The Second Brother's Solemn Resolve
The ducks didn't run away even when we drew close.
They simply stayed put.
A few of them spread their wings in threat or charged at the children to peck, but once Popcorn flew over and gave each one a solid smack, they settled down at once.
Popcorn might look a little insignificant at times, but he truly was a spirit.
Once the ducks had calmed, Popcorn stuck his round bottom out and began twirling in a silly dance.
He always found joy in the smallest things.
What a good little guy.
Come to think of it, I had assumed ducks lived on water, but maybe things were different in this world.
When I muttered as much, Marguerite gently corrected me.
She said they did indeed prefer damp places.
"I've never seen anything like this either, but they were probably drawn by the rain. My power has grown stronger, after all. If I summon it regularly from now on, they should be fine even without a pond."
The faint blush on Marguerite's face told me she knew the rain had been tied to our night together.
I felt a touch of embarrassment myself.
I really need to keep the matter with Jeong So-hee buried.
It wasn't as if I'd cheated, and everything had happened long before, yet a small thorn still pricked at the corner of my heart.
The ducks showed no sign of wanting to flee.
There seemed to be no need to tame them at all.
Perfect. This was an absolute egg windfall.
Fried eggs, steamed eggs, boiled eggs, egg rice.
From today onward, every day would be an egg festival.
"Teacher, can we give the ducks bugs?"
"Me too! I want to come see them every single day!"
The children were in an uproar.
"Do whatever you like. And I'd be grateful if all of you continued looking after the ducks from now on."
At my words their eyes sparkled like stars.
"Really?"
"I'm so excited!"
"Then can I take one duck egg?"
"I need three. One for Mom, one for Dad, and one for me. If I eat mine alone, Mom and Dad will be hungry. Teacher, if I work three days, can I get three eggs?"
At Ji-geu's question the other children seemed to remember their own parents.
They began clamoring that they needed two or three each.
"Let's decide that at the village meeting."
"Can we really decide it there?"
"Then I'm taking this many!"
One child spread all ten fingers wide.
The children glanced at one another, then dashed off in a noisy herd, shouting that they would tell the adults.
Just as they had arrived like a storm, they vanished the same way.
Watching their small backs disappear into the distance, Marguerite and I headed leisurely toward the village hall.
Every villager we passed widened their eyes in surprise.
"Chief, is it true a flock of ducks appeared? The children were shouting at the top of their lungs."
"But there's no pond. Where on earth did they come from?"
"The kids say they don't even try to run away."
"As expected of a mage. Truly impressive."
At their praise my shoulders rose a little higher.
Bringing down spirit rain—my wife really was incredible.
"It's all thanks to Marguerite. The ducks seem to have been drawn by the rain she summoned."
"Eh?"
"That rain earlier… was brought down by the lady?"
"No way… a mage…"
The villagers turned to stare at Marguerite in astonishment.
Now that I thought about it, she had loudly declared she could call rain in front of everyone, but she had never explicitly called herself a mage.
It seemed the villagers had never connected her words to actual magic.
Ahem.
Though I couldn't hear it, I could almost sense that proud little cough coming from Marguerite's expression.
The brief awe in the villagers' eyes softened into warm smiles.
A village meeting about the ducks was called at once.
It was the kind of thing that could have waited, but the children had run all over the village announcing it.
Their burning desire for duck eggs had apparently sent them circling the entire settlement in record time.
"I believe we should designate the flock as the village's communal livestock. The eggs collected each day will be distributed fairly among everyone."
At my suggestion the villagers blinked like startled toads.
"We're grateful for your thoughtfulness, Chief, but those ducks belong to you."
"You always share everything with us and we're truly thankful, but this is still…"
"Didn't the lady summon those ducks? It would be sinful for us to ask for any part of them."
The villagers smiled kindly and refused.
From the corner where the children sat came soft sounds of disappointment.
"I thought I was going to be a duck owner…"
"I already named mine."
"My duck egg…"
"My baby duck…"
In the children's imaginations the ducks had already laid eggs that hatched into waddling fluffy ducklings.
Laughter rippled through the room at how adorable their fantasies were.
Watching their slumped little shoulders, both Marguerite and I couldn't help smiling.
"There are simply too many ducks. I didn't count them precisely, but there must be well over a hundred. The eggs alone would be impossible to handle every day. And in a remote place like this, it's not as if we can sell them for money."
I looked around at every face.
"Besides, I've received so much help from all of you. From building our house to learning how to farm, I wouldn't have survived without your patient guidance."
It was the honest truth.
When I first arrived in this world I had been no better than a clueless child.
These people had taught me everything, one careful lesson at a time, until I could finally carry my own weight.
Even now I still fell far short compared to them.
"There will be many more things I need to learn and ask for your help with in the future. So please, allow me to do at least this much."
As I spoke I suddenly felt a warm gaze.
When I turned, Marguerite was watching me with eyes full of respect and admiration.
It made my face burn.
"Chief, if anyone has received more, it's us. We never dreamed a village like this could even exist."
The villagers continued to refuse with gentle smiles, but I refused to back down.
I truly was grateful to have met them.
Our mutual refusals were turning into an endless loop.
Ji-geu's father, who had been listening quietly, finally spoke with a serious expression.
"More people will be coming to this village in the future. There's no guarantee they'll all be good people. If the ducks are considered communal property, someone with unreasonable greed will surely appear."
"That's true."
"Indeed, Chief."
The villagers nodded quickly.
Now that I heard it put that way, it made sense.
The current atmosphere of everyone working together in harmony might actually be the unusual thing.
In the end we decided the ducks would remain my personal property but be raised as communal village livestock.
Through that process, the ducks officially became the village's first communal animals.
Feeding the ducks and collecting eggs were added to the children's daily chores.
Feeding them wasn't complicated. It seemed simply catching a few bugs would suffice.
Since the whole area was already teeming with insects and grass, I wondered if extra feeding was even necessary, but everyone said it was important for taming.
Otherwise the ducks might avoid people when the time came to butcher them later.
So we really are going to eat them.
I kept my expression neutral, but the thought of raising animals only to eat them still felt strangely uncomfortable.
When Marguerite proudly suggested giving them plant roots, small fish, or acorns from time to time, the villagers looked at her with warm, knowing eyes.
It seemed they had all understood from the start.
After all, no matter how diligently she had worked the fields, she was still a noble lady who had once been engaged to royalty.
It was only natural that lifelong farmers knew more than she did.
Since I knew even less than Marguerite, I listened with genuine admiration, thinking how much my wife truly understood.
The villagers' gazes toward me, however, felt oddly lukewarm.
The children, who had been listening quietly, tilted their heads.
"Then can we give the ducks names?"
"Can I write 'my duck' on them?"
"I want to name the eggs."
"I want to try sitting on an egg. They say if you incubate it, the baby will think you're its mother and follow you everywhere."
The one who wanted to incubate an egg was, of course, Ji-geu.
Why was it always Ji-geu?
Anyway, when I told them they could do as they pleased, the children jumped up and raced off again.
"Jerold, I'm counting on you."
"...Yes, Father. Don't worry."
Jerold nodded firmly.
In the short time since everything had begun, Father's face had grown gaunt and pale as a sick man's.
He might truly have fallen ill.
He had lost a dangerous amount of weight, and though he tried to hide it from the family, the butler had secretly told Jerold that he sometimes clutched at his heart when he thought no one was watching.
Mother still didn't know.
He had always been a healthy man.
It was clearly his heart that had created the sickness.
"I'll find a way to raise the money to rescue Marguerite, so please don't worry."
Father forced a smile, but it must have been agonizing.
There was nothing left in the house worth selling.
There hadn't been many valuables to begin with.
The few treasures they had kept until the very end, along with the grandmother's memento that Mother treasured, had all been sold to bribe the soldiers escorting Marguerite.
Now all that remained was the barren territory itself.
He might even be considering borrowing money with the land as collateral.
Even then, their estate produced so little from its farmland that it wouldn't fetch much.
If it comes to that, we'll lose our title.
If they couldn't repay the debt, both land and peerage would fall into the hands of moneylenders.
It was illegal, yet there were always ways around the law.
Damn it all.
The support the royal family had promised never materialized properly.
After Marguerite was sent away the land grew even more barren, and many peasants had already fled.
Lately Father had been secretly altering or destroying documents of peasant debts and records of those who had run away.
He was probably trying to prevent them from being turned into slaves before the land was seized.
He had forged the papers with advice only from Jerold, without telling anyone else.
It was kept secret even from his older brother, the heir.
If the matter ever came to light, it was Father's way of protecting his eldest son.
Jerold could flee if necessary, but his older brother could not.
Raised as the successor, his brother lived bound to the family just as Father did.
The thought of that brother abandoning the family was unimaginable.
Just thinking about him made Jerold's chest ache.
After the scandal with Marguerite, his older brother's engagement had been broken.
The wedding had been only a month away.
A letter had arrived announcing the cancellation, stating they could not marry into the family of a criminal who had damaged the World Tree sprout.
The head of the other house hadn't even shown the courtesy of delivering the news in person.
They had expected something like this, yet Father's shock had been immense.
His older brother, however, had simply said he had never gotten along with the woman anyway and seemed completely unconcerned.
It had been a marriage between two poor houses meant to save on dowry and wedding expenses, but the bride had constantly demanded jewels, it was said.
Jerold's own appointment as a royal administrator had also been revoked.
Marguerite probably knew nothing of any of this.
Marguerite…
Just thinking of her made Jerold's heart feel tight.
She must have reached the pioneer village by now.
What kind of suffering was she enduring?
"Father, please don't worry. I will definitely bring Marguerite back."
Even without money, he had his mind.
Using his connections, Jerold had obtained a letter of introduction addressed to the administrator of the pioneer village.
He planned to use it to attach himself to the man somehow and work under him.
In time he would surely gather information about Marguerite.
A bribe would have made things easier, but there was no money left in the house.
Even if they mortgaged the territory, that money must be saved for what came after the rescue.
By now Marguerite's body and heart must both be in ruins.
The real problem would come after he saved her.
When Jerold stepped out of the study, his mother was standing in the dark corridor.
Her face was equally haggard.
"Jerold."
"Mother, don't worry. I will definitely save her."
"I can only trust you."
She gripped his hand tightly, then leaned her head against his chest.
"This country is rotten to the core. To sacrifice an innocent child like that. I despise this kingdom, Jerold."
"So do I."
The royals, the nobles—every last one of them was corrupt.
Anyone who thought about it for even a moment would realize Marguerite could not be the culprit.
Yet they all kept silent.
A country like this deserved to fall. No, it must fall.
Jerold hugged his mother tightly once, then left the house.
Marguerite, please hold on. I beg you.