Chapter 26 : Snow White (8)

“Ying ying.”

Chris weeps.

I thought succubi didn’t have tears—but I guess I was wrong.

I turned my gaze to the one responsible for drawing tears from Chris.

“Flora

Sacred Year 2335 – Sacred Year 2363, October 26

Dreaming of eternal life, rest here for a while.”

A perfect epitaph.

Once again, I felt just how amazing my sense of style was.

Chris rubbed her eyes and mumbled softly.

“I was going to have a smoked meat party with Lady Flora…”

“That’s unfortunate. Should we still do it ourselves?”

“Luina, do you really not have a heart?”

Chris gave me a dead-serious look.

Her tears had already dried up.

Facing Chris, who looked like she was shooting beams from her eyes, I responded with an aggrieved tone.

“But I told you I’m going to resurrect Lady Flora. There’s no need to cry.”

“Now?”

“Not now, of course. Later.”

“Really?”

Chris’s face lit up.

I wonder if she realized that her horns popped out from her cooking pouch while she was smiling after crying.

“Thank goodness. I thought it was a forever goodbye.”

“That would never happen.”

“Then I guess it’s okay to take some of Lady Flora’s hot spring water, right?”

“…Wow.”

I felt a wall between us.

So this was it.

The wall that Flora and Kelton once mentioned I’d eventually run into.

It was so overwhelmingly big, it crushed my will.

To think I’d have to overcome something like this…

No way.

“You win, Chris. I’m just a mere mortal.”

“Wait. Don’t make it sound like I crushed you. You’re the one who started it, Luina.”

“I don’t know anything.”

As I tried to excuse myself, Chris quickly began to explain.

“Listen, Luina. Word’s probably already spread to the capital that evil god cultists attacked Lady Flora’s inn.”

“Well, we did go pretty big with it.”

“Hot spring water even the cultists of the evil god coveted! Now on sale! What do you think?”

“I see.”

It was confirmed.

This one wasn’t a succubus.

“So before me stands not a succubus, but one of the original shadows—an apostle of greed?”

“Luina. So are we doing this or not?”

“Of course we’re doing it.”

If it needs doing, it gets done.

“Luina. Chris.”

At the sound of a solemn voice, we turned back toward the gravestone, then quietly left the graveyard.

Flora, surprisingly, didn’t have much in terms of assets.

Well—”not much” for a high-level mage, anyway.

To regular people, she still had a dizzying amount of wealth.

All of Flora’s property had been turned over to the Mercenary Guild.

We used the guild’s inheritance management system, which meant they’d maintain the grave and spend from the funds little by little until a rightful heir appeared.

“The rightful heir we determined is you, Luina. You’re her disciple, after all.”

“I’m not Lady Flora’s disciple. And she never said she’d leave me money.”

All she promised me was her surname—her favor.

The inheritance belonged to someone else.

Who knows?

Maybe there’s a forgotten disciple Flora trained long ago.

I left the Mercenary Guild and headed to Flora’s now half-destroyed hot spring.

The inn, now just a memory, stood still.

As I looked around, I noticed Chris grunting and filling wooden barrels with hot spring water.

“You’re really going through with it, huh.”

“Luina, help me.”

“Couldn’t we just sell some other spring water and claim it’s from Flora’s? No one would know.”

“Luina. The foundation of commerce is trust. Even if we rely on sales techniques and marketing tricks, outright lies are a no-go.”

“Got it. Put that down.”

Chris followed my lead and set the barrel down.

I snapped my fingers and summoned a wooden soldier.

“So convenient.”

“Amazing magic.”

The wooden soldier tirelessly emptied the other spring water and refilled the barrels with genuine water from Flora’s spring.

I stood by with my arms crossed, watching, then turned to Chris, who had crossed her arms the same way.

“You’ve gone back to dressing as a man? It’s kind of amazing how just some baggy clothes can hide that you’re a succubus.”

“We’re heading out soon. Also, I told you—I’m not a succubus, Luina.”

“How about some meat?”

Lunch was the smoked meat we’d packed.

It was from the place Flora once recommended.

“Sniff sniff…”

Chris whined as she set up the meat.

The sight was kind of hilarious, so I pulled out my pipe and spoke.

“We’re out here coldly collecting hot spring water. Don’t you think crying in this situation might make you seem less reliable?”

“But I can’t help it if the tears come out.”

“Then just cry anyway.”

Fsssh.

I lit the pipe and looked up at the sky.

Snow was falling.

Snowy barbecue in a land of snow.

Not a bad combo.

“Luina. Can’t you, like, build a wooden roof or something like Flora did? It’s snowing.”

“I can do something similar, but not exactly like her. Hold on.”

I snapped my fingers, and a giant made of wood emerged and acted as a roof.

Chris gaped in awe.

“Do we really have to go this over-the-top?”

“It’s the opposite. This is the only way I can do it.”

What I inherited through our deal was only Flora’s unique magic.

Not her entire magical framework.

So right now, the only magic I could use was Flora’s unique spell: [Growth].

Sure, I could adapt it for similar effects, but I could never replicate her magic exactly.

“Let’s eat.”

We placed our plates on a table salvaged from a half-destroyed inn, lit a campfire, and devoured some smoked meat.

I took a sip of mead and spoke to Leon, who had been quietly sitting next to me.

“How does it feel to have gained holy power?”

“Not bad.”

Leon had awakened his divine powers this time. In the priests’ words, he had received the calling.

He was no longer an apprentice—he was now an official holy knight.

“It feels like my body is brimming with vitality. Like I could do anything.”

“Be careful. People who just awakened their powers often get into accidents in that exact state.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Leon quietly stared at the firewood.

As always, he wore a serious expression, but now I understood the reason behind it.

His family had been killed by a priest of an evil god.

Most likely by burning at the stake.

With that kind of past, it made sense that he hated evil priests—and that his eyes would darken every time we lit a fire.

“Ruina! I just had a brilliant idea!”

“I get anxious every time you say things like that, Chris. What is it now?”

“How precisely can those wooden puppets be controlled?”

“I’m not sure… I doubt they can play cat’s cradle, though?”

“What about steering a carriage?”

“That should be doable.”

“Then we don’t need to hire anyone anymore, right? Ruina can control them instead. Wow, look at all the money we’re saving.”

I gave Chris a long, blank stare.

Chris blinked and tilted his head.

“Ruina? Is there something on my face?”

“No. It’s nothing.”

“Ruina? The way you said that makes me feel like I did something wrong… Did I mess up?”

“Geniuses can’t understand the minds of the average folk. It can’t be helped.”

Chris could outsmart any great mage when it came to money. For someone like me, a mere money enthusiast, he was on another level.

As I let cigarette smoke drift into the snowy sky, I spoke again.

“In the end, even I must look like money in your eyes, Chris. Boohoo.”

“Ruina. That would’ve been perfect, but your sobbing sounded too much like you were acting.”

“Oh no.”

After finishing our meal, we soaked ourselves in the hot spring water of the Flora Inn one last time.

“Leon, you’re surprisingly shy. You even needed us to build a wall for you.”

“We’re fine, right, Ruina?”

“Exactly.”

“Sigh.”

A sigh came from beyond the makeshift wooden wall. It must’ve been too hot for Leon.

I leaned against the edge of the hot spring and stroked the large chunk of celestial silver, which had a marble-like exterior.

“This is celestial silver?”

“Yes.”

“It’s huge. Are you really going to make a lantern out of this?”

“That was the promise, after all.”

The original owner had asked for a lantern, so it made sense to make one.

“Isn’t it a waste? If you broke it apart, it’d be just regular celestial silver.”

“Of course I’m going to use all of it. I already have a plan.”

“Alchemy?”

“There are some really useful techniques in alchemy.”

One of the most well-known techniques in alchemy was compression.

It would be expensive, sure, but it was worth it to use this much celestial silver.

“It won’t be too heavy, will it? Celestial silver’s supposed to be light, right?”

“Probably. I’ve never tried it, but compressed or not, it should still be a regular metal weight-wise.”

“Star metal really is useful in so many ways.”

“That’s why everyone’s out there trying to get their hands on it.”

With the barbecue party and hot spring bath behind us, we did one last gear check and climbed into the luggage cart.

I snapped my fingers, summoning four wooden soldiers to grab the reins.

“CH?”

“It works.”

“So it does.”

After successfully getting the wagon to move, I tapped the chunk of celestial silver we’d shoved into the cart and spoke.

“Let’s head out.”

“Off to the capital!”