NOVEL NEXT Chapter 94.1
Let’s Make Our Own Handcrafted Amulet
“Yuuri-nii, it’s done!”
“Done? Then pass it to the next person, okay?”
“Got it!”
With a bright smile, the young girl called out, and Yuuri returned her smile. She held a piece of pure white fabric, with a four-leaf clover outlined in green thread in the center. It was small enough to fit in her palm, and on the clover’s leaves, a few green threads created veins. It wasn’t finished yet, but it was a cloth with an embroidered four-leaf clover.
It wasn’t just girls gathered there. Even the boys, who normally wouldn’t be interested in embroidery, had joined. Each of them was adding color, stitch by careful stitch. Their group project of crafting a four-leaf clover had a purpose, albeit a subtle one.
“Purpose” might be too strong a word, but to them, this activity held a very special meaning.
“…I wonder if Onii-chan will be happy…”
The soft words came from the girl sitting right next to Yuuri, at the center of the group. She was only a little over ten, still showing traces of childhood. Usually, she was a cheerful girl who helped her mom with chores. Today, however, she seemed strangely quiet. Yuuri patted her head gently, smiling as always.
“Don’t worry. Your brother’s not the kind of person who wouldn’t appreciate something everyone worked so hard on, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“Alright, once it’s gone around, keep stitching in turns, okay?”
“Okay!”
At the center of the lively children’s circle, Yuuri was working on a separate project. He was making a small drawstring pouch. It was tiny, just about the size of a small charm bag you might get at a shrine. It had a separate, long string attached so it could be worn around the neck. Yuuri was adding little touches of embroidery here and there as a personal touch.
The design was simple despite the details he added. The fabric was blue, stitched with white thread, and the string was also white. Occasionally, he would embroider a small petal in white, keeping it simple enough that even a man could carry it without it seeming out of place.
They were making an amulet.
In this world, amulets existed, too. Typically, they were stones blessed by the church or pieces of paper inscribed with holy verses, placed in cloth pouches. The idea of a family member crafting an amulet by hand wasn’t common. So, why were they making an amulet? To fulfill the girl’s wish.
The story began about an hour earlier.
Yuuri had been out shopping for fabric, thread, and decorative buttons with his familiar, Rooks, for his sewing hobby. When he went out for these “girly” shopping trips, Kurresh and Yakk rarely tagged along. They had their own training and missions to tend to, so they couldn’t join Yuuri on every shopping trip.
During this outing, he noticed a familiar girl gazing sadly at the church. “Familiar” in that they sometimes ran into each other while out shopping. She would either be with her mom or on errands. Many children knew Yuuri for sharing snacks from his student bag with them, which made him an instant big brother figure.
So when he saw her looking downcast, Yuuri approached and asked what was wrong. She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears she was trying hard to hold back. They moved to a quiet corner, where she explained that her brother was going to become an adventurer.
“So, you wanted to give your brother an amulet, but you couldn’t afford one from the church?”
“…Yeah.”
Church-made amulets were fairly expensive, more than a child’s allowance could cover. Still, she was so worried about her brother’s safety that she had wanted one and had been staring at the church, hoping for an answer.
Yuuri could have easily loaned her the money to buy one. He earned more than the average rookie adventurer, mainly because he didn’t spend much.
But that didn’t seem right. To Yuuri, that didn’t hold the same meaning. But he did want to help the girl in front of him who was holding back tears. That’s when he had an idea.
“Then, how about we make an amulet together?”
The girl blinked in surprise, and Yuuri suggested she make a handmade amulet for her brother. He didn’t know if it would actually bring him luck, but he had heard of a tradition somewhere in which people embroidered thread stitch by stitch for a bride’s happiness. A charm made with collective wishes could mean something to the person receiving it.
And so, they decided to embroider a four-leaf clover, a symbol of luck, onto a white cloth. The four-leaf clover held the same meaning in this world, so there was no problem. Yuuri sketched a clover on the fabric with a chalk pencil from his sewing kit and outlined it in dark green thread. Then, the girl and her friends began adding color to each leaf, stitch by stitch.
Incidentally, the fabric and thread they were using had been bought with the girl’s allowance. Yuuri had helped her pick a sturdy, reasonably priced fabric at the craft store, and with his [God’s Eye] skill, he had confirmed the quality. As usual, it was a bit of an overkill use of his appraisal skill.
The girl’s friends were also grateful to her brother for his help. Especially the boys, whom he had looked after as a big brother figure. So, despite having never done embroidery before, they were doing their best with encouragement (and scolding) from the girls.
As for the white flowers Yuuri was embroidering onto the pouch, they were meant to look like clover blossoms. He figured he could get away with adding them as long as they were small in the corners. If questioned, he’d just say they matched the four-leaf clover inside. Why he was so insistent on this detail, even he didn’t know.