"You idiot! It won't reach!"
Just as
The moment the red fruit split, small seeds scattered widely, and suddenly sprouts began pushing their way up out of the ground. Seeds that hit the soil sprouted right away, but those that landed on the stone pavement withered rapidly. The ones that did germinate grew to about ankle height in no time flat.
"Whoa!"
"W-wah!?"
"These things grow fast! Once they reach knee-height, cut them down one after another!"
While barking orders at the hesitant orphans, Lutz stared hard at the Trombe that were sprouting up one after another.
"
At Lutz's instruction, I was scooped up by Fran and pulled from the front lines. With no blade of my own, the best I could do was cheer everyone on.
"Come on, everyone — you can do it!"
"Get 'em!"
Lutz grabbed a machete-like blade and ran off to cut down the ones that had scattered farthest. Right on his heels, the first to actually take down a Trombe was
"Hyah!"
Gil's blade made a clean snick as it cut through a slender branch. Seeing that even a rough swing could easily sever the branches — and that the cut branches stopped growing — the orphanage children all charged in on the Trombe at once.
"Myne-sama, what is this?"
How much of this would Fran relay to the High Priest? This could be the start of a lecture. I frantically turned my gears, hoping to pass it off not as some big commotion but as something commonplace outside the temple.
"It's material for high-grade paper. This can make something much more valuable than our usual paper."
I wasn't lying. But it probably wasn't the answer Fran was looking for. Just as Fran opened his mouth as if to say something, Gil's voice rang out.
"Once they're this big, a knife won't cut it. Step aside! I'll handle it!"
When I whipped around, I saw Gil pushing aside a girl who had a knife and hacking down branches that had grown to about thigh-height. His growth from when he used to gleefully head off to the forest was plain to see.
"Yeah! Take that!"
Gil struck a victory pose, turned toward me, and flashed a triumphant grin. Understanding this was his way of saying "praise me later," I gave a slight nod.
"...Nothing left, huh?"
At Lutz's words, the children who had been looking around nodded vigorously.
"What should we do, Lutz? Leave a few and let them grow again?"
I suggested that it would be a waste to miss the chance to harvest rare high-quality materials relatively safely, but Lutz shook his head.
"After we cut down one or two more, let's do the planned fruit fight. Tau fruit dries out once separated from the soil, so let's just go gather more from the forest later."
"Everyone, I'm sorry, but could you cut down a few more? The paper made from this will be extremely high-grade. It'll increase the funds we can send to the orphanage."
"Myne-sama, what happens when the funds increase?"
The children, who had virtually no understanding of money, looked puzzled. For them, everything necessary for life was a blessing from the gods.
I had explained that everything in the world cost money, and that the soup they made at the orphanage still wasn't actually covered by what the children could provide — but I doubted they understood.
"When the funds increase, we'll be able to make more of our own food. And we'll be able to buy firewood for the orphanage in winter."
"Alright, let's do it!"
The orphanage's firewood allocation wasn't much. Only the girls' dorm had a fireplace, and just in the dining hall, while the boys' dorm had one in the common room only. Once they ran out of firewood, the stone buildings would turn freezing cold in an instant, and apparently the children would huddle together like dumplings even during the day.
In an environment where every penny had to be stretched, food and heating in winter were pressing concerns.
Since the children were now motivated, we cut down three more Trombe after that. The branches alone filled the basket to the brim, and since they needed to be processed into bark as quickly as possible, the Trombe harvest was called off.
"So, shall we throw the remaining Tau fruit at each other and play?"
At Lutz's suggestion, the children who had been enthusiastically cutting Trombe blinked and tilted their heads.
"Huh? We don't have to turn the rest into paper too?"
"If we run out from throwing them around, we'll just go pick more. Like today."
The children cheered at Lutz's words. Picking Tau fruit today had apparently been a lot of fun. I was jealous.
We leveled the ground that had been pitted and bumpy from all the Trombe sprouting — as if weeds had been dug up and turned over — and pressed down a few loose stone slabs back into place.
"The weeds are completely gone around here, but there's nothing we can do about that, right?"
"Right. But the grass will grow back in no time this time of year."
"...Let's think of it positively as having saved ourselves the trouble of weeding."
Since the Star Binding ceremony had just ended and no blue priest would come all the way out here to see the behind-the-scenes, I concluded there probably wouldn't be any problems.
"I'll referee the Tau fruit fight, so go change, Myne. You look pale. You're probably about to get a fever."
"Yeah, come to think of it, I do feel a bit achy. I'm getting chills."
"
Fran said this and picked me up. Over Fran's shoulder as he strode along, I could see the children had started the Tau fruit fight. Split into two teams, they were shouting and cheering as they pelted each other with Tau fruit — no different from the children in the lower town at all. I wished I could bring more entertainment to the orphanage.
"Geez! What do you think you're doing!? Getting sick from playing with orphans is not what a blue shrine maiden should be doing!"
Leaning limply on Fran as we returned to my room, I was met by Delia with her eyes narrowed to angry slits. After Fran took me to the bath, Delia shooed him away, peeled off my damp clothes, and deposited me into the prepared tub.
She added hot water to the lukewarm bath and adjusted it to just the right temperature. "You certainly do prefer quite hot water," Delia muttered softly, then fixed me with a sharp glare.
"Of course I want hot water when I'm freezing! If you're so frail, you shouldn't be playing in the water. Surely you know that! Geez!"
"...Delia, keep it down a little. This nice warm bath won't last."
I let out a sigh of relief at the warmth enveloping my whole body.
"Of course it's nice — I prepared it."
"Yes, you're absolutely right. Thanks to you, this feels wonderful. Thank you."
Since I still couldn't draw water from the well, there was no way I could prepare a bath on my own.
"I just did what I was told. It's not like I'm Gil, thanking someone for doing their job..."
She was muttering away, but I knew she was just embarrassed.
After letting out a small chuckle, I sank into the water up to my shoulders and began thinking about the Trombe.
Before, I'd barely felt any flow of mana — perhaps because the fruit had been on the verge of sprouting, or perhaps because I'd had no knowledge of mana or the devouring and therefore hadn't noticed it. This time, I could clearly feel mana flowing toward the Tau fruit.
I estimated that germinating water-balloon-sized Tau fruit would require roughly the same amount of mana as offering two to three small magic stones. Depending on how much mana a devouring child possessed, using Tau fruit should reduce the number who died from the condition.
First, it was important for the illness known as "the devouring" to become well-known, and since Trombe always appeared in the same place, having enough people around to harvest them would be a necessary condition.
On a side note, I indulged in a bit of wishful thinking — it would be nice if the cut branches could be taken in by the Myne Workshop.
However, if what Lutz said was true, Tau fruit apparently couldn't be stored. Once removed from the soil, it would dry out completely within about half a day in spring, and even plump, moisture-filled summer fruit would shrivel in a day or two. Just as the seeds that had fallen on the stone pavement had withered rapidly without germinating.
If I kept them on the soil, the same way Trombe grew, they probably wouldn't suddenly wither — but I was worried about them being washed away by wind or rain and having Trombe spring up unexpectedly in the city come autumn.
"...For now, I should report to
I would report that it was now possible to intentionally harvest Trombe from spring to early autumn, and ask him to gather information about Trombe and help spread the word about using Tau fruit to treat the devouring.
Having reached a stopping point in my thoughts, I quickly got out of the bath. The next moment, my head went dizzy. I couldn't tell if it was a fever or just heat from the bath.
I pressed my hand to my head and plonked down on the spot. Delia clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream and quickly began wiping down my whole body. She dressed me in my blouse and skirt with a few spots still damp, then hurried off to get Fran.
"Myne-sama!"
"...Ah, I should have put bedding on the bed first. Just let me lie down — the boards are fine."
Seeing that Fran, still holding me, was floundering over whether to lay me on the bare wooden bed, I told him it was fine, and he gently set me down.
"Delia, go get Lutz. Fran, could you change into something you can go outside in? We should probably head home early..."
"Understood."
Since Lutz had been playing the Tau fruit fight with the children and was obviously soaking wet, I was carried home by Fran.
When Lutz explained that he'd been the target of the festival's "special attention" and had changed clothes at the temple, my mother sighed and said, "Just as I expected." To Fran, who was apologizing with a grave expression for being an inadequate attendant, she said lightly, "I knew this would happen when Myne was sent to the Star Festival. She'll be bedridden for a few days, so please pass that along to the High Priest," and tossed me into bed.
"Was the festival fun despite getting soaked?"
"...Yeah. There were a lot of surprises, but all the orphanage children were smiling too. It was great."
Lutz and my family had been right — I ended up with a fever and bedridden for three days. When I asked Lutz, who came to visit, to relay my report about the Tau fruit and Trombe to Benno, the reply came back: "I want to discuss the details, so come to the shop before the temple once your fever breaks."
"Good morning, Benno."
"So you've gone and caused trouble again."
Being glared at with those obviously irritated reddish-brown eyes, I flinched hard.
"...T-trouble? We can now harvest Trombe without having to wait for them to appear who-knows-when and where! If you assemble enough people from the start, you can cut them all down easily and safely. Isn't that something to be praised?"
"On that point, certainly. It's welcome news that Tau fruit has been identified as Trombe seed and that we can now ensure a stable supply. But the accompanying headaches will far outnumber the benefits, don't you think?"
"Really?"
My thoughts had been entirely focused elsewhere regarding the complications, so when Benno murmured "As I thought, you haven't thought it through at all," and turned his gaze to Lutz standing beside me— "Lutz, sorry, but go tell the temple that Myne will be arriving late. After that, stay with
"Yes, sir."
Lutz gave a wry smile, left behind a less-than-reassuring "Hang in there, Myne," and left the room.
In the room now devoid of allies, Benno tapped the desk lightly with his fingertip.
"I heard from Lutz. The Tau fruit absorbed mana and grew all at once into Trombe. Is that correct?"
"No mistake."
"Could they serve as a substitute for magical tools?"
The fact that Tau fruit couldn't be obtained during winter was a concern, but in my case, with around twenty Tau fruit, I shouldn't be in danger of dying from mana overflow until the following spring. Since mana capacity apparently increased as the body grew, I had no idea how many I'd need by the time I reached adulthood.
"...I think so. That's why..."
"You must absolutely not let that information leak."
"What?"
Benno said with a stern expression. I, who had been asking him to help spread information about using Tau fruit to save devouring children, could hardly believe what I was hearing, and my eyes went wide.
"Mana management falls under the jurisdiction of the nobility. If word got out that a fruit easily found in the forest could replace expensive magical tools, it could overturn the entire social order of the nobility and the temple. If the information spreads the wrong way, you'll probably be crushed."
"...But if we stay quiet, commoner devouring children will never be saved!"
We had found a way to save them without spending money, but if we couldn't tell anyone, those who could be saved wouldn't be.
"Yeah, you're right. But how do you identify devouring children? I don't know, but if two devouring children were together, could you tell just by looking?"
I shook my head. Frieda was the only devouring child I'd ever met, but just looking at her, I couldn't tell she was a devouring child or that she had mana. If we couldn't tell who was a devouring child, there was no way we could help them.
"It might be possible to have every newborn hold the fruit to see if they have mana. But the moment someone's identified as having mana, the nobility will take them away. If people knew that identification meant being taken, who would agree to have their children tested? At the very least, your own family wouldn't, right?"
I was struck speechless. I, who didn't want to be separated from my family, had been hoping for a way to extend my life without relying on magical tools. That was to avoid the nobility. If identification were done on a large scale, the nobility would inevitably get involved. That would defeat the purpose.
And unless it was widely publicized, information about the devouring and the ability to treat it with Tau fruit would never spread.
"Short of gathering every newborn in large numbers, are you suggesting people bring in children who've developed a fever? If it's the devouring, Tau fruit can treat it, but if it's some other illness, it's 'sorry, can't help you'? If word of that kind of screening got out, you'd catch strange diseases from desperate parents and earn the resentment of those whose children you couldn't cure."
It was easy to see the backlash: "You healed that child's illness easily, so why not ours?" I clenched my fists at the scenarios Benno envisioned — ones I hadn't been able to imagine on my own.
"Furthermore, is there no possibility that devouring children growing up without relying on the nobility would cause problems for those around them? Can a devouring child who grew up with great mana but no knowledge handle it properly? How would the temple change if it could no longer operate divine instruments by collecting mana from noble children who couldn't afford magical tools? Wouldn't the very foundation of noble society — which monopolizes mana — be shaken?"
"...I don't know."
I couldn't give a clear answer to any of the questions fired at me in rapid succession. I knew nothing of social conditions, political structures, or even how mana was handled in this world.
"As a means of helping an unknown number of devouring children, the fallout would be far too great. For now, just stay quiet and consider that you've quietly obtained a way to keep living — even if you're driven from the temple or threatened with having your magical tools used as leverage against you. This has gotten too big. At the very least, it's beyond my ability to handle."
If it was beyond Benno's ability to handle, it was certainly beyond mine. If asked whether I wanted to sow chaos right when the purge in the central city had ended, the great noble reassignment was complete, and things were finally settling down despite the reduced number of nobles — the answer was no. I didn't want to deal with anything that complicated.
"Harvesting Trombe in the forest is something we've always done, so we can brush that off. But as for identifying and sustaining devouring children, I think it's better to keep quiet."
"...Yes."
Even knowing why, I couldn't help feeling dissatisfied that lives that could be saved weren't being saved. My dissatisfaction must have been clearly visible on my face, because Benno shrugged helplessly.
"Don't make that face. ...If there's a devouring child within your reach and you can help them quietly, then do so. I'm just saying don't let the nobility catch on. Are you capable of declaring war on noble society? The customers for the books you made were mostly nobles, you know?"
At the last part of Benno's words, I cracked a small smile. Smiling lifted my mood just a little. If a suffering devouring child was right in front of me, I'd help. I wouldn't concern myself with what was beyond my sight. I could just keep doing what I'd been doing.
"I couldn't declare war unless the literacy rate rose enough that ordinary citizens could casually read books. Not that I have any intention of doing something so troublesome."
When I played along with Benno's joke, he too let his expression soften with a quiet laugh.
"Well, yes, making it so ordinary citizens can read books would certainly be a hassle."
"The troublesome part isn't that — it's the declaring war. If I want to spread books, of course I have a plan to raise the literacy rate."
Since I was in the temple anyway, I intended to use the orphanage to hold temple classes — a sort of church school. As a first step, in the process of educating the orphans, I would train the grey priests to serve as teachers. Then, within the scope of what I knew, I would develop printing technology and create textbooks based on the scriptures. If the purpose was printing the religious texts to spread the faith, even the High Priest wouldn't have objections.
"What do you think? Perfect, right?"
As I puffed out my chest with a proud "Hmm-hmm," Benno for some reason buried his face in his hands.
"I'm sure your plan is full of holes since it's yours, but that's beside the point. ...Hey, Myne. Can you not use your brain for anything besides books?"
"Yes, probably."
I added that I'd never used my brain for anything besides books, so I couldn't say for sure — and Benno let out a deep, deep sigh, saying "That's just too disappointing."
As I pouted at his rudeness, Benno, who had been laughing and saying "It's the truth," suddenly changed his expression. When his face turned serious and his voice dropped just slightly, it meant he had something important to discuss.
"We'll keep quiet about Tau fruit so we can monopolize Trombe as much as possible. Agreed?"
"Yes."
"Then, regarding the last item on the task list I gave you the other day, I'd like to hear your opinion."
...Ah, so that was why he'd sent Lutz away. Understanding his reason for sending him out under the pretext of a lecture, I swallowed hard and looked at Benno.