Because I had been scolded by my mother, I only glanced at the goats out of the corner of my eye and turned to face the villagers.
Several dozen adults were bowing with their heads to the ground.
Perhaps because the forest was far away, none of them seemed to notice the goats.
Da-u, however, was looking at the goats and wagging his tail, so he had clearly noticed them.
Carro and Koruko weren’t looking at the goats, so it was likely they hadn’t noticed them either.
The goats, for their part, seemed to think they were hiding, peeking at us from behind the trees.
But they were far too large to actually hide.
“Sara, can you see them?”
When I asked, Sara tilted her head as if to say, “See what?”
“Luria, stay quiet,” my mother gently scolded me again.
Just as I was about to whisper to my mother about the goats, the maid spoke up in a loud voice.
“Let us hear your story.”
“Ah, thank you!”
Since they couldn’t address my mother, the duchess, directly, the villagers began explaining their plight to the maid instead.
Apparently, a canal that carried water from the lake had been blocked by a massive boulder due to a landslide.
The boulder was far too large to remove.
They had tried to reroute the canal around it, but the local magistrate refused to grant permission.
“Why does the magistrate refuse to approve it?”
It was the maid who asked this question.
“The magistrate’s son serves as the mayor of a village that receives water from the canal.”
It seemed that, taking advantage of the blockage caused by the boulder, the magistrate had monopolized the water supply.
Of course, the villagers protested, but the magistrate ignored them.
The villagers didn’t know how to petition the duke, their lord, properly.
They only knew that filing a direct petition was considered a grave crime.
“We are prepared to offer our lives if necessary. But please, save our village!”
The villagers feared not only the failure of a direct petition but also being executed for it without their plea ever reaching the duke.
“If this continues, we’ll have no choice but to abandon the land that’s been in our family for generations or perish!”
In recent years, decreased rainfall had dried up the irrigation canals, making it impossible to harvest crops from their fields.
Yet the magistrate refused to lower their taxes.
“Please, I beg you! I implore you!”
The villagers’ requests were to approve the canal rerouting project and to exempt them from taxes temporarily.
When my mother finished listening, she instructed her attendant, “Investigate this matter.”
Then, turning to the villagers, she smiled and said,
“So, is the boulder blocking the canal far from here? You may answer directly.”
“No, Your Grace! It is about a ten-minute walk from here!”
“I see. Lead the way.”
She had the villagers walk ahead, and she followed after them.
Our attendants formed two protective circles around us: the inner one made up of indoor guards, and the outer one of outdoor guards.
As we walked, my mother murmured,
“Sara, what do you think?”
“I feel sorry for them all.”
“Yes. A lord bears responsibility for the lives of their people. That sense of compassion is important.”
After patting Sara on the head, she turned to me.
“And what about you, Luria? … You’ve been staring at the forest this whole time. Were you listening?”
“I was listening properly.”
To be fair, I was very curious about the goats in the forest.
While I had been sneaking glances at them from afar, I had also paid attention to the conversation.
“The magistrate seems suspicious.”
“What do you mean by suspicious?”
“It’s possible the landslide itself was the magistrate’s doing.”
When I said this, my mother smiled gently.
“That is indeed a possibility.”
“Hmm. Water is vital to a village, after all.”
Water is crucial not only for farming villages but also for villages whose main industry is livestock.
It is needed to raise livestock and to grow the grass that feeds them.
“Water has always been a source of conflict, hasn’t it?”
Even in my past life, water rights had been a frequent cause of fierce disputes.
Especially during droughts, conflicts grew more intense.
In my previous life, I had been called upon to mediate such conflicts.
By performing a sacred dance as a princess-saint, I had summoned rain to fill reservoirs.
“The villagers also said there hasn’t been much rain, right?”
The decrease in rainfall had reduced the canal’s water flow, making it impossible to meet the water needs of both villages.
Perhaps that’s why someone had chosen to block the flow and monopolize the water.
“Hmm. Maybe the magistrate isn’t lowering taxes because he wants to seize the land?”
“Luria, tell me what you’re thinking in more detail.”
“Well, if the villagers can’t pay their taxes, the magistrate could lend them money…”
“And demand their farmland as collateral?”
“Yes!”
The villagers would likely be unable to repay the debt.
The magistrate could then acquire both the land and the laborers to cultivate it.
“Luria, you’re very clever.”
“Really?”
“Among your siblings, your way of thinking might be the closest to Graff’s.”
My mother smiled happily and patted my head.
Personally, I would have preferred to hear that my personality was more like my mother’s than my father’s.
“We won’t know for sure until we investigate, but your reasoning has a high chance of being correct, Luria.”
Saying this, my mother subtly gestured to a nearby attendant.
The attendant bowed and ran off, likely to begin the investigation immediately.
“Do you think the magistrate has betrayed us? If so, I cannot forgive him.”
The maid seemed angry.
“It’s a common occurrence, unfortunately. No matter how much Graff tries, perfect governance is impossible.”
My mother’s expression grew a little sad.
Meanwhile, I was watching the goats in the forest.
It seemed our destination was near the forest where the goats were.
The distance between us and the goats was gradually shrinking.
“They’re magnificent.”
The goats were very large, with splendid horns and beards. Their golden fur was beautiful.
They looked at us, wagging their relatively small tails with surprising vigor given their size.
The boars and oxen were also impressive and seemed happy.
I wanted to pet them, hug them, and bury myself in their fluffy fur—it would feel so nice.
