Chapter 124: The Plan to Keep It Secret

Eugene glanced at the frill on the cuff of Ren’s shirt. Then he looked round the room. For an instant his eyes went wide and he stared hard at something. Ren followed the line of Eugene’s gaze. In the four corners of the room “small boxes” had been set up, shining brightly.

(Ah……! I left the “small boxes” out……)

Ren hunched his back guiltily. Eugene brought his eyes back to Ren.

“……If you were to give this and say ‘I made it myself’, I think the person would be delighted, and impressed. But other people who learnt that you had made it might come and say, ‘make one for me too.'”

“Even if I ask them to keep it to themselves?”

“When they see it being used, some will ask where it came from. The one who was given it’ll want to show it off. If so much as one person talks, it spreads. And when you hand them over, the people of this house, the guests’ servants and the escort knights will all see, won’t they. There’s no saying for certain that nobody will speak of it.”

“……”

Ren still had no real feeling for what would follow if it did spread. He listened to what Eugene said with a rather puzzled look. Eugene went on.

“I said so a moment ago, didn’t I — that this looks as though it would sell.

In that case, if they knew you were the maker, they might say ‘make a great many more’ and try to sell them. And there’s the matter of the Azure Wind Swift feathers. If azure feathers are being used, there may be people who tell you to go and hunt the magical beast with the azure feathers.”

“That’s true. There was the feathers as well……”

Ren dropped his eyes to the acorn with the azure feathers. He himself had grown uneasy at the thought that the people who wanted azure feathers might react to it, so this he could feel the force of.

“You went to the trouble of making them meaning to give pleasure — and you might be left feeling wretched about it.”

“Yes……”

The acorn met Ren’s fingertip and rolled over, and the azure feathers swayed. He was fond of the look of the feathered acorns. But once it came to giving them to somebody, there seemed to be a great many things that had to be minded.

“Then……, perhaps I’d better not give them at all……”

At Ren, whose shoulders had drooped, Eugene smiled a little and said:

“No……, I think the giving itself is a good thing. ……For instance, how would this do — that you consulted me because you ‘wanted something to give them to take home’. That it’s an article the Adventurers’ Guild means to sell before long, and still only a trial piece.

I’m your uncle, so it wouldn’t be odd for me to have brought them at your asking.

You have in fact consulted me, and if you make a contract with the guild it won’t be a lie.

Only……. What you do is for you to decide, Ren-kun. I’m not going to press you to ‘hide’ the fact that you made them.”

“……If we do that, I can give them without saying I made them……”

Ren thought for a moment, then nodded.

“……I’ll not say that I made them……”

“Yes.”

Eugene nodded.

Ren decided to enter into a provisional contract, just as Eugene had proposed.

When the signing of the provisional contract was done, Eugene let out a long breath and turned his eyes to the corner of the room.

“……Er, those things in the corner of the room — are they lamps? An unusual shape.”

(It’s the “small boxes”!)

His heart gave a jolt, and he felt he could hear it beating.