After executing Bisen, Turan and his companions decided to spend the night in the slash-and-burn farming village and help rebuild it. Nearly half the villagers had died, leaving too few hands to repair the collapsed and burned houses and storehouses. The villagers wept with gratitude once more at their help.

“Maysa, you've put the roof on wrong.”

“Isn't this how you do it?”

“It won't fit like that. The rain will leak right through. You need to turn it about halfway around.”

Turan rotated the roof Maysa had lifted into place with telekinesis, explaining in detail how it was supposed to be built. Fascinated by this new architectural knowledge, she asked him a question.

“Where on earth did you learn all this?”

“Just things I picked up along the way.”

“Wow...”

He was hardly an expert in construction himself, but he had repaired the cottage where he had grown up and built a few structures in Kalamap. Besides, the storehouse they were building was not particularly complicated.

“So I do it like this?”

“Right, just like that.”

Maysa looked intrigued as she raised the roof again and rotated it about ninety degrees. Turan had wondered whether she might find this work a nuisance, but she seemed to find helping people quite enjoyable herself.

After checking that Maysa was putting his instructions into practice, Turan went over to Solif, who was building a chicken coop nearby, and scolded him.

“With all these gaps under the fence, wildcats and foxes will get in and take every chicken.”

“What? How would they get through holes that small?”

“Animals like cats might as well have no bones. If their heads fit, the rest of them can squeeze through.”

“Amazing... Isn't that real magic?”

He could understand Maysa, but even Solif was like this, despite being forty years older than Turan and an experienced traveler. The villagers did not dare tell such exalted nobles they were wrong, so Turan had to teach them every little thing himself.

He had been laboring away for quite some time when Vije swooped over and wrote on the ground.

[All done cleaning!]

“Already?”

[Yes!]

He had assigned Vije to clean the square, which was a mess from the posts and the burnings. A look confirmed her claim: it had been cleared so thoroughly it might have been turned over entirely. Working through the ground bit by bit with her small body would have taken ages, so she seemed to have swept the whole place clean with wind magic instead.

“You're the only one I can count on.”

Vije shrugged her shoulders as Turan patted her head.

Once earth-alteration magic had been used to make graves for the dead, the villagers gathered for supper in the relatively intact village hall to honor those they had lost. Naturally, Turan and his companions were given the seats of honor.

“We are poor folk with nothing to our names, so we could only offer this humble fare. Please have mercy...”

The food they served was indeed rather meager. Between the stew made with smoked game meat and the coarse brown bread, it was scarcely better than the meals Turan had eaten on Hisaril Hill.

Of course, the villagers who had served it had nothing before them but watery grain porridge and wild greens. This was probably the best hospitality they could offer their saviors.

Turan immediately picked up his spoon and took a mouthful of stew, then tried some vegetables dressed with an unfamiliar spice.

“That's enough of that. This is a feast.”

“Oh, come on. Calling it a feast is a bit—oof!”

After kicking Solif's leg with the tip of his foot for that candid objection, Turan looked at the villagers. They seemed a little reassured by the way he ate without hesitation. Solif began eating too, though not without some grumbling, and all eyes turned to Maysa, the last of them.

“Hmm.”

At House Valtas's banquet, Maysa had coldly ignored the looks asking who she thought she was to leave the food untouched. The villagers' earnest gazes, however, seemed to weigh on her.

Turan stopped her as she cautiously picked up her spoon.

“You don't have to force yourself. We're eating, anyway. It won't hurt if one of us seems a little fussy.”

“They'll be even sadder if you eat it and throw up.”

Maysa gave Solif a slightly sharp look at that, then shook her head and scooped up a spoonful of stew.

“I think I can manage a bite right now.”

She gazed at the piece of meat and broth in her spoon, squeezed her eyes shut, and put it into her mouth. After chewing for a few seconds, she swallowed.

Expecting a spectacular eruption any moment, Turan wondered whether he should ask Solif to cast an illusion. Contrary to his expectations, however, Maysa did not bring it back up. After a few deep breaths, she slowly opened her eyes.

“Huh?”

“What? Did it work?”

Not only the two men, but even Maysa herself seemed unable to believe that she had successfully eaten. She sat dumbfounded for a moment, then beamed, took another spoonful of stew, and bit into the coarse bread as well.

Only then did the villagers sigh with relief.

“Oh, she's eating...”

“She seems to like it!”

“Thank goodness. Thank goodness.”

“Like it” was putting it very mildly. Maysa was devouring the food like a beggar who had not eaten in ages. Of course, considering that she had effectively been starving for over ten years, it would have been harsh to blame her.

“Does it taste good?”

“The taste... I can't really tell. It's been so long. But just being able to chew and swallow for myself feels—mmph!”

Her delighted eating did not last long. Maysa covered her mouth as the nausea finally caught up with her. Seeing her cheeks suddenly bulge, Turan hurriedly pulled her from the table and took her outside the hall.

“Bleurgh—”

While Maysa brought up everything she had just eaten, Turan patted her back from behind.

“Are you all right?”

Apparently too short of breath to answer, Maysa merely nodded before raising her head. To his surprise, she was smiling through tears.

“I ate... Just a little, but I did.”

“For the first time in ten years, right?”

“Yes.”

Maysa conjured some water to rinse her mouth, then let out a deep sigh.

“Somehow, it felt like Mother and my little brother were telling me, ‘You've helped so much. It's all right to eat this much.’”

Of course, it was her own heart that had truly given her permission to eat, not her family. Perhaps her self-loathing for abandoning them had been offset by the self-worth she gained from knowing she could do this much to help others.

That seemed to give him an idea of how she might overcome her eating disorder. If she kept helping people, and came to see herself as someone of value, perhaps she would become able to eat proper meals like everyone else.

When they had collected themselves and returned to the hall a little later, they found a miserable-looking Solif waiting for them.

“Hey...”

“What?”

“Those people are wondering which of us is the baby's father. Hurry up and do something.”

Turan turned his gaze toward the villagers, who hastily bowed their heads after watching with avid interest.

Should he be grateful that at least they did not think she had thrown up because the food tasted bad?

* * *

Leaving the village the next morning, Turan and his companions abandoned their search for monsters in the area and flew straight east. Solif spoke to Turan as he took in the view from the swing.

“Still, I wonder if it'll be all right.”

“What will?”

“Whatever the reason, we killed a Karmine noble. Wouldn't it have been better to bring them the body and formally explain why we killed her? It'll be trouble if some distorted rumor spreads through those villagers later.”

Maysa, seated opposite them, said nothing but seemed to agree. Turan gathered his thoughts for a moment before answering.

“If we brought them the body, we'd have to formally argue responsibility with a great house. Karmine wouldn't want to admit one of their nobles committed a massacre unless they had to. We're wanderers, so it'd be easy to pin it on us. Showing our strength might change that, but then we'd attract a different kind of attention.”

“Hmm...”

“Besides, there's little chance of rumors spreading from that village. It's not even a proper village, just a slash-and-burn farming settlement. I also told them it wouldn't be good for them if word got out.”

“Isn't that a threat?”

“Advice. Karmine might try to wipe out the villagers to silence testimony that Bisen tried to become a second Burner.”

“Ah,” Maysa said, nodding at Turan's explanation.

“Being uneducated doesn't make those people fools. They can judge matters that affect their own lives. And we helped rebuild their village, too.”

“So they'll keep quiet out of gratitude?”

Turan sensed a trace of condescension in Solif's words, as though he were thinking that Turan really was still a child. Of course, that was not the sort of wishy-washy reason he had brought it up for.

“No. If the village falls apart, they could scatter to other villages to make a living, and spread rumors along the way. If their isolated settlement stays intact, there's less chance of the story getting out. People like them generally live off their own land without contact with outsiders.”

“... You thought that far ahead when you helped them?”

“That wasn't the only reason. It's just another benefit.”

Having explained that much, Turan added one final thought.

“Most importantly, even if Karmine somehow learns the truth, they'll probably want to bury it. Making enemies of three wandering nobles over a member who died doing something insane wouldn't be worth it. If it became public, they'd have to frame us just to save face, but otherwise there's no need to go that far.”

After discussing how they had dealt with Bisen, the conversation turned to the fragment of a god that had been inside her. More precisely, to how they might collect more of those fragments.

“Wouldn't looking into monster hunters give us a lead?”

“I check when I happen to meet them, but I haven't had much luck. There are quite a lot of them to begin with.”

Some monster hunters, like Midan's group, were driven purely by the desire to become wizards. Far more, however, used monster hunting as a way to make a living. To be precise, they hunted ordinary game as well as monsters.

The bottom-tier monsters they caught became nourishment for young wizards to build their strength. Since offering money was easier than tracking down each monster themselves, wizard houses paid bounties to those who hunted them. Most of the monster hunters Turan had encountered on his travels were of that sort. None had harbored a god's fragment like Midan.

“Hmm. Would looking for wizards who behave strangely be... inefficient?”

“Yes. It's hardly a common occurrence.”

Considering that the only reliable way to identify them was for Turan to see them with his own eyes, there seemed to be little they could do except hope to meet one by chance.

They had been chatting on the swing for some time when Solif, whose eyes were the keenest of the three, pointed ahead.

“We're here.”

“Already?”

“Flying really is fast.”

A little later, the sea's horizon came into view for Turan and Maysa as well. Vije was flying so high that it took another hour and a half to actually reach the shore.

After they landed on the coast, Solif gazed out at the sea and spoke in a nostalgic voice.

“It's been a while since I last came to the North Sea.”

“You've been here before?”

“I came over to the North Sea from Baraha in the first place.”

“Oh, right. You did. This is my first time seeing the sea at all.”

Maysa dipped her hand into the seawater and splashed it about in fascination, then tasted it and grimaced at the salt. Watching her act like a carefree young girl brought an involuntary smile to Turan's face.

After spending a little time on the beach, they headed straight to a nearby fishing village to find out exactly where they were. A few simple questions revealed that they were on the coast north of Abacha.

Solif clicked his tongue in disappointment at the news.

“Tsk. Abacha was one of the places I wanted to visit.”

“It wasn't much to look at when I went. Wouldn't visiting the drowned god's remains be more interesting?”

“Well... I suppose so.”

According to Ymir, a Freyan nicknamed the Lawyer was staying in Abacha, Karmine's capital. Turan had come and gone freely before because he had not known, but walking in with that knowledge was another matter. Solif knew that too, so he offered only that one mild complaint and said no more.

After visiting a few more fishing villages, they soon acquired a fairly large fishing boat. It had a single sail, a sizable cabin below deck, and a separate room that served as a toilet. Its size made it suitable only for sailing close to shore.

“Just to be safe, don't take her too far out. She'll capsize if the waves get even a little rough.”

The old fisherman who accepted payment for the boat offered exactly that warning.

There was Turan, who looked like a young nobleman, Maysa, a chilly young lady, and Solif, who looked somewhat more easygoing but still bore the air of someone raised in wealth. Not one looked like an experienced sailor, yet they were suddenly taking a boat out. Of course he was worried. He might have been paid, but that was hardly enough to stop a person caring.

“Thank you for the advice.”

Turan gently smiled away the fisherman's worries and immediately began preparing to set sail. As Solif readied the boat under his instructions, he asked a question.

“Are you sure we'll be all right in a boat like this? I was lucky enough to avoid one last time, but I hear North Sea storms are a real bitch.”

“We've got two Arabion nobles aboard. Besides, if there's really nothing we can do, we can abandon the boat and fly away. A cheap boat is much better for that.”

“I suppose.”

Once everything was ready, they raised the anchor and unfurled the sail. Turan and Maysa took turns supplying wind while Solif parted the water ahead of the boat, sending it skimming forward as though it could fly.

“This feels amazing!”

Unexpectedly, it was Maysa who shouted, not Solif. The sheer speed of her first voyage seemed to have made quite an impression on her. Would she squirm with boredom if she later saw how slowly an ordinary sailing ship moved?

Fortunately, none of the three suffered from seasickness, so nothing particularly hindered their voyage. Food and water were practically limitless at sea.

Turan intended to use Miguel Island, which he had visited before, as their first reference point. Taking out the compass he had received as a gift, he set their course southeast.

And about a day and a half later—

“I'm bored...”

Maysa had been excited about her first voyage, but she had not even needed an ordinary sailing ship to grow bored. People grew accustomed to stimulation easily, after all. And sailing offered the same stimulation over and over again.

“Turan, found anything?”

“No, not yet.”

“Turan, how about now?”

“Nothing.”

“Tu—”

“Nothing at all.”

Of the three, only Turan could use the Mimic Holy Relic to detect mana. Before long, their conversation had become an endless exchange of the other two asking whether he had found anything and Turan telling them he had not.

Of course, the Holy Relic's senses allowed Turan to detect quite a few monsters. Unlike the land, the sea was an arena where monsters beyond the easy reach of human hunters devoured one another.

But even the strongest among them were only at the level of middle- or upper-middle-tier nobles. He sensed no monster powerful enough to be of any real help to the three of them.

The only one having fun was Vije, who was happily devouring the horse mackerel Turan caught for her. Solif gazed out to sea and lamented their situation.

“I mean, we're just idling away the time, same as when we were flying... But sailing is strangely boring.”

“That's because when we fly on Vije, we usually land to rest along the way. When we don't, we're in too much of a hurry to think about being bored.”

“Is that it?”

“Maybe it's because the boat is small. It might have been better if we'd bought something to read.”

Maysa's remark made Turan consider stopping at another Karmine port city instead of Abacha. Just then, his eyes widened at something he sensed ahead.

“Oh.”

“What?”

“What you've been waiting for is finally here.”

“A monster? How strong? Top-tier?”

Calming Solif, whose excitement showed just how bored he had been, Turan lightly raised a hand to feel the flow of the wind. Maysa had already sensed it too, and was frowning slightly.

“No. A storm.”

Solif's face crumpled at Turan's words.