Stone Slate Get!
The most important thing to prepare for winter was food. Unlike Japan, there weren’t supermarkets open every day of every year. Barely any crops could be grown or harvested and the market would barely open due to the weather. If you didn’t want to starve to death, you had to prepare ahead of time. Which is why I was currently sitting inside the back of a covered wagon between the loads of stuff packed into it.
It all started when Dad woke us all up at the crack of dawn. “Alright, we’re going to the farm today! Everyone ready?”
Umm, no, of course not. What the heck’s going on? I rubbed my sleepy eyes and glared at Dad, but Mom and Tuuli both nodded enthusiastically with big happy smiles. I was the only one not understanding.
“Oh, right. Myne was sick when this was decided, so she might not have heard about it.” Mom clapped her hands together and both Tuuli and Dad nodded in agreement. It felt like I was being left out and excluded from the rest of the family, which didn’t feel great.
I pouted a little, cheeks puffing out, but everyone started preparing immediately. They didn’t seem to have the time to worry about me.
“Anyway, we need to keep warm. I remember you getting a fever last year, Myne!” Mom called out to me while carrying stuff down the steps. I was in the middle of changing clothes since, given that they wouldn’t let me stay home alone, I had no choice but to go along with them.
...Why are we going to a farm in a far-off village, anyway? I had intended to walk at least part of the way to the village in order to build up strength, but I was so excessively slow that Dad got frustrated and put me in the wagon. There really wasn’t any space for me, so I huddled into as small of a ball as possible.
In the wagon there were several barrels of varying size, plenty of empty bottles, string, cloth, salt, and wood. It was all important stuff for what we were doing at the farm, probably. ...Wait. Am I the most useless thing in this wagon?
Dad was pulling the wagon from the front while Mom and Tuuli pushed it from the back. It kinda felt like I was being serious dead weight, which again made me feel bad.
“Um, Mom. Why are we going to a farm?”
“There’s no smokery in the city, remember? We’re going to rent the one in the nearest farming village.”
We’re going to smoke meat? That reminds me, we bought lots of meat at the market.
But I feel like she already boiled or salted most of it. There’s that much left? Shouldn’t it be bad by now? Is this okay?
I started counting the days on my fingers, worried, but Mom just looked at me with exasperation.
“What are you even talking about? Today’s pig day. We’ll buy two pigs at the farm, split into groups to prepare them, and then share the meat.”
“Wha?” For an instant, my ears blocked what Mom had said. There was a brief but clear time lag between me hearing that and the noise reaching my brain, and when it did, I started to tremble. “P, P-P-P, Pig day?! What?!”
“The day when we and our neighbors gather together, butcher a pig, salt it, smoke it, and make bacon, sausage, and all other sorts of meat. Goodness Myne, don’t you remember last ye... ah, actually, you got a fever in the cart on the way there.”
Honestly, I want to get a fever this year too. At least then I won’t have to watch it happen.
“Mom, didn’t you buy a lot of meat at the market a bit ago...?”
“You should know that wouldn’t be enough. In fact, that was just extra meat to supplement the pigs.”
I had thought she bought more than enough meat before, but apparently it was all just extra meat, not even the main event. I couldn’t even imagine just how much meat was necessary to last the winter.
In sharp contrast to my depression over being unable to avoid seeing pigs get butchered, Tuuli was wearing a bright, full smile as she pushed the cart. “There’s lots of fun stuff about today. We get to taste the meat in the middle of it and there’s fresh sausage for dinner, it’s great. This is the first time you’ll be helping, Myne, but it’s kind of like a festival everyone gets excited for. I’m glad we get to go together this year!”
“Everyone?” I blinked in confusion, and Mom replied with an expression that practically said “Don’t ask questions with such obvious answers.”
“Who would we do it with if not our neighbors? Butchering pigs is a serious job, it can’t be done without at least ten adults.”
Eugh, our neighbors... Myne had a lot of vague memories, so there were definitely going to be a bunch of people who knew me that I didn’t know. Not only would dealing with them be a pain, but we were going to be butchering a pig on top of that. Just remembering what I saw at the market was enough to make a chill run down my back.
“...I don’t want to go.”
“What’re you talking about? We won’t have any sausage or bacon all winter if we don’t go.”
We needed the meat for the winter, so naturally they wouldn’t turn around even if I said I didn’t want to go. I had to participate no matter how little I wanted to. I sighed, depressed, and soon our cart reached the southern gate of the outer wall.
“Wait, Captain? Aren’t you late? Everyone else passed through a long time ago.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
One of Dad’s coworkers called out to him as we passed through the gate. Apparently, our neighbors had left for the farm a long time ago.
“Stay safe.” A younger looking guy who looked like he probably liked children waved at me, so I waved back. Polite decency was important in all things.
“Wooow...” The moment our cart rumbled out of the small tunnel that was the southern gate, I let out a tiny cry of surprise. It was the first time I had left the city walls since becoming Myne. To be honest, I hadn’t expected things to be so different outside.
First of all, there were no buildings. Inside the city was a tight, never-ending cluster of buildings, but the second we got outside of the gates, there was a wide road with only about ten to fifteen shacks strewn about.
On top of that, the air was nice. The more open the air the more the smell of waste was diluted, I supposed, and for the first time in a long while I remembered that air could taste good. There were no tall walls to block all the smells inside. I looked around and saw a field of crops on one side of me and a forest of tall trees on the other. The scenery was impossibly tranquil, the very definition of idyllic.
“Myne, close your mouth. You’re gonna bite your tongue off.”
“Bwuh?!”
Right after Dad’s warning, the cart began rattling up and down even worse than it did in town. The city road had shifted from cobblestone to a normal dirt road with mounds and hills. It was shaking so hard I thought all our stuff would fall out, but at least they had ropes holding them down. I was in the most danger of all since I wasn’t locked down whatsoever. I clung tightly to the side of the cart for my own safety.
...This kind of road is the worst! On sunny days they’re super bumpy and on rainy day’s they’re a muddy mess! Learn how to make asphalt already! I spat angry complaints on the inside and soon felt Dad speed up.
We had arrived at the village. It was about fifteen minutes away from the town gate, and after passing through the entryway, I could hear lots of people talking.
“Almost there.”
Butchering the pig was mainly a job for men. They had to hold down beasts that looked like they weighed over a hundred kilograms, not to mention tie them up and hang them from their feet. It was a job that took a lot of strength.
While they were doing that, the women would prepare the smokery, boil lots of water, and prepare salt and tools for preservation.
By the time we reached the village, the butchering was already beginning. Those who didn’t participate naturally didn’t get any meat.
“Crap! It’s starting! Effa, Tuuli, hurry and take your places!”
“Oh no! Run, Tuuli!”
“Right!”
All three of them let go of the cart, grabbed wax-coated aprons made from some thick material, and put them on. Once Mom and Tuuli got theirs on, they rushed over to the smokery where a bunch of women already were. Dad put on his apron too and ran off after grabbing a spear, which was probably an important tool here.
Wh... Everyone’s so fast! My family had all ran off before I could even process what was happening. I could have run after Mom, but I wouldn’t want to be standing around in a crowd with no idea of what to do.
It was a yearly ritual for these people, so there were probably a ton of unspoken rules. If only I had a manual.
Knowing that I just got in the way no matter what I did, I decided to wait in the cart until someone called for me. This is important work too, I told myself while sitting on top of the abandoned cart doing nothing in particular.
Unfortunately, however, Dad had left the cart right in the middle of the pig-slaughtering field. There was a little distance between us, but I could clearly see the pig squealing in pain and fear while running away from its pursuers. There was a wooden stake driven into the ground, connected by rope to the pig’s right hind leg. It fled in a circle around the stake while men chased after it, desperate to pin it down.
I saw a familiar pink head in the crowd. Ralph and Lutz were definitely around here somewhere.
“Go get’m! Hyaaah!” Screaming out battle cries, Dad participated in the chase. He readied the spear with immense speed and then stabbed it right into the pig. That single strike was enough for the pig to start convulsing, legs twitching, before it stopped moving entirely.
I let out a tiny shriek, but all the men let out a cheer at what had been done. Mom rushed forward with a metal bucket-looking thing and a somewhat long stick. Another woman brought a bowl thing to the pig. A moment later, blood sprayed everywhere, dyeing several people’s aprons dark red. Dad had probably pulled the spear out after the blood-gathering bucket and bowl were prepared.
I held down my mouth and felt myself shake with terror. I couldn’t see the pig due to all the women’s aprons crowding around, but I could see how mechanically the woman was gathering blood in the bowl and pouring it into the bucket.
Mom furrowed her brows a little while firmly stirring all the blood being poured into her bucket. Ngh... Mom looks really scary right now.
Afterward, a bunch of people worked together to hang the pig upside down from a tree that had been prepared beforehand. The blood they hadn’t managed to squeeze out of the pig began dripping down to the ground.
The real butchering was about to begin. A man with a thick butcher’s knife walked up and pressed it against the pig’s stomach.
That was the last thing I remembered. Before I knew it, I was in a stone building, not one I had seen in the village. I could see the ceiling since someone had laid me onto my back, but it wasn’t my home’s ceiling.
I blinked several times, still on my back, and then remembered what I had seen before passing out. It made me feel sick. But for some reason, something felt really familiar about the pig being butchered.
What was it... Like, something being hung upside down, and then being cut apart... It was on the tip of my tongue, but it just wouldn’t come out. If I had to guess, it wasn’t one of Myne’s memories. It was one of my Urano memories. I must have seen something similar in Japan.
...Ah! It looked like that fish I saw being hung upside down in a coastal Ibaraki market! From that perspective, I could understand why everyone was so excited about the pig. I remembered how excited people were to eat a fish that fresh. Well... I can understand, but it’s still a bit emotionally rough for me. I mean, the fish didn’t scream in pain like that. It didn’t gush out blood. Guuuh, so gross...
I rolled over, holding my mouth, and fell right off what I was lying on.
“Oooow...” I used my hands to stand up and look around, seeing immediately that I had been resting on a smallish wooden bench. There was a burning fireplace nearby, so it wasn’t cold. But nobody was around, and I couldn’t hear anybody talking.
Oh right... Where am I, anyway? The moment I decided I needed to figure out where I was, a soldier peeked into the room, maybe due to having heard me fall.
“Oh. Finally awake, huh?”
“Mr. Otto?” I let out a sigh of relief, glad to see someone I knew.
A stone building with Otto inside could only mean that I was in one of the gate’s waiting rooms. My anxiety melted away after I learned where I was.
“That means you remember me, right?” Otto looked visibly relieved that I remembered him. That made sense. I was a child on the outside, after all. He definitely thought that I would have started crying if I saw someone I didn’t know.
“I could never forget you.” I mean, you’re the first man of culture I’ve met in this world and my (future) teacher. How could I forget?
I mimicked the chest-tapping salute, to which Otto laughed a little and rubbed my head. “The captain rushed back here with you in tow. He said you collapsed in the cart. He’ll be back as soon as he’s finished with what he needs to do.”
I didn’t know how long it would take to butcher a pig, but they had to prepare the meat afterward too, so I couldn’t imagine it would be over soon.
Hm... Thinking about it, Tuuli said we would get fresh meat for dinner. Guess I’ll be waiting here for a while. Knowing that I would end up with plenty of spare time, I had put the materials I needed for faux-papyrus into the cart, but they were out of my reach.
“What’s wrong, Myne? Feeling lonely without your mom and dad?”
“No, I was just thinking about how I could kill some time.” I shook my head and said what I was really thinking.
Otto looked at me hard for a bit, then whispered, “He did say she wasn’t as young as she looked,” and nodded to himself. “I might have something that can help, Myne. How about this?”
“Wow! The slate!”
Otto held out the slate. He knew for sure we’d be passing by the gate today, so he had brought it with him to give to me.
A man of culture that considerate about other people?! Mr. Otto’s such a great person!
“I need to go back and stand at the gate, but go ahead and practice this while I’m gone.”
Otto wrote my name, Myne, at the top of the slate before setting down the slate pen and a cloth. He then left the room.
I hugged the slate with one arm and waved Otto goodbye with the biggest smile of my life before dropping my gaze back down to the slate.
The best way to explain it was to call it a mini-chalkboard about the size of an A4 piece of paper. A dark, thin stone set into a wooden frame. Both sides could be written on, and one of them had lines for practicing letters on.
The slate pen was a writing tool specifically for slates, and although I could tell it was a thin stone from a touch, it looked entirely like a thin piece of chalk. The somewhat dirty cloth was a way to clear off the slate. It would probably do a good job, given how the letters Otto wrote got a little blurry just from me hugging the slate.
“Aaah, my heart’s beating so fast!” I put the slate onto the table and held the pen. Just gripping the slate pen like a pencil made my heart race.
I started off by copying Otto’s letters, none of which I recognized at all. I was so nervous writing the first letters of my second life that they all ended up twisted and shaky. If I were in Japan, I likely would have shaken my head and wiped them away immediately to try again. But it had been so long since I had seen letters that I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I was so happy.
I took a deep breath, exhaled, wiped the letters away with the cloth next to the slate, and tried again. Things went a lot better the second time. I wrote my name, erased it, wrote it, erased it...
When I got bored of that, I wrote little poems and song lyrics in Japanese, then erased them, then wrote them, then erased them...
Haaah... This is bliss.
I never would've thought that writing letters could make me so happy.
Despite being near the furnace, the waiting room was so drafty that after spending hours playing with the slate and waiting for my family, I caught a cold in record time and ended up in bed with a fever.
“You still have a fever, Myne, so stay in bed. No getting out!”
“...Okay.”
My parents busily walked around, in and out of the house, as they carried root vegetables into the winter storeroom. Tuuli was in the kitchen making jam out of fruit and honey that she had gathered herself. In this world, all it took was a sweet scent drifting through my home to make me happy.
While they were in the middle of stashing away beer and the prepared pig, Tuuli brought me my soup lunch. I put aside my stone slate and took the whole tray from her.
“Sorry, Tuuli.”
“Seriously. This is a real pain.”
“Aww, what? Didn’t you promise not to say that?”
“I never promised that!”
I mean... Okay, you didn’t promise that. But isn’t it still like, an unspoken promise?
While everyone else was exhausting themselves preparing for winter, I was lying in bed and playing around with the slate Otto gave me, practicing my name and having fun writing in Japanese.
But I really wanted a book that would preserve writing permanently. If writing some letters was all it took to get me this happy, I figured reading a book would make me absolutely ecstatic. I needed to hurry up and get healthy again so I could make paper.
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