Despite the order to rest, Saybil wasn’t actually all that tired─though he did have to admit he was mentally drained, at least. Being crammed into that wizard carriage filled with the stench of piss and shit had been the most unpleasant thing imaginable, and the motion sickness had been hard to take. The trip had also given him direct experience of exactly how the Nurabehn who tried to escape to the free district would be treated by the rulers of the New World, and an unsettling feeling was rising inside him. Saybil wondered if it was anger.
Still enveloped in the lingering warmth of the bath, he went upstairs to the second floor of the mansion. The first floor had very much the feel of a public institution, but the upper floor was largely given over to the delegation’s personal quarters. In addition to the bedrooms, there was a meeting room, a cafeteria─and a kitchen. Mercenary was holed up there as usual, the kitchen being more or less where he lived.
At Mercenary’s request, Zero had arranged it such that his room directly adjoined the kitchen and the pantry. Since food was brought in from outside, the pantry was actually on the first floor, but there was a staircase inside it leading up to the second, with two doors at the top─one to the kitchen, and the other to Mercenary’s room. It was set up so that someone walking into the cafeteria could ring a little bell in the window that opened into the kitchen, which would bring Mercenary lumbering out of his room.
Come to think of it, I am pretty hungry, Saybil thought. Dinner wasn’t exactly on the agenda last night, and we got to the harvesting facility in the morning… Then we came back here to the free district and I took that bath, and now it must be almost time for lunch.
Saybil hurriedly made his way to the cafeteria. The icy floors and walls of the place had been smooth and austere at first, but with the gradual addition of reliefs and sculptures, the whole place had begun to take on a grand and impressive air. Along with Zero’s playful ice frescos, Lily and her mice had carved a magnificent statue of the goddess. She explained that “if there isn’t anything Father can recognize by touch, he’ll get lost,” but the statue ended up being useful to the building’s other residents and visiting citizens of the free district as well.
A sign emblazoned with a knife and fork hung outside the cafeteria. In light of the danger of poisoning, the room was only open to members of the delegation. The moment he stepped into the room, Saybil stopped, sensing a strange atmosphere. Los and Mercenary were sitting at a table and staring up at the ceiling with their arms crossed.
“…Uh, hey.”
At the sound of his voice, Los turned and let out a cheerful “Oh! Thou hast returned, young Sayb!”
“Is something wrong?”
“Scurvy,” Mercenary replied brusquely.
“Scurvy?” Saybil blinked at him. “Umm… That’s what you get when you aren’t eating enough fruits and vegetables, right?”
“’Tis indeed. Most of the Nurabehn who have made the journey to the free district were hardly at the peak of health to begin with, and we are presently unable to grow produce of any kind.”
“Well, we are living on the ocean.”
The free district had no soil, and with no soil, the earth’s bounty was out of reach.
“For sailors, scurvy is an unavoidable issue. It can be staved off through the consumption of fruits and vegetables, but such items spoil quickly and so are ill suited to seafaring. ’Tis common practice to make up some of the lack with strong drink made from fruit…but our free district is at present an isolated and helpless city ’pon the waves. We can hardly put in to some nearby port to secure provisions of fruit or alcohol.”
“Hence the scurvy,” finished Saybil, connecting the dots.
“An’ that’s what’s got Kudo bustlin’ around all day treatin’ people,” Mercenary added.
“Ah… Explains why he was in such a rush.” Saybil recalled how Kudo had been off again almost the moment he’d appeared. “But treating the symptoms with magic won’t exactly fix the root of the problem, will it?”
Forgetting his rumbling stomach, Saybil sat down beside Los and Mercenary at the table. On it was a list of the free district’s residents and another of its food supplies. The distribution of food was a key concern for the free district─to say nothing of the fact that a hundred new mouths had just arrived.
“All magic can fix is the state of the body, nothing more,” said Los.
“Y’know, I really don’t get how that works.” Mercenary stroked his chin. “Suppose someone was about to starve to death… Could magic heal them?”
“It could indeed. And thus will skilled witches never die for want of sustenance. By consuming food each day, all living beings refresh and recreate their bodies. They discard the old and replace it with the new. But when one is starving, one loses that ability for new creation.”
“So you mean witches are always healing themselves?”
“Exposed to the air, one’s skin will eventually wear away. Living beings are thus equipped with the ability to create their skin anew. But to halt all such bodily functions in antipathy to the aging process, and constantly heal one’s crumbling body instead─well, thou art presently engaged in something like that, art not, young Sayb?”
“Huh? Me?” Saybil blinked in surprise. “I wonder… I mean, I have stopped myself from growing older, but I haven’t been aware of constantly healing myself or anything…”
“Your body’s already dead, ain’t it, old hag?” Mercenary looked over at Los.
“Nothing of the sort. Here, mine heart.” Los guided Mercenary’s hand to her chest.
“Hn!” Even as this cry escaped Saybil’s lips, another voice came from behind.
“─Hn?”
He turned to see Zero standing there, expressionless, wearing the blank face of death.
“Wh… This isn’t─! This isn’t what it looks like, witch!” Mercenary howled. “It’s the old hag’s fault, she did it! It wasn’t me!”
Zero glided toward him as if she didn’t hear a word he was saying, and firmly grasped the beastfallen’s flailing hand.
“Touch.”
“…Huh?”
“Touch me.”
“B-But… Th… W-We’ve got company…”
“Oho… So you refuse? Was the act you were engaged in with Dawn so improper, then? And in front of my nephew, no less?”
“Th-That’s not it at all…!”
“Yes, touch her!” cried Los. “Don’t hold back!”
“Shut up you old hag this is all your fault to begin with!”
Zero raged, Mercenary cowered, and Los cheered─a farcical scene for three adults long past the first flush of youth.
“Dawn, Mercenary could tell from the sound alone whether or not your heart is beating. There was no need to have him touch you.”
“Thou art ever the jealous one! ’Twas but a light caress, and through my clothing.”
“I’d like to touch your heart, too, Professor Los.”
“Change of subject, Mud-Black.”
Saybil had been expecting a “rejoice in my pardon,” but instead Los lightly slapped his hand away, prompting a laugh from the glowering Zero.
“Our pleasant little chat hath given me an idea… Could we not simply do for all the residents of this free district what we witches do for ourselves?”
“Meaning?”
“Constant healing, for so long as they remain in this place. Apply to the entire city that which all witches do to prevent the detested aging process. All who come here injured, starving, dying of thirst, will thus begin their recovery the moment they arrive.”
“But that would require…an extraordinary amount of mana. Even with the young man’s assistance, it would not be tenable forever.”
“Then why not limit the scope?” suggested Los. “An automatic restorative effect for so long as they remain in the clinic─or if not restorative, enough to prevent death, if nothing else? Take our present problem of scurvy, for instance: we should at least be capable of preventing the situation from becoming worse until we can secure a steady supply of fruits and vegetables.”
“You’re suggesting that we store people there?”
“Quite so. That we keep them ‘on ice,’ as it were.” Los’s eyes glittered. Perfectly suited to this city, no?
“Hmm…” Zero pondered Los’s proposal for a few long moments. “Right then, let’s do it!” And with that, she hurried from the room.
“Professor Zero’s always so busy…”
“What the heck was she doin’ here, anyway…?”
Come to think of it, she did just appear out of nowhere then rush off to put Los’s plan into action… But she must’ve had a reason to come to the cafeteria in the first place.
“Oh, right. I’m here because I’m hungry,” Saybil recalled.
“Makes sense after a job like that. Wait here a sec, I’ll whip somethin’ up for you.”
“But you were in the middle of talking through the scurvy problem, right? Even if Professor Zero rejiggers the clinic, that won’t solve the underlying issue…”
“So long as we can blunt the immediate problem, ’twill simply be a matter of time. In any case, we have need of merchants. We have earned ourselves some measure of currency, yet coins and notes are but lumps of metal and scraps of paper without a way to spend them.”