Chapter 15

The lead handler was surprised by both our return a day early and the fact that we had brought back an unknown girl, but he understood the situation after hearing our story.

"Madam, I have heard rumors. In Subalts, they are forcibly marrying the forest people, who live freely without following the country's orders, to their own citizens. However, it is said that those who marry the forest people, who live in extreme poverty and receive no education, have ulterior motives."

"Leed, what kind of ulterior motives?"

"Surprisingly, after registering the marriage, they are used as unpaid servants and overworked."

"How terrible. That's like slavery."

"Exactly. The traveling merchants said that the treatment was akin to slavery. Those who could not endure the harsh conditions and fled back to the forest were forcibly brought back. I thought it was just a rumor, but it seems to be true."

Ouri was sleeping inside the stone house. She must have been very tired.

She refused to get into a sleeping bag. After laying the sleeping bag on the floor and covering her with my jacket, she fell into a deep sleep. I asked Leed to keep an eye on her so she wouldn't disappear quietly. Nonna drew water from the artesian well, and I started a fire to make tea.

Nonna was sitting on a tree stump, holding a wooden cup in both hands and drinking tea. Seeing her, I pointed out something that had been bothering me.

"Nonna, did you pick up more stones? Your pocket looks like it's about to tear."

"I did. I found a really beautiful stone."

Nonna loves stones.

I knew she really wanted to keep a dog or a cat, but before living with Jeffrey, we moved around a lot and it was impossible to keep animals. When we were in the Shen Kingdom, we were only staying temporarily, so we couldn't keep dogs or cats.

Ever since we started moving around, Nonna would name and talk to the beautiful or interesting stones she found, giving them names related to where she found them.

It made me feel sorry and guilty when she said these were her pets, and I had even cried in secret.

"Anyway, take the stones out of your pocket. If you don't, either your pocket will tear or your pants will lose their shape."

"Okay."

Nonna took the stone out of her pocket, and I blinked in surprise. Nonna smiled very satisfied.

"Isn't it beautiful? I think it's the second most beautiful stone I've ever found. This one is Sibee. I found it on Mount Sibyl, so I named it Sibee."

"Can I see it, Nonna?"

"Sure, but I won't give it to you. It's my pet."

It was a rough, white stone about the size of an adult's palm, similar to the stones that fell in that crater. The reason Nonna chose this stone was obvious. There were patches of gold mixed in part of the stone.

I had seen gold ore displayed several times, but I had never seen a stone with so much gold.

Nonna, apparently pleased by my surprise, explained proudly.

"There were bigger ones, but they were too heavy, so I chose this one. I like smaller pets that fit in my pocket."

"Nonna, can I borrow it?"

"Uh, it's my Sibee."

"Just for a little while. I'll return it to you later."

"Okay, but only for a little while. Sibee, I'll definitely return you."

I took the stone and went to where Jeffrey was resting, silently handing him the stone. Jeffrey looked at it twice, then took it and examined it closely.

"Hmm? Hmm? Anna, could this be—"

"It's probably gold ore. I thought it might be fool's gold, but it's definitely gold."

"This... This is going to cause a big stir. That crater is within our country's territory, but if the Kingdom of Subalts finds out—"

"It depends on the size of the vein and the amount of gold, but it could even lead to another war."

"Is this Nonna's pet?"

"Yes."

"I'll keep it for a while. If Nonna carries it around and it gets seen by others, it could cause trouble."

"I agree."

"Still, to think that such a gold-rich stone was just lying around. It might be possible to mine it with open-pit mining."

"This is a significant discovery."

Jeffrey thought for a while before speaking.

"Why did Elmar, who wrote that novel, use a code to describe the gold mine?"

"I don't know. I also don't understand why anyone would choose to live in such an inconvenient place in the forest when they could easily get gold."

I took out a piece of parchment with an incomprehensible message from my pocket.

"Maybe we'll understand something if we decode this. I'll start working on it seriously tonight. And, should we tell Sir Clark about this gold ore?"

"Since the volcano is owned by the country, we have to inform the civil servant, Clark."

That night, we all decided to sleep in the stone house.

I said I would keep watch outside and started working on decoding the parchment by the light of the campfire.

I tried all the codes I knew, but I couldn't figure it out.

In the past, Haggle's organization had a brilliant agent who was excellent at creating and decoding codes. The code system created by this agent has evolved and is still in use today.

I was good at decoding, but I couldn't create a system. The brilliant agent's code used a combination of numbers as a key, and with that key, complex messages could be sent safely. This might be a similar system.

As I was thinking about whether there was a key that could be used to decode the message, Jeffrey came out of the house.

"Anna, it's your turn to rest. You should sleep."

"Okay, thank you."

The next day, we went back to the crater to confirm the existence of the gold ore. Leed and Ouri stayed behind.

We passed through the narrow crack again and entered the crater. The crater was as quiet as it was yesterday, with a gentle breeze and the sound of birds. It was a quiet world with low shrubs and white stones scattered around.

"This way."

We followed Nonna, who was leading us to where she found Sibee.

There were indeed several gold ores scattered where Nonna found Sibee. At first glance, they looked like ordinary white stones, but when the dirt and mud were rubbed off with hands, the gold embedded in the stones reflected the light and shone.

"Amazing. How much gold is hidden here?"

Sir Clark said excitedly.

"I hope this doesn't cause any conflicts."

Jeffrey looked worried.

"Dad, can I take some as souvenirs for Bernard and Susan?"

"Ah, I'd avoid Susan. It might cause trouble if the news spreads."

"Aww, that's a shame. What about Bernard?"

"Uncle Bernard will probably just look at it secretly, so it should be fine."

"Great!"

Sir Clark was also picking up small stones and cleaning the mud off them, but he suddenly looked at me and said,

"Teacher, aren't you going to take any back?"

"I'm fine. I'll just ask Nonna to show me Sibee if I want to see it."

"Sure, I can lend you Sibee sometimes."

"Thank you, Nonna."

We left the crater and met up with Ouri and Leed, who were waiting for us. We all returned to the stone house and decided to head back to the capital the next day. That night, I worked on the code again by the campfire after everyone went to sleep.

But I couldn't make any progress. I was exhausted as the morning approached.

"I need to sleep."

In the morning, we would set off for the capital.

I suddenly thought, "Maybe I should try using Princess Carolina's name as the numerical key." I converted Carolina's name into numbers using the method created by Haggle's genius, and followed the numbers to pick up and write down the letters.

And then...

Words started to emerge from what seemed to be a string of incomprehensible words.

I hurriedly grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and wrote down the words as they appeared. Jeffrey, who had woken up, seemed to sense something and was looking at me with a questioning expression.

I was too impatient to explain to Jeffrey and continued writing down the words as they appeared.

As a result, the hidden truth appeared before my eyes.

I never imagined that a Haggle-style code was hidden in the Ashbury language text.

It was content that no one, not even the historian Sir Bernard, could have imagined.