Winter nights in the North are incredibly long.

By what feels like three or four in the afternoon, it’s already pitch black.

Once night falls, no one can work anymore, and dangerous wild animals like wolves and bears roam outside.

So, unless the moon is especially bright, everyone simply gathers around the stone hearth inside the house.

While the fire crackles, Father usually removes rust from his axe and chainmail or repairs farming and fishing tools.

Mother spends the evening spinning thread or weaving cloth together with Erin.

That is how our family normally passes the long winter nights.

Tonight, however, was different.

Tonight was the time for a very long family meeting.

“So then, Thorstein.”

“Why did you do such a thing?”

I’d been called by my full name, and now I was being asked to explain myself.

This wasn’t an ordinary scolding.

This was serious.

Father Grimr had built his body through farming and fishing.

He was huge and powerfully built.

Like me, he had blue eyes.

He was also handsome, but his blond beard and the long scar stretching from his temple across his cheek gave him an intimidating presence far beyond that of an ordinary farmer.

In other words, he looked exactly like a free warrior of the North.

And when a man like that lowered his voice to intimidate someone…

It was absolutely terrifying.

I could practically feel my five-year-old balls shrivel up.

“Well…”

“That’s because…”

I shot Erin a glare from the corner of my eye.

She immediately looked away.

Well, she was only eight.

It wasn’t surprising that she’d fold under Father’s pressure.

Still, I was getting my bribe back later.

“I wanted to earn some salt of my own!”

There was no point lying.

So I simply exercised my childhood privilege and answered honestly.

“Hmm.”

“So you wanted to make salt.”

“No matter how much salt we have for preserving herring, cod, salmon, and cabbage, it never feels like enough.”

“Every household would like more.”

“Perhaps you overheard your mother wishing we had more salt.”

“But taking the family’s firewood without permission was wrong.”

“You understand that if we run short of firewood, both the family and our livestock could freeze to death, don’t you?”

I finally understood why Father had become angry enough to call a family meeting.

In this land, firewood was essential for survival.

It was our lifeline.

During the brutal northern winter, if a fire wasn’t kept burning almost constantly, even the inside of the house would quickly become freezing cold.

It was so cold that we even kept horses and cattle inside the house for warmth.

It smelled awful, but warmth mattered more.

And there wasn’t any shop where you could simply buy firewood.

Every log had to be gathered personally.

By hand.

In our family, Father was the only one strong enough to do it.

He chopped down trees with his axe.

Split them into logs.

Left them to dry for weeks.

Only then did they become usable firewood.

Our entire family’s lives depended on that supply.

The typical northern winter consisted of slowly burning that precious fuel while everyone huddled together around the fire until spring finally arrived.

Naturally, if Father believed I’d wasted that priceless firewood just to earn some spending money, he’d be furious.

But I still needed to defend myself.

“Father.”

“I didn’t use any of our firewood.”

“I only burned branches and driftwood that I’d gathered myself.”

A deep wrinkle appeared between Father’s eyebrows.

Apparently, he didn’t believe me.

“Erin saw it too, didn’t she?”

I smoothly passed the target of Father’s interrogation over to her.

Did she really think she’d get away untouched?

As a traitorous witness, she could at least earn the smoked cod roe I’d bribed her with.

“Y-Yes.”

“I saw it.”

“Thor only burned little twigs.”

“Really?”

“Don’t lie.”

“You can’t possibly make salt just by burning twigs.”

Mother gently tried to steer Erin toward a different answer.

Come on, Erin.

Do your best.

At least earn your smoked cod roe.

“N-No!”

“Thor really didn’t use firewood!”

“He burned the twigs with magic and made the salt!”

“Magic!?”

“Magic, you say!?”

Ah…

Erin.

That was the worst possible answer.

The word “magic” was practically taboo.

Compared to that, stealing a little firewood was nothing.

If people decided I was a magician, I’d become an outsider.

Whether the community respected me or persecuted me would depend entirely on them.

Either way, my ordinary life would be over.

I absolutely refused to let that happen.

“It wasn’t magic.”

“It was knowledge and ingenuity.”

“Knowledge?”

“Ingenuity?”

My parents’ expressions softened ever so slightly.

Hmm…

How should I explain this?

“First, I made concentrated seawater without using any firewood.”

“That’s magic!”

So that’s where they got stuck.

“When you leave seawater in a wooden bucket overnight, it freezes, right?”

“I licked the ice and noticed it hardly tasted salty.”

“So I realized the remaining water had become saltier.”

“Thor, you’ll upset your stomach if you keep licking everything.”

Yeah.

She had a point.

I did regret that part.

“I collected only the saltier water left in the buckets, poured it together, and froze it again.”

“Each time, the remaining water became even saltier.”

“So I kept repeating it until it couldn’t get any more concentrated.”

“I ended up with seawater that was probably almost ten times as salty.”

“That’s how I concentrated the seawater.”

“Anyone can do it.”

“It’s not magic.”

“Even Erin or Mother Asild could do it.”

“So that’s possible…”

“If that’s true, it really would save a lot of firewood…”

Good.

The wrinkle between Father’s brows had eased a little.

“And what about making fire without using proper firewood?”

“Wasn’t that magic?”

I could explain that too.

“Well, I can’t make firewood myself.”

“So I wanted to build a stove that would burn even damp branches.”

“When you blow on a fire or the wind catches it, the flames burn stronger, don’t they?”

“The wind here usually blows from the west, so I made the opening face west and built a tall chimney.”

“The taller the chimney, the stronger the fire rises.”

“That lets more air flow through.”

“The fire became strong enough to burn even damp twigs with a roaring flame.”

“So I never used the family’s firewood.”

“That was knowledge and ingenuity too.”

“Not magic.”

I puffed out my chest proudly as I looked up at Father and Mother.

There.

That should clear me of any suspicion of being a magician.

Instead, the two of them exchanged uncertain glances.

Their expressions hovered somewhere between confusion and distress.

More than anything, though, they simply didn’t know what to say.

Well, I hoped they’d understand eventually.

I’d done my duty and explained everything.

Perhaps because I finally relaxed, an overwhelming wave of sleepiness suddenly washed over me.

“Mmm…”

“I’m sleepy…”

“I’ll show you the stove tomorrow morning while I explain it again.”

“Y-Yes.”

“Let’s do that.”

For now, I was satisfied.

The suspicion that I was a magician had been left unresolved, and more importantly, my little backside had been spared another slap from Mother.

There were no children’s bedrooms in this house.

So Erin and I wrapped ourselves in furs and went to sleep on the raised sleeping platform beside the wall, just above the earthen floor where the stone hearth stood.

The house was still filled with smoke that irritated my throat.

The livestock still smelled terrible.

I really had to do something about these living conditions too.