Chapter 6 - Episode 6: The Population Won't Increase
In this world, it is established that one week consists of 6 days, one month consists of 5 weeks, and one year consists of 12 months. In other words, one year is 360 days.
It had already been 4 weeks since Noein and Matilda entered the forests of the Arqvist territory. In one more week, a full month would have passed.
"What should we do from here, Matilda?"
"...I am terribly sorry. Being as ignorant as I am, no clever ideas come to mind."
"Ah, no. I was just muttering to myself. My apologies."
Because the earnest and loyal slave had made a face of genuine depression, Noein hurriedly added those words.
If one continued cutting down trees using golems for 4 weeks, the flat land would expand considerably. It was already a breadth that Noein and Matilda alone found difficult to manage.
Furthermore, the area of the fields was expanding. They planted additional vegetables such as beans, and they planted barley. In the field where they first planted potatoes, they were also tending to the sprouts that continued to grow steadily.
The reclamation was proceeding smoothly. Except for one point.
"...I wonder how I'm supposed to gather residents."
To call it a territory, one needs residents. No matter how one looks at it, a lord and his slave alone cannot be called a territory, and golems cannot be counted as citizens.
However, to welcome residents, one needs an attraction that makes people want to migrate here.
Now then, was this Arqvist territory the kind of land people would want to migrate to? Even as a compliment, one could not say so.
If there was anything, it was the fields, the tent, the massive amount of lumber created in the process of logging, and the endless great forest.
In the first place, even the lord was in a state of living in a tent. Who on earth would want to live in a place like this by choice?
"At the very least, it's no good without at least our own house, right?"
"Noein-sama, shall we call craftsmen from Retovik to build a manor?"
"I'd like to, but... the money."
The severance pay Noein received from his father when he was cut off from his family home was 300,000 Rebro. After subtracting the cost of purchasing Matilda, it was 250,000 Rebro.
Considering that in a rural village, a commoner family could live modestly for a year on 10,000 Rebro... this was quite a sum, but as a budget for a single lord to reclaim a village, it was far from enough.
On top of that, to ensure the minimum convenience of the reclaimed land, he purchased magic tools for fire magic such as "Boil" and "Tinder," and since he only had two humanoid golems when he left home, he bought an additional horse-type golem and a wagon, and further collected various agricultural crops, including potatoes, which were rare in this country.
Because of this, Noein's current funds were under 150,000 Rebro. If he hired craftsmen to build a manor, his wallet would become completely empty.
That damn father of his probably didn't think for a moment that Noein could succeed in reclamation with only this much funding.
He likely thought that Noein would survive haphazardly for a few years while using the Arqvist name, and once the existence of the "bastard son of Maximilian Kivileft" vanished from the world's memory, he would just drop dead in a ditch. This money was merely funds to prolong his life until then.
"...Noein-sama, your expression has become grim; is something wrong with your health?"
"Hm? Ah, I'm fine. I just happened to remember that damn father of mine who gave me this severance pay."
After replying thus to the worried Matilda, Noein scattered his bitter thoughts and turned his consciousness back toward the reclamation work.
.....
Yuri was a mercenary born in the Kingdom of Lordberg.
No, "was" is the correct term.
To escape his position as the second son of a poor farmer, he fled his home village before reaching adulthood and joined a certain mercenary group.
Starting as a low-level laborer, as he grew and benefited from a blessed physique, he began to distinguish himself as a mainstay of the group.
Eventually, through the accumulation of achievements and promotion by seniority, he took the seat of the new commander at age 35 following the death of the previous commander in battle.
And his first battle as commander... was being used as a disposable pawn on the battlefield.
The long-standing conflict between the Kingdom of Lordberg and the Pallas Empire to the east. Yuri and his men, who had been hired by a certain great noble in the southern part of the kingdom and sent to that battlefield, were abandoned to buy time for the regular army to retreat, simply because they were rootless mercenaries.
Whether to literally defend to the death the mercenary's code that "the employer's order is absolute," or to take their own lives and the lives of the group members and flee from their post.
Forced into an extreme choice, Yuri chose their own lives.
Leaving the assigned post, they cut down the knights of the regular army who tried to capture them and fled the battlefield.
Falling to the level of bandits, they continued to flee west, west, while attacking travelers and merchants to seize their assets.
They managed to escape to the northwestern edge of the kingdom, and eventually arrived at a city that was said to be the capital of a certain viscount's territory.
.....
"Sigh. As expected, I'm getting bored of doing nothing but cutting trees every day."
"I sympathize with your feelings, Noein-sama."
Noein continued to worry about how to gather residents, but no clever ideas came to mind.
At most, he could only think of something like "picking up impoverished poor people who have nowhere to go and bringing them here."
However, for that, he first needed the leeway to protect those who had nowhere to go.
For that, abundant food and the farmland to grow it were necessary.
Therefore, even though he was frankly starting to get bored with the same daily repetitions, Noein repeated the steady reclamation work.
Even if he couldn't think of a way to gather residents, the reclamation progressed, stomachs grew hungry, and food was consumed.
Exactly one month after starting the reclamation, Noein once again took Matilda and the golems and headed toward Retovik in the Viscount Koenitz territory to buy food.
This time as well, he visited Eliza's shop, bought several weeks' worth of food for Noein and Matilda, and paid the fee.
Leaving the west gate of Retovik, passing through the agricultural zone of Retovik's residents that spread outside the gate, passing through the plains where small forests were dotted here and there, he entered the beast paths of the Bezel Great Forest.
After proceeding a little way down the path, it was Matilda who noticed first.
"! Noein-sama!"
Something, no, someone leaped out from the bushes and approached. By the time Noein noticed it,
"Whoops, don't move. Don't move..."
The man who had leaped out had grabbed him by the head from behind and pressed a knife against his neck.