I've Got a Great Idea!

Our little party had thoroughly enjoyed our botanical garden date.

Now, fully satisfied, we were riding the carriage home.

The Five Elders had me copy and stockpile every single species of plant in the garden, with a "This might come in handy for something!" Honestly, it would've been faster to just copy the entire botanical garden at that point. So I did.

That way, even if someone later goes "Oh, I forgot that one," we're covered. Heh. No oversights here. I'm one capable husband, after all.

So naturally, the medicinal herbs and the star attraction — the World Tree saplings — were all secured, and so were the poisonous plants, every last one.

Maybe next we should hit up a zoo and copy every animal there. What do you think, Dea-kun?

"A 'zoo'? What's that?"

"Huh, you don't have zoos? But you have botanical gardens?"

"… Researchers do sometimes capture and raise the animals they're studying, but it's not put on display for spectators."

Ah, right. In this world, "animals" covers way too broad a range.

There are dragons and stuff out there, after all… You can't just casually build a park for that.

Plants don't move, so gathering them into a garden is easy — it's basically the same as an herb field.

Plus, growing plants is a very elfy thing to do. Truly elven of them.

"If you put a dragon on display, you'd get complaints. More to the point, ordinary people can't tame them."

"True. If they could, then Dea-kun wouldn't have caused such a stir as the Dragon Priestess back in Terarialbee."

"And Arthur is tamed by you, big sis, not by me, remember?"

Yeah, well, Arthur seems like he'd put Dea-kun ahead of me, though.

I could force him to listen to me if I really wanted to… but what's your take on that, Mr. Horse?

"… Protectin' lil' Dea-kun is what Anego wants, so it works out either way, ya know!"

"Fair enough."

"Anyway, I was the one stuck waitin' outside the whole time you were at the botanical garden, ya know."

"You're a horse. Can't be helped."

If it makes you feel better, you can go inside the saved botanical garden once we get home. We'll go look for some tasty grass.

Hm, what is it, Mie-chan? You want some World Tree young leaves? Yes yes, here you go. I'm not going to be a stick-in-the-mud and tell you to wait till we get home — inspiration in the "now" matters for creative work, after all.

The rest of you, here, take some too.

As I was passing out World Tree leaves to all of the Five Elders, I noticed Fletta-chan had gone pale, her mouth hanging open and trembling.

"… U-um, excuse me? K-Karina-sama? That… unless my eyes are deceiving me, did you tear off… pieces of the World Tree? In that quantity?!"

"Oh, it's my skill. I can duplicate items."

I was getting tired of hiding it anyway, so I just spilled the beans.

"Kari-chan, are you sure it's okay to tell her that?"

"Well, when I think about it, there's no real reason to hide it from Fletta-chan…"

I mean, she's Dea-kun's fiancée. So she's basically like family to me, right?

Besides, it was the Five Elders who shamelessly begged me with "That one, please!" "And that one, and that one too!" right out in the open at the botanical garden. The cat was practically out of the bag already.

"Oh, but keep it a secret from everyone else, okay? Things'll get rough if it gets out."

"Huh."

"… Flaretart. Treat it as a state secret… His Majesty is aware of it."

The thing is, it's a pain to have people going "Copy this and that for me," and I don't want to duplicate things for anyone who won't respect my duplication rules.

The Five Elders are my wives, so they keep things to personal use, which is fine.

Huh, did you use one of Arthur's duplicated magic stones the other day when you made ink? You're right.

Mm, magic stones are a material I can hunt myself, so using one as material for a gift gets a SAFE ruling!

But today's botanical garden stuff isn't wild, so personal use only. Got it? Good!

Huh? Whether there's anything I'd like made from the World Tree?

Hmm. Then how about a little something for Mashiro-san as a souvenir — something that'd make her fur nice and glossy.

A portion for Misha? Nah, nah. Just shove a leaf up her butt and that'll do. Should make decent fertilizer.

"That meat cactus was delicious, though, huh, Aishia."

"Yes, milady. I think I could make that at home too, if I had the ingredients."

"Then we could add it to the menu."

The meat cactus — just like the name says, it was a cactus with a meaty texture. The flavor was that of a salad, but the sauce was nice and rich, so it really did come across as a steak.

"Milady, apparently that's a type of dryad."

"… You can eat them? Dryads?"

"They're plant-type monsters in the end. As long as they're not poisonous, you can pretty much eat them."

I'd thought dryads were like humanoid plant spirits, but apparently this kind isn't a spirit — it falls under the monster category.

The spirit version is also called a dryad, just spelled a little differently in the original, apparently. The two often get mixed up.

…

I've got a great idea!

Come to think of it, I'd been searching for "experiment material I can do whatever I want with," like bandits and such, but monsters are literally things you can "do whatever you want with," aren't they?! You subjugate them and skin them and all that.

So conversely, bringing a monster closer to a human might be allowed!!

I could make a humanoid dryad out of a meat cactus!!

And the experiments to get there… I can do whatever I want, right? Because, you know, it's a monster — a subjugation target you can do anything to. Fufufufu…

Even I have to admit this is dangerously deranged…!

And as long as I don't let it out into the world once it's done, there's no problem… Creating the strongest monster I can imagine might actually be fun, huh?!

"… Big sis? Are you thinking something weird?"

"N-no, I'm not thinking anything! Ahaha!"

After that, somehow Dea-kun saw right through me, and my dream of creating the ultimate lifeform was dashed.

Dammit, Dea-kun sees through my lies way too easily…!