Let's Make One (2)
The lifeboat was cramped. Three people could lie down in it well enough, but four made things painfully tight.
Even so, there was nowhere else to sleep in any real comfort. Before the beastfolk finished the hammock, I had fully expected all four of us to end up sharing the boat.
And that, frankly, was not something I wanted.
The Valkyrie and the Saintess were human and Lumina respectively, so I had no particular aversion to them. The engineer was another matter. I had no desire to fall asleep breathing in the fox-musk of a fur-shedding beastfolk.
"Even so, wouldn't making a stone bed be inefficient? I think using that mana to craft more combat magic stones would be far more advantageous for our survival."
"How is a man supposed to live by efficiency alone? A stone bed is a matter of critical importance."
I hauled over rocks about the size of my forearm and lined them up in neat rows. Channeling mana, I flattened each one, then worked them further until the pieces fused and clung together.
It was work that burned through both stamina and mana. But what choice did I have? Once I'd started, I had to see it through.
"Hmmm."
The fox engineer let out a meaningful little hum. She prowled around me, watching every step of the process.
"What's she doing?"
"Keeping an eye on you, sir, wouldn't you say?"
"Fair enough. I'd be watching for anything suspicious too."
If she had just stared in silence, that would have been fine.
"What are you making?"
She started talking to me.
And she kept at it.
"Aha! You're making a stone bed!"
The engineer clapped her hands and laughed with bright, lively energy.
It was irritating—but more than that, it was startling.
Only that afternoon her face and voice had been sharp enough to kill. Now both had gone soft and almost puppyish.
"We foxes are good at making stone beds. Not that I'm good at making them, mind you. But I love sleeping on them!"
There wasn't a shred of hostility in her.
She chattered without pause until the bed was more or less finished.
Why?
Why was she suddenly acting so friendly?
"It's a trait of fox beastfolk."
When I asked the Saintess, that was the answer I got.
"They don't hold grudges. They can be furious one moment, then come right up to you the second something piques their curiosity."
According to her, a fox's mood could swing good or bad without warning. Looking for a reason was a waste of time.
What, so they really weren't any different from actual animals?
"Even more of a headache."
A dangerous temperament to have in a comrade. Someone whose behavior flipped with every shift in mood—how was I supposed to trust that?
And yet I couldn't afford not to trust her.
The Valkyrie and the Saintess were on the engineer's side. Treat her poorly and the image I'd worked so hard to build would shatter. I had no interest in being branded a beastfolk bigot.
"How do you build a relationship of trust with a fox beastfolk?"
"There's a signal."
"A signal?"
"A signal that says, I can submit to this person. Keep showing her a consistent face. Eventually she might offer you her shoulder—or her tail."
The Saintess went on to explain that fox beastfolk drew a far sharper line between "light" and "heavy" relationships than humans did.
"In a light relationship, they can turn on you at any time. Enemy one day, ally the next. They move fluidly, according to whatever benefits them."
Right now, the engineer and I were in a light relationship.
Meaning she could be perfectly pleasant one day, then wake up sour because it was raining and decide to put an axe through my skull.
Of course, beastfolk were still people, so they had some self-restraint—but how much patience she'd spare for an enemy like me, I had no idea.
"But once it becomes a heavy relationship, everything changes. They throw body and soul into doing anything for you. Some even go so far as to stand as guarantors."
Either way, building a heavy relationship with the engineer was clearly necessary. Necessary—and yet.
Apparently the relationship itself was something the fox beastfolk decided, not me.
Offering her tail to be touched, or pressing her shoulder or the nape of her neck forward and asking to be bitten—those were the signs that she wanted the relationship to deepen.
"Shoulder over tail, nape over shoulder. Even a deep relationship has stages."
I needed a heavy relationship with the beastfolk. Unless I wanted to wake up with an axe in me for no reason.
But to actually enter one, I would have to make some kind of physical contact with her. Stroke her tail with my hand, or sink my teeth into her shoulder or the back of her neck.
Just imagining it made me dizzy.
I already felt a visceral revulsion just looking at a beastfolk—and now I was supposed to touch one, put my mouth on one?
"Good luck with that."
Dog—no, fox—of a situation.
"Just touching the tail should be enough, sir. There's no need to go for anything deeper."
Right. David had a point.
The Saintess added that consistency was everything in a relationship with beastfolk. And if I wanted to win her favor, I should try to share her interests.
I bowed my head to her.
"Thank you. You've been very kind explaining all this."
"What, did you think I'd stay prickly forever?"
"A little, yes."
"I know. We have to stick together until we get off this island."
"There's still bound to be distance, though. You and I are enemies."
"I suppose I'm still a light relationship to you."
"Excuse me?"
"You're right. We are enemies. But I want to know more about you. Honestly—how did things end up like this?"
"You tell me. Anyway, thank you."
I turned to face her and offer a proper bow, but her eyes were already closed.
"Hmmm."
She looked sleepy.
"Monster! Monster!"
Just as I was nearly finished with the bed, the engineer howled. The Saintess and I—and the Valkyrie, who had been asleep—all scrambled up and prepared for a fight.
"What? Where?"
"I don't see anything."
"Over there! Look! Tree monsters, a whole bunch of them crawling this way!"
Nothing was visible at a glance. Night made it hard to see far.
But the engineer's warning was not wrong.
Sssssk.
Conifers with faces were using their roots as legs, closing in on us.
"…They really are tree monsters."
"Still better than ghosts or ghouls."
We moved into the formation we'd discussed beforehand. The Valkyrie and the beastfolk engineer took the front; the Saintess and I held the rear.
My position was nearly as critical as the Saintess's role as healer. I had to block the attacks the Valkyrie and the engineer couldn't fully dodge.
In the end, thirteen trees came at us.
Being trees, they were easy enough to fell and dismantle once down.
"Oh, looks like we won't have to worry about firewood for a while."
When the Saintess's spirit-binding divine art activated, the monsters became ordinary timber. From the stumps, I was able to harvest magic stones that glowed a deep green.
"The monsters on this island approach so quietly. Thanks to Sergeant Liyo, we were able to respond in time. Thank you."
It was time to rest again.
"Major, go back to sleep. You said you weren't feeling well."
"Ah—yes. Understood."
"You too, Sergeant Liyo. Stockpile your strength while you can. Starting tomorrow, we move in earnest."
The Valkyrie and the engineer headed for their beds—the Valkyrie to the lifeboat, the engineer to the stone bed.
"Hold it."
"Huh?"
"This is my bed."
I pointed at the hammock.
"You sleep in the one you made."
"Eeeh."
"Or go sleep in the lifeboat."
The engineer pulled a miserable face.
"But Liyo… Liyo wants to sleep on the stone bed too. Our kind thrash around a lot at night without one…"
"What?"
"That…"
She pointed at the hammock she herself had built.
"What, you want to trade beds?"
"Yeah. Can't we barter? I worked hard on it. I heard humans hate how hard stone beds are."
"Ha."
"I've been watching you eye that thing since earlier. The bed I made looks soft and nice, right? I like it too, but a stone bed just feels better. Reminds me of home…"
For a moment, I fell into deep, serious deliberation.
"Sir, is this really something to agonize over?"
"It absolutely is."
"I would think a net bed is preferable to a stone one."
"Lieutenant David. You've clearly never lain on one, so you wouldn't know—but once you've tasted the firmness of a stone bed, you can never go back to a soft mattress."
Calon was right.
For a pleasant, happy life on this deserted island, a stone bed was essential.
But the beastfolk's eyes were sparkling so brightly that an outright refusal felt impossible.
So. She knew the charm of a stone bed too.
Saying it that way was putting the cart before the horse, really. Fox beastfolk were famous for loving—and expertly crafting—stone furniture in the first place.
"If you let me use the bed, I won't cause any trouble until we leave the island."
After a long stretch of agonizing, I made my decision.
"He says, let's sleep together."
Tiria translated the man's words. Liyo's jaw dropped.
"Huk."
Sleeping together.
In other words—sharing a bed.
Among beastfolk, it had always been common. When the weather turned cold, they often piled up like bean sprouts, pressed tight for body heat.
But Liyo was a beastfolk and, at the same time, a citizen of the Holy Kingdom.
In the Holy Kingdom, asking someone to sleep together—to share a bed—was also a phrase often used when proposing marriage.
"Well, he can't mean it like that!"
Liyo decided not to think too hard about it.
The real problem was that she still felt a deep aversion to mages.
Before she had even turned ten, Liyo had been kidnapped by a band of mages and subjected to horrific experiments.
Strange machines clamped onto her head, electricity poured through her, bizarre drugs injected into her veins—a full month of thrashing in agony.
In the end the priests of the Holy Kingdom had rescued her, but not before her older sister Miyo died, Liyo's tail split into two, and she was left with every kind of wound imaginable.
"Ugh."
Remembering it still made the anger surge up again—and yet.
"Are you really going to be all right?"
"Honestly, I can't hold back…"
This stone bed the mage had made—just looking at it, she wanted it so badly.
To craft something this refined out of raw nature, and in so little time.
"Fine. Let's sleep together."
After wrestling with it, Liyo gave her answer. Tiria, who had to pass the words along, looked more embarrassed than anyone. The man seemed flustered too.
Not her problem.
Liyo dove onto the stone bed, stretched her arms and legs out wide, and gave her tails a lazy sway.
"This hard texture—I love it!"
The craftsmanship was impressive. With a little more finishing, it could have gone straight to market without shame.
A moment later the man lay down beside her. He wore an expression even Liyo couldn't quite read.
"To work stone with that much precision… He's no ordinary mage. Be careful."
"I will."
Earlier that day, when they'd met the tree monsters in the forest, Liyo had been certain. Even if the mage drew a dagger right next to her, she could dodge it with room to spare.
Liyo retracted the claws she'd bared in the last fight. Her hostility went into hiding with them.
It was absolutely not because I couldn't give up the stone bed.
Hadn't the Saintess said so? Share a common interest.
The beastfolk seemed to like stone beds, so I was simply enduring this for the sake of building rapport.
"So you couldn't give up the stone bed and decided to share one with a beastfolk."
"Ooooh. How does a man wearing a human face arrive at such a beastly judgment, sir?"
Both of you, shut up.