Winning Favor Was The Easiest Job! (3)

Starting with Hirna, the beastkin women rolled up their sleeves. To be honest, beastkin men weren’t gifted at this kind of fiddly work, so the women stepped up—and more than that, it was clear they were doing it “for the children.”

From what I’d heard over several days, once beastkinization began, problems arose regardless of whether it was a child or an adult.

So typically, an adult in the midst of beastkinization went far away, while they buried the children underground with a set amount of food and then left. Fortunately, the children did not undergo beastkinization, so that part wasn’t the issue; but because of the chances of them running out of food and of them coming up outside, the adults forced them to dig a burrow, sealed the entrance so they could not come out, and then departed.

In this process, some children died from worsening weather or lack of provisions; other times, a strong child burst out of the shelter the parents had prepared and was killed by monsters—or by attacks from beastkinized beastkin.

The sacrifices that happened in that chaos burdened the beastkin deeply.

“Even I… if I went through that, I’d have no choice but to become desperate…”

They said it was why female beastkin despised beastkinization even more than males. An unavoidable “heaven-imposed punishment”; it was, literally, a curse.

As for why the beastkin had no choice but to cling to the Demon God in such circumstances: when the season arrived, a high-ranking demon noble was dispatched here, who calmed the rampaging mana and prevented beastkinization. Humans who didn’t know these circumstances branded the beastkin as “evil” and “the Demon Tribe’s dogs,” waged war, and—in comparatively modern history—went so far as to “conquer” this place.

Borders the Demon Tribe could not cross were established, and the beastkin were left to be strictly managed… The interesting part was that the entire Ingrad Domain was ringed by a gigantic city wall, like a kind of “prison.”

“A domain defended by three nations…”

I learned the Ingrad Domain bordered the Demon God’s lands as well, but I couldn’t feel it in reality. Demons, in a domain where there weren’t even many humans?

What would they come all the way here to eat?
At most, they’d “liberate” the beastkin to make them follow—and even that, I’d heard from “Vincent,” was unlikely now, since the surge in Heroes had rapidly shifted the war’s tide, leaving them too busy to bother with this far-off place.

“But is that really reliable information?”

Vincent only brought news once a year; as I wondered how far I should trust it, neat little goat-dropping pellets were being made busily and piling up in a tub.

I picked up one that was giving off light, examined it this way and that, and asked the beastkin:

“Who among you is most sensitive to mana, or holds the most mana?”

At my words, everyone looked toward a single person.

She was a beastkin woman who looked “ordinary,” but seeing that she had two tails told me she was anything but ordinary.

“Her name is Hare—she’s a two-tailed fox beastkin. Beastkin blessed with Mana have two tails. Sometimes there are those with three, but such beastkin only appear in history books…”

I wondered if there might even be a beastkin with nine tails.

“A gumiho of this world…?”

If such a being really existed, I wanted to see one; with that stray thought, I asked the fox-beastkin woman named Hare:

“Is there a way to gauge the efficacy of the pill we just made?”

“What is its effect…?”

Her eyes held a touch of fear. She carefully accepted the pill I handed her.

“It’s simple. It lowers the function that accepts mana for three days, below a fixed threshold.”
“Accepts… mana. If I can help by doing that, I’ll take it.”

And Hare, without hesitation, tossed the medicine—whose raw materials included “poison”—into her mouth.

With all eyes on her, time passed bit by bit, but Hare showed no change in expression.

“Hm… seems it’s not working?”

But then Hare, who had been silent, looked at me with eyes suddenly wide and asked:

“…Does it also have the effect of stiffening… mana?”

It was an unexpected question, and I told the truth.

“It doesn’t have such a function. The manufacturing itself was successful, and the ingredients…”

In that instant I realized I’d made one huge mistake. The units in the recipe referred to general-grade ingredients—in other words, not ingredients from the Forest of the Demon Dragon. Monsters like the Scorpion King and Armored Beetle could generally be hunted across the continent.

But the ingredients I had just used were all from the Forest of the Demon Dragon. Put simply, their efficiency was five times higher than ordinary ingredients.

As a result, the potency of the medicine itself was five times the standard—and perhaps because of that…

Beyond merely obstructing absorption, it seemed to suppress as well. I decided there was nothing for it but to experience it personally, and immediately tossed one of the glowing pills into my own mouth.

And after a moment, realizing my mana truly would not move as I willed, I asked the beastkin, a bit alarmed:

“If mana won’t move, does that cause a problem?”

“…We won’t be able to use it in combat, so our strength will weaken,” Hirna answered.

I first wrote on paper:

“Combat power weakened.”

Then Reuma, after thinking a bit, spoke.

“Recovery from wounds may slow as well. If enemies invade, it might not be easy to respond.”

“Mm… that’s an important point.”

“Second, wound-healing speed slows.”

Other beastkin also raised several points then. Most were related to beastkin physical capabilities; listing them all out, I found quite a number of serious issues.

Looking to Hare, I asked:

“Are you completely unable to use mana?”

“Mm… it moves very, very slowly. Without concentrating, it’s as good as stopped.”

“What about the process of accepting mana?”

That was the most important part. Everyone looked at Hare; face flushing under the stares, she cautiously began:

“I can feel external mana, but it doesn’t try to come into my body…”

It seemed fair to say the medicine had succeeded with fairly high efficiency. I had borrowed others’ hands and stepped away from most steps, but the manufacturing was successful; now it remained only to confirm the duration.

First I asked Hare for her understanding and whether she could stay at the lord’s residence; several human maids, including Vincent, were openly making faces, but ignoring them, I said:

“I’ll have a house built inside the lord’s residence—would you be willing to live and operate there for the time being?”

“Well, if that’s all right… but didn’t my lord take the medicine too?”:

Ah—that stung. I glanced at Vincent; with a sigh, he lowered his head. I was terribly sorry, but I could only hope for understanding.

“In that case, you’ll have to stay in the residence only until the effect wears off. We’ll provide room and board—how does that sound?”

“…Won’t the others be afraid of me…?”

“Right now Ms. Hare is as weakened as any human—if anything, you’re the one who should be frightened. So I trust everyone will understand.”

In the end, Hare would stay at the lord’s residence; I also learned, unexpectedly, that she was an unmarried beastkin woman and Reuma’s cousin—and found that a bit surprising, that was all.

The medicine-making had just concluded successfully when it happened.

Debik brought something—and on a closer look, it was “humans.”

“The dogfolk say they picked humans up on their way here.”

“…Are they dead?”

“Most of them were knocked out by Mad Mushroom fumes, apparently.”

I figured we had to tend to people first before hearing the story. As a line of men were carried into the residence, I was still staring, dumbfounded—when I saw a familiar face.

“Guts?”

I had no idea why that fellow was appearing here.

We spread cloth in the lord’s residence and laid the men out in a row on it. The beastkin fed them juice from a strangely shaped fruit said to be effective against Mad Mushroom fumes; with their help, the mercenaries began to come around one by one—but the problem was that all of them, seeing the beastkin, started to panic and quail.

Guts was among them. I walked over to him; when he saw my face, he looked at me in confusion and asked:

“To be seeing you—this must be heaven, right?”

“I thought I’d woken up, but I guess I haven’t shaken off the dream yet?”

“…Y-you’re alive…? But in this situation, I’ll soon die…”

We were surrounded by a great number of beastkin; if the rumors among humans were right, it was indeed a moment before death—but I needed to let him know this place was different.

So I tugged Debik over and said:

“This is Debik, a proper citizen of our domain. Right?”

“That’s right. Human, we have decided not to be hostile to humans, and we follow our lord.”

They still looked bewildered in disbelief—but I had no intention of waiting forever.

“So, what brings you here? I suppose… you couldn’t send word…”

“Ah… you’re alive? You really survived?”

He got to his feet; then I spoke to the beastkin around us.

“Thank you for not passing by when you saw the humans. I’d like to offer a token of thanks to you all—would you be satisfied, for now, with one ‘invigorator’ each?”

“Oooh! Is that the one we’ve only heard about?”

“Such a medicine really exists?”

“Oh my, oh my, what should I do? Honey, it’s an invigorator!”

“Y-yeah… is it that good?”

“Of course it is!”

The beastkin were in an uproar; the rumors about invigorators and the like had apparently spread throughout the forest. It hadn’t quite been two weeks since I took office here, so it looked like beastkin who ranged around hunting passed the news from place to place.

“Well, then, maybe they picked these people up to win favor, too.”

With a few possibilities in mind, I went to the table, poured invigorators onto a plate, and called Vincent.

“Vincent, could you hand these out—good chance to put names to faces with the beastkin.”

Vincent hiccuped and flustered at my words, but with all the beastkin staring as if to say “hurry and share,” he had no choice but to nod vigorously.

Feeling it was too much to pile on an old man, I handed him the “mind-and-body soother” I’d made at the start of my travels and said:

“Try one of these. Peace will come to your heart!”

Vincent rolled his eyes at my mischievousness, but then he chuckled; I patted his shoulder and headed for Guts.

“All right, Mr. Guts, I think we’ve got a long talk ahead of us. Let’s do it quickly—before sunset.”

Night came fast in the forest. That was what I said, looking down at Guts with a backdrop of beastkin.