Chapter 46

With Marks, his companions, and myself making up the group, we went to a small tavern along the harbor.

Though a sign shaped like a beer mug hung under the eaves, townspeople rarely came near it, because it was a place where those who worked at the harbor gathered.

Kururu and Iiria both offered to come along as well, but it was Marks who rejected that idea.

He said rough men understood each other better, but I could not help feeling depressed at the thought that things might become that troublesome…

However, once we actually headed to the harbor that day, even dull me could tell one thing.

“Yorinobu, don’t turn around.”

Marks said that with slight exasperation because a disguised Kururu was following us while hiding.

Maybe Kengo was there too.

“That’s why she’s Kururu-chan.”

Marks crushed down a smile, then shook the belt at his waist and pulled himself together.

“Well then, I’d like to kick the door down and walk in, but—”

Standing in front of the tavern, Marks slowly pushed the door open while saying that.

“Sorry to intrude.”

If a cowbell had rung, it would really have been a western, but I could feel that this was what it must be like to be an outsider gunslinger.

“What do you want?”

It was not that they were drinking themselves senseless from midday… they were simply eating lunch.

It was not only our company whose harbor unloading was busy.

It seemed they had worked properly since morning and were only just now taking a break.

“Sorry to bother you when you’re busy, but it’s exactly because of that busy matter that we’re here.”

According to Marks, many of the harbor cargo handlers had been pirates or rowers on slave ships, or at any rate were that sort of people.

They had drifted and wandered, not knowing where they might end up dead by the roadside.

That was probably why they had a different kind of forcefulness from Marks, who was rooted in this land.

“Boss!”

A man with muscles on par with Kengo’s called toward the back of the tavern.

From the rear, where something like a pirate flag hung, a large man lumbered out.

“Katz.”

When Marks called the name, the man called Katz glared at him suspiciously.

“What is it, you loudmouth? Unlike you swindlers, we’re working here.”

He might have been taking a nap after his meal.

“And yet it seems unloading at the harbor is being held up.”

At Marks’s reply, the quality of the air changed.

I hurriedly stepped in to mediate.

“I’m terribly sorry to intrude while you’re busy, but it is precisely about the harbor unloading that we wanted to consult you!”

At that, Katz blinked, scratched his belly noisily, and glared at Marks once more.

“My match with you comes later.”

“I’ll take you on anytime.”

Thinking we might have chosen the wrong person for this, I also felt that things might have turned confrontational even if Kururu had come along.

“So? What does the master of the great company want?”

Though it sounded sarcastic, Katz offered me a chair, so I obediently sat down.

Facing him directly, his build and the way he carried himself made me think that if a golem existed, it might look something like this.

“Well, um, the thing is…”

It reminded me of hearing a story about a university classmate being forced to do cold-call sales and ending up walking into an office belonging to organized criminals.

But unless I pushed the conversation forward, Jirenu Territory could not move forward either.

“As for cargo hauling for our company—”

By the time I said that much, I flinched at Katz’s sharp gaze, and the end of my sentence weakened no matter what I did.

“I was thinking… that I’d like to, well… make use of the beastfolk…”

Kururu was outside, clumsily following out of concern, and the cat-girl listening in was probably grinding her teeth at how pathetic I sounded.

Coming to this world had made me keenly aware that a fierce face was, in itself, a form of negotiation.

“And?”

The most unpleasant kind of comeback came.

The overbearing attitude of men accustomed to violence.

For an instant, I fantasized that if I were a magician, I could force the issue without argument… but there was a reason I had not brought Iiria and Kururu along and made him obey through the lord’s authority.

I could not say it in front of them, but making too sudden and extensive use of the beastfolk would definitely cause problems.

That included resentment from the people of this territory, but it was not only that.

One only had to remember that Jirenu Territory still lacked far too much manpower to become a land capable of defending itself from outside enemies.

That meant we would have to rely on immigrants for new workers, but what would happen if, when we tried to recruit settlers, rumors spread on their own that Jirenu Territory was some sort of paradise for beastfolk or the like?

Unless we were truly prepared to go all the way and make it that kind of place, for now we had no choice but to take a more realistic path.

That was why I needed to negotiate.

All while avoiding friction with the human world.

In order to secure stable lives for many people.

“I have heard that the harbor is run under your authority.”

My voice no longer trembled, and I looked Katz squarely in the eye.

“Our company is expected to handle even greater volumes of cargo from now on. The same will likely be true of the other companies. Even so, this is an island, and there is no easy way to increase manpower. Therefore, I would like you to permit the use of beastfolk, if only for the unloading portion of our company’s cargo.”

Katz did not move.

If he called it an infringement on his vested interests, I had considered offering monetary compensation.

Financially, it probably would not be a problem for us, but later on he might raise the price, and if we were seen as weak-kneed, there was no telling what sort of demands might come next.

So I simply waited too.

Compared to what Iiria, Kururu, Dodol, and the others had endured, this level of awkwardness and pressure should have been nothing.

Still, Katz showed no reaction.

Why was he saying nothing… just as my patience was finally reaching its limit, Katz, seated across from me, muttered,

“…Don’t tell me.”

Katz leaned forward sharply, and Marks and the others tensed as well.

Katz’s face, like a lump of rock, stared fixedly at me.

“Do you think we’re the ones who drove the beastfolk out?”

“Huh.”

My words caught, and my breath stopped.

“What?”

When I asked back, Katz pulled back the body he had leaned forward and looked at Marks.

“We’re not swindlers like you lot.”

“Huh? You were pirates, weren’t you?”

“Former. Former.”

Saying that, Katz let out a big sigh and scratched his head roughly.

“The ones keeping the beastfolk out of the harbor were acting on orders from the previous boss. Or rather, we’re in trouble without beastfolk too.”

“…”

Not really understanding, I looked at Marks, but he seemed confused too.

“Look, this isn’t the only harbor. Say in another harbor, beastfolk carry cargo and load it onto a ship. Then naturally, when we receive that cargo here, it takes beastfolk to lift it too. The unloading backlog is partly because the amount of cargo suddenly increased, but that’s one of the reasons too.”

It reminded me of unloading the mining tools from the ship.

“Um…”

As I sat there confused, Katz frowned so deeply it looked like you could stick a pen into the wrinkles.

“What I heard is that the one who kept beastfolk shut out was Nodon at your company.”

“What!?”

I had had no idea, but certainly, if it was Nodon… and yet I immediately felt something was odd.

Nodon only cared about his own profits, but in matters of profit he had a certain kind of fairness.

If it were him, would he not have hired beastfolk dirt cheap and efficiently had them unload cargo, even if it meant crushing the complaints and dissatisfaction of the people who would lose work?

While I was thinking that, Katz said,

“That’s secondhand from the previous boss too.”

What followed that preface was a surprisingly human sort of story.

“They say ever since a dog bit him when he was a kid, he’s been bad with beastfolk.”

“…”

It sounded absurd, but Nodon was, for better or worse, rich in emotion and very human in that way.

And when I thought about how Nodon had effectively ruled Jirenu Territory, it somehow started to fit together.

For example, beastfolk were excluded from work within the town, but it did not really feel like the townspeople hated beastfolk that much. In cheap taverns, plenty of people sat and drank with beastfolk as if it were nothing unusual.

If that gap was all because people were tiptoeing around Nodon, whose trauma came from being bitten by a dog—

Nodon’s obsession with Iiria and the others might also have been a kind of petty revenge.

“Even if Nodon’s been driven out, it’d still be odd for us to bring this up to you from our side, wouldn’t it?”

Certainly, Katz and the others had no way of knowing what ideas we held, and if they carelessly brought it up, they might end up reducing their own work.

More than anything, bringing up the topic themselves would be like publicly admitting their own lack of arm strength.

For rough men who clearly cared about honor, that would hardly be pleasant.

“Then…?”

At my question, Katz crossed his arms sullenly.

“The absolute premise is that our work doesn’t decrease… but we won’t strongly oppose it from our side. Beastfolk have saved my life before, on a ship I used to sail on.”

When he said that, he looked back toward the flag hanging at the entrance to the back room.

So that really had been a pirate flag.

It was only easy to say in hindsight, but even with Nodon gone, I could feel how strongly his influence still remained all over the island.

Thinking there might be even more things like this elsewhere, I remembered that greasy giant body and foolish laughter of his and let out a sigh.

In any case, I rose from my chair and held out my hand to Katz. Katz stood as well and gripped my hand.

But then he suddenly yanked it hard, throwing that thick arm around my shoulder.

At the edge of my vision, Marks and the others tensed, and then Katz said,

“You were trembling at first, but halfway through you started looking like a captain. I like that.”

It seemed Katz, laughing boisterously, had seen right through my initial weakness.

“This is an island, in other words a ship. Whether it becomes flotsam in the sea or reaches a golden land depends on who leads it.”

Katz slapped me on the back and released his arm.

“For a while, I’ll ride on your ship.”

The harbor was also Jirenu Territory’s Achilles’ heel.

I could not say I had become acquainted with Katz, who controlled it… but at the very least, it was a gain that we had managed to deal with each other without hostility.

“I believe I’ll have various favors to ask of you in the future as well. When that time comes, I’d be grateful for your help.”

“Yeah. If you ever fire those land turtles, hire us anytime.”

Pointed at by Katz, Marks put his hands on his hips and glared back at him.

“We can settle this right here if you want.”

“Heh. Unlike you swindlers, we still have cargo unloading after this. Come tonight. I’ll have enough liquor ready to drown in.”

I still did not really understand the relationship between these rough men, one group rooted in the town and the other in the harbor.

Before things got any more heated, I said,

“Then, excuse us while you’re busy.”

Katz raised a hand in reply, and Marks and the others shrugged and left the tavern.

Once outside, the wind felt refreshing, and I immediately relaxed.

“Sorry about that.”

“Huh?”

While I was taking deep breaths, Marks said that while scratching the bridge of his nose.

“If I’d known about old man Nodon, I could’ve handled that better.”

“Ahh.”

Nodon getting bitten by a dog.

Just imagining the scene made me start to laugh.

“Still, I wanted to speak with the person in charge of unloading sooner or later anyway. It was a good opportunity.”

And after that, I felt as though I had gained just a little more nerve for negotiation too.

“Well then, let’s get back to work ourselves.”

When I said that and started walking, Marks and the others remained where they were, wearing gloomy expressions.

“What’s wrong?”

When I asked, Marks and his companions looked at one another and then said,

“…We really ought to find work already.”

If Kururu had heard that somewhere, she might have laughed.

“The workshop and the company would both welcome you.”

And then they must have imagined themselves actually working.

The way Marks and the others sighed in disgust looked exactly like elementary school kids realizing summer vacation ended tomorrow, and so I laughed in Kururu’s place.

This time it had happened to be nothing more than overthinking, but with the matter of the magic stone processors, I had stepped squarely on a land mine.

If I was going to keep my guard up and continue improving the conditions on this island, I needed to tighten my resolve as I returned to the mansion. There, Kururu, who had returned a little earlier, was waiting with an innocent expression.

“How did it go?”

Kururu acted as though she knew nothing, but I knew she had followed out of concern. She must have been listening too.

Naturally, instead of pointing that out, I said this.

“It went well, but I was nervous. Thanks to that, I’m hungry.”

Kururu, who always liked making sure I ate, happily rolled up her sleeves at once.

Then I added one more thing.

“Apparently the reason Nodon disliked the beastfolk was because he got bitten by a dog when he was a child.”

No matter what happened now, the suffering Iiria and Kururu had received from Nodon would not change.

But if the cause had been something so trivial, surely it would make them feel at least a little differently.

Kururu looked at me and, with an ambiguous half-smile, showed one fang.

“I should’ve bitten him.”

It was a little funny to imagine, but if she really had done that, the result probably would not have been funny at all.

“It might be a good idea to keep a stray dog from the town.”

Not to keep away thieves, but to keep away Nodon. If he was as persistent as he seemed, he might pop back up one day.

Kururu laughed, then shrugged.

“They might be more useful than those idiots as watchdogs.”

Where Kururu looked, in the square before the mansion, Marks and the others were loitering.

Marks, true to form, noticed the gaze at once and looked over at us.

And probably because he did not imagine he was being spoken of favorably, he waved with a rather strange wry smile.

“Hmph. Well, it sounds like he’s finally going to look for work.”

Saying that, Kururu retied the strings of her apron.

If she had really stayed behind at the mansion, there was no way she could have known that, and the fact that she let it slip so casually perhaps really did make her Kururu-chan.

“Yorinobu, help me.”

But Kururu had followed out of concern in her own way.

Naturally, I made no tactless remark, helped Kururu, and set about preparing the meal.

And later, I discussed this matter with the people at the company as well.

From what Katz had said, I had already more or less guessed it, but the people at the company did not oppose the introduction of beastfolk. Since Nodon had disliked beastfolk, their absence had simply been taken for granted, but for the people actually working on site, having strong beastfolk there would simply make the work easier and reduce injuries, so it did not seem to be a matter of likes or dislikes.

Giving that report to Dodol felt a little bit gratifying.

And so, Jirenu Territory took yet another step forward toward stability.