This Heroine's Friend Has the Power of Botany

Chapter 70

Prey 1

“From our investigation, it appears that the substance attracting the “Nacazak Beasts” and the “Brown Bear Beasts” is this poison powder. It seems that there is indeed a malicious individual who plans to destroy the barrier here. Although we don’t know their exact motive, this action can be determined that they aim to destroy this camp and kill everyone here, whether they are from the institution or soldiers like us,”

One of the high-ranking soldiers in the camp stated. If the attack had been aimed at killing a specific individual, it might have been manageable. However...the assailant did not order the beasts to target a single person. The intent was to destroy everyone here indiscriminately. Such a criminal was far more terrifying. The perpetrator might just be seeking satisfaction or causing chaos without caring about the consequences that people would be dead or alive. If this was truly their goal, extreme caution was necessary in handling the situation.

“Have we analyzed the components of this poison powder? Where do the ingredients come from? Maybe we can trace it back to the culprit,” suggested one of the professors.

“Currently, the 4-star level head apothecary is examining it. However, the condition of the patients is critical, and there are more injured. So, Lady Celey is...”

“I guess she wants to treat the injured first and then investigate this matter,” Professor Regan speculated, and his assumption was indeed correct.

The soldier didn’t relay Celey’s exact words, perhaps to avoid upsetting everyone. Celey was quite fierce, having said bluntly that even if they traced the source of the herbs, what would it accomplish? Would they capture the culprit in time? Or would it just lead to speculative assumptions!?

Well...it was a question the soldiers couldn’t answer either. Moreover, they genuinely needed the healing potions from Celey, as she pointed out. If the enemy attacked again, the healing potions would be far more crucial than knowing the enemy’s identity!

"Let the apothecaries do their work. I’ve seen since the incident occur that they haven’t stopped working," Regan said. The soldiers nodded in agreement, though some professors disagreed. Despite wanting to argue, they acknowledged the limited manpower available for investigating the culprit.

"Oh, I noticed that Lady Celey chose a student to help with the potion concocting. That student seems to be Professor Medik’s direct disciple?" After a brief silence, the head soldier spoke up.

He had just noticed Celey’s leniency towards a particular individual, and that individual was just a young girl, so it wasn’t strange that this piqued his interest. He found out that the student was indeed Professor Medik’s disciple, who had assisted in numerous medical research and herbal support for the military, and also the professor who was young and beautiful that even the head soldier himself was captivated...

"She’s not yet Professor Medik’s direct disciple, but she is his only student," Professor Gwen couldn’t explain clearly about their relationship. Professor Medik hadn’t officially made her a direct disciple, nor registered any special privileges. However, he had only one student with botanic elemental powers. Thus, even though Ellie wasn’t officially a direct disciple, he still taught her as if she were.

Regan raised his eyebrows at this information. He wasn’t particularly concerned with the official registration of professors and students but had assumed Medik had already taken Ellie as a direct disciple. He was surprised to learn that they were merely professor and student sharing the same elemental affinity.

No one knew that the heart of the proud young professor was now excited, realizing that Ellie still didn’t have a direct mentor. Thinking about the possibility of teaching her to better harness her powers, Regan felt that Ellie truly deserved to be his direct disciple.

Of course, this was just Regan’s interest in Ellie. However, Ellie didn’t share his thoughts at all...because Ellie already had a mentor in mind, someone she wanted to take her as a disciple since arriving in this novel world. That’s why...Ellie rejected Medik’s offer to become his direct disciple!

And yes! Ellie herself turned down Medik’s request...Her reasoning was simple: if she became Medik’s disciple, she would inevitably have to work as hard as he did in the future.

But who was Ellie? She was a former employee who had spent her entire previous life working! Given a second chance at life, did you think Ellie would choose to live in the hell called "work" again? No way...Ellie had already chosen a path of comfort and had picked a mentor who would let her escape from hard work.

"Is that so?...That girl is quite interesting. Even before I knew Celey had personally taught her for the past 3 days, I was already intrigued by the way she summoned that tined weapon looking like a gardening rake. When the Nacazak Beasts gave no chance for a counterattack, I saw this student throw her weapon into the air, causing enough chaos for others to strike back,"

"I don’t know how the institute will grade the students, but for us soldiers...it’s not just about selecting the strongest. We honor those who can change the course of a battle, and that student is a prime example of this."

"Even though her weapon couldn’t immediately kill the beasts like the institution’s practical exams often require, it created openings for others to attack. Such a person...if she is in the military, she would be suited to lead a unit."

"Ah...You might think I’m meddling, but please give that student some extra points. Whether for enabling the counterattack against the Nacazak or for assisting Lady Celey in potion concocting."

A mysterious smile appeared on the Camp Leader’s face. His request wasn’t excessive and fell within the bounds of what the professors would likely do anyway. However, his open interest in Ellie irritated many of the professors. Even Regan found the smile somewhat odd.

"The faculty will handle the grading fairly; you don’t need to worry about that," Professor Gwen spoke on behalf of everyone. If the faculty accepted the Camp Leader’s request, they might face criticism.

In the future, if they received requests to help someone, and if the Camp Leader was close to that person, or if a student had influence over the Camp Leader and sought special treatment to receive extra points, would that be allowed? The institution would certainly not let that happen.

Grading by the professors must be based on merit and reason, not on requests from the Camp Leader...

"I understand," the Camp Leader said with a smile. Soon, the meeting between the professors and the military ended. The situation outside had slightly improved. After the military removed the poison around the camp, it no longer attracted beasts like the Nacazak and Brown Bear Beasts. However, many were still wary of a repeat incident, so they increased patrols and inspections.

Fortunately, this time the poison powder only attracted those two types of beasts. If next time the culprit used poison powder for more types of beasts...it could be a much harder challenge.

After Ellie spent time concocting 10 cauldrons of low-level wound healing potions, Celey instructed her to take a break and stretch. Meanwhile, the 1-star level apothecaries continued the work.

Ellie’s potion-concocting was quite efficient; she could concoct enough potion for 100 people in half a day. If converted to money, it would be worth nearly 1 gold coin. If she continued this work after graduation, she could live comfortably. However, spending half a day at the stove was not the job Ellie desired. Therefore, potion-concocting was just something she did as needed. If she really needed money...wouldn’t it be better to accelerate the growth of herbs and sell them?

"Ellie, how are you doing? They finally let you take a break?" Wint was the first to approach her eagerly. Behind him was Nara, limping along after receiving her own low-level wound healing potion.

The wound from before had just been treated, and it was unbelievable that Nara would have such bad luck to get pierced by feathers again, resulting in 2-3 more wounds on the same leg. This time, the wounds were deeper, so it would take about 3 days of low-level healing potion treatment for her to fully recover.

"Ellie...you’re really amazing. You’re just a first-year student, but you can already help the apothecaries," Nara complimented Ellie, following Wint’s lead. Since Wint admired Ellie so much and Nara had previously said something unpleasant that upset him, she wanted to improve the situation.

Nara acted as if she were very close to Ellie, giving her a bright smile as if the earlier incident was just a dream. Seeing Nara’s display...Ellie exhaled in disgust.

"I need to go rest," Ellie said directly to Wint. Since he had revealed his true nature to her, there was no need for politeness anymore. Wint nodded easily.

"In that case, I’ll stand guard outside your tent. If anything happens, I can protect you," Wint said earnestly, but Ellie only grimaced at him.

"No, if you come, someone will surely follow, and that would annoy me so much I wouldn’t be able to rest."

"Ellie...when you say someone will follow, do you mean me?" Nara’s mouth twitched. She couldn’t believe that Ellie would dare to be so harsh in front of Wint. Instead of being displeased with Ellie’s harsh words, Wint acted as if he hadn’t heard anything, which made Nara feel it was unfair.

"Yes," Ellie didn’t beat around the bush. When Nara asked, Ellie just affirmed her suspicion, causing Nara to almost scream.

"Isn’t this too much? I haven’t done anything to you. Why do you have to be so mean?"

"Haven’t done anything?" Ellie raised her eyebrows, returning the question to Nara. Ellie’s voice wasn’t soft, so others could hear the conversation.

"Haha, how funny. Lady Ellie spelled it out, and she still doesn’t get it?"

"Look at her face. She looks like she’s shocked that Lady Ellie would respond like that."

"She’s really thick-skinned, doing so much to Lady Ellie and then claiming she didn’t do anything."

"She’s a disgusting woman. No one wants to associate with her anymore. If it weren’t for Lord Wint letting her follow him around, she’d probably be all alone."

"I don’t know if you saw, but I noticed that while we were dodging the beast’s attacks, she tried to get into the circle to have Lord Aman protect her. But he kicked her right out."

"Haha, really? If I were Lord Aman, I would have taken that opportunity to get rid of her."

"Sigh, thinking about it, she’s actually a bit pitiful. If she hadn’t been greedy for Lady Ellie’s money back then, maybe Lady Ellie would be protecting her now."

"She probably didn’t expect Lady Ellie to become someone important... Back then, being a disciple of Professor Lucien made her think she was more special than others. Little did she know that Professor Lucien was the strictest of all. If he knew his direct disciple did wrong, he wouldn’t have kept them and then punish them.""Now it’s too late for regrets. Acting like she never had any problems with Lady Ellie...huh! It’s truly laughable."

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