Operation Fruit Frost (4)

Plants as numinous as the udumbara took a very long time to flower and bear fruit — hundreds of years, perhaps a thousand. Only after slowly drinking in the vital energy around them across those long ages did they gain a spiritual nature, and only then could they be called spirit herbs.

Different world or not, hundreds of spirit herbs clustered together in a single field was anything but normal. I set the petal down and rose to my feet. How was I supposed to interpret this?

My eldest brother Mabel's Awoken Ability was the Song of Growth — an ability that did nothing but hasten plant growth, dismissed as utterly useless in combat. But what if that ability had been used to compress a spirit herb's growth cycle, one that should have taken a thousand years merely to bloom, into next to nothing? What if he had harvested the seeds, replanted them to copy the herbs without limit, and covered the drained land by simply moving the farm to fresh soil each time? And what if the culprit behind the famine that had gripped the duchy for the past ten years was my own eldest brother?

"Of all your brothers, the one who makes your skin crawl just from meeting his eyes — the bastard hiding revolting imaginings beneath that thick face of his... That's Mabel."

Caroi's warning.

"Young Lord Mabel never entered into a supply contract with our guild."

The words of the Adventurers' Guild master.

Slot Mabel into the puppet master's seat, and every piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

"Are you all right?" Vitten asked. "You don't look well. For you to wear an expression like that, my lord..."

"You wouldn't happen to have a pen on you?"

"I'm sorry — what?"

I pricked the pad of my thumb with the pin of my brooch, and red blood welled up and trickled down.

"What in the world are you doing?!" Vitten cried out in alarm.

"Hold still."

I tore a strip from my shirt and began inscribing characters onto the cloth in blood.

"Here." I handed the finished talisman to Vitten.

"What is this?"

"Carry it on you and you'll be able to see through illusion arts. It won't last forever, though — no matter what happens, you're to return to the palace within a fortnight at the latest."

Vitten's expression turned grave alongside mine. "Sounds like I'm being assigned a mission, then."

"You are. Your job is to find every last one of my brother's hidden farms before the talisman's power runs out. But don't you dare push your luck. If you run into any of Mabel's people, you run — no arguments. The moment they suspect a farm's location has been compromised, they will try to kill you by any means necessary."

"It's that serious?"

"It is."

"...Understood. I will complete the mission and return."

"No — I told you not to push it. You matter more to me than any mission."

"Er... y-yes, my lord. Understood."

Scratching the back of his head, Vitten took his leave.

It worried me, but the fact that a farm this enormous had been left sitting with not a single caretaker or sentry suggested my brother didn't have many people he could trust. Then again, if I were in his shoes, I wouldn't have dared hand something like this to anyone else either.

"Well, then..." I gazed out over the farm in full, riotous bloom. "I suppose it's time for a little fruit-frosting."

I hoped my brother wouldn't take it the wrong way. This was, after all... me pulling weeds on behalf of a brother too busy with official duties to do it himself. How vicious must a weed be, to have sucked the vitality clean out of the land around it? A man of my brother's fine character would never cultivate anything so harmful on purpose — which meant it was only right for his little brother to lend a hand.

Snap.

With a flick ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of my fingers, the parched soil clumped together and shaped itself into a row of marionette figures. All ten of them set to work harvesting the spirit herbs with practiced, fluid movements.

The herbs had gorged themselves on the surrounding land until they were plump and brimming with vitality. Unless they were pulled, the earth for a dozen kilometers in every direction would never recover. The harvested herbs were stacked neatly onto a farm cart; when the work was done and I counted them, fifty-eight spirit herbs lay loaded in the bed.

In my past life, I had devoted an entire lifetime to finding a single herb like these. A herb so precious that obtaining even one would be the fortune of a lifetime — and here they were, stacked like rice or corn. I could hardly believe my eyes.

"Squeeee—! Squeee—!" Ruby was throwing a fit beside me, so desperate that it had resorted to dancing.

"Not now, Ruby." I reined the little thing in, stern as a schoolmaster.

I still didn't know what this plant was. Bearing an aura to rival the udumbara didn't mean it was safe to eat. That much was the last hope I was willing to extend to my brother — that he hadn't grown this plant to feed himself, but in service of some loftier cause.

I moved the harvested crops to the underground storehouse beneath the palace, layered the strongest barriers I knew over them, and stationed Iban in front of the door.

The next day, I summoned Lucian to the palace. He had identified Ruby at a single glance, so I hoped he might have something to say about the spirit herbs as well.

"You called so urgently I dropped everything to come," Lucian said with a smile. "And you wear the face of a man who needs my help more desperately than ever."

"This is more serious than anything before, Lucian."

"Understood. I shall listen with the gravity it deserves."

"Do you know what this is?" I showed him one of the spirit herbs I'd brought from the storehouse.

"Well, well. Now that is a rare sight." His eyes glittered despite himself. "Might I touch it?"

"By all means."

He stroked the herb's crimson petals, then spoke, sighing in admiration. "It's a Scarlet Blaze — a 2nd-grade mana source harvested only with the rarest of luck. There's a record from ten years ago of an adventurer party venturing into the Demon Realm and digging out a single root. I've never seen one in this fine a condition. Where in the world did you come by something so valuable?"

"Is it safe to eat?"

"Of course it is. It's the 2nd-grade mana source every Awoken dreams of. Granted, recklessly absorbing a mana source too powerful for you can end badly — but surely a man of your caliber has no need to worry about overflow, my lord."

No twist after all. The crop my brother had been raising was a mana source of staggering potency, on par with the inner core of a female flame giant. Despite cultivating something this absurd, he had chosen not to aid our father's war in the slightest — instead remaining in the duchy to serve as acting lord. Every year, growing this thing had brought devastating famine; countless people had abandoned their homes to become refugees. And not once had he ever openly owned up to it as his responsibility.

The suspicion was hardening into certainty. If the charges were proven, my brother would face severe punishment — to say nothing of being stripped of his right of succession. But the man I would be leveling my blade at was the Duke's firstborn son and the acting lord who held full authority. I could not condemn a man like that on suspicion alone. The only evidence on my side was Vitten's nose, and that much Mabel could wave off with a convenient excuse whenever he pleased.

I laid out everything I'd seen at the farm for Lucian in detail. As my account went on, the smile faded from his lips.

"Let me see if I have this straight," he said, his tone graver than I'd ever heard it. "The culprit who has been ruining my business for the past ten years may well be Young Lord Mabel. Is that correct?"

"That's right."

"...To establish a clear link between the famine and Young Lord Mabel, we will need more information."

"I agree. That's why my man is out combing for my brother's farms as we speak. He has an Awoken Ability superbly suited to tracking down traces."

"Questioning the villagers would help as well. A noble of ducal rank coming and going is bound to be noticed by someone."

"I'll handle the manpower. What I'd like from you is organizing the data. How does that sound?"

"Understood." Lucian nodded.

From that day on, a temporary headquarters was set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to uncover the cause of the famine, and I dispatched people I could trust to trace my brother's movements over the years. A few days later Vitten returned, having discovered one farm, and after much digging we managed to locate one more. The last farm we found sat within Count Abaro's territory — and it was the source of the most recent famine.

I stripped every farm we found to the roots. The total haul came to a hundred and forty-eight spirit herbs. If a contest were ever held for the greatest stroke of fortune in human history, I was confident I would take first place by a landslide.

There was only one problem: the Scarlet Blaze carried far too much metal qi, which clashed badly with the water qi of my Cold Yin Severed Meridians. Eating it wouldn't mend my severed meridians — it would only make them worse. Still, it seemed they would serve other purposes, so I laid them away with care in the storehouse. Minus the two roots that had already found their way down Ruby's throat.

About a month later, Lucian called at the palace again — this time with a bundle of reports as thick as a handspan.

"I've compiled the materials you sent and added estimates of my own," he said. He was looking somewhat haggard. "Over the past ten years, roughly 2,340 people have died of famine. Some 485,409 have lost their homes to it — though I ask that you treat the refugee figures with caution, as the counts may well overlap."

Even allowing for double-counting, nearly half a million was a staggering number.

"And... this is probably the part that matters. The total damage the famine inflicted on the duchy, tangible and intangible alike, comes to approximately 2,454,900,000 bart. The detailed breakdown is in the attached documents."

This time the number was simply absurd. Flipping through the back pages, I could tell Lucian had truly ground his teeth over this one — he had shaken down even the internal records of rival trading houses to produce an astonishingly detailed accounting.

"Next. I traced the real estate holdings of the First Young Lord. Cross-referencing them showed that in roughly 92 percent of the famines over the past decade, the First Young Lord's farms sat at the very center of the affected area."

Ninety-two percent... At this point he wasn't even bothering to hide it.

"And finally. I looked into the ventures the First Young Lord is pursuing in his capacity as acting lord, and found nearly all of them concentrated in land deals — buying up every plot whose vitality had not yet been drained and placing it under the Esterzy family's name."

...He had gone completely mad. How could my brothers all turn out like this? What made my eldest brother feel even more vile than Chris was how meticulously he had managed his image. Even Father saw nothing wrong in him.

"You've done fine work, Lucian."

"Think nothing of it. It's all for my own good, after all."

I took the thick bundle of documents from Lucian in its entirety. These papers were a weapon capable of ending Mabel's political life for good. And yet things were not so simple. Even with the situation this far along, one last question remained to be answered.

What in the world had my brother done with all those Scarlet Blazes? If they had been put to the use I suspected, then an even greater enemy might soon appear — one to plague a duchy already worn down to the bone by the war against the demons. It meant the duchy could quite literally be ruined beyond saving.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I arranged a meeting with my brother — a proper, formal request for an audience this time. I knew perfectly well that I couldn't touch him yet. Father had seated him as acting lord, and the law offered no way to bind him. What I wanted to know was where the Scarlet Blazes had gone: whether he had used them for private ends, or whether there had been some special circumstance of the family that justified the famine. At the very least, I wanted to hear his excuse. Not that I could forgive him no matter what the reason turned out to be.

I was shown not to his office, but to a luxurious reception room buried deep within the duke's residence.

"Young Lord Iden Esterzy has arrived."

"Welcome, Iden."

"So it's Lord Iden. A pleasure."

My brother rose from the sofa to greet me. Beside him sat a lovely woman with brown hair, dressed in a green dress. Her name was Daphné Highcliff — my brother's fiancée.

"I'm glad to see you both looking so well."

"Glad they appear that way, at least. There's been so much work lately that I haven't had time to so much as hold a sword. It gives me fresh respect for Father."

I took the sofa across from the two of them. It had been a month since I last saw my brother, and something about him felt distinctly different now. Where the man of a month ago had seemed nothing but warm and kind, the man before me now was like a demon wearing a pleasant mask. The goal of this conversation was to peel back that mask, even a single layer, and glimpse what lay beneath.

"I went hunting outside the city walls recently."

"Oh? Catch anything good?"

"Came back empty-handed. I suspect the monsters recognized my face."

"I'm sure it's because you're far too striking, my lord," Daphné said, a warm smile playing about her lips. I smiled along with them.

"By the way, the area outside the gates is crowded with refugees. I hear it's the famine — and it sounds like a far more serious problem than most."

"I've been wracking my brain over that very issue, as it happens. As you know, I'm the one who manages the farming here. Everything I plant withers and dies, so much as I'd like to share my harvest with you, the situation hardly allows it."

"Which is why I've been doing a little investigating on your behalf, brother — you being so busy. Into the cause of the famine, that is."

"You have?"

"Yes."

I studied Mabel's expression carefully. Without so much as a blink, he asked, "And? What did you find?"

"Have you ever heard of something called a Scarlet Blaze?"