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Chapter 006: The yurt

Translator: Denryuu

Now, I had to watch and learn how to construct a home of my own. For that purpose, Aruna and I returned to the spot where we had first met.

Three males from the monsterfolk started work on my tepee, or as they called it, a ‘yurt’. The speed at which they worked was unbelievable — the moment the grass was trimmed and a mat laid on it, they began constructing the walls without delay. They placed a flat stone at the very centre, then erected a pole on it that marked out where the skylight would be. Before long, the skeleton of the yurt was complete. The men started laying cloth around it while making minor tweaks as they deemed fit.

「Wow, they’re fast」, I gasped. 「They started in the afternoon, and it’s already mostly complete. The sun is still high in the sky!」

「Easy to build, easy to dismantle and easy to transport」, replied Aruna. 「Those are the selling points of a yurt. Danger that even our concealment magic is unable to avoid approaches at times — when that happens, we have to dismantle our yurts and shift our entire village somewhere else. That is why we live in these.」

Though she had clearly been reluctant to serve as my guardian, she seemed quite willing to explain things in detail. I had already learnt a lot from her since my audience with Mohr.

For example, she had told me that living on the grassland made one susceptible to disease; bathing was required on a daily basis to wash away the ‘roots’ of such diseases. I was also advised to shave everyday as facial hair ‘trapped’ these ‘roots’ as well. From trimming my nails to washing my clothes, Aruna informed me of the various habits that I needed to cultivate.

She had been very passionate when teaching me how to care for their livestock, the Meias. With two whorl-shaped horns growing on its head and a body entirely covered in fluffy white wool, the Meia was essential to the monsterfolk’s way of life. The reason why they reared these animals was not for their meat, but rather for their wool. The wool of the Meia was said to be durable and waterproof, and could thus be woven into comfortable cloth of the highest quality.

Serving as the outer covering of yurts, the material for bedding and the undergarments they wore under their animal hides, cloth made from Meia wool had many day-to-day purposes for these monsterfolk. In addition, selling the cloth to travelling merchants seemed to be an important source of income.

Without giving it much thought, I asked Aruna if merchants from my kingdom came to these parts.

My question was met with silence. Well, I thought, they probably hail from other kingdoms. But there must be a reason why she’s unwilling to tell me more about these merchants…

I decided not to probe further.

Once the men finished working on my yurt, they proceeded to construct a small stable for my Meias. I was told that two Meias — one male, one female — would arrive later. It seemed that Mohr was hand-picking young, healthy ones, which would take some time. I was extremely grateful that she was going to that extent for me.

The more grass a Meia consumed, the longer its wool would grow. Aruna explained that I could shear my Meias’ wool and exchange it for food and supplies at their village. In other words, taking care of the Meias meant taking care of my food supply, and naturally, it would be good to breed them to produce more Meias if possible.

Wild Meias would also appear on the grassland from time to time, and it was finders-keepers — whoever found one was free to capture it. I knew that if I ever had the opportunity, I would give it my all as more Meias meant more wool and also a higher chance of their successful reproduction.

I’ll grow my herd little by little, I thought, and make my fiefdom prosper. I couldn’t possibly let Mohr and the other monsterfolk down, after all.

Wait. For a fiefdom to prosper, I also needed to increase its population.

And just how was I supposed to do that…?

「By the way, Aruna…」, I ventured. 「Do you know how to increase the number of people in a fiefdom?」

「What makes you think I know? All I can say is… you can’t go about it the way you do with Meias.」

Right. There was no way she’d know.

I had taken Aruna to be one of my people at first, but she had turned out to be one of the monsterfolk instead. That meant that my fiefdom still had a population of zero…

Aruna’s reply hinted at two things. Firstly, I wasn’t able to obtain people from the village. Secondly, there was no possibility of finding people in the wild.

I was truly at a loss for what to do.

If only there was a place where I could find them…

[Prologue Result]

Population: 【0】　→　【0】

Dias obtained 1 【Yurt】.

Dias obtained 1 【Stable】.

Dias obtained 2 【Meias】.

Dias obtained 1 week’s worth of 【Dried meat (for one person)】.

Dias established 【Friendly relations】 with the monsterfolk.

【Aruna】 from the monsterfolk joined Dias as a caretaker.