Enol Village
Originally, Chloe had planned to return straight to the castle and begin experimenting with the Como Tree and Tiese Stone. But she changed her mind.
The sight of the children so overjoyed by their new clothes reminded her of the other children still shivering in the cold.
The three remaining villages besides Morta and Enol were located south of Grace Castle, so she had heard the temperatures there were somewhat milder. The territory was not vast, so the difference could not be great, but Chloe wanted to believe it was enough.
“Yes, understood.”
Handsome bowed his head and opened the carriage window beside the coachman, calling out loudly.
“Her Ladyship says we are heading to Enol Village!”
“……”
“Enol Village!”
When the coachman failed to hear him clearly, Handsome raised his voice even louder than before.
“Have you heard the news?”
Bron, who had been patching a hole in the wall with mud, suddenly spoke up as if he had just remembered something. Both men’s faces were smeared with mud, but neither cared.
“What news?”
Nell responded indifferently and continued working. Bron had a habit of blurting things out without context or preamble.
Nell’s hands were also caked with sticky mud. Even as he blew warm breath onto his fingers between tasks because of the cold, he plunged them without hesitation into the icy mixture.
His furrowed gaze remained fixed on the mud he had halfheartedly packed into the hole. The mixture was too thin; the patch kept sagging and dripping.
“I’m talking about Morta Village.”
Bron’s tone grew more secretive.
“Why? Did more people starve to death there? Our village isn’t far behind. Word is the village head’s storehouse has been completely emptied since yesterday.”
Nell’s expression remained grim even as he worked on the house.
This makeshift repair would never keep out the winter wind. The slightest gust would crumble the mud patch. Still, it was better than doing nothing, so he could not simply stand by. He had a three-year-old son who constantly suffered from coughs.
The mud on his hands slapped wetly against the wall. With each motion, the gaping hole grew smaller.
“That’s not it.”
Bron, growing impatient, gave Nell’s shoulder a light smack.
“Charlie ran into a band of thieves the other day and was nearly killed. A man from Morta took him home, fed him, and let him stay the night. He said the houses there are completely different from before.”
“That can’t be true.”
Nell thought it impossible, yet he could not look away from Bron.
Charlie was not the sort to lie or exaggerate. If Charlie said it happened, then it had. Without realizing it, Nell had stopped moving and was now listening intently.
After several hours of travel by carriage from Morta Village, they arrived at Enol Village. Though it lay in the same northern region, the atmosphere was markedly different.
Unlike Morta, where the entrance had been in utter disarray, the houses here stood intact and the streets were clean.
“This place seems livable.”
“Conditions are similar, but the village head here is quite capable.”
Chloe murmured while gazing out the open carriage window, and Handsome answered at once.
“The village head?”
“Yes. I heard he gathered the harvest into the village storehouse so that everyone could have at least one meal a day. That is why no one in Enol has starved to death yet. He also manages the communal well strictly, so they have at least some water to drink.”
“Really?”
Chloe was genuinely surprised. She had assumed every village would be like Morta, so this news felt like a sudden blessing.
“I should meet him.”
“Shall I summon him?”
“No. I will go to his house myself.”
She was curious what sort of home a village head who had managed to keep his people alive under such hardship might have. The houses also seemed built with different materials than those in Morta, and she wanted to see the interiors. Most of all, if the village head was this competent, she looked forward to meeting whatever talent might be found here.
The first to recognize the lord’s carriage stopped at the village entrance were Nell and Bron. Their homes stood closest to the entrance.
“Isn’t that the lord’s carriage?”
Bron spoke with a dazed expression, his face still covered in mud. His dislike for the Grace lord made his words come out sharper than intended.
Nell only stared at the carriage without answering.
“Hide, quickly. What if she torments you again?”
Even at Bron’s urging, Nell remained standing where he was.
“It has been more than five years. She probably does not remember.”
Unlike the anxious Bron, Nell was calm. While the two argued, the lord who had stepped down from the carriage drew steadily closer.
Accompanied by knights, the lord had grown much since five years ago, and her presence felt different.
Though he had said it was fine, Nell felt a quiet unease. Knowing the lord’s temperament, she might strike him across the face the moment she recognized him.
Both men bowed deeply toward the approaching lord.
Bron, bowing far lower than Nell, trembled so hard his hands shook.
He was terrified that his dearest friend would be dragged away by the lord.
Please just pass by. Just pass by.
Bron muttered like a prayer when a luxurious navy-blue hem entered his vision.
He had hoped she would keep walking, but the hem remained still.
“Perhaps—”
At the soft voice, Bron dropped flat to the ground.
“My lady! This man is no longer a servant of Grace Castle. Thanks to the previous lord’s grace, he became a free man five years ago. Please show mercy and allow Nell to remain here!”
“Nell?”
At the sound of his name, Nell squeezed his eyes shut. But—
“Who is that?”
Both the prostrate Bron and Nell, who had tightly shut his eyes, looked up in confusion.
The person standing before them was indeed the same spoiled, selfish, and capricious lord they remembered.
Yet up close, her expression and manner of speech were completely different.
Moreover, she claimed not to remember him? Nell had known the lord was not particularly clever, but forgetting him entirely was strange.
Had she forgotten because it happened so long ago? While he hesitated, unsure what to say, the neat young man standing beside the lord met Nell’s gaze and shook his head.
Handsome? Nell recognized him and mouthed the name.
Handsome gave a small smile and nodded before continuing in a polite tone.
“Her Ladyship wishes to meet the village head of Enol. Would you guide us to his residence?”
Seeing Handsome behave as though they had never met, Nell quickly grasped the situation.
“I will show you the way.”
It seemed the lord neither remembered him nor cared about past events.
When the suspicious man walked ahead, Chloe gave Handsome a puzzled look.
She had the distinct feeling that everyone present except her was already acquainted.
Since it would be awkward to ask here, she decided to inquire on the way back.
Chloe followed the man who hurried ahead as if leading the way.
Nell, was it?
The moment she recalled his name, a headache struck her just like the day Chloe Grace’s memories had first flooded in.
Chichichichik!
A sound like static interference rang in her head, and her vision went dark.
It felt as though she had turned on a television channel that would not come into focus.
“Ah!”
When Chloe suddenly staggered after walking steadily, Red Bear, who had been escorting her, rushed to support her in alarm.
“Are you all right?”
“I felt dizzy for a moment. I am fine now.”
“You seem to have overexerted yourself. Perhaps we should return to the castle. Visiting Enol Village another day would not be too late.”
Though Red Bear spoke with concern, Chloe straightened her posture and opened her eyes clearly.
“We are already quite late.”
Then, standing tall as though nothing had happened, she followed after Nell.
Before Chloe even arrived, the village head had rushed out of his house to prepare for the lord’s visit.
At first he had not believed Bron. The idea that the lord, who had shown no interest in this place, suddenly wanted to meet him made no sense.
Enol was a poor village with no minor nobles, inhabited entirely by commoners. Because farming was difficult, the taxes collected were very low. The only reason they had survived this long was because the lord had ignored them. Now she had come without warning. The village head felt uneasy, tension creeping into his limbs.
“I greet Your Ladyship.”
As the lord’s party drew near, the village head pressed himself flat against the ground just as Bron had done.
Chloe felt uncomfortable watching an older man bow so deeply before her. No matter how strict the class system was here, her soul carried the blood of a people who lived and died by courtesy.
“Please rise.”
At Chloe’s hurried words, the village head slowly stood up.
Though he was the village head, he wore no finer clothes than the others, nor was he better fed. If anything, his garments looked more worn than those of the villagers. His naturally sturdy frame made him appear larger than the rest, yet the gaunt bones visible beneath his loose sleeves could not be hidden.
Chloe’s favor toward him rose steadily.
But then—
Enol Village’s resident favorability has been unlocked.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
The sharp warning tone rang repeatedly, different from the clear chime that accompanied favorability gains.
Village (2) has been unlocked. Combined resident favorability: -168,200p.
Raise resident favorability above 10p.
Success will expand your activity range.
Damn it. Negative.
She had expected it, yet seeing the favorability she had worked so hard to raise plummet into the negatives left her hollow. Knowing she would have to repeat this process with every village made her energy drain away. The only small comfort was that having done it once already, it no longer felt quite so overwhelming.