It's that season where getting out of bed in the morning is a struggle. I was burrowed in my futon, grumbling about how cold it was, when my father called out to me in a state of near-complete readiness for work.
"Mine, how are you feeling today?"
"Hmm? Same as usual. What's up, Dad?"
Maybe I'd been fidgeting around in bed so much that he thought I was feeling unwell. When I sat up abruptly, Dad furrowed his brow with a worried look.
"
"Got it. I don't have a fever today, and
I saw Dad off as he left for his shift in time for the second bell marking the gate's opening, then quickly changed clothes on my bed.
"Mom, Turi. I'm going to the Gate today."
"Yeah. The things we can gather from the forest are getting fewer and fewer, so maybe you should stop going altogether, Mine."
"Turi's right. If you collapse from a fever again, it'll be a huge hassle. It's best to stop going to the forest where you'd be going alone as a child."
It's been getting colder lately, and the season where it's easy to catch a cold is upon us. Even I've been feeling off more often than not. When I push myself too hard, it tends to cause trouble for everyone around me, so I decided to exercise restraint about forest trips.
"Hey, Mine. Going to the Gate today?"
Unlike me, who'd been bundled up heavily to ward off colds, the other kids were dressed relatively lightly. The more you layered, the harder it was to move. The short period before the snowfall was the last sprint for firewood gathering.
I set off toward the Gate alongside the kids heading for the forest. Recently, I'd finally gotten to the point where I could walk without the other children drifting too far from me. Though the moment I thought about trying a little harder, Lutz would usually put a stop to that.
"I'll swing by on the way back, so wait for me, alright?"
"Sure. Good luck gathering, Lutz."
Everyone else was heading to the forest, so the Gate was where we parted ways.
I couldn't see Dad at the Gate, but I saluted the gate guard who'd already become a familiar face and was escorted into the guardroom.
"Is Otto here? It's Mine."
I opened the door and stepped into the guardroom. Along the wall, I could see the shelving was already full of wooden tablets related to budget matters.
"Oh, Mine-chan. Glad you could make it."
"Otto, it's been a while."
After a crisp salute, I was offered the chair nearest the hearth. I climbed halfway up onto the slightly tall chair with a grunt, then pulled my slate and stone stylus from my bag.
"So about the winter schedule—how often do you think you can come, Mine-chan?"
"Um, I discussed it with Dad, and we concluded that it would have to be days when I'm feeling well, at least not days with a blizzard, and when Dad is working the morning or afternoon shift."
First of all, there are few good days in winter. My stamina should have improved since last year, so I'm hoping the number of colds and bedridden days will decrease, but there's no telling how things will turn out.
Next, the weather. Days without a blizzard aren't all that common either. It doesn't have to be perfectly clear. Dad said light snowfall would be fine, but once the snow actually starts, I'm sure he'd want me to stop.
And Dad is on night shift a third of the time during winter.
"I think, at most, I'll be able to come to the Gate fewer than ten times between now and spring."
"...Well, I had a feeling it would be like that, but even just one day of help last winter made things a lot easier, so I can't help but hope. I'd really appreciate it if you could come as often as possible."
"Okay."
The fact that I can earn stone stylus wages just by doing calculations is good enough. This year I'll need even more stone stylus for studying with Lutz than last year, so I intend to earn as much as I can.
"Oh, the stone stylus I use for budget work—that's an expense covered by the company, not out of my own pocket, right?"
"Pfft—ha ha ha ha. You've developed quite the merchant's way of thinking, haven't you? The stone stylus used during work is an expense. Rest assured and do your calculations."
I'd suddenly thought to confirm this with Otto, and he widened his eyes before bursting out laughing.
I was laughed at, but now I could work with peace of mind. To keep the writing from wearing off on my sleeves, I rolled them up just a little and readied my stone stylus.
"I'm ready."
"Here's today's work."
Otto brought over a clatter of wooden tablets. It was a tally of supplies used by various departments of important officials. Apparently, Otto handled the accounting for all of them. He'd said it was more trouble to have someone else do it poorly and then have calculation errors pointed out, so he shrugged and took it on himself.
I added them up carefully, double-checking as I went, making sure I wouldn't make any mistakes either.
"Otto, are you in here!? I need you at the Gate immediately!"
A soldier burst in looking flustered. I marked a line on the wooden tablet to note where I'd gotten in my calculations, told him not to let anyone touch my Calculator, and Otto rushed out.
The whole Gate seemed to be in an uproar. Beyond the door, the hallway was full of footsteps, and the echo off the stone floor made them sound absurdly loud.
With the hurried, frantic atmosphere, there was no way I could open the door and ask someone what was going on.
I'd come to help at the Gate many times now, but I'd never experienced this kind of restless commotion before. Being left alone in the guardroom only made a creeping unease settle over me.
I'd be fine staying here, right?
I focused on breathing slowly and deeply, and as I glanced around the empty guardroom, I felt a sudden wave of dizziness.
My body's heat seized on the briefest moment of weakness in my heart and tried to burst out. The heat welling up from deep inside felt as though it were pointing out my own frailty.
Annoyed, I tensed my entire body, concentrating the heat toward my core. Imagining putting a lid on it, I pushed the heat back down.
"...Haa, that was tiring."
I'd been so focused on the battle with Self-Eating that by the time it was over, the anxiety had faded considerably.
When I resumed my calculations, Otto returned before long. I quickly finished up to a convenient stopping point and began tidying my own documents.
"A trombe appeared in the forest. A child came to call for reinforcements, so about half the soldiers rushed out. I need to man the Gate, but could you stay here and keep calculating? Also, if an introduction letter comes in, send it over to me—I'll need you to handle it."
"Okay, understood."
Knowing the reason for all the commotion put me slightly more at ease, and I got back to my work.
Come to think of it, Lutz had told me before that trombe appear in the forest during autumn. Maybe he'd managed to get some.
Hm? But if soldiers were joining the fight, the trombe must have grown too big to be usable for paper, right? I wondered...
Before, even children had been able to cut them down, so hearing about a trombe hadn't been that alarming. As I sat arranging numbers on my slate, the commotion beyond the door grew loud again.
"Mine-chan, Lutz is back. He says he has something to discuss and wants to head home together. What would you like to do?"
"If he cut down a trombe, I imagine that's what it's about, so I'll head out. I've finished the calculations up to this point."
"Thanks. I appreciate it."
It seemed the children who'd cut down the trombe alongside the soldiers had returned as well. I could see soldiers and children carrying trombe materials milling about the Gate.
As I searched for Lutz, Dad came jogging over carrying a log about as thick as I was, slung in a rice-straw wrap.
"Mine! Look, Dad cut down this enormous trombe!"
"Whoa, that's huge! Is this going to be firewood?"
"No, trombe don't burn easily, so they can't be used as firewood. It'll be made into furniture. They're valuable for storing precious items because even in a fire, they sometimes survive without burning."
"...Huh, really? That's amazing."
Truly a mysterious plant.
Won't burn even in a fire? That's because it's not even wood anymore!
I let out a breath of amazement at the sheer surprise of it all, and then I spotted Lutz waving at me from behind Dad.
"What is it, Lutz?"
"Oh? Did Lutz only manage to cut down such a scrawny tree?"
Dad looked at the trombe in Lutz's basket and puffed out his chest triumphantly. Please don't compete with a child like that. It's embarrassing.
I let out a sigh, but in truth, the more a trombe grew, the harder it was to cut, so even among the soldiers and children nearby, people were comparing the thickness of their trees and the size of their branches.
"Thin trees are useless, aren't they?"
They can't be burned into firewood because they resist fire, but when they're young, soft, and thin, they lack both the heat resistance to withstand fires and the structural strength to be made into furniture.
"This kind of tree is no good!"
In my peripheral vision, I caught one boy—who'd apparently been compared unfavorably and mocked—throwing a tantrum and flinging a trombe branch to the ground.
"Then give it to me."
He might not have wanted it, but to me, it was quality paper-making material. Throwing away thin, soft trombe? Unthinkable.
"You really don't want it?"
"I... I don't want it!"
The boy, flustered by the attention turning his way, spat out those words and ran off.
When I picked up the discarded trombe, other children began dumping their own out of their baskets too.
"I'll give you mine too. Taking this home would just be a hassle."
"You can have mine. I don't need it."
Quite a pile of branches accumulated around me.
"Lutz, I got a ton."
"...Yeah."
Lutz and I gathered the piled-up trombe and stuffed them tightly into Lutz's basket.
Dad, who'd been watching the whole thing unfold in a daze, furrowed his brow helplessly and compared the basket stuffed with trombe to us.
"...Hey, Mine. What are you going to do with all this?"
"We'll be using young, soft wood, so this is perfect. Lutz, let's go."
Turning my back on Dad and starting to walk, Lutz opened his mouth with a troubled look, scratching his head.
"I kinda just... thought of it as raw material and went ahead and cut trombe too, but... the paper-making material, it needs to be processed within five to seven days of harvesting before it becomes unusable, right?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"...So what do we do? I don't want to go in the river this time of year, and I don't have extra firewood for steaming just one bell's worth. Should we just give up?"
I knew there wasn't much firewood to be had in the forest this time of year, but if I wasted trombe for that reason, Benno would surely fly into a rage.
"...I know exactly what you're going to say, but should we at least try consulting Benno?"
"I figured—he'd definitely get mad if we just dumped them on our own. Ugh... I don't want to go in the river in this freezing weather."
We trudged over to Benno's shop, but the doorman informed us that Lutz, who'd just come back from the forest and wasn't exactly dressed appropriately, couldn't enter. Lutz ended up waiting outside.
The doorman called for
When I entered the shop, a customer was just leaving Benno's room. The person glanced daggers at my incongruous outfit as they passed and sniffed haughtily.
Maybe I should get some proper clothes made sooner rather than later.
I didn't want to drag down the dignity of Benno's shop through my own shabby appearance. To prevent that, it seemed I needed to save money quickly.
I was escorted to the back room, and Benno raised his eyebrows slightly.
"What's the matter? There wasn't a meeting scheduled for today, was there?"
"There wasn't, but I have something to discuss... Actually, a trombe appeared in the forest today."
At my words, Benno jolted upright and leaned forward.
"A trombe!? And you cut it down!?"
"Yes, we got quite a bit of material. But, the thing is..."
"What?"
"It's going to be difficult to turn it into paper."
"Why?"
Benno furrowed his brow, looking baffled, as if he couldn't understand.
Predicting that I was definitely about to get an earful, I spoke up.
"Um, well, the thing is, we don't have enough firewood to steam even one bell's worth, and the river..."
"You fool!"
Before I could finish explaining that the river was too cold to enter, the impatient Benno's thunder struck.
"Don't compare readily available firewood with rare trombe! Don't make me say that you can't even do cost-and-profit calculations!"
"...I figured you'd say that. I'd like to buy firewood, so is it alright if I go to the lumber shop with Mark?"
Even if I—someone who didn't even look like a child who'd completed the
"...What about Lutz?"
"He's outside. We came straight here from the forest, so he's not exactly dressed to enter the shop..."
When I said that, Benno rang the bell on his desk to summon Mark.
"Mark, go ask Lutz about Mine's situation today and whether they can go to the lumber shop."
"Understood."
"Mine, you write the order slip here."
He rapped the edge of the desk firmly, but I shook my head.
"Um, I was only planning to come to the Gate today, so I don't have my order slip set with me."
"...Use these."
Benno pulled out wooden tablets and ink, so I began writing the order slip right then and there.
"Benno, I need enough firewood to burn for one bell's worth. What should I write?"
"Just write it as is. They'll sell it to you with a little extra leeway."
As I replied "Okay" and continued writing, Mark returned after speaking with Lutz.
"It's best if Mine doesn't go out any further today. If the order slip is ready, I'll go to the lumber shop with Lutz."
"Thank you very much."
I handed the completed order slip to Mark and watched him go. Then Benno handed me several wooden tablets.
"If you've got time, read these."
"With pleasure!"
They were what you might call a merchant's handbook—wooden tablets inscribed with various matters relating to contracts.
Reading was a joy, so I hummed a little tune as I perused them. But as I read, question after question popped into my head.
"Benno, does the firewood money count as a preliminary investment?"
"..."
Benno merely turned his gaze toward me in silence, offering no answer.
"Also, I found it a bit strange—you said the other day that since the trial product was complete, you'd be cutting off the preliminary investment. But the Contract Magic lasted until the Baptism Ceremony, didn't it? The payment for the large Screen Frame—could that actually be part of the preliminary investment too?"
As I thought about why Benno had gone out of his way to have me read contract-related tablets, I hit on the contents of the Contract Magic.
"...Tch. You noticed."
"Why did you try to deceive me!?"
"I wasn't deceiving you. I was testing you. Whether you remembered the terms of the contract you'd entered. I was curious about how you'd react if the other party violated it. Since you didn't say anything, I thought you'd forgotten."
With a sniff, Benno tapped the desk with his fingertip and glared at me.
I was momentarily speechless, but I glared right back at him.
"When you told me the preliminary investment was over because the trial product was done, I just went, 'Oh, okay.' I never imagined Benno would try to trick me. And with Contract Magic, the contract itself burned up, so I couldn't verify the terms."
At my words, Benno sniffed again and shrugged with a mocking smirk.
"Because the contract burns, you either need to record the terms somewhere else or remember them perfectly. You're too soft."
"...I'll etch that into my memory."
Benno wasn't wrong. Without a copy of the contract, I should have kept my own careful notes or committed the terms to memory. I'd been lulled into complacency by the ominous-sounding 'severe penalties' of Contract Magic, and that was the truth.
"Since you pursued the matter properly, I'll pay the preliminary investment."
"Pay me? That was the original contract from the start! Isn't that a violation of the contract?"
When I pouted my lips in displeasure, Benno broke into a triumphant smile, his expression full of satisfaction as he looked at me.
"If I refused to pay, it would be a violation. This time, it was your failure to follow up. You pursued me, so I'm paying. If I pay, it doesn't qualify as a breach of contract. If you want to be a merchant, remember that well."
"...Ugh."
My frustration only made Benno's lips curl higher. He laughed and said that if I hadn't noticed anything even after reading the contract-related tablets, he'd have intended to wring me dry without hesitation.
Benno had given me a hint to help me notice, which meant he was thinking of various ways to train me as a merchant. I decided to take it positively, but it still stung.
Determined not to be fooled again, I was giving the tablets a thorough second read when Benno suddenly stopped working and addressed me.
"Ah, that's right. Mine, can you move some of the winter handicrafts up a bit?"
"Almost all our winter preparations are done at home, so if I really push, I think it could work?"
Our family's Winter Preparations schedule depended on Dad's work shifts. All the soldiers at the Gate needed their winter preparations, but since they couldn't all take time off at once, they had to rotate.
Last year, our Winter Preparations vacation came quite late, so we'd been working right up until the snow was about to fall. This year, we'd finished comparatively early.
"Could you make somewhere between ten and twenty hair ornaments in different color variations? The Guild Master has been showing off his granddaughter's hair ornament nonstop, and we're getting a lot of inquiries. ...There are a few places I can't exactly turn down."
"Won't it take away the special feeling if Frieda isn't the only one wearing one at the winter Baptism Ceremony?"
I tilted my head, wondering if I should really eliminate the justification for charging premium prices, and Benno's gaze wavered slightly.
"...The one I had made to match her personally was just that. It's completely different from anything off the shelf, so it'll stand out even more. No problem."
"If there's no problem, then I suppose it's fine. But since I'll need to rush to finish them, can I charge an express fee?"
When I smiled brightly and demanded a surcharge, Benno was rendered speechless.
"You..."
"You take money when you can, from where you can, as much as you can, right? I'm following Benno's example and aspiring to be merchant-like."
When I chuckled, Benno's face twisted with bitterness.
"Ten medium copper coins per hair ornament. I'm doubling the price, so you have no complaints, I assume."
"That won't work. Either eleven or thirteen medium copper coins, please. Given the ratio of flower ornament to hairpin that Lutz and I agreed on, anything else won't work."
I'd set the price at two medium copper coins for the flower ornament and one for the hairpin, and told my family as much. The remainder would be split between Lutz and me, so if the number of medium copper coins was even, it would honestly be a problem.
"Fine. Eleven. You little negotiator."
"I am honored by your kind words."
"...Really, where did you learn to talk like that?"
Benno said that with an expression somewhere between exasperated and amused, and shrugged.
"Oh, and I'd like one hair ornament's worth of medium copper coins in advance. You can pay me upfront, or take it from my savings, either way..."
"An advance is fine, but what's it for?"
"I need it for an urgent magical errand."
If I wanted to make ten of these before the snow fell, I'd need Mom and Turi's help. And to get their help, I needed something to motivate them.
Mom in particular had been doing handicrafts for years, so she knew the pay for making hair ornaments was absurdly high compared to other work. That meant she was probably suspicious—wondering if she was being ripped off, or if she'd never actually get paid for her work.
With each one completed, if the agreed-upon money came in as expected, she'd gain trust, and motivation would skyrocket, I was sure.
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Mark returned.
"I've returned. The ordered firewood will be delivered to the shop by closing time today. I'll have someone from the shop deliver it tomorrow morning."
"Thank you."
"Well then, please take care in the cold."
After Mark saw me off, I stepped outside to find Lutz standing with an almost empty basket on his back. It seemed he'd dropped off the trombe at the warehouse on the way from the lumber shop. Ah, so that was why he hadn't wanted to take me along.
The streets darkened earlier now as I walked slowly toward home. I really wanted to hurry because it was cold, but if I followed my instincts, I'd definitely end up with a fever and collapse.
Walking at a leisurely pace, I told Lutz about the winter handicrafts being moved up. I'd promised the express fee and told him to ask the family for help and then we'd get to work. After I said all that, Lutz nodded once, then looked troubled, his brows drooping.
"For me, the bigger issue isn't the winter handicrafts—I could probably manage those on my own without the family's help. It's the trombe."
"Trombe?"
When I tilted my head, Lutz slumped his shoulders and let out a long sigh.
"...Hey, Mine. I've been told to stay out of the forest, so can we even do trombe processing? Don't tell me I have to do it all alone?"
"This time we'll be working in front of the warehouse, so we can do it together. One bell's worth of steaming will be done outside, so I'm not sure what the family will say about that. But it's not like we'd be going outside the Gate, and if we said we were going to Benno's shop, going out wouldn't be hard. The only problem is that we'd be outside for a long time, which would dramatically raise the chances of catching a fever."
"The warehouse... We don't need the river?"
Lutz's eyes went wide in surprise. But without even thinking hard about it, there was no way Lutz could carry the pots, steamer, and firewood to the forest by himself.
"Before, we had to gather both the material and the firewood, so working in the forest was more efficient. But this time, both the trombe material and the firewood are all at the warehouse. There's no need to work in the forest, and there's no way we could carry everything out there and do it."
"Oh, right. We'd have to carry all of that."
His anxiety about working alone had been so overwhelming that Lutz hadn't even registered how much he'd need to transport.
"Soaking the steamed trombe quickly in the river won't be possible with well water, but that step is just to make it easier to peel the bark by plunging the steamed wood into cold water. The well water now is cold enough. We'll just need someone to fetch fresh water from the well a few times so it doesn't warm up, but that's still easier than going to the forest, right?"
But Lutz didn't seem fully reassured—his face remained clouded.
"Sure, that's easier. ...But what about after that? We save it with the white bark, right?"
"It'd be better to process it all the way to the white bark before storing, but it's not like you can't preserve it with the black bark, so it's fine. Peeling the black bark might be a bit annoying, but with this season, me going into the forest and you going into the river would both be suicidal, so let's just skip it."
"Alright!"
With his concerns dispelled, Lutz's face lit up. "Oh, good. I'm relieved," he kept repeating, his stride growing a little wider.
Once we got home, I'd ask Mom and Turi to help with the handicrafts... Tomorrow would be the wood-steaming work, huh?
As I walked, thinking about what lay ahead, my thoughts began to drift—possibly from hunger.
...If I had a steamer, I'd want hot, sweet steamed sweet potatoes or fluffy mashed potatoes with butter. There was no sweet potato equivalent here, but there were potatoes that worked like regular potatoes, and those were available.
If I brought the potatoes from home and had Lutz bring butter, couldn't we have mashed potatoes with butter tomorrow?
Ah, that sounds lovely. Body and mind would both warm up. Yep, settled.
Lost in happy imaginings, I apparently arrived at the well in front of our house without realizing it. Lutz stopped and turned around.
"Mine, I'll come by tomorrow after I pick up the key and deliver the firewood. Wait at home until then."
"Got it. Don't forget the butter, Lutz."
I waved big and dashed into the building.
As I started climbing the stairs, Lutz's startled voice echoed from the window above.
"Wait—what!? Butter!? Why!? What for!?"
Hmm? Did I not mention that? My bad, my bad.
Mine succeeded in obtaining trombe without a fight.
And with Benno's loving discipline, she's steadily developing a merchant's way of thinking.
Next time, she'll make hair ornaments and eat mashed potatoes with butter.