Fortifying the Interior (4)
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“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
When I opened the territory resident management list, I could only stare in disbelief. Out of the fifty-five residents excluding Rina, not a single one possessed the skills I needed right now—no laborers, no butchers, not even anyone with remotely related expertise.
I’d held out a sliver of hope that among the elderly there might be at least one former laborer or butcher. There wasn’t a damn thing. The only skilled worker we had was a single retired blacksmith grandfather.
Having a blacksmith was good news, sure, but a blacksmith wasn’t what I needed at this moment. I needed butchers who could dismantle magic beast carcasses and laborers to build a dismantling yard.
“Haaah······.”
This territory was so thoroughly rotten it made my head spin. As someone who had actually played Crack Kingdom, the sigh came out on its own.
“No choice, I guess.”
But I was a veteran of Crack Kingdom. A garbage territory was something I could overcome any day of the week.
“Looks like I’ll have to use that method.”
It would be a little rough—though not for me. For the residents.
I need a butcher to make money with a magic beast dismantling yard, but no matter how long I wait, not a single butcher comes to the territory.
Refugees are pouring in like crazy, but zero butchers.
Don’t tell me these bastards got themselves wiped out by the Army of Magic Beasts because there were no carcasses left to dismantle?
They fled without getting to work on any beasts, hands itching so bad they charged the Army just to get a fix—right?
There’s no other explanation for them not showing up like this.
Fuck, where and how am I supposed to find a butcher?
“Why would the lord suddenly summon us?”
“Yeah. We already had our interviews yesterday.”
“Maybe he’s promoting us or something? We’re the only soldiers left in Termin Territory now.”
“True. The old captain died with the subjugation force, so someone has to take the captain’s seat.”
“One of us becoming captain… we’ve made it, boys.”
The five remaining soldiers of the Termin household—Jacob, Bill, Steve, Marlon, and Henry—headed for the Termin manor on Offen’s orders, relayed through Rina. On the way they speculated that one of them would be chosen as captain, and by the time they reached the manor they had solemnly promised to congratulate whoever got the post with genuine joy. All five were Termin Territory natives and childhood friends who had grown up together, so the promise came easily.
“Jacob, Bill, Steve, Marlon, Henry. Good of you to come.”
When they opened the front gate of the Termin manor, Lord Offen and Head Maid Rina were waiting at the foot of the stairs leading up to the house. For the lord of the territory and head of a baronial house to personally greet mere soldiers was something that should never have happened. Their expectations swelled even higher.
“Follow me. I have something to show you, and something to say.”
The faint hope that one of them might become captain hardened into absolute certainty. They trailed after Offen in high spirits. The destination turned out to be the northern wall gate.
“You lot—open that gate.”
Offen ordered the soldiers to open the wall gate. They had no idea why, but they obeyed. Termin Territory was poor and small; the wall gate had no defensive mechanisms, just one massive wooden door. All it took was hauling on the pulley beside it, and the soldiers worked the mechanism with practiced ease.
Creak— creak-creak— creak— rumble······.
“Listen while you open it. Do you know what happened in front of this gate yesterday?”
Offen asked in a flat, emotionless voice directed at the backs of their heads. It was not curiosity; it was an interrogation. But the soldiers, drunk on the dream of promotion, had completely lost their ability to read the room.
“Yesterday, my lord? Well, nothing special that I can recall!”
Bill, the most oblivious and loudmouthed of the five, answered without a second thought.
“Hmm. Nothing special? Is that so······ so that’s how it is······.”
Offen slowly nodded. While the two of them spoke, the wall gate swung fully open.
“My lord, the wall gate is open as ordered.”
“Is it? Then go outside and check.”
“Ch-check what, sir?”
“The condition of the ground beyond the wall gate.”
The soldiers exchanged puzzled looks but obediently stepped through the gate as ordered. The moment they saw the landscape outside the territory, they froze in horror.
“Wh-what? Th-this is·····.”
The plain in front of the gate, once open grassland, had been completely torn apart by enormous footprints. It wasn’t limited to the area right in front of the gate. Every inch of ground within sight was the same. It meant the owners of those countless footprints had reached the very walls of Termin Territory.
“Nothing special······ is that right. So Soldier Bill of our Termin Territory considered this ‘nothing special.’ I had no idea. To think our territory harbored such a valiant warrior who treats something like this as trivial.”
Offen’s voice drifted from behind the rigidly frozen soldiers. The expectation that they might become captain plummeted straight into the abyss. All that remained was trembling anxiety and fear.
“Not one of you reported this to me. No—there wasn’t even a single man among you who knew about it. The ground shook like an earthquake and dust clouds rose in massive plumes, yet not one of you realized a magic beast army had come right up to our doorstep.”
Offen walked forward with heavy steps and clamped a hand on Bill’s rigid shoulder from behind.
“Hieek!?”
The grip itself wasn’t strong, but that subtle pressure terrified Bill more than anything else in the world.
“The previous lord hired you as soldiers to protect this territory. Yet the men who were supposed to protect it hid away and slacked off while a magic beast army approached? I have no intention of employing soldiers like you.”
“M-my lord. J-just once, just one more chance······.”
“No. All of you are fired. And as the master of Termin Territory, I will now punish you.”
With the dismissal still hanging in the air, Offen stretched his right hand toward the devastated wasteland.
“Summon.”
User’s will confirmed. Summoning 15 beast-type magic beast corpses.
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble-!!!
“Huuurk······!”
“Th-that’s what you showed us yesterday······.”
Fifteen three-meter-tall boar magic beast corpses materialized before their eyes. The soldiers recoiled in shock and whipped their heads around to stare at Offen. He met their gazes and issued the order in a voice utterly devoid of emotion.
“From this moment on, you are butchers. Use the swords at your waists to dismantle these carcasses. Cleanly, by part, without rupturing the organs. Today each of you handles three. Five men, fifteen beasts. This is the punishment I give you.”
The penalty Offen handed down to the derelict soldiers was forced reassignment from soldier to butcher.
“M-my lord! I’ve never dismantled a magic beast even once in my life!”
“I’ve never even watched over someone’s shoulder!”
“Suddenly telling us to butcher magic beasts—what is this······.”
The former soldiers, thrust overnight into a job they had never done, voiced their grievances in different words. Offen’s answer was the same for all of them.
“Don’t like it? Then shall I cut off your wrists according to principle?”
“No, sir! Actually, being a butcher has been my dream since I was ten!”
“I-I grabbed a boning knife on my first birthday!”
“My mother dreamed of slaughtering a pig while she was pregnant with me!”
That day, Termin Territory lost five soldiers and gained five brand-new butchers.
Six hours had passed since the five soldiers had been reassigned as the five butchers. The men were diligently hacking away at the boar magic beast carcasses with the iron swords they had been issued, while Rina and I sat in chairs we had set up in front of the wall gate and watched.
Crunch! Crunch! Grind-grind. Thunk!
“Haa, haa, u-uugh······.”
“U-uuugh.”
“U-huuurgh. Hueeeek.”
Perhaps because their lord was watching, the five butchers never stopped cutting even as their entire bodies became soaked in magic beast blood and their own sweat. Their arms and legs trembled violently; they collapsed more than once from sheer exhaustion. Yet they kept glancing at me and forcing the blade to move. Watching them, I truly felt like a noble. With discipline this thoroughly beaten into them, I wouldn’t have to worry about a rebellion.
“·····Young Master, may I ask one thing?”
“Hm? What is it?”
“What meaning does this act hold?”
Rina, who had been sitting in the chair right beside me with her mouth closed the entire time, finally spoke. She had clearly tried to figure it out herself for six hours and failed, so the question came out carefully.
Well, from Rina’s perspective this probably looked like pure nonsense. Magic beast carcasses, if dismantled and processed properly, could become a solid source of income. For a territory like Termin that had no other way to make money, those carcasses were a resource that needed careful handling.
“Huff, huff, ah, damn it! Hey, Bill! You ruptured the guts! When the guts burst the stench is disgusting!”
“Huff, huff, i-it’s my first time, what do you want me to do!”
“Hey! Huff, uugh. Huuurgh. Shut up! We’re all covered in blood anyway, what does it matter!”
Yet those precious carcasses were being reduced to unrecognizable lumps by complete amateurs who had never properly held a knife. Of course Rina couldn’t understand.
“If they keep doing that, will those people become proper butchers?”
“It’d be nice if they did. But that’s not why I gave them dismantling work as punishment.”
“Then why······?”
My answer only made Rina tilt her head further in confusion. We had plenty of carcasses, and turning them into butchers would certainly be useful. But transforming those clueless men into competent butchers would take enormous time and support. And that kind of foolish method was not the way of a veteran like me.
“This is a show. A show that intuitively proves we defeated a magic beast army.”
“A show······? But right now there’s no one here except those men and the two of us.”
“Yeah. But they’ll be here soon.”
“Who?”
Whoooooosh-!
The moment Rina’s question brushed my ear, a fierce wind rose without the slightest warning.
“U-uwaaaah!”
“Uwaah?! Wh-what the hell is this wind all of a sudden!”
“H-hey Steve, careful! You’re gonna fall!”
“Gyaaah!”
Crash-tumble!
Steve, who had been standing on a boar carcass and stabbing with his sword, was rolled clean off by the sudden gale. It was a dangerous situation that could have injured someone, but neither Rina nor I had any attention left to spare for them.
“Are you the lord of this territory? I would like an explanation. What exactly are those men doing?”
All eyes were locked on the woman standing atop the wall, her hair like fresh green leaves whipping in the wind as she looked down at me.
“And why are beast-type magic beast corpses from the Abyss of the Army present in this tiny territory?”
Her name was Rien. One of the Ten Swords of the Kingdom, the highest combat force of the Benos Kingdom—Rien of the Gale. She was the entire reason I had put on this ridiculous performance.