Chapter 68 - A New Face
When we returned to Nakanohara, there was a knight I didn't know at the town guard station. Hans-san was standing beside him.
"Ah, so you're the Class of 175. I've heard from Hans. I hear you've been doing monster extermination."
He was a cheerful-looking man with a sharp tan. I wondered who he was, and it turned out he was the Captain of the Town Guard. No wonder Beowulf was straightening her posture.
"It's been a while, Captain. Thank you for your hard work."
"It's been a while, Paul. It looks like you've returned to being a hunter. I'm glad to see you're doing well."
Apparently, everyone except me and Beatrix knew him. They were each exchanging greetings. Even Will knew him. Come to think of it, the Town Guard Captain was also the Vice-Captain of the Kingdom's garrison. In other words, he's her brother's superior.
"I was waiting for you. This time, the Vice-Captain of the Town Guard has been promoted and transferred to the Royal Capital. Let me introduce the new Vice-Captain. Until now, Acting Captain Hans has been the contact point for monster extermination, but from now on, the new Vice-Captain will be the contact. I'm counting on you."
The person who sees us off and gives us money is changing. I hope it's someone generous. In that regard, Hans-san was, in a sense, reliable. I could trust him, but there were many times when my fighting spirit was dampened during the send-off.
"I'm Hans, who has been appointed as the new Vice-Captain. I look forward to working with you."
"Ho ho, Hans is the Vice-Captain, huh? You got promoted."
For some reason, Paul-san and Beatrix were smirking. It wasn't a smile of... congratulations.
"That's how it is. Since I protected the town from the Revenants when the Kingdom army and half of the town guards were away. It's a natural result. My salary is also scheduled to increase."
At the Captain's words, Hans-san made a sour face for some reason.
"I see. Hans has been promoted to Vice-Captain. Then we must celebrate. Preferably on the tab of someone whose salary recently went up."
"That's right. Someone we're usually so indebted to has been promoted. We have to celebrate. Preferably on the tab of someone whose salary recently went up."
The two greedy mages were smirking in unison. It's just mooching. They're as bad as they can get.
"I see. So the new Vice-Captain of the Town Guard is going to treat us. This is an honor. I must brag to everyone."
Will delivered the final blow.
After being chased away by the new Vice-Captain whose salary had increased, we went to Adolf-san's place and were greeted with a grand round of applause from the town hall staff. In particular, we received a huge welcome in the departments where Hanna-san and Will belong. Apparently, the news of their exploits at the mountain fortress had spread. Even so, the contrast between the elegant atmosphere of Hanna-san's department and the rough-looking department of Will's is quite intense.
As usual, Adolf-san stood up to greet us, and as usual, as soon as we entered the room, he offered us the sofa where Beatrix had already sat down.
"Thank you for your hard work this time. In the report from Lewis, it was also written that thanks to the hard work of the Marcelo Company, the mission was achieved with little damage."
The report must be the one Hanna-san and Will carried every day.
"Thanks to that, it seems the third net and beyond became considerably easier."
The third net and beyond refers to the monster hunting units made up of groups of hunters.
"Some slipped through our net."
"That's right. Groups of ten or fewer without big ones like Trolls were ignored from the start. We had to sift them out starting from the strongest groups."
I see. That means Lord Roberts and the soldiers of the first net in the Eastern Plains were facing opponents stronger than the monsters we defeated. As I thought, Lord Roberts and Lady Gladys are quite strong.
"What happened to the monsters that escaped?"
"Some were exterminated, but it seems a significant number headed north. They didn't really come to the target areas for subjugation."
"They won't attack us, will they?"
"I don't know. On our end, we're just keeping a strict watch."
After talking about the mountain fortress for a while, the conversation turned to the Harvest Festival this weekend. Come to think of it, it's already September. Even though it's called a Harvest Festival, it's essentially just the townspeople joining in on the farmers' festival to make a fuss.
The Marcelo Company plans to set up a shop as usual to dye hair and put Green Marble on sale. Thanks to Lord Roberts and Lady Gladys buying it, it has become quite popular. We have to prepare a large amount. I'll ask Beatrix to draw a picture of the two of them wearing Green Marble.
"Is there no next job?"
"Let's see. There isn't one for now. For a while, could you work hard on the twice-weekly rat extermination? If I have something to request, I'll talk to you then, so until then, you can just relax."
We earned three months' worth of a town hall employee's salary in two weeks. It's enough. Until new monsters appear, I'll relax and study hunting techniques while helping Paul-san.
When I parted with Beowulf, Will, and Hanna-san and returned to the Marcelo Company, a girl I knew was minding the shop. It was Lyudmila.
She had long red hair and grey eyes. She was wearing light pink clothes. She looked like a girl of about ten, but she was a full-fledged fifteen-year-old. She's the fifth member of the Class of 175. She came of age this month.
"Welcome back!"
She suddenly jumped at me.
"Aren't you going to say 'welcome back' to me?"
Beatrix was acting jealous.
"That's right. Welcome back to Beatrix too."
"The 'too' is unnecessary."
It's not that the two of them get along poorly. If anything, Beatrix feels curiosity toward Lyudmila, who has unusual tastes, and is constantly teasing her. Lyudmila, for her part, seems happy to be paid attention to by Beatrix, who shows a certain amount of understanding toward her strange tastes, and she seems to deliberately create openings to be teased.
"Just because we're a matching set, special treatment for greetings is no good."
"Yeah. I understand."
By "matching set," she means that a part of our bodies is the same. It's complicated. The reason is that Lyudmila is a otokonoko (T/N: A male who cross-dresses as a girl).
Lyudmila came to the orphanage when she was twelve. she brought her brother, who was two years younger. At that time, she was already dressed as a girl. Since her face was cute, everyone thought she was a girl at first. After her parents died of illness, she lived with a grandmother who was a mage in a village near the mountains. It seems it was quite a broad-minded household, and she said nothing was said even if she wore girls' clothes. Before her grandmother passed away, she wrote a letter to the Headmistress, and Lyudmila came to the orphanage after she died.
Naturally, she was teased by the boys soon after coming, but she, who could use magic, suddenly blasted fire magic right at the opponent's crotch. Since then, she has been recognized as someone you shouldn't carelessly mess with. Beatrix, who saw that and took a liking to her, saying, "You've got some guts," brought her to us, and she has been with the members of the Class of 175 ever since.
At that time, after looking at the chests of all the members, she sat down next to me, saying, "We're a matching set," and since then, being a matching set has become officially recognized by the Class of 175. It was extremely annoying, but even the other members said, "If you're a matching set, it can't be helped," so I'm reluctantly going along with it.
Among the teachers at the orphanage, her treatment was also debated in various ways. Finally, Katherine-sensei said, "I'll check for myself," and as a result of dragging her to the bathroom, she was certified as having a male body but a female heart. No one knows what happened. Lyudmila, who came out of the bathroom, was weeping for some reason, but she seems to be grateful now that Katherine-sensei said she could be treated as a girl.
With Katherine-sensei's mediation, Lyudmila became the bath attendant. She uses fire magic to turn the water stored in the tub into hot water and is the first to enter alone. Except for when she was bedridden with a cold, she seriously boiled the water every day.
That Lyudmila has finally come of age. Her dream is to be a farmer, but as expected of an eccentric, it's not straightforward. Like a mage, she aims to reform agriculture using magic. So, rather than a farmer, her dream is to become an agricultural researcher.
Paul-san immediately started teasing her. Lyudmila's determination to achieve agricultural reform by applying magic couldn't fail to strike a chord with him.
"Hey, Lyudmila. Were you doing well? Actually, I successfully conducted an interesting experiment in the mountains."
Lyudmila left Beatrix, whom she had been sticking to, and ran over. Beatrix, who had lost her playmate, muttered, "It can't be helped," but she was joining the conversation.
"What kind of things did you do?"
"I used a Teleportation Circle, you see, and created a spring and a brook in a desolate forest where there was nothing."
As expected, Lyudmila's eyes sparkled. Irrigation is essential for agriculture. If you can create an artificial spring in a desolate land without water, you can turn it into farmland. The three of them immediately started talking.
Marcelo-san was smiling as he watched the three of them.
"Did Lyudmila get a job at the Marcelo Company?"
She had been doing both helping out at a farm and minding the shop since a month ago. What happened to the farm?
"Lately, requests for Teleportation Circles have increased, so we can now afford to hire one more person. Sales of high-level magic scrolls are also doing well."
"Are you going to develop magic tools?"
"There's that, but I also asked the Mayor to lease some land."
"Land?"
Where is there such land? First of all, the rent should be quite expensive.
"You know, there was empty land around the sewage treatment plant, right? We leased a part of that and made it the Lyudmila Agricultural Testing Ground. Fences and signs are already up. You can see it from the back garden of the church too."
"It was just a field, wasn't it?"
It should have been overgrown with weeds. I remember seeing them doing grand grass cutting every now and then from the orphanage window.
"We're going to turn it into farmland. Using magic and magic tools, you see. The rent is a research result report once every six months."
It's an extension of civil engineering work. If Paul-san and Angelica-san are there, tilling the field and sprinkling water should be easy.
"Does that mean Lyudmila is in the civil engineering department?"
"No, basically she's in magic tool development. She became my apprentice. The basic concept is to turn desolate land into farmland using magic and magic tools. She goes to the testing ground every day to look after the field, but during the hot hours of the day, she minds the shop here."
When the sun-tanned Lyudmila is in the field, she'll probably look like nothing more than a child playing. I'll have to make Black-Purple and Green Marble for Lyudmila too. There's no need to ask about the color of the embroidery. It's bound to be pink.