Work went off without a hitch until lunch. When we had all gathered in the dining hall, Eleonora joined us. “I am terribly sorry for my behavior last night. Not only did I ramble off incessantly, I dozed off and had to be led to bed...”
“You didn’t do anything wrong!”
“We’ve all been there. Don’t worry about it, much less apologize for it.”
“You were a very tame drunk, if anything.”
“We barely noticed that you were drunk at all.”
“That doesn’t even count as being drunk. I’ve seen a bunch of adventurers knock back one too many and end up singing and dancing naked, or even start brawls.”
“Don’t say it like every adventurer goes off the rails at the bar!” Miya said, and turned to Eleonora. “Well, Jeff’s story is extreme, but you’re definitely not the worst drunk in the world.”
“Thank you. That makes me feel somewhat better...” Eleonora said, finally relaxing a little.
“How are you feeling? You still don’t look fully recovered,” I ventured.
“Much better, on account of my sleeping through the morning. And the soup helped settle my stomach a lot.”
“That’s great. Do you feel like you can eat anything for lunch?” I asked.
“Well... I think I will stick to bread and soup for now,” Eleonora said.
“Coming right up,” I said, and prepared a hearty lunch for the party and a light soup and some bread for Eleonora.
While we ate, we debriefed each other on the progress we had made that morning, in part so we could bring Eleonora up to speed.
“So you’ve made good progress with the firebreaks,” I summarized.
“Hudom used his magic to make the trees grow whenever he had the time, which made our jobs easier,” Cilia said.
“You dug us those ditches, Chief, so all we had to do was plant the trees and cover them with dirt. Thanks to the scavenger slime fertilizer, we could easily propagate them from the branches we’d collected. Still, we don’t have enough to line the entire path, and I still have to use magic little by little on the saplings we planted to make them full-sized. It’s going to take some time until the groves will function as firebreaks,” Hudom said.
“No problem. I’m not in a hurry to finish the firebreaks. We’ve made good headway clearing the trees from the path. By the time we leave, carriages will be able to use the mountain route. Starting with our next visit, I can start using my magic on the firebreaks. We can take our time.”
There were plenty of other projects I could do around the mountain: paving or improving the drainage of the path, turning the lumberyard into farms, setting up a waterwheel along the creek... My to-do list seemed to grow every time I started a project, but the whole point of maintaining the mountain was to show that I was taking care of it. I had no intention of leaving these projects half finished, but I also didn’t need to perfect the mountain immediately.
“Do you think our work so far has at least contributed to demonstrating our intentions to take care of the mountain?” I asked Eleonora.
“More than proficiently. No one could doubt our intentions or ability to maintain this place after seeing the work we’ve completed. If anyone does, I will deal with them.”
“Wonderful. I will call on you if it ever comes to that,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
Soon, our relaxing lunch and teatime came to an end.
“Master Takebayashi, allow me to clear the table,” Eleonora said.
“No need. I’m just going to ask a cleaner slime to wash the dishes. I’d like you to rest up some more,” I said. Wilieris had mentioned that Eleonora had too much time on her hands, but I wasn’t going to push more work on her when she still needed to recover physically. “I will be giving you work as my secretary. Once we get back to the city, there will be a lot more of it...mostly because I’ll come up with projects I want to take on and leave you to figure out the details. It’s going to be enough of a pain working for me as it is. At the very least, you should rest when you need to.”
“Understood,” Eleonora said, rather reluctantly.
Even as we spoke, the cleaner slime had finished washing the dishes. “Now that that’s done, I’ll—”
“Pervert!” Miya yelped, bursting through the door.
“What’s going on?” I asked. What did she mean by “pervert”?
“Intruder! Probably a noble!”
Miya’s answer was succinct, but it didn’t explain why a noble had any business entering the mountain. I glanced at Eleonora, Sebas, and Rosenberg—who’d stayed behind in the dining room—but none of them seemed to know who this was. “Can you start at the beginning?” I asked.
“We were planting the firebreaks down the path. About halfway down the mountain, a guy was sprawled on the ground like he’d collapsed there. He’s conscious, but hasn’t been able to talk. I thought he was a noble because of his dress,” Miya explained. They’d decided that the trespasser was to be dealt with delicately because of his presumed status. Hudom was taking charge of assessing him while the other adventurers stood watch. Miya had come to notify me and bring other members of our group more experienced with speaking to nobles.
“A noble was on the side of our mountain road? Alone?” I repeated.
“That is suspicious. There have not been any reports of bandits or other dangers in the area. It is difficult to imagine how a noble would end up collapsed and unaccompanied, not to mention how he crossed the roped-off boundary,” Eleonora said.
“We went around this morning and confirmed that the ropes are still effective. Of course, the boundary does not go around the entire mountain yet, leaving a side of the mountain open. However, we made sure to rope off the path-side first,” Sebas said.
“Even if he followed the rope until he found the path, I fail to imagine what business he had to enter the mountain in the first place,” Rosenberg supplied.
“We have no idea either, but we need backup!” Miya urged.
“Yes. We’ll figure out more when we see this person,” I said.
Praying that we weren’t getting roped into a messy situation, we hurried to meet the rest of our group.