He lay down to relax and felt his eyes closing, so he fell asleep where he lay. Ever since becoming a guardian bearer, he didn’t absolutely need to sleep, but at that moment he might have been tired from having used excessive amounts of spiritual energy to cut the wood.
When he slid his hand along the flooring planks, he could clearly feel warping and unevenness in the wood surface that wasn’t so easy to see at a glance. He still felt as though he needed to improve his invisible sword.
I suppose I’ll get some sleep...
Kai closed his eyes.
For the first time in a long while, he fell into a deep sleep.
He didn’t know how long he’d slept.
Kai suddenly woke up because his body didn’t feel right somehow.
He wasn’t in the habit of taking a long time to get up or complaining about feeling sleepy. Children of the village never had the luxury of sleeping late.
There was a feeling of warmth just below his armpit.
When Kai suddenly sat up, the movement caused the source of warmth at his armpit to detach, and there was a dull thud as something heavy landed on the wooden floor.
Kai couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the source of the sound.
“Why are you here?”
The little girl, the koror girl to be precise, named Aruwe was curled up in a ball with her face to the ground, trembling and holding her head.
She must have been holding onto Kai’s arm, and her head must have hit the floor when she fell. Aruwe sat up quickly while still holding her head, and Kai saw her tear-filled eyes for just a second before she pressed her forehead to the floor and bowed before him.
“I sent you back to your group. Why are you here?”
“I am offering to God. I am God’s.”
“Well, I don’t want you. Get out.”
“Aruwe no go back. Aruwe is God’s. Disaster happen to tribe if go back alive.”
“It won’t cause a disaster. Just go back.”
“Unwanted... Will die.”
“...”
The more Kai argued, the more determination he saw in Aruwe’s eyes. Those eyes made Kai feel as though there was a real danger that she might kill herself if he left her alone.
Aruwe seemed to be able to sense the change in Kai’s feelings, perhaps because she was a girl.
“Won’t go back,” Aruwe said with a sad smile. “Will stay here. Aruwe is God’s.”
Kai felt she was going to win by wearing him down.
Even though she had nothing to do with him, when she said that she would choose death if he didn’t accept her, it made him feel an irrational sense of responsibility for her. Also, it had been Kai who’d decided to save her life. It didn’t feel right to let her life be thrown away once again.
“Fine,” Kai told her, feeling cornered. “Do whatever you want.”
“Yes!” Aruwe replied happily.
Then she immediately used cords on her clothing to make her long sleeves shorter and said, “I look after God,” before running outside.
Kai stepped out of the cabin to see what she was doing and saw her waving to members of a tribe who were standing at the top of the cliff some distance away. It was as if she was trying to signal to them, “Negotiations successful!”
With that, the tribe members at the top of the cliff started lowering down a bundle of some sort using a rope.
“Wait. Will be quick,” Aruwe said before running off to the foot of the cliff.
Aruwe soon came back carrying something. In her arms were a mountain of household items. They included various high-quality tools created using koror craftwork.
She worked fast, gathering up firewood from the forest, building a simple stone stove, and lighting a fire. Then she drew water from the lake using a silver container that looked like the watering cans used in herb gardens, which she put over the fire of the stove.
By the time Kai realized that it was a tool for boiling water, Aruwe was already busy on a new piece of work. She created a dining table using scraps of wood and then served food on large leaves.
To Kai, it all looked like magic, and he was genuinely impressed.
Aruwe poured the hot water into earthenware cups she’d brought with her, and she sprinkled pieces of dry leaves over the water to turn it into a pleasant-smelling drink.
“God, finished.”
“Ah... yeah...” Kai was still spellbound as Aruwe led him to the table.
“Tastes bad cold.”
“Thank you...”
Without thinking too much, Kai recited the mealtime prayer that he’d known since a very young age, and then he moved his face closer to the curious steaming drink.
“Herb tea. Good for body.”
It was some sort of koror drink, and it almost smelled like something an old woman selling herbal remedies might brew up. But the scent was actually pleasant and drinking it left a warm feeling in Kai’s stomach. After drinking a few mouthfuls, he shifted his attention to the food on the table.
She hadn’t taken much time on the food, but it was clear to see that unseen work had gone into the food to preserve it without a loss of flavor.
There was dried meat that had been slowly flame-roasted with a gentle touch, powdery white slices of dried potato, and a small helping of sour, preserved figs.
Kai timidly reached for the food while Aruwe watched closely.
The dried meat was well-salted, despite the scarcity of salt in the borderlands, and it tasted delicious.
The dried potatoes were also surprisingly soft and sweet. They were almost as sweet as maca.
The figs were genuinely just sour and not at all tasty, but even the villagers knew that these were good for heath, so Kai swallowed each one without tasting it.
“...”
“Want more?” Aruwe asked.
Kai silently nodded.
Even though Kai had essentially taken in Aruwe, he still had no intention of acting as a mediator in disputes between koror and orgs.
He didn’t want to mislead them, so he went to the base of the cliff to tell this to Porek. The old koror simply nodded and said that it was good enough for now, as if he had something planned for later.
When Kai asked if there was anything he could do to make them take Aruwe back, Porek just shook his head. Kai started to think that Aruwe had told the truth when she said she had nowhere to return to.
Now that the koror had no safe place to go, they asked if they could stay near the edge of the valley, and Kai told them it was fine as long as they didn’t enter the valley itself. The koror immediately set to work creating an environment where they could live.
As tents sprang up one after another, Kai realized all too late, Oh, I could have used something like that.
If he had a tent, he could move around the valley with it as he pleased. The village had several tents that were used for expeditions, and Kai started wondering if there might be some way he could get his hands on one.
By that time, the first rays of the morning sun were falling on Kai’s closed eyelids. His time enjoying the valley had come to an end.
The sunlight was spreading across the ridge of the valley and lighting up the tents of the koror. With the arrival of a new day, they began their daily morning prayers.
Kai returned to his makeshift cabin in the valley where he found Aruwe sweeping up the wood shavings created when Kai had prepared the timber.
“I’ll be gone for a while,” Kai told her.
He told her that she could eat the fruit in the valley if she got hungry, and that she could sleep in the cabin. And he also told her that she was free to go back to her people any time.
The broom in Aruwe’s hands stopped moving, and her light purple eyes teared up with rage.
“Aruwe no go back.”
The long, beautiful, violet hair of the koror girl glistened in the morning sun.
Part 3 — God of the Valley
22
Maybe this thing called rice is made b
y boiling wheat grains...
In front of him was an open sack that was packed with wheat grains ready to be sown in the fields. Kai scooped up a handful of the grains while he was thinking.
I guess not... I need rice grains... but I don’t know what those are.
If he had rice grains, he could boil them to make edible rice, which could then be salted and would harden into this thing called an onigiri. Then there was a black thing called nori that looked a little like black cloth. Wrapping that around the onigiri would make it even better. But the knowledge inside his mind suggested that he’d never find anything like that anywhere in a region like the borderlands.
Kai hoped that someday he could try this delicious “onigiri” for himself. He knew nothing about life outside of the borderlands, but there was a place people called the center of the country, and it was possible that rice and nori existed there.
Having delicacies delivered from somewhere so far away was the height of extravagance. Kai could perhaps ask a traveling merchant to bring him that type of food, and after many months of waiting he might have it. But of course, a merchant would want to be paid for the trouble, and Kai would need an absurd amount of money.
The only people with that kind of money in the borderlands were lords and their families. For anyone who wasn’t in a position to gather wealth from large numbers of villagers, getting rich was an impossible dream. Kai was just a villager, and the only money he’d ever handled in his life were copper coins worth one measly shechem.
After thinking it over for a while, Kai simply gave up on the idea.
Society worked in such a way that your fate was already decided from birth, and for powerless villagers there was no way out. The one faint hope was to marry someone like a baron’s daughter, but for a penniless villager, the idea of becoming betrothed to someone like Lady White felt so disconnected from reality that it wasn’t worth thinking about.
Then again, maybe I’m a big deal now that I’m blessed by the god of the valley...
“Kai,” a fellow soldier asked. “Do your wounds from fighting the baron still hurt?”
“The nosebleed he gave me was pretty bad, but the pain is gone now.”
“Oh, that’s good... Now maybe you can stop standing around and pick up that sack!”
“Oh... right.”
Kai tied the sack of wheat closed and carried it over his shoulder.
Here and there, other men were busy moving sacks of wheat, gourds, and root vegetables still in their skins. They were in a storage room in one of the castle’s kitchens, where precious seeds that weren’t to be eaten were usually stored.
In ordinary circumstances, the wheat grain would be sown on the fields very soon, and the seed potatoes would have been allowed to sprout, but today, absolutely everything had to be carried down into this secret room to be hidden underground.
“We need everything hidden before the inspector arrives!”
The day had come for the village of Lag to face a troublesome event that happened once each year.
**
Inspector. That was the title given to the high-ranking officials from the capital who would periodically visit the borderlands.
They would enter the scattered domains of the borderlands to assess them. They’d determine how successful their crops had been that year and what stockpiles they had accumulated, and then they’d determine the tribute that the domain owed to the center of the country. This task would be carried out by the inspector, along with four other officials serving as the inspector’s assistants.
An inspector was supposed to be a representative who’d do no more than learn the circumstances of a domain and recommend a certain tribute be paid. But the government had become weak. Officials were increasingly doing whatever they pleased in recent times, making the inspector an uninvited guest who’d become a huge burden by demanding extravagant meals and large bribes.
“Father, a herald has arrived to inform us that the inspector will soon reach our village.”
This report was given to the baron in his study on the top floor of the castle by his eldest son, Olha.
Baron Vezin turned away from the small window where he’d quickly glanced at the situation below. “Very well,” he said briefly. He turned to the maids waiting in an adjoining room and commanded, “Make preparations!” in a voice that reverberated in one’s stomach.
As this group of women began dressing him in new clothes, he turned to Olha and asked, “Which inspector is it? Did the herald give us a name?”
“Yes. It was not the same name as last year.”
“Changed the inspector again, have they? What a pain.”
“I heard from Count Balta himself that much has changed in the palace. The herald has informed us that our inspector will be Lord Severo Gandal, a cinquesta sigil who is head of House Gandal.”
“A cinquesta sigil? So he has more power than our house?”
“The powerful member of House Moloch is yourself, Father, and the god of our village has made you a quart sigil. I’m afraid we rank below him.”
“Back in the days when House Moloch ruled the three villages, many of our ancestors reached the rank of cinquesta sigil. Our domain might have been reduced to a single village, but I hone my combat abilities through hard training, and some day my sigil may increase. Perhaps this inspector would accept an invitation to a bout. The standing of our house may have fallen, but the blessings of our village god are only strengthened through repeated battles. I’ll show them we are every bit as powerful as those lords from the center.”
“Father, I beg you not to invite Count Balta’s displeasure again. Count Balta was quite clear that we must show more respect this time.”
“Gah...” Vezin grunted angrily.
Olha knitted his brows just slightly and gave orders to the maids. His father prioritized comfort over appearance, so his clothes were usually worn loosely. He ordered the maids to make his robe tight so that it wouldn’t fall open.
The robe he dressed in was the same type of robe worn by lords from the center to indicate their rank in the world of nobility. The robe hid the bold frame of the Iron Taurus completely, making him look like a well-mannered soldier of high rank.
Olha followed behind his father as he left for the room where he’d entertain the inspector. The baron’s wives and other children were also waiting in the corridor, and they knew to follow behind the two of them without needing to be told.
Today’s guest was so important that the whole family needed to be there to welcome him.
As they walked, Olha and his father continued their conversation.
“What of the stockpiles? Was everything moved, Olha?”
“I believe that was more or less finished a short while ago. The villagers were dragging their heels, but I gave them stern warnings.”
“Very well... We need to take great care so they don’t learn about our surplus food. I don’t want to think about what’ll happen if they find out. We’ll need that queijo ready to give to the next passing merchant. The goat’s milk is thin this year, and we don’t have much in stock. Manage what we have carefully.”
“Queijo aside, I don’t think it would be such a great loss if some grain was taken from us. We’d merely reduce how much we give to the commoners. Hiding it seems so unnecessarily troublesome that—”
“Olha...”
A cold glance was enough to silence Olha, though he still frowned slightly.
Vezin’s body was host to Lag’s god, giving him both authority and the power to fight; he had great power over the other members of his family.
But Olha’s rebellious nature wasn’t so easily fixed. He stared back at his father and resumed his protest. “In fact, it stands to reason that small gifts given to our guests will earn us friends in the center. There would be a loss in the short term, but—”
“You’re naive. With that thinking, the gluttons in the center would rob you of everything down to the hair growing from your ass.”
“But, Father...”
“The villagers are children of House Moloch. They are not worthless.”
Olha was silent, but he still wasn’t satisfied.
“If people don’t eat, they become weak,” Vezin told him. “If our villagers are weak, Lag’s defenses become weak. But you are the heir to House Moloch. If you’d do things differently, then do so once I’m dead. There’ll be no one to stop you.”
No other member of the family attempted to interject in this discussion between father and son.
Though the white face of the other guardian bearer, Jose, looked increasingly fierce as she stared at her brother’s back.
**
“Here he comes! Let’s see this year’s inspector.”
After they’d finished moving the food supplies, Kai and the other soldiers left the castle as ordered and moved nearer to the main village gate. There was already a large gathering there as if a festival had started. It looked like almost every one of the 1,000 or so villagers had gathered there.
The soldiers were told to line up at the side of the road like honor guards with their spears in hand. The aim was to show off their war potential so that the officials from the capital wouldn’t look down on their village.
Shortly after, a squad who’d gone out to meet the guests gave the announcement by blowing a horn. The villagers forced themselves to smile and began to cheer.
After a short time, a carriage drawn by four horses rushed through the crowd, sending up a cloud of dirt behind it. The carriage came rushing into the village with enough speed to surprise everyone, but the reason for their haste became clear when they saw the arrows protruding from their fancy carriage in multiple places and the damage that suggested that the carriage had been rammed into.
Teogonia: Volume 1 (Premium) Page 14