one night and teleported Jen to End Forest the following morning, where we introduced her to all of the alchemists who had been working there.

Reinar was locked up in the workshop, so we all went up there to see him personally, and when he looked up and spotted Jen, I could tell that the guy was smitten with love at first sight.

He stopped everything he was doing to greet the Droman alchemist, promptly giving her a tour of the workshop and a summary of what they had been working on.

It may have been seen as a little crazy by others, but Jen shared the same enthusiasm for alchemy as Reinar, which reassured me that they would be fine working together.