Fire, Above All, Is To Be Feared
"Fire! FIRE! There's a fire—!"
"Hurry, bring water! Quick!"
"Damn it all, the warehouse is stuffed full of lumber…!!"
One day, a fire of unknown origin broke out in the village. No lives were lost, but the warehouse burned more than half to the ground, and some of the nearby fields were caught up in the blaze as well.
Everyone was too busy scrambling to put out the flames to notice someone off in the distance, watching the warehouse burn — snickering and dancing.
The moment word came that a fire had broken out near the communal warehouse in the middle of the night, I bolted out the door right in the middle of breakfast.
The communal warehouse held materials like firewood used by everyone in the estate — myself, the lord, included — along with farming implements like plows and yokes that the peasants shared among themselves.
A fire in a place like that… if my memory served, there should have been a fair amount of stored goods in there too — beans, turnips, various other crops, salted provisions….
The state of the warehouse when I arrived and saw it with my own eyes was pitiful. Even from far away the charred black ruin had been visible; up close, well….
The left side, where the fire was presumed to have started, had burned down to pure charcoal, while the right side was intact. Relatively speaking, anyway.
The contents, however, were another story. Nearly eight-tenths of the firewood had been reduced to ash, and the majority of the wooden farm tools had, naturally, not survived either.
The stunned villagers were diligently sifting through the ashes with their bare hands, hoping to salvage whatever they could.
"Did anyone see the moment the fire started?"
"No, my lord."
"Then who found it first?"
"That'd be me, m'lord."
A man in his thirties stepped forward, wearing a straw hat full of holes and worn threadbare. Judging by his worried expression, he seemed to have a lot on his mind.
"Around what time?"
"Sometime before dawn, it were. My house sits right across from the warehouse, see, so I've got a clear view of it. I woke up feelin' like it were strangely bright outside, and when I opened my eyes…."
"It was already burning?"
"Aye, the warehouse were swallowed in flames. I hurried and rounded up folk, but it'd already spread past anythin' we could handle… and that's how we ended up here."
So that was it. Having heard his testimony, I moved to change locations — but for some reason, the man seemed to have something left to say, and his lips mumbled uncertainly.
"Is there something more?"
"Aye, it's just… I weren't sure if I ought to be sayin' this at all…."
"It's all right. Speak up."
After much dithering, the man screwed his eyes shut and opened his mouth.
"Th-the fire started twice!"
"What did you say?"
"What do you mean, twice, Werner?"
"Twice? You're saying it had already started once before?"
Apparently this was news to the other peasants as well — everyone, myself included, turned to stare at the man in astonishment. Werner hunched his shoulders under the weight of all those eyes and continued.
"Well now, see, it were my turn to mind the warehouse cleanin' this week. So evenin' comes, I check all the farm tools are put back proper, go out, shut the door — and there's this faint, smoky stink hangin' in the air from somewhere."
"And?"
"So I hustle 'round to the back of the warehouse, and there it were — a little fire, burnin' away. You all know as well as I do there ain't a single thing 'round that warehouse that could catch. And yet there it were, flames and all."
Werner's account rang true, because the others were all nodding along in that yeah, I suppose that's right way. Nothing around that could burn? Then someone had set it deliberately…?
"What did you do next?"
"Startled me half to death, it did. So I scooped water with me gourd from the wash barrel that sits by the warehouse and doused it."
"And you're certain you put it out? There might've been embers left…."
"Ye of little faith…! I put it out certain! Three gourds of water weren't enough, so I stomped it with me boots and threw dirt on top too! And then it catches fire again before dawn! I figured somethin' like this'd happen, that's why I didn't want to say nothin'……."
As suspicious glances naturally began to gather on him, Werner protested his innocence — and while that was going on, I took a slow look around the warehouse.
Just as Werner had said, there was nothing around it that could catch fire. Well, of course not — it was the village's communal warehouse. Nobody would manage such a thing carelessly.
And yet it had burned. Twice, at that. If the villagers hadn't responded quickly, it could easily have spread and scorched the farmland to cinders.
"Somebody set a fire to our pasture fence a while back, too."
"Your side too? A little while back there was a small fire inside the windmill — I put it out quick as I could."
Moreover, from the way people were talking, it seemed small fires had been springing up here and there around the village with alarming frequency lately.
Arson? Then who?
Quite a lot of time had passed since I became lord, but I'd never done anything to earn a grudge elsewhere.
The peasants surely wouldn't be mad enough to set fire to the very land they lived on… then could it possibly be—?
Just as my thoughts arrived at the most likely possibility, one of the peasants, trembling from shoulder to shoulder with anxiety written all over him, asked:
"M'lord… we'll be all right, won't we? You'll sort it out for us again, like before?"
"Can't sleep a wink, wonderin' when the next fire'll come."
The unknown sows fear among people, and fear spreads like a plague. I could feel it — everyone was terrified of these inexplicable fires.
At the same time, I could feel their faith that I would somehow make it right. I could not betray that faith.
"Of course. Just trust me. First, I'll station soldiers to keep watch. I will resolve this as quickly as I can."
As if they'd been waiting for nothing but those words, a wave of relief washed over the crowd all at once.
"Mithter Weuth! Me, me — I thaw it!"
I was still at a loss over where to even begin, despite having promised to resolve things — when a tiny voice pushed its way through the crowd of adults and captured everyone's attention.
"Lina? When did you come out? I told you to stay inside."
"Muh-muh! But I thaw it!"
"You little rascal… you were asleep when the fire broke out — what could you possibly have seen!"
"Ahn-yah! Befoh the fire, I thaw it!!"
The child clearly knew something, and I walked straight over. As I approached, the woman who appeared to be her mother hid the girl behind her.
"I'm so sorry! She's still little, she doesn't understand anything…."
"No, no. I'm not here to scold her — I'm just curious about what she said. Lina, was it? Might I have a word with her?"
Lina peeked out from behind her mother's legs, showing only half her face as she looked up at me. I crouched down to her eye level for the frightened child's sake.
"Lina, what you said just now — is it true? You're not telling fibs, are you?"
"Uh-huh! Mama thay fibbing ith bad."
"Will you tell me what you saw? This mister needs to catch that bad person, you see."
After a moment's hesitation, Lina pointed past the warehouse, toward a place behind it. It was none other than the pumpkin patch.
"Yethday I had a cold tho I woke up in the mohning… and thomebody with red hair wath dancing over there."
"Last night, you say — in the pumpkin patch?"
A pumpkin patch. Red hair. And… a string of fires. By the time Lina's story was finished, my head had gone cold.
"I see. Thank you, Lina."
"I'm sorry, my lord. Our girl talking nonsense…."
"Nonsense? Hardly. I asked because I wanted to know, and she was clever enough to answer me well."
Brushing off my knees, I stood and instructed Laura to prioritize damage control over the hunt for the culprit.
If I left things as they were, there was no telling what would burn next. Besides, the warehouse and the farm tools needed rebuilding above all else.
But I already knew who the arsonist was, so there was no need to waste any extra manpower on that front.
I alone was more than enough.
Two days later, in the dead of night, I set out on another stroll. Today's objective: to catch the culprit behind the warehouse arson.
Not a soul was in sight — apparently everyone had taken my words to heart and gone to bed early. That was a relief.
The previous day, when I'd had the soldiers stand guard around the clock, nothing had happened. Thankfully, this was not the kind of criminal who committed crimes out in the open.
Near the burned warehouse, I could see lumber purchased from merchants. Nerga still owed me thanks for the investments I'd made in him before, so I'd bought it right away from him.
Hoarding supplies to pinch pennies means nothing if the whole estate burns down. Spending it, again and again, like this — that's the right way.
Of course, the pressing matter at the moment wasn't funds or investments. Capturing the mastermind of the arson — a culprit no one but I could deal with — that was the urgent task.
Arriving at my destination, the pumpkin patch, I concealed myself and waited quietly. It was roughly around the time when the red-haired figure Lina had seen might appear.
Vwooo—vwoooo—.
An ominous vibration began to spread from somewhere. The low, pulsing tremor gradually spread across the entire field.
Vwoooo… fwoooooo—oh.
As the vibration died down, an sinister wind swept through, and one of the headless scarecrows standing nearby toppled to the ground.
Then one of the pumpkins in the field rattled — and floated up into the air of its own accord. Silently, without a sound.
"Enough with the buildup… come on out already, you little bastard."
The very moment I muttered under my breath, the body of the fallen scarecrow rose to its feet and staggered toward the pumpkin.
A nonsensical, supernatural sight. A scarecrow moving of its own accord, a pumpkin floating in midair.
And the strange phenomenon didn't stop there. As the scarecrow drew close, the pumpkin shifted on its own and — as if the empty spot where the scarecrow's head belonged were its rightful place — slid its chin right onto it. Not so much placed as latched.
A scarecrow wearing a pumpkin for a head. Taken at face value, it was nothing more than a tacky, tasteless piece of yard art.
FWOOSH! An eerie flame bloomed from within the pumpkin, burst through its rind, and carved out a grinning pair of eyes and a mouth.
At that very moment, the scarecrow with its blazing red pumpkin head began to dance, grotesque and writhing, in the middle of the field.
[Mod: Jack-o'-Lantern] has appeared.
A window — achingly familiar and utterly annoying — filled my vision.
Fweeee—!
"Jack-o'-Lantern."
The instant I dismissed the window with a flick of my chin, I whistled and called the Jack-o'-Lantern by name. It clearly never expected to hear its own name called — it flinched violently and snapped its gaze toward me on pure reflex.
I had already closed in behind the Jack-o'-Lantern, bound the creature in cords of golden light, and used Flight to rocket skyward — to an altitude well beyond the reach of human eyes.
KRAK! KRAKOOOM—!!
Caught in the sudden ambush, scarlet flames flared up inside its pumpkin head as the thing began throwing a tantrum. Its mouth glowed cherry-red, and it spat a torrent of fire straight at my face.
Kek-kek, kyak-kek, kek.
What a horrifying heat. The thing cackled flippantly, apparently convinced it had roasted me alive where I hung —
Kyakek?
Having wreathed my body in wind to form a thin layer of air, I simply let the flames slide off and scattered them into the open sky. Not a thread of my clothing, let alone my skin, was so much as singed.
"You targeted the facilities and the warehouse on purpose, didn't you? Because you knew how much they mattered to these people. A fire in a place like that throws everyone into shock and panic — and you got to hide among the pumpkins, watching it all, enjoying every second."
I climbed higher and higher into the sky. The creature spat endless fire from its eyes and mouth, desperate to break free of me, but it was all in vain.
"Hurting people isn't even your goal — you just want to torment them and savor their reactions. You're the absolute worst kind of vermin there is."
Krekh, kek… ka…!!
"What's the matter? Done already? I could keep this up for ages."
After flying a good long while, I came to a stop above the clouds. Perhaps it had finally grasped the vast gulf between us, because the creature gradually reduced its rate of attack.
"A creature that destroys people's property will move on to hurting people eventually — it's only a matter of time. Every crime grows that way, or so they say. And one that goes around setting fires? More than most."
Facing the Jack-o'-Lantern as it squirmed and struggled against its bindings, I spread open my hand. Droplets of water swirled and gathered above my palm, clumping together and rapidly swelling in size.
Condensing the gathered water into a small mass, I popped it into the Jack-o'-Lantern's mouth like feeding candy to a child — and the creature's flame began flickering wildly, like an ancient lamp about to give out.
The condensed droplet then expanded once more, slowly filling the inside of the pumpkin head. The thing retched and tried to spit it back out, but there was no use.
I waited like that for about a minute, until the Jack-o'-Lantern's head was completely full of water. And when the last candle-sized flame inside — flickering stubbornly to the very end — finally went out for good…
[Mod: Jack-o'-Lantern] has been exterminated.
The long-awaited message appeared. The instant the water-filled pumpkin came pouring out its own mouth, the scarecrow body that had served as its vessel dropped away with a thud and vanished somewhere beneath the clouds.
"That is the price you pay for laying a hand on the people who live on my land."
Fire-related magic has advanced by one stage.
"…Huh?"
I was looking down into the hollowed-out shell of the Jack-o'-Lantern's head, thinking the job was neatly wrapped up — when an entirely unexpected new message appeared before my eyes.