Felis could not quite understand. "Why? There isn't much arable land left in Black Mystery Town, is there?"
He could not help glancing upward. "Hah... probably only our Mage Tower would fill its gardens with black taro and dress it up as landscaping.
"Honestly... if I didn't know people from the Despair Tower, I'd have thought you really couldn't grow a single blade of grass inside a Mage Tower's Protective Formation!"
"I don't see anything wrong with that," Russell said very seriously. "Even if the land around the town were still usable, I'd still think black taro was a better choice than all that useless grass.
"If we can have the best of both worlds, why insist on planting useless grass that drains even more nutrients from the soil?"
"Huh? Isn't that grass supposed to help with meditation?" Felis asked in surprise.
"Our teacher planted some in the Side Tower once when he was bored..." Russell said in an odd tone. "His assessment was that perhaps looking at the grass put those people in a good mood, so they felt mentally refreshed.
"Otherwise, that grass wasn't even as useful for making pigments as black taro skins."
In other words, it was utterly useless, and that claim had only spread because of vanity.
Though Felis was speechless, he could understand... someone born into a noble family could certainly relate to that mindset.
Russell, however, rather surprised him.
Felis had always thought Russell cared quite a bit about appearances. He also handled things so impeccably that he seemed the sort who would never want anyone to see his shortcomings.
Yet he was actually a true pragmatist?
Of course, perhaps Russell did not consider the poverty and helplessness outsiders saw to be truly irredeemable flaws... not compared with making his family, or those