Chapter 38
Lian Qi looked at me silently, her expression subtle, pursing her lips as if she wanted to say something but was holding back.
“Wh-What’s wrong?” I asked weakly.
“Nothing. Let’s go.” She glanced away and turned to leave. She just watched me defeat the enemy… I wonder what she’s being so tsundere about?
I caught up to Lian Qi and left without looking back. Behind me, I left a field of Treant wreckage. One Treant head, separated from its body, lay on the ground. Its orc-like features were mangled, but its eyes still held a strange glint.
After walking out of the forest, Lian Qi and I passed the fields where the “green, non-magic-polluted” vegetables were grown. Looking out, the night enveloped the vine-covered manor, a scene that had become one with nature.
“It’s too quiet. Don’t you think it’s a trap?” Lian Qi said, frowning.
“Professor Einstein said the volunteers at Nature’s Home don’t know about the plan. They really think they’re protecting the environment. Maybe… they’re completely unaware of what’s happening tonight?” I said.
“We can’t trust everything he said. In any case, it’s better not to rush in. Maybe there’s a group of people hiding behind the door, holding towels soaked in poison, just waiting for us to push it open.”
“Mm.” I gave a helpless laugh, imagining a group of shadowy figures hiding behind the door. Lian Qi’s description is a bit too exaggerated.
Then, Lian Qi blatantly unleashed her magic right on Nature’s Home’s territory.
“Eh?” I watched the blue magic wreathe around her and joked, “Now these vegetables have been ‘contaminated’ with the aura of magic. They’re not green food anymore.”
“Who cares,” Lian Qi said, unconcerned.
This time, Lian Qi led the way. She brought me to the main gate of the vine-covered manor and stopped.
I watched her. Magic was condensing on her fist.
“Eh? Lian Qi, are you planning to…?”
I was halfway through my sentence when she raised her fist and punched at the gate from a distance.
The night sky seemed to shatter. Explosion magic swept across the entrance of Professor Einstein’s home. Countless vines were blasted to ashes in the shockwave.
“Einstein, get out here! I’ll count to ten. If you don’t come out, I’ll blow this place up!”
After the explosion magic, Lian Qi stood facing the gate, her fist clenched, issuing her final ultimatum.
“You’re so domineering,” I said with an awkward laugh.
“Shouldn’t I be?”
Lian Qi must have counted to ten in her head. She raised her fist again—
“Stop—!”
It was Loroshe’s voice?
Lian Qi’s simple and crude method had worked. The rickety main gate was pushed open, and Loroshe rushed out first, followed by other environmental volunteers.
“Saintess? Lian Qi?”
Loroshe looked at me first, but when her gaze shifted to Lian Qi and she saw her raised fist wreathed in magic, preparing to use explosion magic, an expression of terror appeared on her face!
“Please, don’t! Stop—stop!”
Too late. Lian Qi’s fist had already punched at the row of waterwheels under the eaves.
When we visited before, volunteers were running on them… for ‘power generation.’ Described by Lian Qi as being like hamsters in a wheel.
The cracks from the explosion magic spread all the way to the front of the waterwheels, and then, with a BOOM, they exploded!
The volunteers were instantly dumbfounded, their expressions as if their ideals had just exploded along with the waterwheels.
“How… how can you use magic inside Nature’s Home?”
Loroshe was completely dejected. Even her protest seemed so weak.
“You’ve all been deceived by Professor Einstein.”
Lian Qi stood with her back to the waterwheels’ skeletons, which were slowly turning to ash in the sea of fire, and spoke coldly to Loroshe and all the environmental volunteers present.
“That… ‘power generation’ equipment where people run on it like hamsters… he was just making fun of you.”
“That was a new energy source to replace magic! You… you destroyed it!” Someone in the crowd condemned her righteously.
“Don’t you get it yet? Einstein’s real intention was never to protect the environment! He was just using environmental degradation as a pretext to slander magic!”
“Impossible! You’re crazy!”
“What Lian Qi said is true.” I stepped forward at this time. “Your beloved Professor Einstein is actually one of the Demon King’s subordinates. He told me himself that his plan is to create and use environmental problems to incite the people’s disgust for magic.”
“Cr-create… environmental problems? Saintess-daren, what are you saying?” Loroshe looked at me, incredulous.
“Yes, create. As environmentalists… they are creating environmental pollution. Don’t you find that ironic?”
I said to them firmly. It seems that my words, as the Saintess, are a bit more persuasive?
“Haven’t you noticed that the smog enveloping the Royal Capital is gone? That was actually created by magic. Some of you must have participated in this morning’s protest. You saw with your own eyes the smog shrink into a cloud and fly away, right?”
The crowd looked at each other. Just as I thought.
“Then… the Lucerne River water turning pink… wasn’t that pollution from the mana crystal factory upstream?” Loroshe asked.
“No. That was because someone dumped poison into the Lucerne River, to deliberately frame the factory upstream. Also… someone tried to inject poison into the magic potatoes, but was caught by the Church. If people had eaten them and gotten sick… they would definitely have blamed it on magic-cultivated vegetables being harmful, right?”
“Th-then… they aren’t harmful?” one of the volunteers said, as if it were a matter of course.
“Humans have magic in their bodies from birth. Why don’t you trust it? Why do you think it’s harmful?” I retorted.
“If humans being exposed to magic isn’t harmful, but eating vegetables exposed to magic is? What kind of logic is that?” Lian Qi said, crossing her arms and watching coldly.
The other side was speechless.
“In any case, all these environmental problems were manufactured. The mastermind pulling the strings is your beloved Professor Einstein. I’ll say it again: you’ve all been deceived. The Druid organization’s Environmental Protection Side… is not about protecting the environment.”
“…Then one of them must be real, right!? There must be one environmental problem that’s real, that’s worth us protecting!” Loroshe stared with empty eyes, devastated.
“There is,” I said. But I felt that saying it would undoubtedly be pouring cold water on her.
“I mentioned just now that Einstein’s plan is to create and use environmental problems, right? Therefore, besides the ones he created, the environmental problem he is using is… the melting of the permafrost. But… we’ve run an experiment. The permafrost melting… might really have nothing to do with humans abusing magic.”
The environmental volunteers present fell into a collective silence.
It was all just a scam.
These people had been kept in the dark, thinking they were really protecting the environment.
No wonder Einstein said: “Being with these children… I feel like I’m really protecting the environment, too.”
He meant they were adorably stupid, didn’t he?
Loroshe shook her head, backing away.
“I’m… going to find Professor Einstein and ask him.”
“Where is he?” Lian Qi asked.
“I just saw him go toward the wine cellar!” someone said.
Just at that moment! The ground beneath our feet shook violently!
An earthquake?