“Alright, everyone’s going into the Medical Capsules.”
There were fifteen injured people in the Village Chief’s house. Not too many. Some adults had already lost their lives, but it seemed the village had a small population to begin with.
“This is… quite wondrous.”
“A Golem, is it? To be able to handle a Golem this small, capable of such intricate movements. And a massive facility in the Spatial Storage…”
“Yes, yes, Chief, you’ll get your turn later. Next is the Barrier around the Farmland area.”
“Ah, I’ll guide you.”
The Village Chief was injured, and Hotaru-baasan was elderly. Asahi volunteered to guide me.
We went beyond the village’s stone walls to where the Farmland used to be.
“This is no good.”
“No good? Can’t you fix it, King-sama?”
“I can fix the Barrier. But the water’s no good.”
I knew because I had been made to help with the Farmland in between my Hunter training.
I peered into a crumbling well that caught my eye and drew some water from it.
The water was contaminated. Whether it was the Earth Beast’s poison or a curse, the water was dead.
“We’ll have to abandon the Farmland around here. Are there other places?”
“Th-There aren’t any places as flat as this nearby… but, I don’t know.”
“Well, I guess you wouldn’t know much about places suitable for Farmland.”
I’m not that knowledgeable either.
“Purifying water is difficult.”
The village side was safe, so it wasn’t affecting the water for the entire village, but if this was no good, most of the surrounding area was likely the same. And if the water was bad, the soil could be affected too.
I could purify the water with a Cleaning Magic Tool, but dealing with the soil as well would be too much trouble.
“We’ll abandon the Farmland, or we’ll have to find a place to make new Farmland.”
“If possible, near the Village… because there are many old people.”
“I see.”
The elderly managed the Farmland, huh?
“My lord, there are many Monsters around here.”
“They must have noticed the Human territory shrinking. It seems some who chased after the Goblin types are included, but there are just too many… Of course, we can defeat them, but the situation is dire.”
The two, armed with a Saber and Halberd, approached us. It seemed unwise to stay outside the Barrier for too long.
“What about the corpses?”
“We recovered them as much as possible.”
“But the Goblin’s blood and flesh are everywhere.”
“They were weak, but there were so many of them.”
I was the one who decided to let them escape without chasing them, but I didn’t think it would have this much of an impact.
Certainly, they were Monsters who originally lived close to Humans. If they were driven out of their city… in this case, the village… it wouldn’t be strange for them to try to take it over.
“This Farmland is no good, the village is fine… we can cover the food for a while with the disaster-preparedness stockpiles.”
Assuming a planet was destroyed, securing enough food for hundreds of millions of people to eat for a year was the basic requirement.
The food in my Spatial Storage should be more than enough.
“The Farmland is no good? That’s troublesome.”
“There are few people who can go out Hunting, too.”
“The food situation is too bad.”
“Ho ho ho, shall we move everyone to our base instead?”
“Eh?”
“?”
“No, but… is that even possible? Ancestral lands, you can’t just abandon them easily, right?”
“…The Highgrand Principality ruins, our homeland.”
“Homeland, returning home… there’s land. We were planning to make Farmland too. And a Barrier. And there’s water.”
I crushed it to make it flat, but there was a well.
“Should we at least propose it?”
“I think it would be good.”
“It seems like it will become a country instead of a base!”
“Considering the scale, you can’t call it a country.”
There are only about 60 people in total.
“As I explained, the Farmland area is difficult to recover due to the water problem. If you’re prepared to abandon this land, I’m thinking of having you move to our base, the old Highgrand Principality ruins…?”
I’d be troubled if they prostrated themselves while I was talking.
“Are you saying you’ll gather all of us under the King?”
“How merciful!”
“A helping hand to those of us heading towards destruction!”
“We who were abandoned by Highgrand will become Highgrand citizens again!”
So many elderly people were shedding tears.
“…King, it’s fine with just the young ones. We are already withered trees. We won’t reach Highgrand.”
“Ah, we’ll be moving with Spatial Jump, so it’ll be instantaneous.”
I’ll maintain the Jump Gate for a while, so all the luggage can be moved too. I’ll have the Support Drones carry everything they can.
“?”
“Our lord will use that power to guide you to a safe place. You can interpret it that way.”
““““ Ooooh!! ””””
Don’t put in weird interpretations!?
I appreciate the enthusiasm, but we’re not moving right away, okay?
“First, we need to confirm the families. Manage the people living together… should we create a family register?”
Then we’ll house them by family. Should I have them prepare apartment complexes with blocks made from rubble? Until then, they can live here.
“Thirty households, huh? Well, we can increase the number of houses if necessary. The Farmland will be managed by everyone, but…”
Everyone in the village did things like sowing seeds and harvesting. It didn’t matter if you were a Hunter or a Lumberjack. Even Dolly-oji participated.
“The civilization level will suddenly increase, that’s a problem. No electricity, and they barely use Magic Items. Living in this Forest in this situation is outrageous.”
I had heard that Beastmen were sturdier than Humans, but living in the Black Forest in such inconvenient conditions for hundreds of years was insane.
Even if the Earth Beast incident hadn’t happened, they seemed to be on the path to ruin, but their strength to have survived this long was genuine.
“Should I entrust the work I was planning to have the Support Drones do to them…? People will become useless if they don’t work. Managing and operating the Farmland, and Lumberjacks… and dismantling too. Hunting will be on a rotation? Barbatos and Beatrice are like Hunting squads too.”
While recalling the various jobs I was made to do in the village, I drew a Spatial Jump magic circle in the air.
“I’ll go over there once.”
““““ We will accompany you ””””
Yeah, the number of people replying has increased. Ryuga should rest, he’s seriously injured no matter how leniently I look at it.
As I tried to send him back, a man named Taichi, who was guarding the gate, lent Ryuga his shoulder and joined in. A bear Beastman, strong. A dog Beastman woman named Shizuma, who has medical knowledge, also said she would come along.
In that case, a woman named Koyuki came along to take care of Hotaru. She’s a cat Beastman.
“This is…”
“Highgrand Castle, it’s really gone.”
The leveling and rubble clearing hadn’t finished yet, so the Drones were moving around busily.
Drones that were about to run out of charge headed to the charging facilities, and conversely, individuals that had finished charging energetically took off from there.
“G-Golems, this many!?”
“What a…”
“Yes, yes, don’t mind them. More importantly, let’s talk about where you’ll live.”
I led the two to a place with chairs and forcibly sat them down.
I opened a tablet and projected it onto the table. I adjusted the brightness and explained.
“The area planned for Farmland was originally here. The tree cutting hasn’t finished yet, but I’ll hurry them along for now.”
“Eh? Yes? Yes.”
“And, I’ll just make the place, and you can transform it into Farmland itself. Can I leave the plowing and stuff to you?”
“We’re fine. Everyone can do that much.”
“I see. I’ll leave what to plant to you too. If there’s anything you want, whether it’s farming tools or seeds, tell me. There’s a lot of fertilizer too.”
I’m even making it now.
“In conjunction with that, there’s this. How many firewood and charcoal huts do you need? How much firewood did you use in the winter?”
“For winter preparations, we filled the firewood hut to the brim every year.”
“…I’ll measure it later.”
That’s how it was in my village too. There was a firewood hut, and the rough estimate was that if all the walls were filled with firewood, we could get through the winter.
It’s correct because we actually got through it, but I, a civilized person, would like to quantify it if possible.
“Do you know about block, brick houses? Can you live there?”
“Brick, is it?”
“Yeah. A house made by shaping stones and assembling them. That building over there. Do you want to take a look up close?”
The building the Drones were dismantling was made of blocks that were reprocessed from rubble with a recycler. The sand components can be extracted and made into glass, so windows can also be created.
It has high insulation and is sturdier than regular bricks. It’s a wonderful item that requires less fixing material and doesn’t need steel frames.
“How meticulous. It’s common to make Kamado Stoves by arranging stones alternately, but to make a building with it.”
“Grandma-sama, everything is processed into the same shape. Are they shaping it with magic?”
“Yeah, well, you can understand it that way. This area doesn’t get that hot in the summer, so it’s the same, but the winter is tough, right? But houses made with this don’t let heat escape easily, so you can get by with less firewood than in wooden houses. And it’s stone. It doesn’t burn, so even if there’s a fire, it’s rare for the fire to spread to the house next door.”
I know about the climate because that’s how it is in my village.
“Less firewood.”
“Difficult to start a fire, wonderful! As expected of the new King-sama!”
“Ah, well, that way of calling me is a bit…”
This is getting troublesome.
“I’ll decide the location and layout of the houses, okay? How many farmers’ houses are there?”
“Farmers’…”
“I mean houses exclusively for farmers. Everyone in the village helps with sowing and tasks that require a lot of people, right? I’m talking about the people who take care of the fields every day outside of those jobs.”
“In that case…”
“Thirty-eight, I believe.”
“Then let’s make it exactly that. When people increase due to marriage or something, they can build new houses. And the warehouse… Do the farm tools belong to each house, or are they managed collectively?”
“In the past, they were individual, but now they are managed in a single warehouse.”
“Then we need a communal warehouse too. And a storage, and a well for the processing plant.”
There’s a river flowing through the town, but well water is more suitable for crops.
I might as well make it a faucet type. They should accept water coming out with a twist.
“The bath… Should we make it communal?”
“A bath!?”
“Koyuki! Communal is more than enough!”
I’ll also manage the water and sewage for each household.
“Besides farmers and woodcutters, what other exclusive jobs are there? Dismantling, blacksmithing, Magic Item technicians, maintaining public order, etc.”
“We have a blacksmith. Dismantling was done by those with free time. We have a dedicated Mount master. And carpenters and stonemasons are兼任, the salt keeper and sake keeper were兼任, but now they each have dedicated people. We don’t have a Magic Item technician. Maintaining public order is, well, Taichi’s job.”
“…I see. So, a stonemason.”
Should I leave the cutting to the Drones and just have them process it? I can’t prepare a quarry inside the outer wall, or rather, I don’t intend to.
The inside of the Barrier, other than that, is mostly Forest. A quarry would likely be part of the mountain behind it… Well, let’s have them put up with blocks prepared by the recycler. I can change the size.
“Isn’t the salt keeper and sake keeper the chief’s job?”
“Since the Village Chief is as you see him, the Village Chief’s wife has been handling it.”
“I see. If they are trustworthy people, it’s fine as it is.”
People fight over just a shortage of salt and sake. It’s an important job.
“What kind of Mounts do you have?”
“We have eight Kamoshika.”
“Nice. You really are people of the Forest.”
Kamoshika are adorable! They are strong and intelligent enough to understand people.
“And lastly, about the Monster called Earth Beast.”
“Yes.”
“It is a terrifying Monster.”
“Asahi only said it was big and black…”
“It walks on four legs, yes. It has a muscular body like a lion. Its face is long and ferocious, with two long horns and many sharp fangs. Its size is on par with a living Dragon…”
“I’ve seen a Dragon before. That size, huh… Do you know if it was trying to break the village’s Barrier?”
Apparently, they don’t know that much.
“The Barrier on the Farmland was, well, honestly at a level where it wouldn’t be surprising if it was broken. It was at a level where it would be destroyed if attacked intensively by an S-rank Monster.”
“You can tell that much?”
“I saw the Barrier generator in the Farmland, and it was a bare, intermediate Magic Stone.”
Well, it’s probably hundreds of years old, so it can’t be helped. Conversely, the village’s Barrier was impressive, so was it created at a national level? I haven’t seen the source because it’s hidden, though.
“If the Earth Beast can’t destroy the village’s Barrier, there’s no problem. The Barrier here is much stronger than the village’s. But if it’s a Monster that can destroy the village’s Barrier at any time, this place might be in danger too.”
“Th-that’s… But, indeed.”
“That’s why, for the sake of defending this place, everyone might have to learn how to use weapons.”
The Earth Beast, a Monster whose true nature is still unknown. If it just ‘happened’ to break the Barrier when it tried to attack the village, there’s no problem. But some Monsters have the ‘ability to destroy Barriers’. Don’t laugh at the pinpoint accuracy, they are quite common in space.
That’s why I’m having the Support Drones build the outer wall, as a countermeasure. It will take quite a while, though.