Soup Of Memories

The members of the “Leopin Guard” were scheduled to move in starting the day after “Leopin Village” was completed.

However, it rained heavily from morning the next day, so the move was postponed.

Even so, there were still classes, so I went to school through the rain that hung heavily like a gray veil, using a butterbur leaf as an umbrella.

All the classes were held inside the school building, and they preached about how wonderful the heroes of Class 1-11, who had newly come to this academy, were.

Not a single member of Class 1-11 attended those classes.

Apparently, all of them were student council officers and in leadership positions, so attendance in class was optional for them.

And from a notice posted in the academy hallway, I learned that Weiss had been exiled in the “Academy Trial” and sent to the same “Special Training Class” as me.

Weiss had dreamed of succeeding at this academy and becoming a source of pride as a member of a family of Sages.

Thinking he must have been depressed, I tried looking for Weiss, but I could not find him anywhere, not in the school building, nor in the residential district.

The rain did not stop the next day, nor the day after that.

It kept falling endlessly, as though it were Weiss’s own sorrow.

With the rain falling like this, not only could no one move, but I could not even do farmwork.

I had nothing to do even after going home, so I casually used the skill of the “Magic Counterfeiter” to duplicate things inside the house and play around.

Then, suddenly, something caught my eye.

It was my best coat, hanging on the wall.

“…That’s it! If I can increase the number of those coats, won’t they become a considerable fighting force…!?”

However, the “Coat of the Dragon and Saint” was a magic item, so duplicating it was extremely difficult.

I somehow managed to duplicate only its appearance almost perfectly, but its crucial abilities remained completely absent.

“This won’t be of any use…”

As I gave up and put away the duplicated coat, Mark’s cry came from outside, mixed in with the sound of the downpour.

Thinking something had happened, I opened the door to my room, and there was Mark at the entrance, dragging along a drenched human by the collar.

I hurriedly took that person from Mark and laid him down on the bed in my room.

When I looked closely, it was my former classmate.

“Isn’t that Weiss…!? Where have you been all this time!?”

However, Weiss had lost consciousness, and his whole body was burning hot.

His entire body was covered in bruises and cuts, and his glasses and clothes were in tatters.

There was no trace anywhere of his smart, intellectual former self, and he was completely weakened.

I took off Weiss’s clothes and applied the “Sentataki Ointment” I had mass-produced at the waterwheel hut for emergencies.

“If I remember right, Sentataki can also reduce fever if you boil its roots.”

I rushed out into the garden in the rain and made a decoction at the kitchen while holding up an umbrella.

However, Sentataki had been troublesome to turn into an ointment, but turning it into a drinking medicine was even harder.

It had to be boiled for roughly sixteen hours, and I had to watch it the entire time.

While continuing to nurse Weiss, I went back and forth to the kitchen in the heavy rain over and over, and somehow managed to prepare the medicine.

When I gave it to the delirious Weiss to drink, the medicine seemed to take effect, his fever went down, and he began breathing peacefully in his sleep.

“If it came down to it, I thought I’d have to drag Monaka here through this rain… but it looks like that won’t be necessary.”

After that, I made bread porridge for when Weiss woke up.

It was made by slowly simmering meat and wild grasses, then adding bread at the end.

The ingredients were simmered until they broke down, so it was easy to digest and packed with nutrition.

It was a perfect dish for when someone was sick.

“To think even I would become able to make food for the sick…”

As I was doing that, Weiss regained consciousness.

His eyes, faintly opened, were hazy and wandered through empty space.

“Are you all right, Weiss? You’re hungry, aren’t you? Eat this.”

I brought the soup I had scooped up with a wooden spoon to the mouth of Weiss, who groaned, “Ugh…”

It seemed a little hot, so when I blew on it and fed it to him, he swallowed it down gulp by gulp.

“Is it good? I made a lot, so there’s more if you want seconds.”

As he ate, Weiss visibly recovered, and in the end, he snatched the soup bowl from my hand and drained it in one go.

“Puhah… i… it’s delicious…!”

Weiss looked up at the heavens and let out a great sigh.

The light had completely returned to his eyes.

However, when he realized I was beside him, he threw the soup bowl onto the floor and lay down with his back turned to me, as though rejecting me.

“It’s completely reversed,” I muttered.

“When I was a kid, I was often bullied because I was from commoner stock… But Weiss, you helped me, didn’t you? When I didn’t want anyone to see my crying face, you cleared people out of the mansion kitchen and made soup for me by imitating what you had seen…”

“Heh, Leopin. Soup is said to be the source of all power. If it is soup made by me, it will give you a hundredfold courage.”

That soup was terribly awful, though…

“But to me, that soup was the greatest soup of all.”

I sat down by the bedside and gently placed my hand on Weiss’s shoulder as he kept his back turned to me.

“I don’t care anymore that you exiled me.”

Then his shoulder twitched.

“You are saying… you will forgive me…? Me, who did such terrible things…!”

“Yeah. Thanks to being exiled, I was able to gain all kinds of valuable experiences. Besides, this time, I’ll protect you. Let’s show up the guys who look down on us just because we’re in the Special Training Class.”

His shoulder would not stop trembling.

Weiss turned around, clung to my hand, and cried out loud.

“Ugh…! Ooh…! I-I was wrong…! Forgive me for everything I did until now! Forgive me…! Leopin…! Uwoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon!!”