I had been fully accepted by the village as the “Flower Witch.” The edible plants I produce through Diversification, along with the village’s original crops, are growing with Puribloom fertilizer, and I receive a share of the vegetables and fruits that ripen.
And with livestock feed now abundantly available, the village that had only chickens and two or so goats has seen at least one person acquire cattle through a traveling merchant, with more animals potentially on the way. I’m not particularly sensitive to smells, but at the villagers’ request I grew Puribloom there too. According to Noel, “the livestock shed doesn’t smell at all!”
(It’s a livestock shed covered in flowers. Somehow it’s very whimsical.)
For me, being able to receive milk and goat’s milk is a genuine pleasure. Nutritious liquids are easy for me to absorb as food. Noel apparently prefers cow’s milk to goat’s milk, and was delighted the first time we received some. They’re apparently now making cheese from the milk, and he’s looking forward to when it’ll be ready.
Food really is one of life’s pleasures. It’s becoming part of my daily routine to watch Noel happily eating meals while I have tea, milk, or fruit juice — which is to say, I touch my lips to them and absorb them.
“Ma’am Witch, you don’t eat very much, do you.”
(Well — I’m eating monsters, after all.)
I keep my energy well supplied by occasionally eating the monsters and animals that get caught in the village fence. And sometimes I do eat what the villagers bring me too. Raw eggs in particular are quite nutritious, so I have those from time to time.
But from a human perspective, I probably appear to eat almost nothing. Noel let his ears droop slightly with a worried look.
“Could it be you’re holding back so I get more to eat?”
(Not at all. …Though I do make sure you eat plenty.)
I shook my head. Human food is for humans, so I just don’t eat much of it — that’s all. And I can’t cook, besides. Without any sense of how things are supposed to taste, I can’t make good use of the ingredients in this world.
The first dish I ever made was a wild bird slow-roasted with full-recovery potion, but when I tried cooking here in the village, Noel went pale and said “I’ll do it!” and stopped me — so it was probably awful. He makes his own meals himself now.
He does try to feed me, but I decline and just accept drinks, so to him I must look unhealthily underfed.
“Um… what about jam in your tea? Could you eat that, ma’am Witch?”
(Oh — that might work actually.)
“Then I’ll make jam today!”
And with that Noel cheerfully headed off to harvest from the garden. In the meantime, I decided to take a bath and headed out to the river behind the house.
This outfit is made from my own vines, so I can undo it to wash it. I let it become part of my hair and submerged in the river, washing it clean.
This body doesn’t shed grime the way a human does, but soil and dust still collect on the clothes, so without washing like this the dirt accumulates.
(I have a warm bath set up for Noel, but I’m not really fond of hot water myself.)
The basic bathing method in this world is filling a large tub with hot water. But getting into hot water feels rather uncomfortably like becoming a boiled Mandrake. …One imagines a nice Mandrake broth could be had.
The Puribloom growing along the riverside has been slowly extending upstream, and white petals occasionally drift down on the current. Perhaps because of that, the water here is extraordinarily nutritious, and bathing in it is quite pleasant. Water plants and fish have been multiplying too, making for the occasional convenient snack.
(Noel’s in the garden, and there’s no one watching, right?)
I was checking the area, thinking to catch a fish, when a male voice behind me said “ah—” and I turned.
Two humans were standing there. Knights I recognized, frozen at the sight of me. Of course I screamed magnificently on the inside, but none of it escaped outward.
“I — my sincerest apologies!”
One of the men spun quickly around and covered the other’s face with one hand. The one with his face covered seemed to have been hit by the oncoming hand, and blood was dripping from his nose.
(Let’s see… I hadn’t caught anything yet, and they were behind me, so they didn’t see the front, right…?)
My body is modeled on human form, but only in shape — it isn’t completely identical. The chest is large, but I didn’t add any detail, and viewed from the front the skin is as smooth and undifferentiated as a mannequin’s. It would be bad if they’d gotten a good look.
I climbed out of the river immediately and wove clothes from the vines in my hair, wrapping them around myself. Squeaking internally, I observed the two of them. Both had their backs to me and weren’t looking.
“That running Mandrake back then was built like that too…”
“Ritter, that is extraordinarily rude, please stop.”
These seem to be the two I spotted in the wasteland that time. The knight with the nosebleed apparently also glimpsed me during my undignified earlier phase. The other one was the man I’d saved when he was dying. I’m glad he’s alive — but the meeting was near the wasteland. Would I be questioned about what I was doing out there?
(This is bad… if they think that Mandrake evolved all the way to here, that’s trouble. …I really need to create more running Mandrakes!)
If other running Mandrakes were confirmed to exist, they’d assume the one they’d seen before was a different individual. They’d never imagine that a Mandrake who evolved into human form is using Diversification and Bifurcation to reconstruct its old appearance.
I’d been putting this off since settling in peacefully, but creating mobile Mandrakes really is necessary. To keep up the human pretense going forward, I should have a few made. …I’ll have to find time to experiment.
(Hmm, how long are they going to stand with their backs turned. …Oh right — they wouldn’t know I’m dressed again.)
I’d confirmed the knight didn’t die from my voice last time, but whether he has curse-countermeasures on him today I can’t know. Rather than call out, I walked up quietly and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
“…! I must apologize for what just occurred.”
“Yes, well, quite a sight — I mean thank you — I mean I am terribly sorry…”
The two turned around. The knight I’d saved now had an eyepatch over one eye, hiding the distinctive mismatched pair I remembered. The other knight was rubbing under his nose and muttering something.
“Ritter. …I’ll handle this — would you mind stepping back?”
The nosebleed knight, rebuked by that tone, stepped back a few paces. The one-eyed knight fixed his single gold eye steadily on me.
“You are… the Flower Witch, I presume?”