The inspection of Taji Village moved into its second half.
They looped around from the north of the village toward the west.
"There are a lot of trees around here."
Trees over a century old formed a dense woodland. From what Jin could tell, the timber was of exceptional quality.
There was only one disappointment: he couldn't find any trees that looked likely to yield magi-resin. While the amount in the area probably wasn't zero, it certainly wouldn't be enough to sustain an industry.
"Still..."
"This is... Japanese yew, isn't it?"
It had been a long time since he had seen them—those familiar leaves and the lingering red berries.
It looked identical to the hedge planted around the orphanage where Jin had grown up.
"Quite a lot of them grow here."
"Jin-san?"
"Ah, sorry. Um, Helga, do you know anything about this tree?"
"That's aragi. As for those berries, the red flesh is edible, but the seeds are poisonous."
Even that detail matched the Japanese yew perfectly.
"Have you ever used it for timber?"
"Um, they don't really use it for building materials because you can't get very long planks out of it. Other than that, I don't really know. Sorry."
"Ah, no, don't worry about it. That's plenty helpful."
Jin naturally didn't expect Helga to know everything, so he quickly reassured her so she wouldn't feel bad.
"Would it be all right if I cut down one of these trees?"
"Sure, just one shouldn't be a problem."
With the Village Chief's daughter giving her blessing, Jin picked out a suitable specimen.
It was a tree facing an open clearing. Deciding that pruning the branches and milling the lumber would be straightforward with this one, he gave the order.
"Reiko, if you would."
He then told Helga and Kachea to step back a bit.
"Understood, Father."
Reiko nodded. Once she confirmed that Helga, Kachea, and Jin were a safe distance away, she cast a spell—a rare sight for her.
"Wind Cutter."
"Eek!"
"Kyaa!"
Even though they were supposed to be far enough back, the sudden burst of wind-attribute magic startled Helga and Kachea.
More than that, their eyes widened in shock as the aragi tree, roughly fifty centimeters thick, was sheared right through.
Or rather, to be precise, it wasn't allowed to fall. Before it could crash to the ground, Reiko caught the trunk and gently laid it down in the clearing.
Jin briefly pressed his hands together toward the fallen tree. For some reason, he just felt compelled to do so.
"Jin-san, thank you very much."
Taken aback by Helga's sudden gratitude, Jin blinked in surprise. She had even spoken with formal politeness.
"Huh?"
"It's a tradition among the woodcutters of Taji Village to pay their respects to felled trees," Kachea explained on her behalf. "Actually, not just trees—birds, fish, beasts, crops... everything, really."
"Is that so?"
"Seeing you pay your respects to the tree you cut down made her realize you weren't disregarding our traditions."
Helga nodded vigorously in agreement.
"I see. But honestly, it's not because I knew your customs—I just felt like doing it."
Jin gave an honest explanation.
"Oh... Were you always that kind of person, Jin-san?" Helga tilted her head.
She thought back to the brief time Jin had stayed in the village previously.
"...You never cut down trees or went hunting back then, did you?"
"Yeah."
On top of that, he hadn't had the mental leeway to think about such things, Jin admitted frankly.
"...Well, that's fine. Just knowing you share the same kind of feelings we do makes me happy." Helga smiled, looking genuinely pleased.
"Right, well, let's prune the branches here."
Magi-craft worked just fine on felled timber, so Jin and Reiko divided the work to strip off the boughs.
The thicker branches could be used for woodcarving, so they set those aside.
"As for the thin branches... what should we do with them?"
As Jin pondered, Reiko spoke up.
"Father, we could make spoons or chopsticks with them."
Saying so, she gathered a bundle of suitable twigs and slender branches.
Naturally, there was no practical use for the smallest twigs and leaves, so they decided to leave them behind to decompose and return to the soil.
Jin took the thick branches, while Reiko carried the massive trunk.
Helga and Kachea carried the bundles of slender branches.
"Heavy..."
The thick branches probably weighed around fifty kilograms altogether. They were quite a burden.
Even so, the village was only about a fifteen-minute walk away, so Jin managed to haul them back.
"Whoa, hey, what on earth is that?!"
When transporting the felled aragi trunk, Reiko carried it upright on her shoulder, making it stand out from a mile away.
After all, a seven-meter log was essentially walking on its own.
"...Th-This is..."
"H-Holy crap..."
The villagers were shocked a second time when they realized the one carrying the massive log was Reiko—a delicate-looking girl dressed in a maid outfit.
And they were stunned a third time when she set it down in an open lot almost without making a sound.
"Jin-kun, what's all this?"
Drawn by the commotion, Village Chief Sergei came rushing over.
"Ah, Chief, perfect timing. Actually..."
Jin went on to explain the potential uses of the aragi wood.
"This wood is dense and sturdy, so I think it would be ideal for carvings, tableware, small furniture, and things like that."
"I see."
Jin decided to use magi-craft to mill one of the thicker branches as a demonstration.
"Dry."
If wood contained too much moisture, it would warp as it dried out over time, so the moisture content needed to be brought down to around twenty percent.
However, drying it too rapidly would cause cracks and splits, so he paused the spell at around fifty percent to shape it first.
"Forming. Forming. Forming."
He stripped away the bark and sliced the wood into manageable blocks.
Since this was a large branch intended for carving, he crafted three rectangular blocks measuring roughly ten centimeters square and thirty centimeters long.
The remaining offcuts looked useful as scrap material, so he made sure to set aside as much as possible.
"Incredible..."
The Village Chief murmured something in awe, but Jin, now fully immersed in craftsman mode, paid it no mind and pressed on with his work.
"Dry."
With a second application of the drying spell, he reduced the moisture content to fifteen percent.
"That should do it."
Having reached a good stopping point, Jin turned around to find the villagers frozen in sheer disbelief, the Village Chief and Helga staring in stunned amazement, and Kachea offering a wry, knowing smile.