The Earth Mother Goddess's power.
Tsk.
Kroya felt a headache coming on. Golden hair like this was said to be a special phenomenon produced by a ritual of the Earth Mother Goddess Church.
Children blessed by this strange ritual gained a basic ability to manipulate natural mana, and their hair turned gold, the color of harvest.
Supposedly, they were not followers of the Earth Mother Goddess. They were simply blessed through this ritual, then sent across the continent to benefit ordinary people.
At least, that was what the priests of the Earth Mother Goddess Church said.
They explicitly stated that these "Children of Harvest" could belong to any faction, and that the Earth Mother Goddess Church would never interfere.
In essence, however, this was a way for the Earth Mother Goddess Church to spread the Mother Goddess's light throughout the world-granting this tiny blessing to manipulate natural mana took less effort for the Earth Mother Goddess than a sneeze.
Generally, any lord who discovered such a child would provide for them well and have them tend his plantations.
In this way, the Earth Mother Goddess's light reached deep into each lord's domain.
Even a few favorable words about the Earth Mother Goddess from those lords would accomplish more than the church's own painstaking efforts to spread her name. It was quite a clever approach.
Still, as recipients of the Earth Mother Goddess's blessing, they naturally preferred the Vast Plains and hills.
They were rarely seen by the sea.
Moreover, only orphans could receive this ritual blessing. This little girl had parents, so how had she been blessed?
Was she an orphan they had taken in?
As he considered this, his expression remained unchanged. He gave Rob a meaningful look.
Rob immediately understood. He kept the little girl's family there, sent the other family home, and instructed the knight Ate to send over a squad of soldiers.
He was treating them as though they were dangerous criminals.
Kroya: "..."
There really was no need for this. I wasn't planning anything so extreme...
He watched the increasingly frightened family of four-the simple, honest parents, the petite younger sister, and the older brother protecting her.
They were an ordinary family, and somehow a very familiar sight.
He asked them outright, "Your daughter isn't your biological child, is she?"
"My lord..."
They smiled bitterly and nodded. "That's right, my lord. Elena is a child we took in."
"Then do you know what makes her special?" Kroya casually pointed at the barley nearby. "It suddenly ripened. You've been tending this barley all along, so surely you had some time to react?
"Did you really not notice anything unusual about your daughter?"
His tone remained calm. "If you knew about this power of hers, you should have told me directly, rather than springing a surprise like this on me."
His reaction was perfectly normal, and quite merciful, too. He was merely displeased. Another lord might have ordered their immediate arrest.
"My lord!"
The couple immediately pulled their children down to their knees and bowed their heads to the ground.
Their expressions had turned to outright terror. "My lord, she suddenly unleashed this power yesterday and couldn't control it.
"She can normally control it!"
Suddenly?
Generally, powers granted through a deity's blessing were closely tied to that deity. As long as the deity's condition remained stable, they would not change.
If it had not been deliberate, Kroya was actually rather interested.
As for their failure to tell him... that was fairly normal, too. In their position, he would not have placed so much trust in a lord who had only recently arrived.
It was only human nature.
He hesitated, then asked, "Can you control it now? Show me your power.
"If you really prove useful to me, I'll give you some benefits."
"Yes! I'll do it right away, my lord!"
The golden-haired little girl nodded hurriedly, then burst into loud sobs on the spot. When her tears fell to the ground, they formed golden-green crystals.
They rolled one by one across the silvery-white sand, giving off a faintly perceptible aura of nature.
"..."
She influences things by crying? This... I've never heard of anything like this.
The father looked at his adopted daughter with eyes full of love, then continued bowing to Kroya:
"My lord, yesterday, while Elena was tending the barley with us, she suddenly started crying. That's why...
"Please punish me. I was the one who told them not to say anything!"
"Of course you'll be punished." Kroya glanced at him. "Everything in this domain belongs to me, including all of you."
That was what he had to say, but if they truly proved useful, he certainly would not mind giving them some benefits.
The carrot and the stick.
The bigger the stick, the sweeter the carrot.
After delivering those words in a calm tone, he walked up to the girl and bent down to pick up a golden-green teardrop.
Sure enough, the teardrop contained a mass of natural mana. Besides that, there was a faint, almost imperceptible trace of a special power.
It lay at the very center of the teardrop, invisible to the naked eye. He could only sense that it "existed," with no way to accurately measure how much there was.
It had drawn the surrounding natural mana around itself and fixed the teardrop's shape, ultimately creating this peculiar substance.
Its composition was entirely different from mana. It was a far vaster, weightier power. If the Red Song Meditation Method Kroya practiced had not made his perception of mana exceptionally keen, he probably would not have noticed it at all.
There was no doubt.
Divine power... this must be the Earth Mother Goddess's divine power.
He hesitated.
Honestly, he did not particularly want to get involved with an entity like her.
But the natural mana inside would be extremely useful for expanding his cultivated land, saving him a great deal of time.
Then was there a way to have the best of both worlds...?
Rubbing the crystal-like teardrop between his fingers, he suddenly had a bold idea-the spell the Woodstar Curving Vine King had taught him was one a Legendary Mage used to separate and combine the powers of the earth luminary and water luminary.
That spell was exceptionally advanced and intricate. Even when faced with a power stronger than his own mana, it could slowly separate it through finesse rather than brute force.
It required extremely precise control over mana, a condition he happened to fulfill.
Could I use this method to separate the natural mana from the divine power inside?
Divine power should still be a form of power at its core, just a little more advanced.
But power all the same.
The Woodstar Curving Vine King specifically used divine power as an example back then... so could I try separating it?
"Perhaps..."
If his idea worked, allowing him to separate out the divine power and leave only natural mana, he could make full use of it.
Natural mana was quite important, after all.
With that in mind, he beckoned to Rob. "Take them back for now. They're not to leave their home without my orders."
He intended to give it a try. If he succeeded, these people would have value he could put to use. That would be the best outcome.
If they proved valuable enough, he would naturally be willing to overlook a few minor matters-the girl would become a source of natural mana, providing him with an endless supply.
But if he failed... he would still find a way to make good use of the Child of Harvest's abilities. He simply would not let her become involved in his core operations.
Either way, he would not lose out.
Once Rob had taken everyone away, Kroya began his experiment, casting the spell called the "Seven Luminaries Separation Technique."
Crimson mana flowed like water around the tiny golden-green teardrop, forming a rotating ring.
As he increased the flow of mana into it...
Something unexpected happened.
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