Write A Review

“Huh? That’s all of it?”

The Terrain Information she had bought last time had cost the same number of points and delivered vastly more. This was crude, threadbare stuff by comparison.

Dong-hui opened her eyes wide and searched the empty air, waiting for something else to surface. The blue status window floating in front of her gave up nothing more.

“Isn’t this a scam?”

If it put me through twice the ordeal, it ought to hand over twice as much knowledge.

Had she known the information would be this thin, she would never have picked anything called Forced Acquisition. Unable to shake the feeling that she had been swindled, Dong-hui glared at the status window, sparkling blue as a sapphire, as though she meant to kill it. Given the chance, she would have grabbed it by the collar and shaken it.

Her reaction evidently did not sit well with it. The status window flickered wildly and then scrawled out letters at speed.

“Measly? It was a full 1,000 points, I’ll have you know.”

“Can I do that?”

Dong-hui broke off mid-rant and asked in a sweet, coaxing voice.

Once the status window had rattled out the last of its sentences, a row of words rose up one after another at the very end: Cancel Purchase, Confirm Purchase, Write a Review.

I understand Cancel and Confirm, but what is Write a Review?

The status window, Dong-hui could not help feeling, kept taking its cues from an online shopping site.

“Do I get anything if I write a review?”

“Then why put an item like that up there?”

Jeez.

Short of holding an actual knife, this was highway robbery, pure and simple.

“How is that any different from telling me I can’t cancel!”

Dong-hui pushed her seething temper down and glared for all she was worth at the status window, a con artist through and through. Not that it cared. It went on showing her that infuriating line about cancellation being possible, and the useless Write a Review lettering, over and over.

“I’m not canceling.”

After all the shaking and trembling the Forced Acquisition had put her through, canceling was out of the question. She would get back only half the points, and the information she had acquired before might take damage as well, so there was nothing to be gained by forcing it. On top of that, her memory was nothing special as it was, and the thought of it dwindling any further frightened her. One day she might not even remember who she was.

And who knows.
There might be some tremendous value hidden inside that scrap of information.

Besides, judging by the way the status window had shifted, this was a gate she would have to pass through anyway if she wanted to buy the next stage of information.

Dong-hui swept her hand through the air and scattered the status window, which had so kindly seen fit, into the bargain, to remind her of her own poor head. Waving at it would not actually make the thing go anywhere, but if she did not do at least that much her temper was never going to settle.

Once it was gone from in front of her, Dong-hui went limp and flopped back onto the seat. The soft fur brushed her cheek and exhaustion came crowding in on her all at once. She thought about a nap where she lay, but then it struck her to wonder what the information she had been fleeced for was actually worth.

Dong-hui hauled her heavy body upright, threw the carriage door wide open and stepped outside. The cold air carried off the last of the greasy queasiness still sitting in her. Coming out had been the right call.

When Chloe came out, the two knights who had been waiting drew themselves up smartly in front of her.

“Would you fetch Builder for me?”

Morta and the Black Forest lay close together, so it seemed best to find out about the Komo tree and Tiestone in detail first.

At her word the younger-looking of the two gave a crisp bow of the head and ran off toward where Builder was.

Far off, Builder stood shouting instructions at the laborers on the site. Even at that distance it was plain how hard and how faithfully he worked; right now he was giving the job everything he had.

A little while later he came pelting up alongside the knight who had gone for him, hair soaked through with sweat, and drew up in front of Chloe.

“My lady, you called for me?”

Maybe the ramyeon had done it, but Builder’s face as he looked at Chloe was far brighter than it had been that morning. He gazed up at her with eyes as clear and guileless as a small child’s.

The fervent gaze was a little more than she could handle, so Dong-hui cleared her throat and asked in a solemn voice.

“Do you happen to know anything about the Komo tree or Tiestone?”

Builder knitted his brows a moment, thinking it over, then broke into a bright smile and answered cheerfully.

“Komo trees… those would be the trees that grow in the Black Forest, would they not? As for Tiestone, that is simply the stuff that lies about almost anywhere near here. That gray stone there beside my lady is Tiestone too.”

Builder looked hugely pleased simply to be able to answer her ladyship’s question.

“Where?”

Dong-hui swung her head this way and that, scanning the ground for Tiestone. Broken gray stones lay strewn everywhere she looked, rolling about every which way.

“Huh? This is Tiestone?”
“Yes. But it is a stone that is no use for anything at all. It is so weak that an old man past ninety could crumble it in his grip.”

Tiestone caused nothing but trouble. On windy days it threw up a haze of gray dust, and on rainy days it turned the ground into one great quagmire. Worse, let a Tiestone roll into a field and then catch the rain, and the crops would not grow properly, which made it more of a nuisance than weeds. So in the busy farming season the first thing anybody did on getting up in the morning was pick out the Tiestone that had fallen near the crops.

As if the very thought of it irritated him, Builder stamped hard on a Tiestone by his foot as though it were a cockroach.

“Is that so?”

Dong-hui, puzzled, picked one of the Tiestones up off the ground. For its size it weighed next to nothing in her palm; it felt less like a stone than a lump of chalk.

“Light, isn’t it?”
“Yes. When the wind blows hard, the smaller ones even go flying.”

Light or not, a stone was still a stone, and picturing one of them flying on a gust of wind was alarming.

“Someone could be hurt by that.”
“If it strikes a person it turns to powder on the spot. I have never once seen anyone hurt by being struck with one.”
“Is there a great deal of Tiestone in other parts too?”
“No. It is a rock found mainly in the districts near the snowfield, and it turns up only in the villages that run on from the Black Forest.”
“So what you are saying is, it is a rock that can only be had on our estate?”
“Yes.”

From the outside it looked solid enough, so Dong-hui, dubious, closed her fist tight around the Tiestone she was holding. The fist-sized gray stone cracked and split apart, and from the broken faces it went to powder and puffed away on the air.

“No way.”

Crushing a stone to bits with my bare hands.

Dong-hui felt exactly as though she had turned into the Hulk. It would work rather well for relieving stress, too.

The dust the crumbling threw up set her coughing, though, and she waved a busy hand in front of her face. Builder, who had been watching, set to fanning industriously with his own hand to clear the Tiestone dust drifting in front of Chloe. Luckily a wind came up just then and carried it off.

“But that is odd. If it crumbles as easily as this, shouldn’t it all be in powder form by now?”
“That is because it clumps together again when it gets wet with rain.”
“Would it be difficult to use for building a house?”
“Yes. Even if you pack it into the gaps while it is still sodden, once it dries it crumbles at the smallest knock, so it is no use. If anything, the dust makes the children and the old people ill. And it gets terribly in the way of the farming. If we could clear the Tiestone away entirely, the harvest would go up a great deal.”

Even as he spoke, Builder scooped up a Tiestone and hurled it well clear of Chloe. It flew in an arc, and the instant it struck the ground it burst into gray dust that billowed up like a cloud and was whisked away on the wind.

Dong-hui looked down at the Tiestone, every bit as useless as Builder said it was, and fell to thinking.

The status window must have told me about Tiestone because it’s good for something.
In that case there’s nothing for it but to look into the Komo tree it told me about along with it.

“Builder, do you know about the Komo tree as well?”
“Komo trees, I have heard, grow in the middle of the Black Forest.”

Builder answered without any conviction in his voice.

“You have never seen one yourself either?”
“No, my lady. All I have is what I caught in passing when my father was teaching me about wood. I should think most of the villagers would not know a Komo tree at all.”
“I ought to be thankful yours is a family of carpenters going back generations.”

Without Builder, finding out anything at all about the Komo tree would plainly have taken far longer. Grateful all over again that she had him, Dong-hui gave his broad shoulder a couple of encouraging pats. He was a great deal taller than she was, so she had to reach her arm well up for it, and good-natured as he was, he bent at the waist the moment Chloe’s hand landed on his shoulder.

Quick on the uptake, too.

Dong-hui liked Builder more by the minute.

“Do you know whereabouts in the Black Forest they grow, as well?”

At the question, Builder’s face darkened in an instant.

“I have heard there is a Komo grove in the middle of the Black Forest. But I do not know how things stand there now.”

He went crestfallen, as though not being able to say exactly where the Komo grove stood were a crime of his own.

“The middle would mean going deep into the forest, then.”
“Yes, my lady. It is a tree that dislikes sunlight, so I have heard it grows only in the shade where the forest stands thick. It will be short compared with the other trees, and thick in the trunk.”

While Builder talked, Dong-hui lifted her head and gazed up at the sky. Noon had only just gone, and there were hours yet before the sun went down. But taking people deep inside the Black Forest could put them in danger.

She was still turning it over, wondering what would be best to do, when Red Bear, who had been watching her, spoke first.

“My lady, I and a few of my men shall go into the Black Forest and search out where the Komo trees grow.”