Chapter 7 – 1. The Winter Queen (7)
After receiving YuRia’s warning, Merkin and Roa immediately went into preparation.
Uncle Merkin hinted to the villagers that winter would come exceptionally quickly this year and heavy snowfall would be severe, suggesting that it would be better to prepare in advance, but the villagers did not show any particular reaction.
Still, some people started to stock up on firewood in advance, and when I saw the movement of repairing the roof, walls, and windows, it didn’t seem that I was ignoring words very much, but I was worried.
And. Merkin and Loa started preparing as much as possible at Loa’s house.
The reason was that this magical house was the safest house in this disaster, and that the closest place to Yuria was the best place to receive help from Yuria.
However, in preparation for more snow than expected, a large-scale extension work was carried out to connect the food warehouse and the main building, and a lot of firewood was piled up in the free space created.
After the renovation of the house, what he did was to increase the production of potatoes like crazy.
“Aaaaa!!”
“Uh-huh!”
Cut and cut potatoes and cut again.
Potatoes, which would have been eaten as food originally, are in the process of turning all of them into seed potatoes.
And planted and planted and planted and planted again.
But in spite of this, there were still many potatoes to cut and so many potatoes to plant.
To the extent that I thought it was more comfortable when I was working on the house, every day was a continuation of the same work, and aside from the physical exhaustion, the boredom was indescribable.
“Ahhh… Is this what farming is all about?”
“Is there anything special?
Potatoes, beans, maize, and squash were planted immediately after the wheat and barley fields were finished.
Among them, Roa and Uncle Merkin did the simplest potato work, and corn and other crops were done by those who worked on the farm.
But what can I do?
Roa knew well why this happened, so Roa sighed and cut the seed potatoes diligently today.
“Anyway, originally, it wasn’t planted at this time of year, but it happened to be planted a little earlier.”
“Isn’t it originally planted at this time of year?”
“Well, it doesn’t matter too much, but I’m trying to harvest even a day early, so I’m a bit overworked.
Looking at the faces of those who were working again after Mr. Merkin’s words, they certainly didn’t look very bright.
They seemed to already know that this was not the right way.
“Is this okay?”
“It’s going to work. It’s not like I haven’t experimented like this at all. Well, the quality will definitely go down, but that’s not the point right now.”
In any case, when Mr. Merkin, who is the landlord, took the lead in clearing his field early, the villagers may have started to take his words a little more seriously, following him and already harvesting potatoes, corn, beans, pumpkins, etc. The number of people who planted started to increase one by one.
The number of people who repaired the house more properly increased significantly, and Roa’s house warehouse, which was located on the edge of the village, also moved food from the uncle’s house warehouse as soon as he had free time.
Since I decided to spend this winter here, it was here that I had to stock up on food.
“But why don’t you tell me more details?”
“It’s for your friend. This kind of information, unfortunately, doesn’t matter much if the other person realizes it on their own, but if you spread it directly, your friend will have a considerable reaction. He is also like that, so to avoid such a risk, he conveyed it to me in such difficult and indirect words. I did it. To be honest, it was too much for me to tell us.”
Roa was a bit stuffy, but she had no choice but to follow Uncle Merkin’s instructions.
As Uncle Merkin said, if learning about it by directly hearing it would harm Yuria, what else would there be to endure?
I don’t know exactly when it will be, but what the uncle said so far.
And based on what YuRia said, she wondered if this year’s winter would come around mid-October.
According to what I learned about farming, the crops planted this time would be harvestable around the end of September or early October, but I don’t know.
But since I’ve been working so desperately, I really can’t even think of meeting YuRia, and when she comes home every day, she’s literally stretched out.
In the meantime, Roa opened her eyes at the feeling of tapping her own cheek with her fingertips, and YuRia was looking down at herself with her slightly pouty face.
“Wow-?!”
“Too much… It’s been 15 days and you didn’t come, so I came all the way to your house.”
I was so startled that my heart skipped a beat.
Now, a fortnight?
She snapped, and she hurried to the window and opened it to see a truly brilliant full moon floating high in the sky.
It was a full moon.
No wait
“Wasn’t that the story when you met Mr. Merkin before?”
“…”
With a slightly reddened face, YuRia quietly avoided her gaze.
“So, no matter how busy you are, you don’t want me to see you?”
Seeing Yuria, Roa felt a smile on her face for some reason.
“There’s no way you don’t like it. I missed you.”
Hehe…”
For some reason, Yuria, who had a sad smile and an awkward smile, looked around her house and said,
“I’m glad you seem to be well prepared.”
“I don’t know what will happen, but will I be safe?”
After that, Yuria let out a small sigh.
“I don’t know. This case is so intertwined. With so many futures intersecting in this small town, I don’t know.”
“…”
“I’ll try my best… Maybe it will work out somehow”
Roa looked at YuRia and patted her shoulder.
“Don’t push yourself too hard. There’s a way to abandon the village and run away.”
“That will be difficult”
Huh…?
“It’s too late to run away. I will never let you go.”
“Um, is it difficult to say what I just said?”
“It’s okay. This much. But even Loa knows, right?”
Apparently, Yuria already knew what I had been told by Mr. Merkin.
“Yeah. You mean we shouldn’t mention it directly?”
YuRia nodded her head.
I don’t know what it was, but it looked like someone wanted our entire village dead.
In other words, if someone tries to escape, the winter that will come early will come sooner…
“We will continue to meet at the border of the forest on full moon days, right?”
“Yes. I’ll wait.”
YuRia, who met after a month like that, made her promise to meet her again once a month.
We talked to each other for a while and had a good time for the first time in a while, and YuRia said a word before leaving and left.
If people do bad things to you, please be patient with them.
YuRia, as she said that, she left right away, so she wasn’t sure, but it seemed she was crying.
Under the moonlight, Yuria just blankly stared at the full moon.
I wonder if this was the feeling when the saint of a certain religion in the past, the son of God, asked his father to collect his cup if he could.
Of course, his own case was not so grand compared to his, but he couldn’t think of anything else that could be compared.
Well, except for the fact that the only innocent person had to die an unfair death for the sake of the sinners, it wasn’t just the humiliation and suffering he had to face in this town. If you put all those things that will happen in the future, won’t it be left to jump over his hardships.
“The glass in front of me is too bitter… “
If possible, to the extent that I want to beg the world to please take this cup of mine, just as he emptied it to his father…
But there was no way the world would listen to it.
“But already that The bitter cup lies in front of me and I can’t help it… Is it cruel enough to die?. Is it cruel enough to make you want to die?. The only thing I can choose is that much of a difference now… “
Pretending to be holding a glass in her empty hand, Yuria raised her hand toward the moon.
“That’s why today I I’m burning my gallbladder directly in my glass. I can’t help it, knowing that this will make my cup even more bitter.”
Tears trickled down YuRia’s cheeks.
“Because I don’t think I can stand it otherwise.”
But that winter… I had promised
The day he was saved by Roa, no matter how much life he had left, he decided to live for that child who saved him with a pure heart.
YuRia’s figure disappeared from there, feeling that her resolve for that day had been shaken.
Time passed quickly.
As Uncle Merkin said, crops didn’t come much earlier, as if to prove that just because you plant them quickly doesn’t mean that they will bear fruit recklessly.
Still. The fact that the harvest, which should have been done in mid-October, took place in early October, had advanced the time in its own way, but for some reason, as time passed, for some reason, the uneasiness only grew.
The insubstantial fear now gradually took shape and weighed heavily on the village.
The chilly cold had not yet arrived, but the autumn sky, which should have been clear, was already turning gray like the winter sky.
Seeing the winter sky approaching, which was still about to become a clear autumn, the villagers gradually believed the uncle’s words and began to hurry to prepare for the early winter.
Those who followed the uncle’s instructions while being dubious in their own way let out a sigh of relief, but even so, it wasn’t without worries. Most of the villagers were now in a hurry to follow the uncle’s instructions and get ready.
The winter air, already approaching, was telling them that there was no more time.
“Kkeungcha!”
Loa, who was loading sacks of potatoes into the wagon, straightened her back for a while and looked up at the sky.
The more the sky turned gray, the more impatient Loa felt.
I wondered if I could finish all the harvest in time.
Uncle Merkin, who had brought sacks of corn with a handcart, looked at Roa after loading them all onto the wagon.
“Let’s go. I have to go one more time today.”
“It’s really hard…”
Although it was a short distance, it was so heavy that I couldn’t understand why this road seemed so unfamiliar to me as I was going up by carriage along the trail from the field to Loa’s house.
“How will the town be?”
“I don’t know. People who live will live, but many people will probably die.”
The village was in the midst of preparing for the early winter, such as taking out winter clothes and mending them, and some houses were already in the middle of killing livestock and making preserved meat.
No. It may be too late to use the expression already.
When he went to the field one more time and loaded the wagon full of crops back and transported them into the warehouse, Roa sighed as he saw the potatoes, beans, corn, and pumpkins piled up so much that if it had been a standard warehouse before expansion in the past, it was already full.
The ceiling is full of preserved meats that have been made and collected somehow, and I thought that if it stayed like this, I could eat it all year round, not just winter.
Of course, even if the uncle also considers eating together.
“But there’s still a lot left in the field…”
In addition to the warehouse, I was thinking of stacking it up enough to be able to stack it inside the house, but most of the field was planned to be distributed to the village in the end.
In fact, the people who already worked in the uncle’s field were dutifully piling up potatoes and other crops in the house.
Please, it shouldn’t snow until everyone in the village is ready…
The first frost has finally arrived in the village.
The villagers finally started to lose their minds halfway at the sign of the approaching winter, and the uncle declared to the villagers.
I will open my own field. Residents who are still short on food are encouraged to gather food from their own fields and stock up on food at home.
Roa looked at the uncle as if it was okay, but the uncle just shook his head.
I couldn’t understand why he did this when the warehouse hadn’t been filled yet, but countless people ran to the uncle’s field.
“Go away! This is mine!”
“Move away! This is my seat! It’s my seat!!”
Roa somehow felt miserable at the sight of the uncle’s field being dug up by becoming a father figure.
The man who came to Roa’s side and gently patted her on the back just closed his eyes and sighed.
“I’ll talk to you at home in a bit.”
In the end, all the crops in the field disappeared that day, and Roa, who returned without any income, looked at the uncle.
He said that when he gets home he will tell the story, so he wants me to go ahead and tell him.
“Loa. If winter comes tomorrow, what do you think will happen?”
“Tomorrow?”
I thought that if I had worked hard to harvest the crops in the field today, I might have managed to harvest almost all of them.
But the uncle just shook his head as if he had already read Roa’s thoughts.
“Maybe the villagers raided this house.”
“Ehh?!”
“Where do you think is the best prepared for winter in this town right now?”
Loa couldn’t say anything about that.
Even though he is almost grown up now, it was thanks to this house that he was able to live somehow on his own.
Right after Yuria told me something there, the uncle and I started preparing, and even though it was protected by magic, something more was reinforced on top of it, repairs were made excluding the magical part, and the house was expanded by connecting the space between the warehouse and the house. And stockpiled more food and firewood.
On the other hand, many villagers did not prepare even though the uncle warned them. Most of the people who listened to the uncle did not take it too seriously and made light preparations.
“The villagers won’t come to this house until they’re really pushed to the limit because of this.”
“…”
At those words, Roa realized that the uncle did not just give to the villagers out of a good heart.
What he thought was just a loss was not necessarily a loss.
“And I’m sure he’ll be back when winter starts. And he’ll definitely try to stir things up.”
“Ah…”
“This work is the groundwork for that time. He must never be able to stir up public opinion easily. There are things I have already sown.”
Once again, Roa felt that the uncle’s thoughts were very deep.
“But when winter starts in earnest, maybe even this won’t work after all. But it’ll buy you plenty of time.”
“It’s useless. What do you mean by that?”
“Some may not know, but the contrast of the village as a whole is too low. Eventually, the villagers will turn into a mob. It is only a matter of time before they attack this house.
Uncle Merkin said while stroking Roa’s head.
“You already forgot. One person to come before they turn into a mob.”
“Yes? Ah!”
Yes. Loa had forgotten.
In this situation, as if autumn had disappeared and winter was coming, he had arbitrarily thought that it had already passed.
“Uncle Cashwin!!”
“Rather, he’ll come running more pantly at an accident like this. When he gets to this house, the game is over.”
No matter how crazy a person is from the cold and hunger, he wouldn’t dare to think of robbing a wizard’s house.
The old man’s prediction came true.
The cold wind blowing fiercely began to freeze everything, and a white snowstorm began to blow, making it hard to even open your eyes.
When Roa finally saw that the situation YuRia had foreseen came true and came back, her heart ached for some reason.
On the other hand, I wished that the prophecy YuRia had said would be wrong.
It is unknown what will happen as a reason for telling us this, but the uncle said that YuRia will suffer a great shame and humiliation.
So, if nothing happened, she wondered if Yuria would be safe, but in the end she came.
“It’s finally starting”
“What about it? Will the villagers be all right?”
“I don’t know.”
He said he didn’t know what to say, but the expression on his face was not very good.
It wasn’t something that would end with the light words, “The coming winter is just such an early winter.”
If I correctly understood YuRia’s words, this snowstorm would never stop.
Until the culprit disappears.
A huge snowstorm was raging, but it wasn’t snowing here where Yuria was.
As if only this small space was out of range of the blizzard like magic, Yuria put on a slightly bitter expression.
“If it had started a little later, it wouldn’t have been so difficult…”
She has yet to make medicine out of the Erez tree herself.
Of course, since the havaselet flowers are in full bloom, this could be a substitute to some extent, but this could not be a fundamental solution.
Although it will stabilize and bind up the wounds in the bowl of life to some extent and replenish more vitality than any potion or food, if you use your ability in this state, your own vitality will literally leak out.
Now, even as Yuria, it was unknown whether she would be able to solve this case even if she took care of all the flowers that bloomed on this flower tree.
Yuria looked out into the distance for a while and finally shed tears.
There really was no way.
If she gave up on her Loa, this bitter cup of her own might escape from herself. No matter how much she wants to let go of all the beings here, it’s impossible for her to hold onto herself.
But it was an act of giving up her own reason for living.
For whatever reason she wants to live this life without giving up.
But she really did, ironically, to save the loa, she had to step herself into the middle of her thorny path.
It is also a thorny road that does not disappear in a fierce fire pit.
YuRia just ate a single flower as usual. She picked a flower and came down the mountain with it in her hand.
Before she stopped by Loa’s house, she had one place to stop by.
Because there was a pitiful soul who got lost and got caught up in this ant hell.
“Keugh!”
Whoo -!!
The black-haired girl gradually lost sensation in her limbs due to the violent snowstorm that came so suddenly.
Her sense of direction was long gone in this unusual blizzard, and she didn’t know where she was walking now.
‘What the hell, what happened?’
This climate was by no means normal. This kind of blizzard at this time, which is about to move on to the middle of autumn. This place was neither far north nor high mountain. The poles are even less so.
Even if it was winter, such an unexpected blizzard would suddenly happen…
‘Never natural climate change… ‘
Her pensive gaze caught her own legs, and the girl, who staggered forward, gradually taking away her stamina, eventually collapsed.
She no longer had the strength to even move her fingers, so the girl who thought that she was going to die like this, saw something of blue light appearing in front of her in her blurry vision, and finally she lost consciousness. .
“…”
If it’s ironic, it’s ironic.
Had this been the case, hadn’t she bothered to give him back two of her hava cellette flowers?
No, that’s not the case
You’ll need it eventually
The juice from the haba cellet stick that had been crushed in Yuria’s hand flowed into the girl’s mouth.
“You came back here like this. Although you don’t remember it.”
YuRia exhaled lightly and looked at a certain place.
“Probably, this isn’t the meeting you want, Merkin.”
