People who come up from below the mountain sometimes say the village where I was born has strange customs.
This hollow high in the mountains is warmer than the outside, but the mountain god split the village in two.
My village is the one receiving the god’s blessing now, but lately, even that seems to have changed somehow.
“This way. Today, I brought something good.”
The one waving at me as I approach is my childhood friend from the neighboring village.
Though when I say that, neither of us has ever crossed the boundary between our villages.
Even when we talk like this, it’s while letting the livestock graze on the grass around here and hiding in their shadows.
If we didn’t, the adults from both our villages would get mad at us.
“Your village has been pretty noisy lately. There’s been this weird sound going on the whole time.”
“That’s the sound of the prince running a mysterious box that can shake stones without us having to work.”
I have no idea what she means.
This village is a beastman village, and the neighboring village is also home only to beastmen.
But an army, mostly made up of humans, came here.
They call it the Imperial Army, and apparently it’s led by some human prince.
On top of that, there are rumors that this prince is a rather strange person.
“What’s the point of shaking stones? You can do that with your hands without using a box, can’t you?”
“You don’t get tired, and apparently it hurts if you have horns.”
I still don’t get it.
But I can hear that the neighboring village has grown lively thanks to whatever that prince is doing.
“Did you ever get to go to that hut that makes you feel good?”
Apparently the prince made it, but mostly adults use it, and they won’t let children get near where the prince is.
It’s the same with the soldiers. They say we might be rude, so we’re not allowed to go near them.
“They say they’ll build more huts, but it looks like the adults and soldiers will be the ones using them after all.”
“What even is a hut that makes you feel good? Over here, they’re saying it’s something indecent.”
From what I’ve heard, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and the adults in my village said that when someone brought that up at a meeting, one of the army’s important people got angry.
Apparently there’s a really scary general.
We were told not to go near that person either, and I only saw a beastman I’d never seen before, who seemed to be the one, from far away once.
“That prince is amazing. He makes the adults feel better. They say their bodies feel lighter. I wonder what it’s like.”
To be honest, it isn’t very fun watching my childhood friend talk about him so happily.
“But he stays shut in and doesn’t work, right? I don’t know if someone like that is really so amazing.”
“He is amazing. And he does come out sometimes. I saw him once going beyond the shrine.”
“Huh, really? I heard he’s a child, but was it really a child who brought the army here?”
“Yes. Maybe because he’s human, he’s smaller than me. But Mother said he might be about the same age.”
Apparently he has black hair, is surrounded by adults, and goes into the mountain where the dangerous god lives.
That alone is pretty gutsy.
After all, stories about someone going into the mountain and dying are common in both my village and the neighboring one.
“And look, this. Lunch made with the fireless stove the prince created.”
What she holds out is a yellow dumpling.
It’s the staple food of our villages, made by grinding up tooth beans, but the neighboring village can’t use the shrine’s water, so they should only be able to eat dumplings every once in a while.
“Doesn’t the color look kind of different? And what do you mean, a stove that doesn’t need fire? It looks cooked no matter how you see it.”
“Hehe, the prince is amazing. The fireless stove even makes water for us.”
“Huh?”
I really don’t understand at all.
Just what is that prince?
Even so, I bite into the dumpling, which smells better than the ones I usually eat.
“…………It’s good!? Wait, it’s good. Oh, there’s no skin in it?”
“That’s right! When you use the fireless stove, it takes off the hard, gritty skin cleanly. And on top of that, it makes it delicious!”
Even though she’s the same childhood friend I’m used to seeing, she’s bubbling with a smile more satisfied than any I’ve ever seen on her before.
It’s delicious, but somehow, it isn’t fun…
Even if the adults don’t get along, we promised we’d always be friends, and it’s not like I hate her.
But somehow, it feels like that promise has been broken.
No, it hasn’t been broken, and she even gave me something delicious.
This should only be possible in the neighboring village, but she went out of her way to share it with me…
“…………But, you know. The adults in my village were saying…”
Even though I was thinking it through in my head, my mouth started moving on its own.
“They said it’s only for now anyway. Once the army leaves, the people from the neighboring village will want the precious shrine water and come bowing their heads.”
They really did say that, and that all the excitement over rare things would only last for now.
I heard the army came to settle the dispute between the villages and join the two villages together under the Empire.
The neighboring village is Imperial territory, and our village belongs to another country.
In other words, the village where I was born will disappear and become the neighboring village.
There are a lot of adults who don’t like that, and I hear the adults in the neighboring village don’t like it either.
I’ve seen the adults argue and curse at each other countless times until now.
Honestly, I’d grown sick of it, and that was why we should have promised that we would get along.
“But you know, they said it isn’t magic, so it won’t disappear even after he’s gone.”
“Is… that so? B-but you’ll still need the shrine water that works on stomachaches, right?”
“No. They said the water made by the fireless stove is the same as the shrine water.”
I was so shocked I could only stare.
The water given by the god is an incredible medicine, so much so that important people below the mountain send people to ask for it.
That’s exactly why our villages started fighting over the shrine, each side claiming it belonged to them, and why our relationship turned bad.
And yet, a prince who suddenly appeared had suddenly obtained the god’s blessing?
“They say it isn’t magic. It’s called alchemy.”
“Al…chemy? I’ve never heard of it…”
“Mm. It seems to be rare, and the soldiers say no one but the prince understands it.”
Apparently, unlike magic, there’s no problem with beastmen using it.
So even after the army leaves, the neighboring village will be able to keep eating these delicious dumplings forever.
From the high ground where the livestock were grazing, I looked down at the village.
“What is alchemy?”
“I don’t really know, but it seems to be something amazing.”
“Alchemy is amazing, huh?”
“Mm, it’s amazing. In the hut that makes you feel good, Father, who used to say his legs hurt, stopped being in pain.”
“It really is amazing…”
The prince’s hut standing near the shrine is a strange building made of cloth.
But there are always people there.
Even from above, I can tell they look like they’re having fun.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t heard much shouting lately.”
“Now that you mention it, you’re right. Is it the same in your village?”
Even in my village, we used to hear them shouting at each other, calling it a discussion, and the adults would only ever come back angry.
But before I knew it, that had stopped too.
The last time I heard them say the neighboring village would come bowing their heads was about a month ago.
“Maybe the discussions are going well?”
“Come to think of it, the adults gathered for something, and I think they said they’d be renovating the shrine too, under the army’s instructions?”
“Huh, really? They’re also making the god’s path easier to travel, so they’re going to make the village better, right?”
At my childhood friend’s expectations, I started to feel a little excited too.
“I wish we could all get along like this.”
“Yeah… Like, you know, us.”
“Mm!”
Her smile is dazzling.
Even though it isn’t hot, I feel myself growing flushed.
“And you know, the prince is very kind. The adults said he’s going to teach them alchemy.”
“Huh, what about children? I-if I learned that, I’d be able to do amazing things too, right?”
“I’m sure you would. But the prince is busy, so they say only the adults who are quick learners will be taught.”
“Do you think he’d do that for my village too?”
“I hope so. I want to try learning alchemy too. I want to make everyone smile.”
Her pure words make me ashamed of how calculating I am.
But even so… I want this childhood friend of mine to call me amazing.
It feels kind of unfair that it’s only a prince whose face I don’t even know.
If that’s what it takes, then I want to try working hard to learn this amazing thing called alchemy.
“…………All right! I’m definitely going to learn alchemy! And then I’ll feed you something even better than this dumpling!”
I stood up with that momentum and raised my voice in determination.
When I looked down, my childhood friend was staring at me in surprise.
But she soon gave me the smile I liked.
Somehow, just that was enough to make me feel proud already.
“Wow, thank you! If our villages become one, let’s study hard together!”
And so we laughed together, promising that we would learn alchemy someday.
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