Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 2

by Ichirou Sakaki

  “...Okay, okay. Let me have it.”

  As the silver-haired girl handed him the bottle with something like a look of triumph on her face, Yukinari nodded at her, resigned.

  ●

  The day’s survey and construction work stopped before the sun went down. Or rather, a halt was called when the sun began to sink. Sunset would plunge the world into darkness. Besides the usual threats of demigods and xenobeasts, there would be wild animals with good night vision to worry about, and the chance of bandit attacks increased as well. To the citizens of Friedland, the lawless types who lived in the countryside might as well have been monsters.

  Yukinari could slay all the gods he wanted, but protecting the ten defenseless villagers was his first priority. There would be no point making them work at such a dangerous time of day.

  “Good work today, everyone,” Fiona said, taking in the group at a glance. They had returned to town and would go their separate ways at the square Friedland used for special events. This area had originally been used to prepare for religious rituals—that is, to ready the sacrifices before they were sent out to the erdgod. Because of that, it was naturally located near the sanctuary where the priests lived.

  Incidentally, the structure set up for the observation of the ritual was also called a sanctuary, perhaps because it too was administered by the priesthood. To the extent that a sanctuary is supposed to be home to a deity and not the deity’s priests, it was this latter “sanctuary” that most deserved the name. The building where the priests lived in town should perhaps have been called something else. But in Friedland both were called sanctuaries by tradition, and other than the sacrifices who went to the erdgod in the mountains once every two years, nobody deliberately went out to the wilderness sanctuary. Hence, when Friedlanders referred to “the sanctuary” in everyday conversation, they usually meant the one in the city.

  “Have a good night,” Fiona said, and then the men of the survey team each made a brief bow in Yukinari’s direction before heading off to their respective homes.

  It was now fully dark, and torches burned in the town square. The wavering flames produced complex plays of light and shadow.

  Yukinari glanced over to see Berta looking at him with a confused expression. It seemed to contain a variety of emotions—as if she might be about to laugh, or cry, or not do either of those things.

  “Berta?”

  “Oh—yes?” She blinked when he said her name, then gave him a questioning look. “What do you need?”

  “Are you all right? You almost looked like you were about to cry. Or—wait. That’s not it.” Yukinari stumbled, searching for the right words. “Anyway, you look like there’s a lot on your mind.”

  “...It’s just, I... left from here.” Berta smiled as if at a fond memory. “And I didn’t... think I would ever come back.”

  She was right: this was where she would have gone when she had been offered up as a sacrifice under the euphemism “shrine maiden,” and just beyond the sanctuary that faced the square was the orphanage where she had been raised. It must have been an emotional place for her.

  She smiled, a hint of girlish shyness in her voice. “If I could go back and talk to myself then, I’d want to tell her. Tell her it was going to be all right, that she would come back here safely, in the company of someone better than she had ever imagined—could ever have imagined.” She spoke joyfully, placing both hands over her heart.

  “Berta...” Yukinari looked at her for a fleeting moment—but it was enough to notice something in the window of the sanctuary. The shutters were open ever so slightly, and someone was peeking out. A priest, most likely. When his eyes met Yukinari’s, the shutters closed hurriedly.

  “Yuki?” Dasa said, studying his face. “What’s... wrong?”

  “Oh... It’s nothing.”

  “Were... you... looking at Berta?” Yukinari had been looking at the building behind Berta, so from Dasa’s perspective it must have appeared as though he were looking at the other girl. “At her... chest, I suppose?”

  “Whatever. No, I wasn’t looking at Berta. I was looking at that building,” Yukinari said, indicating the place where the priests lived. “The priests were watching me.”

  “...Oh.” Her blue eyes blinked.

  “That’s all. Anyway, can’t say I’m surprised. Nothing for you to worry about, Dasa.”

  “But, Yuki...”

  “Really. Don’t worry.” He smiled as he spoke, and reached out to touch Dasa’s cheek. Dasa had been born with cataracts and had been unable to see for much of her life. Yukinari had produced artificial lenses that gave her vision almost as good as an average person’s, but even so, she never seemed quite comfortable relying on sight alone. A hand on her cheek or in her hair was much more reassuring to her than words alone.

  Now she placed her hand over Yukinari’s, as if feeling his body heat. Coming from a girl who rarely showed much emotion, such gestures were heartwarming. Yukinari moved his hand slightly, rubbing her cheek. Dasa narrowed her eyes like a happy cat and smiled a little.

  Fiona, having dismissed the other members of the survey team, spoke up. “Yukinari. I’d like to talk about our plans for tomorrow. Will you come over to the mansion? With Dasa and Berta, of course. I can have rooms prepared for you for tonight.”

  Currently, Yukinari, Dasa, and Berta were staying in the sanctuary—the one some distance from town. On the spot where the sanctuary of the erdgod had once stood, an impromptu dwelling had been built, but it was impossible to avoid the impression that it had been hastily constructed. It was solid enough to keep out the elements, but the toilet, bath, and other amenities were difficult to use.

  “That’d be great. It would make my day if I could take advantage of the bath while I’m there, too.”

  Fiona nodded with a wry smile.

  The bath at the Schillings mansion was drawn from a nearby wellspring, which meant there was plenty of hot water to bathe with. Incidentally, Yukinari had asked if it might be possible to cool the water down and use it for agriculture, but the same idea had occurred to Fiona at some earlier time, and had already been tried. Apparently, there was some kind of issue with the water quality that made it unsuitable to use for crops.

  “Allow me to wash your back, Lord Yukinari.”

  “Ooh, great idea,” Fiona chimed in. “Let’s all bathe together.”

  “...Womanizer.”

  “Dasa, please, you have got to understand I didn’t ask for this!” Yukinari said, his shoulders slumping under her glare.

  The map of the area lay open on the floor of the Schillings’ parlor. This was chiefly because the house lacked a table of sufficient size to hold the map—the dining table was long enough, but not wide enough—but now, Yukinari discovered some surprising advantages to viewing the map this way. If he stood up, he could take in the entire thing at a glance. Since he was charged with protecting all of Friedland and the surrounding area, this was a useful perspective.

  Standing on the far side of the map, Fiona said, “So today, we got rid of the boulder at the pass. That opens up the shortest route between Friedland and the lake to the north. What do you have planned for tomorrow?”

  Fiona wasn’t the only woman looking at the map; Berta stood to Yukinari’s right, and Dasa to his left. These seemed to have become the places they always occupied; it wasn’t so much that they had chosen these spots as that Yukinari, half-unconsciously, usually stood with Dasa to his left. This led to Berta frequently being on his right.

  “All we’ve done so far is get ourselves close to connecting the valley and the lake. We have to do more than just link them up and let the water flow. We’ll need another controlled blast—to remove another obstacle like we did today—to connect the lake to Friedland. But it’ll take some real preparation to get the water coming steadily. Right, Dasa?”

  “Mn—agreed,” was her response to Yukinari’s attempt to involve her in the conversation.

  From being an assistant to an
alchemist, Dasa had experience with stills and similar equipment, as well as drugs and herbs, so she understood the properties of fluids. The difference between a test tube and a canal, however great, was ultimately one of degree and not of kind.

  “So,” Yukinari went on, “I think this should be our last visit to the lake area for a while. Let’s focus on digging a canal alongside the road. We can add branches that go to the fields, to make sure the water will have somewhere to go when it gets here. That’s pretty much just physical labor, so I’ll have the men handle it. I don’t expect any trouble with demigods this close to town, and we can have several teams working at the same time. As for where we’ll dig, we can follow my original map.”

  Of course, Yukinari could use his power as an angel to turn all the earth he touched into air or water or whatever he wanted. It would have been possible to dig the irrigation canal that way, but the truth was that physical reconstitution was not the most efficient way to do such work.

  “I don’t really think people are going to listen if I tell them to do something. So Fiona, I’ll be counting on you to get them on the job.”

  “Sure thing. And... what will you be doing during that time, Yukinari?”

  “I’ve got some ideas in mind. I’d like to improve the soil itself.” For his answer, Yukinari pulled something that seemed helpful from his memories of his “previous world.” He told her: “The soil in this area—it’s not barren, but it’s not rich, either. If we could make a simple fertilizer... No, wait. Maybe we should produce better farming tools first. Anyway, I want to figure out a way to give the land some life.”

  Growing crops in a concentrated area, such as a field, effectively exhausts the land. The plants put down roots that absorb the nutrients and air in the soil, turning it, for all practical purposes, into a wasteland. Yes, rain and air carry nitrogen, which can help nourish the plants, but in the long run it isn’t enough. One can raise crops, and harvest them, but then the land must be allowed to rest—to lie fallow, soaking up the sun and regaining its nutrients. In a word, it has to regenerate itself. Friedland, needless to say, practiced this system of cultivation and rest, but in a primitive form; their broad calculations meant efficiency was poor.

  The current state of the Friedlanders’ farming tools seemed to include large plows pulled by horses or oxen. Yukinari couldn’t help thinking that better equipment—not combines or complex machinery, mind you, just improved tools—might enable agriculture on a larger scale. The earth had been in use for so long that it had grown tough, hard to put roots into. Regular cultivation was necessary, but if possible he wanted to improve efficiency. Yukinari mulled over the possibilities, scouring his memories of his “previous world.”

  I might be able to create a simple motor, but an electric generator facility is probably asking too much. Once we get that irrigation canal set up, maybe we could manage a waterwheel? But...

  The ease with which Yukinari had produced Durandall and Red Chili was thanks to the model guns he had disassembled in his previous world. He remembered doing a science experiment in elementary school where he had made a basic motor by wrapping copper wire around a permanent magnet. But when it came to creating anything like an actual generator—well, that was somewhat beyond the knowledge of the average high schooler. Even though he understood the principles involved, he would have to work out the details by trial and error.

  “Anyway, since I don’t share a spiritual bond with the land or whatever, I can’t just control it. I have to find other ways to make it do what I want.”

  “I see,” Fiona said with an admiring nod. Having studied at the academy in the capital, she had by far the most knowledge of anyone in Friedland. And there was no doubt that she was a good thinker: she even seemed to understand what Yukinari was talking about without him having to break it down for her.

  Berta, on the other hand, listened to all of this with a blank expression. It wasn’t her fault; she had never had an opportunity to receive a proper education.

  “I gather quicklime is a common fertilizer,” Fiona said. “And I hear on the coast they use crushed shells—but that’s expensive when you get inland.”

  “Sure. That’s not so much an actual fertilizer,” Yukinari replied. “It’s more a way of improving the soil, or balancing the pH...”

  “The pH...?” Even Fiona was thrown by this.

  “We could be in for a very long talk if I go into the details. But... Hmm. Soil is actually like water; it can be ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ or somewhere in between. And different plants like different kinds of soil. So by putting the right plants in the right earth, you can get more out of them. Make sense?”

  This world at least seemed to have basic soil-improvement techniques. But without a knowledge of chemistry, farmers could only take an educated guess at what would help. That, anyway, seemed to be where Friedland was technologically. And here, the productivity of the land was tied to more than simple environmental factors. Spiritual power or earth meridians or whatever it was the erdgod controlled entered into the equation, too. That made the situation so complicated that it might have been impossible for anyone to understand it well enough to spur technological progress.

  “Look, I’ve been talking about an irrigation canal as if we only needed one. But once the main canal is ready, we’ll need to dig supplementary canals to get water to each of the fields.”

  “Supplementary canals...” Fiona narrowed her eyes for a second as if in thought. “Meaning smaller canals to carry the water to the fields, right? And we would have to be able to dam them off or open them up depending on which fields were being rested at any given time, right?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Yukinari said, and then he regarded the deputy mayor with surprise. “You really are a quick study, aren’t you, Fiona?”

  “Wh-What, you’re surprised? I mean, s-so what?”

  It was an unusual reaction from Fiona, given that Yukinari had simply offered his honest opinion. She was clearly a bit flustered, as if it made her feel awkward.

  “So nothing in particular. Just like I said. I always figured you were smart, but you really pick up on things quickly.”

  “It’s not that complicated. Anyone with an education could have followed you...”

  “I really don’t think so. Some people are all knowledge and no intelligence.”

  Broadly speaking, there are two types of education a person can receive: one that deals in simple facts, or one that teaches how to think. The latter alone is meaningless, of course, but it does little good to be fixated on the former, either. It would be like someone having a huge collection of weapons and no idea how to fight: not very efficient, and not good for much. From that perspective, Fiona had an excellent balance in her education. She had covered everything and learned to be thoughtful and perceptive.

  “It helps a lot that you’re so quick. Honestly, I know a lot of things, but I’m not a great thinker, myself...”

  “You’re kidding. And anyway, I just got the education they give you in the capital.”

  “Some people get an education, but never figure out what to do with it,” Yukinari said. Then it occurred to him: Fiona was probably the only person in Friedland to have gone away for higher education. The people of the village may have known she was smart, but they probably saw it as the simple product of having attended school in the capital. If they admired her for it, it was only as someone who had gone to be educated in a place that, for them, might as well have been a foreign country.

  Chances were, very few people here understood the nature of Fiona’s intelligence. Only Yukinari—and Dasa, perhaps—could evaluate it fairly.

  This was why her reaction to his praise was a mixture of surprise, embarrassment, and pleasure.

  As these thoughts ran through his head, Yukinari felt a pair of eyes staring at him. Specifically, blue eyes, from his left. Dasa was gazing at him through her glasses, as though she were waiting for something.

  “Dasa?”

  W
hen he said her name, she wordlessly looked away. She almost appeared to be pouting—not almost, he realized. That was exactly what she was doing.

  Ah, Yukinari thought, grasping the situation immediately. Now I get it.

  “I know a thing or two about smart people,” he told Fiona. “I’ve had more than a little help from them.” As he spoke, he put his hand on Dasa’s head. Dasa no doubt had every bit as much trouble as Fiona did being properly recognized. Yukinari saw her as second only to Jirina in teaching him about this world. But her knowledge and thoughtfulness were so familiar to him that he rarely thought to remark on them.

  “...Yuki.”

  Dasa peered up at him from under the hand he was running through her hair. She didn’t like that he had heaped so much praise on Fiona and had none for her—or, to put it bluntly, she was jealous. Moments like this revealed her childish side. The special circumstances of her upbringing had left her somewhat unacquainted with proper social behavior—the result being that she could seem emotionally younger she was.

  “Anyway.” Yukinari ran his hand gently through Dasa’s hair, wrapping some of the silver strands around his finger, with all the delicacy one would use in scratching a cat under the chin. “I’ll let you take care of the preparations for the irrigation canal. I’ll try to figure out if there’s anything else we can do.”

  “All right. Let me know if you come up with anything.” Friedland’s deputy mayor looked first at Yukinari, then at Dasa, with a slightly crooked smile.

  ●

  Night passed, and morning came. Yukinari and his companions left the Schillings mansion for their usual place of residence—Yukinari’s “sanctuary.”

  As explained earlier, this was a single house built on what had once been the sanctuary of the erdgod. No one knew exactly if there were energy meridians in the earth, or lines of spiritual power running through this place—or something else altogether—but when demigods and xenobeasts came seeking the station of erdgod, this was where they most often went. That made it an ideal strongpoint to protect Friedland from these same threats, and Yukinari judged it unwise to be away from it for long.