Along with sun-drying the dark bark using materials other than trombe, today I brought a pot and ash to the riverbank to boil a pot's worth of white bark for papermaking.
Since it was just the pot and today's portion of ash, the load wasn't all that heavy, and
After walking to the riverbank, I hung the dark bark over the edge of the basket I'd been carrying on my back and spread it out to dry. In the meantime, Lutz began preparing the pot. He set the pot on a stove built from stones, filled it with water, then went to gather firewood.
"Listen,
"I already told you I know!"
Both the pot and the ash were precious items that couldn't be replaced around here, and they had monetary value. On top of that, the white bark we'd been working so hard to prepare would be a real problem if it got stolen, so even a useless person like me was absolutely needed as a guard.
Recently, I'd started putting more effort into gathering and wandering around, which meant Lutz had to lecture me about it over and over.
"You say you know, but the moment you spot something interesting, you just wander off."
"I'll stay right here until you get back, so hurry up and go."
When I first started entering the forest, I'd tried to set down my heavy basket and venture deeper, and Turi and Lutz had gotten furious with me. Unlike in
That was why all the children heading into the forest carried baskets or backpacks they could handle themselves and only gathered what they could carry.
Lutz quickly gathered wood, lit the fire, then went off to collect more firewood.
I kept an eye on the pot while adjusting the basket's position from time to time to follow the shifting shadows, making sure the dark bark caught the sunlight.
"Is it boiling?"
"Yeah, I think it's about ready."
When the water started bubbling, I needed something to stir in the ash and white bark. But I hadn't prepared anything like that.
Oh no, I've discovered yet another thing I'm short on.
Depressed by just how poor my imagination was, I looked around for anything that might work.
"Lutz, I need you to make me two sticks of about the same length for stirring the pot. Wood might shed bark and mix in, so bamboo would be great if possible. There was some nearby, right?"
"You want sticks made from bamboo? Got it."
Lutz split and shaved bamboo into improvised cooking chopsticks, and with those I stirred the pot's contents. I was marveling at how Lutz's bamboo-crafting skills had improved from all those times he'd made bamboo strips, when I caught his quiet muttering.
"...You're surprisingly good at stirring with those sticks."
"Huh?! A-ah, yeah. I'm pretty dexterous, right?"
I smiled sheepishly and tried to brush it off, but the cold sweat pouring down my back wouldn't stop.
This world had no Japanese food, so naturally there were no chopsticks either. Nobody here even knew how to hold them. There was no way a little girl existed who would casually ask someone to make cooking chopsticks for stirring a pot, or who could hold chopsticks like they were the most normal thing in the world.
Oh no, Lutz looks kind of suspicious.
It's my imagination. My imagination. Just my imagination, right?
I told myself that over and over while stirring the pot. If I suddenly switched to a different grip after being called out, that would be even more suspicious. I had no choice but to power through, but my heart was pounding like crazy.
Ahhhhh, I'm such an idiot!
Isn't this basically me admitting I'm suspicious on my own?!
I tried my best to keep a straight face, and after continuing to boil the white bark for a while, I faintly heard a bell chiming. It should be about time.
I rinsed the boiled white bark in the river to wash away the ash, then set it out in the sun at the same time. Apparently sunlight would whiten the bark further. I didn't know if that worked for plants in this world too, but for now I had no choice but to go by memory.
"I'll leave it here for another full day."
"Mm. Got it."
To make beautiful white paper, the white bark had to be left in the river for yet another full day. After washing the pot, Lutz and I took turns gathering.
My ratio of poisonous-plant gathering had dropped a little too. I'd try to keep it up.
The next day, the main task was retrieving the white bark for papermaking.
Basically, I gathered in the forest, and when it was nearly time to head home, I pulled the white bark out of the river. To carry it back, I brought a bucket from home instead of the pot, but that was the extent of the work.
"Starting tomorrow, we'll be working at the warehouse, right?"
"Yeah. Then I'd better gather properly today."
I picked a generous amount of edible mushrooms Lutz had selected, some of the Meriya fruit that had started bearing, and a big batch of kulan to boil down into jam.
I tasted things a few times along the way. Compared to Japanese fruit, the sourness was intense, but with nothing sweet around to compare it to, it still tasted delicious.
The next day, I didn't go to the forest. Instead, I worked in front of the well by the warehouse. Since we were only planning to make a few sheets, I wanted to go from removing impurities to sheet formation in one go.
Removing impurities meant picking out damaged parts and knots from the white bark fibers, and this was what determined the paper's beauty. Since it was work you could do while sitting, I took it on.
While I meticulously picked out defects from the fibers, Lutz peeled Edil fruit, crushed it, soaked it in water, and made tororo.
"Hey, Myne. Is tororo supposed to look like this?"
"...Hmm, probably. The stickiness is there, so I think it's fine, but honestly I'm not really sure. Let me think about it in terms of the stickiness we need when mixing in the fibers."
Once the impurities were removed from the fibers, I had Lutz pound them with a bang. Using a hard square stick like oak, he pounded away until the white bark fibers turned cotton-like. We'd bought a square beam from a lumber shop, shaved down only the gripping portion, and wrapped it in a rag from home to protect his hands, and with that Lutz hammered away.
This was Lutz's job. If I, with no strength, tried to do it, I'd only be in the way.
Since this was a test run and the amount of fiber was small, it didn't take that long, but once we were processing larger quantities, it would be grueling.
After the fibers were pounded apart, I put them in a tub, added the tororo, then gradually added water while adjusting the consistency.
Originally, you'd use a tool called a horse rake — something like a comb — to mix it well, but since the quantity was small this time, I had Lutz make two more pairs of bamboo chopsticks and stirred with the six thin sticks like making pudding.
...Come to think of it, this was similar to what it was like when I'd added paste during recycled-paper making with milk cartons.
With no craftsmanship to speak of, there was no way I could adjust by feel alone, but I dredged up enough memories to create a vat of slurry that seemed like it would work for sheet formation.
Now it was finally time to move on to the actual papermaking on the screen frame.
"Phew, we've finally reached a part I actually understand."
The recycled-paper project in home ec had been simple: boil milk cartons, peel off the smooth polyethylene layer, run it through a blender, add laundry starch, form sheets, and dry them.
The part that overlapped with my papermaking experience and Japanese paper was this sheet-forming step.
Finally, my turn! Roar, my experience points!
"Is it really something you understand?"
Lutz tilted his head slightly and looked at me with an extremely skeptical expression as I held the screen frame at the ready.
Well, sure, there were a lot of vague areas, and when it came down to it, we were missing plenty of tools, but that was because of my lack of experience.
A little miffed at not being trusted at all, I puffed out my little girl's round tummy.
"Leave it to me! I've done this before!"
"...When? Where?"
Lutz's sharp voice, with his brows furrowed, made my heart freeze for an instant.
"!?...O-oh, it's a maiden's secret! You're not allowed to investigate!"
Uwaaaaa! I'm such an idiot! What am I even saying?! Lutz's gaze was piercing. He's staring right at me. Ahhhhh! The biggest self-destruction of all time!?
I masked that inner scream with a pleasant smile while lowering the screen frame into the vat. My fingers were trembling slightly, but I pretended not to notice.
I scooped up vat water from the front of the screen frame, moving the frame as I formed the sheet.
"Why are you moving it like that?"
"Because by moving it, the paper comes out with even thickness. After that, you just repeat this process a few times depending on the thickness and type of paper you want."
"Hmm, so you know how because you've done it before?"
Lutz's probing eyes stabbed at me, determined not to miss any change in my expression. I had no idea how to answer at times like this.
I could either stay silent and keep working, or forcibly change the subject. That was all I could manage.
"A-anyway, Lutz. I was thinking of trying different numbers of passes this time to see how it affects the paper's thickness. Is that okay?"
"...Sure."
I could feel Lutz's gaze growing even sharper as it darted between my hands and my face with each sudden topic change, but I kept making sheets.
Aaagh, it feels like I'm just piling self-destruction on top of self-destruction...
When the sheet forming was done, I removed the screen from the frame and transferred the newly formed sheet onto the paper bed.
"When transferring to the paper bed, be careful not to let air get between this sheet and the ones already stacked. Layer them carefully from the edge like this."
"I'll try."
Lutz夹ed another screen into the frame, prepared it, and started forming sheets. Since the size was postcard-small, moving the screen back and forth enough produced a reasonably even sheet.
Almost without speaking, Lutz and I took turns forming sheets.
I'd prepared white bark thinking it would make just a few sheets, but my estimate was completely off, and in the end we managed to make ten sheets of paper.
Well, having more couldn't hurt.
"This time it's not much, but regardless of how many or how few, we stack a day's worth of paper on the paper bed and let it naturally drain for about a full day."
"What do we do after that?"
"We slowly apply pressure with weight stones to squeeze out more water. Just leave the weight stones on for a full day. That way, the stickiness from the tororo disappears completely."
"Huh... You know a lot about this. Have you done it before?"
Ugh, Lutz's eyes are hurting me.
This is completely blown, isn't it. I self-destructed for real.
I really am an idiot.
But Lutz just narrowed his eyes and glared at me, or seemed to be thinking about something, without actually saying anything decisive.
Not wanting to self-destruct any further, I kept making paper without unnecessary chatter.
There was no point trying to bluff anymore — I'd already failed at that. And being completely reckless would be far too risky.
Once the paper was done, he'd probably say something. I had no idea how much Lutz had figured out or what he was going to say.
My response was the same plan I'd thought of before, so there shouldn't be a major problem.
I didn't want pain, and I didn't want fear. If things looked like they were heading that way, I'd just release the heat deep inside my body, get swallowed up quickly, and vanish.
Lately, the power of the heat inside me seemed to be growing stronger, so it probably wouldn't take much time from when it spread until I was swallowed.
But the problem was, unlike last time, I'd developed a strong lingering attachment.
There shouldn't be any risk of failure from here on out since all that remained was drying, and since the paper was finally going to be complete, I wanted to make a book before I disappeared.
Could I somehow stall for time until I could make a book?
I wanted to buy time. At the very least, I wanted to somehow create a deadline extension until I could make the book. With those thoughts running through my head, the work continued stiffly.
The next day, almost without any conversation, we walked to the forest, soaked the dark bark in the river, and gathered supplies.
On the way back, we stopped by the warehouse to place the weight stones, but there wasn't that much to do, so I couldn't help obsessing over Lutz's behavior.
I could tell from his sidelong glances that Lutz was also watching me carefully.
"Hey..."
"What? What's wrong?"
Lutz's voice made me flinch involuntarily. I told myself to stay calm, to act as if nothing had happened, but I couldn't make myself follow through.
Trembling, I waited for Lutz's words. He scratched his golden hair roughly, opened his mouth, then closed it again.
"...Never mind."
"O-oh, really?"
I knew full well that this was the seed I'd sown and there was nothing I could do about it, but honestly, this ongoing state of affairs was uncomfortable.
The next day, I remembered to bring boards with me and peeled the outer bark off the dark bark.
Unlike trombe bark, this was incredibly difficult to peel. The fibers kept falling apart. This wasn't because I was clumsy — Lutz was having the same trouble.
We'd gotten good results with trombe fibers, but could paper really be made from this material?
"...The material is different, so it's tough."
"Yeah, it is."
The tattered fibers felt like a mirror of our current relationship, and I couldn't hide my sigh.
"Once we dry this white bark, we can preserve it for a while."
"Yeah. Hey..."
"What?"
"...No, never mind. I'll say it when the paper's done."
With Lutz falling silent after that, I nodded slightly and steeled myself.
Lutz had realized that I wasn't the real Myne, and he was building toward a confrontation. After all, ever since that self-destructive moment, he'd stopped calling me "Myne."
When the paper was finished, what kind of confrontation would I face? What would he hurl at me?
My imagination was far too vivid, and the things imaginary Lutz was screaming at me grew more and more merciless. I hung my head, wounded by my own fantasies.
Come on, this is too much even for you, Lutz! Even imagining it makes me want to cry! I'm actually going to cry!
The next day, we worked at the warehouse. First, I hung the white bark I'd made the day before on both my and Lutz's baskets and took it outside.
Next, I carefully peeled the pressed sheets off the paper bed one by one and pasted them onto boards.
"Normally you'd use a brush to carefully squeeze out air, but I forgot to order that too. Failure, failure. Since it's postcard-sized, if we're careful enough, it should be fine, right?"
"...You forget way too many things."
Lutz glared at me, but after days of being subjected to imaginary Lutz's torrent of insults, this level of scrutiny didn't faze me. I gave a slight shrug and let it roll off.
"Make sure you have everything ready before next time so you don't forget. ...More importantly, once we dry these in the sun, they'll be finished. Apparently the sunlight makes them even whiter."
Lutz carried the boards outside and propped them against the wall in a sunny spot. Then he washed the paper bed at the well and set it out to dry alongside the boards with paper pasted on them.
Under a clear blue sky, the sight of white paper sheets lined up and pasted to boards created a beautiful contrast. Just thinking that this would become a book was enough to make a satisfied breath escape my lips.
"Ahh, paper. It's really paper. ...It actually turned out."
"Hey..."
"It should be dry by evening. Once it's dry, carefully peel it off without tearing, and it'll be done."
Sensing that I wanted to put off facing Lutz for even the slightest bit longer now that the paper was nearly complete, Lutz showed his irritation.
"Come on, it's basically done already, right?"
"...Well, yeah, but..."
"I said I had something to talk about once the paper was done, remember?"
It seemed the time for confrontation had finally arrived.
Lutz's green eyes burned with intensity, his anger plain to see.
I bit my lip hard and tensed my whole body so I could stay standing no matter what he said, and faced Lutz head-on.