I Asked the Beastmen for Help
Fuck....
I stared at the pitiful little thing made of wood.
One good gust of wind, and it looked like it would collapse right then and there.
I had tried to build a house for Satania, and this was the finished result. If anything, it looked less like a house and more like a ruin that had already started to crumble.
After three whole days of hard work, this was what I’d ended up with. Apparently, I had absolutely no talent for construction.
Damn it, what am I supposed to do with this?
This was on a completely different level from making a cutting board or a bowl. I couldn’t even begin to figure out where I was supposed to start fixing it.
Sure, if I poured enough time into it, I could probably make anything happen. But if I did that, by the time I finished, Satania and Lucy might both be old women.
I really do need a professional for this kind of thing...
Heavy labor was my job. Hauling materials, leveling land, painting—when it came to anything remotely physical, I outperformed every heavy machine in this world.
What I needed was an architect, someone who could handle the design and the delicate work.
Fortunately, people did live in the Gehenna Great Forest.
Lucy had once told me that humanlike intelligent beings known as Ains had settled here in hidden communities, living in groups to avoid the human empire’s eyes.
Among the Ains, there had to be experts who knew a thing or two about construction.
I wanted to ask one of them, honestly, but the problem was that we didn’t share a single word of language.
Should I use the Lucy card once?
It was a little embarrassing, considering how big I’d talked, but it still seemed a lot better than failing to keep my promise.
"■■■■."
"Nyan-nyan!"
At Lucy’s hut, Satania and Soho welcomed me.
I stroked Soho as it rubbed itself against me, then glanced around, but Lucy was nowhere to be seen.
Satania was moving her body with great enthusiasm. She kept shaking her head while making an X with her arms, which meant Lucy must have stepped out for the moment.
Satania pointed at the house and kept gesturing in all sorts of ways.
If I had to interpret it loosely, it was something like: House, hard work, making, you, fighting.
I gave her a thumbs-up.
Then Satania gave me one right back.
Was this what people meant when they said hearts could connect even without words?
"Nyan-nyan."
I peeled Soho off me and said goodbye to Satania.
And just like that, I returned to the ruined wooden house with nothing to show for it.
"I’m screwed."
Back at square one, I thought it through carefully.
I had to build a house for Satania.
To finish a house, I needed someone with deep architectural knowledge.
Ains lived in the forest.
There was a good chance one of them was an architect.
But if I wanted to ask the Ains for help, I needed to talk to them.
I couldn’t talk to them.
To communicate with the Ains, I needed Lucy.
Lucy was currently unavailable.
So what, was I supposed to sit here twiddling my thumbs until Lucy came back?
No. I was a born-and-bred Korean.
Which meant I had absolutely no patience whatsoever.
I wanted to find an architect as fast as possible and finish Satania’s house.
I had one last resort: body language.
The problem was that if I started flailing around in body language, the Ains would probably assume they were under attack, panic themselves half to death, and run off in all directions.
But...
What about those beastmen I saved in the cave last time?
I roughly knew where the beastmen village was, too.
We’d parted on pretty good terms last time, so surely they wouldn’t freak out and run like the other Ains, right?
I quickly cleared away the debris and headed off toward the maple forest.
Lucy had told me the maple forest got its name because the maple leaves never stopped falling, no matter the season.
Honestly, I was more interested in the fluffy little flowers blooming thickly along the roadside than the maple trees themselves. I’d picked them with my own hands and made bedding with Lucy once, and besides, they looked like tiny snowballs and were ridiculously cute.
It had been around here that I’d met the beastmen before. Which meant their village was probably somewhere nearby.
Back then, I thought the animal ears were pretty strange.
The beastmen looked human, except they had animal ears like cats or dogs attached to the sides of their heads instead of where human ears should have been.
There was something oddly harmonious and mysterious about them, and they’d left a strong impression on me.
"Oh."
I found the village.
Buildings were gathered together on a plain near the maple forest.
They had been built with wood, straw, and stone blocks, and they looked sturdy and well-crafted—like they’d been designed under the direction of a highly skilled architect.
I approached the village with a bit of hope in my chest.
"!"
Someone met my eyes at the village entrance.
It was the girl who had once fallen to her knees in the forest and begged me so earnestly for help.
I was just about to wave at her in delight when someone nearby shouted at the top of their lungs.
It wasn’t a scream.
Not a warning, and not a cry of alarm either.
Beastmen began pouring toward the village entrance in a rush.
"???"
I stood there, dumbfounded.
I was only curious what in the world was going on.
That curiosity was answered almost immediately.
The beastmen dropped flat to the ground and bowed to me.
For a moment I was horribly flustered, but I guessed this was their way of thanking me for saving them in the cave.
"Uh...."
They didn’t need to be this grateful... It wasn’t like I’d saved them expecting thanks.
I helped up the middle-aged man who seemed to be their leader—the one who looked vaguely like the girl—and he gazed up at me with a face full of emotion.
So, the beastmen were even friendlier than I’d thought.
Thanks for thinking well of a monster that looked this terrifying.
Honestly, I was a little touched.
The Ains who had first run away from me in fear weren’t fleeing now.
"Could you maybe come with me for a minute?"
We couldn’t understand each other, of course, but I pointed in the direction I needed with my finger.
As I started walking, the beastmen exchanged glances and murmured to one another.
A little while later, the girl and the beastman leader followed behind me.
The beastmen and I arrived at the site I wanted to use for Satania’s house.
I pointed at the ruined hut and made my request.
"Could you turn this worthless building into a house someone can actually live in?"
I pointed at the materials I’d stacked up, then drew the shape of a house on the ground.
My drawing skills were pathetic, so I could really only manage something like a little rectangle inside a square, but surely they’d get the general idea, right?
When I finished speaking, the beastmen dropped to the ground again and said something to me.
They really didn’t need to bow every single time. Their thanks from earlier in the village had already been more than enough.
I helped them back to their feet and shook my head.
Then the two of them looked at me with even more moved expressions.
Well, the message must have gotten across properly, at least.
For the record, nothing in this world came for free.
If they built the house for me, I’d have to give them something in return.
Just then, a good idea came to me.
After finishing my conversation with the beastmen, I left the site and hurried off.
"Lord Behemoth showed himself to us first."
"Even when the elves cried out desperately for Lord Behemoth’s song, he must have known that our beastmen’s hearts were the truest of all."
"We even made a statue for him, and it’s a real shame he didn’t stay to see it."
"Still, just knowing that he recognized our faith is enough for me."
The beastmen chatted excitedly among themselves.
The mysterious being who had saved them, Behemoth, had visited the beastmen village.
"But didn’t Lord Behemoth say something in the middle?"
"Lord Hanseong and Lady Han-ah followed him, didn’t they? Do you know what he said?"
Hanseong shook his head.
"I do not. We are not wise enough to understand his voice."
Hanseong could not make out Behemoth’s intent at all.
So even amid the cheers, he remained silent, thinking hard about what exactly Behemoth might have meant.
"Maybe Lord Behemoth was trying to encourage us?"
"The area has been getting dangerous lately. Maybe he was telling us to stay strong and protect the village."
"He even helped Lord Hanseong to his feet himself. He must have meant it that way. Ah... this is the first time I’ve ever felt chills from being so moved."
The beastmen tried to read Behemoth’s intentions in their own way.
And just as they were settling on the conclusion that Behemoth’s visit meant he wished for the beastmen to endure the harsh trials ahead—
"No, it’s a temple."
Han-ah suddenly said that.
"A temple?"
All eyes turned to Han-ah at once.
"Before Lord Behemoth left, he showed both Father and me a picture with his own hands. It was just a square with a rectangle inside it—something I couldn’t make sense of at all. But after thinking about it, I finally understand. That was the altar our beastmen built to remember Lord Daehu, wasn’t it? And the reason he showed us that worn-out hut with his own hands... wasn’t he telling us to build a temple?"
Hanseong sprang to his feet, applauding as he did so.
"Well done! My daughter! Yes! That was it! Lord Behemoth wanted to test the limits of our faith!"
At Hanseong’s words, fire ignited in the beastmen’s eyes.
"If it were stone, perhaps, but when it comes to wooden construction, we beastmen are by no means inferior to dwarves!"
"Arch-builders, including Hyun! Prepare yourselves at once! We are building the finest temple for Lord Behemoth!"
And so the beastmen began bustling about, moving swiftly to build a temple for the faith of Behemoth.