Fuurou The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects: Volume 11

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-7183-3152-5
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 250 Seiten

Reihe: The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects

Life is going well in Iluk. The new temple in town is coming along, the border station to the west is nearing completion, the twins are starting to bring life to the arid wasteland to the south, and Peijin-Do has just arrived bearing gifts. That's when word arrives that six strange creatures are marching through the wasteland to Baarbadal. Who are they? Where are they from? What do they want? And what if the biggest threat Baarbadal has ever known is not far behind them?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fuurou

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kinta

Lim, Hengtee

Leseproben

A Cove Somewhere—Goblins

The goblins wore simple tops and loincloths made from the skin of other animals. Their long tails were pierced with fishhooks and decorated with strangely shaped rings. On their wrists and waists were seashells, and around their necks they wore pendants made from their own sharp fangs.

When they reached the cove the goblins looked around, clearly cautious and ready for anything. They took in their surroundings and slowly moved around, searching the area. The moon was hidden behind the clouds, and it was so dark that the goblins shouldn’t have been able to even see one another, but the creatures saw well in the darkness and knew full well where each member of their party stood. Taking up a circular formation, the goblins proceeded north.

“Ugh... It gets so dry up this way...” grunted one.

“It’s because it’s only sand and rocks. No water, no signs of life. I can’t imagine anything making a home out here,” said another.

“Hrmm... Are you certain someone spotted a lizard out here?” said yet another.

The goblins continued north until the biggest of them signaled for the others to stop with a raised hand. He looked around, taking his time to take in everything he saw across the darkened landscape, but in the end he only sighed.

“What the others saw out here was a trick of the mind... There are no lizards out this way...”

Even if they did not find the lizard itself, the goblins had expected to at least find traces of it having been here—footprints, the trail of a tail across the ground, or perhaps a nest or the remains of a meal. But there was none of that here. With no signs of any life anywhere nearby, the goblins decided to turn back, but it was then that they noticed the glimmer of scales upon the top of a rocky mountain. The scales undoubtedly belonged to a lizard.

“There it is!” cried one of the goblins. “It’s real!”

The goblins all readied themselves for battle, some brandishing their claws while others opened their mouths to bare their fangs. The lizard, however, watched them with a gentle gaze, then looked to the north as if to urge them onwards.

For a brief second, the goblins all looked in the direction that the lizard was facing, and it was at that very moment that the lizard emitted a faint light before vanishing completely. It did not make a sound as it left, and indeed it was as if the lizard had never even been there to begin with. A goblin raced up the mountain to investigate but found neither footprints nor any signs of life.

The group of goblins thus found themselves sharing the same unspoken questions. What was that lizard? What was it trying to tell them?

But the only answers to their questions lay in the strange lizard, and it was no longer there to answer them. Brimming with curiosity, the goblins talked among themselves and came to a consensus: They would explore the barren wastelands to the north.

Iluk Village, Hubert’s Yurt—Hubert

Hubert’s yurt was lined with shelves, at the end of which was a table covered in documents. It was here that Hubert sat, putting his pen through its paces. The shelves were home to a great many documents, each one either neatly rolled up or otherwise stacked in an orderly pile.

The members of the Iluk Wives’ Club were often busy in Hubert’s yurt, helping to keep it neat and tidy. At some point in time a few of the club had made his yurt a regular stop during their daily chores. Hubert shouldered the governance of Baarbadal entirely on his own, which meant making and updating their maps, preparing reports for the king, and recording monthly expenditure accounts.

Thanks to the work of the Wives’ Club and their efforts in cleaning, tidying, washing, and preparing tea, Hubert could focus solely on his key responsibilities. With their help, he was somehow able to make it through a workload just barely within his grasp.

Hubert glanced up from his desk to look at the map on the wall. It was this particular task—that of exploring the region—that he most wanted to get back to. Cultivating the wasteland could help Baarbadal claim yet more territory. More territory meant more survey work, which would culminate in the creation of another map.

Here in Baarbadal, Hubert could use the surveillance tools available to him as he pleased, but he also had the falconkin to assist him. With their keen eyesight he could craft maps to a degree of detail unheard of in the royal capital, and so nothing was more fun for Hubert, nothing more joyous, than the act of cartography.

Hubert’s pen raced across documents as he thought about his maps, and it was just as he was finishing that he heard a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said Hubert.

A young cavekin, Sanat, entered, carrying a piece of metal.

“What can I help you with today, Sanat?”

“We finished our first mining tests and whipped this up.”

Sanat showcased the metal—an object made of iron—while Hubert put his pen in its wooden pen holder and adjusted his glasses to get a better look.

“What?!” he blurted, his voice choking up as it neared a scream. “H-How?!”

“Well, uh...I mean, we just did what we do,” Sanat replied, a touch confused. “We dug for ore, then we smelted it. This is what happens when we craft it, and that’s why I’m here.”

Sanat spoke as if it were nothing, but Hubert was astonished. The cavekin mining project was ready for mining ?! They were fully capable of producing refined iron ?! When had they set up the pipeline for mining to refining to processing?

There was so much Hubert wanted to ask, so much he wanted to say...but with the finished product sitting in front of him, he swallowed his words. What point was there in voicing all his thoughts now that everything was done? Hubert got his mind back on track and took a different tack.

“I... I see,” he said. “And this is a...an iron pot, is it? Why did you decide to make this, of all things?”

It was a black pot so large it had to be held with two hands. The pot itself was iron, its handle was iron, and its lid, too, was iron. Though as he examined it further, Hubert couldn’t help noticing that the center of the lid stretched upwards.

“When I heard Dias talk about what he ate in Mahati, he mentioned that they steam food over there. Well, I figured with the right tools we could do that here too, so I tried whipping this up as a kind of prototype.”

Sanat explained that the center part of the lid cooled the steam as it rose, turning it back into water, which dropped back into the pot and started the process over again.

“I made a regular lid too, a thick one just like the pot, so you could even put coal on the lid itself and cook from both sides if you wanted.”

The Wives’ Club members in the tent all paused what they were doing, drawn in by Sanat’s explanation. Hubert put a hand to his jaw in thought, his mind racing. He did not know much about cooking, but he at least understood the logic behind the pot. And at a glance, it was a well-made pot. Knowing cavekin craftsmanship as he did, Hubert was certain that the iron was similarly exceptional.

The pot was finely crafted and looked durable. Hubert was just wondering if they could sell it to help balance their expenditures when fate brought another knock at his yurt door.

“Here’s the most recent sales report,” said Ellie as she walked in, placing a document on Hubert’s desk. “Demand hasn’t shown any signs of dropping yet, so sales are still good. Oh, hello there, Sanat. What’s with the pot?”

The merchant’s eyes were quick to take in Sanat’s pot. The cavekin explained it to her and Hubert asked her for her opinion on it as a good for the market. Unfortunately, Ellie’s face scrunched up with uncertainty as she took the pot in hand to feel its weight.

“If you’re just asking if we can sell it, then the answer is yes, but regular sales? Not easy. The main reason? It’s .”

Ellie explained that the weight would tire out the horses transporting it. More rest for the horses meant it would take longer to get the pot to market, and selling it wouldn’t result in all that much profit without cranking up the price. Baar wool was light and in high demand. Ellie didn’t expect to sell much more than one tenth of what the wool brought in.

“But the other question is, should we even sell it in the first place?” asked Ellie. “When you’re talking iron, you’re also talking weapons and armor. I’m not sure we want to just be selling off...