Every winter, the Cineraria Family’s younger members apparently made a circuit through its territory known as the Winter Tour.
I departed Flumen—the heart of Marquis Saintpaulia’s domain—in a black carriage with Resina and Penne.
We would travel north along the highway, pass through a small city called Maypool, and continue toward a place called the Silva Frontier Territory. Yes, my dream frontier. How exciting.
Incidentally, regions called “frontiers” in this world were harsh lands where miasma was so dense that humans could barely survive.
Life there was extremely difficult, but if such lands weren’t defended, they would soon be swallowed by the Demon Realm, where humans couldn’t live at all. That was why frontier lords received numerous privileges, including the right to maintain military forces. And I wanted to live a slow life there. It sounded fun, didn’t it?
Still, we had a long way to go before reaching the frontier.
To pass the time, I was devouring the enormous number of books I’d copied from around the Cineraria headquarters when Penne murmured beside me.
“Wish I could use subspace magic too.”
It was certainly difficult to imagine a more convenient magic for travel.
My subspace base was climate-controlled, and its bath and toilet were perfectly comfortable. Naturally, Resina and Penne slipped in and out of the subspace frequently to enjoy those benefits.
Heh. Jealous? Here, have a dried persimmon.
“Dried persimmons are damn good.”
“I’m glad. Eat as many as you like.”
The magic people were born with differed entirely from one individual to another.
My subspace magic created “depth” in space along a direction separate from the three normal dimensions. It was extremely useful, but horribly inefficient. Merely maintaining the subspace consumed a tremendous amount of mana, so before I trained and expanded my reserves, I couldn’t use it nearly as conveniently as I could now.
Besides, magic-tool pouches containing space-expansion spell circuits were widely available, which probably made subspace magic something society would call a “dud.” Admittedly, such convenient tools were luxury goods, and for someone pursuing a slow life, my magic was a magnificent jackpot.
“Sigh… My magic’s useless.”
“Really? What kind of magic is it?”
“Mm… Don’t wanna say.”
It was unusual for Penne to evade a question, but this wasn’t something I should force from her. People generally concealed their magic, and regardless of status, prying for details was considered bad manners.
In my case, subspace magic had been indispensable to saving Resina, so I’d accepted that others would learn about it from the moment I hid her.
Come to think of it, I didn’t know Penne’s magic, but I’d never asked what Resina’s did either. Plenty of people disliked their magic and never used it at all.
Thinking that, I gave Penne another dried persimmon.
“Dried persimmons are damn good.”
“I’m glad. Oh, right. I told you about my magic because you’re one of us, Penne, but please don’t spread it around outside.”
“Course not… I see. So to Crow, I’m one of his own. Hehehe.”
As we spoke, Resina, who sat across from us, fixed us with a sharp gaze.
“Flirting with Crow right in front of me… Penne, you’re prepared to have your limbs torn off and be thrown into a swarm of monsters, aren’t you?”
“Y-Young miss… Please have mercy.”
“…He said you were one of his own. Crow called Penne one of his own. Which is more important, a friend or one of your own? And why is he more casual with Penne than with me? I refuse to accept this.”
Resina muttered to herself as she began leaking gloomy, brooding mana.
Since Penne’s arrival, Resina seemed to enter this unhealthy state more often… but I had stopped thinking deeply about it. Yes. I lacked the courage to step on a land mine lying plainly in sight.
For now, I needed to calm her before she drew her dosu.
“Resina, the truth is that you’re the first person I’ve ever been able to call a friend. While other children my age were running around the fields, I devoted everything to studying and training.”
In my previous life, I’d never had the luxury of making friends. After being reborn… Well, even though my mind was strongly influenced by my physical age, I couldn’t become innocent enough to mix with toddlers and genuinely enjoy playing tag.
There was so much I wanted to learn for my slow life on the frontier, and I wanted to strengthen my abilities. As a result, socializing with friends inevitably became a low priority. Until I grew close to Resina, I had never had a friend.
“You should understand that having a friend like you is actually enormously important to me.”
“Oh? Was that a proposal?”
“It absolutely wasn’t.”
Yes. Somehow, I had to defend that one boundary to the death.
If I let affection carry me into marrying Resina, my dream of a frontier slow life would plainly be shattered. Letting the preparations I’d spent ten years making go entirely to waste was… Yes, even I couldn’t accept that.
The Winter Tour would take place throughout the western Azukai Empire. The family members divided the cities and villages in Cineraria territory among themselves and made the rounds.
Apparently, this happened every year. Once the autumn harvest ended, food gathered in Flumen was converted into preserved provisions by processors connected to the family, then transported throughout the region as part of the Winter Tour. Every village’s supplies for surviving winter were stretched to the limit.
Around ten black carriages followed ours, each carrying roughly three family members. Their cargo beds had also been expanded with magic tools and apparently transported far more supplies than their appearance suggested. At first glance, the yakuza convoy looked dangerous… but for the villages, it was an indispensable event that allowed them to survive the winter.
“I can’t help thinking that the nobles should be providing this support.”
“Ideally, yes. But they don’t in reality, so commoners have no choice but to manage through their own strength. Helping them do that is our work.”
Hmm. Since joining the Cineraria Family, I’d begun to feel that the yakuza were rooted more deeply in ordinary people’s lives than I’d imagined. Naturally, they differed in many ways from those of my previous world.
“…I thought the yakuza did nothing but bad things. You do a surprising amount of work that looks like charity.”
At my murmur, Resina nodded quietly.
“Perhaps you have the order reversed.”
“Reversed?”
“Yes. The Cineraria Family began when the weak came together and helped one another. The scriptures of the Spirit Temple and the laws of the imperial nobles are precious things, but many people suffer and find life difficult because of the burdens those systems create. So we outcasts called one another parents and siblings, pooled our wisdom, and chose to stand together proudly—not through law, but through honor and obligation.”
I see. I still couldn’t shake their violent image… but perhaps the spirit at the root of it all was the weak helping one another.
I’d heard that yakuza in my previous world had valued honor and obligation in earlier times. If so, perhaps the yakuza of this world weren’t a group that needed to be avoided quite so thoroughly. Hmm, hmm.
“Hehehe. In the end, however, we’re still a collection of shortsighted people who want to solve everything with violence. People who fled home after falling out with their families, people driven from their hometowns after violent incidents, people who escaped in the night without repaying debts after their businesses failed… More than a few have personalities fit for rubbish.”
“Aw, you ruined it. I was starting to feel moved.”
“It’s still true. People skillful enough to obey the law and survive should remain honest civilians. We are a collection of awkward people who couldn’t do that.”
What about me? Was I not allowed to remain a civilian?
Then again, I wasn’t particularly devoted to obeying the law either… I knew I’d lived by placing my frontier slow life above everything else and closing my eyes to smaller concerns.
For now, perhaps I should set aside some of my preconceptions and approach the family members with an open mind. I’d carried the shallow image that yakuza were bloodthirsty criminals willing to use violence for profit. That was something I needed to reflect on. Of course, the bloodthirsty part wasn’t exactly wrong.
As we discussed various things, I noticed that the look Penne was giving me differed from usual.
“Penne?”
“I was still underestimating you, Crow. You seriously treat the young miss as a friend… Are you sane? There’s gotta be a limit, even if you can shrug off her mana. I can barely keep myself from pissing my pants.”
Oh, yes. Penne was doing very well. Did she want another dried persimmon?
As the carriage rocked us along at an unhurried pace, the mana-detection skill I’d deployed around us sensed an approaching monster. I opened the carriage’s wooden window and found a single goblin, apparently separated from its pack, attempting to attack us. How reckless.
Among monsters, those that walked on two legs were generally classified as “demons.” Goblins were known as the weakest monsters and could be found almost anywhere.
Miasma grew denser once one left the cities and villages where people lived, allowing monsters to appear. Unless you were on the frontier, however, truly dangerous monsters were rare.
“Crow. Deal with it.”
“Sure—Magic Bullet.”
I pointed my index finger at the goblin and activated the spell.
Unlike innate magic, which could be handled by feel, magic arts required the caster to visualize the spell formula while speaking its activation phrase. That made them slightly difficult, though they became useful once you were accustomed to them.
The goblin’s head burst when the Magic Bullet struck.
Magic Bullet was one of the fundamental combat spells. The ability to attack from a distance was convenient, and even a beginner using it roughly could at least hold an enemy in check. By improving the formula to increase power and accuracy, the caster could kill a monster with one shot… Naturally, it was also a dangerous spell that saw extensive use in yakuza wars.
Goblins stood roughly a meter tall and reproduced like cockroaches even where the miasma wasn’t particularly dense. Their meat stank, and the magic stones harvested from them were minuscule. In other words, the corpse was practically worthless. The driver knew that too, so the carriage passed without slowing.
“Crow, don’t you think claiming that you aren’t good at violence is rather unreasonable when you can use magic arts like that?”
“But I’ve never shot a person.”
“I think you could if it became necessary.”
What? I wasn’t so sure.
Still, if the question was whether I could or couldn’t shoot someone, I thought I fell on the side that could. That wasn’t because I was merciless. I simply knew from personal experience that people reincarnated after death. Not that I intended to become a casual murderer. Truly.
“I was still underestimating you, Crow. You’ve got that damn ordinary face, but you can fight just fine.”
Well, no matter what, I would need defenses against monsters if I wanted a slow life on the frontier. I had at least trained enough that I wouldn’t die easily.