421: A Reliable Bride
“—If it were five minutes ago, I would have said, ‘They’re being devoured, they can’t be saved’…”
“If I had smelled blood, I might have said the same.”
At the voices of Liz and Amy, I pushed my way out from the pile of Barghests and sat up.
“Liz? Amy… san.”
“Amy is fine. …Hey, what are you doing… can you tell me, in your own words?”
“…The wild Black Hound Barghests… seemed to want to play, so I’m playing…”
Just a moment ago, I had been pounced on and, while sometimes upside down, I had been playing in the snow. To an uninformed person, it might have looked as if I were being attacked. I had also been teaching them to shake hands again. A natural movement, as if they had always been doing it.
The ‘sharing’ seemed to be over. My pack.
“…Liz, I’m sorry. Let me say this. Your spouse is a little strange.”
“Amy, you’re wrong.”
“No, but…”
Liz looked at me with a sidelong glance.
“Master is not a little strange, she’s very strange.”
…It was the usual Liz. Why was it so happy, to be cut down so bluntly?
“I can’t argue with that…”
“…No, you should try to argue.”
“Oh, a fresh opinion.”
“No, um… that’s…” Amy stammered.
I looked at Liz.
“Um, Liz, how much?”
“Our affiliation and our rank… the fact that we’re the Darkling Blade and the Lord of Disease. The fact that Master is a fluff-lover who plays with the Barghests whenever she has a chance, I haven’t said, for the sake of her honor.”
“That’s meaningless if you say it now. …And besides, I don’t think that’s accurate.”
“Then what do you do when you’re free?”
“—First, I’m not playing because I’m free. I’m playing because I love these children.” I looked down a little and, as I looked into its eyes and stroked its head, the Barghest closed its eyes.
“Next, since I’m basically with Liz when she’s free, I have to say that the statement ‘I play with the Barghests whenever I have a chance’ is completely wrong.”
At my composed words, Liz nodded, her expression serious.
“Then ‘often.’”
“Let’s go with that.”
“Is this a comedy routine?” Amy muttered. And at the gaze of the two of us, she started.
“…Ah, no. That’s…”
“You don’t have to be so formal.”
“That’s right.” Following Liz, I also nodded.
“…You’re a supreme commander… right? Not a joke.”
“It’s not a position you can joke about.”
“No, but… honestly, to think that ‘that’ Lord of Disease is… ‘like this’…”
Liz’s eyes narrowed at her words. …I didn’t think she would go so far as to attack a friend, but it was a little chilling.
But it was the Barghests who reacted first. Whoosh, just like when they had been on alert, a red glint appeared in their eyes, and they bared their fangs.
“…”
“You all, this is a friend of Liz. Stand down.”
I, too, with a ‘supreme commander-like’ attitude, lightly patted the neck of one of the Barghests. It closed its mouth and hid its fangs, but the burning glint in its eyes did not disappear, and it looked up at me.
“It’s alright, okay?”
It looked down, as if to nod, and then the glint disappeared, as if a candle had been blown out, and the darkness deepened a little. I hadn’t noticed that the sun was setting.
“—If you were to act like a ‘supreme commander’ all the time, you’d get a stomach ulcer.”
“…Even as a wraith?”
“I was a supreme commander before I became an undead.”
Amy placed a hand on her forehead and sighed, with an exasperated expression.
“…………Liz, you two are a strange couple.”
“Only Master is strange.”
“Ahaha.” Liz and I laughed.
“…Hey, you’re a supreme commander… so you have some influence in the army, right?”
“Well, a little.” I nodded.
“I know I’m not in a position to ask this, but… will you listen?”
“If you’re a friend of Liz, then I want to do what I can. …Is there some kind of trouble?”
At my question, her expression clouded over.
“The specialty of our village is maple syrup… and we make a living from it. Do you know that?”
“In a way. That’s partly why we came.”
“…Last year, we could hardly make any maple syrup.”
“What did you say?” I was stunned.
“Ah… I was going to tell you. It’s not that it’s not in circulation at the market, it’s that there’s almost none of it.”
I had heard that Tife Village and the other ‘special crop cultivation villages’ had not been shipping to the market last season. It wasn’t a matter of sales channels or price, but that there was no product.
“In the first place, we couldn’t collect the sap.”
“Is there a problem with the trees?”
“…In the last war, too many of our workers died. And we didn’t have enough guards, so we couldn’t expand our range of activity.”
“…Ah.” I hadn’t heard how many had volunteered. And yet, I had heard that she was the only survivor.
—That battle, even in victory, had resulted in over seventy percent casualties.
“There’s a rumor that the subsidies will be cut. If we don’t have anything to sell, we won’t be able to make a living. We have some savings, and we can manage with the harvest and hunting for food… but that will only last so long.” Amy’s face was contorted in anguish.
“I… wanted to protect this village. It’s not my birthplace… but it’s similar. But then there’s this talk of a new lord… and the harvest season is approaching, and I don’t know what will happen…”
That was probably what had led to the words, ‘damn the country.’
“…What is the new lord like?”
At my question, Amy muttered his name.
“The Wenfield family. A hard-line military family…”
“I have a feeling it will be alright.”
“Me too.”
Liz and I looked at each other and nodded.
“…The family that led ‘that’ heavy cavalry?”
“Yes, I know. They’re a little inflexible, but they’re a rather straightforward person, so I don’t think they’ll do anything bad.”
“…Really? But you know, since the number of cavalry has decreased, they might try to squeeze the villages they’re in charge of with heavy taxes…”
“…No, I don’t think so…? They’ve tried to kill me before, but they’re basically a good person.”
The Wenfield family was a noble family with a high reputation for their military achievements. And the current head of the family, Dustin Wenfield, had, as a knight… risked his life to target me. Not out of a personal grudge, but in the name of a just cause. Even with that past, I didn’t dislike a person with a consistent principle of action.
“…Wait, he tried to… kill you? Liz, please. What is your spouse talking about?”
“Master, that’s classified. That area. …Well, it’s dangerous to talk about it in detail.”
“Please don’t. I didn’t hear anything!” Amy, at Liz’s words, covered her ears with her hands and pretended not to have heard.
In fact, since they were the successors to the people who had been taking a large amount of taxes, the burden would probably be lightened.
I put on a serious face.
“Amy. —What are you lacking?”
“…Manpower. The work itself is simple, but with the Black Hound Barghests lurking around, we need a decent number of guards—or do we not, perhaps?”
“There were fourteen. —There is no… problem.”
“…‘Were’? Did you defeat them?”
I smiled lightly, while putting my hand on the neck of one of the Barghests that had snuggled up to me.
“I didn’t defeat them. I welcomed them.”
This child was one of the fourteen.
“…Hey, Liz, this person’s vibe is a little intense. Why are you treating a magical beast that’s dangerous when it’s in a pack so lightly?”
“Ah, if it’s your first time. You’ll get used to it.” Liz nodded.
“…I’ll get used to it… I have a feeling I can’t…”
Liz spoke gently to Amy, who was shaking her head.
“There were people who said that, but now they’re very used to it.”
Was she talking about Rebecca and Aithys? …Or perhaps, Liz herself.
“Leave the guarding to me. And the work… what do you do? The sap collection for the maple syrup I know is to drill a hole in the tree and to connect a vinyl hose.”
“Vinyl…?”
“Hose…?”
Amy and Liz frowned, in a somewhat similar way.
“…Ah, forget it.” There was no vinyl in this world, and no hoses.
“Understood. We drill a hole in the maple tree and catch it in a bucket. It depends on the thickness of the tree and the temperature, but it fills up in a few hours, so we change the bucket each time.” Liz explained smoothly.
“The villagers, including the children, also help with the rounds and the carrying of the buckets. Mainly in the nearby areas. We also get paid, so maple syrup is the axis of our life in this village.”
“I see.” A clear explanation, as expected of Liz.
Liz turned her gaze to Amy.
“If we have enough guards, we can manage. It will be tough, but I’ll help, too.”
“…I think so.” Amy nodded, but she shook her head, dejectedly.
“But there are other problems.”
“For now, let me hear them.”
“The boiling process has been using a magical furnace for the past twenty years. …To operate it, the villagers alone are not enough. If we were to hire from the outside, I don’t know how much it would cost… instead, we’ve been gathering ordinary firewood, but we don’t have enough people for that either…”
A magical furnace—a furnace that burned mana, not firewood. The basic principle was the same as the magical fireplace in our mansion. I had once been given a tour of the royal castle’s smithy with Rebecca, where it was used as a high-output, stable flame. I had heard that a large one had been made first, and then the technology had advanced to a smaller one, like the one we had.
“I will be responsible for the mana.”
“How?”
I placed a hand on my chest and grinned.
“I will move it, by myself.”
Since I was a human and was not used to the climate of this country, I had been using the magical fireplace from early autumn to early summer. Now, I didn’t really need it… but I liked to relax in front of the fireplace with the Barghests, and sometimes with Liz, so I still used it. Of course, the one who supplied the mana was me. —I was used to it.
And besides, I was now a Greater Wraith. I had had a large amount of mana since I had been a human, enough to have been summoned for that very purpose—and above all, the name of a Greater was not just for show.
Amy shook her head slowly.
“Hey, Liz, your spouse… is reliable…”
“Isn’t she?”
Liz smiled and puffed out her chest.
