The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] novel Chapter 957

Chapter 957: The Cost of Abundance

Dying corals.

Yep.

Honestly, Luca wouldn’t have even noticed it if he hadn’t been particularly scanning the area for his precious oysters.

Then again, even if he had seen such a thing, most people, especially those around him, wouldn’t have had any idea what was happening.

And yes, that would’ve applied to him too if not for a particularly memorable experience he once had back in Tesseris.

There was a time when certain kinds of corals were rumored to enhance the efficacy of pills. As one might expect, the people who wanted Luca to produce even better guiding pills demanded that he use those corals as ingredients.

Now, the little guide didn’t really have much of a choice back then. Despite the fact that the best way to produce a better guiding pill was actually to avoid other ingredients entirely, he still had to produce pills that were allegedly improved so they wouldn’t discover his secret.

What Luca only found out much later was that his "improved" guiding pill caused other guides to demand the same material from the Guiding Center so they could also produce pills that might elevate their status.

Safe to say, the government tried to keep up with the rate at which the corals were being harvested.

And in an attempt to grow those particular corals faster, they experimented with growth serums and various enhancement formulas.

Much to no avail.

It wasn’t something that happened right away.

But one day, Luca realized that the usual shipment of corals never arrived.

Instead, he received a magazine.

And that was when Luca first read about the concept of eutrophication.

It was also when he first realized that he needed to avoid saying he used materials that weren’t common or easily renewable. He might be punished for failing to produce better pills after being given rare materials, but he absolutely couldn’t afford another disaster like the one that happened.

While he hadn’t intended for it to happen and had never imagined something like that could actually occur, it still wouldn’t change the fact that his choice ended up resulting in destruction.

But so much for feeling bad about the past.

If he couldn’t do something about it before, then he ought to do something now. But what exactly was eutrophication in the first place?

The faces surrounding Luca on the raft showed clear curiosity after the golden-eyed cadet mentioned what they had done earlier.

Honestly, it was only because they had successfully carried out what could only be described as underwater first aid that the little explorer managed to regain his excitement.

Because if they hadn’t finished clearing as much of that seaweed earlier, Luca would’ve been worrying about the corals for who knew how long and wouldn’t have been able to enjoy their spoils at all.

But now that they’d cleared it out, he could finally explain the little he knew about the subject.

"Well, remember the corals that looked really pale earlier? Like they’d been bleached? I figured it was partly because of the sudden growth of algae. In this case, the seaweed we were trying to collect."

"Son, earlier you said they were dying?" asked the curious father, his brows furrowed.

"Yes, Papa. While hopefully they weren’t dead yet, when corals start looking like that, it usually means they’re in a really bad state that would likely lead to death."

"Then the seaweed... if they’re deadly, how could we possibly eat them?"

"!"

Well, that question resonated with everyone who had just finished hauling in a mound of seaweed in a hurry earlier.

How could anyone possibly eat something like that?

"Ah, that’s because the seaweed itself isn’t exactly deadly," Luca explained. "But because of eutrophication, or the overabundance of nutrients, algae can grow far more than they should and end up causing a lot of problems."

"There’s an overabundance of nutrients?"

"Overgrowth is bad?"

Several people murmured among themselves.

And Luca nodded before answering.

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