KWB 7

“If clam and oyster shells pile up, they smell terribly fishy.”

“I heard the smell is so awful that you have to pay a hefty bonus to the cleaning crew just to haul them away. You can make fertilizer out of that?”

“Yes. Those shells contain the exact same components as limestone.”

Of course, getting rid of the salt content, drying them out, and grinding them down was tough to do without magic.

“This paper with the manufacturing recipe on it is a magic scroll in itself. If you tear it in half, the spell I cast on it will activate.”

I turned the paper over and showed it to the focused farmers. The farmers widened their eyes when they saw the gold magic runes inscribed on the back.

“One side is the recipe, and the other side is a scroll?”

“But usually….”

“Scrolls are made using expensive paper and expensive ink.”

“To make it this cheaply….”

Was it okay to just do it like this?

I shrugged at the farmers, who looked like they were about to pop out of their heads.

“If one sheet solves the problem, is there any reason to use two?”

I simply couldn’t tolerate that kind of inefficiency.

“Check the recipe, go down to the beach to sweep up the shells, and then tear the scroll.”

“Then?”

“The moisture in the shells will evaporate, and the volume will shrink.”

Since it would shrink to about a third of its size, they could easily carry it back. There was no need to make multiple trips—they could bring back all the materials in one go.

Hating nothing more than doing a job twice as much as using two sheets of paper—right?

“And if you grind them down, the smell is much less intense, too.”

“B-But, Mage. Will there… be enough scrolls for all of us to use?”

“There’s only one of you, Mage… and there are quite a lot of us, you see.”

“If we factor in the people who haven’t even arrived yet, we’re going to need a ridiculous amount of scrolls.”

The farmers looked at each other.

“If we run short on the scrolls you gave us, can we just bring the shells to a mill or somewhere and grind them down?”

“You could do that, but the results are much better if you roast them in a fire before grinding.”

My scroll had a fire-attribute spell woven into it, but mills couldn’t replicate that.

“And—”

I paused slightly right there.

Gulp. The sound of someone swallowing echoed somewhere.

It was a little amusing to see older, weathered farmers and a young man clenching their fists in nervous tension at my single word.

“You won’t have to worry about running out of scrolls.”

At that exact moment, Ian opened the door leading to the manufacturing room.

Stacked inside were bundles and bundles of scrolls. Tied up neatly in bunches of twenty for easy transport.

It was the result of me cutting back on sleep over the past three days just to pump out scrolls.

Left speechless by a mountain of scrolls that three generations could use and still have plenty left over, the farmers’ jaws dropped.

“Th-This….”

“Did you make all of this by yourself?”

“Yes.”

I simply shrugged.

‘Hard for people with the common sense of this place to understand, I suppose.’

People in this kingdom were universally sluggish at getting things done. As I could tell just by the fact that the voluntary academy withdrawal form my uncle had submitted ages ago still hadn’t processed.

Naturally, seeing true “K-efficiency”—where people don’t hesitate to pull all-nighters for the sake of a goal—for the first time, it made sense that these kingdom folks were losing their minds.

Not that I felt particularly proud of it.

Someone from the back asked again.

“B-But… what if there actually aren’t any oyster shells down at the beach?”

They say the smell is so foul that they have to call in sanitation workers almost every single day.

“Don’t worry about that, either.”

I’ve already left instructions not to throw away the clam and oyster shells.

“In a few days, people will come by to sweep them all up on their own, so save your money and just hang tight for three or four days.”

“Wait, when on earth did you do that? While you were making all these scrolls?”

“When I first brought back the shells.”

“If it was back then….”

“Yes.”

I knew you guys would come looking for me. At my deadpan words, silence swept through the shop.

Three seconds later.

“Are you a genius?!”

A roar burst out from the back.

I tilted my head.

“Not a genius.”

“Then…?”

“Just someone who hates doing things twice?”

At those words, everyone cheered.

“Ah. That’s right.”

“Yes, Mage?”

“This isn’t free.”

At my words, the farmers all wore identical expressions of panic.

“Ah, right, of course….”

“Naturally, you should be paid…”

“D-Did I bring any money?”

“I came out in such a hurry…”

Panicked farmers started rummaging through their pockets.

Before long, every single person here was hanging onto my every word. As the farmers whispered anxiously to one another—“Do you have money?”—I told them:

“I don’t need money.”

“Pardon?”

“Instead, I want you to trade with our shop going forward.”

“Trade?”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“You said it yourself three days ago, didn’t you? That since I wasn’t the mage who originally traded with you, how could you trust me?”

And that was true.

To run a shop, you needed suppliers who could provide raw materials.

And these people—

‘Were the ones who tried out my fertilizer first and came running the moment they saw results.’

The most diligent and desperate farmers among those who had been in the plaza that day.

“In exchange for giving you this manufacturing recipe, I’d like you to supply our shop with herbs.”

“Well, of course!”

Shouted the farmer who had sprinted here earlier while shoving the young man.

“My farm is famous for producing Rosemary of Memories! To the savior of our farm, I pledge to supply top-quality rosemary for free for the rest of my life!”

“W-We’re confident in our Frosted Mint!”

“We have Thirsty Roses! We even hold a royal certification!”

“We will give you our highest-quality goods for free! For life!”

“You don’t need to go as far as ‘for life’.”

I was only going to run this place for a year, after all.

I replied as I pulled a silver rod from my pocket.

“Magical herbs grow fast, don’t they? I’ll take the first harvest for free, but after that, I’ll pay fair market value. Just giving me the best of whatever you harvest will be enough.”

“We don’t mind giving them to you for free for life, though!”

“That’s right, you’re the savior who saved our farm, we should at least do that much!”

“How many herbs could a tiny shop like this possibly use anyway?”

I was going to use a lot.

“Take payment. Don’t regret it later.”

It wasn’t because I was a pushover that I insisted on paying.

‘Even if they’re grateful at first because I saved their farm, if I keep siphoning off their best harvests for free every single time, resentment is bound to build.’

They’d start feeling like they got scammed.

In my experience, I’ve never seen anything good come from making an enemy of your suppliers.

And just like that, magic contracts were struck with the farmers.

Soon, the farmers holding bundles of scrolls trooped out of the shop.

“Thank you so much, Mage!”

“You’re our savior!”

“We’ll see you when we harvest the first batch of herbs!”

One by one, they disappeared out the door in a line.

Finally, it was the young farmer’s turn.

The guy who had given me attitude at the plaza three days ago.

He had a pretty decent face, but his temper was a blazing fire.

Seeming to know full well how shameless he was being, sweat beaded on the bridge of his tanned nose.

Squeezing his eyes shut, the young farmer blurted out:

“I’m sorry about three days ago. I’ve been a bit high-strung lately…. I even had to fire an employee who’d been with us since my parents’ time…. Anyway, things haven’t been great, so I acted rudely.”

“…….”

“I am truly reflecting on it. My sister told me I had to apologize to the mage, too…”

“Pamy-Farm Herb Farm.”

“Pardon?”

I confirmed it to the farmer, who stood there with his mouth hanging open.

“You’re Farm from Pamy-Farm Herb Farm, right?”

I saw it in the Academy newspaper. How, after losing both parents early on, a brother and sister still in their teens inherited a massive farm.

“That must have been a heavy burden.”

At my words, Farm’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Yeah… after our parents died… people around us kept eyeing our big farm, wondering how a couple of kids were supposed to run it… I tried to do a good job, but then the Monster Bloodsuckers disaster suddenly hit.”

A guy around my older brother’s age, sniffled pathetically.

I asked Farm, who was wiping his eyes aggressively with his sleeve like a little kid:

“So, does that mean I should forgive you for free?”

“N-N-No?”

“I asked if I should forgive you for free.”

“No! Of course not!”

He was so flustered that he didn’t even notice I had dropped honorifics again. I told Farm, who was frantically rummaging through his pockets:

“If the farm is that big, you must have a lot of herbs that were ruined and had to be discarded because of this crisis, right?”

With nowhere to process them, they must have just been piling up.

“Give me those as an apology.”

“B-But those are just trash that can’t be sold anywhere.”

“Trash is even better. Hand them all over.”

“Why….”

“I have people I need to charm other than you farmers.”

“With trash?”

“You got charmed by trash, didn’t you?”

I pulled over a blank piece of paper. Using my silver rod, I quickly inscribed a magic incantation onto it and handed it to Farm.

“It’s a volume-reduction spell. If you use this magic on the herbs, their volume and weight will shrink so you can transport them all at once.”

Farm, who had instinctively accepted the scroll, asked in a daze.

“Th-Then… does this mean you forgive me?”

“Yeah.”

The Pamy-Farm would become one of my primary suppliers going forward.

A farm capable of steadily supplying the most diverse and high-quality herbs.

“You’ll probably be able to rehire that employee you fired, too.”

“Thank you, thank you so much…..”

Farm’s face was overflowing with deep emotion as he bowed repeatedly.

Seeing him make that kind of expression without having the slightest clue how hard I was going to work him in the future made me feel almost a little guilty.

“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d forgive me. I yelled at people younger than me, kicked the sign…”

“You were a total jerk.”

“I thought everyone else’s land was getting back to normal and they were resuming farming while ours was just going to end like this… but for you to be this generous…”

“My situation is similar to yours.”

“Pardon?”

To Farm, who widened his eyes at that, I didn’t explain any further.

Instead, I said something else:

“The pie was delicious.”

At those words, my older-brother-aged guy’s face lit up so brightly.

“Thank you!”

Shouting in a booming voice, Farm added:

“If there’s anything you need me to do from now on, just call me anytime. I’ve got plenty of strength.”

He glanced sideways at Ian, who was just walking out of the manufacturing room, and tacked on:

“And call me if someone ever tries to scam or betray the mage, too.”

Why on earth did he keep glaring at Ian while saying that?

“I’ll be back with the herbs!”

With a face glowing with a brightness incomparable to when he first walked in, Farm asked one last thing before leaving:

“Oh, Mage! That potion you made earlier—not only did it lack the bitter taste, but it was super sweet and delicious! What kind of magic is that, too?!”

I answered expressionlessly:

“That’s just sugar.”