Morning broke two days later. Two visitors arrived at the Golding Merchant House just as it was opening for business.
“Good mor— Oh, you’re the inventor from the other day! And...a maid?” The shop assistant looked surprised to see Astrid and Nina. For one thing, if they were here about Astrid’s job, they would have come to the back door.
“Is the manager around?” Astrid asked.
“Y-Yes, just a moment.” There was a hint of recognition in the shop assistant’s eyes as she looked at Nina, but she immediately hurried out the back to get Clare.
“Do you think we should have waited a little bit more?” Nina said anxiously.
“I doubt it’d make much of a difference. Besides, we’re not planning on staying in town much longer.”
“I suppose so...”
“The way I see it, the sooner you get what you want to say to Clare off your chest, the better.”
Just then, Clare emerged. “Oh, Astrid... You came to see me?”
Astrid’s jaw dropped. Clare was haggard, with dark bags under her eyes. Clearly, she had not slept. Astrid had thought that surely she’d be all right after a day, but Clare looked as far from all right as it was possible to be.
“I’m fine,” Clare mumbled. “I’m not as much of a wreck as I look. Hey, bring us some tea, would you?”
“Yes, ma’am!” The shop assistant disappeared into the back room. Clare staggered over to a stool and sank down into it.
“‘Fine’ is the last thing I’d call you,” Astrid said.
“Well, business doesn’t wait. What can you do? Besides, right now...it’s easier if I keep busy.”
Astrid regarded her.
Clare had cut ties with Kett. Logically, she should have been relieved to be rid of the man who’d wronged and deceived her. But people’s hearts weren’t so simple.
“Anyway,” Clare went on. “You didn’t just come here to see me mope, did you? I haven’t retracted that failed job report yet, but you’ve got my word that I’ll do it.”
“Actually, it’s Nina here who wanted to talk to you.”
“Nina? Wait... You’re...!” In an instant, Clare made the connection between Nina and the maid who had come to see her three days earlier. Nina had been at the meeting at the Vick Merchant House, but apparently, she hadn’t noticed then. Of course, she’d had more pressing concerns.
“You’re a friend of Astrid’s?!”
“Well, strictly speaking, we’re in the same party.”
“I... I see. I’m sorry for kicking you out the other day. I was convinced you were an agent from one of the other merchant houses.”
“I’m sorry too. I had no idea you were so beset by enemies.”
“No, you shouldn’t apologize! It’s all on me—I got the wrong idea. I really am very sorry.” Clare placed her hands on the counter and bowed deeply.
“You really needn’t apologize.”
“No, this is the least I can do to make things right.”
“But really...”
“No, no.”
Unable to take any more of this, Astrid cut in.
“Okay, okay. Clare, we accept your apology. Nina forgives you. End of discussion.”
“You’re sure...?”
“Of course.” Nina beamed at her, and Clare smiled back.
“I can’t believe I treated a nice girl like you the way I did...”
“Not like how you were with me,” Astrid cut in. “You get why you treated us differently, don’t you?”
Clare gave a meek nod.
“That’s the important thing. Now, Nina has some things to say to you.”
At Astrid’s prompting, Nina began to tell Clare all about Tien and thank her for supplying meat to the mining town. Astrid spared Clare a glance.
She’ll be all right.
When Nina had first met Clare and the Rondats’ deputy manager, the first thing in their minds was to question her about her employer. Astrid, meanwhile, had won Clare’s trust at once. All she had to do was show Clare her inventors’ society commission and her registration with the Royal Freja Inventors’ Society. In other words, her title and credentials.
These were, of course, tremendously important, inasmuch as they established one’s identity and ability. But since setting off on this journey with Nina, Astrid had realized there was something more important: the person themselves.
What good was an impressive title if it was bestowed on a bad person? As far as Astrid was concerned, Nina was far more worthy of Clare’s trust than she was, and that was no easy feat, especially for someone as fearful and suspicious as Clare had been.
“—and so Tien and I are both truly grateful. You’re doing wonderful work here at the Golding Merchant House!” Nina finished.
Clare looked uncomfortable. “That was all my dad... I just inherited it.”
“You’re too modest. I think it’s very admirable of you to take over his business and carry it on.”
“Don’t say that. If I had any knack for business, I wouldn’t be sitting here agonizing over how our sales keep dropping.”
“Ma’am, you work very hard!” the shop assistant cut in, bustling in from the back with a steaming kettle and a tea set. “I’ll leave these here for you.”
“Tidy up out back, would you?” Clare told her.
“Yes, ma’am!”
Clare watched her go, then turned back—only to find Nina was already making tea.
“H-Hey! You’re my guest! You can’t do that!”
“I am your guest, it’s true, but I’m also a maid.”
“Huh? No, but... Huh?” Clare, bamboozled by Nina’s peculiar logic, looked pleadingly at Astrid. “She can’t do that, right?”
“Oh, just leave her to it. She says she wants to. Plus, Nina makes amazing tea.”
“Huh...? But this is just the same old tea I always— Holy moly, that is good.” Clare’s eyes went wide as she took a sip.
“Tea leaves do matter, but how you brew them is just as important,” Nina said.
“Wow... I never imagined it could make this much of a difference. You really know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, any maid could do the same,” Nina said breezily, but her tone turned serious as she went on. “If you’ll excuse my boldness, Clare, I have a proposal for you. I actually had two reasons for coming to see you today. The first was to thank you, and this proposal was the second.”
“No thanks are needed. It’s all just business after all. But tell me about this proposal.”
“It’s a method for transporting meat.”
“What sort of method?” Clare looked perplexed—as well she might after hearing those words come out of a maid’s mouth.
“Other food supplied to Izumi Mine is preserved with purple bell lotus pollen, but at the Golding Merchant House, you don’t use it.”
“Y-Yeah... Purple bell lotus has a very faint smell that the chef there hates, so we made special provisions. That was how you were able to help your friend, right?”
“Right. But are you aware of the difficulties that creates?”
“Of course I am. More of the goods spoil. But that can’t be helped.” Not using preservatives meant that the outer parts of the meat had to be cut off and thrown away. As a result, preservative-free meat fetched a high price.
“But it’s such a waste!” Nina exclaimed, leaning forward. “To throw away all that meat that the farmers worked so hard to produce!”
“W-Well, yeah, but unless I use preservatives, what am I supposed to do?”
“Would you consider other preservation methods?”
“Huh?”
“What about chilling your products? That’s my proposal.”
“Oh, I see what you’re getting at.” Clare nodded as comprehension dawned. “But I’m afraid that won’t work.”
“Why is that?”
“Magic chill boxes do exist, but even empty, they’re too heavy for an ordinary coach, so they just raise transport costs. On top of that, the items themselves are expensive.”
“What if we could get around those problems?”
“Well, in that case— Wait, what?! Do you have a solution?!”
Nina glanced at Astrid, who said, “We do.”
She unfurled the design blueprints she was carrying.
“What is this?” Clare asked.
“The chill box is designed to be left on board, so you don’t need to worry about the weight,” said Astrid. “Well, unless a person needs to lift it.”
“H-Hold on. What’s this? It says ‘wetland frog skin’ here... Does this use monster parts?!”
“Wetland frog skins are airtight and excellent insulators. And most importantly, they’re light and cheap.”
“I’ve heard of them before, but the reason they’re cheap is because they tear so easily. It’s not practical.”
“My top priority with this design was to keep the weight down,” Astrid explained.
“I’m sure it’s light, but what about this power output? That’ll only keep half the chill box cool!”
Clare—as expected of someone who dealt in the development of magic items—easily honed in on the key points of the design.
“When I first came up with the idea, I dismissed it too,” Astrid agreed. “But Nina had a different point of view.”
“A maid...?” Clare looked incredulously at Nina.
“Well, erm...” Nina was flustered by all the attention. “First of all, let’s consider that long-term preservation isn’t the aim here. They have their own chill boxes in Izumi Mine, so you only have to keep the meat cool until it gets there.”
“But this device can’t...”
“If the farmers had their own chill box, they could chill the meat before transport. Ideally, they’d have an ice house so they could put ice in with the meat. Once it’s wrapped in wetland frog skin, it won’t leak.”
“Oh...” Clare’s mouth fell open. Lots of people used ice to keep products cool, but no one had thought to combine it with a magic chill box. This new design assumed that the ice would melt and worked to slow it down.
“B-But the problem is still the frog skins!” she stammered. “They’ll tear after a few uses, and then what?”
“You make sure you always have spares on hand. In fact, you could even treat them as single-use.”
“S-Single-use...?!”
“There’s no shortage of wetland frogs in that great lake near the city. They’re hunted for meat.”
“W-Well, they’re cheap...”
“Apparently, they’re also very large and easy to catch, in which case even the amount of skin here should only add a couple of tellus to your material costs. Whereas the value of the spoiled meat you currently throw away—”
“Is about ten tellus per trip,” Clare finished. “You might be onto something.”
The idea of single-use products was almost entirely foreign to this world—especially when it came to magic items. Not even Astrid, an inventor, had been able to imagine a lightweight chill box that was detachable and fitted with wetland frog skins that anyone could replace.