3.4 Mylne Town: Windmill on the hill

“So there ya hav’ it, chief! These two are Prestige and they’re ready to give us a hand and some coins in return for a place to stay. Whaddya say?” Igreine, the young lady from before, asked the town’s head chief.

He wasn’t nearly as stoked to see us as Igreine earlier and gave it a lot of thought, but then said, “Alright. Under these conditions: if you work poorly, you’re out! If you eat too much, you’re out! If you sleep too long, you’re out! If you don’t rest at noon… I suppose that can be forgiven… but if any of ours don’t like you, you’re out as well!”

We better work our asses off…

“Understood.” I bowed. “We won’t disappoint you.”

“Yeah, yeah… get a move on,” he said quite rudely. “Igreine, bring them to the ‘mill.” He threw her a key.

“H-huh? Are you sure?” She asked.

“You get a move on, too!” Before we were out the door, he yelled, “That’s ten copper a night!”

Ten copper is about the price of a loaf of bread… with a single golden coin we could stay for 150 days.

As the three of us headed out of his house, Igreine’s humming made it easy to make out that she’s in a good mood.

“It looks like the chief likes the two of you!”

“You think so?” I highly doubt it…

“Uh-huh. His late parents lived in the house next to the windmill, he doesn’t let just anyone in. He’s not one to openly say how he feels about stuff, but you can trust me on this one,” she winked.

A bird soared low across the sky. I struggled with catching where exactly the sound it made came from, but simply following Hikari’s gaze, her eyes were locked onto it the second she heard the chirping noise. Then she asked, “There are so little people outside, and the chief said something about resting at noon… Are the people of Mylne resting now?”

Igreine nodded. “Yup! We wake up early in the morning for work then we eat breakfast before getting back to work—I am a rancher by the way, cool, right?” She forgot what she was saying for a second. “Uh… Oh yeah, and then we go to bed at noon and sleep until an hour or three before dinner. The only reason we do that is to skip out on lunch… there’s not enough food for all of us to be eating three meals…”

I knew that the further south you go, the poorer the people get, but I never thought that there were entire towns out there skipping out on lunch in solidarity every day.

“I see.” She didn’t say more than that.

When we had walked through houses scattered along the empty dirt paths we reached the windmill’s hill.

“Here it is.” She reached in her dress’s pocket and took out the key. “This will be your place for the time being. We haven’t cleaned there in a while… but I hope you’ll make it a nice home for you two…”

She was awkwardly grinning, probably trying to suggest that we’d clean it… which I was already set on doing.

“Thank you. We’ll take good care of it.”

“Great! Then I guess I’ll see you two at the town’s dinner?”

“The town’s dinner?” I parroted.

“Yup!” She turned around and pointed towards the circular space of emptiness that a couple of dirt paths lead to. “We all share dinner together at the heart of the village!”

“Alright, we’ll see you there.” I bowed again, to show her my gratitude.

I put the key into the door of the little house next to the windmill. When it unlocked, the door slowly creaked open.

“Hinokyu.” She casted an eastern fire spell, one that creates a small flickering light that lights up in similar fashion of a torch.

“Thanks!”

The place was dusty and the ceiling was covered with cobwebs, but all in all, it was a hundred times better than sleeping on the grass. Once we’ve cleaned this place, it’ll be a million times better.

She put away her fire spell once we found some curtains to open. We also opened the windows to let some fresh air blow through the rooms.

“Alright, let’s look for cleaning equipment now. I’ll check here. Oh, and open all the curtains and windows you see, please.”

“Hm, got it.”

The first door I opened led to the dining room with a wooden table and four chairs around it. On the other end of the room was yet another door. This one lead to the kitchen. I opened the curtains there, too.

When I left through the same door I came from, I heard Hikari say, “Found it.”

Through the hallway, I made my way over to her. The room she was in was the bedroom… one with—

“—Only one bed…”

“Hm?” She turned around and patted the bed. “This sort of bed is called a double bed. Two people can sleep in it.”

I couldn’t help but groan. “I’ll look for a couch to sleep in.”

“You seem troubled, but I am afraid I do not see what the problem is.”

“Of course you don’t… Let’s just start cleaning…”