The Ripening Barley Field

Blow stepped up to Hervena, who stood as if frozen at the sight of them, and greeted her with open warmth.

"It's been a while, Hervena."

"...You've been well, I trust, Young Master."

"Since I woke up, not bad."

His arms had withered, the muscle gone, leaving his body a sorry thing to look at. His eyes, though, were so full of life that even she couldn't help a flicker of surprise.

She hesitated, swallowed, and opened her mouth with care.

"I was shocked when I heard it from Megan. I meant to write, but she said you'd already left."

"Yeah. How's school? Holding up?"

"My efforts are modest, but I'm doing my best."

"You ought to say hello to Jane, too. It's been a while for the two of you, hasn't it?"

"Oh. It's been a while, Hervena."

Jane managed a smile as she spoke. Hervena answered with a silent dip of her head, and an awkward air settled between them. Just then Melo, who had been turning in circles under the tall buildings and gasping at every one of them, let her gaze ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠land on Hervena.

"Who's that purple-haired big sister?"

"First time seeing her? She came by the estate a few times."

"I've never seen her..."

"Those eyes look familiar. Aren't you Romang's daughter?"

"Eh? How'd you know?"

Startled, Melo ducked behind Blow.

She's hiding behind that scoundrel? Right now?

The scene in front of her refused to line up with anything she knew. Hervena stared blankly at the girl, who looked as if she were afraid of her.

Hans, having unloaded every sack of luggage and potatoes from the carriage, called over to them.

"Young Master! I'll send the baggage carriage on to Blanya for now!"

"Yeah, send that straight down. And based on the priorities I gave you earlier, could you look for a place for us to stay tonight?"

"Yes, I'll see to it right away."

With that, Hans headed out through the rear gate with the carriage. Hervena watched him go, then pointed at the potato sacks and luggage heaped in the open ground before the dormitory.

"What are those?"

"Our things. Potatoes. This and that."

"And why are you leaving them here?"

"I told the school I'd set them down for a bit, and they said it was fine."

"...What exactly did you tell them?"

"What do you mean, what did I tell them? I just said it."

"Ah. Of course you did."

A piece of his past she had briefly forgotten came back to her, and she had no choice but to nod.

"We're taking a room on the rear-gate side, but the road there isn't as good as I thought. Aside from the front, our baggage carriage can't get through."

"The rear gate... you mean Dusk Block?"

Dusk Block. It was the quarter where the commoner students of Caipol lived while they attended school.

Caipol, city of commerce and education, lived up to the name. Besides the magic school, a number of high-level knight academies and schools of the arts stood clustered within it, and so students had poured in from every corner of the continent, status be damned. What waited for them was a reality harsher than they had imagined: simply keeping up a life at school devoured an absurd amount of money. As more and more of them tried to save every last coin, student quarters had sprung up naturally in several parts of the city. The most dilapidated of them all was Dusk Block.

Anyone who went there for the first time couldn't help but grimace. It was noisy, filthy, and foul-smelling, washed in nothing but gray, and so most nobles never set a foot inside. Their sense of beauty, they said, was already ruined before they even entered the alleys. Blow, of course, had come and gone constantly in his scoundrel days, on the grounds that the liquor was cheap.

"Why? You don't think much of it?"

"You used to go there to drink now and then, Young Master, but I'm surprised you'd take lodging there."

"I'm thinking of starting a business there. Figured I'd go ahead and get a feel for the place."

"You're going to do business in Dusk Block?"

"Food the kids can grab on their way out in the morning. I'm not opening a fine restaurant."

Even now, most of the people living in Dusk Block were probably heading to school with a mouthful of coarse, unchewable bread bought from whichever bakery happened to have its doors open at dawn. Blow himself had once drunk the night through there and happened to try that bread. It was hardly something a person could eat. His calculation was simple: in a place that lived on nothing but bread like that, selling roasted potatoes that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were merely decent—no, that were actually good—would be difficult to fail at.

To Hervena, though, he might as well have been grasping at clouds.

"When you say lodging, you haven't found a house yet."

"Not yet."

"Then you mean to haul all of that around every time you move?"

"Can't be helped. It'd be easier if there were somewhere we could stay long-term."

"Megan told me you were going into business, but seeing those potatoes, I can finally start to believe it."

"Is it that hard to believe?"

"Yes."

When she thought about it, everything about him was unexpected. What surprised her most, in truth, were the faces of the people around him. Before he collapsed, she and Jane had lived with their hearts in their throats at his side. Now his surroundings looked so peaceful that those days felt like a dream—like looking at a ripening barley field beneath a clear sky.

Her thoughts were sinking deep when Melo came running up, eyes shining, and spoke to Blow in a voice bright with excitement.

"Young Master!! There are so, so many amazing things here."

"It's a magic school. Go to the library and you'll be shocked."

"Did you really go here?"

"...Physically, yes."

"Wooow, Young Master, you're amazing."

Melo looked up at him with sparkling eyes, grinning like a fool.

To think Blow Deblique had truly become someone a child like that could treat without a shred of reserve.

Hervena was staring blankly that way when Blow turned his head toward her, smiled, and tipped her a look.

"I've seen your face. That's enough. Go on in."

"Pardon?"

"You're busy. I don't want to take up your time."

"......"

Learn one thing, and you know a hundred. Among the students of this school where geniuses gathered, no one fit that saying better than Hervena Westriver. And because she was who she was, she could draw a reasonable conclusion from everything she had seen of him so far.

Blow Deblique—her Young Master—had truly changed.

Only then did she notice that Drenor, which ought to have hung at his side, was gone. The look of irritation, the narrowed brow, the voice thick with annoyance: none of it remained. He looked lighter than she had ever seen him.

When she was young, whenever Hervena had the chance to make a wish, she had wished for only one thing. That the Young Master she served would please, please change. Speak of it to Jane, and Jane would only shake her head, eyes sad.

And so Hervena had faced Blow with a heart even more desperate than Jane's. She had tried kindness, and she had tried coldness. She had ignored him, and now and then she had even lost her temper. He had not changed by so much as an inch—so little that it made you think a person could be too much.

A few years in Blanya. A year after that at the magic school. In the end Hervena had pushed him off onto Jane. Jane, who was only ever kind, never once said a harsh word to her about it. She had only looked at her again with those same sad eyes.

Those long, difficult days were passing before her now, the way day gives way to night. And at the corners of her eyes, which had always been dry, tears for some reason began to gather.

"Hervena?"

Blow came toward her, startled. Shame flared in her. Afraid he might see the tears, she tipped her face up at once and stared for a long while at the red sky, where the sun was finishing its last duty.

Time passed. Around the time the moon found its own light, Hervena lowered her head and looked at Blow with a faint smile.

"Did you go to hell and back?"

"Something like that."

She laughed at that, and then she drew a magic circle into her right hand.

The luggage Hans had stacked took on a violet sheen, and in the next instant it rose into the air. Melo flinched hard and grabbed the leg of Jane, who stood beside her. Blow, caught off guard, tilted his head at Hervena.

"...Hervena?"

"I'll keep these sacks in my room. When you have a place for them, tell me. I'll move them for you."

"I'd be glad of it, but won't it be cramped?"

"Place first, and they give you a storage room besides. For magic tools."

The floating sacks slid across the air toward her. Blow, staring after them in a daze, remembered something and called out in a hurry.

"Leave one!"

"Yes?"

"I need at least one if I'm going to sell them."

She let out a short breath of laughter and set the nearest sack gently back on the ground. Then she turned once more toward the dormitory.

"I'll go in now. I'll... see you again."

With that, Hervena went inside. Blow looked as if he had no idea what had just happened. Jane, unlike him, wore a quiet smile. And so their first day after coming up to Caipol drew to a close.

"Melo, wake up."

At Jane's voice, Melo rubbed her eyes and sat up. Beyond the window set low beneath the ceiling, the sky was slowly growing bright.

"Uuugh... five more minutes."

"You have to get up now. Otherwise the Young Master might get angry."

The moment she heard that, Melo bolted upright and shook her head from side to side, fighting to shake the sleep off.

"I'll go wash my face!!"

"Hurry and wash up. Get ready."

"Okay!!"

The place she went clattering down from was the Nyx Inn, at the mouth of Dusk Block: an old, narrow building of three stories. Each floor held two rooms barely large enough to lie down in, and the stairs shed dust with a sound like they might give way at any moment.

A little later Jane came out after her. She looked at wallpaper that seemed to smell of mold, let out a faint sigh, and remembered the conversation from the carriage the day before.

Hans had run himself ragged through the previous evening, and the result was this: no proper storeroom, and not much of a location either, but a building they could have entirely to themselves.

"Good morning, Young Master!"

Melo, on her way down to the first floor to use the washroom, bent into a deep bow before Blow, who was preparing potatoes.

"Melo, you're up?"

"Yees! When did you get up, Young Master?"

"Me? About two hours ago?"

"Hhk..!"

Just as he had told her, Blow, Jane, and Hans had been up since five, getting ready to open. The three of them had peeled the potatoes, cut them to the size Melo had specified, and even drawn the starch out ahead of time. All at once embarrassed, Melo spoke in a voice that shrank.

"You... you should have woken me, too."

"You barely got up even now."

"That's not true. If you wake me, I get up just fine!"

"We only needed the prep done, so it's all right. This size work for the potatoes?"

"Yees. It's perfect."

Melo checked them and held up a thumb. Hans and Jane, finding her too cute, couldn't help a quiet laugh.

"I'm letting you do it because you said you would, but when we cook this time, you have to teach me and Jane properly. You're going back down in three days."

"Yees!?"

"You agreed to go back. I got word yesterday. Someone's already on the way up from Blanya to fetch you, so you'll go down with them."

"But Hans and Jane are staying."

"Are you the same as those ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠two? You're still twelve."

"......"

"You have no idea how many nightmare customers you run into once you're actually selling. Being good at cooking isn't enough. And you're nowhere near old enough to put up with that."

Blow was thinking of the countless villains he had faced across a convenience-store counter in his days as Han Ji-hoo. Jane and Hans, listening beside him, were quietly moved. So this was a story out of his own life. He really was reflecting on himself.

"Answer."

"Yees..."

Blow decided to leave it there and turned to Hans, who was setting a pot over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the stove.

"Let's do it the way we set it up yesterday. Did you get an oak barrel?"

"The inn had exactly one left. Whatever was in it was not something a person could drink."

"What was it like?"

"The frightening part is that someone was drinking it until the day before yesterday. With my limited knowledge, I had no idea what it was."

Hans's revolted expression was so thoroughly miserable that sympathy nearly stirred in Blow's chest.

"Anyway, I emptied all of it and set the barrel up outside."

"Yeah? Then we just need to set the stall."

"The tablecloth and the paper are ready, too."

In one of Hans's hands was a tablecloth. In the other was a sheet of paper, lettered the night before in Melo's own crooked hand.

Jane studied the cute, clumsy letters and asked Blow, puzzled.

"But, Young Master, why did you have this made?"

"You'll see."

He carried them outside, spread a brown linen cloth over the oak barrel, and set the paper and a bell on top of it.

"All right. Tell Melo to start."

"Yes, understood."

Hans hurried back inside. Blow felt the cool of late autumn and looked out over the gray street as it slowly brightened.

"We've started cooking!"

The moment the voice reached him, Blow drew a deep breath. For some reason, there wasn't a trace of potato in the air.

"I can't smell a thing."

"I'll open the window now!"

Jane threw the window wide, and the savory smell of potato, threaded with butter, began to tickle his nose as it crept out.

"Jane. I think it's about time."

"...This isn't what I learned magic for."

"This is exactly what you learned it for."

"Fine. So long as we eat well and live well."

Jane stood before the window. Above her head a magic circle a little larger than she was took shape, and then it began to turn clockwise.

Wind began to blow from the circle. Soon the butter-laden scent of potatoes filled the whole street.