CH 39

Chapter 39 – We Acquired Wheat!

“Neia. That’s enough.”

The tall and thin weretiger said to the woman who was about to pounce on Mette.

“Bu-but, father! Clearly these people are not to be trusted!”

“Aye, there is something suspicious about them. Humana, Kijin…and werewolf… That is an unheard of combination… Ah.”

The man suddenly stopped and leaned back.

An arrow had come flying towards him.

I turned my eyes in the direction that the arrow had come from.

The castle gates… There stood a girl with platinum hair. It was Iria.

She threw her bow to the side and unsheathed her sword as she came running towards us.

“You! Stop! …Gah!?”

The weretiger who tried to stop Iria was knocked down in a swipe. As she had used the blunt side of her blade, the person was not dead. Though, they seemed to be unconscious.

One after another, the tiger people were thrown into the air. There had been twenty of them, but not one was able to stop Iria.

In the blink of an eye, Eria was charging at the tall and thin weretiger.

“Get away from Sir Joshua!!”

Iria shouted as she swung her blade at the tiger man.

However, the man met her attack with his own scimitar.

And for a while, blade struck blade.

Iria was fast, but the man swung with even greater speed.

He also had a second sword, but he left it in its sheath.

He didn’t really want to fight. That was my impression.

“Iria, stop! He doesn’t want to fight us!”

However, it was then that the woman who had been called Neia, suddenly tried to join, even though she was bare-handed.

“Father, I will help you!”

“Stop, Neia. This is not an opponent that you can beat.”

The man said as he stepped back with a light-hearted air.

“What ridiculous strength you have. My blade wouldn’t last for too long.”

Iria also held her blade up as she retreated towards me.

She must have also understood that they were not hostile.

However, she kept her sword raised because she knew that one should not lower their guard when around this man.

In fact, I too had never seen someone swing a sword as fast as him.

Had he fought for longer and with two swords, Iria might have been in trouble.

Just then, the man sheathed his sword first, and introduced himself.

“Ah, my apologies. I am Bayron, of the Grank Mercenaries.”

“I am Joshua.”

“Joshua, eh? Could it be that you people are of this Fendel Alliance that the merchant was talking about?”

“Aye… So you heard of it from Cobis? Then that means…”

“I killed him. He owed me a debt, you see. And I made him pay every last bit of it.”

The man called Bayron looked out through the gates where there were carriages filled with supplies.

They must have taken everything that Cobis owned.

Indeed, I had heard that Cobis was also hunting slaves in the Grank state.

And so now, they had their revenge.

“I see… We had demanded that Cobis leave this place. And we returned now to check if anything had been left behind.”

“Well, I am sorry for that. However, we are just scraping by ourselves, and have nothing to give you.”

Bayron’s eyes had turned to the north and his face changed to that of exasperation.

It was because a wheel had come off one of the carriages, causing the next carriage to crash into it.

While the horses and driver were fine, about five carriages had been turned over, and the contents were scattered all over the ground.

Neia shouted.

“Those idiots! Look at what they’ve done to our precious carriages!”

“Well, don’t be too angry with them, Neia. They were quite old, after all… Still, this is most troublesome. We’ll just have to carry them…”

And so I made a suggestion.

“I could fix the carriages for you? I use Production Magic.”

“Truly? Well, even so, fixing five of them would take so much time…”

“From what I can see, I only need to fix the wheel and axle. That would only take five minutes at the most.”

Neia laughed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Even the best magicians would take an hour to fix a carriage.”

“I’m sure that’s because there was other work to do. But this really is simple. It won’t take long at all.”

I answered, but Neia just looked annoyed.

Indeed, it would take longer if I was building one from scratch, but this was just a little repair…

I really didn’t see how my claim was anything strange…

However, Bayron said,

“Well, if you insist, let’s see you try it. And if you succeed, I’ll give you something of your choice.”

“Very well, it’s a promise.”

And so I went with Bayron towards the carriages.

All of them had broken axles.

“Yes, it shouldn’t take long at all. It would probably be better to make new wheels, instead of reconnecting the wood.”

I muttered as I started to absorb the first carriage.

“What! What did you do to our carriage!?”

Neia shouted angrily, but Bayron patted her on the shoulder.

“With production magic, you have to shove the materials into a different space. So calm down and just watch.”

“Ye-yes, father.”

“Though, I’ve never seen anyone store an entire carriage like that before…”

Oh? That means I wasn’t so bad compared to the Production Magicians in the south and in the Demon King’s army.

As I thought of such things, I finished repairing the first carriage.

And then, it appeared in front of them once again.

The weretigers all raised their voices in surprise.

“Is-is this real…”

Even Bayron was quite astonished.

As for Neia, her mouth hung open in a stunned expression.

The Grank Mercenaries were well known.

And so I couldn’t help but feel a little proud to get this reaction from them.

After that, I repaired the remaining four carriages as well.

It was the kind of work that I did every day back at the Knights Order, and so I was able to finish it quickly.

“Th-that’s amazing… It hasn’t even been three minutes.”

One of the weretigers muttered.

Sweat was now dripping from Bayron’s forehead.

“You really are extraordinary… Hey, why don’t you come with us?”

Said Bayron, but Iria replied immediately with a ‘He will not.’

I answered as well.

“I can’t… But if you are ever in the area, I can help with repairing and crafting things for you. For a price, that is.”

“Ah, we would be grateful… In any case, we must pay you for the work you’ve just done. What do you want?”

“We want seeds for crops. It can be anything. But I’d prefer a lot of the same thing.”

“Seeds…eh? Indeed.”

Bayron looked unsure for a moment, and then he turned to one of his subordinates and said, ‘Bring it.’

The subordinate runned hurriedly towards the carriage.

“Bu-but, father… Surely you aren’t going to give them that seed?”

“I am. After all, we have nowhere to plant it.”

“Wa-wait! That is the last of Grank’s heritage…”

“Better to give it to them than let it rot. I want to leave it with someone who can raise it.”

As Bayron said this, his subordinate handed him a sack that was large enough for a child to fit inside.

Bayron took it and passed it over to me as if it was light.

But to me, it was quite heavy.

“It’s Grank wheat. Raise it well.”

“Wheat? Is there anything we need to be careful of?”

“No, it’s not that weak. They’ll grow strong with a little water, just like us. You might even have trouble harvesting all of it.”

So saying, Bayron walked towards the horses.

“Farewell, then. We’ll visit again if we’re ever in the area.”

And like that, Bayron and the Grank Mercenaries left Fendel behind them.