Chapter 95. The Hangman

“S?” Miller guessed as the carriage rattled along the snowy path in the early morning.

Francesca chuckled, sketching a circular head hanging from a wooden pole on the paper resting in her lap. “Incorrect! You only have five more guesses before he hangs!”

“I don’t get why the man has to hang. Why is this game so brutal?” Miller pouted slightly.

Francesca just laughed at him. “So much pity from someone who can’t even guess a three letter word,” she teased, looking out the carriage window as they passed the bustling courtyard of the chapel.

Despite the heavy snow, people were lined up outside the warm communal kitchens, happily receiving free, hearty meals of eggs, roasted chicken, and fish.

Miller smiled warmly at the sight. “The Julian Coops and the community kitchens are operating beautifully. I just received the monthly territory reports, we haven't had a single case of starvation. Even a full month into the Winter Freeze.”

“It wasn’t just the coops and the kitchens. The strict rental price caps you passed really helped the commoners stay afloat,” she smiled, tapping the paper with her pencil. “Now, guess a letter.”

Miller sighed. “Y?”

Francesca raised an eyebrow and smiled, proudly filling the third blank with the letter. “Ta-da! You finally guessed a letter!”

Looking at the paper, Miller muttered, “A blank, then E, and Y? Hmm...” He tapped his foot rhythmically against the carriage floor. “K? Is it ‘Key’?”

Francesca shook her head with a wicked smirk and drew a stick figure torso beneath the hanging head. “Wrong. Four more guesses before Hangman.”

Miller sighed heavily, opting to change the subject. “Anyway, earlier you were talking about the 'past timeline'... something about the iron trade with the Hollowland Viscounty?”

“Yes. I remembered that Viscount Hollowland eventually decided to stop selling iron to you. If my father's trade embargo happened in the past timeline as well, it makes zero economic sense for Hollowland to cut off a high paying client purely out of pettiness, right?” Francesca asked, tapping the page again to prompt his next guess.

“H! It’s ‘Hey’!” Miller suddenly smirked, interrupting her.

Francesca sighed in defeat, scratching the letter H into the first blank space. “Yes, it is H-E-Y.”

Taking the paper and pencil from her hands to draw his own row of blank lines, Miller replied, “The geopolitical logic is actually pretty simple. In that past scenario, I would be heavily contracting out the Ironwood Mercenaries to maintain our financial stability. So, iron for weapons and armor would become my top priority, even with the insane inflation. If I suddenly lost my iron supply during a major war, I would be forced to do anything to get it back.”

“So?” Francesca leaned forward, her curiosity fully piqued.

Miller smiled coldly. “So, he would use the iron supply as leverage to order my mercenaries around. He would force me to attack the neighboring Viscounties to expand his own territory. Lord Hollowland has desperately wanted to become an Earl ever since his grandfather split the original Earldom into two separate Viscounties.”

“Ha... a five letter word,” Francesca murmured, looking thoughtfully at the new blanks Miller had just drawn. “So that is the real reason he was being so antagonistic? I honestly thought it was just a petty rivalry since you abruptly canceled his marriage alliance proposal.”

“Marriage- wait, how did you...” Miller completely froze, his face immediately flushing red with embarrassment.

I specifically told her a 'trade deal' fell through so she wouldn't find out about the marriage proposal! he panicked internally.

“Heh...” Francesca smirked, thoroughly enjoying his flustered expression. “I.”

Trying desperately to hide his embarrassment, Miller hastily scribbled the letter into the third blank spot. “Yes... 'I' is in the word.”

Francesca chuckled softly and added, “E?”

Miller let out a long sigh, penciling the letter into the final blank. “So, why exactly were you looking into Hollowland's dealings?”

“Because he will certainly try to pull the same stunt this time around. He fully believes we don’t have the funds to survive the winter, so he will try to force his leverage on us again... I just wanted to plan a little payback and force a favorable mutual trade deal out of him, I guess?” Francesca smiled sweetly, a bright, dangerous light gleaming in her golden eyes. Without missing a beat, she added, “Is the word ‘Smile’?”

Miller was completely taken aback. He filled in the remaining letters, spelling out S-M-I-L-E. “How did you guess that without a single miss?”

Francesca chuckled, getting back the pencil and paper. “The same way I will extort a trade deal out of Viscount Hollowland this Winter Freeze.”

The carriage rolled to a smooth stop at the Melony Lake docks. Miller stepped down first, smiling as he reached up to support Francesca by the waist.

“I really like this dangerous confidence you are showing,” he said fondly. Looking out toward the misty, volcanic caves, he added, “Hopefully, that confidence carries over and makes our agricultural test today just as successful.”

A Cave, Melony Lake, Ironwood Viscounty

“So, we divided the crops into several different experimental batches. Here they are, My Lord and My Ladyship.”

One of the veteran Moringa farmers introduced the sprawling setup inside the humid cavern. The other local farmers stood around nervously, shifting on their feet, though the vivid excitement gleaming in their eyes was impossible to hide.

Tak... tak...

Francesca walked slowly among the raised crop beds, her cane echoing off the damp cave walls as she explained the process to Miller. “I discussed the underlying theory with the farmers in our Viscounty. We set up several different methods, since we didn’t exactly know which specific environmental trigger might work best for tricking the seeds into early germination.”

“Why don’t you give us the test reports?” she asked, smiling warmly at the farmers. They gulped nervously, but it was abundantly clear they appreciated her stepping back to let them proudly showcase their own hard work.

“So, the method called cold stratification that Her Ladyship introduced to us has multiple ways to go about it...” an older, gray-haired female farmer began. “We started by storing the seeds in damp linen bundles inside a glazed jar, hidden in the deepest, darkest corner of the undercroft. We checked on them every seven days by candlelight. Once they started to sprout, we sowed them here.”

She gestured to her specific crop bed. “For my batch, I used the glowing paint with reflective metal enclosing the soil, and dug a small canal to draw hot water directly from the warm lake.”

Miller hummed, squatting down near her batch to inspect the bright green stems. “They do look to be doing incredibly well, but... there isn’t a single Moringa flower blooming yet.”

The older lady nodded in agreement. “The buds only started to show up once I stopped using the reflective metal at night... but they still haven’t fully bloomed.”

“So, we were successfully able to trick the seeds into thinking that winter had passed, but once the plant grew... it figured out that it was actually still winter because the reflective metal around it was providing the wrong kind of light?” Miller questioned, looking around the cavern.

Francesca shook her head slightly. “Close, but not quite.” She picked up a dormant seed from a nearby table. “You see, seeds form a hard outer layer to protect themselves during the off-seasons. We figured out exactly how to break that layer so the seed actually germinates, but once it grows, the specific environmental conditions required for blooming haven't been met yet.”

“Which is exactly where I come in,” another farmer. A younger man with messy brown hair, stepped forward with a proud smile. “I finally understood what Her Ladyship meant by the concept of daylength after looking at the stalled progress on the first batch.”

He pointed toward a completely different test bed. “We started manually shifting the reflective mirrors away at the exact same time the sun would normally set during the summer, and simultaneously stopped the warm water flow to slowly cool the enclosure at night.”

Miller’s eyes widened as he looked at the second batch. “The flowers have actually bloomed!”

“Indeed, they have. But...” The older lady sighed, pointing closely at the vibrant petals. “As you can see, My Lord... not a single Moringa pod has fruited.”

“So... is it just impossible after all?” Miller muttered, letting out a heavy sigh.

Francesca chuckled, a wicked glint in her golden eyes. “No, Miller.”

She nodded to the farmers. From the shadows at the very back of the cave, they carefully brought forward a small, potted plant. It had a few vibrant flowers, and hanging heavily from one of the stems was a single, perfectly formed, green Moringa pod.

Miller shot up to his feet in sudden surprise. “A Moringa?!”

“I had them save the final reveal for last,” Francesca smiled, pointing proudly at the pod. “We actually did it.”

“But... how?” Miller asked, staring intently at the impossible winter fruit. The older lady replied, “The one missing variable was... rather odd, but quite logical in hindsight.”

Miller, growing visibly impatient, asked, “What was it?”

“Snow.”

Francesca casually smirking patted him on the back and shoved a massive handful of freezing snow right down the collar of his heavy fur coat.

“W-what?! Why did you do that?!” Miller yelped, violently shivering as the freezing snow slid down his bare back. He frantically arched his spine, trying to scratch the melting ice out from inside his clothing while Francesca calmly explained the science.

“The biggest catalyst was the sudden shock of melting snow. Moringa leaves are incredibly sensitive to water temperature. Miss here brilliantly figured out that the plant's blooming cycle might have something to do with how it adapted to survive the harsh Northern Winter Freeze over so many centuries,” Francesca explained, gesturing to the older lady, who bowed deeply.

“Exactly! So, pouring packed snow onto the soil and letting it melt right after the plant blooms its flowers shocks the root system, making the actual fruits appear in just a few short days!” the brown-haired young farmer announced triumphantly.

Miller, finally finishing shaking the freezing wet snow out of his shirt, looked between Francesca and the solitary green plant with awe shining in his crimson eyes.

“This... this is completely revolutionary for the Viscounty!”