As Shan Li was still looking after her beloved daughter and couldn’t leave her house, starting the day after they’d picked the herbs, a stand-in for her began to visit the cabin. At midday the stand-in brought courteous letters, as well as extravagant catering.
The package included steamed rice wrapped in large leaves, gently boiled whole-chicken soup, among other things. They had all the food they could want. This is great. Another quality-of-life bump!!
Apparently Shan Li, the skilled merchant from the Continent, had sworn on her reputation to prepare it all for them... But I think it might be a bit much for the two of us. And by might, I mean definitely.
When they left Shan Li’s house, she had tried to give them quite a large sum of money as thanks, but Fuuka stubbornly refused, saying, “As a lady of the Hamilton family, I can’t accept this.” That was the cause of this onslaught of food.
“Ugh, I can’t eat any more!”
“Neither can I...”
“Hey, Fuuka-chan, do you think we should share this?”
“Share it? What do you mean?” Fuuka tilted her head. The villainess had no knowledge of the concept of sharing food.
Well, I should have guessed that.
“We take what we can’t eat, and share it with other people.”
“Hmm, that does make sense.”
“We can give people soup to eat here, and if they’re not hungry we can give them the steamed rice to take home.”
“Well, if this morning is anything to go by, there will be quite a few people coming in the afternoon too...”
“Seems like it... I didn’t think things would turn out like this.”
Miyako looked off into the distance.
“I’m finding that being of help to others can be quite the kettle of fish.”
“I know, Fuuka-chan. But...”
“What is it, Miyako?”
Miyako cupped her cheeks as they gave way to a smile.
“But you look so happy!”
✦ ✦ ✦
I’m gonna live the slow life in the countryside with my beloved Fuuka-chan!... At least, that’s what Miyako had planned. But since coming here, events were beginning to run a different course.
Specifically—
“Miyako-sama, Fuuka-sama, could I have some medicine?”
“I’m the man you gave some herbal medicines to yesterday. My son’s gotten right over his cough!”
“So you two are the famous saints I’m hearing so much about!!”
—like that.
In no time at all, the village was teeming with rumors of the tragic case of miasmal autointoxication that befell the local celebrity Shan Li’s beloved daughter, and the two young ladies from the capital who sorted it out in a single night. Those rumors then spilled over to other nearby towns and villages.
Over the last few days, people had swarmed to the cabin asking for medicines.
“Fortunately, there’s plenty of moonlight grass left,” said Fuuka, as she busied herself listening to descriptions of symptoms in silence and mixing herbs.
They refused all payments, asking only that no one tell anyone else the two of them were there.
“Nyahaha, medicines I’ve cast Protect on would nyormally be kept as nyational treasures, if I’m being honest.”
“My my, Umi. Thank you very much.”
“If you give me a good rub as thanks, I’ll say we’re even.”
“Oh, all right. Anyone would think you were a cat.”
Miyako gave Umi’s back a nice petting, remembering when she used to do it with the cats at the cat café. Umi’s fur trembled delightedly.
“Nyahaha, there, right there! More!”
“Uhh... Umi?”
“A-Ahem.”
She was a cat. A fluffy, Persian cat. But hearing those delighted moans in a high-pitched girly voice is too much; it’s just too much for me, you little water spirit!
✦ ✦ ✦
“Thank you, my saints!”
“I’ve told you before, we’re not saints!”
That exchange heralded the last of the patients leaving around mid-afternoon. The cabin was a several-hour-long wagon ride from the neighboring villages, so they must all have left first thing in the morning to get there. It would be the dead of night by the time they made it home.
From what they couldn’t finish from Shan Li’s extravagant catering, Miyako and Fuuka took the steamed rice wrapped in leaves and gave it to the patients to take home with them.
“Sharing turned out to be a great success! Although it’s more like a bento!”
“Bento?”
Fuuka cocked her head, puzzled.
Whoa, so cute!! Miyako just managed to keep her expression normal.
“A bento is food you take with you when you go out.”
“So it’s like catering?”
“Not really.”
It’s times like these that you can tell she’s a rich girl, thought Miyako. The natural-born rich girl a.k.a. my beloved villainess, Fuuka.
“Oh, I know, let’s go for a picnic together sometime soon.”
“A picnic... In whose honor?”
“In nobody’s honor; a picnic for just the two of us!”
In Fuuka’s experience, picnics were merely an extension of the high society enjoyed by nobles. To the organizing family, they were worry-filled events requiring months of desperate preparation to ensure nothing tarnished their good name. To the participants, picnics were golden opportunities to unfurl political ploys and lay the groundwork for strategic marriages. So picnics naturally entailed luxurious catering prepared by their chefs, and the aim was a banquet.
“Just for us...”
“Right. We’ll have a great time, Fuuka-chan!” said Miyako in a sing-song voice as she warmed up the chicken soup. Where should we go for the picnic? I’m pretty sure there’s a well-known field of flowers near us. What should we put in our bento? Sandwiches are the standard. I used to make a mean egg sandwich. I haven’t made any in a while though. I’ve been too busy to cook. There are six days left until the time limit is up. I wonder, will Fuuka tell me she’s happy?
“...Even if you don’t.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s nothing.”
Fuuka smiled.
Yeah. Even if she doesn’t say “I’m happy,” and this lifestyle comes to an end, as long as she looks back on these days as happy times, I think I might not mind. I do want to be by her side always. But even if I can’t, as long as she’s happy—
“You’re weird, Miyako.”
Fuuka let out a little laugh. I really do love her smile, thought Miyako.
Just then.
“Heeey! Is anyone here?”
“Huh, who’s that?!”
A voice rang out from outside the cabin. They could hear a horse neighing. Someone had arrived on a wagon. There was something that set this visitor apart from the others.
Umi’s ears pricked up, and she darted upright from the windowsill where she had been curled up. Miyako rushed to the door and threw it open.
She saw the figure standing there—and screamed.
“O-Odina??!!”
“Oh, so you were here after all, Miyako!!”
“Ah, isn’t that the wagon somebody stole the other day?!” said Fuuka.
Standing there was a lone man, who gallantly descended from the wagon that had vanished from the nighttime mountain path.
“You know him, Miyako?”
“Indeed, I am the eldest son of the Florence family, and Miyako’s older brother... Odina Florence.”
Odina was covered in mud and wearing an expression of utter fatigue. His eyes, drooping over pitch-black bags, began to narrow. That expression harbored the grief of an already exhausted man sent on another ridiculous errand by his master.
And then.
“By order of Klaus Reinhardt-sama, I have come to bring my sis... ter...”
He slumped, and hit the ground with a loud bang.
“Odinaaa!!”
Barely ten seconds after his arrival, Odina Florence collapsed from overwork.