When it came to Winter Preparations, the most important thing was food.
Unlike
So, here I was, being carted off like livestock and wedged among a mountain of cargo on the back of a cart.
It had all started with Father's words, which had dragged me out of bed before dawn was even on the horizon.
"Alright, off to the farming village today! Are you ready?"
Of course I wasn't ready.
What on earth was he talking about? I rubbed my sleepy eyes and glared at Father, but Mom and Turi were both smiling and nodding enthusiastically.
What was I supposed to do? I was the only one out of the loop.
"Now that you mention it, Mine was running a fever back then, so she probably didn't hear about it," Mom said, clapping her hands together.
Father and Turi both found that perfectly convincing, but I felt like I was being left out of the family circle, which wasn't exactly pleasant.
I puffed my cheeks out in a sulky pout, but the family had already started getting ready without the slightest concern for me.
"You have to bundle up warm no matter what! Mine, you had a fever last year too!"
As Mom shouted over to me while hurriedly carrying things down to the cart, I had no choice but to quietly get dressed and follow along. They weren't going to let me stay home alone.
...But still, what were we going to the farming village for?
I'd originally planned to walk under my own power as a form of exercise, but my pace was so painfully slow that Father had gotten fed up and plopped me onto the cart.
On the cart were barrels of various sizes, a bunch of empty bottles, rope, cloth, salt, lumber, and all sorts of other things we'd apparently need at the farming village today.
Wait... was I actually the most useless piece of cargo on this cart?
I wedged myself into the smallest space I could find, trying to take up as little room as possible.
Father pulled the cart from the front while Mom and Turi pushed from behind. There was something distinctly pathetic about how obvious my status as cargo had become.
"Hey, Mom. Why are we going to a farming village?"
"They don't have those big smoking sheds full of smoke in town, do they? So we borrow one from the nearest farming village."
"Smoked meat? Oh, right—we bought a ton of meat at the Market the other day."
I vaguely remembered us pickling and boiling and processing it, but apparently there was still more left? Wasn't it getting kind of spoiled? Was that okay?
As I counted off the days on my fingers and my anxiety kept growing, Mom gave me a look of exasperation.
"What are you talking about? Today is pork processing day! We buy two pigs at the farming village, everyone works together to process them, and then we share!"
"Huh?"
For a split second, my ears rejected Mom's words. There was a clear time lag before the information reached my brain, and by the time it did, my body had started trembling.
"P-p-p-pork processing day!? What is that!?"
"The neighbors all get together, butcher the pigs, and make salt-cured meat, smoked meat, potted meat, bacon, sausages, and all sorts of things. Mine, last year... come to think of it, you were lying in the cart with a fever, weren't you?"
If I could have had my way, I would have run a fever this year too. Then at least I could have avoided witnessing it.
"Mom, we bought all that meat at the Market the other day..."
"You don't seriously think that little bit was enough, do you? We just bought a bit extra to make up the shortfall after everyone processed their share!"
I'd thought we'd bought a massive amount, but it was apparently only enough to supplement what everyone else was making. I had no idea how much meat was actually needed for Winter Preparations.
It seemed unavoidable that I'd have to attend the pig butchering, and while I grew increasingly gloomy about it, Turi was pushing the cart along with a bright smile on her face.
"There are lots of fun parts too, you know—like taste-testing while you work, or having fresh sausages for dinner. It's your first time helping, Mine, but when everyone gets together and chats away, it's like a little festival. I'm really looking forward to it since you can come this year!"
"Everyone?"
When I tilted my head at Turi's words, Mom opened her mouth with an expression that clearly meant "Don't ask obvious questions."
"Who else would we do it with but the neighbors? Butchering a pig is a big job—you need at least ten adults to handle it!"
Ugh, the neighbors...
Thinking about how to deal with that sounded exhausting, but more importantly, today's task was pig butchering. Just remembering the scene at the Market was enough to make my spine tingle.
"...I don't want to go."
"What are you saying? If you don't go, there won't be any winter sausages or bacon!"
If I didn't go, there would be no winter food, so there was no way I'd be excused just because I didn't want to go. If skipping it meant no food for winter, then no matter how much I hated it, I'd have to participate.
As I sat there sighing in my gloomy mood, the cart was approaching the South Gate of the Outer Wall.
"Good morning! Oh? Sir, aren't you late? Everyone else already passed through the gate a while ago!"
"Yeah, probably."
As we approached the gate, a Soldier who appeared to be a colleague of Father's called out to us. It sounded like the neighbors had already left for the farming village ages ago.
"Take care!"
The friendly-looking gate guard waved at me, and I waved back. You always need to be polite, no matter what.
This was the first time I'd left town since becoming Myne.
The moment the cart clattered out through the gate—which was like a short tunnel—I let out an involuntary cry of surprise.
Honestly, I hadn't expected the scenery to change so drastically between inside and outside the gate.
"Whoa."
First of all, there were no houses. Inside town, everything was crammed together in narrow spaces, but the moment you stepped outside the gate, all you could see were little clusters of ten to fifteen houses dotted here and there, set back slightly from the somewhat wider road called the main highway.
And the air was amazing.
In the wide-open space, the smell of filth dispersed, and I could truly feel how fresh the air was. There was none of that stale, trapped stench you got from being hemmed in by tall walls.
And everything was green.
The wide expanse of pale green was farmland, and the tall, dense dark green was forest. An incredibly peaceful landscape stretched out in every direction.
"Mine, close your mouth before you bite your tongue."
"Huh!?"
Right after Father's warning, the cart lurched violently—much worse than on the town roads—because the highway had turned from cobblestones into bare dirt.
The cargo was shaking like it might fly off, but at least it was secured with rope. The unsecured me was in the most danger of all.
A road that was bumpy and rattly when dry, and a muddy, slippery mess when it rained—what a nightmare! Take some notes from asphalt!
I couldn't even open my mouth as I cursed inwardly, clinging desperately to the edge of the cart to avoid being shaken off.
"We'll be there soon."
The farming village was about fifteen minutes from the gate. As we approached the entrance, we could hear the murmur of a crowd.
Butchering was basically men's work. You had to restrain a pig weighing over a hundred kilograms, tie it up with rope and hoist it—everything required brute strength.
Meanwhile, the women prepared the smoking sheds, boiled huge quantities of water, and got tools and salt ready for the processing.
By the time we arrived at the farming village, they were already about to start the butchering. If you didn't participate, you obviously didn't get any meat.
"Oh no! It's already starting!"
"Quick! Turi, run!"
"Okay!"
All three of us hurriedly grabbed thick, wax-coated aprons from the cart.
Mom and Turi threw on their aprons and ran toward the large group of women gathered near the smoking sheds.
Father put on his apron on the spot, grabbed his spear—which doubled as his work tool—and dashed off.
So fast!
While I sat there stunned, my entire family had left me behind.
I could have chased after Mom, but being in the middle of this huge crowd with absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do was terrifying. This was an annual event, which meant there were unspoken rules and common knowledge that everyone understood implicitly. I desperately wanted an instruction manual.
Fully aware that I was a burden in every situation, I decided to guard the cart until someone called for me.
I told myself this was important work too, and sat there on the cart, staring blankly at the abandoned cargo.
But the place Father had left the cart was right in front of the square where the pig was being butchered. There was some distance, but I had a clear view of the pig squealing in desperation as it was chased around, trying desperately to escape.
A rope was tied to a wooden stake, with the other end attached to the pig's right hind leg. The men were frantically trying to pin the pig down as it ran in circles around the stake.
Among them, I spotted a familiar head of pink hair.
"Let's go! Hyaaah!"
With that shout, Father—fresh off the cart—charged into the fray.
He leveled his spear with tremendous force, and then— Thrust.
A single strike. The pig twitched several times and then went still.
A chill ran down my spine, and at the same time, the square erupted in cheers at Father's handiwork.
Then Mom came over with what looked like a metal bucket and a somewhat long stick. Another woman brought a bowl to the pig.
Wondering what they were going to do, I leaned forward. In the next instant, blood splattered around, and several people's aprons turned red.
They'd finished positioning things to catch the blood, so the spear must have been pulled out, causing the blood to gush out. I covered my mouth and leaned back.
I couldn't see the pig past the women's skirts, but I could tell from the way the other woman kept carrying the bowl full of blood and pouring it into the bucket just how much was being drained.
Meanwhile, Mom was frowning and stirring the buckets one after another as blood was poured into them, completely absorbed in her task.
...Mom was terrifying.
After that, several men worked together to hang the pig upside down from its hind legs on a prepared wooden frame. Blood that hadn't been fully drained dripped and oozed from the inverted pig.
The real butchering was about to begin. A man with a large, thick butcher's knife placed it against the pig's belly.
That was all I remembered.
When I came to, I wasn't in the farming village—I was inside a stone building. I seemed to have been laid down somewhere, because I could see a stone ceiling overhead, but this wasn't my house.
I blinked several times while still lying there, and the last thing I'd seen before nearly blacking out flashed through my mind, making me feel sick.
But somehow... it looked eerily familiar.
What was it again?
Something strung up and hanging, being butchered...
It was right on the tip of my tongue but wouldn't come out. It probably wasn't from Myne's memories—it was from Reina's. I must have seen something similar in Japan too.
I got it! It was just like the hanging tuna butchering I'd seen at a fish market near the port in Ibaraki!
That makes sense!
Once I thought of it that way, the pig butchering was basically the same as a tuna-cutting show. I understood that there were some things you had to eat fresh, and I could grasp why the crowd was excitedly watching the whole spectacle.
Well, I understood it intellectually, but emotionally, I was nowhere near being okay with it.
After all, tuna don't make those heart-wrenching cries. And they don't bleed like that.
Ugh, it was still disgusting...
The moment I covered my mouth and rolled over, I tumbled right off the bench.
"Ow..."
I sat up, propping myself with my hands, and looked around. It seemed I'd been lying on something like a small wooden bench.
There was a fireplace nearby with a fire going, so it wasn't too cold. But there was no one around, and I couldn't hear a sound.
...Wait, where was this?
Just as my thoughts finally caught up with reality, a Soldier poked his head in, apparently having heard the sound of my fall.
"Oh, you're awake."
"
I let out a sigh of relief at the familiar face. If I was in a stone building where Otto was around, this had to be the waiting room or guardroom at the Gate. Now that I knew where I was, my anxiety about the situation melted away.
"You remembered me?"
The fact that I did was clearly visible relief on Otto's face too. He'd probably been worried about what would happen if this little girl thought he was a stranger and started crying.
"I wouldn't forget."
You're one of the precious civilized people in this world, and you're going to be my teacher (planned) for writing.
When I mimicked a salute and thumped my chest as I said this, Otto gave an awkward laugh and ruffled my hair. Then he explained the situation to me.
"Your team leader came running here in a panic, carrying you. He said you'd collapsed on the cart. He'll come pick you up as soon as he's done."
I didn't know how long butchering a pig took, but they had processing to do afterward too, so it wouldn't be over quickly.
...Come to think of it, Turi had said fresh sausages would be served for dinner.
From the information I had, I'd be waiting in this room for quite a while.
Since I'd already figured I'd have time to kill, I'd packed the fibers for making Papyrus-like Paper among the cart's cargo, but I didn't have them on me right now.
"What's wrong, Mine? Miss your mom and dad?"
"...No, I was just wondering what I should do to kill time."
I shook my head but accidentally let my honest feelings slip out. Otto stared at me intently for a moment, then murmured, "Now that you mention it, you did say you weren't as young as you look."
"Here you go, Mine. How about this? Should keep you occupied, right?"
"A Slate!"
What Otto held out to me was a Slate. Since today was definitely a day I'd pass through the Gate, he'd brought it from his workspace intending to hand it to me.
A civilized person who was thoughtful and kind—what an incredible person!
"I need to stand guard at the Gate, so practice while I'm gone."
With that, Otto wrote Mine's name on the upper part of the Slate, set down a stone stylus and a cloth, and left the room.
I hugged the Slate to my chest with one arm, gave Otto the biggest smile I could manage and a big wave to see him off, then turned my gaze down to the Slate.
I'd describe the Slate as being roughly A4-sized—like a mini chalkboard. A thin piece of dark stone was set into a wooden frame. The Slate was double-sided; you could write on both the front and back, and one side had guideline rules for practicing characters.
The stone stylus was the tool for writing on the Slate. Touching it, it was hard and cool—just raw stone—but visually, it looked exactly like a slightly elongated piece of white chalk.
The slightly grimy cloth was probably meant to serve as an eraser. Just hugging it had already smudged the characters Otto had written.
"Wow, my heart is pounding."
I set the Slate on the table and picked up the stone stylus.
Just holding the stone stylus the way I'd hold a pencil made my heart race.
At first, I decided to use Otto's handwriting as a model and tried writing the unfamiliar characters I could see.
Maybe it was the nerves, or maybe it was because I was writing characters for the first time, but my hand trembled slightly and the strokes came out crooked. If this were Japan, I would have clicked my tongue, erased them quickly, and started over.
But now, I was so happy just to see writing after such a long time that erasing felt like a waste.
I took a slow breath in and out, wiped the Slate with the cloth that had been sitting on the left side, erased it, and tried again. It came out a little better than before.
I wrote my name, erased it, wrote it again, erased it...
Once I got bored of that, I wrote out haiku and tanka from memory in Japanese, erasing and rewriting...
Ahh, this was bliss.
I never imagined that being able to write and read characters could make me this happy.
Even though the waiting room was near the fireplace, there were still drafty gaps, and after spending hours playing with the Slate while waiting for my family to come get me, I caught a cold at a speed befitting my sickly reputation and came down with a fever.
"Your fever still hasn't gone down today, Mine, so stay in bed! You're not allowed to get up!"
"...Okay."
The sound of my parents coming and going was frantic. The two of them were stuffing root vegetables with long shelf lives into the Winter Preparations storage room.
Turi was in the kitchen, stewing down the nuts she'd gathered into jam. The sweet smell—something I'd never encountered in this world—drifted through the entire house, lifting my spirits just a little.
Amid the bustle of brewing wine and carrying in the pork products, Turi brought me lunch soup.
I set the Slate aside and accepted the tray.
"Sorry, Turi."
"You got that right."
"Huh? You're supposed to say, 'You promised not to apologize!'"
"We never made that promise!"
Well, no, she hadn't.
But it was kind of an understood thing.
While the rest of the family was frantically busy with Winter Preparations, I lounged around in bed, practicing writing my name on the Slate Otto had given me and penning sentences in Japanese.
I really wished I had a book I could keep.
If just being able to write made me this happy, I could only imagine how much happier I'd be if I could read books too.
I had to get better soon and start making paper.
Mine has obtained a Slate! It's her most prized possession—a toy she has absolutely no interest in dolls made of wood and straw or balls made from old rags.