...If I don’t hurry up and get to work, I’m gonna be left behind.
Benno wasn’t even thinking about Lutz when he had heard about Myne’s charm and rushed down the stairs; he hadn’t even called him to his discussion with Mark. He had no choice but to give up on going to the temple, but he wasn’t about to be excluded from the printing workshops too.
I’m not gonna let them leave me behind!
Lutz pumped himself up and started working through the Myne Workshop’s profit ledgers. Gil was working hard to learn math, but wasn’t quite good enough to manage by himself. He still needed Lutz to look over his work.
“Why not just leave all that to the workshop? If they mess up and lose money, that’s on them,” Leon said with a grimace as he peeked over Lutz’s shoulder. He was a leherl being trained as a waiter in the temple who had a considerable amount of experience dealing with workshops and stores, and firmly believed that Lutz was getting too involved in the Myne Workshop. After all, Lutz was looking over their ledgers and doing all sorts of additional work for them—from an outsider perspective, it did seem to be a clear case of favoritism. But Lutz didn’t see it that way at all.
“The orphanage branch of the Myne Workshop is just a trial run for the new printing workshops that’re gonna be made. I’ve gotta do a good job here.”
“New workshops? You’re doing that kind of work?” Leon raised his voice in surprise, and Lutz gave a big nod.
“Unless I get good enough to help Master Benno establish new workshops, he won’t bother to take me to different cities. Messing up with the Myne Workshop a little is no big deal, so he told me to use it as practice. This isn’t actually favoritism at all.”
“Hm. So they’re just a stepping stone, huh...?”
Leon wasn’t wrong: unlike the children of merchants, Lutz didn’t have a family store he could practice with. Myne’s workshop was the only place he could use to grow while not having to worry about making mistakes.
It was when he had finished the paperwork and was waiting for Benno to look it over that balls of light suddenly burst in through the window. They passed right through the glass, then started to spin around the room.
“Wh-What the?!”
Benno, Mark, and Lutz all stared wide-eyed as the spinning balls turned to a glimmering dust that rained down on them. Oddly, the light seemed to be avoiding Leon entirely.
As Lutz stood in place, looking up at the ceiling in a daze, the light gradually faded. Eventually it disappeared completely, as if nothing had happened at all, and a stunned silence fell over the room.
“...What the heck was that?” Benno asked.
“I do not know,” Mark replied.
Leon looked over in bewilderment. “That stuff was definitely avoiding me, right?”
Lutz looked down at his palm where some of the light had landed. None of it remained, instead having seemingly melted into his body. Everyone blinked in confusion, wondering what had happened and why the dust had avoided Leon, until eventually Gunther and the others returned to the store.
“Sorry for the wait, Lutz.”
They all wore dark expressions, and their eyes were puffy from crying. Lutz had assumed they had gone to fetch Myne from the temple, but she was nowhere to be seen. Nervous butterflies fluttered in his stomach. He kept his mouth shut, worried that if he asked where Myne was, he would never be able to go back to how things once were.
Lutz looked around the room, trying to find something else to talk about, when suddenly his eyes fell on Gunther’s arm. The skin was smooth, the discolored burns from before having vanished entirely.
“Mr. Gunther, your burns...”
“It was Myne’s last blessing. Her light dust healed the burns,” Gunther grunted through clenched teeth. Lutz looked at Tuuli and Effa, shocked by Gunther’s choice of words.
Last blessing?
Lutz swallowed hard, his body trembling. But before he could ask Gunther what he meant, Mark clapped his hands together.
“Then I suppose the light dust we just saw was Myne’s blessing as well?”
“...The light came here too?” Gunther asked, his eyes widening slightly in surprise. Lutz nodded hard, explaining how balls of light had burst into the room then turned into a dust that rained down on everyone except Leon.
“Seems like the light went to everyone Myne cares about. Pretty strong blessing, too. It’d have to be to cure those burns,” Gunther said with a sad smile. The resignation in his eyes told Lutz everything: it had all ended elsewhere in a place he could never go.
“...What happened to Myne? Why isn’t she here?”
“Myne’s gone now. The nobles took her. She’s gone,” Tuuli said, tears streaming down her face and dripping onto the floor. Benno furrowed his brow hard and narrowed his eyes.
“Gunther, tell me one thing: is the Myne Workshop going to keep running?”
“Master Benno! Myne’s gone; now’s not the time for that!”
“Shut up! This is important. If she’s dead, I’ll have to buy the workshop and keep it going. If the nobles took her, I’ll have to do something else. And the sooner I act, the better.”
Lutz couldn’t understand what Benno was saying, but it seemed Gunther did. “Benno... Do you know?”
“I’m not sure about the details, but Otto said she stamped that charm with her blood. I know what’ll happen if Myne didn’t die—Aub Ehrenfest will take her. So... what’s the name of the new forewoman?”
Gunther, glaring at Benno with eyes so cold they froze Lutz’s blood, opened his mouth. “Rozemyne. The daughter of an archnoble. She runs the workshop now. Myne is dead. That’s the story.”
“‘That’s the story’...?” Lutz was at a loss for words, and Gunther ruffled his hair entirely like he would do to Myne.
“Myne became the daughter of an archnoble to protect us. To protect her family. To
