Chapter 745 — The Road Never Imagined

The Cecil Empire's newspapers and broadcasts were curious things, always carrying all manner of news from distant lands. Back when she was still human, Beiyila had taken an interest in these two novelties, and now that she had become a plant, she was even fonder of them.

After all, as a plant, she had lost the ability to go to distant places.

And to satisfy the Great Sorin Tree's modest request, the Cecil people stationed here showed appropriate kindness: they brought the latest newspapers and magazines of every kind, and Margarita even ordered a dedicated arcane-network terminal installed beside the Great Sorin Tree's trunk, so that Beiyila could operate it and watch it herself.

It was in the agricultural section of a certain newspaper, and on a certain arcane-network program, that Beiyila learned the name Norris.

He was indeed a great man—a minister of the Empire, and reputedly one of the founders of Cecil's very foundations.

Even though he was only an ordinary man, without any extraordinary power.

Beiyila could not help studying Norris carefully once more, and she sensed that this old man before her might not be as aged as she had first imagined.

He had merely grown old too soon.

She had seen this aged, frail appearance many times—during the pioneering era, many of the first settlers who had burst out of the wastelands and eked out a hard survival on the barren plains had looked like this; and later, in the age of the kingdoms, the poor who still struggled to survive had looked the same.

In an instant she read too many stories in Norris, so many that she could not help but be somewhat surprised; yet her already dulled features betrayed none of this faint stir of feeling. She merely asked, curious: "You came looking for me?"

"I came to see the 'miracle of the Great Sorin Tree,' which they say keeps the vitality of spring here," Norris nodded slowly. "I see it now—truly incredible... You've healed this region almost completely."

"Are you trying to rebuild the towns and villages of the Eastern Plain?" Beiyila asked curiously.

"You can see that?"

"A little," Beiyila said. "From the highest point of my canopy, I can vaguely make out the tidal flats at the edge of Pinewood Valley. There's been cooking smoke rising there lately, and I can see crystal towers standing upright."

Norris nodded. "That's the Pinewood Valley Camp. They're restoring the logging camps and mines there, preparing for the Red Maple rebuilding camp's projects next year."

"What you're doing must be terribly hard... I know it's winter out there," Beiyila said slowly. "Why must you do this in winter? You could wait until late spring next year, when the ice and snow melt—you could hide away in the warm southern cities first."

"After a winter, the starving jackals would seize the barren plains completely, and come late spring we'd still have to spend time building camps, repairing houses, and digging water sources. Every time we miss the window for opening the fields, we risk missing another season of grain, and people may starve," Norris said calmly. "The Southern Frontier's grain is not plentiful, and the food the Western Frontier has scraped together from every source will only last us until next year's harvest. In those regions short of grain... whether people live or die may truly hinge on that one mouthful of food."

Several seconds passed before Beiyila spoke softly: "...You don't want a single person to starve, do you?"

"No one deserves to starve," Norris said.

"But surely some still will, at least this winter, at least before the grain-producing regions of the Holy Spirit Plain recover..."

"Perhaps. But that is no excuse," Norris shook his head. "I am the Minister of Agriculture. The task His Majesty gave me is to feed as many Cecil citizens as possible, to keep them fed. Having enough to eat is a citizen's right; beyond that is not for me to consider."

A wind blew in from afar, carrying a trace of chill. Though that chill was gentle compared to the winter gales outside, it still sent Norris into a few coughs.

A rustling swept through the Great Sorin Tree's canopy, and the cool wind stopped short.

"Thank you... that's your power, isn't it?" Norris felt the ease spreading through his body; no longer the ignorant farmer he once was, he could guess at the extraordinary power contained in it. "I feel much better."

"Just a little trick. Pay it no mind."

Norris fell silent for a moment, then suddenly waved a hand at the people who had come with him. "Go rest for a while. I'd like to stay here a bit."

A young official stepped forward instinctively. "Minister, you..."

"I'm in good shape right now," Norris said to the young man with a smile. "I'd like to talk with this lady a while longer."

"...Yes."

The attendants withdrew.

Beneath the Sorin Tree, only an aged Minister of Agriculture and a former pioneer who had witnessed seven centuries of wind and rain remained, facing one another.

"Your condition is not promising, Mr. Norris," Beiyila was the first to break the silence. "As a mortal, your time is nearly up."

Norris smiled and shook his head. "...I know. But hearing someone say it so bluntly really doesn't feel very good."

"My apologies. It has been a long time since I last tried to speak gently," Beiyila said. "So then, do you hope my power can extend your life?"

"I know a druid of considerable skill... his temperament has its problems, but his ability is excellent. He said that aging is the fate appointed for most mortals, and that even the divine arts from before the White Star fell could hardly reverse such a law."

"...He was right. Then it seems you did not come to me about your health," Beiyila said, gazing into Norris's eyes. "So have you truly only come to see what the Great Sorin Tree looks like?"

"I wanted to see whether there was anything here that could be of use to our reconstruction work," Norris smiled. "The grain problem especially... After all, the Empire's finest druids are gathered here, along with a Great Sorin Tree called a 'miracle of nature.'"

Beiyila thought for a moment, and suddenly a rustling came from the shrubs nearby. A small gray beast darted out, cradling a red fruit the size of a fist.

Beiyila bent down, took the fruit from the little beast, and held it out to Norris. "This is a fruit I bore. The humans here say it tastes very good and is quite filling."

Norris took the fruit with some surprise, examined it carefully, and asked, "You... how many fruits can you bear?"

"Enough to feed a medium-sized town, roughly. And if you don't mind the taste and the faint toxicity, the leaves can be eaten too for short-term sustenance—enough to feed two or three times that many people. But please don't pick too many at once; I still need to photosynthesize."

"...We have more than one town's worth of people to feed," Norris shook his head. "But these fruits should indeed solve some of our problems."

"To solve the grain shortage across the entire plain region—I'm afraid I can't do that," Beiyila shook her head. "Even if I drew more heat up from beneath the earth and turned all the open land around Sorin Fort into fertile fields, it likely still wouldn't be enough."

Norris thought it over, then asked again, "Can the miracle of the Great Sorin Tree be replicated?"

"...I'm afraid not. The formation of the Great Sorin Tree involved extremely complex factors. It required the power of a god, the lives of a great many high-ranking druids, magic power accumulated over a long time, and incalculable luck. Even so, I still haven't fully understood how this transformation came about in me. Mr. Norris, there will never be a second Great Sorin Tree—at least, I don't know how to recreate the process."

Norris heaved a deep sigh. "Alas, I should have known it would come to this. When it comes to feeding countless ordinary people, one truly cannot pin one's hopes on a miracle that can never be replicated."