# Chapter 75
“There are more important things than names right now.”
“…”
“Where did you go?”
“Ah…”
Arden, who had been staring blankly, belatedly nodded.
“I asked why you brought all those tools and machines.”
Arden pointed to Rite’s backpack placed in the corner as he spoke.
“A request came in.”
“What kind of request?”
“It’s quite big. The compensation is equally large.”
He deliberately didn’t mention how difficult it would be. Rite sat on the bed and stared up at Arden. He placed one ankle on his other thigh and tilted his head slightly. At this gesture, Arden continued his explanation.
“They said crop yields have dropped dramatically. Farming is the main source of income for the people of Menden. Both the quality and quantity of crops have decreased, so the impact must be significant. It seems there’s a problem with the soil.”
“And?”
“They asked me to solve it.”
Rite stroked his chin, lost in thought for a moment, then abruptly asked.
“Can you do it?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll look around and assess the situation first, then decide whether to sign a contract or not.”
“So that’s why you rented a room.”
“All the places we’ll be visiting next are bigger cities than this one. If we can save up some travel money before then, it would be good.”
At Arden’s words, Rite gave a small laugh. Surprised by the unexpected laughter, Arden blinked once.
“I guess 1,000 Bram was a lot.”
“…The more money, the better.”
It was an ambiguous answer. He didn’t deny it was a large amount, so Arden somewhat agreed. However, since leaving Winterishe was the biggest issue, Arden didn’t regret spending a large sum in the past.
“So. How much are they offering?”
“Nothing’s certain yet, but… when I tested the waters, they mentioned up to 7,000 Bram.”
“Isn’t that too little compared to the weight of the request? It’s basically changing the fate of a village.”
“How much do you want to extract from people who are already struggling? I don’t intend to take that much anyway. That amount is already much more than my target.”
He was used to lowballing prices, laying groundwork, and employing psychological warfare, but it was all unnecessary. While Irace had no eye for items, she was more generous with compensation than Markus. Realizing that it all stemmed from desperation, Arden felt somewhat guilty.
Rite rested his chin in his hand and stared intently at Arden.
Arden always treated others generously when it came to work. Even if he had to work with his weaknesses exposed in Winterishe, there was no need for that approach until now.
Although Rite had exploited this aspect of Arden to demand affection and act shamelessly, it didn’t feel particularly good to see him behaving the same way with others. It bothered him even if it was a financial transaction rather than a personal relationship.
Had he always been like this in the past? Were there other instances when he was this accommodating? The younger Arden might have been. Rite’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Arden.
Unaware of Rite’s gaze, Arden knelt on the floor and rummaged through the backpack. While pulling out various equipment, he continued speaking.
“So I have something to ask you.”
“…What is it?”
“Magic, how much can you use it?”
Rite couldn’t answer immediately. It would be fair to say that Rite knew practically nothing about magic. Rite had encountered magic not through theoretical textbooks but through fairy tales and novels. This meant he was more familiar with magic that could whip up a pumpkin soup for a poor child than with conjuring a fireball.
Of course, Rite had never created either a fireball or pumpkin soup using magic.
“I don’t know much either, but… magic usually has properties.”
Arden recalled information he’d briefly encountered in a book he read as a child.
“I don’t know the details, but broadly it’s divided into manifestation and recovery. Everything you’ve shown me so far has been manifestation. Blocking doors, lifting objects.”
“…”
“What we need this time is likely recovery magic. Even if not, if you can use recovery magic, it would be helpful going forward.”
As he spoke, Arden stood up. He was holding tweezers in his hand. It was a tool used for handling very small gears or components, and its tip was quite sharp.
The way Arden held the tweezers was different from usual. Normally, he would hold them like a pencil, but this time he was gripping them with his entire hand. And then.
“Arden!”
He stabbed the palm of his left hand. As the sharp tip dug completely into his flesh, he dragged it across.
Rite quickly approached and firmly grabbed Arden’s right hand to stop him. Thanks to this, the wound didn’t extend far, but beads of blood began to trickle out.
“What do you think you’re doing!”
“Lower your voice. Someone outside might hear.”
Arden whispered, glancing nervously at the door. He was concerned because Rite had loudly called out his real name.
“Is that the issue right now?”
“It’s fine. The palm has thick muscles, so it’s difficult to stab deeply with something like this. I avoided areas where I need to move muscles a lot, so it won’t affect my work.”
Arden tried to remove the tweezers with a calm face, but the large hand wrapped around his own wouldn’t loosen its grip.
“Rite. You can let go.”
When he glanced at Rite, his face had turned deathly pale.
Before engaging in this self-harming behavior, Arden had expected a fifty-fifty reaction. He thought that after brandishing his injuries like weapons back at the cabin, Rite might have become desensitized to wounds, but apparently not.
“Rite.”
When he called out again in a small voice, Rite’s hand finally relaxed its grip. Arden pulled out the tweezers and extended his left hand.
“Want to try?”
“…Did you do this just for that?”
“I thought it would be difficult if I just asked you to try without any context.”
It was the same method he had used when offering strawberry tarts as a prize for retracting horns. Motivation was always important.
In this respect, they were similar. The habit of readily throwing oneself away once a goal was established—Arden had learned this from Plin as well.
“We’ll talk about this later.”
Rite’s voice trembled. He swallowed his anger and took Arden’s hand. He had many things to say. He couldn’t believe Arden thought this method would make things easier for him.
Rite blindly held Arden’s hand and poured his magical power into it. Rite had no knowledge of healing or medicine. Healing Arden’s wound seemed much more daunting than creating a unicorn based on what he’d seen in monster encyclopedias. He just repeatedly visualized the skin closing up, but his magic merely tickled the surface of Arden’s palm without effect.
“I startled you. Sorry.”
Arden glanced at Rite, who was anxiously biting his lips, and offered an apology. He didn’t understand where the threatening demeanor from earlier had gone. Besides, wasn’t it just a small wound?
“If you know that.”
“…”
“Don’t ever do something like this again.”
“…Alright.”
Arden quietly nodded at first, but when he noticed Rite’s gaze wouldn’t leave his palm, he verbalized his response.
In the end, Rite’s attempt failed. Instead of Rite’s magic, Arden’s palm was thickly covered with ointment.
* * *
After completing a simple and one-dimensional experiment, the two went outside the hotel. When they asked Adriang where the largest field was, he kindly drew them a map. While Arden walked with the map trying to find their way, Rite walked around observing the village.
Menden became more vibrant during the day. Though people’s faces showed concern and fatigue due to their difficult circumstances, it looked different to Rite. Children running ahead with pinwheels followed by other kids, people sitting on chairs outside shops chatting, someone hanging laundry on a balcony—it felt different from the perpetually calm and settled Winterishe.
It couldn’t be the same as people who had learned to fear monsters from birth. Above all, they showed little interest in Rite and Arden. They would briefly glance at the unfamiliar faces but soon return to whatever they were doing.
Among such people, Rite felt a strange tremor. His heart beat rapidly, but unlike an unpleasant heartbeat, each thump made his fingertips tingle and his steps lighter. His purple eyes, exploring here and there, sparkled in the sunlight. So this was what it felt like to blend into a crowd.
After walking about 15 minutes away from the village center toward the outskirts, they reached a hill as Adriang had said. A red house with a brown roof next to a windmill—that was where Arden needed to go.
“Definitely…”
“The cauliflower looks terrible.”
It must be nearly harvest time for snow cauliflower, but the field was a mess. The cauliflowers that should have densely covered the gentle slope were sparsely scattered, revealing bare soil like an old man’s mouth with missing teeth.
The remaining cauliflowers were blackish in color, hardly appetizing. Snow cauliflower was normally darker than regular cauliflower, but he had never seen it this black before.
“So that’s why all the vegetables at Lucy’s store looked like that.”
Rite muttered, kneeling on one knee. Arden stopped walking and watched what Rite was doing.
“I don’t think it was this bad.”
“It might have gotten worse this year.”
As he spoke, Rite plucked off an outer leaf of the cauliflower. Arden nervously glanced at the house on top of the hill, worried that a farmer might appear and shout at them for what they were doing.
Rite held the plucked leaf up to the sunlight while his other hand dug around in the surrounding soil.
The surrounding soil also contributed to the cauliflower’s unappetizing appearance. What should have been a soft, deep brown was now the color of desert sand and crumbly. Rite put down the leaf and scooped up a handful of soil with both hands.
“Going to try again?”
“Yeah. You never know.”
Rite once more channeled his magic, but it merely skimmed over the soil surface without causing any change. Arden couldn’t see the flow of magic, but he could tell from Rite’s expression that it had failed.
“I can’t do it. I have no idea what it means to make soil fertile.”
“It’s okay. Magic isn’t something you can master through effort alone. It can’t be helped.”
Though he said this, Arden couldn’t help feeling disappointed as well. In the end, he would have to solve this alone. As he tried to push away the overwhelming sense of helplessness and think about what he could do—
“Who’s there?”
An unfamiliar voice called down from the top of the hill.
