After the Festival
“Come on! You didn’t reach it!”
Just as Lutz’s devastated yell implied, the taue fruit I had thrown didn’t reach the grass and instead hit the edge of the stone flooring, where it started crackling while exploding open. Tiny seeds shot out from the fruit the moment it broke and started sprouting. Or at least, the seeds that hit the grass with dirt did. Those that hit the stone dried up rapidly, whereas those rooting in the grass had already grown to ankle length.
“Gah! Wh-What are those?!”
“They’re all a trombe, and it’s growing fast. Start chopping once it gets to knee length!” Lutz gave instructions to the scared orphans and watched the trombe carefully as it grew beneath him. “Fran, grab Myne and wait in the back!”
At Lutz’s instructions, Fran picked me up and retreated from the front lines. Without a knife, the best I could do was show my support from the back.
“Go get’m!” Lutz brandished his blade and ran to harvest the wood furthest from the paved stone. Gil, running after him, was the first to chop off some wood. He swung down hard and a thin branch fell to the ground with a snap. The orphans, seeing that even a wild swing could easily chop off a branch, and that the chopped-off branch didn’t keep growing, all charged the trombe at once.
“Sister Myne, what exactly is going on?”
Just how much of this would Fran be telling the High Priest? Had I doomed myself to a lecture later? I desperately ran my brain at maximum power, trying to think if he would buy it if I said this was normal outside of the temple and not a big deal at all.
“That wood is used to make the highest quality plant paper that I know of. With it, we’ll be able to make paper much, much better than anything else you’ve seen.” I hadn’t lied. But I also hadn’t given Fran the answer he wanted. He opened his mouth to say something, but Gil yelled out before he could.
“Knives won’t work once they get too big. Step back! I’ll take care of’m!” I turned around to see Gil urging a girl with a knife back while chopping down branch after branch, each now long enough to reach their thighs. It was clear just how much he had grown while visiting the forest.
“Alright! We did it!” Gil, striking a victory pose, looked at me and grinned. I understood that to mean “please praise me” and thus gave him a nod of approval.
“...Is that all of it?” asked Lutz. The kids, picking up branches and scouring the area, nodded firmly in reply.
“What do you think we should do, Lutz? Should we save some of the taues and grow them later?” It would be a waste to miss this opportunity to safely harvest the valuable trombe wood, but Lutz shook his head.
“Let’s grow one or two more, then toss them around like we were planning to. Taues eventually dry up after they’re taken away from soil, and there’s more taues in the forest. We can just get more later.”
“Sorry, everyone, but would you mind harvesting a bit more? This wood can be used to make very high quality paper, and I can send more money to the orphanage by selling it.”
“Sister Myne, what will sending more money do?” The orphans, lacking so much knowledge that they legitimately did not understand what money was, looked at me with confused expressions. Everything they needed in life had come in the form of divine gifts. I had explained to them that everything in the world costs money, and that they were not yet earning the money being spent to make their soup, but they didn’t understand me.
“More money means you can make more food for yourselves. We will also be able to buy more winter firewood for the orphanage.”
“Alright, let’s do it!”
Not much firewood was given to the orphanage. The only rooms that had fireplaces were the dining hall in the girls’ building and a large communal room in the boys’ building. To make matters worse, the stone buildings cooled nigh instantly once they ran out of firewood, and at that point they had no choice but to huddle together for warmth. Winter supplies were a critical issue with the temple as strapped for cash as it was.
Thus, the promise of more firewood reasonably filled the kids with enthusiasm, and after that they harvested three entire trombes. We stopped once we had an entire large basket filled with them, since the sooner we got to work on the black bark the better.
“Alright, who wants to start tossing taues?” suggested Lutz, making the kids stop their eager chopping and blink in confusion.
“We’re not gonna turn them all into paper?”
“Doesn’t matter what we do with these, we can always go get more. We did it today and we can do it again.”
The kids cheered with excitement. Apparently, picking up taues in the forest had been a lot of fun for them.
“Um,” I chimed in, “by the way. It looks like all the grass is completely gone now, but I guess there’s nothing we can do about that.” Due to growing trombe after trombe, the grass had died and the earth was all upended. I flattened out the dirt as best I could and stomped on a protruding stone to get it back in line with the rest.
“Don’t sweat it, this is the summer. Grass will grow back in no time.”
“...I’ll just try to look on the bright side. At least nobody has to weed around here for now.” The three of us concluded that there wouldn’t be any blue priests bothering to visit the backside of the orphanage, so no harm done.
“I’ll take care of the taue throwing, so you go get changed, Myne. You look sick. Probably gonna catch a fever at this rate.”
“Mhm, my body does kinda feel heavy. I’m shivering a little.”
“Delia should have your bath ready and waiting. Shall we go?” said Fran while lifting me up. I saw over Fran’s shoulder the kids starting to throw the taues. The way they split into their two groups and ran around while shrieking excitedly was no different from how the kids in the lower city had spent their festival. I was struck with the desire to get more games and fun things into the orphanage.
“Geez, what were you doing?! A blue shrine maiden should not be playing with orphans so much she gets sick!”
When Fran reached my chambers with me slumped over in exhaustion, we found Delia waiting for us, her mouth bent into an angled frown. He brought me to the washtub, and after Delia chased him off, she took off my soaked clothing and forced me into the warm bath that had been waiting for me. She added fresh hot water to the somewhat lukewarm bath water, bringing it up to an ideal temperature.
“You do love your piping hot water, don’t you?” murmured Delia. She then glared sharply at me. “Well, your body wants hot water because you let yourself freeze in wet clothing! You shouldn’t play with water when you’re weak and sickly. This is just common sense!”
“...Delia, could you be a little more quiet? This is a nice bath and I want to enjoy it.” I sighed as the hot water warmed my body.
“Of course it is, I prepared it.”
“Yes, and thanks to you, I feel fantastic right now. Thank you.” I still wasn’t strong enough to draw water from a well, which meant I couldn’t ready baths for myself.
“I just did as I was instructed. I’m not Gil, you don’t need to thank me for doing my work.” Despite Delia’s mumbling, I knew she was just embarrassed. I let out a little giggle and sunk shoulders-deep into the water before starting to think about trombes.
I hadn’t felt the fruit draining my mana at the time, maybe because the fruit was already on the verge of growing or maybe because I didn’t know anything about mana or the Devouring back then. But this time, I clearly felt my mana flowing into the fruit. I would estimate offhand that it took about two or three small magic stones worth of mana to sprout one water-filled taue.
It would depend on the amount of mana an individual had, but it seemed possible that taue fruit could help decrease the number of kids dying from the Devouring. An important first task would be to make knowledge of the Devouring commonplace, and there would need to be people around to harvest the trombe born from the process. And if I’m being greedy, it sure would be nice if people gave the trombe wood to the Myne Workshop.
But if what Lutz said was right, it would be difficult to store taues. In the spring they would run out of water and dry up half a day after being separated from the earth, and even water-filled taues in the summer would dry up after a day or two, just like how seeds dropped on paved stone walkways would dry up rapidly without sprouting. They could probably be preserved by storing them somewhere with contact to the ground, but wind or rain might wash them away, and it’d be terrifying for a trombe to sprout out of nowhere in the middle of the city.
“...I guess I should report this to Benno before doing anything?” It would be good to report that we had found a way to actively harvest trombes during the summer, and while I was there I could ask him to spread information about the Devouring and how to use taue fruits to cure it.
That was that. With my thoughts settled, I stood up and got out of the bath. At which point my head began to spin. I wasn’t sure if it was a fever or if I had just stayed in the hot water for too long. I grabbed my head and squatted on the floor.
Delia clasped a hand on her mouth to hold back a scream and hurriedly began wiping me dry. She put on my blouse and skirt while I was still kind of wet, then ran off to get Fran.
“Sister Myne!”
“...Aaah, I really should have put a mattress on my bed by now. The board’s fine. Go ahead and set me on it,” I instructed, since Fran had picked me up and was anxiously looking all over the room for somewhere to lay me down. He rested me on the board as gently as he could.
“Delia, go call for Lutz. Fran, could you get changed into outside clothes? I think the sooner I get home, the better...”
“As you wish.”
Lutz was naturally soaked head to toe from the taue throwing, which left only Fran to carry me. When Lutz explained to Mom that I had needed to get changed at the temple after being pelted by fruit at the festival, she naturally sighed. Fran apologized with a grave expression, calling himself a failure of an attendant, but Mom waved him off, saying that she knew that this would happen if I went to the festival, and to tell the High Priest that I would be bedridden for a few days. She then tucked me into bed.
“It may have ended with you sopping wet and sick, but did you enjoy the festival?”
“...There were a lot of surprises, but the kids at the orphanage were all happy. That made it all worth it.”
Lutz and Mom were both right, and ultimately I spent three days bedridden with a fever. I had asked Lutz to tell Benno about the taues, and his reply was that he wanted to talk details when I was better again, which meant going to his store before I went back to the temple.
“Good morning, Mr. Benno.”
“Looks like you’ve stirred up some trouble again.” Benno immediately gave me a glare with his red eyes, the embodiments of frustration, causing me to flinch.
“...T-Trouble? But now we don’t have to rely on trombes showing up randomly, we can harvest them at will. And it’ll be perfectly safe if there’s a team of people at the ready, so really, I think you should be complimenting me right now.”
“You’re not entirely wrong. It’s good that we can harvest trombes now that you’ve discovered that taues are trombe seeds. But that’ll be more trouble than it’s worth, yeah?”
“Really?” I hadn’t thought out what might be problematic about harvesting trombes.
Benno murmured “Thoughtless as expected,” then looked beside me at Lutz. “Sorry, Lutz, but go tell the temple Myne’s gonna be late today. Then stick with Mark until I call for you. This lecture’s gonna take a while.”
“Understood, Master Benno.” Lutz gave me a weary smile and wished me luck before leaving the room, having offered me none of the emotional support I needed. I now had no allies by my side and could only watch as Benno drummed his fingertips against the table.
“Lutz told me the gist of it. Taue fruit suck up your mana, grow rapidly, then turn into trombes. All on point so far?”
“Uh huh.”
“You think they’ll be able to replace magic tools?” It was a little problematic that taues weren’t harvestable during the winter, but in my case, twenty of them would be enough for me to survive the winter without being overwhelmed before spring came. Though given that one’s total amount of mana grew as the body developed, I didn’t know how much I would need as an adult.
“...I think so. Which is why I—”
“Don’t speak a word of this to anyone. Not a single person,” said Benno with a stern expression. My eyes widened and for a second I couldn’t believe what I had heard, since my plan was to spread the information as soon as possible.
“Mana is under the jurisdiction of nobles. If it gets out that cheap fruit you can find in any forest can be used in place of expensive magic tools, it’s possible that noble society and the temple will get flipped upside down. Handle this the wrong way and you’ll get killed.”
“...But if people don’t learn about this, commoners with the Devouring will keep dying.” I had found a money-free way to save those with the Devouring, but it wouldn’t help anyone if nobody knew about it.
“Yep, that’s right. But how are you gonna figure out which kids have the Devouring? I sure can’t tell. Can you, with all your experience?”
I shook my head. The only kid with the Devouring I had met was Freida, but I couldn’t tell just from looking at her that she had mana or the Devouring. It would understandably be impossible for us to save those with the Devouring if we couldn’t find them.
“We might be able to find them by having every kid that gets born hold one of those fruits. But I can guess that the second a kid’s found out to have mana, nobles will come steal them away. Who would have their kid tested if they know they’ll be taken away? I know your family wouldn’t.”
There was nothing I could say. In the past I had looked for a way to extend my life without relying on magic tools. Why? To avoid nobles taking me away. If we identified kids with the Devouring on a large scale, nobles would know where to find them. That would defeat the purpose. But at the same time, the information would need to be spread on a large scale for it to save anyone.
“If not targeting all kids at birth, then what? Will you have people bring any kid that gets a bad fever? If it’s the Devouring then taues can save them, but if it’s not, you’ll just turn them away? Too bad, tough, bad luck? Finding kids that way is just gonna spread disease and make parents of kids without the Devouring furious.”
I could already imagine a parent saying “You cured that kid so easily, why not mine?” I clenched my fist, frustrated by all the problems I hadn’t considered until Benno brought them up.
“What about the chance that kids with the Devouring growing up without nobles could cause problems of their own? Will they be able to control their mana properly without training? What will happen to the temple once it can no longer get mana from the children of noble families that couldn’t afford magic tools for everyone? Noble society has a monopoly on mana right now. What’re the chances that this information would send enormous ripples through it?”
“...I don’t know.” I couldn’t answer a single one of the questions that Benno listed out. I didn’t understand this world’s social structure or politics well enough, nor mana’s place in the world.
“I get that you’re trying to save the lives of kids with the Devouring, but the ripples will just be too big. For now you should just keep your mouth shut about it and keep it as a lifeline if you’re ever driven out of the temple or blackmailed with magic tools on the line. The scale and impact of this is just too big. Or at the very least, it’s too big for me to handle.”
If Benno couldn’t handle it, there was no way I could. If you asked me if I wanted to stir up more trouble right after the purging in the Sovereignty ended and noble society climbed back to its feet, my answer would be no. I didn’t want that much trouble on my back.
“I’m thinking you can harvest some trombe wood in the forest while passing it off as coincidence, but that’s it. All this about identifying those with the Devouring should be kept secret under lock and key.”
I didn’t feel comfortable leaving people to die despite knowing a way to save them. My discomfort must have shown on my face, as Benno gave a sympathetic shrug.
“Don’t look like that. If you ever find someone with the Devouring, you can save them in secret. I’m just saying you shouldn’t let nobles hear about this. You want to declare war against noble society or something? Don’t forget, it’s nobles that’re gonna be buying those books you make.”
That first bit made me smile a little, and my mood brightened. If I found someone suffering with the Devouring, I could save them. I didn’t have to worry about those I couldn’t see. I could just keep on living like I had been.
“At the very least, I can’t start a war before I’ve risen literacy rates enough that commoners can read books too. Not that I would want to deal with that in the first place.”
After I replied to Benno’s joke with some humor of my own, he let out a laugh. “Yeah, can’t say I’d want to deal with teaching commoners to read either.”
“I was talking about the war there. I want to spread books throughout the world, so of course I have a plan to raise literacy rates.”
The temple was a valuable place to be. At some point I intended to use the orphanage to hold a Sunday School class, except not on Sunday. To start, I would raise the gray priests into teachers through the process of instructing the orphans. Then, I would develop technology for printing as best I could, which I would first use to make educational material based on the bible. The High Priest shouldn’t have any complaints if I used printing to spread the bible.
“So? Perfect, isn’t it?” I puffed out my chest with pride, but for some reason Benno was cradling his head.
“Every plan you’ve ever made has been full of holes, and I don’t think this will be an exception. But y’know, Myne. Is it physically impossible for you to use your head on anything but books?”
“Yes. Probably.” I added on that I had never really tried to put much effort into things outside of books, so I wasn’t sure.
“What a waste,” said Benno with a heavy sigh.
“Rude!”
“It’s the truth,” he continued, before his grin hardened into a stern expression. When Benno’s expression hardened and he lowered his voice a bit, he always had something serious to say. “We’re on the same page about keeping quiet about the taues so we can monopolize the trombes, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. With that out of the way, I want to hear your thoughts on the final problem on that list I gave you.”
...Oh, so that’s why he sent Lutz out. I swallowed hard and looked at Benno, finally understanding that Benno saying he was going to lecture me had been a bluff to get Lutz out of the room.
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