The Power of the Saint is All Around (LN) - Volume 5 - Chapter SS2

Bonus Story 2

“WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK?” I asked a knight after he was done eating. 

“It was delicious!”

Hm. Not the answer I’d been hoping for. I chuckled half-heartedly.

“That’s not what she meant,” a second knight told the first.

The first knight scratched his head and laughed sheepishly.

The dining hall at the Research Institute of Medicinal Flora was stuffed with people and lively for it. Normally, it was just me and my colleagues, but that day, the Knights of the Third Order had come to help me with some experiments.

By experiments, I meant specifically some tests I was running on spelt, a type of wheat I had found in Klausner’s Domain. While there, I had discovered that food made with spelt increased HP recovery. However, I didn’t yet know the mechanism; did it actively heal the body, or did it shorten the standard interval of HP recovery, or what? These experiments would help me sort that out.

I probably could have investigated spelt using my colleagues as my research subjects, but as spelt impacted HP recovery, I really wanted to use the knights. They were highly sensitive to tiny changes in their HP, seeing as their HP was depleted on the regular. Thus, I asked them to participate.

At least, that was what I told myself. The fact was that I was well aware that the knights really, really wanted to eat my pasta again.

“Take a look at your stats,” the second knight told his friend. “We’re here because we’re supposed to be helping with her experiments.”

“Yeah, come on,” a third teased.

I nodded. “Yes, please let me know every time you recover some HP.”

“Will do!”

“Got it!”

Enthusiastic as always.

Now that the knights were done eating, the next step was to check their stats. The knights opened their stats windows and focused on their HP count. Every time one of them reported a change, the researcher assigned to their table recorded it.

Those records were the last step of the experiment, so I headed over to a table in the corner of the dining hall to eat my own meal. I hadn’t eaten lunch yet because I had been leading everyone else thus far. Two men were waiting for me there.

“Thanks for the hard work,” said Johan.

“Yes, thank you,” said Albert.

I had been planning to eat on my own, but the two of them had waited for me to eat. They thanked me for the meal as I sat. I let out a sigh of exhaustion as a chef brought over some pasta for us.

“My apologies. So many of my knights were begging to try it again,” Albert said.

“That’s all right. In fact, it’s better to have lots of people participate. That means we’ll have a much easier time pinning down the effect.”

“It must have been hard to cook all of this though, right?”

I laughed to brush off his question. I was sure he’d work himself into a tizzy if I told him the truth. He seemed to catch on anyway, and he frowned.

Sorry… I can’t say it was easy.

It had taken a ton of work to prep everything for the study. When I’d asked for volunteers, practically every single knight in the Order had raised his hand. Pasta was pretty popular in the Third Order, especially because those of them who hadn’t accompanied me to Klausner’s Domain had heard of its deliciousness from the knights who had.

Of course, the knights weren’t the only ones eager to try new food. Everyone at the institute was hankering for a taste as well, starting with Johan.

As a result, I had been incredibly busy getting everything together. First, I’d had to teach the institute’s chefs how to cook the pasta. Second, I’d had to design the study. I’d worked hard during the actual pasta-making part too—though I’d only watched during that last part. I hadn’t wanted my fifty percent bonus curse messing things up. So perhaps I’d had it easy, in the end. The chefs were the ones who’d really had it rough.

Maybe I’ll make dessert after. We bought so much spelt for this study that I could definitely make crepes too. Those are pretty easy.

“You were right, Al. Even though it’s seasoned with nothing but herbs, this is delectable.” Johan had clearly heard about Albert’s prior pasta experience.

“See? What’d I tell you?” Albert enthused.

“Thank you,” I said. “I do wonder if it would’ve been better not to add any of those for this study, though…”

“Oh, I’m sure there would’ve been a riot,” said Albert.

Well, he’s right. It would be weird to just eat salted noodles. Would they really riot, though? I reflexively glanced in the direction of some of the knights. Surely Albert wouldn’t let them get away with that, right?

And then there was Johan. He nodded thoughtfully at Albert’s observation. Come on, really?!

Once they finished, Johan joined the experiment. “Stats… I just can’t tell.”

“Maybe there’s no change because you’re at full HP?”

“That could be it.”

We researchers were usually doing office work, so we rarely lost any HP. Sometimes our HP was affected when we got lightly poisoned, or that one time someone accidentally got hit with a laxative, but that didn’t sound like something to experiment with. I had instantly shot the idea down when one of my colleagues brought it up.

I’d asked the knights to train before they came, so they weren’t at full HP. However, as a result, they ate most of the pasta, which took me by surprise. I had underestimated their appetites.

I’ll be sure to make even more for them next time.

Yup, this wasn’t the only study I had in mind. I was planning to cook another dish with spelt in order to find out whether it was the type of food that induced this effect or if spelt itself yielded the effect in general.

Although we’d had to make a ton of food this time, our hard work paid off. We were able to determine that dishes made with spelt increased the rate at which HP was naturally recovered. Based on these findings, the officials at the palace began to reconsider the use of wheat. They intended to change the knights’ field rations to spelt-based foodstuffs. It would be a great help to have this kind of effect on hand while they were out fighting monsters.

The dining hall at the institute kept using regular old wheat, though. We researchers just wouldn’t benefit enough from the effect to make buying spelt worth it.

Spelt had been recognized as an exceptionally healthy food in my old world too. I was pretty interested in finding out just what benefits food could bring outside of the effects manifested by Cooking skills.

I contemplated this as I compiled my report on the results of the day’s study. Johan noticed my distracted look and said, “Something the matter?”

“No, I was just thinking about something.”

He glanced at my papers. “What about?”

“I’m wondering how good spelt is for the body outside of its skill-based applications. Like, could I use it in medicinal cooking?”

Johan touched his chin. “You never know. I imagine you could, but you’ll only be able to confirm it one way or another with an experiment.”

“True.”

In the end, we decided that we needed to conduct more studies. This was no problem as research projects were the heart and soul of the Research Institute of Medicinal Flora. However, we wouldn’t make any major breakthroughs right away—sorting this out would take patient, persistent research.

I already had my hands full with tons of projects, so I didn’t think I could add this one to my immediate workload. This new idea of mine would just have to sit on the back burner.

Having come to that conclusion, I went back to writing my report.