Chapter 23 (2/2)

With the approval of Ichii-san, we discussed the approximate location and the size of the pond that will be made . Once we had decided on those, I drew lines on the specified area and drove in sticks on the corners . I would be building this whenever I’m free .

He told me,

「I’m going to prepare the materials so I’ll leave the rest of it to you」

That felt a bit like a father saying ‘Please make a dog house for my daughter’ . My affinity with wood isn’t that good though… Is that alright?

◇

During dinner yesterday, I pa.s.sed on to my parents what I was told at school .

『I’m not really sure what you should do so you should go and ask the village chief yourself . You’re different from me since your smart that’s why you’ll probably be asked to be some helper for the village so work hard with that』 『That’s right . That would be safer as wellー』

So I’ll only have to do what I’m told . Well, I guess that’s how it is . According to that conversation, it seems like the people from the village already have expectations of me . Well, it’ll probably work out one way or another .

As always, I went to Suzuran’s place to wake her up . I wanted to go to school as usual but I had to find the village chief first since I don’t know where that person usually is .

I went to the village square and yelled,

「CHIIIEEEFFFーー!…… CHIIEEEFFFFFFFーー!」

But he didn’t come . He would usually appear behind me or from my blind spots . Well, it’s fine if he’s not here since I can settle that matter with Suzuran’s ducks .

Even though it was more or less still morning, I didn’t skip out on my greetings .

「Well then, I’m going to start with work, okay?ー」

I said that to Ricoris-san and she replied,

「I’ll leave it to you」

After greeting Ricoris-san, I first hammered in stakes on the designated corners . I then laid my shovel on the ground to measure the approximate distance to the center . When I found the center point, I also hammered in a stake there .

Using the magic for making the fields, I mixed up the soil to let the water flow in making sure that the clay particles would sink to the bottom . Doing that would make it so that the water wouldn’t permeate into the ground .

I somehow managed to draw in water from the ca.n.a.l and succeeded in making the simple pond . Water would still need to be replenished from time to time so I also added a drainage barrier . The pond for water birds was surprisingly dirty so I made that to avoid letting the filthy water flow back into the clean ca.n.a.l . Later, I’m going to try and find animals that maintain the clean water quality from the village’s fish breeding area . Like crayfish and pond snails for example .

Using the other chicken coop nearby as a reference, I also made a ducks house and laid down straw on it . Since I’ve already done that, I arbitrarily decided to make beds as well . The things I added onto it started piling up that I ended up making it a bit larger than the other one .

As the sound of hammering continued to resounded in the area,

「You called out to me earlier?」

a voice suddenly came from my back . Because of that, instead of hitting the nail, the hammer hit the wood causing it to be dented . d.a.m.n you, village chief!

He sure comes at unexpected moments as usual . Since he doesn’t have any presence, I wonder if this person has 【Concealment】or some other spy related skill? I couldn’t hear his footsteps either . Well, I probably wouldn’t have been able to hear his footsteps either way since I was hammering something earlier .

「Er, starting today, I’ll be exempted from mandatory attendance at school so I’m going to have at least a year of spare time . Because of that, I was going to ask what I should do for the village」 「Umu, you’re originally a student so I haven’t been thinking about that . I’ll come up with something so just do what you have been usually doing for now . We’ll probably have you stand as a lookout or partic.i.p.ate on the patrols . You’ll also have to partic.i.p.ate in meetings to some extent . After those jobs, all that’s left is to join in with the adults for subjugation requests or hunting . Consider what you want to do from those I’ve mentioned」 「I understand . I’ll come up with my answer」

After I said that, he didn’t do anything particularly strange and just normally walked toward the center of the village . While wondering how he does those elusive actions of his, I kept on watching him until he was gone from my sight but I didn’t see any odd occurrence . He’s a really mysterious old man .

◇

During the second day of work, I finished fencing the pond by surrounding the area in planks . The planks were about waist height and there were gaps that were just enough so that the ducks won’t escape . They’re poultry so they won’t fly, right? As I was worrying about that, I went to ask the onee-san who manages the fish farm .

「If you raise them for eating, water birds won’t fly you know? Well, they can but only as far as five to ten meters I guess . These guys are heavy so they won’t be able to fly . You need to be careful when it comes to strong birds though, like those monsters that fly in the sky . 」

She said that with a pleasant smile as she immediately began feed the freshwater fish with the feed she got from who knows where .

Hmm, aerial countermeasures, huh . Predatory birds won’t be a problem if I just make nets using reinforced string but when it comes to monsters…… Well, I’ll just leave it to Suzuran when that time comes .

I went to the stream near my training area in the forest to look for crayfish, pond snails and aquatic plants . Since I haven’t visited it for a while, my training area is starting to look run down .

「Sorry about this . I’ll come and do some maintenance on you later」

Was what I said as I left and immediately started my search . I used magic to scoop out some of the water that was flowing on the stream in front of me . I then shaped it into a sphere and checked if there was anything inside . It’s difficult trying to find things inside the stream . The water is always moving so you won’t be able to find anything from above .

「Ohー there they are」

I murmured as I caught some crayfish and pond snails . I used magic to create a water ball and stored them inside of it . I found it strange how they don’t fall outside of the water ball but I just decided not to mind it . When I went to the swamp that was a bit deeper into the forest, I found a turtle there so I just went ahead and caught it for the time being . And then, after picking suitable aquatic plants, I decided to go home .

On my way home, I asked the onee-san at the fish farm if it would be okay to put some of the crayfish, pond snails and aquatic plants there . I got her approval so I place them in the pond . I’ll put the remaining half in Suzuran’s duck pond .

Since the turtle was looking quite pitiful, I build a some sort of floating island in the middle of the pond and released it there . It immediately started to bask in the sun and thinned its eyes, with a blank face . Should I build some sort of turtle nest? Don’t really like turtles compared to other animals though… I also haven’t eaten it before so I can’t really say anything about the taste .

*

Half a year later, the floating island has already been occupied by the ducks and the turtle was starting to look even more pitiful so I just decided to make it a bit larger .

*

Once she came back from school, I reported to Suzuran .

「I’ve more or less completed it」「Thanks」

She replied as she hugged me . I’m not sure if she did that because she was being grateful towards me or if she’s just really glad that she can already start raising ducks . Ricoris-san was just grinning while looking at us but I’m really glad that Ichii-san isn’t here to see this .

After that, I gave her instructions on how to refill the pond with water from the ca.n.a.l once the water level starts decreasing . While I was doing that, Ichii-san came back with the ducks . From what I heard, it seems like he went out of the village to buy the ducks . Thanks for the hard work .

We immediately released the ducks on the pond and they delightfully started swimming . Then, they started dipping their faces into the water and started eating the crayfish and pond snails .

『TANIs.h.i.+3ーーーー!!』

I screamed that in my mind . And I even had put them there to improve the water quality, even if just a bit…… Both my face and my mind became blank . How do I improve the water quality of a pond with just ducks in it?

I don’t know where she heard it from but Suzuran brought feed that was made up of foliage plants and started scattering it around that area . If that was given out a bit earlier, we could have probably extended the lifespan of the pond snails even for a bit . I honestly made light of the omnivorous nature of aquatic birds…

Footnotes: 1 . Reference to Akagi from kancolle . just copied how it was translated in the wiki… 2 . I made a mistake with Suzuran’s family’s race since I completely missed the ‘神(kami/s.h.i.+n/jin)’ kanji . Rather than just oni, they’re from the Kijin(鬼神, also read as Onigami/Kis.h.i.+n) tribe . Kijin/Onigami/Kis.h.i.+n is translated as ‘fierce G.o.d’ but it can also be ‘ogre/oni G.o.d . I’m not sure if I should use onigami or kis.h.i.+n… 3 . Because “POND SNAILーーーー!!” would have sounded lame…

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