Griffin had brought too many surprises and raised Annan's expectations too high. The Alchemist candidates who followed seemed ordinary by comparison, so Dunbelly handled all the talking.
Only one person stood out: a farmer who had improved a windmill's design. That was right—not an Alchemist, but a farmer.
He was an ordinary farmer from a farmstead in a Knight's Fief. The windmill kept breaking, and the Mage had no time to repair it, so he tinkered with it himself. At first, he only oiled and cleaned it. Then he began replacing parts and patching the canvas, and eventually had the Blacksmith hammer out replacement blades to his specifications. Over the past twenty years, he had replaced nearly every part of the windmill, turning himself from an ordinary farmer into... an old farmer who could build windmills.
According to him, the improvements had made the mill more efficient. Grain that used to take a week to grind could now be finished in six days—a fifteen percent increase in efficiency.
The old farmer had been excited about his invention and asked someone to tell the Lord in the Castle. But he received neither a reward nor a word of praise. Then a passing caravan told him about the Annan Dream Fund, singing Annan Reeves's praises and claiming it had made countless ordinary people rich. So he had come to try his luck.
Annan had Luoxi take him to the Mage Tower and construct a model windmill to test whether it really worked that well.
At dusk, after a full day of interviews, Annan returned to the Garden.
"Darling, you're back?"
The Princess came to meet him as soon as he stepped onto the garden path. She wore a maid outfit that showed off her pale, slender legs.
Annan jumped. If Cathy had