I Brought the Solution, Popcorn
The village hall was finally complete.
I’d thought it would take longer, but once the frame was up, the rest went surprisingly fast.
I stood in front of the building and looked up at it.
The natural curves of the wood wove together across the entire structure in a beautiful, organic pattern.
“Whoa.” An involuntary sigh of admiration slipped out.
Every part of the building was made of logs—thick ones, at least forty centimeters in diameter. If this were Earth, the material cost alone would have been staggering.
The gaps between the logs had been packed with mud. I’d heard that skilled carpenters could build houses using nothing but wood, but the people here weren’t professionals. Some small cracks were inevitable.
Still, the men of this world were impressive. To think they could build something like this with their own hands.
It was a bit cramped, but there was enough space for everyone to lie down inside. Next to the hall, we’d also built a shared shed. Starting today, we would move all the food and supplies there.
I no longer had to stare at the sky worrying about rain. Best of all, the children were safe now. There would be no more nights spent fearing they might be dragged off by wolves.
“This is… wow. I didn’t realize it would feel this good. I’m truly happy.”
At my words, the villagers began to laugh.
“Chief, how can you be so delighted over something like this?”
“We’re happy too, of course. Haha.”
“You said this was your first time building a house, right?”
“When I built my first house, I was moved too. Looking back now, it wasn’t even a proper house. It was so shabby.”
Everyone grew lively, sharing old stories. The children were running wildly around the front of the hall.
“I built this one!”
“Liar.”
“You’re the liar. I really helped build this house. I plastered that wall over there. See the handprint?”
“I left a handprint here too.”
“That’s my footprint.”
No wonder strange marks kept appearing whenever we applied the mud. These little rascals had done it on purpose.
When the adults burst into loud laughter, the little leader grinned proudly.
“You guys can’t even catch up to the dirt between my toes. I carved my name right here.”
Sure enough, a small name had been scratched into the spot he pointed at.
“It’s completely dry now, so no one can take my name away.”
Sorry to pour cold water on your triumphant moment, kid.
“Hey, you spelled it wrong.”
“Huh?! Really?”
The little leader jumped in surprise and stared hard at his own name. He finally spotted the mistake. His face crumpled.
You should have studied harder.
“That name’s going to stay there until this building falls apart.”
At my words, the little leader ran straight to his father.
“Dad! I want to change my name!”
He really wanted to leave his name behind, even if it killed him.
While all the adults were laughing, only Ji-geu remained quiet. He was squatting by the wall of the building. When I went closer, I saw him carving his name with a sharp stone.
“Hey, that’s cheating.”
“You’re doing it too?”
The other children squatted down beside him in a neat row.
Popcorn, who usually disappeared during the day and only returned at night, must have sensed something special today. He stayed right by my side.
“Popcorn?”
Curious about what the children were doing, Popcorn floated over to them and stared at the building. After watching them write their names with stones for a while, he suddenly looked up at the hall. It seemed he’d realized something.
“Peep!”
He let out a loud cry and spun around in the air. Then he raised both hands high, stuck his little bottom out to the side, and twirled in a dance.
Popcorn was always so busy.
“Popcorn, come here for a second?”
When I called, he shot over like a bullet.
“Back where I used to live, there was a custom of holding a ceremony when you built a new house. But there’s no such tradition here, so would you bless this building for us instead?”
Instead of a pig’s head, of course.
Popcorn clenched his tiny fists, looking thrilled. With a bright “Peep!” he soared into the air.
I wasn’t sure if he truly understood me, but Popcorn began shining brilliantly as he circled the village hall once.
The Spirit King Popcorn has bestowed his blessing upon the village hall.
“Ooh!”
“The spirit is giving us a blessing.”
“We’re so grateful.”
While the adults rejoiced, the children waved their hands at Popcorn.
“Spirit! Please bless my name too!”
“Mine too, on my handprint!”
“I need blessings on both my handprint and my name!”
Popcorn was in an unusually generous mood today. He flew exactly where the children called him and sprinkled sparkling light over each request.
For some reason, it felt like something wonderful was about to happen.
He circled the village hall several more times, then clenched his fists as if to say “This is it!” and spun around again.
“....”
He was clearly planning to do something strange again. Since he often did ridiculous things to make me laugh, I found myself wondering what he was up to this time.
“Peep!”
He flew back to me, clenched both fists like he was making a report, and shouted. I couldn’t help but smile softly.
Because the village hall was finished, we held a small festival that evening to comfort everyone for their hard work.
It wasn’t much—just stew made from the boar meat and mole broth we’d stored, plus some fruit we’d found in the shallow forest. But even that was a luxury.
I had been genuinely thrilled when I first discovered the fruit. Surprisingly, this world had fruits similar to tangerines and hallabong. They were supposed to grow in winter like on Earth, but apparently they could be found even in spring. The taste was similar too.
I’d worried that wild fruit wouldn’t be very sweet, but these were so sugary I almost mistook them for greenhouse tangerines.
The forest was vast. Just thinking that fruits like these grew everywhere in that huge forest—and that even more varieties would appear in autumn—filled me with joy.
Of course, the people here didn’t get to eat them freely. Forests usually belonged to the royal family or nobles, so picking fruit without permission was punished.
Fortunately, the forest near us was open land, so we could gather as we pleased. As someone from Earth, I didn’t fully grasp how big a privilege that was, but the villagers were overjoyed.
“Chief, please sit over here.”
They guided me to a sunny spot inside the building.
Buildings in this world didn’t have large windows. It was to stay a little warmer in winter, they said. The windows were small, and not much light came in. Even during the day, the interior was somewhat dark. So in this world, a sunny seat was apparently the place of honor.
The barrel of alcohol we’d received from the last peddler was opened. We had been saving it, drinking it little by little.
Once everyone was seated and a cup of liquor had been passed to each person, I spoke.
“Everyone worked hard. May the Spirit's Blessing be with all of us in this village from now on.”
It was a short toast, but applause erupted.
Someone sniffled and muttered, “This is a good village. I wish everyone who left could have made it here.”
Many people had lost family before arriving at the pioneer village. Several more had lost loved ones on the journey here. They swallowed their tears for a moment, thinking of those who never reached the village.
“Come on! We have the mage and the spirits with us. The ones who remain will be happy from now on.”
One man patted the crying person on the back. Then Warren, Ji-geu’s father, spoke in a loud voice.
“When I think of my dead son… it still hurts. But at least our Ji-geu will grow up well in this village. He’ll become an adult.”
“Our spirit likes children, after all.”
“That’s right. We should be grateful for that.”
The people smiled warmly as they looked at me. A few eyes were still wet with tears, but they were smiling too.
With everyone’s attention on him, Popcorn seemed excited. From atop my head, he scattered sparkling light in all directions. Glittering particles fell everywhere, bright enough for anyone to see.
“For the chief!”
“For the spirit and the mage!”
The people shouted as they raised their metal and wooden cups high.
“Pudding works hard too!”
“For Pudding!”
The children held up slices of tangerine and shouted along with the adults.
Laughter filled the air. The corners of everyone’s eyes softened with warmth.
After laughing, drinking, and eating for a while, I stepped outside. The others were coming and going, and the children had already run off somewhere to play.
I stretched my arms wide when Geob-bo, who had been wandering around with the kids, came running over.
“Chief! The peddler is here!”
Geob-bo rushed over at incredible speed, his eyes sparkling as he shouted.
“He says the brides have arrived!”
What?
Before I could say anything, people poured out from inside the hall.
“R-really?!”
“Geob-bo, is that true?”
Geob-bo nodded so hard his head looked like it might fall off.
“It’s true! I just saw the brides riding in the cart!”
They were really sending brides.
The people began running after Geob-bo in a frantic rush. Most of them were still very young men—in their early twenties, at most.
I followed them with a slightly fluttering heart.
“Chief, you’re walking faster than usual,” the man walking beside me said with a laugh.
Your steps aren’t exactly slow either. You’re half a step ahead of me.
This man was also single. Including me, most of the people in our village were unmarried men. Married couples were rare.
I didn’t know how many brides had come, but the competition for marriage seemed harder than threading a camel through the eye of a needle.
* * *
After witnessing the prince and the saintess in a passionate embrace, Marguerite was summoned to the royal palace almost every day for one reason or another.
Some days the queen called her, other days the prince. Yet when she arrived, they were often absent, so she frequently failed to meet them.
She would sit in the designated spot and wait, only to catch glimpses of the saintess passing by. Whether intentional or not, their encounters grew more frequent.
She realized the routes had been deliberately arranged that way.
On days when neither the queen nor the prince called for her, she went to the palace for princess consort studies. At some point, the saintess had begun attending those lessons as well.
The claim was that, as a fellow woman, Marguerite should help the saintess—who knew nothing about this country. The official reason was that the prince and princess consort were working together to support the saintess, but there was no need for it to specifically be princess training.
Whether she liked it or not, Marguerite was forced to relearn basics she had already mastered.
Was the king pushing so blatantly because he was desperate, or did he have some other scheme in mind?
Time spent with the saintess was pure torment. The saintess had no interest in studying and refused to make any effort. Especially during etiquette lessons, which restricted her behavior, she became extremely irritable.
At first she only complained, but the tantrums grew worse. Now she even shrieked at the etiquette instructor in a shrill voice.
It was completely different from Marguerite, who was being held hostage through her baron family.
Perhaps in the world she came from, the saintess had enjoyed a very free status. Marguerite found herself slightly envious of that careless recklessness.
Everything the teachers suffered at the saintess’s hands was taken out on Marguerite. The instructors vented their anger on her and piled on excessive assignments and demands.
By the time she returned to the marquis’s estate, her mind and body were completely drained. Marguerite would collapse the moment she entered her room.
She felt like she would die of exhaustion before the king could do anything to her.
What allowed her to endure that suffering was the spirit that visited her every day.
The spirit came at roughly the same time each day after she returned to the marquis’s estate. Just hearing its “peep” cries calmed her heart and gave her the strength to keep going.
And the little spirit’s antics never failed to make her laugh.
Once it realized she couldn’t fly, the spirit tried all sorts of methods to make her fly. It would demonstrate flight right in front of her as if telling her to copy it, or act like it wanted her to jump out the window. Once, it even told her to get on a plate.
It seemed to think it could carry her if she sat on the plate with the food. Because it kept crying “peep,” she wondered if it might actually work and climbed on for real. The plate shattered, earning her a severe scolding from the marquis.
Even so, it had been fun. The spirit’s silly behavior let her forget her pain, if only for a moment.
‘I wonder if it will come today too.’
With that hope in her heart, Marguerite returned to her room, but it was empty. The spirit had not arrived yet.
Or perhaps…
She had returned from the palace later than usual. Maybe it had waited and then left.
If so, perhaps it would never come again.
Just as anxiety made her clench her fists, the window she had left slightly open for the spirit swung wide.
“Peepit!”
The spirit cried out triumphantly.
It was carrying a tiny house about three times the size of its own body.