The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Talent and a Man's Aesthetic

The Enkar region suddenly turned into a construction boom.

Outside craftsmen and laborers worked mixed together with the villagers. With so many outsiders coming and going, and the demand for lodging and meals rising rapidly, Melfina decided to permit a temporary free market.

On the land chosen as the new village square, the ground was first cleared, a stone marking the village's starting point was set, and a temporary building where craftsmen could stay overnight was put up, with the residents allowed to do business around it.

The residents of Enkar Village were not used to doing business with outsiders. Cedric ordered that anyone who caused a dispute would never be granted a permit again, so no major trouble occurred, but quite a few people who tried it found that they were not cut out for business and went back to laboring or to their autumn-sown fields.

Among them, some began to do well in business.

The food available in abundance in Enkar Village at present was corn, chicken, and vegetables. The seasoning was salt and the pepper-like flavor imparted by wrapping in Moon Rabbit leaves, with some people adding ginger and garlic, and the filling was often something fried in a pan.

Melfina had tried them, too, and since they were aimed at manual laborers they were quite hearty, with the salt applied strongly.

The cooking itself was simple, so there should not have been much difference in taste even with some difference in skill, and yet there were clearly stalls that bustled and stalls where those who found it a bother to queue at the first would buy.

That, perhaps, was what skill in business meant. Even after the shipping of the harvest was over, it might be worth asking them whether they would be willing to work at the eating establishments she planned to set up.

Lately Melfina spent most of her time shut up in the office working, but she made a point of going outside every few days to walk around the village and the districts where new houses were going up. It was called an inspection, but it was really closer to a change of pace.

"There's a rumor that once you speak to them, Lady Melfina, work efficiency goes up afterward."

"I'm a frightening lord, after all."

"Hehe."

Marie laughed out loud, which was rare, and Melfina's shoulders shook with a giggle too. When Melfina and Marie walked side by side like that, some people stopped working without meaning to and stared, and some were scolded by their foreman for having idle hands, but when even the foremen were gazing, Cedric's glare from behind them sent everyone scurrying back to work.

"No major trouble seems to have come up. It's peaceful."

"...Yes."

As she listened to Cedric's reply, since he tended to say less while on duty, and walked into a district where new construction was underway, she came across a familiar face.

"Oh, hello, Lady Melfina!"

"Oh, Rod. What a surprise to meet you in Enkar Village."

"Dad said the fields have enough hands, so lately I've been helping around here a lot. He says I can keep what I earn as my allowance."

In this world children were a proper labor force. It was ordinary for them to go out to the fields, and it was not unusual for someone Rod's age to enter an apprenticeship or service.

Serfs were prohibited from doing any work other than tilling their assigned land or what the lord ordered, but it seemed that the first ones to take an interest in other work once released from their status were, as one would expect, the children.

"I see. What are you doing now?"

Surprisingly, what Rod held in his hand was a stylus. What he was writing on a thin wooden board looked like numbers.

It was not Rod but one of the men resting beside him who answered her question.

"This kid was hanging around underfoot, so during the break I tried teaching him the arithmetic I was writing down to work out the number of bricks and tiles we need. It was meant as a bit of a joke, but he got better at it than us in no time, so now I leave the simple calculations to him."

"Goodness..."

"I'd bet this kid has a 'talent.' You might want to have him checked at the church once, and if he's been blessed, it might be better to send him to the city as an apprentice."

"You old guys are exaggerating. If you don't write the numbers down properly, you can't tell the answer."

"Memorizing ten digits and being able to calculate up to four-digit numbers in three days is something special, kid."

"That's right, Rod, it's a really big deal."

Only a few weeks ago Rod had been living as a serf's child. For him to have never been taught letters or calculation and yet already be able to do this after being shown the method by carpenters could surely be called a special talent.

"Hehe."

Yet the boy himself only grinned happily at being praised by the adults.

For Rod, the newly learned skill was probably still an extension of play.

In her previous life, too, she had heard of children who could recite the names of hundreds of characters, or memorize entire train timetables. Most of those were abilities that apparently vanished once they grew up, but in this world there was something called "talent."

When a "talent" sprouted in childhood, a boy received a blessing at the church and a girl at the temple, and that talent was fixed as an individual's ability.

*—Melfina also received a blessing at the temple as a child. And what she got was "Appraisal," and she was terribly disappointed, wasn't she?*

"Appraisal" was a "talent" obtained with fair probability by noble sons and daughters who grew up used to seeing first-rate goods. The merchants who came and went at the manor had far more accurate "Appraisal" and, above all, much experience in judging goods, so "Appraisal" was something noble children hardly needed.

Still, after she had come to hold the vast knowledge of her previous life and the strange fortune of being a lord in a frontier land, even this weak "Appraisal" turned out to be useful in many ways.

"Hey, Rod, why don't you get blessed at the church? If you had a talent for 'Arithmetic' or 'Calculation,' it might be good to go to the city and become an apprentice to a carpenter or woodworker. They would surely welcome you."

"Nah, I'm fine."

Taken aback, she watched him shake his head without a flicker of hesitation.

Craftsmen were in this world a stable skilled trade. The apprentice years were said to be hard, but once fully trained, they would never go hungry.

For Rod, who had been bound to the land as a former serf, it would surely be a very good path.

"Is it that you'd be lonely leaving your family? In that case, you could receive the blessing first and put off becoming an apprentice a little longer."

"That's not it. It's not that, I... never mind. I'm not going anywhere anyway."

Saying so, he turned his face away with a huff, and Melfina was at a loss.

Until now he had adored her with his whole body, Lady Melfina, Lady Melfina, but now his cheeks were red and he seemed angry.

She had never been treated this way even by her brother, and while she was flustered, Cedric, standing behind her, cleared his throat with a cough.

Cedric had once kicked Rod when he approached Melfina. Rod himself did not seem to be carrying the shock around, and lately the other children had stopped paying attention to Cedric as he walked behind her when they gathered around her, but it was still not unusual for Cedric to direct his intimidation at anyone who behaved roughly toward Melfina.

"Cedric, hold back."

"No, I only wish to speak a little. —Boy, Lady Melfina is an extremely wise person, but there are things that do not get across unless you say them."

"..."

"I understand, as a man, how awkward it is to put it into words, but say it properly so that you will not regret it."

Rod glanced at her, puffed out his cheeks, and pouted. He fidgeted with the stylus in his hand.

"My dad said that Lady Melfina is going to make the Enkar region bigger and bigger..."

"Yes, that's right. That's what I want to do."

"So... I don't want to go to some big city, I want to be in the place Lady Melfina is making big... I want to be useful to Lady Melfina!"

The last part was almost a shouted confession.

After a beat at those words, so passionate, her cheeks began to burn.

Whistles went up from the carpenters and laborers around them, teasing, and Rod glared at Melfina, nearly in tears.

But his cheeks were flushed like apples before harvest, and his eyes were earnest.

"I was learning arithmetic here only because I thought that if I could do more things I could be useful, too! I'm not going anywhere else at all! Got it?!"

"...Understood."

Overwhelmed by his force, she nodded, and Rod turned his face away again with a huff.

"If you get it, that's fine. Don't tell me to go somewhere else anymore, okay?"

"Yes... I'm sorry, Rod."

"It's fine. Don't apologize. ...I said it before, I don't want to make you apologize, Lady Melfina."

He still seemed sulky, but even Melfina could understand that he was merely embarrassed.

It seemed that Cedric had understood Rod's feelings more accurately than Melfina had.

The craftsmen, grinning, said that the afternoon break was ending, so she said her goodbyes and left the spot. Walking with a palm against her cheeks, still warm with embarrassment, she thought, come to think of it.

"Cedric, how did you understand Rod's feelings?"

"—I am a man, too."

The reply that came back was, again, something she did not quite follow.

She could not imagine that a knight and a former serf boy had anything in common, but perhaps there was some kind of aesthetic that only men understand among themselves.

At any rate, once the harvest settled down, she would consult Nid and persuade them to have him receive the church's blessing, at least.

There was no harm in having an ability, and he might even take up work that would help the development of the Enkar region in the future.

If she put it that way, Rod would surely not refuse.

"If you whisper to him that the more abilities he has, the more useful he will be to Lady Melfina, I believe he will receive it right away," Cedric said in a calm voice.

This too was perhaps a man's aesthetic.