“Keh! Kuh! Khaaak!”
Retching, I coughed up the dust that had caked deep in my throat.
- At least the mine tunnel did not collapse.
It was just as Saltia said.
Only the cavern deep inside had collapsed. But I couldn't relax yet. Collapses like this often set off a chain reaction.
I ran along the mine tunnel.
“Huff…. Huff….”
Strangely enough, there was no sign of the laborers. It seemed they'd all evacuated, startled by the roar a moment ago.
Just as I was running out of breath and my vision started to blur, I saw the light of the entrance.
“Huh? Someone's coming out.”
“Looks like that kid was inside too.”
“Hurry on out!”
The laborers gathered at the mine entrance recognized me.
This was bad.
If it came out that I was the cause of the collapse, there was no telling what punishment I'd get.
Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any casualties, but there was no denying I'd disrupted their work.
So, pretending I knew nothing, I quietly blended in among the grown-ups.
But something was off. There wasn't a trace of gloom on the laborers' faces.
“Done early today, huh?”
“Seems so. Want to have a beer at my place?”
“Ahh. That sounds great! Hoho!”
“Put away your tools and everyone head home.”
A collapse had just happened in the mine they'd been working in moments ago, yet they were happy they didn't have to work any more today.
There wasn't a worried look anywhere, no fear that they might go back into the tunnels tomorrow and run into an even bigger collapse.
As I stared at them, unable to understand, a serf man from the same manor who'd been sent out for corvée labor spoke to me.
“Lark. Did that startle you? Don't worry about it too much. It's common around here.”
“…A sound like that coming from the tunnels is common?”
“Happens about once a month.”
Only then did I think I understood. I'd been measuring this world with a modern yardstick again.
In the medieval era, mining technology was extremely poor.
With neither the technology nor the equipment to stabilize the ground, the tunnel structures could only be unstable to begin with.
So accidents where the ground caved in or tunnels collapsed must have been close to inevitable.
“Then… isn't it way too dangerous?”
At my question, the man nodded with a detached expression.
“It's dangerous.”
“What if someone ends up dying?”
“And that's why lots of people actually have.”
“…….”
Hah, medieval people….
He talks like it's someone else's problem.
Even while talking with me, the man's gaze was fixed on a distant mountain.
They were the eyes of a man who'd already given up on everything and accepted it. The kind of expression someone might wear after being given a terminal diagnosis.
Yeah, well.
When a serf's told to crack it, he cracks it.
What can you do?
- Lark. There is still one fortunate thing.
What?
- Roars like that are common to begin with. So no one will know you are the culprit behind this accident, will they?
…So you're just going to slip out of this?
You're the one who said to take this orb in the first place, which is how this whole mess happened!
- Did I?
Are spirits always this shameless?
“Come on, come on! What do you mean, rest?!”
While I was bickering with Saltia in my head, a potbellied man came out of the woods and said that.
It was the work overseer who'd brought me to this mine earlier.
“It's nothing. Like you haven't heard a noise like that once or twice before? Get back in there!”
A textbook corrupt official, just as I thought.
Yesterday, he'd gobbled down my grandfather's bribe.
And today, with total disregard for human rights, he was trying to exploit their labor.
Well, but….
I was a guy who'd gotten here through a bribe myself.
I didn't think I was in any position to criticize him.
Just as I was about to blur my eyes and pretend I didn't see anything, an apostle of justice appeared.
“Overseer. It is dangerous to resume work right now. We must monitor the situation for at least a day.”
It was a man in his mid-thirties with dusty brown hair hanging down in a messy tangle.
Through his fluttering hair, his steadfast eyes and the gleam in them stood out.
“Agh! What nonsense! Making such a fuss over one measly noise. If we're going to meet the target output….”
“Understood. Then.”
The brown-haired man cut off the corrupt official's words.
Pushing his sturdy frame forward, he continued.
“At the very least, allow me to go in alone and conduct a safety inspection.”
“Wh-what?”
“If the tunnel does collapse, and a laborer has to die, then shouldn't it be me alone who dies, so the target output isn't disrupted?”
It was a tone of fury pressed down hard.
Wow, that guy's got real backbone, huh?
Shall I take a look at his talents?
[Geology A]
[Command B]
[Construction C]
[Earth Attribute Affinity C]
As expected.
He was a man with four talents. It was no coincidence that he'd struck me as out of the ordinary.
- That one has stepped up again.
Saltia, you know that guy?
- A human I have watched for a long time. A human who is close to the ‘earth’ and even understands the ‘earth’ is a rare thing.
Being close to the earth must mean [Earth Attribute Affinity], and understanding the earth must mean the [Geology] talent.
Coveted talents.
He was a talent who'd be a tremendous help if, say, I developed a salt mine someday.
Then shall I work on his favorability a bit?
I hadn't originally intended to step forward, but now that things had turned out like this, it couldn't be helped.
“Overseer.”
At my call, the corrupt official looked at me with a bizarre expression.
It was the face of a man already pissed off to death, thinking, ‘What's this now?’
I arrogantly tilted my head back and snapped at him.
“Hey, doesn't seem like a hard request. Why not just grant it?”
“…What? You…. Just now…. What?”
The corrupt official sputtered, flabbergasted.
A mere serf giving orders to him, a vassal of the lord.
He wouldn't be able to understand it.
Then shall I help him understand?
- Hmm. Is it time for me to step in?
Saltia emerged from my pants pocket with a solemn expression.
Maybe because our souls were connected, we got each other in a flash.
Normally, not just anyone could see a spirit.
But a spirit contracted to a spirit summoner was different.
It could materialize.
“Ooh….”
“What is that?”
“It has no wings, so how is it in the air…?”
“It's not a bird. It's not a bug either….”
The eyes of the serfs on corvée duty went wide.
Crossing my arms, I revealed Saltia's identity.
“Can you all see it? This is what's called a spirit. Hahaha!”
A groundbreaking declaration.
The place grew even more chaotic.
“Whaaat…?”
“That's the, the thing we've only ever heard about….”
“Oh my. Look how strange!”
“Wait, then what? That kid's a spirit summoner?”
“Watch your mouth! If he's a spirit summoner, he's a noble!”
“Right, a knight at the very least. A knight!”
“But he's dressed like a total serf….”
The whole crowd was gripped by astonishment.
But the one most shocked of all was the corrupt official.
“A spirit, all of a sudden. What on earth….”
Quite naturally, when Grandfather had sweet-talked that corrupt official, he hadn't bothered mentioning anything about spirits.
He'd merely asked him to pull some strings, saying his grandson wanted to see the salt mine.
So to the corrupt official, I'd been nothing more than a naive serf brat. Until just a moment ago, that is.
“I didn't know either, but it turns out I'm a spirit summoner.”
Then the corrupt official raised the obvious question.
“Then why didn't you inform the lord's castle of that long ago…. Don't tell me you just made the contract…?”
“Yes. That's how it turned out.”
“Ahh…? I, I see….”
The corrupt official trailed off, his doubt showing.
If I was a spirit summoner, knighthood was as good as a court rank already in my pocket.
My status was about to shoot straight up.
The overseer knew that too, which was why he was using an ambiguous tone with me, neither talking down nor speaking up.
“Ahh… so that's how it… was, sir. Then, how about it? Shall I escort you to the lord's castle?”
He'd been hemming and hawing a moment ago, but suddenly he started speaking to me with honorifics.
A man who'd lived his whole life under feudalism, through and through.
Submissive to the hierarchy.
“Then may I ask that of you?”
“Yes, yes. Of course, sir. It'd be my honor to guide you.”
The corrupt official's face was dyed with greed.
Even if it was just showing the way, bringing a precious asset like a spirit summoner to the lord would surely count as merit.
Then shall I use that greed to grab what I can for myself, too?
What I wanted to get right now was the favorability of that four-tool talent.
“Overseer. Do me one favor.”
“What sort of…?”
I casually swept a glance over the laborers.
Then I fixed my gaze on the brown-haired man and said,
“There were roars coming from the tunnels, so let's call off today's work. For safety, why not start again tomorrow? Just like he said.”
I gestured toward the brown-haired man.
The corrupt official looked displeased for a moment, but then wiped his expression clean and bowed and scraped.
“Oh, my. Of course, sir. That's only the decent, human thing to do.”
With that, the corrupt official announced to the laborers,
“All right! Today! Your overseer must attend to great business for the territory, so everyone is dismissed!”
Cheers rang out among the laborers.
They were getting off work early, so of course they were happy.
As I watched them with satisfaction,
“Thank you, Spirit Knight.”
The brown-haired man bowed his head in greeting.
I bowed my head back to him.
An excess of courtesy, meant to win a talented man's heart.
“I'm not a knight yet. Please call me Lark.”
“Yes, Master Lark. I am Ohemer, from the First Manor.”
Oh my.
Ohemer?
Talk about a sturdy name.
You're mine. I'm capturing you, no matter what.
“The First Manor. Isn't that near the lord's castle? Why don't you come with us?”
“Pardon?”
I stepped right up close to him as he voiced his confusion.
Then I whispered quietly,
“Ah, it's just awkward going alone with that overseer. When no one's watching, he might sell me off somewhere else, you know?”
Of course, the chances of the overseer doing that seemed slim.
Anyone could see he was excited at the thought of racking up merit.
Even so, I said it for two reasons.
One, to form a psychological bond by treating the overseer as a common enemy.
Two, to secure physical time we could spend together.
Is intimacy anything special?
You badmouth a common enemy behind his back like this, spend time together, and it builds up.
“Let us go! Master Lark!”
The corrupt official urged us on.
It seemed he'd foisted the job of leading the laborers onto other officials.
Tugging Ohemer by the collar, I said,
“Can he come with us too? I have something to tell him.”
“…As you wish. You, hurry up and come along too.”
The corrupt official said it in a grudging tone, but thanks to that, Ohemer was excused from putting away the tools.
And so began a very strange party of three.
Even the direction of the conversation was unusual.
The corrupt official chattered at me, and I chattered at Ohemer.
The person each of us wanted to impress was different.
Ohemer, on the other hand,
“…I see.”
kept to curt answers throughout.
Is he a man of few words?
Hm, it suits him.
Even better, actually.
He feels like the genuine article, undiluted.
The distance between the salt mine and the lord's castle was about two hours on foot.
When we'd walked about halfway, a wide-open meadow appeared before us.
The meadow at sunset was dyed in golden light.
“Wow….”
A gasp of admiration slipped out of my mouth.
My chest genuinely felt like it had burst wide open.
- Hey! Lark!
Saltia, who'd been on my shoulder, shouted.
Geez, you scared me.
What's wrong?
- Do you see that bald mountain over there?
Saltia was yelling loudly, but the others didn't react.
Can't those people hear Saltia's voice?
- Tch! Those who are not spirit summoners cannot hear my voice. Do not worry. Just look at that mountain. That way, where the sun is setting now!
Squinting against the glow of sunset, I looked where Saltia was pointing.
Past the meadow, very far away.
A bald mountain stood somewhere around the outskirts of the territory.
- There is a massive salt vein in that mountain. A vein far larger than the one in the mine we were in earlier.
Ooh. Really?
Since it was money-making information, I pricked up my ears.
As far as I knew, there was only one salt mine in the ‘Gias’ territory I currently belonged to.
Which meant that mountain held an undeveloped vein.
Wow. I really got myself a good spirit.
A good one.
- Hmph. Stating the obvious.
But here, one question.
Saltia.
Why were you in that mine earlier, then?
You said the vein in the bald mountain is way bigger.
Wouldn't that ‘rank’ of yours go up faster if you were there?
- That is because I was drawn to the ‘Essence of Salt.’
Ah, so you stayed near this orb.
It was while I was nodding and fiddling with the Essence of Salt in my pants pocket.
“Waaagh!”
The corrupt official seemed to have lost his footing.
With a strange scream, he tumbled down the slope of the field.
“Haha! I'm fine! Don't you worry!”
Nobody was worried, but the corrupt official reported that he was alive and well.
Wait a moment.
I couldn't let this moment slip by. It was a chance to talk with Ohemer alone.
“Mister. Is there anything you like?”
Gifts are the best way to raise favorability.
And the best gift is one the other person needs.
That was my intention in asking, but the answer was unexpected.
“There is nothing I like. But there is something I wish for.”
“Something you wish for?”
Ohemer paused for a moment.
The scent of meadow grass.
A cool breeze swept past us once.
“A safe workplace.”
As Ohemer said it, bitterness showed in his brown eyes.
Could he have lost someone precious in that salt mine?
- That human. He lost his father in the mine.
Ah, right.
You said you'd been watching this man for a long time.
Hm…. So he had a story like that.
That's why he even stood up to the overseer to push for safety….
- That human's father was also a man who knew the earth well. Had the mine been developed as that man said, it would not be as unstable as it is now.
Ohemer's father took part in developing the mine?
- Father and son. Both took part. But in the end, that mine was built according to the will of that imbecile over there.
Saltia pouted his lips and pointed at the corrupt official.
- Because of that one, it is only the poor miners who keep dying. Phew.
Ah….
So to Ohemer, that corrupt official was the enemy of his parents and his colleagues.
No wonder he'd lose it.
“Mister Ohemer.”
With the setting sun at my back, I called to him.
Dyed in the glow of sunset, he turned to look at me.
“When I become a knight and receive a fief, will you build it for me?”
“…Build what?”
“The safe workplace you wanted to build with your father.”
Ohemer's eyes wavered.
They were eyes that hadn't wavered when the overseer flaunted his authority, nor when I revealed I was a spirit summoner.
“How… could you….”
I smiled and answered,
“Because I'm a spirit summoner.”