After that, I continued supporting the reconstruction of Sutrena and also started working on the school’s management as it made progress, so my days were awfully busy. It was difficult, but the time was fulfilling.
Solis also grew rapidly, and he had finally become able to crawl on the floor. He moved very quickly despite being a baby and would escape out of sight if you took your eyes off him for a moment. I always saw the maids chasing him near the nursery. It seemed like he was enjoying playing tag. But it was a huge help that everyone was looking after him for me. With the cooperation of the maids, Mrs. Holly, and her children, they were somehow able to safely watch over Solis.
Right now, Solis was happily playing with Mrs. Holly’s children in the nursery.
“Goo!” Solis energetically swung around a potato plushie then threw it.
“Bwah!” The plushie hit me right in the face then tumbled to the floor. To think he’d throw a tuber. Maybe he takes after me. I had mixed feelings as I watched over my son giggling and playing around innocently.
Solis picked up a sweet potato plushie next and started waving it around, when Lord Nazel came back from work.
“I’m home, Agnes.”
“Welcome back, Lord Nazel.” I got up from watching Solis and walked up to Lord Nazel.
Lord Nazel smiled at me and looked at Solis swinging his plushie around. With perfect timing, Solis let out a cry before throwing the sweet potato plushie into the air.
“He’s just like you,” Lord Nazel told me. It seemed that he’d had the same thought that I did.
Solis was still happily playing; it looked like he enjoyed throwing tubers.
“That reminds me, Agnes. The town’s school was completed today.” It seemed that this was the reason Lord Nazel had come to see me.
“Yes! The only damage the school suffered during the storm was flooding on the first floor entrance, after all. Repairs and cleanup on the flooded areas have finished, so it seems like it will open as planned.”
The long-awaited school in Sutrena had been repaired and was now operational. It was finally going to open. Full-scale lessons would start once the dry season began, and until then it would be on a trial basis. During the trial run, we could deal with any unforeseen problems as they occurred.
The school cafeteria served lunch, and students could eat there quite cheaply. It was also a place for researching new cuisine, and the tuber dishes were of course recommended.
Incidentally, I was the school’s chairwoman! I was a bit anxious since this was my first time managing a school, but I was going to do my best and aim to be like Prince Valen, the chairman of Masroono National School, since he was managing being the chairman while also being a prince.
With the reconstruction efforts getting on track and Lord Nazel having some free time for the first time in a while, we decided to have some tea in the garden together with Solis. Solis was still little, so he couldn’t sit in the terrace chairs, but if we used his stroller, it would be the same as what we usually did. After some thinking, we laid out a blanket in a spot that wasn’t under the rain and spent our time there, making this a picnic right by the manor. Light rain, like fine threads, was falling on the garden this afternoon. Solis looked somehow happy about his first picnic in the garden.
“Goo, gah!” He sounded cheerful as he crawled all over the blanket.
We were currently in a part of the terrace with nothing else around us. We had a roof above us, so we weren’t getting wet despite this being the rainy season.
“Ah, don’t leave the blanket, Solis.”
“Dah!” Solis didn’t sit still for a second. Even now, he was curious about the grass and dirt and went to touch them. There wasn’t anything around us that could injure him, but he would get wet under the rain, so I reached out to bring him back, just in case. “Buh!” Solis protested in his own words and slapped the ground in front of him.
“Uh-oh, his hands got dirty.” I wiped Solis’s hands with a piece of cloth while looking at the muddy ground.
If I reinforce it, will Solis not get covered in mud even if he touches it? Or will the soil improve just like last time? During our trip to Polpystan, I’d once used my magic on soil which had become barren as a result of contamination from the big hoppers’ mana. I’d innocently tried using my magic, telling the soil to get stronger, and all the contaminated parts had vanished completely, being replaced by soft, fluffy soil where plants could grow extremely well. This soil is muddy, so maybe it will become dry. I tried holding my hand over the soil.
“Get stronger!” As I uttered those words, something incredible happened. The muddy soil hardened into a solid form. I did think of the soil becoming dry, but this change is far too different from the one that happened last time.
Solis leaned forward again and cried in joy when he saw the soil in a different state than before. Then, as if to copy me, he started moving his hands over the ground.
“Dah, dah!”
“Oh you, Solis.” I held Solis’s hand to caution him, when I suddenly felt something strange. “Huh? This soil is...fluffy.” The hard soil around Solis had instantly turned soft and fluffy, just like it had in Polpystan. All the soil around the terrace had originally been of a light color and hard, so it wasn’t like it had returned to its original state. Instead, it had turned into soft black soil, like the kind you’d find in a forest.
“Wait, did Solis do this?” I looked at the garden’s transformed soil in disbelief. The ground from where we were sitting to the end of the terrace looked completely different. “Lord Nazel...”
“That was Solis without a doubt. I can’t believe he can use magic before even turning one. Also, maybe the change that happened before in Polpystan...”
“Yes, perhaps it wasn’t my magic but Solis’s power while he was still in my belly. The magic I used just now only made the soil hard.”
Usually, children first started using their magic once they were a little older than this. Even the earliest magic use typically came after turning one year old, and the average age was three. Solis was an exception among exceptions to have used his magic before even being born.
“This must be the soil manipulation Emilio mentioned. It’s incredible that it can even purify the soil, but I’m a little worried,” I said.
“It’s apparently like my magic but for earth instead of plants. The ability to completely change the soil’s properties is nothing but incredible. This could also be similar to the saint’s magic. However, Solis is still not even a year old. His soil manipulation isn’t necessarily limited to purifying the soil and improving its quality, so until we understand everything about it, it might be better not to carelessly bring him close to the field.”
“If the field’s soil changed in a weird way, the crops might become unable to grow in it.”
“Yes... It would be an issue if the soil turned into sand, rock, or clay.” Lord Nazel was exactly right. “When I was a kid, I once filled the garden of our ducal estate with mushrooms. I was little so I don’t remember what happened back then, but there was apparently an uproar.”
“How wonderful. I’d love for us to grow mushrooms in our garden too. They should thrive in the rainy season.”
“Oh, sure. Wonderful? But if you say so, then let’s make some space for cultivating mushrooms in our garden.” Lord Nazel was always soft on me, and it seemed that plans for mushroom cultivation were steadily progressing in his mind.
For now, we decided to let Solis play in the garden in areas other than near the field.
I continued enjoying my time with Lord Nazel and Solis, until I heard Torre and Liliane from the direction of the manor’s rear entrance. We could clearly hear their voices even mixed with the rain, and Lord Nazel and I looked at each other.