Mother Erna is having a girls' party in the first floor common room.

　I headed to the dining room early to have lunch as I was sure that the ladies would be having lunch with me.

　Then I went upstairs to take shelter from the ground floor, and found Mother Erna just heading to the dining room.

　Perhaps she's going to tell Saara and Bartolo to get her to prepare a meal or something.

　Watch out. If it were a little later, I would have had to have lunch with the wives.

　As I was walking up the stairs with that in mind, Erna's mother on the first floor stopped me.

She says, "Do you have a minute?　I need your help with something, okay?

...What?

You need to come down first.

...so what do you need help with?

　You don't know what you're being helped to do. I can't just walk downstairs.

　It's Mother Erna. You must be careful.

　I gave her a wary look, and she smiled at me.

You'll know it when you get down there.

'No, you can just say it here!

If I tell you the words, you'll run away.

'Are you going to make me do something so painful and troublesome?'

　If it was such a hassle, I'd retreat upstairs now.

Just get down here.

I don't want to.

　As I was complaining about how I didn't want to help out in a messy way, Mother Erna let out a sigh and said

I'm not going to fix the doll that Elinora cut up the other day, okay?

'Ugh!　It's not fair to take my knight hostage!

　That's right, the Knight who was beheaded by Sister Elinora and became Dullahan.

　It was so badly broken that I, who can only do simple sewing, was not strong enough to fix it.

　I was told that Mother Erna could repair the damage more beautifully than I could, so Knight was in her custody.

　With Knight being held hostage, I go downstairs quietly.

'Come over here for a minute.'

　Then Mother Erna beckons me towards the front door.

　Huh?　I thought it would be such a hassle to have dinner with Murat and Dorothea, or have them make snacks with Bartolo...but what in the world do you want them to do outside?

　While wondering, I change into my outside shoes and go out into the courtyard.

　Then I tromped along behind her, and she stopped at a spot in the courtyard.

　There are sticks stuck in the ground surrounding her, as if she had surveyed something there.

　I asked her what in the world we were going to do here, and she opened her mouth.

'We're going to make a little field here,' she says. So, Al. I need you to pull the weeds from your garden.

'Pulling weeds?　Why would I do this?　Why don't you just let Bartolo or Mina do it?

It doesn't matter if you're a commoner or a nobleman to tinker with the soil, does it?

　Crap!　When I helped Thor's family with the fields, the dialogue was communicated to me through my parents.

　Thor's mother is so superfluous........!　

　.........Is this what is called the horror of a girls' party?

　I didn't know that my casual words would end up going around and torturing my own neck.

I've heard that you can use soil magic to pull weeds out of the ground faster and move your hoe around psychically to plow. It's definitely faster to let Al do that than to let Bartolo and the others do it.

Yes, but...

　Of course it's faster to magically pull it out with a papa than to bend down and chisel it out while enduring the pain in my back.

　I nodded, and then Mother Erna said to me, "Don't you think it would be nice to have a vegetable garden on the patio?

'Wouldn't it be nice to have a vegetable garden on the patio?

　Home gardening. It is to grow vegetables and other crops freely in the garden at home.

　When I hear this word, I feel a sense of a very slow and leisurely pace of life. I wake up in the morning and enjoy growing my own vegetables. It's not a bad way to live.

Well, you can always get fresh vegetables in the village of Coriat, but growing them in the garden of the house is not so bad.

Right?

'If it doesn't turn out to be an ongoing thing for me to raise...'

It looks like he's going to plant some of his favorite crops. Basically, Bartolo is going to take care of everything.　We just need to lend a hand once in a while, okay?

　In response to me throwing a word of caution, Erna-mom nodded at me not to worry.

　Apparently, as usual, she bargained to make herself comfortable by using that trick or that trick.

　Hmm, I guess it's only occasionally to magically pull out the weeds for her or help her harvest.

　If you can enjoy a vegetable garden with that much effort, then it's a small price to pay.

　I'd grown vegetables when I was in school, but they were a pain in the ass to take care of.

　All I wanted to do was show up every day and see if the leaves were getting bigger today or the fruit was swelling up.

　This time it's the perfect condition for that desire.

'I don't blame you. 'I'll help you with that. I'll help you with the knight's restoration.

Yeah, I'll take care of it. I'll fix it up nicely for you.

　Me and Mother Erna shake hands and laugh at each other.

　I'm sure Mother Erna is having a terrific time of it. I had that feeling.

'Alright then, let's get on with it.

'Mr. Murat told me how you do it, pulling weeds with earth magic?　I'm interested.

'This is how you only uplift where the weeds grow... see?'

　I show my magic to Mother Erna, who sounds interested, and I show her my magic as soon as possible.

　Then the weeds growing in front of me were dug up as if they were sprouting out of a gnarled tree.

''........You're still as dexterous as ever, aren't you? To make such a small range of soil rise up all at once while individually selecting such a small range of soil.......

　Well, I guess it's not that hard to get up as long as you can move the soil clinging to the roots of the weeds, it's easy to get them up.

''And what a lovely thing to look at.

Right?　It's kind of cute the way he gets up, like he's a creature, isn't it?

　As expected of Mother Erna, she understands.

　Thor is such a cute little weed, and he wants to look at them and say they're disgusting.

　It's a peaceful time for a while as I make the weeds rise up and Mother Erna bends down to look at them.

'....Mother Erna, are you sure you want to leave Murat-san and Dorothea-san alone?

'It was. I saw the weeds coming up and I got fuzzy. Okay, now pull the weeds out of the area where I set up this stick and plow it up, okay?

　Mother Erna came to herself with a huff at my words and went back to the mansion.