Chapter 12
That day was blessed with beautiful weather.
It was perfect timing, since it was time to plant crops in several fields where reclamation had just been completed.
Just as I thought today would be peaceful too, the news arrived.
“『The Red Mage Sharen』 has come to see you, my lord.”
“…I didn't sleep well last night, so my ears must be acting up. Hart, who did you say came?”
“The 『Red Mage Sharen』, famous as a candidate for Sage and heir to the Red Magic Tower, has come to see you, my lord.”
『The Red Mage Sharen』
The moment I heard that name, the knowledge of my past and present selves collided and screamed.
That name existed in Calix's memories too.
A free-spirited half-elf mage who traveled throughout the Empire without serving any lord.
Rumor had it that she possessed abilities on the level of a great mage—no, a Sage—having done the work of a hundred mages by herself, annihilated an orc army, and healed a village suffering from a plague with a single healing spell.
Actually, she was indeed one of the candidates to inherit the Red Magic Tower, so it was probably almost fact rather than rumor.
And the Sharen in my memories from my previous life was one of the must-have characters known as World Archive's Three Divine Weapons.
The evaluation of Sharen I had seen on a strategy site went like this.
‘If you don't launch with Sharen, the large-scale battle sections will be hell.’
‘No. You can find hell in the territory sections too.’
‘I'm in hell right now. You damn bastards.’
She was one of the strongest SSR mages to receive reviews like that.
One might think I should be happy that such a mage had come to visit.
The problem was that World Archive also had something called a fame stat.
This fame stat included not only my own achievements, but also those of my subordinates.
Just as Liu Bei's fame rose when Guan Yu returned to him after beheading Yan Liang and Wen Chou, if I gained a top-tier mage like Sharen, my fame would rise like crazy too.
If that happened, I could evolve from ‘Loved but incompetent, so let's keep him alive’ to ‘Loved, with competent subordinates too, so let's kill him.’
In other words, Sharen's visit was extremely frightening news for me.
“This is an opportunity! Let's recruit Mage Sharen as our exclusive mage! My lord!”
“I agree with Lady Noah. If someone like Mage Sharen became House Kron's exclusive mage, she would be a great source of strength.”
Whether they knew how I felt or not, Noah and Hart raised their voices in favor of recruiting Sharen.
Sharen was one of the characters who were extremely difficult to recruit unless you paid to obtain her.
Since I was only a light spender and didn't pore over the strategy sites, I neither obtained nor even met Sharen by the time I finished the game.
“Where shall we accommodate Mage Sharen?”
In the meantime, the guard who had brought the news asked.
Hart answered as though it were obvious.
“Of course! Take her to the guest quarters. There is a fine guest room in the southern castle, so take her there!”
“Yes! Understood.”
Hart ordered them to take her to the guest quarters as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Come to think of it, considering the mages I had seen in World Archive, that would probably have been the correct answer.
Mages were generally rather full of themselves, after all.
But the problem was that I couldn't choose the correct answer this time.
If I recruited Sharen, my life might be in danger, so I said:
“Wait!”
“My lord?”
“Put Mage Sharen in an inn in the residential area where the subjects live.”
“What!?”
“My lord!!”
“My lord! That's not a good idea. Proud mages will leave immediately if they are treated that way.”
I know. That's exactly what I want.
I desperately held back the urge to say that in response to Noah.
“I have my reasons. Do as I say.”
“My lord…Understood. Take Mage Sharen to the inn.”
“Yes! Understood.”
At my words, Hart replied as though there were no helping it, and the guard left.
This time, Noah stared at me with a sullen expression instead of giving me her usual bright smile, as though she couldn't understand my words either.
I'm sorry, but it can't be helped.
Even Noah's fame stat alone had already made me feel that I was in an extremely dangerous situation.
If Sharen became one of my retainers too, the situation would truly become more than I could handle.
And so, I sent Sharen to the inn.
* * *
“This is where you can stay.”
“Thank you.”
Sharen was escorted to the inn with the mother and daughter.
The room at the inn was extremely ordinary.
By the standards of this era, it was a very ordinary inn room, with a bed made of wood, cloth, and straw and a wooden table standing alone.
“Wow!! A bed!!!”
Lyla was so happy simply to be able to sleep in a bed again that she immediately leaped onto it.
Sharen was extremely surprised by the treatment she received.
For several years, whenever lords heard that she had arrived, they had escorted her to luxurious rooms.
Whenever that happened, the screams of the spirits in those luxurious rooms kept her from sleeping.
But this place was plain and modest.
And it felt warmer than any room she had been shown before.
“We should air the room out.”
Ayla, Lyla's mother, immediately started cleaning, as mothers tend to do, and opened the window.
When she opened the window, Kron's territory came into view at a glance.
She could see the people of Kron going about their lives beneath the fading sunset.
Workers were toiling in the salt pans, while farther away she could see people reclaiming new land.
In the nearby market, merchants were selling quality goods, while mothers haggled to buy them as cheaply as possible.
Officials were rushing around among them, busily guiding newcomers from outside the territory.
It was not flashy, but everyone was working hard with bright smiles on their faces.
The spirits smiled as well, flitting across Kron's sky.
“Wow…It's beautiful, Mage Sharen.”
“It is…truly beautiful.”
How long had it been since she had seen such a beautiful territory?
No, it was the first territory in her life where everyone looked so happy.
After spending a comfortable day at the inn, a guard came to see her the next day.
“The lord says he has something he'd like to ask of you, Mage Sharen.”
“Yes…Please, go ahead.”
Sharen grew tense.
Whenever someone in a position of authority asked her for something like this, it was always a disgusting request made for their own sake.
To the tense Sharen, the guard said:
“The lord has asked you to treat the people of the territory.”
“Pardon?”
There was a severe shortage of doctors in Kron's territory because so many immigrants were arriving.
At the lord of Kron's request that she treat them, Sharen let out a sigh of relief and gladly agreed.
With the guard guiding her, Sharen began traveling around the territory and treating people.
While doing so, she witnessed an astonishing sight.
It was farmland currently being reclaimed.
A striking silver-haired young man stood at the front, with countless people behind him.
Then, following the silver-haired young man's calls, they began planting crops together in the fields.
“All right, everyone—one!”
[ “”One!!!!”” ]
“Two!”
[ ““Two!!!!” ]
Following the silver-haired young man's calls, the people planted crops across the farmland without leaving a single gap.
Sensing an unmistakable air of nobility that could not be concealed, Sharen asked the guard beside her:
“Who is that noble-looking silver-haired gentleman?”
“Ah! That is our lord, Lord Calix Kron!!”
Sharen was surprised by the guard's answer.
It was hard to believe that such a remarkably young lord ruled this paradise.
“Him?…Then why is the lord personally doing farm work like this?”
“Our lord says farming is the most important work for filling people's bellies. That is why he participates in farming himself and sets an example.”
“I see…”
Agriculture is the foundation of the realm (農者天下之大本).
There is a saying that agriculture is the great foundation on which the people of the world live.
Everyone knows and understands that, but few leaders actually step forward and put it into practice.
Sharen had seen lords who said that securing food through agriculture was important.
But she had never seen a lord personally step forward like that before.
Sharen grew curious about Lord Calix.
* * *
A week passed after that.
During her stay in the territory, Sharen asked the people about their lord.
Everyone told her much the same thing.
“The lord? He's a wonderful man! Thanks to him, we never have to go hungry anymore!”
“Our lord was sent by heaven! There isn't another lord like him anywhere in the world.”
“Oh, there's no need to say anything more about our lord. If you badmouth him in our territory, you'll be killed. Really.”
“We survived because our lord accepted us. If we had been dragged off to House Ryan, I don't even want to think about what would have happened…Even now, I'm so grateful.”
Everyone liked, loved, and praised Lord Calix.
Some lords even brainwashed their subjects with magic, drugs, or religion.
But Sharen could not sense even the slightest unnatural fluctuation in the spirits' mana, which such methods would create.
They sincerely loved their lord.
And Sharen met that family as well.
“Our lord is the benefactor of our family. He made it possible for us to eat well and live in abundance, and he saved my son when he nearly died in the storm. Our family will repay that kindness until the day we die.”
“That's right! The lord saved my life, so I will definitely repay that kindness!!”
Sharen was astonished to hear that the lord had saved Baron's life.
Could the minstrel's song really have been true?
However, after living in human society, Sharen had grown distrustful, so she made a cautious request.
“If you don't mind, may I see that memory?”
“Can magic really be used to view memories?”
At Baron's question, Sharen nodded.
Baron spoke boldly.
“Of course! Look as much as you like. Just…that memory, please. Not the next day with Aron's mother…”
“Honey!!”
At the sight of the affectionate couple, Sharen smiled faintly and said:
“Understood. Don't worry. I'll read exactly that memory. Now…recall the memory from that time.”
Sharen placed her hand on Baron's head and used a memory-projection spell.
Amid countless swirling memories, that memory unfolded before Sharen's eyes.
In the stormy sea, she saw the shoe of their missing son and heard their wailing cries.
In that memory of nothing but despair, his gaze shifted toward the sea.
There, the silver-haired lord she had seen emerged from the sea carrying the child, then placed a hand over the child's heart and desperately began performing some kind of first aid.
The child began coughing up water and regained consciousness, perhaps because that intervention had worked.
There was no magic or blessing in that scene, merely an ordinary person's ordinary struggle, yet it was the most beautiful sight of a lord Sharen had ever seen.
“That must have been painful…Thank you for showing me the memory.”
“No, Mage Sharen. We should be even more grateful to you for treating us free of charge.”
After seeing that memory, Sharen felt her thoughts fall into place.
Sharen made up her mind.
* * *
I met Sharen one week after her arrival.
I had let that much time pass in order to make Sharen lose interest in me.
I had given a mage respected and revered everywhere an inn room, then made her spend a week treating only my subjects; this incompetent lord must have disappointed her.
Honestly, I would have preferred never to see her, but Hart and Noah kept hounding me to make her an offer, so I called Sharen in to make a token effort as her lord.
“Hello, my lord. I am Sharen.”
“I am Calix Kron. It's a pleasure to meet you, the Red Mage Sharen.”
Sharen was even more beautiful in person, truly like a goddess of flame.
Her short, distinctive elf ears, her red hair brushing her neck and swaying softly, and her goddess-like beauty made me feel as though an exclamation would escape me on its own.
As I enjoyed the sight, I said:
“I'm sorry I couldn't meet you sooner. There was a lot of work in the territory.”
“It's all right, my lord. I understand.”
She looked at me with a somewhat peculiar gaze.
It was different from Noah's gaze.
If I had to compare it to something, it was the look of an older sister cheering on a little brother?
I sensed something like that.
“I'll get straight to the point. House Kron would like you to become the exclusive mage of our territory.”
Avoiding her gaze, I went straight to the point.
Beating around the bush wasn't my style.
Nor was there any need.
I had already heard that she was going around investigating me and House Kron.
Then she would know.
I had no money because I invested everything I earned in my subjects, and I had too much work because of the immigrants.
There was no way a high-ranking mage like her would become the exclusive mage of a rural territory at the southern tip of the Empire.
It was like Zhuge Liang entering the service of Liu Bei, who had nothing, and something like that could never happen easily.
With that in mind, I spoke, and Sharen answered immediately.
“Yes.”
“Right, that's a shame...Huh? What did you just say, Sharen?”
My hearing seemed to have gotten worse lately.
So I asked again, and she answered clearly.
“I will…become the exclusive mage of House Kron here, my lord.”
That day, I became Liu Bei.