“Huh? Hold on. Just hold on a minute,” Clare said slowly. “This will make seafood cheaper to ship too. And it’ll be huge for the fruit trade...”
“That’s right.” Astrid sighed. “This may well result in a revolution for distribution chains.”
Monarchs and nobles paid exorbitant sums to order fresh food from far-off lands. They had their own wagons fitted with chill boxes for this very purpose.
Things were different for commoners. Jerky and dried fruit were cheaply available, but only people who lived near orchards could eat fresh fruit. Even if it were a little more expensive, the ability to ship fresh meat and fruit would change people’s lives. It would, it was no exaggeration to say, open their eyes to a whole new world.
Clare stared at Nina, dumbstruck. Nina just looked back at her questioningly.
“Th-This girl came up with this? You’re kidding,” Clare said weakly. “This has got to be...I don’t know, the latest innovation out of the Freja Kingdom or something. I saw the news, you know. There was that groundbreaking discovery in converting fairy magic into mana...”
“The Freja Kingdom had nothing to do with this. Oh, and incidentally, I wrote that paper about fairy magic.”
“Wh-What?!”
“And it was Nina here who gave me the final piece of the puzzle.”
“Whaaat?!” Clare whirled around to look at Nina again.
“I-It was just a little idea I had! The rest was all Astrid’s genius, truly, it was!”
“Because of your ‘little idea.’ Or rather, because of all the unexpected knowledge you’ve got in there,” Astrid said.
“Don’t be silly. It was an idea any maid could have come up with.”
Clare looked at Astrid in disbelief. Astrid shook her head.
“Whew...” Clare sighed. “Well, I definitely won’t go judging anyone by titles or appearances again.”
“That’s how I felt after I met Nina,” Astrid said, laughing. Then she looked back at the designs. “Now, this idea is still only on paper, so you’ll need to run a lot of tests before it’s ready to use. Still, it’s an innovation in magic items, and my hope is that it’ll help your main business too. For the research—”
“The Golding Merchant House isn’t up to this,” Clare said, pushing the plans away from her.
“Huh...?”
“I’ve already made up my mind to give up on magic items,” Clare said, smiling weakly. “I just wasn’t cut out for it.”
Astrid said nothing. She’d suspected Clare might say something like this. It was only natural after the betrayal she’d suffered. She and Nina had agreed in advance that if Clare said no, they wouldn’t push her.
“I don’t have an inventor to research magic items...and I’m not going to hire another after Kett. I’m shelving that project along with my memories of him.”
“Clare...”
Her feelings for Kett were written plainly on her face. More than the number of years they’d spent together, it was the experience they’d shared of staking the fate of the Golding Merchant House on their new endeavor that had given them depth.
“I’m sorry,” Clare said. “This is such an exciting idea. It might change the world. But you should take it to someone el—”
Before Clare could finish, the door flew open.
“I’d like to hear more about this idea.”
Standing in the doorway was a man with a ruggedly handsome face who stood even taller than Clare. His clothes were unchanged and disheveled, and his hair was a mess. His eyes, however, burned bright.
“I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help but overhear... If you need someone who can handle magic items, I’m your man. Please let me do it.”
“Kett...” Clare rose unsteadily to her feet, then rushed out from behind the counter to stand in front of him. “Kett! Why? Why did you come back?!”
Kett stepped into the shop, then dropped to his knees and pressed his hands and head to the ground.
“I’ve got no right to ask this of you!” he cried. “But please... Please let me work for the Golding Merchant House one more time! I know it’s a selfish request... And I don’t need money. All I want... I just want to work for you...”
“Oh, Kett!” Clare sank down and threw herself over him, then burst into tears.
“Clare—” Nina took a step toward Clare, but Astrid held her back.
“Whoa there, Nina. Let’s give them some time alone.”
“Right...”
Astrid and Nina slipped out the front door of the Golding Merchant House. As they left, Astrid flipped the sign beside the door from OPEN to CLOSED.
Nina and Astrid waited a while before visiting the Golding Merchant House again. This time, Clare greeted them with a bashful smile.
“I’ve decided to hire Kett back,” she said.
Kett bowed deeply to them as well. “I want a chance to do things over.”
It was undeniably concerning to have Kett hanging around Clare, given his history. But in the end, it was her decision.
Kett had told her everything about his past. There was indeed a wanted notice for him as a con artist who had tricked women about his intentions to marry them. The alleged victims, however, were only identified by vague descriptions like “noble lady” or “daughter of a wealthy family.” These women were apparently abusing their influence to try and make him their own.
But that still left the question of why there were multiple women after him.
Until a few years earlier, Kett had been something of a playboy, and the truth was, he had strung them all along. He admitted that the blame for the whole affair lay with him. Still, he swore that he had never cheated any innocent people out of their money. He wasn’t getting any younger, so he’d decided to give up his rakish ways and move to the Werther Duchy to build a steady life.
Later, Astrid and Nina related all this to the others at the little tavern next to the inn. Nina had already left, but it was mostly empty but for them.
“So Kett did have his reasons,” Emily said, sipping wine from a goblet. “Well, women do love a man with secrets. ’Course, it goes the other way around too.”
She spoke as if she were a total expert on the subject. Astrid and the others naturally had no idea that this knowledge came from the movies and TV dramas she’d watched in Japan. She still hadn’t told them about her reincarnation.
“Chi does not understand. Why would she hire back a traitor?” Tien asked. A mug of hot milk with honey sat in front of her.
“Who knows? I doubt even Clare knows the answer to that question,” Astrid said.
She was drinking wine like Emily. Nina, meanwhile, was fast asleep back at the inn. This was an official assembly of the Keep-Nina-From-Getting-Into-Trouble Alliance (if official was the right word for their unscheduled and fairly frequent but irregular meetings).
“Anyway, Astrid. What happened with those magic device designs you took with you?”
“I entrusted them to the Golding Merchant House. When I finished going over the plans—or rather, the concept of single-use materials—with Kett, he was shaking. He could see just what a revolutionary idea it is.”
“Chi does not really understand, but throwing out these ‘single-use’ items is wasteful, no matter how cheap they are.”
“Well, strictly speaking, these won’t go entirely to waste. If you bury wetland frog skins, they break down straightaway. They’re actually already being sold as compost.”
“I’ve heard of adventurers taking a few wetland frog skins with them when they go to lands that get heavy rain,” Emily added. “Apparently, they just bury them if they tear. Then they find plants sprouting where they buried them when they come back.”
She turned back to Astrid. “If they’re gonna go large scale with this, they’ll have to control the distribution of wetland frog skins. Dealing with that’s going to be a whole other problem, even if the lake is crawling with frogs. Do you reckon the Golding Merchant House can pull it off? From what you said, it doesn’t sound like they have enough people.”
“Apparently, the Vick Merchant House is going to lend them a hand.”
“Ooh. Your mortal enemy.”
“Hey, I never said that. I don’t have any bad feelings toward him anymore.”
“Uh-huh... So, did you apologize?”
“Huh?”
“You told Nina you were going to apologize for laying into Firth, right?”
Astrid was briefly lost for words.
She had said that to Nina, but that conversation had taken place in the alley behind the Redrib Rooster’s Perch. Emily, however, had been inside the tavern with Firth.
She spun around. “Tien!”
“Do not look at Chi.”
Nina would never have blabbed, which only left Tien. The lupalune girl sipped her milk with an air of nonchalance, but refused to meet Astrid’s eyes. That could only mean that she was indeed the culprit.
“And here I thought you were a naive, innocent little girl...”
Emily chuckled. “It shows she’s growing up! A woman’s gotta spill her secrets, after all.”
“Pretty sure you mean a woman’s got to have her secrets.”
“What good’s a secret unless you can enjoy it with your friends? But forget that—what did you and Firth talk about?”
Astrid was dubious. “Why are you so interested?”
“I mean, the two of you, all tall and slender? You’d make the most gorgeous couple!”
“Whuh?” Astrid gaped at her. “Wait, hold up. Don’t tell me you’ve been thinking about silly things like that.”
“Silly? I don’t think so!” Emily retorted. “It’s all inventions, inventions, inventions with you. Keep that up, and you’ll miss your chance to find a husband!”
Astrid groaned. “It’s all Nina’s fault. She makes life so easy that I can just think about inventing all day long... I could forget all about love and romance and marriage...”
“I mean...I know how you feel,” Emily admitted.
They were two lost causes, totally dependent on Nina. Though Nina herself would have said she did no more than any maid would.
“Nina is no good for both of you,” Tien piped up. “You would be better off letting Chi look after her and leaving the party.”
“Tien...” Emily stared at her. “Now that we’re friends, you’re getting cheeky.”
The assembly of the alliance continued on late into the night. The next morning, Nina and the rest of Maid & Co. departed the capital of the Werther Duchy.