The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects: Volume 3

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-7183-3136-5
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 250 Seiten

Reihe: The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects

It's summer on the grassy plains. With war behind him, Dias has his hands full with everything daily life can throw at him. There's the new but strangely familiar merchant, the dogkin refusing to spend their hard earned coin, and the appearance of some of Dias's old friends and family, each of whom has their own reasons for searching him out. On top of it all, Dias is about to meet Alna's brother, who is convinced he has to rescue his sister from the evil new lord of the plains!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fuurou

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kinta

Lim, Hengtee

Leseproben

With Trading for the Day Complete

Somehow we’d managed to calm Peijin-Re and get our conversation back on track, at which point we’d agreed that if any of the lostblood showed an interest in trade, then Peijin would show them the ropes. We had horses and a carriage, and having a dedicated merchant around could only be a good thing.

In the midst of our conversation, I brought up conditions for residents.

“By the way, Peijin,” I said. “This goes for all potential residents, not just the lostblood, but we don’t accept criminals, or evil folk, or anyone who might bear us ill will. I’d like you to keep that in mind when people start applying to move here.”

“Huh? Well, uh...of course that’s what you’d want, yep,” replied Peijin. “And it goes without saying, yeah? I’ll make sure that we get a good look at everyone’s past and their character before we make a decision.”

“Well, I’m sure you got a sense of it yourself a little earlier, but Alna’s got an eye for these things, particularly when it comes to a person’s character. She’s even better at that than she is at appraising the quality of goods. The last thing I want is for you to bring some people here only for us to have to turn them down and drive them away, so I just want to make sure that you’re diligent about it.”

“I hear you loud and clear, yep. I swear that I’ll only bring over people that the two of you will be happy with.”

With that, I left it to Peijin to bring us some decent folk. After all, we were planning on having some lostblood be the heart of trade in Iluk, and that would mean travel back and forth between here and the Beastkin Nation. We’d want to trust those folks with trading Iluk’s specialty wares.

At the moment, all I could think of that was unique to Iluk was our baar wool, but given that our production of it was fairly limited, we were still a ways off from selling it in any real capacity. I knew we had to expand the number of baars we had, but I hadn’t met a single one in the wild yet, so it didn’t seem like a particularly easy task.

In any case, I figured that it would take some time to train someone up as a merchant, and we still had a while before any lostblood actually arrived in earnest, so I decided that I could put more time into it later down the road.

Once Peijin and I had finished discussing the particulars with the lostblood, we got on to discussing what Iluk needed for his next visit. On this occasion, Peijin hadn’t brought anything the dogkin would have wanted, so I asked him to bring some stuff for them when he next came. They had a lot of gold and silver of their own now, and Peijin didn’t want to let an opportunity like that slip from his grasp, so he happily agreed. There were plenty of small-ilk dogkin in the Beastkin Nation, so he said he’d get some stuff together, and he looked confident about it to boot.

I also put in an order for some other daily essentials and asked him to prepare us another horse if he could, but that was about all we needed at the time. In terms of food, well, we actually had a little too much as it was, so we didn’t need to put in an order for any more.

And so, with our trade done, Peijin and his guards packed up their stall and got ready to leave. They were keen to get going before sundown, so they got all their stuff together right quick.

“Got a good deal done and learned a good lesson, yep,” said Peijin-Re. “I’ll be back in the not too distant future, and I’ll be looking forward to an even better trade than last time, yep! Well, I guess that’s it then, so we’ll be on our way.”

And with a deep bow, the frogkin merchant hopped up into the driver’s seat of the caravan, took the reins, and headed westwards with his guards. We watched him until he disappeared into the horizon, then I started swinging my arms and warming them up.

Now that we were looking after a flock of geese, there was a lot that had to be done. We needed a pen for them for starters, but I figured we could reuse some of the leftover materials from Francis and Francoise’s pen for that. Still, we’d need to dig a little reservoir nearby for them too. You could raise geese without a watering hole, but they were healthier when they had water nearby, so I thought it’d be a good idea to build one for them. And being that it didn’t have to be too deep or too wide, we could do it without issue. We just had to make sure we had routes from the river to bring water in and take water out.

I had strolled on over to the livestock pen with that on my mind, and that was also when Grandma Maya and her friends walked over towards me looking like they were patting themselves on the back for a job well done. There were a lot of dogkin with them, and they were all muddy. As soon as they saw me they sped ahead of the grannies and dashed over, their tails wagging like crazy.

“Pat us! Pat us!” cried one.

“And praise us too! Go on!” cried another.

I didn’t know what they wanted me to praise them for, and I was still trying to work it out when Grandma Maya finally caught up.

“We have to thank you, young Dias, for buying those geese. They’re very healthy, and by the looks of things, we’ll be welcoming little ones come winter. We’ve also got roast goose to look forward to!”

“Roast goose, huh? That does sound delicious,” I said. “By the way, Grandma Maya, why are the dogkin so dirty? What have they been up to?”

“Well they’ve been working hard for the geese, of course,” replied Grandma Maya. “We had some unused livestock pen materials, yes? We had the dogkin carry them over to the riverside and then dig us a little pond for the geese. We dug some trenches too, so if the geese poop in the pond or get it muddy then the water will drain back out into the river.”

She took a moment to breathe before she continued, “Oh, and we want to put a fence around it all, so we sent a young senji to the onikin village to ask if they’ll share some materials with us. We thought it was a good time to do it, seeing as we’d asked them for small privies for Aymer and the small-ilk. I know we did all of it without asking you first, but we needed it, so I hope you don’t mind.”

While I’d been talking to Peijin-Re, the grannies and the dogkin had been doing my job for me. They’d set the materials up and were checking on the privies too. I didn’t have any complaints whatsoever.

“I’d wanted to put up a fence for the geese before nightfall, so I don’t mind at all. I’m grateful, if anything!” Then I knelt down and gave the dogkin all pats. “And thank you guys for all your hard work too!”

Patting all the dogkin reminded me that I still hadn’t actually given them all their rewards for the war. The mastis had been out there on the battlefield with me, but even the dogkin who’d stayed and protected the village deserved their thanks. I’d wanted to give them all something for how we’d safely overcome the war...if you could call it that.

“It’s time I rewarded you all and commemorated your efforts, especially now that Peijin is planning to come back with stuff for all of you,” I said. “Everyone’s going to get something, because it wasn’t just those on the battlefield that protected Iluk but everyone. So let’s gather in the village square. Oh, but wash all that mud off yourselves beforehand, okay?”

The dogkin’s eyes all grew wide and they started howling with joy. While they were all cheering, another dogkin ran to the square and rang the bell.

So with the howling and the bell ringing in my ears, and everyone heading for the square, I went off to the storehouse to get a bag of coins.

By the time I had the bag and was on my way towards the square, everyone was already there, neatly lined up. All the dogkin must have heard from the grannies what was going on, because their eyes were all alight with anticipation.

I took to passing out coins to each villager and thanking them for their efforts: two coins for those who fought, and one coin for those who didn’t. I handed out coins to everyone, including Senai and Ayhan, the dogkin kids, the grannies, and Francis and Francoise too.

When I was all done and about to tell them all to go back and go about their day, a young shep came up to me holding their coin in both hands like it was something really precious. The little dogkin looked a bit nervous, but they looked me straight in the eyes as they spoke.

“Lord Dias, is it okay to put a hole in the coin?” the dogkin asked.

I was surprised. I’d just given out the rewards, and now one of them wanted to put a hole in their coin. Why would they want to do that? I mean, gold was gold, so it wasn’t like it would be completely useless if you did something like that, but I didn’t think a merchant would be too happy to get a coin with a hole in it either.

I was struggling to find words for a reply, but then more dogkin came up to me and they started asking if they could do the same. I told them all to calm down and I knelt down, and when I could look them all in the eye, I spoke.

“Guys, why do you want to put a hole in your coins? I’m not saying you can’t do it, but I’d like to at least know why.”

The dogkin who’d plucked up the courage...