CH 214

I had a dream about her.

I saw her when she was still small and very young.

She baked bread every day. It was her job.

She worked at a small inn doubling as an eatery. She was an orphan the proprietress of the inn had taken in.

She had been working as far back as she could remember.

Every morning, she would check the leavening,

Mix it with wheat, salt, and warm water,

Knead, knead, roll the dough into loaves, give the fermentation process some time,

Bake,

Let them cool,

Lay them out,

Eat some of the bread to check the taste,

Go to sleep when the sun goes down,

Wake up at sunrise, and check the leavening again.

Her days were a repetitive cycle.

They were simple, but each day was filled with chores to be done.

However, as she grew up, she gradually became more efficient at baking, and with the spare time she had, she began to do other work.

The first thing she learned was how to make soup.

Next, roasted dishes.

She left the inn and went into the wild hills with a hillman, from whom she learned about edible wild plants and various kinds of medicinal herbs. After learning about how bountiful nature was, she learned to hunt.

She was by no means a person who learned things quickly. Neither was she inventive.

She was simply a very earnest person.

It took her twice as long as others to acquire the same level of skill.

However, at some point, her position changed.

She had become the most knowledgeable among those who had learned from the hillman. That was because she was the only one who had patiently listened to the words of the lonely old man until the very end.

Nonetheless, her job remained the same.

In the mornings, she would check the leavening, mix, knead, bake, let them cool, lay them out, and then spend her spare time in the wilds, receiving sustenance from nature and sometimes giving some back.

She believed that she would grow old in the midst of this daily routine and then pass away like the hillman. That this was her life.

One such nobleman took a shine to her.

The man came every day to eat bread.

On days when she made soup, he would have soup, and on days when she made roasted food, he would have that as well.

The words they exchanged were few.

In terms of age, he and she were as far apart as grandparent and grandchild. The only subjects they could talk about were the weather, the changing of the seasons, and food. There should have been no reason for them to grow close.

However, no commoner would refuse a proposal from a nobleman.

The proprietress of the inn was more than happy to give her up.

No one asked her what she wanted, but she herself understood that this was just the way it was.

Surprisingly, the man's proposal was not for her to be his mistress, but his lawful wife.

A servant at an inn becoming a nobleman's wife……it was as if she was a certain ash-covered princess[1].

She was envied by those around her, but what awaited her was complicated family circumstances and ordeals.

First, a son older than her and his wife.

Three grandchildren the same age as her.

On top of that, the man was also the king's advisor.

She helped the man with his work.

It involved a lot of networking.

In other words, politics.

Be it during or after work, she studied around the clock. Even after returning home, she had no free time. The only way for an ignorant peasant girl to learn about the nobility and politics was to work herself to the bone studying.

In the midst of her busy schedule, which left no time for sleep, she still baked bread.

She was not ordered to do so by the man. In fact, he stopped her. Even though the son’s wife and the grandchildren sneered at her and the maids treated her as a nuisance, she baked bread every day.

It was a habit she had developed over the years.

But more than that, it was a show of her determination.

That no matter where she ended up, she would never change. It was a tiny bit of stubbornness from a peasant girl who was determined to not succumb to her position or circumstances.

The woman's resolve was enough to move the man.

The man spared no expense to help her learn.

She was not a gifted person. She was far from what one would call a genius.

But she was an earnest student.

One of her teachers was a magician.

His name was Garving Bau Mitera.

He was the person who would later be known as Garving the Houma, one of the three great magicians.

He had a fondness for earnest people. However, he would never pick someone off the streets even if they were earnest.

He was a snob.

He demanded money, and an exorbitant sum at that, to teach.

Even then, he would only teach the noble children he didn't like how to decoct laxatives and the like from medicinal herbs.

He was an eccentric, capricious, and exceedingly talented magician.

Such a magician taught her everything he knew. One could even say that he devoted himself to her.

Politics, history, medicine, smithing, stories of the gods.

And the many secrets of magic.

Perhaps Garving had loved her as a man loved a woman.

Or maybe she had charmed the great magician with her devilish charm.

No, the reason why humans fell in love with another, or why a man would devote himself to a woman, was ultimately just a fickle thing.

At any rate, days and months went by, and thanks to her talented teachers, she thrived.

"Thrived" didn't mean that she had given birth to a child or that her body had matured. It simply meant that she had learned to provide excellent assistance to her husband in his work.

At long last, they had become a real couple who supported each other and stood shoulder to shoulder.

In the end, her husband must have been lonely.

He was strict with his children and grandchildren. Since the death of his wife, he had had no one to confide in.

He had only married a simple peasant girl to provide himself with some solace.

Even though it had started out that way, perhaps his love for her had been genuine.

The man left his entire estate to her in his will.

The son and grandchildren had been wastrels, so it was the right decision, even without taking into account whether or not he loved her. She also had no intention of forcing the son and the grandchildren out at all. And she had taken over her late husband's work as well, earning her the king's trust.

She wasn't bothered by her family's jealousy.

She had done what needed to be done, accomplished what needed to be accomplished, and had grown, rigorously and diligently, as a person. The man she loved was gone, but even his death had made her stronger.

But there was one thing she had forgotten.

It was human malice.

She had believed that she had gained knowledge, but her understanding had been lacking.

She had assumed that humans were creatures of reason and acted on the basis of profit and loss. That had made her want to believe in the family of the man she loved.

Ironically, they were beasts lower than humans.

The son and his wife, and even the grandchildren, worked together to assassinate the king.

Moreover, they pinned the crime on her.

They were the blood relatives of the former advisor who was still fondly remembered and the family of the current advisor. No one doubted their trustworthiness. The fact that even the king hadn't seen through them was probably proof that they were truly evil.

She was apprehended and put on trial.

She did not lament.

In front of the enraged queen and nobles, she presented her innocence in a reasoned manner.

But none of her words were heard.

The sole reason for this was that she had come from a humble background.

She might hold the status of a noble, but she was still just a commoner. She was different from those who were born into nobility. The difference was as great as the distance between heaven and earth, and between bugs and humans.

The envy towards her was great.

No commoner could possibly be better than them. To protect their pride, the nobles kept shouting that she must have gained her current position through misdeeds or that she was pulling the wool over people’s eyes with her dubious powers.

They were split when it came to her sentence.

Death penalty or exile.

The nobles were unanimous in their support for the death penalty.

The royalty, however, thought that exile was sufficient, considering the good work she had done so far. And although they weren't very vocal, some in the royal family were calm enough to believe in her innocence.

But it was always the loudest voices that held sway. Even in a monarchy, their voices could not be ignored. With the king dead, antagonizing the nobles would lead to a civil war.

In the end, the final decision was left to the queen.

（Ah, I see）

She had learned.

The shallowness of humans, their stupidity, their sloth, their jealousy, and the many fiery emotions fueled by their dark and seedy proclivities.

（Is this the extent of humans?）

It was then that she finally realized that she was no ordinary person.

On the day of her execution, she managed to flee the kingdom.

It was a brazen escape.

There was no way the guards of such a peaceful country could stop the disciple of a great magician.

And even the nobles, who had thought her no more than a weak woman, had no way to stop her.

These weren't fakes who only adorned themselves with authority and past achievements, but true nobles who challenged the dungeon.

The only people who might have stood a chance against her were the warriors of the end, but they had simply let her pass by.

They had a connection with the hillman. They had known her well.

When leaving her homeland, not once did she look back. She didn't have the slightest interest in those insects that only sipped and fattened themselves on the sordid parts of history.

They would eventually perish.

Without a doubt, they would bring about their own ruin through their own stupidity.

「And when they do, I'll have a good laugh」

She spat out that curse and left Neomia behind.

That country being shrouded in winter and locked within a nightmare was but another story in itself.

[1] Just in case, this is a reference to Cinderella. There are so many connections between Cinderella and ashes/ash-covered across the various languages and iterations that it’s impossible for me to list them here.

Wanna guess who “she” is? The title ought to be clue enough, I think. What a dream sequence though(Yes, don’t forget that this is a dream seen by our narrator).

Still, what an interesting start to a volume, huh? Are we finally going to learn Misuranika-sama’s origins?! Stay tuned!