Chapter 76: Bell Rind Grass

Once he had checked that the glue had set, Ren tried loosing one of the finished arrows. Perhaps because he had adjusted the fletching carefully, it did at least hit the small box he had set up as a target. It was off from the centre he had aimed at, but there was something in the feel of it. The corner of Ren’s mouth lifted.

As he went on making a few and trying them out, over and over, he had the feeling his accuracy was gradually going up.

It wasn’t only the way the fletching was attached: if the nock—the part where the arrow hooks onto the string—was made carelessly, the arrow’s path went wrong the instant it left the bow. He shaved the end of the shaft branch so that the string would catch, but it kept threatening to split lengthways, so he wound thread round and round the base and set it with glue. Though if he wound too much on, it got heavy and stopped flying properly.

He remade them again and again and tried them again and again. When he had finally produced arrows at the “just about usable” level, he went back to the grasslands and once more turned an arrow on a horn rabbit.

He drew a long breath in, feeling out the presences around him as he readied the bow.

A rustling.

When the wind blew, a horn rabbit began to move, half hidden among the swaying grass. The arrow Ren loosed buried itself in the horn rabbit’s neck.

“I did it!”

Ren let out a breath of relief. But a three-eyed eagle had started circling in the sky, so he hurried the horn rabbit away into the small box.

On the grasslands too, he tried checking several of the plants that caught his eye with the small box. He decided to take back the unfamiliar plants that came out judged as “medicinal herbs.”

“Mana Berry and Blue Drop Grass we’ll buy. Bell Rind Grass we can’t take.”

“So it’s called Bell Rind. It isn’t a poisonous plant?”

“…No poison either.”

“Yes!”

At the Adventurers’ Guild buying counter, when he put in the blue-purple flowers along with everything else he had gathered, they were pushed back at him across the counter before any detailed appraisal was even done. Ren’s eyes lit up at learning the flower’s name, and the guild employee gave him a slightly dubious look.

Back at the mansion, he went looking for Yona. When he checked the rear garden where he had met her the day before, she was there, just as he had thought, practising her water magic.

The wind was a little strong, and Yona stood with her fluffy hair streaming, both hands thrust out in front of her.

A pale, sparkling light wrapped around Yona’s shoulders and arms.

A fist-sized mass of water shot out and splashed against the bushes a few paces ahead of her.

(Is she practising launching water masses?)

“Yona…?”

When Ren spoke, Yona started, looked down, then slowly raised her face and looked at him awkwardly.

“Ren-niisama…”

“Yona, um… here.”

He held out the bunch of Bell Rind flowers he had been carrying. It was a rough sort of bouquet—the cut ends wrapped in a damp cloth and tied with cord, exactly the way he handed in medicinal herbs. Yona’s eyes went to the blue-purple flowers.

“…They’re pretty…”

“They’re called Bell Rind. They were pretty, so I thought I’d give them to you.”

When Ren said that and held the bouquet out, Yona reached out hesitantly, took them, and brought her face close to the flowers.

“You’re giving them to me?”

“Mm. Um… I’m sorry about yesterday. Springing it on you like that, you wouldn’t have understood…”

“No…”

Yona shook her head hard. Keeping her eyes down on the Bell Rind flowers, she squeezed the words out in a small voice.

“…It isn’t only making water come out… you launch it… I did understand that Ren-niisama had been thinking about it for me… I didn’t really understand the part about fishing for fish, but… magic fish are magical beasts, so you fight them.”

“Mm… well…”

The way Ren felt about it, magic fish weren’t really something you “fought,” but her understanding that magic fish were a kind of magical beast was correct, so he didn’t contradict her. Yona looked up at him from beneath her lashes.

“I’m sorry… I thought maybe even Ren-niisama was going to say the same sort of thing as Yuan.”

“The same sort of thing as Yuan?”

“‘Water magic can only bring out water, so you could at least bring out enough for me to wash my hands.'”

Ren’s eyes went wide with surprise. Yona and Yuan were twins. They had done everything together since they were born and had been very close. Since Yuan had received the “Swordsmanship” skill and Yona the “Water Magic” skill at the Blessing Ceremony, he hadn’t seen the two of them together, but he had assumed that was because they were each training their own skill.

That Yuan would say something that looked down on Yona’s skill, when they had only received their skills the other day, was not something Ren could believe straight away.

“…Yuan said that?”

When he asked carefully, Yona gave a small nod.

“Yuan’s turned nasty…”

“I see…”

Ren didn’t know whether he ought to say “that’s awful!” In Ren’s mind, Yuan was the sweet little brother who used to pester him, along with Yona, to read them picture books.

(…Maybe Yuan just put it badly. Or Yona misheard him…)

He was imagining various versions of the situation when he noticed that Yona’s eyes, right in front of him, were welling up.

He bent down and looked into her face.

“…I think water magic is good. I think you can do all sorts of things with water, and I think just making water come out is amazing. If you wanted to give those flowers water, you could give it to them straight away, couldn’t you?”

“Water for the flowers…”

Yona touched the cloth wrapped round the cut ends of the flowers, then brought water out in her hand and moistened the cloth. The cut ends of the flowers were wrapped in fine, sparkling light.

Yona turned her eyes on him as if to ask, “Is this all right?”, and Ren nodded.

“You should use water magic when you want to use it. Even if someone tells you to bring out water for washing their hands, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

“Mm…”

A small smile came to Yona’s lips, and Ren felt relieved. He glanced at a patch of ground a little way off where the colour had changed. It was where Yona had launched her water mass a moment ago.

“…You were practising launching water masses, weren’t you.”

“Mm…”

Yona nodded at Ren’s words and thrust out the hand that wasn’t holding the flowers.

“Water, fly.”

Splash!

As Yona spoke the words, water flew from her hand, hit the bushes and scattered a small spray of droplets. She looked at Ren’s face as though to say, how about that.

“Father said, ‘a noble protects the people from magical beasts and from enemies.’ So I’m going to be able to beat magic fish too, if they attack the people.”

“Magic fish might not attack people…”

“Huh?”

“Ah! It might be dangerous if you put your face close to the river, though!”

“…So I’m not to fight magic fish?”

Yona’s small lips pushed out in dissatisfaction. Ren hurriedly shook his head.

“Y-you’ll have times when you fight, of course! Magic fish don’t come out of the river much, but… there are lots of magical beasts besides magic fish. It’s important to be able to fight!”

“Mm. Then I’ll do my best!”

Yona broke into a bright smile. He had finally got to see Yona’s usual smile, Ren thought, relieved.