CH 23

Translator: Blushy

Editor: delishnoodles

Fabio will be studying under Count Palatine Vedett for a while, and I won’t be asking him to do anything.

Right now, both the Chancellor and the Chief of the Ministry of Ceremonies had returned to their fiefs because they were wary of ‘other nations’. If I reduce their influence at this time, then other nations will invade the Empire. The citizens of Lord Raul’s fief and the citizens of Duke Aquicurl’s fief were equally people of the Empire. I want to avoid unnecessary sacrifices.

That was why I’ve decided to wait. Life will go on as it did before in the palace for the time being. 

But I’ll do what I can do, especially when it comes to myself since I won’t be affected by their political strife. 

I asked Count Palatine as I finished my daily swordsmanship practice. 

“Count Palatine Vedett. I read in a book that… a certain royal family takes diluted poison to make their bodies resistant to poison. Is this possible?”

Well, it was something I read in my previous world. 

I also didn’t tell him I have memories of my previous life, but this is Count Palatine Vedett, I’m sure he has an idea of what I was talking about. 

“If that is what you wish, but it’s only better than not doing it.”

He strangely hid his feelings. Well, he is the head spy. He had probably already trained himself with poison. 

“I don’t mind… What about Timona?”

I turned to Timona who had been waiting in silence. 

“No, I am Your Majesty’s poison taster.”

He flatly refused. 

It was better to poison someone who wasn’t used to poison since it would react better. 

That was why I told him to stop being a poison taster… but poison tasters won’t know that what they’re eating is poisoned if it was planned well. 

For example, there are things that aren’t poisonous when taken alone but become a powerful poison when combined with something else. If they mix one of those into my food and another into medicine or something then the poison taster won’t die, and only I will be killed. 

I’m sure there are other countless ways to use poison as well. It’s extremely low for me to not get poisoned even if I have a poison taster. 

Well, I’m sure they understand why I would choose the first option when asked if I wanted a poison taster or not. If it’s between 0% or 1%, then I’d choose the 1%… usually.

But I can use magic. 

“Oh right, make sure you include poisons that can’t be countered.”

Those probably exist. I don’t know anything about poisons though.

“Oh… Understood, Your Majesty.”

Luckily, I had a spell I wanted to try.

◊♦◊♦◊♦◊

Count Palatine Vedett brought some poisons to the palace the following week on a day when I had no practice. He carefully placed the liquids in glass bottles, and they all looked the same because the liquid was transparent. 

He also brought cookies with a small amount of poison in them so that I can build tolerance against them. I’ll use these for my experiments later. 

Now, I’m going to try a new spell. I should be able to neutralise the poison if this works. 

So, I went out of the window once. 

… I had to do this. It’s better if I have plenty of mana if I’m going to experiment.

By the way, I heard that the magic tool that ‘immobilises’ mana indoors and makes it impossible to use magic is called a ‘sealing magic tool’. 

Now, the magic I was going to try was inspired by the grimoire… that I read the other day. The title was ‘The Theory of La Tel (Barrier Magic)’. 

There is something called ‘Christel (Protective Barrier Magic)’. It’s a useful spell that defends against physical and magical attacks to a certain degree.

This magic can be altered to a certain extent when the mage attaches ‘conditions’ to the spell. For example, by ‘allowing physical interference (since it cannot differentiate whether something is an attack or not)’, then it can be made into a ‘Christel’ that specialises in anti-magic, and vice versa. 

If you increase the mana used to make it or keep channelling magic into the barrier so it doesn’t break while in use, then you can increase its durability. 

Naturally, the amount of mana consumed will increase, however even if you try to weaken this spell, the amount of mana consumed will still increase because the mana was being consumed by the ‘conditions’. 

Let’s say the mana consumed by a normal ‘Protective Barrier Magic’ is 3, so you would clearly lose 3 mana. Increasing how strong the barrier is will consume 2 more mana, thus the amount of mana consumed would be 5. 

But when you are weakening the barrier, you subtract 3 from 2 which would result in 1, but the mana used is 5 since you need to add 3 and 2. 

‘The Theory of La Tel’ could be explained in a nutshell like this: If that were the case, then why don’t you make magic that produces a result of 1 with 1 mana from the start?

So, the magic I was going to create was ‘La Tel’ which only repelled poison. 

However, there was a problem in its creation. 

I can put a condition on ‘Christel’ to be impervious to smells because I have a clear image of what a smell was. 

However, that wasn’t the case with poisons. I’ve had too little contact with poisons in my previous life to know what they are and when it was considered medicine or poison. 

So, even if I can create a ‘La Tel with specific conditions on it’, I can’t imagine how it would repel poison. 

But in the end, magic depends on your imagination. I had no choice but to substitute that with what I can imagine. 

There are two necessary processes to prevent poison. The first was to prevent the poison from entering my body and the second was to isolate the poison so that it could be safely removed from my body. To do this, I will use a three layer La Tel. 

I’ll start by experimenting with a two layer La Tel. 

I asked Count Palatine to give me the weakest poison from the ones he had brought and opened the cork. If this volatilises and affects my body, then I’ll be in deep trouble. 

I was going to create a La Tel that defends against only magic. Now I have to get creative. 

The other day, I found out that ‘bestowal’ magic can not only add ‘attributes’ to something, but also add flames. Since that was the case, I should be able to bestow poison. 

I used my mana to make a drop of poison float and carefully manipulated it and bestowed it to La Tel. 

Yup, it was a success. So far so good. 

Now I have a ‘La Tel bestowed with poison’. Let’s call this ‘La Tel A’. 

Well, that is the property of Christel: the two layers of Christel that are conditioned to ‘defend against magic’. These two layers (the layer that defends against magic and the mage’s anti-effect layer) repel when they clash. Christel was also magic, so it could do this. The same properties apply to La Tel, a magic in the same branch. 

I created a three layer La Tel. This was a La Tel that only defends against La Tel A.

It was easy to create and also easy to picture. I’ll call this La Tel B. 

Then, I put the two La Tels opposite to each other and made them collide.

La Tel A defends against magic and La Tel B defends against La Tel A. 

These two barriers repelled each other, but their repulsive power was extremely weak since La Tel can only produce a ‘result of 1’. 

La Tel A, which La Tel B was defending against, has poison bestowed on it. La Tel B being able to protect against La Tel A meant that it wasn’t just protecting against the barrier, but also the poison, but if poison enters from La Tel A, La Tel B will be unable to determine if that poison had entered from an outside source or if it had been bestowed on La Tel A. 

I manipulated another drop of poison which I had used earlier and dripped it from the anti-effect side of La Tel A. 

Then, just as I had hoped, the drop of poison floated to the top of La Tel A. 

“Oh. Very clever.”

Count Palatine Vedett stared at me. I wish he would stop distracting me. 

Anyhow, the experiment was a success. I’ve created the lowest barrier I can to prevent poisoning. 

The next step was to create a spell to safely remove or isolate poison from my body. 

One of the spells I learnt from the book was Reveria Christel (Counter Barrier). It was an extremely inefficient magic that bestows ‘counterattack’ to a barrier and activates that ‘counterattack’ when it receives an attack. 

It was better to attack with another magic spell while using a barrier because you can respond more flexibly. In fact, this was a magic that was created by someone as a last resort since they could only use two or three spells at a time.

It was a wonderful invention. 

I’m going to make a cheaper version of this Reveria Christel, Reveria Tel. Thus, I’ll set ‘Barrier Expansion’ to this ‘counterattack’ and set it so it ‘counterattacks’ when ‘something touches the surface’, then I’ll set it ‘face down’ on top of the two layers I had just stacked together. 

This should work. I dropped the poison from above again. 

It passed through the first layer because the anti-effect side was at the top, it also passed through the second layer as well, but the third layer repelled the poison. Then, the returned drop of ‘poison’ passed through the second layer again while making contact with the first layer which activated the ‘counterattack’. A barrier that covers everything was deployed. 

“It’s flawless.”

The magic that I wanted to make was completed. I think I might have a talent for magic. 

Someday, I’ll give up my throne to my children, retire and become a magic researcher!

This spell will stop any poison that has been bestowed on La Tel A. All I have to do is collect as many poisons as I can from all over the world, but new and old, and bestow them on La Tel A. 

The problem was that this chain of magic could only be used once, and it can’t handle rare poisons or new types of poisons for which there are no samples… but I’m sure I can collect all poisons since I’m the Emperor. 

I checked the barrier again just to be certain. The same process was followed again to create a triple magic barrier. 

I created water with magic and dropped it from above. It fell to the ground without being caught by La Tel. I guess normal food and water will pass right through this barrier. 

Next, I crushed up the cookie that was going to be used to help me build poison tolerance and dropped it on La Tel. 

The barrier reacted properly, and a barrier was set up. 

It was a really impressive barrier, if I do say so myself. 

Now all I had to do was place this barrier on my throat. 

I wore contact lenses in my previous life, so I didn’t fear inserting foreign objects into my body and this was magic I had made myself. 

“You do not need to build up tolerance against poison if you can prevent it.”

Count Palatine watched my experiments and said,

“It’ll be difficult to have children if you let your body get used to poison.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. It’s possible that they’ll have health problems even if they’re born. My child was also born blind.”

… I see. So, he has had actual experience with this. I didn’t know how to respond to this. 

“… You can use this magic among the spies too.”

“It’s impossible. There aren’t many people who can skilfully produce magic like this.”

Ah, I see. 

“… And, you’ll still have political duties even if you retire.”

I was told this as I climbed through the window and returned to my room. 

Why can you read my thoughts?