Chapter 48

The company’s cargo-sorting problem had been awkward at first, much like the workshop, but thanks to the beastfolk joining in, it improved dramatically.

That was only natural, one could say, since they could casually carry with one hand loads no human could hope to lift, but apparently their work itself was simply very efficient.

Every beastfolk worker Dodol recommended and Kengo interviewed just to be safe had experience working at ports. Just like Gorgon, beastfolk apparently often migrated whenever there was some kind of political upheaval because of their unstable status, and many of them seemed to have some kind of trade skill.

If that was the case, then perhaps relying on beastfolk society was indeed a fully viable option when it came to investigating matters beyond the island in order to bypass the Bax Company.

While thinking over all that, there was no point in drawing up plans after plans if Jirenu Territory itself did not gain real substance.

To do that, there was no choice but to deal with the things in front of us one by one.

If opening up a giant hole in the ground to make an irrigation reservoir and a fish-farming pond was one part of that, then my visit to the church that day was also part of a larger plan.

“Candidates for civil officials, you say.”

The one before me was a priest who looked stern and every bit the strict man of faith, but I knew well enough that inside he was a worldly cleric. After all, the church was the biggest buyer of meat and liquor from Nodon’s company.

Still, today I had come relying on the church’s own connections.

“I heard that you will be attending a grand church ceremony held in the provincial capital of the province, Reverend. I was hoping you might introduce us to students at the church there who are seeking posts to serve in.”

It was the same in my previous world, but in older times the authority over education was usually in the hands of religious organizations.

Not everyone hoped to rise through the sword, nor was everyone suited to it. For those who found war too barbaric and wanted to compete with their minds instead, the clergy was a dependable career path.

That seemed to be no exception in this world, and if one was looking for people with higher education who were used to document work, the church was the obvious place to start.

“Hmm. Certainly, there are young apprentices to the clergy in the provincial capital. And this is none other than a request from Lord Yorinobu. Your company has always extended many conveniences to the church in its purchases.”

He probably meant that the prices for meat and liquor should continue to be discounted, but that much was cheap enough.

“Of course.”

“Oh, that’s right. If you like, would Lord Yorinobu care to accompany me to the provincial capital? And this here, Dora…”

“Dorasutel.”

Kururu, standing quietly behind me under her disguise, supplied the name of the magician she was pretending to be.

“Yes, Dorasutel. Since the wandering magician wishes to gain the knowledge of other magicians, there should be much to gain from a visit to the provincial capital.”

Rather than a generous offer, he had probably just thought of bringing me along as his wallet. And then, since finding students would be troublesome, he likely wanted to foist it off onto me after merely making the introductions.

I understood this technique very well, the way of shifting one’s own inconvenience onto someone else while making it seem like a favor, because terrible bosses in my previous world had excelled at it too.

Still, there was no doubt that having the priest with us would mean having a face known in various circles in the provincial capital.

We needed to know about matters beyond the island for the sake of Jirenu Territory, but with absolutely no guide at all, things would be too uncertain, so accompanying him might not be a bad idea.

“I would be most grateful.”

“Excellent. The church’s ships are never short of places for those who are devout in faith.”

The men who worked at the harbor said the church certainly used those ships for smuggling, so if I did not work at my polite smile, it would have stiffened.

Once we had proper officials, this place should be tightened down on first.

“I shall send word when the ship to fetch us arrives. And after this, will you be attending worship?”

Under her hood, Kururu’s ears twitched.

“If possible, I would like to continue my study of the holy text.”

“My, my, as diligent as ever. Very good, very good.”

Whether it was worship or anything else, he gave the impression that as long as gold coins went into the donation box, it was all the same to him. The young assistant priest Clover was summoned, and he carried the holy text to the usual scriptorium for us.

Since magicians were beings who embodied the miracles of the church, Clover was visibly flushed in the presence of Kururu as the magician Dorasutel.

Kururu looked deeply displeased, but this girl had a strange tendency to act very much like an older sister toward anyone younger than herself. Pretending to be utterly composed, she managed an awkward smile.

“If there is anything in the word of God that you do not understand, please call for me at any time.”

If left alone, Clover looked as though he might have stayed there forever, but the priest bellowed for him, and he ran off at a little trot, looking reluctant to leave. He was probably worked around the clock every day.

Once Clover was gone, Kururu let out a great sigh and removed her hood.

“The moment he realized I was a magician, he started looking at me like that.”

“If you think of it as him seeing Iiria-san as well through you, it might not be so bad.”

Kururu looked at me with narrowed eyes, then shrugged as though to say it could not be helped if it was for her mistress’s reputation.

“Come to think of it, have you ever been to the provincial capital, Kururu-san?”

Kururu took a folded sheet of paper and a charcoal pen from inside her clothing and handed them to me.

Taking them, my role was to copy down the magic circles left carved into the stone walls here and there around the church. The magic circles preserved in the holy text were copied in ink and pen by Kururu, since she was good at drawing and accustomed to the legendary magic circle.

“I have, in a manner of speaking, but it was only moving from ship to ship, and even after reaching the harbor I never went ashore. I only looked outside a little through a hole opened in the wall.”

Kururu opened the thick holy text and searched for the magic circle she had copied partway through the last time we stopped by.

Come to think of it, when I had asked whether free folk worked in the harbor, their answer had been vague.

Even though they had passed through various ports, that probably meant they themselves had had no freedom of movement.

“That place certainly was lively, but…”

When I turned at the way she trailed off, Kururu, without stopping the work in her hands, spoke in a deliberately indifferent tone.

“It did not look like a town where beastfolk could live comfortably.”

“That means…”

“It may have just been by chance, but every beastfolk I could see from the ship had handcuffs and shackles on.”

I was stunned.

“The treatment of beastfolk turns with the wind. I don’t know if it’s still like that now. It may have been a temporary measure because a beastfolk got into a tavern brawl and killed a human. Or it may simply have been a ruler taking out a bad mood on them.”

Kururu slowly raised her face and looked at me with a tired smile.

“That’s what the outside is like.”

Returning to her work, Kururu continued speaking.

“This place has its problems too, but it has the mine. Since everyone knows that if the mine stops, all of them will starve to death, the beastfolk’s position here is probably comparatively stable. There are enough of them too, and if it ever came to conflict with the human side, the humans would be the ones at a disadvantage. It’s an island, so reinforcements can’t be expected quickly. So even this place should be not too bad for beastfolk.”

Then Kururu raised her face once more and narrowed her eyes in a near glare.

“Your hands have stopped.”

I hurried back to work, but I could not leave it at that, and when I turned again, perhaps she sensed it. Kururu said,

“The idea of leaving Lady Iiria behind on the island makes me extremely uneasy too. So… if I’m honest, I do not want to go to the provincial capital.”

Then—just as I began to say, she cut me off.

“As if I could let you go by yourself. If someone like you went to a lively city, some harbor swindler would strip you of everything the moment you stepped off the ship.”

I wanted to object, but this world was merciless and rough. I could not imagine public order in a lively city being good. There would surely be all sorts of Marks-like figures with bad intentions.

“Besides, I certainly do need to properly learn how to use magic, but… that brings its own worries. Have you really thought this through?”

“Thought through what?”

When I asked back without any deeper meaning, Kururu looked utterly exasperated.

“There’s no knowing whether I can completely hide these ears and tail.”

“Ah.”

“It would be nice if there were something like a textbook on magic, like this one that records the teachings of God.”

Without movable-type printing, books could only be multiplied by copying them by hand. And books for magicians would have a demand far too limited, so even if they existed, they would probably be locked away deep inside some treasury.

Even the holy text, likely the greatest bestseller in this world, was precious enough to be chained against theft and to require a considerable donation after reading.

The reason we had not bought a copy of the holy text for the company and instead secretly copied it bit by bit like this was because it was far too expensive to buy simply for copying out the magic circles.

Even a small edition containing only text cost ten or twenty gold coins. A large edition like this, complete with detailed illustrations including ancient magic circles, would surely cost no less than one hundred or two hundred gold coins. Thinking that it might equal the amount needed to employ the entire staff of the company for a full month, I could not bring myself to buy it.

“If we were to buy one, it would cost quite a lot, yes. If possible, it’d be better if we could hire a properly trained magician as a teacher.”

“Idiot. There’s no telling how much that would cost. Are you trying to bankrupt Lady Iiria?”

“Would it really be that much?”

“Of course it would. And on top of that, you’d need some eccentric person who would keep the secret even after learning about these ears and this tail, right? There’s no way someone like that exists.”

It seemed there were no known cases of beastfolk being able to use magic. If that turned out to be possible, it would shake the structure of the world that had existed since the empire two before the present one.

So the fact that Kururu, who had beastfolk blood, could use magic was apparently not quite dangerous if made public, but certainly a fairly sensational fact.

The reason the priest at this church was helping keep the secret was because spreading something so important would bring him absolutely no benefit. Being a worldly cleric, he valued peace within his own turf and prioritized indulging his desires comfortably above all else. It was precisely that sort of slyness that made him trustworthy in this regard.

“A proper magician is a member of the privileged class.”

Kururu’s resigned tone reminded me of when I had first met her. It was the kind of voice peculiar to those who had long been oppressed by the structure of the world and had stopped even trying to raise their voices.

“The magician Nodon employed seems to have been an unlicensed one too.”

Magicians were indispensable in the mine for locating veins and checking magic stones.

But the one Nodon had employed as a bodyguard of sorts had been a magician not much different from Kururu.

After we fought back when he tried to ambush us, we drove him off the island before Nodon could do so, but perhaps I should have asked him a little more while I had the chance.

“A magician… one kind to beastfolk.”

Kururu said that with a mocking smile.

Like talking about square circles or cold fire.

I could say nothing more, and Kururu said nothing either, so there was nothing to do but continue our work.

Only the sound of charcoal tracing across paper and the somewhat hard scratch of Kururu’s quill as she drew magic circles on the page could be heard.

Magic and beastfolk.

Their complicated relationship was not something I could do much about.

Still, as long as the mine existed, the position of beastfolk on this island was guaranteed. And the lord here was none other than Iiria, and only recently we had appointed beastfolk to the work at the harbor, with excellent results.

The expansion of magic stone processing was going well, and according to Kengo, if the mine truly went all out, its output could be increased tenfold.

Even if we could not save every beastfolk in the world, at least within this island.

And to make that system absolutely secure, the existence of this giant magic circle could become a hidden key.

If the giant magic circle turned out to be a meaningless ornament, then even if we made public the knowledge of synthetic magic stones, there was a high chance we could avoid dangers on the scale of nuclear war.

If that were so, synthetic magic stones would suit industrial production even better than current magic stones, so with Kengo’s knowledge and mine, it might not be impossible to build a magic stone factory of a level of efficiency that should not exist in this world and monopolize wealth.

And even if that proved impossible, we should still be able to hold an advantageous position in production for at least a while.

But to do that, we would need to gather people in many fields and increase our income as well.

To secure our footing, we had to remove, one by one, the matters that might become concerns for Jirenu Territory.

That was the purpose of this trip to the provincial capital.

As for Kururu learning magic, the outlook was somewhat uncertain, but if we saw what things were like outside the island, perhaps some new plan would come to mind.

In any case, it should not be much longer before this island stabilizes and we can build a solid foundation for life.

I had to work hard, and I wanted to work hard too.

That was what I was thinking when it happened.

“Hm? Hey, hide it.”

“Eh?”

Kururu hurriedly put away her quill and other things, while I flusteredly folded up the papers.

Kururu snatched them away, hid them against her chest, and just after we both sat properly before the holy text once more, there came footsteps loud enough to be heard clearly from inside the room.

The door opened without so much as a knock, and there stood Clover, out of breath.

“S-someone just came from the company, and—”

My eyes met Kururu’s.

Had there been another warehouse collapse? Or perhaps a Bax Company ship had wrecked?

Yet it also seemed strange for Clover to be panicking this much, and before I had time to finish that thought—

With a face full of terror, he said this.

“T-th-th-th-the mine—”

“The mine?”

“They say a monster has appeared!”

Sword and magic. And monster.

At that word, so unreal-sounding somehow, my face twisted into a smile on its own.

But Kururu beside me was different.

“Is everyone safe?”

That single sentence, so cold and as if squeezed out from the very bottom of her heart, showed just how serious this was.

A monster was apparently that sort of existence.

Clover, looking ready to cry, only shook his head and pointed down the corridor.

There must be someone from the company who had come to deliver the message, and he wanted us to hear it from them.

“Kururu-san.”

I was only just beginning to understand how grave the situation was, and calling her name was all I could manage.

Kururu, likely the only magician on this island, closed the holy text and stood up.