The First Female Duke

Chapter 29

The warmth of her palms against each other created a strange sensation, and Edith's eyes fell on Bridges' hand as it held hers, a complex feeling rising in her heart.

She knew he was doing this in case she got lost - Master Clark was still a bit reliable when he wasn't being an asshole once in a while.

"Bridges." Edith reached out with her other hand and poked him in the arm.

"Hmm?" A lazy voice.

"Your hands are so hard, they hurt."

Master Clark felt his head start to hurt again, "Damn ...... why do you have so much going on?" He complained, and although his tone was disgusted, he obediently loosened the force in his hand a bit.

"I'm just telling the truth, are you going to make me endure it?"

Master Clark glanced at her, still hardening his voice in his own defense, "My hands are hard only because I'm thin, whereas yours aren't, obviously-which means you're fat."

Edith stopped abruptly and pointed to herself incredulously, "I'm fat?" Edith could have sworn that in this life and the last, Bridges was the first person to ever call her fat.

Bridges could not have imagined that Edith would react so strongly to the word "fat", and when he saw her annoyed look, he smoothly changed his tone: "Okay, you're not fat, okay." He said perfunctorily, holding Edith to continue to walk forward.

Edith tensed her face to be held by him, half a long time before stifling a sentence: "Saying a lady is fat is obviously not a gentleman's practice."

Now Bridges really laughed out loud, "I'm sorry, is there any part of you from head to toe that matches the word 'lady'?"

"I don't think I should have said that either, after you reminded me of it."

Bridges waited quietly for her to follow, and saw that her mouth was agape, "Because the word 'gentleman' doesn't concern you at all, either."

"So, God is really so marvelous as to make us singularly a little alike?"

Edith thought for a moment and nodded quite seriously, "Indeed."

Master Clark wordlessly quirked the corners of his mouth.

The Levin Forest seemed to be too peaceful for its own good, and along the way, Edith surprisingly didn't see a single decent magical beast, except for snow goats and other small, non-aggressive animals.

"The outskirts of Levin should have been cleared." Edith said in a more certain tone.

Bridges hmmmed, his dark eyes looking deeper into the forest, "At least the outside is perfectly more than enough for a fourth year to deal with, but the inside of Levin's ......"

He didn't say completely, but with Edith's quick wit she was naturally able to guess what he meant, with Mr. Gaboury so triply telling them not to enter the depths, the inside was thought to be a hundred times more dangerous than the outside.

"It feels like Levin Forest has a special meaning for Sophia." Edith muttered with a frown.

A flash of surprise passed through Bridges' dark eyes - her natural intuition seemed frighteningly sharp at times.

"Perhaps!" Without a hint of his inner surprise showing, Master Clark returned as if casually, "These things are not our concern right now, so you'd better worry about where you can find the Luminescent Grass under the Moon and the Matsutake Mushroom first!"

Edith gave him a blank look, "Didn't you just say that you know all the locations!"

"I know what I know, but this is obviously your homework."

Edith grunted, "I don't need you, I know where it is myself."

She recalled the book she had once read in the Tagmart storeroom, and after pondering for a moment, she slowly said, "The Luminescent Grass Under the Moon, as its name suggests, is actually a plant that glows at night, and it seems to be a kind of greenish fluorescence? However, this light is not something it can naturally emit on its own, but the leaves are stained with the seeds of a kind of light moss, light moss loves shade, and mostly grows in shady caves, let's look around the cave!"

Young Master Clark's eyes flashed with a hint of appreciation, so much information seemed to sound simple, but it was bound to require a great deal of reading, obviously Aunt Polina had educated Edith very well, and she herself was very intelligent and studious - for a first year student to be so familiar with the characteristics of the Luminescent Grass under the Moon, it was already very excellent and rare.

At least Bridges was sure that by the end of the class, no more than one-third of the students would be able to hand in their homework, and that one-third would include the lucky break of a blind cat.

Satisfied as he was, Master Clark would always be Master Clark - it was as if he had a disease that would kill him if he didn't strike a blow.

He only heard him say lazily, "Don't be too pleased with yourself too soon, there's no way to find the Luminescent Grass under the Moon in the cave with just such a few features."

Edith chose to remain silent at this moment, because she knew that Bridges could pick on her for anything she said, and she could only shut him up completely by actually finding the Lunar Fluorescent Grass.

Once inside the cave, Bridges let go of his hand, "How are you going to find it."

Edith didn't pay him any mind at all, she gazed at the cave with a frown, because of the dim light there was little vegetation growing here, only some moss growing around the stone walls, Edith noticed that only a small portion of this moss glowed a little green. It seemed they hadn't gotten to a place where the light moss grew in abundance.

"Let's go inside." There was light at the entrance to the cave, not dim enough, and there was still too little light moss.

Seeing her pull out her wand, the tip emitting light, Bridges knew she was trying to use magic to illuminate, "You're using up too much magic that way."

He pulled something out of his spatial ring and handed it to Edith, "Use this!" Edith glanced at it and realized that it was an illumination energy stone, this young master was really rich, I should have known that I should have extorted more from him last time.

Being able to save magic power Edith naturally wouldn't push back, she took it and continued to walk inside the cave, while in the darkness, Bridges ground looked around vigilantly, he didn't let Edith's figure leave his sight for a, second, while his hand was always in a position where he could draw his sword at any time.

Finally, as the view opened up in front of him, the glowing green light finally filled Edith's eyes completely - the entire walls of the place were covered in light moss, and it looked as if it were two worlds away from the outside.

But Edith didn't overly appreciate this novel scenery, she squatted down and carefully searched along the stone wall surrounding, finally finding two plants that were only the size of a palm underneath one of the corners.

"That's it!" She said crisply.

Bridges walked over, took a look, and tickled the corners of her mouth, "How can you be sure that this is the Luminescent Grass Under the Moon?"

Edith's blue eyes crystalized, and she said in an obvious tone, "The closed cave has no wind and lacks animals that can spread seeds, for the Luminescent Grass under the Moon to be able to glow as a whole plant, it must be contaminated with a large amount of light moss spores, so the most likely location for it to grow is vertically below the light moss la!"

"As for a more specific judgment" she pointed at the plant and said head on, "Jagged leaves, red rhizomes, this must be the Under the Moon Fluorescent Grass, there's no mistake!"

"Looks like you got lucky this time." Bridges raised his voice, a smirk flashing in his dark eyes where Edith couldn't see it.

Edith ignored the young master, he loved to antagonize her anyway, and she no longer expected to hear anything good come out of his mouth.

Taking out a small shovel from her space ring, Edith carefully dug.

"Don't dig up the roots and break them, the roots can also be used as medicine." Bridges reminded from the side.

Edith said indifferently, "Anyway, Teacher Gabri only said for us to hand in the Luminescent Grass under the Moon, it's not like it has to be intact."

"Then do you think that all the Under the Moon Fluorescent Grasses you turned in are just sitting around in the warehouse looking good?"

Edith frowned.

Bridges squatted down, took Edith's small trowel, and dug out the rhizome of the moonlight fluorescent grass intact, pinching the plant for a closer look before Bridges lifted the corners of his mouth and said with satisfaction, "All the moonlight fluorescent grasses that you first years collect will be used as ingredients for our fourth year pharmaceutical class."

Edith froze, and only after a long moment did she say mockingly, "So, it's just us first years giving you fourth years a free job, is it?"

Bridges' dark eyes met hers with a smug grin:

"Don't be disheartened, that's how we came to be in first year, and when you get to senior year, naturally you'll have underclassmen to give you free labor as well."

Edith smacked her lips expressionlessly and said dryly, "Don't comfort me with that, it's useless!"

"I now announce that Gathering class will be added to my list of most hated classes."

Bridges raised an eyebrow.

On the other side, there was a party of Penny, Flanda, and Lexi arriving at the creek.

"Penny, is it really possible to find Luminescent Grass under the Moon here?"

Penny thought for two seconds and said in a more certain tone, "I remember reading once in a book that said that Luminescent Grass under the Moon mostly grows in dark and damp places, caves and waterfronts are all possibilities."

Flanda looked to Lexi, the only fourth year in the group, which resulted in Lexi waving her hand and grinning:

"I'm just in charge of protecting you guys, we can't get involved in how you get your homework done."

"Alright then, we'll just look along the stream for now."

Penny explained to her, "The external characteristics of fluorescent grass under the moon are, jagged leaves and red rhizomes." Of course there was also the point that it glowed at night, but it was still daytime, so that point didn't serve as a basis for their search.

A few people slowly spread out, Lexi explaining that the two should not go far, but stay where his line of sight was.

Penny was looking along the stream with her head hanging down while her mind kept thinking about the book she had once read, only that she couldn't recall any more details even after rummaging through her memory - not that she had ever studied it solidly enough, but rather that the book itself was vague in its descriptions of the Luminescent Grass under the Moon.

Flanda's position was not far from her, only to hear her muttering as she searched, "This kind of plant is really strange, a good one will actually glow ...... What kind of principle is this?"

The speaker has no intention, but the listener has a heart.

Penny's heart moved, can not help but ponder, yes, what kind of plants can be born to glow? According to what she knows, only a species of moss plant called light moss can glow, other shrubs have not heard of any plants that can glow ...... Wait, light moss? Shady and damp?

Penny felt like she was onto something.

She stood up suddenly and shouted at Flanda, "Flanda, let's stop looking by the stream and go to the cave."

Flanda ahs, "What's wrong?"

Penny said seriously, "Don't ask yet, we'll find out when we get there."

Flender looked to Lexi and saw him with his arms wrapped around his chest, always smiling, "Don't worry about me, I'll just tag along when you guys talk it out."

At one end of the cave, Edith dug up all the fluorescent grass under the moon she could find around.

After putting away the trophies she had managed to find, she suddenly sighed despondently.

"What's wrong?" A sudden sad face.

Edith said very seriously, "It's hard for me to think that the grass I dug so hard will be used for you in the future."

Bridges raised one eyebrow and was about to say something when a sharp female voice suddenly came from the other end of the cave.

"Ah-!"

Both of them were instantly startled, Bridges reacted extremely quickly and drew his own sword, while Edith clenched her wand in her hand, her face now very ugly.

"That just now, that was Penny's voice."

Bridges' eyes darkened as he took Edith's hand in his and said in a deep voice, "Stay close to me!"

At the other end of the cave, Penny fell to the ground, her face horrified as she looked at the creature with scarlet eyes in front of her.

She squeezed her wand in her hand with a death grip, her mind racing to think of any spells that could save her.

But, damn it, her mind went blank!

Even with a lifetime of experience, it was the first time she'd ever been up close and personal with such a terrifying and dangerous creature.

--That was the image that Edith and Bridges saw when they arrived here.

Edith's eyes widened, oh my god! What Penny had encountered was actually an undead.

How could there be undead in the outskirts of Levin Forest?

Bridges, as the only senior present, did not hesitate to raise his sword and charge. The undead reacted extremely quickly and sidestepped, but because of that, Penny escaped from its grasp as well.

She gasped deeply, but Edith didn't have time to care about her at the moment, her eyes locked on Bridges' direction.

It was never normal for undead to appear on the outskirts of Levin Forest; the outskirts were cleared for the safety of the students, so - this current undead was most likely the one that had escaped from Classroom One!

Edith was worried that Bridges wouldn't be able to defeat that undead.

--But apparently, her worry was redundant; Bridges was not in a state of distress when he hosted the undead, although he was tense, on the contrary, he was at ease.

For the first time, Edith visualized Bridges' power head-on.

The undead also seemed to have sensed Bridges' difficulty, it had extremely high intelligence, and seeing that it could not defeat Bridges, it actually turned its head and flew towards Penny's side.

Obviously, Penny, who was attacked by it at the beginning, had already left an impression on it.

Penny was standing with Edith.

Bridges' face sank when he saw this scene, he flew after the undead and tried to block it, but the undead was moving too fast, and seeing that it was about to attack Edith, Bridges clenched his teeth and swung his own sword.

--This stance was flawed. Bridges knew it very well, but he could only do so in order to block the undead's attack in time.

The undead was slashed and hissed, but instead of running, it turned around and took a direct bite on Bridges' arm.

Edith's pupils clenched as she watched Bridges let out a muffled grunt, and the undead seemed to sense that now was its chance, it actually aimed for Bridges' head this time.

The blood in Edith's body flowed backwards, and it was like the moment was slowed down indefinitely.

She held her wand in her hand, but it was as if she couldn't fire a single spell; all she could seem to do was watch as Bridges was hurt for her, and all she could do was stare in disbelief. She had been praised countless times by her mother, told that she was her pride and joy, that she was the hope and future of Taggart, and yet, accepting that praise, could she do nothing more than fold her arms in the face of this situation?

NO! Edith shouted in her mind, calming down like never before.

A complicated string of incantations came out of her mouth quickly and accurately, and the tip of her wand instantly glowed yellow.

Her movements were very quick and very fast, so fast that even the undead didn't react.

A faint yellow barrier surrounded the undead - it surprisingly couldn't move!

"Hurry, I can only trap it for two seconds." Edith shrilled.

Bridges also recovered slightly at this moment, his dark eyes narrowed as he said in a deep voice, "Two seconds is enough."

--Without any fancy maneuvers, what Bridges had learned from his childhood told it that what a top knight wanted was a clean one-shot kill.

The sword engraved with the Clark family crest plunged straight into the eye of the undead, who hissed and instantly dissipated.

And Bridges finally sat down on the ground unable to support himself.

Without any elation at defeating the undead, Edith sat down on her knees next to Bridges, her valor from a moment ago seemingly gone, and could only look at him handily.

All Bridges saw was the little girl's pretty face whitening into a sheet of paper, she looked at him as if he was about to die, God knows he had only been bitten by the undead.

"Well" Bridges said with some amusement reaching out his other uninjured hand to flick Edith's forehead, "don't think about crying again, there's no mommy here to back you up."

Edith looked at him with red eyes.

"Now, pull out your little stick and use a purification spell on me, I know you know that one ...... Hurry up, you little bastard, I'm going to hurt like hell."