Winning Favor Was The Easiest Job!

Beastkin had many children.

I had heard they averaged four and, at most, even ten. And today again, after playing “Candy Cross” with those kids for quite a while, I built two houses and was able to take in two new beastkin families.

With this, I had settled twenty-two households as domain folk.

“Since you came, our lives have changed a lot.”

Debik came over, flopped down beside me while I was resting, and said that. I asked a question to the fellow who had helped me turn a tidy profit.

“Something on your mind?”

“Ah, my wife ended up pregnant again…?”

“Isn’t that good news?”

“It is, but the problem is… winter is coming soon.”

“Winter… I’ve heard of it. People suffer in January because of that Red Moon thing.”

“Right. If a woman goes berserk while pregnant, she could lose the baby. We usually try to conceive between February and March.”

So that was their hardship, I thought. But I could not understand by what mechanism this “berserk” state was triggered.

“Do you know the cause?”

“…It’s a mana rampage. January is the Demon God’s month.”

There it was again—the Demon God refrain. I almost wanted to see its face at least once. Wondering how much evil it had wrought, I looked up at the sky; it was only blue.

“Does mana overflow or something?”

“Right. When we’re exposed to mana, we lose reason and only instinct remains.”

“Then why was I fine when I used mana?”

“That much mana isn’t even like the dirt under the nails of a monster living deep in the Forest of the Demon Dragon.”

“Are you… mocking me?”

Debik chuckled. At times I felt it—Debik was quite a prankster, often mischievous to a hopeless degree.

He usually didn’t behave that way toward me, but with his own kids he could be a peerless scamp.

“What if we suppress mana?”

“Mana? There’s no way to suppress that, is there?”

“Why not?”

More than ten recipes popped straight into my head: from agents that kept mana from circulating to complete mana detoxifiers that expelled it from the body.

For some races, “mana” was a poison; hence such recipes existed—that was the explanation. Thinking this quite useful, I looked at Debik, and he stared at me as if to say, “No way.”

“You can… suppress mana?”

“Well, if I have the ingredients, it should be possible… oof?!”

Debik suddenly grabbed my arm. He squeezed so hard my bones hurt. He only let go when he heard my yelp, startled; yet in that short moment the spot he had gripped was full of bruises.

“Were you trying to rip off my arm?”

“S-sorry. I’m really sorry. I was just shocked. That outlandish talk and all…”

“It isn’t outlandish. Suppression is possible. Removal is possible too, if you want.”

“…That’s impossible…”

Debik looked utterly unconvinced—then suddenly sprang up and dropped to his knees in front of me, even bowing his head as he spoke.

“I beg you earnestly. I’ll get you whatever ingredients—please make that medicine for us. Because of that rampage… beastkin must separate from all races… even from their own families. We must carry it all our lives. I even… lost three children.”

I understood why a beastkin who had many children had only two left. And I understood why he had such a sorrowful expression at the news of another pregnancy. I wondered if materials from the Forest of the Demon Dragon would make it possible.

It wasn’t just herbs that were needed—that was why. We needed some monsters’ organs and such, and I didn’t think it would be easy to obtain them.

“Ah, it isn’t hard to make. The real problem is the materials.”

“Then I’ll get whatever materials are needed.”

“We need monsters’ organs… even if they’re in the Forest of the Demon Dragon, wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

“For us, if it’s not a ‘demon dragon’ itself, nothing else is a problem. If one can’t do it, two will; if two can’t, the clan will; if the clan can’t, the whole race will step up. That season… is pain for us.”

I hadn’t imagined they wanted it that desperately.

“Well… if they evacuate over it, how bad must it be…?”

If they left the lord’s residence to flee, it was beyond words. As things stood, this meant I absolutely had to make the medicine.

“Ah… if I play this right…?”

Come to think of it, it could become a kind of “lever.” Without my medicine, beastkin would face a season of despair. The important part here was: once they tasted my medicine even once, they would have no choice but to become desperate for it after.

Indeed, the world’s truth held: there may be those who have never tasted it once, but none who have tasted it only once.

If beastkin like Debik became my domain folk and worked to my advantage?

I figured they would surely become foundation stones that could sturdily withstand any outside pressure.

“I must place my stones well. For that… which ingredients would be best? A drug to suppress mana? Or one that keeps mana from accumulating?”

There were medicines that overhauled one’s constitution itself. Literally, they made it so the power called mana could not be stored in the body.

But beastkin living in the Forest of the Demon Dragon, and beastkin in the Ingrad Forest as well, seemed to use mana consciously or not; I decided that eliminating mana itself wasn’t efficient for now.

“Then a medicine that, for a short term, keeps them from absorbing mana would be effective…”

But the problem was that, in that case, you had to wait until the consumed mana recovered and the effect wore off. Which meant, during that period, if they ran into a dangerous monster or an external threat arose, responding wouldn’t be easy.

Either way there were problems. And if I clumsily had them take a medicine that “suppressed” mana for some span of time, we might miss the timing, or else need to prepare a large quantity—there was so much to consider that my head ached.

Watching my expression change from moment to moment, Debik spoke to me.

“Anything is fine. My lord is choosing a medicine for us now—but if we can endure just one month, that’s enough. Even if it’s a medicine that weakens the body, please make it. We’ll handle the aftermath.”

Debik was quick on the uptake. Who said bears were dull?

I felt keenly that he was nothing like that and spoke.

“I’ll first tell you the ingredients we need. I’ll explain the effect later.”

“Say anything. I’ll fetch it.”

“Then first… I need the poison sacks of a Scorpion King and a Hell Averd Beetle.”

“Why… poison sacks?”

Debik focused on the poison sacks more than the monsters.

“If you dilute the components in those two monsters’ poison sacks to a certain proportion, you get a ‘mana suppressant.’ I plan to blend several herbs into that to make the drug.”

“How curious… poison lumped together becomes medicine…”

Well, it could be seen that way. Common sense framed poison as something inherently harmful to life. But sometimes an active property was so strong it was treated as “poison”; the viscera of the two monsters I mentioned were such cases.

This too was knowledge sent by Pharmacy; I asked for the two without a second thought.

“I’ll get them. How much do you need?”

“With one monster’s worth each… I can make a thousand doses. The effect lasts three days. Which means you take one every three days.”

“So we need to prepare quite a quantity…”

“Well, if you mean to distribute it to all the beastkin in this area, yes. But can you really prepare that much stock?”

“If we can’t… we’ll just prepare it thinking there is no future otherwise. We have plenty of time—long storage is fine, right?”

“As long as you don’t store it in a damp place… and this time I plan to add a preservative process.”

“Preservative? What is that?”

“Mm, I mean I’ll treat it so it doesn’t rot.”

“You know so many curious techniques. You’re an interesting human.”

I was able to roughly wrap up my talk with Debik, and he went around telling the beastkin what I’d said, gathering them.

And before long, I saw many beastkin setting out into the forest.

It showed just how desperate they were. After that, with nothing to do, I gathered the nearby beastkin women, traded some Forest of the Demon Dragon herbs for “invigorators” and a few other preparations, and headed back. I could still see a knight in the lord’s residence yard who hadn’t stopped sword training.

“Her stamina is something else.”

I had eaten lunch at Debik’s place and was strolling back at leisure; it was amazing she was still at it. And from the reek rising in waves, some other power seemed to be at work; honestly, it was a mood-killer.

They were rough-edged women with beautiful faces, but the smell ruined the image. So I tried to stride past feigning ignorance—when Aenia came hurrying over to me.

“My lord! Baron!”

Aenia called me to a halt though I was briskly ignoring them and walking on. At least she must have taken the potion later; while it wasn’t the stench of offal, the sweat smell was strong.

“What is it?”

“Thank you. I think we’ve received reward beyond our due.”

At Aenia’s words, the other knights also stopped their drills and walked over. Could they not perceive their own state?

Were their noses broken??

Thinking all sorts of things, I raised a hand to stop them and said:

“Never mind us; please focus on your training. And… no, nothing.”

I was about to mention the smell, but held my tongue, not to wound them, and headed straight into the lord’s residence toward the workshop.

There, where the scent of medicines filled the air, I hoped the foul smell would be cleared at least a little.

“Ugh, if that smell soaks into the ogre hide… won’t the price drop?”

A strange worry crossed my mind, but that was for whoever bought and wore it, I figured. Just then, as I stepped into the workshop, the door burst open and I faced a familiar face.

“Beni? Did you bring the medicine back?”

“Um… yes, that’s right.”

“Well done. If you use that one, there’ll be side effects and things will go weird again.”

At my words, Beni flushed crimson. I told her to come in for now, reached for a scar-eraser among the displayed remedies—the one deeper in that had no trace of mana—and said:

“Try this. It has no side effects, so it’ll help with brightening and skin improvement.”

With slightly trembling hands, Beni accepted the vial and asked carefully:

“You won’t scold me?”

“What’s done is done—don’t cling to it. And if you can, try not to wear such a guilty expression.”

Beni exhaled deeply; her face brightened a little. She bowed politely to thank me, then left the workshop with the vial tucked to her chest.

For all her shyness, hidden desire could not be ignored—that was all I thought.

After that, to calm the tingling pain in my arm, I looked for a wound-healing medicine to apply and pondered what came next.

“Medicine… if things go as planned… well, poison sacks come first anyway…”