Don't Mess with Food (2)
The merchant guild I'd cobbled together on the spot went by the name of ROKA.
Those letters felt oddly familiar. A knight order was an army, when you thought about it, and I figured the name wouldn't sound too strange to the people of this world, so I went with it. Naming things, as a rule, was best done in a way that landed on instinct — unless you happened to have a truly god-tier name lying around. My basis for that philosophy? Personal taste.
The supply soldier's face was half astonishment and half suspicion. Ever since the Wave had broken, the man had been planted in the shelter day after day, doing nothing but killing time. A layabout like that suddenly turning up with a merchant guild's name on his lips was bound to throw him.
His eyes, though, soon left me and settled on the sack of flour floating at my side. The moment he realized it was identical to the flour that had been sitting in the barn, something in his gaze shifted.
"Is this real? Ah — I'm sorry. I was flustered... You're Kang Jinwoo, sir?"
"Yes, that's right. I'd like to donate this flour."
"Donate? A donation? Understood! You can set the flour down. We'll move it!"
Iseria cut her magic, and the sack settled gently onto the ground with a faint puff of dust. The supply soldiers who had been waiting each took up a share and headed for the warehouse.
"May I go into the warehouse as well? I'd like to confirm the goods are being stored properly..."
"Yes, of course!"
Iseria and I stepped into the supply warehouse together. They clearly put real effort into keeping the place in order; neatly arranged goods met my eyes at once. The food stores, though, were as scant as I'd expected. Another three days, maybe, if they stretched it?
Someone might wonder how even a northern ducal domain could be this hard up, but of course these supplies were nowhere near the whole of what the territory held. The rest was the commoners' daily bread, their taxes, and the seed grain for the next planting. If things grew truly desperate there would be no choice but to requisition it, but short of that, holding it back was the wiser course for the city. They said a Wave was usually cleared within a week, so even this much food could see them through — if only just.
The strange part was that the flour I'd left in the barn over the past two days was nowhere to be seen. Then again, I'd walked in already guessing my flour wouldn't be in this warehouse, so perhaps it wasn't so strange after all.
"Where is the flour I left here before?"
"Ah, the quartermaster is keeping that separately. Would you like to see him?"
"No. Rather... could you keep it a secret that I was even here?"
"Pardon?"
If the flour's supplier were identified, and word got out that said supplier had inspected the supply warehouse, how would the quartermaster react? He'd put back the flour he'd siphoned off before he was caught, or pull some other trick. Better, then, to hide the fact that I'd come at all.
If that was the plan, I ought to have made my entrance quietly in the first place... but then there would have been no style to it. A bluff lives and dies on momentum. Momentum. Never forget that people are swayed, more than they'd like to admit, by appearances.
And it wasn't as if I'd thrown my weight around without thinking. Today marked the fifth day since I'd come to the shelter. From everything I'd watched, the day-to-day running of the supply warehouse and the shelter itself fell to ordinary soldiers, duty priests, and nuns. The quartermaster only dropped by now and then, glanced around for about ten minutes, and slipped away. The odds that the refugees would talk about me, and that he would happen to hear it, were low. Keep these supply soldiers quiet, and there was little chance of being found out.
"I understand. We'll record this donation as anonymous...!"
"Ah. Yes. Thank you. Then I'll be going..."
I'd meant to slip him some of the pepper I'd stashed in my bag and ask it as a favor. Instead the supply soldier looked at me with utterly devout eyes and granted the request on his own. He seemed to have started misunderstanding something. Probably didn't matter.
Iseria and I left the warehouse and made straight for an alley outside the shelter. She had no idea what I was after, and she kept her mouth firmly shut until we were well clear of the place — then the frustration came spilling out.
"Hey! You spend every day just sitting there eating, and now you're suddenly scheming something! What was that magic?!"
"I'll explain everything."
Once we were in a deserted alley, I started talking. First I told her about the special ability I possessed: Mana Market.
For me it was as good as laying my cards on the table, and that left me uneasy — but it also meant I trusted Iseria that much. We hadn't known each other long, yet we'd been through a dense stretch of things together, and my faith in her had climbed with them.
"Do you know why mages only create elements like fire and water? It'd be convenient if they could make matter the way you do."
"No? I don't."
"Because that's impossible, obviously. Are you an idiot? You don't even know something this basic?"
Iseria was especially sharp today, and the words came firing out of her.
"Even the greatest mages can barely manage elemental magic in simple geometric forms. Alchemy, outside the schools that actually chase something practical, is mostly superstition. But your ability? Touch a substance once, and you can create it anytime, anywhere, so long as you pay the corresponding mana? That's... that's no different from black magic!"
"No — my ability is limited strictly to ingredients..."
"And how are people supposed to believe that!"
I waved my hands at the thoroughly worked-up Iseria, trying to tell her to calm down. She smacked them aside and lifted her head.
She wasn't being caustic. Tears had welled in her eyes, and her emerald eyes, shining through them, were beautiful enough to ache. Iseria was worried about me. Quite seriously.
"I know you're not that kind of person. You're not a black mage, and you're not someone who'd abuse an ability like that. That's why I'm even more... worried. Something like that could look like a miracle of the gods, but it could just as easily mean a denial of them."
To create something with intent — whether lifeless matter or a living thing. In a world where mana and divine power were both real, an ability like that could imply a great many things. I, who had never thought that far, felt as if Iseria had struck me in the head with a hammer. In the eyes of the devout, I might look like a heretic making a mockery of divine authority.
And yet my heart grew lighter. A small laugh escaped me, and the smile warmed until it broke into a full one. Iseria, watching me laugh in the middle of so grave a conversation, stared as if I'd lost my mind.
"So the point is... Iseria, you were that worried about me? Enough to cry."
"Wh-what?! I wasn't worried! And I definitely didn't cr— hmph, I did not!"
"You clearly said you were worried just now. And there are still tears in your eyes."
"Y-you—!!"
There had been a shred of unease when I first revealed the ability. The Iseria standing in front of me dissolved every bit of it. I hadn't known my power carried something this heavy... but it didn't matter. I had just seen, beyond any doubt, the goodness of the person who knew.
"I didn't think you'd worry about me that much. Was the tofu really that good?"
"No, this isn't about that... I-I don't know!"
Iseria seized her platinum-blonde twin tails in both hands and hid her mouth behind the hair like a mask. With her lips covered, the blush across her cheeks stood out all the more.
"Anyway, setting that aside, I had a favor to ask. Can you sense the mana in the ingredients I created?"
"Y-yeah. Your mana is clear all through the warehouse we just left."
"Then... could you find where else that same mana is?"
"Hmm... it's faint, but there's a lingering trace of your mana farther north. Not that far."
My play, for catching proof that the quartermaster had embezzled the flour. I'd never tested the method, but fortunately it worked, and worked well. I told Iseria the whole of it — from secretly leaving the flour, to the quartermaster siphoning it off, to my intention of finding evidence.
Hearing me out, she smiled in a way that made it hard to believe this was someone who had been blushing a moment ago. It was the wicked little grin of a brat with something fun set in front of her.
"That sounds pretty fun. Perfect timing. You have no idea how bored I've been."
"Figures. You really are Iseria."
"Huh?"
"Nothing."
You're going to need a dopamine detox one of these days... your eyes have gone a little unhinged.
Anyway, I had a reliable accomplice now, and a foot in the door. Time to move in earnest. Iseria and I returned to the shelter and found that same supply soldier.
"Would it be possible to go as far as the knights' garrison? I'd like to hear from the knights themselves what ingredients they actually need."
"I appreciate the thought. But to go any farther, you'll need an identification issued by the commercial guild."
Damn it. This isn't going to be easy.
I'd hoped to slide past, but the supply soldier was devoted to his duty. A guild invented out of thin air obviously had no identification. Should I say I'd left it outside? As if he'd buy that. In the brief stretch of time that pulled like taffy, my mind spun without rest.
"You there. A supply soldier, and you don't even know the name of the ROKA Merchant Guild?"
"C-Calius, sir?"
"That's right. These days word of the ROKA Merchant Guild is all over the capital. Ingredients fine enough to serve at a formal banquet in the imperial palace, they say. And this fellow is the guild master of that very ROKA Merchant Guild!"
Huh? What was this now?
The middle-aged man who had often kept me company with idle chatter, because the shelter was too dull to bear, had appeared behind us out of nowhere and started chewing the supply soldier out. Ambushed by a civilian's tirade, the soldier looked thoroughly lost.
"If Lord Calius vouches for you, it should be fine. My apologies. I'll guide you to the garrison."
"Ah. Yes. Thank you."
Unable to hide how thrown I was, I glanced back at the man — at Calius. He met my eyes, gave a light nod, and smiled. I couldn't read his exact intent, but it had the air of a rich man saying he'd watch my back, so I ought to go and enjoy myself. It didn't seem like something done out of malice. From the talks we'd had over the past few days, he had only ever struck me as a practical man. I hadn't sensed any wickedness in him.
No sense wasting a chance that had already been handed over. Iseria and I quietly met each other's eyes and called the plan back to mind.
We hadn't walked far before we were inside the knights' garrison. Not much left now until we had the embezzler.