Maton

“Woody-sama, if possible, could you make a workplace for civil officials? If you can assign space inside the manor, that would be fine too…”

Maton said that to me about a week ago.

Since she asked for it, I decided to build a slightly larger government office.

While I was tinkering with a new House Tree to make it, I made yet another discovery.

It turned out that Tree Guardian Beasts didn’t just enhance skills—they also strengthened the trees themselves.

By crossbreeding a House Tree that already had a Tree Guardian Beast assigned with another tree, it became possible to create buildings larger than before.

On top of that, it seemed I could reflect the will of the Tree Guardian Beast to a certain extent, allowing me to adjust the interior layout, which until now had always been a single hollowed-out large room.

However, since the personality of the Tree Guardian Beast was reflected, it didn’t end up being entirely according to the owner’s wishes.

Uniform, mass-produced houses—or custom homes where you couldn’t fully design everything yourself.

If asked which was better, honestly, most people would probably choose the former.

As a result, aside from a few adventurous exceptions, there were hardly any requests to rebuild existing House Trees.

Now then, back to the main topic.

With that in mind, I crossbred a House Tree guarded by an Earth Mole with an Earth Tree to create a new workplace.

I also built a dormitory next to it, and after consulting with the mole, I made sure to include proper nap spaces as well.

If I may praise myself, I thought it turned out to be an impressive building.

Today was the completion anniversary of that workplace (with a shocking construction period of just one day!).

To celebrate the new office, I decided to give Maton some wine, which had recently been increasing in production.

“Thank you very much. Now then, could you please give me a list of the residents living in this village?”

Since I intended to let her do things her way at first, I handed over the list as requested.

She told me to wait for a while, so I entrusted her with the kingdom-style ledgers I’d been using and moved on to handling various petitions.

And then, one week later, the situation took a surprising turn!

One week after building the civil officials’ workplace and dormitory for Maton.

I’d been curious but hesitant to intrude, but with some free time on my hands, I decided to go see her.

“Woody-sama, thank you for your hard work.”

“Yeah, thanks for your efforts.”

When I went inside, about three people who seemed to be Maton’s subordinates were working there.

They wore neatly fitted clothes and had the air of serious bureaucrats.

Some were working an abacus, others were discussing matters with troubled-looking people—everyone was clearly doing their job.

But the one person I didn’t see was Maton herself.

“Hey, where’s Maton?”

“Oh, if you mean Maton-san, she’s in that office over there—”

“Fwaaah…”

Before he could finish, the office door opened.

And out came Maton, looking exactly the same as a week ago—ragged clothes and messy hair.

She yawned widely with tears in her eyes, and the back of her hair was sticking up.

I mean… that had to be bedhead, right?

“Hey Maton, were you sleeping just now?”

“Yessir!”

No—responding that energetically didn’t change the fact that she’d been asleep.

“There is no problem even if I sleep.”

“Why is that? If you’re slacking off, Woody-sama’s overwork won’t be resolved.”

As Aira spoke with visible irritation, icicles formed above her head.

If she let them fly, Maton wouldn’t get away unharmed.

But even so, Maton yawned again and spoke calmly.

“Because I built a system that works without me.”

“And how… did you do that?”

As I listened, it turned out Maton had been working diligently this entire week.

First, she spent about two days thoroughly investigating the basic education levels of the people in Tree Village, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

Next, she identified those who, for various reasons, hadn’t been working or were unable to demonstrate their abilities because their jobs didn’t suit them.

Then she scouted them and assigned them appropriate work.

The three people currently in the office had been selected for their high calculation ability, communication skills, and negotiation skills, respectively.

“After that, I leave tax processing, villagers’ petitions, and mediation of disputes to them. They can demonstrate their talents as long as they’re working in fields they’re good at. I only need to compile the final documents. In other words, until something actually happens, I can just sleep like this. It took me a full week to create this situation… I worked far too hard, if you ask me.”

With that said, Maton went back to take another nap.

“Woody-sama, is that really all right?”

“Yeah, I think it’s fine. My workload will decrease as a result.”

“But will it really go that smoothly…?”

Aira was skeptical, but from that point on, the amount of work that fell on me decreased astonishingly.

“Ha… I was mistaken. Using others so that you yourself can take it easy… Maton truly is first-rate as a civil official.”

For Aira—who rarely admitted she was wrong—to say that, my health visibly improved, and I gained the leeway to think about many other things.

And so Maton continued living much the same as before—lounging around sleeping, and occasionally working when necessary… .