《Death's Door》Volume 0: Chapter 7- Interference
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“By the way, Desolai, are these kinds of assignments going to happen often?” Nur asked her after walking in silence near her for some time.
“Nur, I am a Shinigami after all. This is part of my duty.”
“Oh, I just thought with so many deaths around the world, you will have next to no time to spend at this lovely realm of yours.”
Desolai chuckled. “You do realize that there are other Shinigami besides me, right?”
“There are?”
“Of course. This kind of job is impossible to do alone, no matter who it is. And also…” Desolai winked at Nur. “The time within my realm flow according to my control, so between the assignments we can spend as much time as we want within my realm.”
“That is amazing.” Nur was truly speechless.
This little human being was a strange creature, Desolai observed, he didn’t seem to realize that she was viewing him the same way as he regards the supernatural aspects of her domain. To her, the realm she occupied seemed mundane; she has control over everything, so in a sense it’s just a reflection of her emptiness. To a human being’s eyes however such a realm is an unheard of place existing only within imagination. It was not really surprising that Nur was gawking at the fact.
“You know, if you control everything in this place, how come I don’t see any edible things in here? I am pretty sure I am not going to be eating squirrels and snakes I spotted around here.”
Desolai looked at him with an upraised right eyebrow. “Didn’t you already eat? Isn’t that enough?”
“Of course not! And it was at least seven hours ago, so I am very hungry at the moment.” Nur replied with expression of disbelief.
“I did not realize mortals eat at such frequent rate, it is a wonder that mortals don’t run out of food.”
“So, let me guess, you don’t happen to have fruits or vegetables around here, do you?”
Desolai looked at him confusedly. “No, at least not in plant form, though I do have some edible plants in seed form…” She made a motion with her left hand. A small box appeared in it. She opened the box. There were assortments of seeds with different labels. She collected them out of boredom not really knowing what to do with them. Out of wander of affairs of humanity, she had picked up many mundane items that really were of no use to her.
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“Are these things that you were referring to?” She showed the content of the box to Nur.
Nur nodded. Somehow he instinctually knew what to do with them.
“Desolai, can I please borrow them?” He asked politely.
Desolai gave him the box of seeds. He took them with him. Then Desolai saw his back enter the barn, take many tools she never used due to the fact that she didn’t need to, and proceed to plow the earth. She originally took all of these things from human realm or replicated them based on human tools so they were usable for such jobs.
Of course due to the fact that she never used them she didn’t know what their usage was.
She calmly observed him plow the field. He took many hours to plow through several acres. The most impressive part was that he did it using only a cart that he pushed himself and a shovel. It was a large land tract. Desolai wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it.
Finally, after being done with plowing the land, Nur took the seeds and proceeded to plant them. The effort he put in to the land was obvious, he was sweating profusely and was out of breath. He seemed somewhat fatigued, so after planting each seed he approached the lake and drank the water with cupped hand.
When he looked at his reflection in water he remembered something. ‘Plants can’t grow without water, how could I forget?’ He slapped himself on his face with his palm, wondering whether stupidity of his actions was a common occurrence. He certainly hoped it was not.
He would have to make a path for the water in the lake to travel towards the little garden he has built. It has to be enough water to nourish the plants but not too much as it would drown everything.
Nur carefully dug series of small paths that led towards the garden from the lake. He deliberately made the path out of earth to be very thin so that water will come in only in small amounts.
Now it was the time for the final touch. Once he removed the rock that blocked the path of lake towards the garden, the water would travel towards the plants, nourishing them. He proceeded to remove the rock.
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Immediately the water in lake started to travel by the small channel Nur built and began to nourish the plants.
Nur looked at his creation with an air of pride. While he was making this he lost the track of time, but the sun was still up so he guessed it didn’t take too much time.
“You really gave it your best effort, didn’t you?” A familiar figure came near Nur, sitting down near him on top the log he was currently occupying. Nur was rather tired from the mighty endeavor of building a garden so he found a log to sit down upon.
“Well, I am hungry so I needed to make something, at least for the future.”
“Future? Do you mean that they are not going to sprout now?” Desolai asked confusedly. Human common sense seemed to elude her.
“Of course not! Plants don’t work like that; it takes time, at least two months.” Nur said sulkily. “Until then I have to take care of them diligently and make sure they don’t get infested…”
“Then, why don’t I speed up the process.” Desolai said while extending her left arm. Somehow the sun went down very quickly, replaced by the moon, and then it was yet again replaced by the sun. The process kept going so many times that Nur lost count on the seventeenth cycle. The spinning of sun and moon as they swapped places seemed to not have any intention of stopping. Nur felt dizzy from seeing this scene, causing him to tumble backwards with his head still pointing up watching the bizarre scene unfold. Finally, the cycles stopped and sun was up again, now staying there securely.
“What the heck was that?” Nur asked, still holding his head in his hands. Such a display made him feel nauseous for some reason.
“In this reality I control everything, which includes time as well.” She pointed at the little garden. Nur looked in the direction of the garden and was astounded to find so many of his plants have grown full sized and ripe. They were ready to be plucked and eaten.
“Amazing! That was amazing! Everything is ripe and ready to be picked up!” Nur couldn’t help but express his delight at seeing the fruits and vegetables grown to full size. It seemed impossible, outside of reason, but Desolai proved it wrong so easily with a swipe of her hand.
He enthusiastically approached the garden, fully intent on picking up the fruit. Nur quickly ran to the barn and picked up several baskets. Then he began the process of picking up the ripe fruits and vegetables.
While Nur was doing that Desolai was staring at his back, wondering ‘He has been within my realm for such a short time, but he managed to have such an impact already. He really is worth watching over. I would never have guessed that he was going to make such a beautiful garden.’ Desolai secretly admired the works of humanity and how they were able to create despite being inferior creatures while superior creatures such as her were left baffled after seeing such interesting displays of creativity.
‘Still, it is weird. I can sense that he truly doesn’t remember who he is, but for some reason he knows how to take care of plants. It is almost as if the knowledge has been drilled into his body, so that even if mind forgets his limbs would remember. It is rather fascinating.’ She thought while observing Nur doing the task of collecting the fruits with enjoyable expression.
She never met interference before him and now she was witnessing how he single handedly turned her bleak realm into a garden flowing with life. Granted, she did speed up time in her realm in order for the plants to grow, but still he was the one who planted the seeds. If Desolai was by herself she probably wouldn’t have been able to make a garden let alone plant seeds, in her hands everything would have eventually turned to dust from being unused.
Just like that, the master first handedly witnessed the true worth of her servant.
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