Chương 676: 706 - Hesperidic Apples

When the hoard was finally all accounted for, there wasn't that much to divide amongst their three parties. Since most of the goods were marked with some kind of sigil or other identifying emblem, those were off-limits. There was always the possibility that these weren't stolen goods, of course, but they were still going to be returned, anyway, for that possibility was small. However, even then, there were still more than enough items around for everyone to take at least one item.

Cassandra took quite a few pieces of jewelry, as did Penelope, but Leon restrained himself quite a bit more, taking only the box with the seeds and letting the rest of his retinue take anything else that might've been set aside for him. And so, most of his retinue walked out of the cave with new pieces of jewelry. Gaius, Alcander, and Marcus all took rings, while Anshu, Helen, and Anna took necklaces. Alix got a new pair of bracelets, and Talal took a silver scepter.

Elise took perhaps the most out of all of Leon's group, claiming an emerald necklace, a new pair of earrings, and two gold rings. Maia and Valeria both refused to take anything at all. It was a little disappointing, but the shiny pieces were hardly the real treasures to be had during the hunt—Leon's group alone had a dozen wyvern kills to their name, and that represented a ton of wealth on their own, let alone the eggs or the two wyvernlings.

If any of them wanted anything golden after the hunt was over, they'd be able to easily buy it with the spoils of the hunt. Leon found himself contemplating all of this from the cliff's edge overlooking the gorge. The black wyvern was dead, but that didn't mean the hunt as a whole was finished.

There were still several weeks remaining where thousands of wyverns would be swarming over the Scorched Fields, hunting down just about everything that moved to feed their hatching young, and the hunters would have to work hard to ensure that enough of the wyvern population was culled that they didn't wander too far afield and threaten the Pegasi States. Leon's party, for their part, wasn't just going to wait around, not when they still had a wager to win.

They were in the lead thanks to their trip into the aeries, but that could still change if they rested too long on their laurels. So, by the afternoon after the slaying of the black wyvern, they joined Leon at the edge of the cliff, their flight gear on, ready to fly back out into the Scorched Fields to rejoin the hunt. Before they could leave, though, Leon noticed Cassandra and her entourage walking by on their way to the Imperial ark, and the Princess couldn't resist calling out a parting challenge to Leon.

"It's been fun, Leon Raime! Enjoy this taste of victory, and let it provide you solace when you hand that enchanted stone over to me!" Leon didn't verbally respond, choosing instead to just smirk back at the Princess, who didn't seem at all fazed by his response.

"Let's go," he quietly said to his people, and almost as one, they rose into the air and flew away from the gorge.

That night, only several dozen miles away from the gorge, but further east and back in the Scorched Fields proper, Leon met with Helen and Elise in his portable villa's dining room. The retinue had brought down another wyvern, but it had only been a fifth-tier beast, one small enough that Leon didn't even bother doing anything himself, instead choosing to let the weaker members of his retinue deal with it. The box in front of him was far more exciting, in his mind.

He trusted Helen when she told him that he had to take it over anything else, and while he didn't question her expertise, he was still eager for an explanation. So, he opened the broken box and retrieved the seeds from the pouch they were in. Elise gasped when Leon laid the three small golden seeds on the table, her emerald eyes going wide in surprise, then narrowing from a gleeful smile." These were rotting away in a wyvern's lair?" she whispered in disbelief.

"What a waste," Helen responded, smiling at Leon's fire-haired wife.

"Thankfully, we should be able to put them to much better use, now…"

"What are they?" Leon asked, feeling more than a little left out.

"Hesperidic Apples," Helen answered.

"Or seeds for the trees that grow into trees that produce Hesperidic Apples." Leon gave her a blank look.

"… They're valuable, I presume? And not just in the monetary sense?"

"Hesperidic Apples are incredibly valuable," Elise stated in a hushed whisper.

"If eaten freshly picked, a Hesperidic Apple will help a mage form their magic body…" As Elise trailed off and Leon's eyes grew wide in shock and understanding, Helen picked up the explanation.

"That's only if eaten as apples. I've heard that the juice of Hesperidic Apples can be used in various potions to help a mage ascend no matter what tier they are. The juice can be brewed into a potion that will help a mortal's body adapt to magic, or help a mage learn to use elemental magic power safely. It can be brewed into a potion that will give a mage visions that supposedly help them figure themselves out and build their Mind Palace, while helping even stronger mages grow their soul realms."

"These apples sound downright miraculous," Leon observed, doubt creeping into his tone now that he'd had a couple of seconds to process the explanation.

"They do," Helen conceded.

"However, the power they have in helping a mage to form their magic body is real. These apples are mostly grown far in the east, in Beloran and the Menomonee Valley, and even then, yields for good apples are typically low. Given the power of their fruits, they tend to be targeted by vermin and scavengers, and even under ideal conditions, they can be incredibly difficult to grow…" Helen and Elise shared a look, both of their expressions falling now that they were thinking about this problem.

"All right," Leon said.

"I'll believe you when you say the magic body thing is real. What about these other uses? I can't believe that a fruit like this would exist and not be everywhere, given just how useful it seems to be." Helen nodded.

"Granted, most of what I've heard is hearsay, these apples are incredibly carefully controlled. Supposedly, even Heaven's Eye has trouble getting small amounts, let alone larger amounts."

"And these small amounts are always reserved for Imperial interests," Elise added. Leon hummed in thought.

"I'd imagine, then, that these seeds would've had to be smuggled out of Beloran or the Menomonee Valley?"

"Most certainly," Elise said.

"It would've been incredibly risky, and prone to failure. A Hesperidic Apple seed can survive for a very long time outside of its natural environment, but getting one to grow into a tree outside of its natural environment is almost impossible. Not many people bother trying, given the potential risks. Smuggling these seeds is one of those laws that are usually punished with torture and execution…"

"Harsh," Leon whispered.

"But understandable," Helen added, and Leon shrugged in begrudging agreement.

"Then," Leon continued, "we come to the most important question. Can we get these to grow? And I mean that as in, is it possible for us to grow them back home? Or is the Ilian Empire not close enough to these apples' home environment for that? And more than that, is it illegal for us to do this? Will this get us into any trouble?" The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Probably best not to advertise our possession of these things," Elise said, her eyes narrowing again, a sign that Leon recognized as her turning the problem over in her mind. And a moment later, she smiled, a solution already in mind.

"We'll need to buy new property. You'll need to secure it, husband…"

"Not a problem." Leon was more than confident in his abilities to secure any location from scrutiny and intrusion, so long as he had the time and materials. Elise continued, "We'll surround the place with other apple trees as cover and have these grown in the center of the grove. We can claim various experiments are being conducted if questioned, which will hardly be a lie, and that's the reason for the security." Helen nodded again.

"I'll get a list of equipment we'll need for that to be believable." Leon blinked, doubt entering his mind again.

"Just claim that we're using an apple orchard for testing? Testing of what?"

"Leave the explanations to me," Helen replied with a confident smirk.

"I can come up with something. Maybe that I'm trying to replicate Hesperidic Apples or something, keep it fairly close to the truth. This isn't illegal, so we don't need to have iron-clad cover. This is just something to ensure we're not being overly scrutinized, right?" She cast a questioning look to Elise, who nodded.

"We don't want to tempt people to try and test our security, so we should probably come up with a different lie. Still, we're going to need some fairly robust hiring standards for grove tenders, and ensuring that these seeds will actually grow is going to be a task unto itself…" Elise continued muttering, and Helen occasionally pitched in with her own insight, but Leon zoned out for a little while, trusting that if they said that growing these trees and cultivating these powerful apples was possible, then it was.

He could already imagine what he could do if such powerful fruit trees were in his possession. He just had one question left.

"How long until we can start producing fruit?" Elise looked up at him, her train of thought momentarily disrupted, before a light frown spread across her face.

"It'll take years." Helen got more specific, "An apple tree will start producing within three or four years. Given the magical requirements for these things, I think a more conservative estimate of seven or eight years would be better." With a grin of anticipation, Leon said, "A relatively long time. Let's not waste any once we get home." Elise leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

"It's going to be hard waiting that long…"

"Let's not do anything that'll raise suspicions, then," Leon replied, wrapping an arm around his wife.

"Make sure we keep all of these apples for ourselves. I think we're going to need them, especially since we're going to have a wyvern coming to us in a year or so, and I'm sure her appetites are going to be quite massive…" Elise smiled at him again, and after a few more minutes of discussion with Helen, Leon pulled the seeds back into his soul realm where they'd be safe and out of sight. He was excited to get this apple grove built, but for now, they still had a hunt to finish.

Leon wished he could say that the rest of the wyvern hunt was as eventful as the hunt for the black wyvern and his harem, but it wasn't. Three weeks passed, and his retinue bagged another many more wyverns, none of them stronger than the sixth-tier. The population of hunting wyverns had thinned out well enough that simply finding the beasts started to take days by the end.

About a month after the hunt began, the time came when a wyvern hadn't been seen, let alone reported killed, in more than three days, so the hunt was called off and the hunters summoned back to Vyrias or one of the other small, temporary hub cities. Naturally, Leon and his people made their way back to Vyrias and set up camp in their assigned lot. Penelope arrived less than an hour later, riding in on her floating chariot pulled by Saternan horses, flanked by her retainers.

Leon noted that her retinue numbered three less than it had when the hunt began. He also noted that when Penelope met his gaze, he didn't notice any scorn or derision—a stark contrast to what he'd come to expect over the past ten years. They didn't exchange any words, and simply set about setting their own camps back up.

A couple hours after Penelope's arrival, Leon noticed Cassandra's ark return to her palace-tree, and not long after, one of Cassandra's hangers-on showed up to invite Leon and Penelope to another banquet. Leon braced himself for that particular meeting. It was where they were all going to formally report their kills and other accomplishments during the hunt, and when the winners would be announced. He thought about the red-eyed Princess and wondered just how she might take a loss.

He hadn't heard any updates from her side since their parting following the fight with the black wyvern, so he didn't know how many more wyverns she'd killed in these past few weeks. Given the ark she had, he supposed she probably scored at least double his kill count, but even then, with the eggs and wyvernlings, he calculated that he was still in the lead. The reminder of those wyvernlings had him glancing at them in his courtyard.

They'd been left behind with some Heaven's Eye beastmasters while the hunt continued, but now that it was over, Anna had taken over her two new charges, and was currently preoccupied with feeding them a small pile of raw red meat and crushed bone. The pale white wyvernlings, having grown to the size of small ponies already, ate with ferocity, and if they hadn't been in the grassy courtyard, Leon might've been annoyed at the mess they were making.

As it was, he could endure it well enough knowing that these wyverns were going to add their strength to his retinue's someday, though that might be a long ways off. Wyverns would be old enough to hunt on their own within a few months, but old enough to fight at the levels that Leon would need would be years in the future. Leon put those thoughts out of his mind for the moment and refocused on Cassandra's banquet.

The eggs and the heads his retinue had captured had been accounted for by Heaven's Eye before dealing with Black and his harem, and though there had been no agreed-upon third party to mediate the wager, Heaven's Eye would back up their scores, so there wouldn't be any shenanigans on anyone's part.

As evening rolled around, Leon, Elise, and Talal set out for the palace-tree, leaving everyone else behind—at this point, Leon didn't particularly feel like bringing an entourage with him, and he wanted his retainers to get some rest following weeks of constant movement during the hunt.

His small party was shown through Cassandra's palace-tree and to the familiar chamber at the top formed by branches and the thick, roof-like canopy, where Cassandra and the highest ranking members of the Sacred Golden Empire's hunting delegation awaited them in the stone courtyard. Cassandra herself wasn't sitting in her simple stone throne, glowering imperiously at all who entered her court, but instead was mingling with the several dozen people present.

Leon noted that unlike nearly every other time he'd seen her, she wasn't wearing her armor. Instead, she was clad in simple greens and golds, with her new cloth-of-gold cloak over her shoulders and a delicate diamond tiara perfectly placed in her purple hair. As was the case last time, Penelope had beaten them here, though this time she wasn't standing at Cassandra's side, silently gloating over her position.

Instead, she was chatting quite pleasantly with a number of high-ranking officials from both the Sacred Golden Empire and Heaven's Eye. When Leon, Elise, and Talal were announced, most people gave them a few moments of their attention before turning back to their own conversations. Cassandra, however, excused herself from her conversation and made her way over to greet them personally.

"Lady Elise," the Princess said, lightly embracing Elise, then turning her eyes toward Leon.

"Leon Raime." Her second greeting came with much less familiarity, though no less warmth. She seemed genuinely happy to see the two of them. Talal, meanwhile, was given a cursory nod, then summarily ignored—to his quiet displeasure, Leon was sure.

"I'm glad the two of you have finally arrived," the Princess continued.

"No one else accompanying you?"

"My retainers were tired, and I didn't have the heart to drag them out, even for this," Leon replied.

"That's a shame," the Princess said.

"I'm sure we could all do with blowing off some steam…" She gave Leon a strange look, her ruby eyes almost looking like they were seeing more than what was just on the surface. It wasn't the first time she'd looked at him like this, and Leon wasn't quite sure what it meant.

"That depends on how one blows off steam," Elise replied, her hands moving to take Leon's arm rather possessively.

"There are some fun ways to go about it, but many others can be… destructive…" One of Cassandra's eyebrows rose, and a thin smirk spread across her face.

"Can it really be called 'blowing off steam' if everything's intact afterward? I find that strenuous activity is the best way to relax." Elise's grip tightened, and her gaze shifted to Leon. He didn't have to look at his wife to know that her emerald eyes were filled with lustful heat, and he immediately began making plans to leave this place as soon as humanly possible.

He and his wife had had plenty of alone time over the past few weeks, but that didn't stop him from wanting to immediately drag her back to their portable villa and into their bedroom. Elise replied to the Princess, "I think we can agree on that point…"

"Lovely," Cassandra said.

"Now, how about we stop wasting time…" She paused to stare at them for a moment, and Leon felt a momentary spike of panic rush through him as the possible implications of what she was saying ran through his mind. He wasn't looking for another romantic partner, Elise's insistence on him building a harem be damned. Fortunately, Cassandra didn't leave things there.

"… and tally up our scores? I'm very interested to see who won our wager…" Leon breathed a quick sigh of relief, did his best to force his aroused libido to return from whence it came, and nodded.

"Let's do that," he said.