Vol 2 Prologue (2/2)

I speak to Lucie while giving a wry smile.

Kuu is the daughter of Fire fox village chief, it was this kind of story.

In this world, when children are born between races, the child would be the same race as the mother.  For that reason, for the ethnic minorities to avoid too much inbreeding, there was a custom to take in an excellent male from a different race.

I often went together with my father to the Fire Fox village to exchange wild boar meat that we hunted for rock salt. The village chief took a liking to me and decided that I would be suitable for his daughter, Kuu.

On my father’s side, he noticed that his little brother wanted to take the position of being the next village chief no matter what, and was thinking I would be happier if I went to Fire Fox village.  At the time, Kuu and I were still very young; I wouldn’t say I loved her, I thought of her more as a friend.

“You mean Kuu, I was 9 years old you know?  I already forgot about that time when our parents selfishly decided I was to be her fiance, also we haven’t met in over 5 years.”

“But, like earlier how I feel about Syril… Kuu is bound to become same you know!”

What Lucie casually said could have been taken as an answer to my confession. But, since there was no solution to the Empire problem.

I didn’t want to dwell on something childish, so I changed topics.

“You worry too much, anyway about the potatoes.  Full-scale harvesting is tomorrow, but shall we test harvest one just to see?”

As I said so, I grab the stem of a potato nearby and pull it out from the soil.

After a moment, Lucie lightly smiles and focuses her attention on the potato.Since we are childhood friends, it is easy to guess what she is feeling.

“Wow, thats a lot of fruit.  From such a small cut of potato, for it to become like this…!”

Lucie raises her voice in admiration.

The stem that I pulled out has 11 potatoes on it.  The weight of each potato was a good 150 ~ 300 grams.

[TL: 1 grams = 0.00220462 pounds]

“Yup, it’s a good harvest.  The other stems are thick and looks good, I think they will have around this many potatoes as well.”

The soil quality in this area is quite good, in addition the fertilizer I decided to use was perfect.  From one potato seed, a bud or two will appear.  Even though there was a reduction in thin stalks, there was still approximately 500 stalks left.

If my calculation is right, there is about 9 potatoes with 200 grams each on one stem. We can estimate the harvest being around 900 kg of potatoes.  I am impressed by the fact it was a far cry from the 40 kgs from earlier harvests.

As for next year potato seeds, we can plant all seven ridges in the gla.s.shouse, and secure about 100 kg; If I calculate it, that would be about 4 kg that can be distributed to each person.  I am relieved that there is that much surplus food.

“Chief Syril!  its terrible!  that, its terrible please come!”

And just like that while I was feeling a sense of relief, an Elf girl that was one year younger than I with an ordinary face from the village came rus.h.i.+ng up to me.  It couldn’t be an ordinary matter when she is this panicked.

“It can’t be..!? Did the Empire come to attack us!?”

I get a little impatient.

I thought they couldn’t attack now because they are still busy compensating for the loss of soldiers, and the timing would be bad since it will snow in two weeks.  Although I have several people monitoring the empire in s.h.i.+fts, I have not received any such report that I needed to be worried about so far.

“No, It’s not. That, People from the Fire Fox village came.”

I release my tension.

Here I was thinking of how I wanted to go to Fire Fox village, I am thankful they they came here instead.

“So it’s only that? I thought it was something else with the way you were rus.h.i.+ng here.  I will return to the village soon.  Treat them politely and lead them to my hou….  village chief’s house.”

Even now I still am living in the same house that I have always lived in with Lucie. Compared to that house, the area surrounding the village chief’s house was more extravagant, and it belonged to me.

I intended to move there together with Lucie just the two of us, But she couldn’t let go of that house that was full of memories. So the house of the  village chief was used to receive the visitors.

“That is impossible.”

However, Kona shakes her head.

“Why is it Impossible?  Is there a reason why they can’t proceed to the village chief’s house?”

“That is.. that.. Because they can’t enter.”

“Can’t enter?  What are you saying?”

Hearing my question, Kona begins to tear up.

“Kona, Calm Down, Take a breath. Look,  there is no way Syril will get angry, so please just say it.”

Lucie gives a helping hand.

Apparently, I seem to be pressuring it too much.

“Su… Ha… , Su… Ha… [Breath in and out sound] yes, I have calmed down, ummm…  There are too many Fire Foxes that came that they can’t fit inside the village chief’s house.”

“Can’t fit?  In that house there should be enough room for 20 people.”

“It is 53 people.”

“Wha…?”

I ask again unconsciously because that is too much people.

“53 Fire fox women came to the village, they came saying “Please save us”.”

Kona said so while her face is red because of the excitement.

There are 50 women that want help.

By the looks of it, that was a rough estimation.

“I see, I understand I will go back soon. Lucie, Kona, the two of you can take your time returning to village, I need to go ahead and rush back to the village.”

It’s going to be bad.

I start running full speed toward the village, praying that those guys(villagers) in the village are reasonable.

(tl: sorta a spoiler but this sentence makes more sense in the next chapter unfortunately…)

Footnote

1 TLC-h.e.l.loMojo: The paragraph here looks like incomplete ideas that the author tried to implement and did not finish/polish to keep with story logic continuity.  Please take it as it.

(TLC: tinyurl.com/oc3kg8m This would be an appropriate example to show what Syril is kinda doing..)

2 (TLC-h.e.l.loMojo: WNs are drafts, the author seems to have intended to merge the paragraph above into this one, the …… appears to be a place-holder or marker.  The Author probably forgot or never got around to it.  Since there is no way of knowing which one or how the author intended to merge it, the sentences were left as written by the author and not edited to best preserve the author’s intentions this time around.)

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