Chapter 39

I understood in an instant. Of course.

Interns, part-timers, temp workers, whatever one wanted to call them, there had been plenty of talk in my old world too about labor meant to be used up and discarded.

“They barely fed them, made them sleep and wake on the hard dirt floor of the workshop, had them take care of every aspect of daily life from chopping firewood to preparing meals, and paid them almost nothing. Teaching them any actual skills was out of the question, and they would just use them up for years doing menial work shaping magic stones. Even when apprentices finally couldn’t endure it anymore and ran away, those apprentices were mostly children who had come to this island from their family homes as one fewer mouth to feed. There’s no way they’d have the money to get on a ship and leave, so apparently another master who can’t bear to see it ends up taking them in.”

And if one then let them live a decent life, naturally expenses would rise. If one taught the apprentices the work, tools and sample materials would be needed for that, and the master’s own hands would stop, slowing the work as well.

Thus sales would fall, debt would become necessary… and people like Nodon would take advantage.

“And the same goes for the talk about the unskilled master craftsmen. When I asked, apparently ‘unskilled’ meant that there were just a few tasks they were bad at. It was so frustrating, honestly, but I immediately remembered that strange proposal you told us about.”

Saying that, Iiria puffed out her cheeks in an exaggerated way.

“Since it’s taken for granted that one workshop is led by one master craftsman, work inevitably gets held up at the parts they’re bad at. This is exactly where that plan you told us about comes in.”

Division of labor.

Not division on the scale of industry, like turning sheep’s wool into clothing.

“And also, more importantly, we had our own assumptions too. Honestly, it’s so frustrating.”

Though she said it was frustrating, Iiria looked somehow cheerful and lively as she spoke.

Thinking for herself, investigating, discovering something new.

Like an intelligent girl brimming with curiosity who was enjoying that very act itself.

Perhaps the Iiria who slept in the hammock in the courtyard with a gloomy face was not the real Iiria at all.

Perhaps the real Iiria was more like this, like a puppy who simply could not help enjoying chasing after something.

“The guildmaster got angry because you told him to shut down the workshops and make even the master craftsmen become apprentices. We kept telling you the same thing too, didn’t we?”

“Yes. And that turned out to be right.”

“Half right.”

“Half?”

“It’s a different story for the master craftsmen whose workshop management isn’t going well. From their point of view, it seems they didn’t even want to have workshops in the first place. I was shocked too.”

After all, becoming a master craftsman required years of apprenticeship, enduring unreasonable bullying and harassment, and only then could one finally obtain that status. Even Kururu, who was harsh on the guildmaster, respected the status of master craftsman itself.

“They keep workshops against their will because if they stay apprentices, they’ll just be used up and their future is completely hopeless.”

“Ah.”

To survive, for that reason alone, they had no choice but to keep desperately moving forward.

“That means, um…”

“Exactly.”

Iiria smiled as softly as her hair.

“It sounds like your story, doesn’t it?”

Whether at the Nodon Company or working anywhere else, if we could earn only the bare minimum to scrape by, then the day we got hurt or sick, we would be finished.

We had tried to stand against Nodon because we wanted to escape that merciless quicksand.

“So if we’re going to realize that strange division of labor you proposed, then it would be faster for you to create a workshop yourself, and I figured those master craftsmen would actually be glad to cooperate.”

After hearing what Iiria had to say, maybe that really was true.

Even within the guild, their positions were completely different, and the worlds they saw were utterly different too.

But there was a problem.

Not only the Nodon Company, but now suddenly I was supposed to take in artisans and manage a workshop too?

There was no way I could do that.

It was the moment I thought that.

Just after smiling Iiria suddenly leaned forward, she had grabbed me by the front of my shirt.

“You were the one who told me to become the lord.”

“…I-Iiria-san?”

Iiria’s dark brown eyes were fixed on me.

“Standing above others sounded frightening and exhausting, and I absolutely hated the thought of it, but I had no choice. Of course, part of that was for my own sake and Kururu’s sake too. But—”

Once she had said that much, Iiria let go of my shirt.

Then, like a newlywed wife straightening a necktie, she carefully smoothed out the wrinkles in my clothes.

And then, suddenly.

Truly suddenly, she clung to me from the front.

“Eh, ah, um!?”

As I panicked, strength entered her arms as if telling me to be quiet.

Then, after a while, she pulled her body away and peered into my eyes from right up close.

“If Kururu is fine, then why am I not?”

“Eh!?”

It was not as though I was perfectly calm around Kururu either, but while I was flustered, Iiria was quietly laughing.

“You chased after something that didn’t even seem possible, and you really saw it through. You reached a place a sullen little girl like me, with a dark personality and her tail tucked, could never have reached. And yet you’re so full of openings like this.”

When she grinned, I saw pointed canine teeth that resembled Kururu’s.

“Because you’re here, I seriously decided to take on the role of lord. It felt like you might do something amazing, and more than anything, you always look like you’re having so much fun.”

Deep in Iiria’s smiling eyes, there was still something like sorrow after all.

“Everyone I’ve known who accomplished anything was hopeless in personality. Standing above others was always for the sake of ruling someone. I think I know that better than you do.”

Iiria carried beastfolk blood, had been passed around from place to place like an unwanted burden when she was little, and had ultimately been settled in the Jirenu Territory as an ornamental lord. She must have needed to protect herself from many people in power.

“You’re the only one who’s different. Well, Kengo gives off the same sort of smell too, but I feel he’s more like me.”

As I stared blankly, thinking, Kengo?, Iiria shrugged.

“Rather than being too kind, maybe you just don’t doubt other people very much.”

She said it with a teasing smile, and I drew my chin in a little, but I could not entirely say she was wrong.

“Whatever the reason, you shoved the role of lord onto me. So if that’s the case, it’s only fair that you suffer too.”

“No, but, even I already have the mer—”

“The merchant company alone isn’t enough to balance it out! Being a lord is really, truly hard!”

I remembered the sight of Iiria collapsed face-down in the hammock, completely spent, with sparrows swarming over her.

Iiria was fairly seriously angry, but for some reason that expression of hers was the least frightening of all.

“I’ll handle things like guild customs somehow. I’ll make it as peaceful as possible so it doesn’t become a takeover. I mean, we already wiped out their debts, so they ought to accept at least that much.”

Their debts had been unjust, so I felt a bit reluctant to use that as leverage, but in this kind of rough practicality, Kururu and Iiria were far more realistic than Kengo or I were.

“So, could you process a mountain of magic stones and make a huge fortune for my sake?”

Iiria’s finger lightly lifted my chin.

When I answered with an unwilling half-smile, Iiria beamed happily.

“And as for gathering up the master craftsmen and apprentices and making them work, we can just use this mansion.”

That was certainly true.

“Here, Kururu would also have an easier time coming to observe the magic stone processing, right?”

Those words were almost whispered into my ear.

Kururu possessed talent as a magician and was interested in magic stone processing too.

Even if she could not show up at some outside workshop, she could at least learn processing here together with the apprentices.

After all, this place was close enough to Iiria’s mansion that the soup would not even cool.

“Actually, I don’t think managing a workshop would be nearly as hard as you’re worrying it will be.”

For a moment I thought, what would a shut-in young lady know about that, but Iiria seemed to read that thought on my face and looked displeased.

But the reason for her displeasure was completely different from what I had expected.

“Even now, it’s not as though we’re being ordered around by you, is it?”

“…”

“And the merchant company too—are you giving detailed orders there? You’re only cleaning up the mess Nodon left behind, which no one else can do, while everyone else is the one actually keeping the company running, right?”

That was certainly true.

“The same should apply to a magic stone processing workshop too. I really can’t imagine you making the master craftsmen and apprentices work through whips and shouting, and in the first place, you’re not an artisan.”

It had only been a short while ago that the guildmaster had shouted at me, What do you know about magic stone processing?

“The reason Kururu and I went along with what you said was because the dream you spoke of was just that compelling. Well, you and Kengo also noticed that outrageous secret of the magic stones, so there were various factors too.”

Smiling tiredly as she said that, Iiria looked like a lord remembering that this too was a problem that would have to be considered before long.

The secret of composite magic stones could overturn even the history of this world.

“In any case, I think you’re good at talking about that kind of dream. So I think your job is to show the lower-ranking master craftsmen strange dreams too.”

She was making it sound almost like I should manipulate people with some sort of illusion spell, but gathering people and directing them toward a single goal was difficult. If one was not going to rely on violence, then speaking of dreams really was surely one important way to do it.

“And in fact, it’s enough to make lazy me stop dreaming in my hammock and come all the way here after thinking about all sorts of things until the middle of the night.”

Iiria laughed cheerfully, then put both hands on her hips and puffed out her chest.

“You can come up with at least some excuse to get the master craftsmen motivated, can’t you?”

Perhaps, more than Kururu with her occasional savagery, this Iiria was the one who was truly impossible to deal with.

But to begin with, I myself had already been thinking up all sorts of advantages I meant to list out in order to persuade the guildmaster of the processing guild.

I had never imagined I would be the one establishing a workshop, but if that was the case, there was one idea perfectly suited to it.

“How about this?”

When I leaned forward a little, Iiria’s dog ears stood straight up and she bent toward me.

When I whispered it into her ear, she drew her neck in slightly, perhaps because it tickled.

No, from the gleam in her eyes, I realized it was apparently because the idea itself had some merit.

“Kururu would probably be exasperated if she heard it.”

Straightening up again, Iiria shook her shoulders merrily once more.

“I think it suits you. Or rather, yes, probably that’s what almost everyone wants.”

Together with Kururu, Iiria had been tossed about by the harsh waves of this merciless world.

“Well, in the worst case, Kururu can just yell at them.”

At the sight of Iiria grinning mischievously and showing her canine teeth, I ended up laughing too.

And then, as though remembering it only now, Iiria let out a yawn.

“Well then, now that I’ve said everything I wanted, I’m getting sleepy.”

“It’s very late already.”

The reason I stood up was because, even if it was quite nearby, I could hardly let Iiria go home alone in the middle of the night.

“There’s no need to see me off.”

“But—”

When I said that, Iiria showed me the kind of smile one gave to an annoying, tactless fool, complete with a wrinkle across the bridge of her nose.

“I’m saying Kururu might get the wrong idea, you know.”

I thought, surely not, but then I imagined Kururu, Iiria’s guardian deity, tearing me limb from limb under the belief that I had laid a hand on Iiria, and I shuddered.

“…Please be careful.”

Iiria snorted, turned to leave the room, then looked back.

“Or maybe it would be more interesting if I stayed here tonight.”

Straightening my back, I answered like this.

“Please leave.”

Iiria burst into laughter, then finally stuck out her tongue at me and vanished into the darkness.

Perhaps because she carried beastfolk blood, when she disappeared into the dark night without the slightest sound of footsteps, it made everything that had just happened feel like a dream.

And yet there were two chairs, and some sweet fragrance of Iiria’s still lingered in the room.

And when I walked over to the window and looked outside, I could make out Iiria walking along.

I wondered if she might look back, but Iiria just kept striding on and disappeared into her own mansion.

Kururu had the sort of difficulty of a wild beast, but Iiria had her own different kind of troublesome side.

Still, she was reliable in a way different from Kururu.

Exhaustion washed over me, and I put out the candle, thinking I should sleep too, but in the dark room lit only by the faint starlight filtering in, what Iiria had said remained vividly within me.