“In fact, I was planning on asking you to help.”
“I see.” Reystov nodded slowly, then looked at Al again. “You said your name was Al?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to speak my mind for a while.”
“Yes, sir!”
The earnest Al and the experienced and straight-talking Reystov looked like they were going to get on well together.
“Oh, Reystov?” I said, getting the sudden idea to ask him something.
“What?”
“What do you think bravery is?”
He wrinkled his eyebrows, looked at me, and said, “I don’t know what’s on your mind, but you’ll never figure that out until you stop thinking that way.”
Some time passed. As our information-gathering continued, I kept a wary eye on the Rust Mountains, but in the end, it was peace personified from summer to fall.
We had a wheat harvest and a lively harvest festival. Parties were held with freshly brewed ale and fruit wine. Gathered around a fire with drink in our hands, there was no distinction between dwarf and human. Everyone drank with a smile and made noise together. For the sake of the harmony of the city, I took the initiative and went to a bunch of different parties myself. Reystov got together with Grendir, Ghelreis, and all those others, and once they all started talking of their heroic stories, they hit it off well. Menel had his arms around Al’s and my shoulders. It was rare to see him in such a good mood.
Once autumn arrived and nutritious nuts like acorns started falling from the trees, that was the time of year to let the livestock pour into the woods. By doing this, the animals would fatten up enough to survive the winter, although a portion of the herd would then be slaughtered and their meat smoked or salted to preserve it for the cold season to come. People stepped into the forest more often at this time of year too, in search of blessings like fruits or mushrooms and firewood to help them through the winter. As the Lord of Holly had promised, the woods this year were bountiful, and everyone was pleased.
This was also a busy time of year for the adventurers.
Up until now, the people who lived in this area had been very restricted because they and their livestock would be targeted by beasts if they went into the forest. They had been forced into making meager livings within the small safe areas surrounding the villages they secured, because to go deep into the forest would have been an act of suicide.
However, two years after I arrived, this situation improved dramatically when the adventurers and I carried out large-scale beast hunts. After that, quite a large area became property of people once more. The beasts’ territory shrank, and more land could be used for foraging or raising cattle. But even so, this was still Beast Woods. There were plenty of beasts that tried to make their way into the regions where people lived. Fending them off was one of the major jobs of adventurers around here, alongside exploring the ruins hidden deep in the woods.
Villages hired adventurers to be beast hunters for them specifically, in return for accommodation, food, a little money, and the hides of the beasts they brought down. Through this arrangement, the villages were kept safe and the adventurers got rewards and sometimes even honor when they took down a big enemy. Of course, they died sometimes too. I also saw the occasional adventurer accidentally develop a deep relationship with a village daughter or widow and just end up settling there.
In any case, the beast hides and bones obtained from their hunts were sold to Torch Port along with any gathered wheat, vegetables, firewood, or coal. With the money they earned, the adventurers resupplied and fixed up their equipment, and the villagers bought farm tools, daily essentials, and livestock. Through this, the villages became richer and increased their output, and Torch Port, meanwhile, got the food and fuel it needed to sustain its citizens.
The craftsmen worked busily off the food provided by the farming villages.
Blacksmiths, potters, woodworkers, weavers, and more made products for both rural and urban areas. At regular and not-so-regular intervals, ships came from Whitesails loaded with goods we couldn’t make in the Torch Port area. Laborers unloaded them from the ships and, in their place, loaded the ships with pottery and wood products produced here instead.
This river trading between Whitesails and Torch Port was profitable for the merchants. In some cases, they also made money by getting their hands on a warehouse or something similar and opening up shops aimed at the potpourri of people who lived in this city.
As for me, the liege lord of Beast Woods, I collected funds and labor from various points in this system and used them to govern and manage the area, although I was reliant on the priests I’d borrowed from the bishop for the majority of the work. For example, I instituted land taxes, community service for a fixed number of days, fees to use the ports, warehouses, and markets, and so on.
And so Torch Port had a functional economy, industry, and government. At present, the city’s various industries were growing every year, and although the labor market fluctuated a little, it held steady in favoring sellers by a reasonably safe amount. It was thanks to this that we weren’t in a state of needing to take urgent action even though immigrants from Grassland to the north were on the rise. Although it wobbled from time to time, we had a well-balanced positive feedback loop.
This was something to be happy about, but it was important to remember that we were running a dangerous juggling act. This meant that if the balance broke down, the positive feedback loop we were currently enjoying would also collapse very quickly.
What would happen, for example, if the rural areas across Beast Woods that were the foundation of this system were badly damaged by beasts? It would result in a domino effect. There would be a food crisis at Torch Port, which depended on the villages to supply food and fuel, and on top of that, it was very possible that the fuel shortage would mean that the workshops would have to suspend operations. If something like that happened, the merchants would also have to put a hold on their business, and there would be fewer ships going back and forth. Then tax revenues would go down, our ability to deal with the problems would be lessened, and the beasts would run rampant to an even greater degree. It would be difficult to recover from that chain of events once it kicked off.
Looking at it objectively, we had very little redundancy or room to err in case something happened. Any trouble had to be nipped in the bud early.
“Haaaah!”
I felt my body lift into the air. Heaven and earth changed places. I hit the ground with my arm and correctly broke my fall. Instantly, a foot stamped down right beside my head with tremendous force.
I’d been holding back a little bit, but even so, a loss was a loss.
“Fantastic! That was great!” I said in a cheery voice, looking up.
“Th-Thank you very much!” Al said back.
Al had been taught by all kinds of people over the past few months. He now stood up straight and carried his head high. He was really starting to give the impression of someone strong and brave. He was yet to fight any real battles, but his skills were improving greatly, and he was carrying himself more appropriately, too.
He really did seem to have a natural gift for this. Speaking purely about the matches we’d been having to practice his armed and unarmed combat, the odds were still against him in a fight against Menel, Reystov, or myself, but nevertheless, he was already looking pretty respectable. His unarmed fighting in particular was amazing.
Something I realized during our many training sessions was that dwarves were pretty well suited for grappling techniques. They were heavyset and had strong muscles but were short in height. Al was tall for a dwarf, but even he wasn’t so tall as to exceed the height of a human or elf. And the fact that dwarves were short meant that they had a low center of gravity.