Ruru's Grueling Day
Master had left the house again.
Ruru looked around the empty cottage. It had grown. The little cottage she had first seen when she opened her eyes was a two-story house now, and quite spacious.
"Hmm-hmm~"
A little tune slipped out of her all on its own. It was lonely. Lonely, but nice—having a house this big all to herself.
"Ruru-ru~"
She could even use the second-floor rooms Master and Sujeong had been using, whichever she liked, and that delighted her. She usually slept in the same room as Sujeong anyway, but having a room to herself was... how to put it. It felt as if she had been given a private little space of her very own, and the happiness of that was hard to name.
Of course, Sujeong being gone did not mean she used Sujeong's bed. The bed Master had bought just for her was wonderfully soft, and she loved it. Better still, the plush cushions sat inside a space shaped like a tiny house, so Ruru had a little home of her own, and she had decorated the inside in her own cozy, careful way.
A lonely, spacious house. Yet the moment she stepped into that small home of hers within it, the world turned snug and warm. More than anything, knowing that the great house outside was not dangerous let her sleep deeply, without a worry in her.
The cottage was invincible, at least within this rift dimension. That was a god's authority. Unless something capable of breaking a god's power came and tore the cottage down, no monster in this dimension could ever attack it. So even without Master, Ruru might be lonely, but she was not afraid.
"Ruru~"
Her daily routine was not much different from the last time Master had been away. She rose in the morning, washed her face, and glanced out the window to make sure nothing was amiss in the fields and that no monsters had come. Then she began her morning chores.
She filled the wooden watering can and watered the fields, which had grown quite wide by now. At least she no longer had to trek back and forth through the cottage. After they had cleared the sewers last time, she and the Gobrings had run the waterway they gained all the way to the farm, so water flowed right alongside the fields. She only had to scoop it up and sprinkle it. Even that was not exactly easy for someone as small as Ruru.
"Hehe. All done."
Aside from that, there was not much for her to do. She checked the growing time of each seed, harvested the crops that had matured, and sowed fresh seeds in their place. Most of them took two to five days to grow, which meant that until Master returned, the only real work was the morning routine.
And if she kept diligently at the watering through the morning, the Gobrings would come.
"Kerrk. Kerrk."
"Ruru. Ruru. We came. Kerrk."
"Oh! The Brings are here? Could you tidy up over here today?"
She finished the rest of the watering together with the Gobrings, then set them to odd jobs. Master had told her to give the Gobrings work every day, even if there was not much that needed doing. Slaves with nothing to do only thought about rebellion, he had said, so Ruru followed his words faithfully. The Gobrings seemed to be loyal slaves these days; at her command they diligently hacked down weeds, trees, and stones alike.
The afternoon belonged to the Gobrings. Ruru simply took some snacks from the house and ate them while she kept an eye on them, sunning herself on the roof as she rested.
Around five, as the sun began to sink, the Gobrings assembled in front of the cottage.
"Good work, Brings. This is the food Master is giving you today."
"Kerrk! Meat! Kerrk!"
"Master. Gives good meat. Kerrrk."
"Thank you. Keh-keh."
"Eat lots."
And Ruru found she rather liked this feeling. This business of having slaves. At first she had felt a little reluctant, but the slaves were good-natured and listened well, so... how to put it. She started wanting to reward them, so they would obey her even better. So she tried giving them a little something.
"And this is a present I'm giving you in secret. You worked really hard today."
"Kerrrk!"
"Snacks. Snacks!"
"Thank you, Ruru. Kerrk. Snacks so tasty. Kerrk."
"Salty. So salty."
It was not much. A carton held four packs, and she gave them only a single pack of crackers, about six pieces to a pack. They were snacks she herself ate sparingly, so for her it was no small decision. The Gobrings were delighted, and they offered her their thanks along with a bow of submission.
Just as she had thought. It was not that Ruru's tastes were strange. The creatures living here... well, calling them monsters felt a little wrong, but the Gobrings, at least, loved snacks. She could not hand them out every single day, but giving them some now and then, so they would work even harder, seemed worth a try.
The Gobrings left, and evening came. Ruru ate dinner too.
What should I eat?
This was the hour that, for all the sadness and loneliness of Master's absence, was also the reason she was happiest. Without him, every bit of food in the cottage was hers to eat as she pleased. She did not have to eat the dinner Master chose, and if she ate whatever she wanted every single day, there was not a soul around to scold her. Of course, ever since Sujeong had come, the meals she cooked—what they called home cooking—had been so delicious that Ruru missed them. Even so, for her, ramen was still the very best.
"Sluuurp."
These days she even slurped the noodles down with that tiny mouth of hers. The spice had grown familiar enough that she could eat without end, tongue out and hehe-ing the whole while, and she had progressed all the way to burying her nose in the cup ramen and gulping down the broth.
"Kyaaa!"
She could feel it, scorching and spicy, sliding down her throat.
Now this was the taste!
After the meal, Ruru washed up quickly, climbed to the second floor, and went into her little house. Grunting with the effort, she propped up Sujeong's tablet, turned it on the way she had been shown, and watched something called a drama.
"This is so much fun."
Earth might be a lower dimension, but culture of this kind was something even Ruru could envy. Watching Earth's dramas until she fell asleep had become, these days, her greatest hobby and her greatest joy. Sujeong had asked once, while they watched, whether she could even understand any of it, but of course she could. The question had probably come up because it was in the language of Earth's dimension—but Master and Sujeong were already speaking to Ruru in Earth's language to begin with. She suspected it might be a god's providence, and she was deeply grateful for it.
"Hehehe."
She nibbled the snacks left over from earlier inside her little house while she watched the drama. Around midnight she yawned, paused the video, and drifted off to sleep.
If only I could live like this forever...
Ruru dreamed a happy dream.
And so it went, until the fifth day.
Once again, sure enough, something happened.
"Kerrk. Kerrrk!"
"What is it, Brings? What's wrong?"
It was early morning. It was not even time for the Gobrings to arrive, and yet several of them came running in a frantic hurry.
"Kerrk! Big trouble. Kerrk!"
"Why? Why?"
"Black Monkeys. Kerrk. They attacked us! Said hand over the mushrooms!"
"Eep."
Oh. Right. She had forgotten. The Gobrings grew mushrooms in their village and offered them as tribute to the Black Monkeys, and that was how they had lived right beside them without being invaded. But Master had dug up every last one of those mushrooms. Naturally, when this round's tribute never arrived, the Black Monkeys had come to attack. The Gobrings had fled here to take shelter.
"The other Brings?"
"Coming. Kerrk. Gobring 11, 12, and 13 are dead. Kerrrrk."
"Eek!"
The Gobrings called themselves by the names Master had given them. Thirteen in all. Three of them were dead, and Ruru hurriedly ushered the ones who came after into the cottage.
"Come in here!"
She had gone inside with the Gobrings, and perhaps twenty minutes had passed.
"Kerrk. Kerrk. Monkeys. Monkeys!"
"Black monkeys came. Kerrk."
The Black Monkeys descended on the cottage.
"Ugh. So black. So big."
The Black Monkeys were enormous. About Master's size, maybe—big enough that you could have believed they were human. If they had not been pitch-black, their whole bodies buried in black fur, she might truly have taken them for people. Their backs were slightly hunched, their gait a loose shamble. Eight of them circled the cottage, trampling the fields as they went.
"Oh no. This is bad..."
The fields were being ruined. Whenever the Black Monkeys found a crop they liked, they dug it up and ate it even if it had not finished growing, and the ones they did not care for they simply tore apart and left behind. She had seen this before. The Big Rats had done the same thing, and Master had been furious...
"Kerrk. Big trouble."
"Master. Gonna be angry."
"But scary. Kerrk."
There was nothing she could do. The Black Monkeys were a perfect upgrade over the Gobrings. In height, bulk, ability, and strength, even three Gobrings together could not so much as twitch against a single Black Monkey. The only small mercy was that they had harvested quite a lot of crops today, and the disaster had struck before the new seeds went into the ground. It was not much comfort, but it was still a relief.
The Black Monkeys kept rooting stubbornly around the area, and only left once afternoon came.
"Kerrk..."
"Brings. You worked hard."
In the end, the Gobrings had to go back. The cottage was Master's space, not a place slaves were allowed to use. She could keep them inside until he returned, but she could not do that forever.
"Ah!"
Even so, sending them back to the Gobring village was far too dangerous. Three Gobrings were already dead. Master had charged her with managing the slaves, and three of them dead already meant the mission was a failure. Carefully, Ruru set out for the Former Master's Orchard with the Gobrings. Fortunately, the Black Monkeys seemed to have gone.
"Kerrk. Kerrk."
"Brings, sleep here tonight. You must never touch the fruit. If you sneak some and get caught, Master might kill you."
"Kerrrk... Master is scary..."
"Won't eat. Life matters more."
She had to get the fields restored before Master came back. If she reported that they had taken a small loss, it would not be a serious matter. That was what she told herself. But the Black Monkeys came every single day, and in the end, when Master arrived—
"Hing..."
Ruru and the Gobrings were lined up before him.