LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 76 – In which they have a nightmare (1)
Chapter 76 – In which they have a nightmare (1)
Amara frowned as he looked at the stack of letters.
‘There is no news…’
He didn’t see the small head anywhere since that night.
It’s not like he wanted to see him or was looking for him…
‘He usually pops out somewhere at least once a day.’
Of course, Amara knew nothing about the small head that sometimes popped out around him, surely nothing like that ever happened, but now that it really didn’t happen, Amara found himself strangely worried.
And that strange worry was disrupting his work.
*Did poppies do something wrong?*
*Sometimes they’re pink.*
*What is wrong with pink all of a sudden?*
*Ah, you don’t know? Some languages don’t differentiate between red and pink, so when our Am announces that Purplus will acquire large amounts of red poppies, sometimes the pink one are also mixed up. But our Am can’t use pink poppies. They’re too young or weak. So that’s a loss.*
*Commerce is scary.*
*...i don’t think it has anything to do with commerce… isn’t it just miscommunication…?*
*WoUld OUR AM fRoWn so MuCh iF it wAs just MiscoMMunication?*
*No. Poppies are in the wrong. Obviously.*
*I knew it. That’s why the novel our Am enjoyed was called Poppy Murder!*
It seemed that because his work was disrupted when he was looking at the report about preparations regarding the poppy flower supply for the upcoming harvest festival, some gods got the wrong idea.
‘The poppies did nothing wrong. And it was Poppy who was murdered.’
Amara quickly cleared the misunderstanding and calmed down a few poppy-related gods, who were greatly distressed by the accusation.
Then he addressed Phlox, who was weirdly zoning out in work.
“Miss Phlox.”
“… uh? Yes, Your Excellency?”
“Did you see Younger Brother Laven anywhere? I wish to organize the festival schedule beforehand with him. There seems to be a lot of things to cover this year.”
“… Festival schedule? The festival that is more than a month away? Now?”
Phlox stared at him blankly.
Amara blinked innocently, as if he had no idea what was the problem, and nodded his head.
“Yes, of course. We’ll be very tight on time, so we have to make a thorough plan to make sure there will be no mishaps.”
“Tight on time…”
Phlox mumbled it over and over, as if it was some kind of curse.
Tok.
She flinched when Amara lightly knocked on the table, signaling Geod to grind the ink that was slowly running out.
Snapping out of her visions of the terrifying future full of schedules to fill with overlapping events and items to squeeze in short periods of time, she at last replied to Amara’s question.
“No, I didn’t see Young Excellency. Should I go look for him?”
“No.” Amara frowned slightly. “No need.”
If he sent out Phlox, wouldn’t it look like he was worried?
Amara decided to secretly investigate the little head’s whereabouts later.
Turning away from that problem, he dealt with the report on the poppy stock and moved to the next agenda.
Amidst shuffling of papers, he asked:
“What about the dancers? We already put off choosing them two times.”
“Ah.” Phlox quickly took out a thick notebook, which she noted down all the plans for the current week, and searched it. “The competition will be held in two days in the evening.”
Then as if she remembered something, she looked up and asked Amara:
“Your Excellency, have you decided yet what to do about the main performance?”
Hearing her words, his hand paused for a moment, and then quickly resumed its movements.
The only evidence of momentary hesitance was a slightly thicker brush line.
“No. I’m still thinking.”
They didn’t continue the topic as Amara passed Phlox a few urgent letters to be sent out immediately, and the priest left the room.
Being left alone at the table breaking under the pressure of documents, notices and letters, Amara fell into thoughts.
‘The main performance…’
That was quite problematic.
This year, the Harvest Star was passing under the constellation of Lovers, which meant that all big performances were made around the concept of love.
And the main performance was led personally by the Saint.
‘Should I just tell a story…?’
Amara didn’t feel like taking the role of a lover.
But if he took the role of the narrator, he could avoid it.
‘People will be disappointed’
It was the first year the Harvest Star was passing under the Lovers' constellation after Amara became an adult.
There were many love-obsessed people, who were looking forward to what their Saint would do for this occasion.
‘Should I use this occasion to announce that I have no interest in love?’
Most priests didn’t practice celibacy, unless it was a part of their worship practice.
It varied from temple to temple, but most of them were free to create families and have children.
And they were also free to stay completely out of it.
It was a famous story that Amaranth stayed loyal to his dead lover to the very end.
To the regrets of many though, there were no records who that dead lover was.
Roughly brushing off useless thoughts aside, Amara continued his work.
*-*-*
Cuprit closed the book with a light tap.
Then he sighed.
‘Serving the Archmage himself is truly the best.’
He put the book on the growing stack of magic textbooks he borrowed from the Archmage Library, which Crimo made open for everyone working for him.
Though on paper Cuprit still worked for Scarlen at the Magic Exchange, after the incident a week ago, which came to be called ‘Crow’s delusion’, Scarlen’s Magic Exchange was halted for an indefinite time.
And more importantly for Cuprit, he was adopted and became brothers with the Archmage’s subordinate, Sangria.
That meant that Cuprit had a lot of free time on his hands and a library open for him thanks to being a family of Archmage’s subordinate.
His sisters seemed to be a bit nervous about the recent developments (even if they didn’t show it in front of others, Cuprit could see it), but he decided to make the best of it.
Deciding to take a break from his studies, he stood up and left the room allocated to him in Sangria’s space.
When he learned that Sangria lived in the Archmage’s Manor, he thought that Sangria may have one or two rooms for himself, but little did he know, it was an entire small house inside a house.
There were five rooms, spacious living room and living space for a simple kitchen and bathroom.
Sangria used one room for his bedroom and another for simple study (apparently the laboratory was somewhere else), so it was easy for him to give three rooms to siblings.
And speak of the devil…
“Older brother.”
Cuprit found him in the living room in front of several cups with some leftovers of coffee.
The young man looked up, his eyes bloodshot.
“I’m younger than you, please don’t call me that.”
“You’re higher in status than me, so it’s natural to call you older brother regardless of your age.”
Cuprit simply repeated what his sisters told him to say in such a situation, and looked at the coffee cups with some doubt.
According to what he learned in the past week, Sangria almost never drank coffee. It was almost always some herbal tea.
In addition…
“Do you feel better?”
Sangria was sick for the last few days.
And he didn’t look any better right now.
“No.”
The sick man was indeed sick.
“Then what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you stay in bed?”
Sangria didn’t answer immediately, he poured himself another cup of coffee first.
Only then he replied with a hoarse voice:
“I can’t. If I fall asleep now, I may not wake up in time.”
“In time for what?”
“Before that will-o-wisp comes.”
“Will-o-wisp? Do you mean the spiritual creature, otherwise known as fox fires, which appears in fog and bewitches lost travelers to fall into water and takes away their souls? Isn’t it just a folk tale?”
“No. They’re real. Stay away from water.”
“… Okay.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Cuprit asked:
“But Brother Sangria, there is no water around?”
“He comes in a dream.”
“Will-o-wisp can step into people’s dreams?”
“He is a very powerful will-o-wisp.”
“Who is he?”
Sangria’s eyes sunk as he took a sip of black like soot coffee.
“I don’t know. He visits every year on the same day. Tries to put out the fire….”
“… Wait, wasn’t will-o-wisp a fire?”
But Sangria didn’t seem able to hear Cuprit’s doubtful inquiry.
He just mumbled.
“I’m always afraid that if I don’t finish burning quickly enough, I might see his face.”
And then he wouldn’t be able to leave.
*~*~*