As we were soaring through the sky, Geni suddenly changed direction. I was surprised since he’d never done anything like this before.
“What’s wrong, Geni?”
He replied with a shrill noise as he looked at the mountbeast stable right below us in the center of town.
“Are you worried about that stable?”
He replied with a similar noise.
“Torre, we’re making a small detour.”
I landed in front of the stable with Geni. I’d reinforced this building with my magic, so it hadn’t collapsed. But the floor was a bit flooded... The water reached up to my ankles. At that moment, I came across the elderly mountbeast caretaker and Connie carrying out some equipment that had been soaked in water; they were surprised to see me.
“Lady Agnes? Why are you here?” Connie asked.
“Geni’s worried about this place. I was also concerned, so I decided to stop by. You’ve got quite a mess on your hands, don’t you?”
Connie made a sullen expression.
“This place is still on the better side. The water level is even higher at the residences farther down the hill. Fortunately, there were no injured people or weakened mountbeasts... Wait, Geni?!”
Hearing Connie’s scream, I looked at Geni, and he was trying to enter the stable of his own accord.
“Hey, Geni? Could it be...” Was he worried about his parents? Both his father and mother lived in this stable.
As Connie went to stop Geni, my wyvern’s parents came out of the stable. They both looked like they could move with no problems. Lord Davier’s wyvern also came out from farther in the back. The wyverns brought their big faces together and checked each other to see if they were all right. Four wyverns all in one place made for a stunning sight.
Geni sounded relieved as he moved away from the stable and moved to the open area within the stable grounds that we were in. The other wyverns also went outside and started moving around as they liked.
Lord Davier’s wyvern made a noise as she spread her purple wings. Then, Geni approached her and they started moving their wings together.
“Those two are really close. That’s a wyvern pose showing deep affection,” Connie said as he watched them.
Geni’s parents were also pleasantly looking at the two other wyverns.
I see, his parents officially recognize their relationship.
Torre and I left Geni here for now and decided to walk to the fortress since it was nearby. We left the mountbeast stable, crossed the town’s public square, and reached the fortress where Lord Nazel was.
“Lord Nazel!”
“Oh, Agnes.” He was just coming outside and ran up to me when he saw me. “You’ll get cold if you walk in this rain. You aren’t like Torre and me, who are robust from our time in the knights.”
“I’ll be fine, it’s just a drizzle. I’m also wearing a raincoat.”
“No. For now, go inside.” Lord Nazel said all that, yet he was also getting wet; he was so overprotective.
Torre got surrounded by fortress staff who asked him to remove a fallen tree. He sure was popular.
“Help everyone with your magic, Torre. I’ll look after Agnes,” Lord Nazel said.
“Understood!” Torre rushed out to town along with the fortress staff.
“You come this way, Agnes. See, your body really is cold.” With my raincoat now off, Lord Nazel took me to his office in the fortress. Many people were absent, so there was no one else in the room. Lord Nazel had me sit down on a sofa. “Wait a moment. There’s a room with a kitchen nearby, so I’ll make you some hot tea.”
“Then I’ll go make the tea.”
“I can at least make some tea. You just sit here and I’ll also bring you a towel.” Lord Nazel didn’t give me a chance to reply and left me on the sofa as he went out. He quickly returned carrying a tray with tea and a towel. He put the tray down on the table and started carefully wiping me down where I was wet, like my hair and sleeves.
“U-Um, I can dry myself.”
“It’s fine.” Lord Nazel embraced me closely to restrain me, then started diligently taking care of me. He seemed to be in a good mood.
“What about your work, Lord Nazel?”
“I’ve finished my part for now and I’m waiting for a report. I’ll need to go outside again, so let me replenish my Agnes reserves while I can.”
What exactly were “Agnes reserves”? I wondered what he meant, but I also felt like I shouldn’t probe too deeply into it.
In the meantime, Lord Nazel finished wiping me down, gave me a kiss on the brow, and stood up to get me a cup of fragrant milk tea.
“Th-Thank you very much.”
Lord Nazel smiled in satisfaction.
While I did like Sutrena’s black tea, I was also fond of milk tea. In Desnim, it was generally said that the tea leaves used for milk tea were of inferior quality that couldn’t be used for plain tea. In other words, it meant that those leaves were of such poor quality that they couldn’t be drunk as they were, so it was necessary to cover their taste using milk.
When we’d first moved to Sutrena, we couldn’t afford any luxuries, so I’d often drunk milk tea. However, that hadn’t bothered Lord Nazel and me much, and we’d concluded that milk tea was also delicious, so we still enjoyed it from time to time. Of course, nowadays, all kinds of black tea were available in Sutrena, so they didn’t use tea leaves of inferior quality at the fortress.
I took a sip of the black tea, and the pleasant aroma filled my nose, while the mellow milk spread through my mouth. Perhaps there was also honey in it, because it had just the right amount of sweetness.
“It’s so sweet and tasty.” My body also warmed up. I hadn’t realized it until then, but it turned out I had been cold, just like Lord Nazel said.
“What a great job perk. Just seeing that look on your face made coming to work worth it.” Lord Nazel still did his job properly despite saying things like that.
After finishing my tea, I spoke with Lord Nazel, who was smiling gently.
“I came to help you. I thought my absolute reinforcement would be useful in the rebuilding efforts.”
“Thank you, Agnes. Your turn will come once things out there calm down a little more. We have problems with flooding everywhere at the moment... Oh, looks like the rain stopped.” Lord Nazel raised his head and looked outside through the office window. The earlier drizzle had completely stopped now.
“If it stays sunny like this, will the water drain?”
“Most likely... Perhaps thanks to the storm, there was almost no manabeast damage, which is a lifesaver.”
This had been the first storm of such severity in Lord Nazel’s time in Sutrena, but there had been similar ones several times in the past too. Moreover, the damage back then had been incomparably more severe than now. Lord Nazel had also taken flood control measures, so the consequences this time had only reached this extent. So far, we hadn’t received any reports of injured or dead people.
“We plan to leave our manor and the other shelters open. There are people whose homes were damaged, so we are planning on having them gradually move from the shelters to plant residences until reconstruction is complete,” Lord Nazel explained.
It seemed that there was an opportunity for the plant residences to come into play. Since Lord Nazel first came up with them, they’d been improved in various ways, and some were now of the opinion that they were more comfortable than regular houses.
“Having a place to live is indispensable, after all,” I said.
“Once we have the necessary budget and manpower, we need to take more measures against upcoming storms.”
“Manpower... Manpower, huh?”
“Yes, manpower...”
It seemed that this was where we always ended up. Sutrena’s labor shortage was a serious problem. I could only pray that the storm hadn’t damaged the places that we were planning on using for school classrooms.
Some time later, one of Lord Nazel’s subordinates came and gave a report on the damage suffered by fields, cattle, mountbeasts, and the like. When I heard that, I turned to Lord Nazel.
“Come to think of it, the mountbeast stable in the town center was also flooded. If it’s also okay with them, could we temporarily shelter the mountbeasts in our garden? Geni was worried about his fellow wyverns.”
“Good idea. If a plant residence mountbeast stable is okay with them, I believe we can quickly arrange a place with a roof for them.”
It felt like our garden would get full of wyverns and pegasi, but the mountbeasts’ health was an important issue. It wasn’t good for them to keep staying in a damp place.
“In areas where the water won’t drain, I think I’ll deal with the problem by growing plants that have high water absorption through their roots. We’ll also enlist the help of people with magic suitable for drainage.” It seemed that Lord Nazel’s magic could also be used for absorbing water. How convenient.
“Then if you find any places in need of reinforcement, please leave them to me!”
“Thank you, Agnes.” Lord Nazel grinned as he gave me a kiss on the cheek, then again, and again, and again...
“Ah, h-hey, Lord Nazel, um...” I could see one of his subordinates outside the door, unsure whether he should come in. “Um, well, er...”
“Yes, yes, you’re so cute, Agnes.” Fortunately Lord Nazel was sober, and he also noticed his subordinate standing outside. “Looks like I need to get going soon. Come with me.”
“O-Okay...”
Lord Nazel led me by the hand and took me outside the fortress.
Urk, this is so embarrassing.
And so, I went around town looking all flushed, following Lord Nazel as he took the initiative in aiding with the town’s reconstruction, and using my magic to reinforce anything that needed it. Thanks to his plants, the water left all over town was quickly drained, and I was also able to help.
Torre was also a major help with tasks like clearing debris. Since he could only stay gigantified for three minutes at a time, it seemed that he was taking breaks while using his magic time after time. When he’d first come to Sutrena, he could only use his gigantification up to three times per day, but it seemed that he’d also grown; he’d already transformed for the fifth time. Was this the result of his daily muscle training?
Paul, who could move in the air, was apparently useful in detailed reconnaissance while working together with his partner Pidgy. His coworker Ryuk was also helping out by using his magic to move obstacles out of the way.
“It seems that we’ll be busy again for a while.” Lord Nazel had a forced smile as he looked up at the sky.
As we continued working, the weather became clear before we knew it, making the large storm feel like it had been just a dream.