First, Let's Secure Some Food
"Whoa..."
Leyre had come out to the farm their group was tending, with Lucia, Hias, and Karin alongside him. The fields were far broader than he had expected. Marveling, he ran a hand over the crops pushing up through the soil, then wandered the grounds looking them over—whether the farming was being done properly, whether they used fertilizer, whether any of the land lay fallow.
"Whoa... whoa..."
It was a sight Karin had never seen. She drifted among the crops with bright, childlike eyes, curiosity shining as she wandered here and there.
"Why'd that masochist pervert tag along?"
Hias grumbled at his side.
"She said she wanted to come."
"Big Sister Lucia and I are more than enough to guard you, Master. And I seriously doubt that pervert even knows how to protect anyone."
"She must've come because she can do something."
Something seemed to occur to Hias. She turned a meaningful smile on Leyre.
"Or... did she come because she wants you to spank her again, like yesterday?"
Leyre frowned.
Ever since he had learned that a smack worked well for steering Karin and keeping her in line, he had taken to hitting her whenever she crossed it. Somehow, though, she only seemed to want it more.
"Kyahaha, look at your face, Master. This is fun~"
Hias rose onto her toes, reaching up to pet his head.
"Why do you like petting my head so much?"
He let her, every time. It didn't feel bad.
"Just because? Call it a habit?"
"Figures..."
Once Hias finished stroking his hair, Lucia came to his side.
"This is the farm our group manages. We built it deliberately large, so we could supply energy in abundance."
"Right. Good call. Does the kind of food matter?"
"It does not. We convert all food—even kitchen scraps—without discrimination into a form of Bio-Energy, and use that as our power source."
It was the first task Leyre had set himself toward a world where every maid could get along: increase the supply of food, their source of energy, before anything else. He had his own meals to worry about, but if he meant to live alongside still more maids from here on, the supply would have to be constant.
"That said, the farm manager ought to be around here somewhere..."
Lucia glanced about.
"So there's a dedicated manager."
"A maid who lives here and works the fields. Diligent, and she loves nature. She volunteered to farm alone. Of course, in the busy season we send other maids to help."
Lucia kept scanning the surroundings, but beyond the crops tossing in the wind—rippling as if some beast were running through them—she saw nothing.
"Eek—kyaaa! A Sc-Scrapped Unit!!"
Karin's voice rang out from somewhere.
"M-Master, over here, there's a Scrapped Unit heeere!"
She was screaming as she faced one down, bracing with sheer strength against a Scrapped Unit that lunged and tried to shove her over. Behind it, about five more were coming after.
"To think Scrapped Units would come this far... Hias, prepare for combat."
Lucia drew her greatsword. Hias nodded and pulled her rifle.
They were just readying themselves when—
"I said... don't come any closer!"
Karin swung. One punch, and the Scrapped Unit's face caved in with a dry, crackling crunch before it dropped. She didn't stop. Like someone chaining the moves of a fighting game, she flowed from stance to stance—one, two. An uppercut, a side strike, a whipping blow, a stomp, an elbow, a downward kick, each melting smoothly into the next.
"I told you... not to come closer..."
All five were finished in moments. They lay where they had fallen, twitching, sparks spitting from their frames.
Lucia, Hias, and Leyre could only stare, dumbfounded by the spectacle.
Karin looked at the three of them, welled up, and then—
"I was so scared, Masteeer...!"
She threw herself straight into Leyre's arms.
"...That was incredible."
He stroked her hair and soothed her.
"I suppose we have no choice but to acknowledge this."
"Yeah, acknowledged. So she turned into a masochist because she's too strong."
Then a sharp clang rang out behind them.
"You rascal!"
A scolding voice, and with it the heavy thud of something hitting the ground.
"Sneaking up from behind... you naughty thing!"
Someone was speaking in an unhurried voice, almost like a grandmother's. The three of them turned. A light-green-haired maid stood there with a shovel in hand, and a Scrapped Unit lay collapsed at her feet.
Karin slipped out of Leyre's arms and stood up properly.
"Now wherever did you learn a habit like that... mm... tsk, tsk, tsk..."
She wore a tracksuit and work gloves, dirt smeared across her clothes. The grandmotherly maid looked over the four of them and smiled, easy and warm.
"Welcome~ It's been a while, Lucia~ You too, Hias. And that red hair over there—I haven't seen you before... oh my?"
The light-green-haired maid looked at Leyre, ran her eyes over him, and came closer.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my goodness... so what the sisters told me was true~?"
And then she scooped him up into her arms.
"To think a new master for us to serve would actually appear! I'm so glad to meet you!"
"Uh, uh... nice to... meet you..."
Leyre found he rather liked the way the maids showed their welcome, and their affection.
"Lucia, if such a cute child had become our new master, you should have told me sooner~"
Lucia looked uncomfortable. She didn't like seeing Leyre in someone else's arms.
Hias only smiled, watching him quietly soak up the warmth of that embrace. Karin, understanding none of it, tilted her head.
"Agrippa, Master will find that stifling."
"Mmm~? But children like this like being held with love~ Right~?"
The maid whose name had just been revealed—Agrippa—set Leyre down and smiled at him.
"Yes, yes..."
Leyre was lost in the bliss of that softness.
Lucia bit her lip.
"Anyway, what's the occasion~? Bringing a new master, and a new maid besides~?"
"Ah, I'm Leyre. The red-haired one here is Karin."
When he answered, Agrippa kept beaming at him with the look of someone gazing at an adorable baby.
"Mm~ Thanks for answering~ Our baby master~ Oh, is it uncomfortable if I call you a baby?"
"No, well... not really..."
"Then please understand~ I used to work at an orphanage, you see~ So human masters all look like babies to me, no matter their age~"
Agrippa shifted this way and that, as if shy.
"Mm~ So what brings you all the way out here?"
"Master has commanded that we work to increase our food supply from now on."
"You mean grow more crops~?"
Leyre nodded.
"Yeah. I've got my own meals to think about... and to prepare for what's ahead, I think we need to increase your energy source too."
"Mm~"
Agrippa touched a finger to her lips.
"How curious. You didn't say anything about reviving civilization."
Leyre tilted his head.
"Hm?"
"Increasing the mouths you have to feed also means increasing the hands you'd need to build a civilization~ But our Master Leyre... all you said was that there are more mouths to feed. Isn't there something more?"
"Rebuilding civilization... is that even possible?"
The thought had never occurred to him. The world was already ruined; it had become a place where merely eating and surviving would take everything they had. He had never entertained any grand plan of revival or reconstruction. In a world where only the maids remained, he simply hoped those maids might get along with one another. Bringing a civilization back felt far too vast a thing for one person to attempt alone.
Agrippa broke into a wide, bright smile.
"How curious. You really are a master of small scale. Not so much small dreams as... should I call it realistic?"
"But why bring up rebuilding civilization?"
It was a fundamental curiosity.
"Because you're human. I thought a human would try to remake the human world... that's what I thought~"
"...I see."
A simple reason, and yet a noble one. A difficult one. He hadn't considered it—but it was worth thinking over.
"Whatever the case, I'm in the position of having to expand the farming on Master's orders... but!"
Agrippa drove her shovel deep into the earth with a thud and looked from one of the four to the next, as if demanding their attention.
"Do you have a plan for how we're supposed to farm?"
Leyre answered.
"Looking at the fields now, there's fallow land, and it seems you're using simple fertilizer. From what I know, we should restore the soil's fertility quickly first. It'd be nice if we could get nitrogen fertilizer... but that's probably out of reach."
"Mm. You know your stuff. Our master is clever, isn't he?"
"Are you planting beans?"
"Beans? Why?"
Agrippa's eyes went wide. So the maids didn't possess every scrap of knowledge after all, and Leyre felt a small pang of disappointment. The corner of his mouth lifted as he began to explain.
"They're good at fixing nitrogen and restoring the soil. Plant them across the fallow ground and the other fields together, and they'll do a great deal to bring the fertility back."
"Oh... he really is a clever master, isn't he? Lucia, haven't we gotten lucky?"
Lucia smiled.
"Then we'll have to get those beans?"
"We will. I don't know where they are... and it's far too late to go looking for a place that sells seed. We'll probably have to find wild beans."
Agrippa thought it over.
"Then we'll need to send maids out to find them, and we'll need more maids to farm as well, won't we?"
Leyre nodded.
Agrippa looked at Lucia.
"Will we have enough?"
"We will."
"Then that's what we'll do."
Agrippa rested the shovel on her shoulder.
"When our cute, clever master asks, of course we should."
She came up to Leyre and stroked his head.
"Well done~ Our master~"
"Uh, yeah..."
A head-pat he was getting used to, and one that felt good.
Met another good maid, Leyre thought.