novelraw Chapter 119
Chapter 119
Chapter 119
I had been staying in the Henil Territory for several days.
It wasn’t because the food here was so delicious that I decided to settle down.
There were still some matters that needed to be handled.
We had come here to expand the salt kilns, but the cauldrons we requested hadn’t yet been completed.
No matter how much we had asked beforehand, it was impossible to build large cauldrons in just a few days.
Not just one—four of them.
Though they were smaller than the existing salt kilns, they were still large cauldrons nonetheless.
“Wait, we have to grind Mana Crystals here too?”
“You’re just idling anyway. We’ve got piles of Heartstones, and it feels wrong to just leave them. Besides, we can’t just stop the salt kiln until the Territory sends new Mana Crystals.”
“Wow, you’re seriously…”
During the few days we stayed here, Peter had been diligently grinding Mana Crystals.
It was something someone had to do anyway, and since it would take some time for the next merchant caravan to arrive in Henil, I asked him to handle it.
Apparently, the people of Henil Territory were struggling due to a lack of Mana Crystals—they were even refraining from using basic life magic.
It wasn’t like they didn’t have Heartstones, but they were suffering simply because there wasn’t an Alchemist capable of grinding them into Mana Crystals.
Since Peter was a master in this field who could grind dozens of Mana Crystals in no time, it wasn’t a difficult favor to ask.
—Wasn’t there something else too?
‘Well, picking an apprentice is something Peter should naturally do.’
We decided to take in applicants from Henil and bring them to Johnson Territory to teach them alchemy.
He had been meeting those applicants one by one, and it was Peter who decided who would be chosen.
To become a good Alchemist, one needed a proper level of memory, excellent Mana sensitivity, and delicate hands. Only Peter could assess such traits.
‘Still, he seems to enjoy it. After all, he gets to choose his own students.’
—Maybe he’s still traumatized from his time in Johnson Territory?
‘Pretty much. He got burned trying to teach people who had no passion, no drive, and no talent.’
Compared to that, this was like taking a free meal.
Of course, with the Mana Crystal grinding on top of that, he was bound to be a bit tired.
‘Overwork is practically a way of life for an Alchemist, isn’t it?’
—That poor male following you around without thinking… I almost pity him.
I didn’t really think it was pity-worthy.
As long as he did his share, he could enjoy all the delicious seafood this territory had to offer.
Since Peter had already fallen for the taste of the sea, I was sure he wouldn’t complain over something that trivial.
—And yet, you, Master, keep doing nothing but rest. Eat, rest, eat, rest. Even loafers aren’t this lazy.
‘If you’re jealous, try being a Lord yourself. Besides, this isn’t my fault.’
It was more appropriate to blame the Alchemist of Henil who had suddenly disappeared.
“This is really amazing.”
During the days I spent in Henil, I got to taste an incredible variety of seafood.
From fish to all kinds of shellfish, crustaceans, and various seaweeds.
Especially unforgettable were the flying fish sashimi from the first day, the giant lobster from the second, and the huge abalone from the third.
Seriously, that lobster was as big as Rudick’s head.
And it wasn’t even a beast or a monster—it was a regular lobster.
Apparently, those lobsters had lived in the coastal waters of Henil even before the Great Cataclysm.
What an amazing world.
‘But there was one thing missing.’
Despite trying all sorts of seafood, the “real” ones never showed up.
No squid, no octopus, no cuttlefish—no cephalopods at all.
I’d heard they ate those in Henil, but none were ever served to us.
“Ah, yes, that’s true… but…”
When I asked the Lord of Henil about it, he said that most land-dwellers found cephalopods disgusting, so they hadn’t bothered to prepare any.
Even in Henil Territory, it was a divisive ingredient.
That made sense—back on Earth, not everyone liked cephalopods either.
Still, I loved them.
A seaside region with no octopus or squid?
Absolutely unacceptable. So I asked them to prepare some for me specially.
“You actually eat this? Bear, are you out of your mind?”
“Yeah, this one’s… kind of hard to look at.”
They finally served it, but Yuria and Leisha both frowned.
“How can you even eat something like this?”
‘Now I understand your level of taste.’
How could they not eat this? What a pair of flavor-blind fools.
Regardless of what they said, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Later, I even met privately with the Lord of Henil to request that dried squid and octopus be added as trade items.
“Ha! As expected of you, my Lord. Truly magnificent.”
When I made that request, the Lord of Henil gave me a thumbs-up.
I later learned that enjoying cephalopods was considered an impressive trait among the people of Henil.
They said a true man of the sea should at least be able to chew on an octopus.
Maybe Henil’s octopus was like Johnson Territory’s raptors—our people were only recognized as true residents once they could slay one with a pickaxe.
In any case, since it left a good impression on the locals, it wasn’t a bad outcome.
Even though I’d enjoyed plenty of delicious food in Henil Territory, I hadn’t spent my days idly.
I’d traveled around, getting a better understanding of the region.
The most impressive place was the field southwest of Henil.
That area used to be constantly attacked by monsters, rendering it practically unusable.
Kind of like the southern fields of our own territory.
The land was good for farming, but it had been abandoned because of the monster threat.
Henil had always suffered from a grain shortage because they couldn’t properly use that land.
“Wow, the wheat’s really growing?”
“Yes, my Lord. The harvest is coming soon.”
“How did this happen?”
“Haha, it’s all thanks to those fellows.”
“…Those?”
It turned out Henil Territory had been able to reclaim the southwestern fields thanks to beasts.
Curious, I went to see for myself—and found hundreds of beasts that looked like cows grazing leisurely across the southern side of the fields.
The beasts grazed in the southern area, while the people of Henil grew wheat in the north, coexisting peacefully.
They had divided the fields into north and south, sharing the land between two groups.
“Remarkable. How on earth did that come to be?”
“It’s a long story, my Lord.”
Those beasts first appeared last spring—
So it happened around the time when the Monster Wave broke out in the Forest of Illusions and spilled all the way into our Territory.
When chaos erupted in the Forest of Illusions, the entire monster ecosystem of this region changed drastically. Among those changes, cow-like Beasts that had escaped from somewhere within the forest settled down here.
Normally, monsters would have kept pouring down toward the territory, but when that suddenly stopped, they found it strange and sent Soldiers to investigate.
“That’s when we first ran into them—those fellows.”
“So? You weren’t attacked or anything like that?”
“They’re Beasts, not monsters. They just stood there, staring blankly at us.”
“Ah, so they’re not particularly aggressive.”
Whenever humans approached, they simply stared vacantly, but the moment a monster appeared, those cow Beasts would rush at it with incredible speed.
From the territory’s standpoint, they were beings that didn’t need to be provoked.
And surprisingly, they were strong—strong enough to devour Class 4 or Class 5 monsters with ease.
If a Class 3 monster showed up, the herd would band together and drive it away.
After several months of such encounters, the people of Henil became certain of one thing—
as long as those creatures occupied the southern area, the northern part of the field could be safely used.
So they planted all the wheat seeds they had been carefully nurturing within the village, and now they were close to harvesting them.
It seemed they had sown their fields around the same time we had planted ours in the southern plains, since both harvests were approaching soon.
“But wait—those creatures are all dairy cows? Are there no males?”
“They seem to be Beasts that produce milk regardless of gender. Even the males have swollen udders.”
“My word.”
“The cheese you’ve been eating, my Lord, came from those very creatures.”
“Ha, really?”
Some of the farmers sowing seeds on this side of the field couldn’t resist their curiosity and approached the Beasts.
They were, after all, survivors of the Great Cataclysm, and since those Beasts had been deemed safe, there wasn’t much risk.
And when they saw both males and females dripping milk freely, they couldn’t resist the temptation.
“This region used to be famous for its dairy, my Lord. We all grew up hearing stories of those days.”
“Right, the cheese here had quite a reputation.”
“So we tried milking them.”
“…You milked Beasts?”
“Yes. Though, to make them more cooperative, we fed them leftover fish, seaweed, and cephalopods—things we’d usually toss away. They loved it.”
“Good grief…”
—A wise form of barter, indeed.
Still, milking Beasts? Did they have more than one life to spare?
A Beast that produced milk regardless of sex, and one that happily gulped down fish and octopus at that—it was almost absurd.
Nothing about this situation made sense.
—The world changes through the small steps of geniuses, does it not?
‘I don’t know what milking Beasts has to do with genius, but I’ll admit—it’s impressive. It’s not something a sane person would attempt.’
At any rate, with hundreds of those Beasts around, and all of them capable of producing milk, it seemed possible to generate an impressive amount of cheese if they wanted to.
Actually, at this point, weren’t they basically milk-specialized Beasts?
What a ridiculous world this was.
—Prrr~~~~
As we headed back to the Castle after inspecting the wheat fields and the dairy Beasts of the southwestern plains, a horn sounded from the coastline.
Something must have happened.
Even the Lord of Henil, who had been guiding me, suddenly broke into a run toward the shore.
“It’s the flying fish! They’re coming!”
According to his explanation, that horn was a signal announcing the arrival of the Flying Fish.
‘Flying fish? As in, the one I ate on the first day?’
That fish, which was more like a tuna than an actual flying fish, had already piqued my curiosity.
I’d wanted to know what it looked like and where it was caught, since it was clearly a huge fish—too big to have come from the nearby waters.
With the sea in such poor condition, there was no way they could have maintained an offshore fishing fleet.
But now, the Flying Fish were coming—and my curiosity grew even more.
‘And they’re blowing horns? This must be something big.’
Still, I couldn’t quite understand why a horn was needed just for flying fish.
They were still fish, weren’t they? Fish couldn’t survive outside water, so why make such a fuss?
Could it be that, like salmon, they swam in groups near the coast?
And maybe everyone was in a frenzy to catch as many as possible?
Curious about the situation, I ran alongside the Lord of Henil toward the sea.
“My goodness, those are the flying fish?”
—Now that’s extraordinary.
And then I saw it—
Hundreds of fish soaring through the air from the distant sea.
True to their name, the Flying Fish really did fly.
—Fantastic!
There were still far too many mysteries in this world I hadn’t yet uncovered.