Bringing Down a Dragon with a Stone

After leaving the fields, Louis leaned close to Sif with a mysterious air and lowered his voice. "Come on, I'll take you to try something good."

Sif gave him a puzzled look but followed him anyway.

They arrived at a small workshop, where a faint, sweet fragrance hung in the air.

Inside, a middle-aged woman was intently stirring syrup in a pot.

Her name was Doris, and she was one of the refugees who had followed Louis to the Northern Frontier.

A few days earlier, Louis had learned through the Daily Intelligence System that she was skilled at making sugar, so he had assigned people to help her gather sap and try making Birch Sugar.

The first batch was now finished, and today she was boiling the second.

Outside the workshop, workers were methodically collecting sap from the birch grove.

They drilled holes in the trunks about a meter above the ground, then carefully inserted tubes, allowing the clear sap to trickle into wooden buckets.

"Don't take too much from any one tree each day. No more than half a bucket, or you'll hurt the tree," Doris instructed the workers as she worked. "Remember to plug the holes when you're finished. Wooden plugs will do."

The boiling syrup bubbled away, and the sweetness in the air grew stronger.

"Oh! My lord!" Doris looked up and saw Louis, a smile spreading across her face. "You've come at just the right time. The sugar we made yesterday has cooled, so it's ready to eat today!"

Smelling the sweet fragrance in the air, Louis smiled. "Then we're in for a treat today."

Doris picked up a translucent golden piece of Birch Sugar from a wooden tray beside her and handed it to Louis.

Louis casually popped it into his mouth, chewed, and said appreciatively, "Mm, that tastes really good."

Then he picked up another piece and held it out to Sif. "You try some too."

Sif frowned. Rather than taking it immediately, she eyed the candy warily.

She had never seen such a strange food before and even wondered whether Louis had put poison in it.

Louis smiled at her reaction and deliberately tossed the piece in his hand into his own mouth, crunching it loudly. "See? No poison."

Only then did Sif carefully accept a piece of candy. After a brief hesitation, she put it in her mouth.

Sweetness instantly spread across her tongue, carrying a distinctive hint of fresh wood-a flavor she had never tasted before.

Her eyes widened slightly, and her cold expression vanished for a moment before she quickly forced it back into place.

Then she swallowed as though nothing had happened and gave a slight nod. "It's all right."

But the faint upward curve of her lips still betrayed a little of how she truly felt.

Louis saw it all and couldn't help laughing. He grabbed a small bag of candy and pressed it into her hand. "If you like it, take some."

Sif tightened her grip on the bag and lowered her head without a word, though her ears quietly turned red.

Then Louis nodded to Doris in satisfaction. "It tastes good, better than I expected. You've done a fine job. Keep making more."

At his praise, Doris broke into a broad grin. "Yes, my lord! I'll do my best!"

But Louis soon thought of a problem.

Birch sap could only be collected during a few short weeks in spring. Once that window passed, the sap would stop flowing.

"What a shame," he said with a soft sigh. "The harvesting season is too short. We can't turn it into a local specialty to sell elsewhere."

Doris sighed regretfully as well. "Yes. In a little while, we won't be able to collect any more sap."

Louis rubbed his chin and considered it for a moment. "Still, since we can make Birch Sugar, we could try planting fruit trees in the future and see whether we can make sugar from fruit."

"You're so clever, my lord! If we can grow good fruit, perhaps we can boil it down into even more kinds of sugar!" Doris nodded excitedly.

"One step at a time," Louis said casually. "Once we have the means, we'll have the craftsmen try building a sugar workshop."

Doris's eyes shone with enthusiasm. "Thank you, my lord! I'll be sure to develop more methods!"

Louis then took a small bag for himself and slipped it into his pocket, leaving one large bag of candy in the workshop.

"Hand the rest out to the children," Louis instructed.

The Knight accompanying him immediately took the bag, ready to distribute it at the school.

Yes, Louis had established a "school," though it was more of a nursery than a school.

Children under thirteen were gathered there and looked after by several women.

It allowed the children to learn some basic knowledge while freeing their parents to work.

Fortunately, there weren't many children in the Red Tide Fief, or such an arrangement would probably have been difficult to maintain.

Besides, once the children here turned thirteen, they had to start working, helping catch fish and the like.

When they arrived at the school, they happened to hear one of the women looking after the children telling them a lively story about Louis:

"Lord Louis had just returned with his Knights from slaughtering orcs in the Northern Frontier. There was still green blood on his armor, but he spent the night arranging an awards banquet with several Knights.

Everyone had worked until midnight and was just about to leave when he suddenly planted one foot on a rock, pointed at the sky, and cursed, 'You damned dragon, circling over my territory every day! You think I'm some kind of pushover?'

With that, he bent down, snatched up a pebble, swung his arm, and hurled it into the sky.

The stone shot upward with a whoosh, becoming a streak of red light that punched a hole straight through the clouds.

Then came an agonized roar, and a thirty-meter-long frost dragon spiraled down, crashing into the Black Pine Forest..."

Sif listened to the story about "bringing down a dragon with a stone."

The corner of her mouth twitched involuntarily, and her gaze slowly shifted to Louis beside her, her eyes filled with silent disdain.

Somewhat embarrassed, Louis cleared his throat and explained under his breath, "They made that up themselves."

Sif folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Is that so?"

Louis looked away.

Suddenly, one of the children spotted the figures at the door.

"Our great lord is here!"

One child shouted first, and as though that had lit a spark, the entire room erupted with excitement.

"My lord! Our great lord!"

The children raised their little hands and bounced around Louis, their eyes full of admiration and anticipation.

Clearly, this wasn't his first visit.

Faced with these enthusiastic little ones, a hint of helplessness entered Louis's eyes, but he still smiled and patted the nearest child on the head.

Then he took the bag from the Knight, grabbed a handful of candy, and bent down to hand it out to the children.

The children eagerly accepted the candy, cheering and jumping for joy.

"Thank you, my lord!"

Then they hurriedly stuffed the candy into their mouths.

As it melted in their mouths, innocent smiles immediately blossomed across their faces, filled with sweet satisfaction.

Sif saw the heartfelt smiles on the children's faces.

Even her dreary, ashen mood grew a little lighter without her realizing it.