“Hyah!” Kanata cried, uprooting an old stump with a single light attack. “And heave!” she said, lifting the enormous chunk of wood above her head and tossing it on the pile with all of the other stumps and boulders she had cleared away. It would have taken three oxen to even budge that stump.
“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed a villager wearing a straw hat and carrying an array of farming equipment. “It sure is good to have you back, Lady Kanata! I don’t know how we can ever pay you back for that!”
“It would’ve taken us an entire year to clear the land!” agreed his companion. Perhaps the people of this land were used to Kanata’s Herculean strength—they certainly seemed grateful, but none of them were in the least astonished by her feats.
“Should I pull this one out next?” Kanata asked, placing her hand on the next stump standing in the way of cultivating this patch of land.
“Yes, please!” said the grateful villagers.
And what do you suppose Kanata’s three followers were doing while their master was working away?
“Curses!” bellowed Zag’giel. “Damn you, weeeeeeeed!”
“Moooooooove!” cried Fenrir, pulling desperately himself.
“How dare this insolent weed defy me?!” Elizavett wailed.
The three were struggling with all of their combined might to pull a single weed out of the ground. However, as weak as they were, they were simply unable to do it. Even with all three chained together, they were unable to budge the weed an inch.
“Hah... Hah...” Zag’giel gasped for breath. “What feeble efforts...” he managed, berating the others through breaths of air. “Such results...are unbecoming of a servant of Kanata...”
“You’re not doing any better,” Fenrir grumbled. “But that being said, I agree.”
“Should we not then return to our original forms?” Elizavett asked. “You are a Demon King and a Spirit Wolf, no? And I am an ancient vampire, called the Corpse Princess! Is there truly such a need to stick so diligently to—?”
“Of course there is!” snapped the other two.
“Nwhoa!” exclaimed Elizavett, reeling from the pair’s suddenly forceful words.
“Kanata is teaching us to always strive to embody our ideal self!” declared Zag’giel.
“To never be satisfied!” added Fenrir. “To always seek new strength!”
“If we can obtain power in these wretched forms, we will have broken through the wall of our previous limits!” Zag’giel finished. The pair were remarkably in sync.
“M-Mistress said such a thing...?” Elizavett asked. Of course, she had not. Kanata had never spoken a word of any of that to either of them. It was pure misunderstanding on their part—a misunderstanding that seemed determined to spread. “In that case, ’tis no helping it. I, too, shall remain in this form, and obtain even further power!”
“At last, you understand!” cheered Zag’giel.
“All right!” said Fenrir. “Let’s combine our power, one more time!”
“On three! One... Two... Threeeeeee!”
Once again, the three began their desperate efforts at weeding. It was an extremely absurd performance, but Kanata saw their efforts in a somewhat different light. “Oh gosh,” she gasped. “Zaggy, Fen-fen, and Elizabat are all trying so hard! They’re just absolutely adorable!” In fact, their exquisite adorableness was enough to give Kanata a definite speed boost with her farm work. By noontime, the land was clear as far as the eye could see.
“Yes!” cheered Zag’giel.
“Yeaaaah!” roared Fenrir. “We did it!”
“A victory!” celebrated Elizavett.
After hours of hard work, the three had finally succeeded in pulling out a single weed. They huddled close together, crying tears of joy.
“Yeah!” said Kanata, scooping the three up in her arms and raining a storm of kisses on their fluffy heads. “Good job! Well done!” Kanata, incidentally, had not only cleared the land, but tilled it as well to finish the job properly. However, she didn’t seem nearly as proud of her own achievement as she was of the three furballs for accomplishing their task. After all, it wasn’t often she got to enjoy the sight of her fluffballs so elated at having achieved a reasonably set objective.
“Lady Kanata!” the villagers cried, interrupting the questionably moving scene. “Come have lunch!”
“Coming!” Kanata chirped, heading over to where the villagers were resting in the shade of a large tree. The farmer’s wife and her helpers had made a large pot of vegetable soup for the workers. At first glance the broth looked dark and somewhat ominous, but as it was ladled into bowls, Zag’giel and the others could see that it had a pleasant amber color.
Kanata had invented this soup seeking a flavor she had known from her previous life, fermenting a local equivalent of soybeans combined with certain mold cultures to produce soy sauce. Strictly speaking, as long as she could achieve fermentation, she didn’t need to use soybeans specifically to produce something like soy sauce, but she wanted something close to soybeans regardless. After all, Kanata also had her eye on reproducing miso. In her previous life, Kanata had been confined in a hospital room until the day she died, but it seemed Japanese food, at least, had made a lasting impression on her palate.
Kanata’s invention of soy sauce and miso had been well received by the residents of the fiefdom, and soon, traditional Japanese food had become popular in the surrounding territory.
“And an extra large helping for Lady Kanata and her hard workers!” said the villager serving soup.
“Yay!” Kanata cheered.
“You have our thanks,” said Zag’giel.
“Thank you!” added Fenrir.
“Hmm...” Elizavett remarked. “’Tis quite pleasing, for country fare.”
The three sat together in the shade, enjoying the soup. The broth was made with a salty soy-sauce base, and it was packed full of hearty root vegetables. It was just the thing for their bodies, thirsty after a morning full of hard work.
“Delicious!” said Kanata.
“Indeed!” added Zag’giel.
“It’s very good!” Fenrir agreed.
“I consider myself a gourmand, but this is my first time tasting such a flavor!” Elizavett marveled. “It has a profound depth despite its simplicity.”
Thanks to Kanata’s efforts, the plot of land was cleared and ready for crops as far as the eye could see. There was still a lot of work to do—fertilizer to spread, saplings to plant, watering and weeding to be done, insects to be kept away—but eating good food while looking out at the results of the day’s work was one of the finest pleasures in life.
“It’s our home and all, but there really is nothing but farmland around here...” one of the villagers muttered.
“It’s the middle of the middle of nowhere,” said another. “What more needs to be said?”
Despite being the territory ruled by Boldow the Divine Sword, there was no particular industry in the fiefdom, nor any urban developments worthy of the name ‘city.’ The only thing they had was plenty of fresh produce from the fertile land. Boldow was a man of few desires, and didn’t levy taxes beyond necessity. The people of the fiefdom didn’t expand their farms beyond reason either, although it seemed they had been planning on organizing the rare bit of field clearing when who should show up but Kanata, their very own heavy machinery in human form.
“We could make a bunch of copies of Kanata’s inventions and sell them in nearby cities!” someone offered. “We could earn a ton of money that way!”
“We have plenty of specialty craftspeople around, but Lord Boldow really has no ambition whatsoever. He must not see any point in striking it rich...”
“Of course not!” said an older villager. “Call us a poor fiefdom if you like, but not one of us has gone hungry since Lord Boldow took over! Nobody dies in the winters, and thanks to Lady Aleksia, it’s been years since we’ve had a serious case of disease. From my perspective, it’s been like a miracle! We may not have money, but we do have wealth!”
Boldow may have had the lowest status in the Aldezia household, but it seemed he at least enjoyed the respect of his subjects. Even the Demon King himself held him in high regard.
“Indeed!” said Zag’giel. “We knew he was no ordinary man the moment we set eyes on him!”
The revered lord himself, meanwhile, was busy being cornered by his wife, who had heard what he had said about Elizavett earlier in the bath from their son Alus.