“I’m so sorry to have called you all here during such a busy time,” Arven said, bowing his head deeply. Arven, the acting lord of Pallas at the time, was bowing to three of the Pallas lords’ wives.
“Busy? None of us are nearly as busy as you are, Arven.” An older woman with white hair and excellent posture smiled at him. She was Abigail, the wife of Gane Stewart, who became the ruler of what once was the Passott region before it was put under the Stewart family’s control.
“Hee hee. Lord Arven, you’ve really prepared us a fine cup of tea, haven’t you?” Next to Abigail was a refined older woman who praised Arven’s tea with beautiful manners.
“I’m thrilled to hear you enjoy it, Lady Serena.”
She was the wife of Zack Stewart, ruler of what was once the Lengrend region but had now come under the Stewart family’s control.
“So, what didja want with us?” the middle-aged redhead sitting next to Serena asked bluntly. This woman, who was most unfamiliar with noble niceties, was Carolina, wife of Zack and Serena’s son, Guillermo. Arven had called the whole Stewart Family Women’s Association to the Stewart household, after all.
“I’ve heard tell of what you all have been capable of, so please, first and foremost, allow me to thank you.” Arven once again lowered his head. If not for these women, Pallas would have been an absolute mess after all of their husbands decided to up and visit the capital.
Arven was supposed to have gone to the capital by himself, and he’d made all sorts of plans to that effect, but they were all (physically) taken from him by these women’s husbands. If things had gone his way, Arven would’ve been hanging out with Emma right at that moment.
“Well, you know the kinda men they are. It’s to be expected,” Abigail said with a dignified tone, as she raised her eyebrows apologetically. “The things we do for love, right?” In a family full of people who were terrible at math like the Stewarts, Abigail was a priceless addition, being the daughter of a merchant. She was the only person Arven could trust with all his heart to manage the ledger.
“Hee hee. Yes, we’re quite used to this,” Serena agreed, with a dainty aura about her. Serena was the particularly carefully raised daughter of a high-peered noble. When Zack had graduated from the academy in the capital and was meant to return home, she was practically forced to elope with him to stay with him. In other words, despite her dainty appearance, she actually was quite bold and courageous. As the majority of the Stewart family struggled with high society, she was the one who single-handedly took responsibility for all of the social niceties with the nobles around them.
“Eeexactly. We’re just doin’ what we can,” Carolina agreed. Carolina was born and raised on Stewart family land, and therefore had a very strong personality and body. She’d been friends with Guillermo since they were kids. She was older than him, and strong enough to work as a monster hunter. In other words, she was what one would imagine a Stewart woman to be.
“When you put it that way, I really can’t apologize enough for having to ask you for your help again...” Arven was nervous before the three of them. They were all completely different from the women Arven usually spent time around. It wasn’t just Leonard; all the Stewart family men had incredible taste.
“Oh, that’s right... It’s about that time, isn’t it?” Abigail sighed, realizing summer had come to a close.
“Eugh, they’re comin’ back again, huh?” Carolina’s thoroughly displeased expression showed how much she already missed summer. Once summer was over, Pallas had to prepare to bring in a bunch of hunters from regions without any monsters. Number five on the Six Precepts for Regional Monster Subjugation was that rulers of borderlands would have to regularly accept hunters from less monster-laden lands to instruct them in the art of hunting. And every year, it was a tremendous pain.
“I truly hope nobody causes too much trouble this year...” Serena looked off into the distance, the reality too harsh for her to face. Every year, Gane, Zack, and Guillermo were at their wits’ end dealing with this. Unlike Pallas hunters, the hunters they’d have to train weren’t hardened warriors. They were a bunch of nobles who were raised comfortably at home, and several of them were second- and third-born sons who were particularly unmanageable.
“We had to pay tremendous damages last year when they sneaked out of their lodgings to party at the nearby taverns...” Abigail, who had looked over all the ledgers in Pallas, moaned as she rubbed her temples.
“Hmm... Well, I know our husbands will probably be back by the time these jerks show up, but I don’t wanna leave you to prepare for it all on your own either, Lord Arven.”
“Naturally, we’ll help out.”
“Of course.”
The other two women agreed with Carolina.
“Thank you so much.” It made things much easier for him that all the women in the family were able to deduce what he needed before he’d said anything. It sure wouldn’t have gone this way if he’d gone to the Stewart men. “Now, there’s one thing I thought about changing up a bit this year...” Arven said as he deftly passed out some papers he’d prepared.
“You want to make new lodgings?”
“Starting now?”
“But that’d be...”
The three women looked over their papers, then shifted their gazes to Arven in surprise.
“Yes. I just received a large quantity of these from my brother in the capital yesterday,” Arven said as he placed a shard of something about the size of his fist on the table in front of them.
“And what are these?” Asked Abigail.
“These are parts of a plant monster called an owata.”
“An owata?” Serena cocked her head, having not heard of such a monster before.
“That’s right. There aren’t any records of them having ever appeared in the kingdom, so it’s no surprise you haven’t heard of them. These were souvenirs my brother’s family sent us from the Eastern Empire.”
“So they’re from the Eastern Empire?” Carolina remembered the lord’s family hadn’t come home last summer because they’d been in some foreign country. It really was just like them to send monsters home as a souvenir. Carolina took one of the owata parts into her hands and looked at it with deep interest.
“Goodness... This is quite convenient, isn’t it?” Abigail said with a smile as she looked over the paper Arven had given her.
“Is it, now?”
“In fact, it says it’s strong enough to withstand a barrage of a hundred monstauruses!”
Neither Serena nor Carolina could believe their ears.
“Apparently, you can use these owata shards to make a very strong structure both quickly and easily.” Quickly and easily. Reading the information on the souvenirs they’d received had given Arven a great idea. “I was thinking of using these to make a new boardinghouse in the area where monsters appear the most here in Pallas.”
The thing that caused them the most trouble during these training sessions was their hunters sneaking out of their lodgings and bothering the locals. The Stewarts loved the people under their rule, so they wanted to avoid getting under their skin at all costs.
“I see... With a bunch of monsters wandering about outside, nobody would think to sneak out, would they? Hee hee. Goodness, Lord Arven. You do have a nasty streak, don’t you?” Abigail snickered as she continued reading the papers.
“Normally, we start with lectures, then field trips to monster processing centers, then lastly get some practical lessons in with real monster hunts. But this year, I’ve reversed it entirely.” According to all the reports Arven had perused, the people who caused problems always did so in the first half of the summer. Once they’d laid eyes on monsters for the first time in the latter half, they were nice and obedient.
“But isn’t it dangerous to bring a buncha know-nothings onto the hunting grounds?” Carolina asked. As a hunter on the front lines, she had to worry.
“Normally yes. However, these are all the sons of nobles. They should have learned plenty in their Monster Studies classes. What they lack isn’t knowledge, but fear of monsters.” Since Arven had gone to the academy, he knew just how thorough Monster Studies classes were. If a noble was working as a hunter, then it could be assumed that they’d already completed Beginner’s Monster Studies.
“That makes sense.” Thus the plan was to plant the seed of fear in the newbies’ hearts so that the novice hunters would take their lessons seriously afterward.
“We also received this as a souvenir,” Arven said as he fetched the gift from the other room.
“Holy mackerel!” Carolina’s eyes were sparkling.
“Armored boar shields. And they’re made from the extra strong nose parts too. We’ve gotten a hundred of them.”
“Y’don’t see stuff like this in Pallas every day! And the nose parts?! Dang, just look at how well-made this is!” Armored boar shields were a necessity on a monster hunt, and hunters practically foamed at the mouth trying to get their hands on shields made from their noses.
“With a hundred of these...we can practically guarantee everyone’s safety, can’t we?” Serena smiled warmly at Carolina, who was rummaging through the shields.
“Indeed. With these in hand, you can survive the majority of attacks you might be faced with.” Arven seemed quite pleased with himself.
But then, Abigail piped up. “Lord Arven, let’s rent these out instead. You can still participate in the lessons without these shields, but I think once they come face-to-face with a monster, they’ll understand just how necessary they are. Let’s see... Each year, we get about seventy or eighty people, right? If we rent them for thirty silver a day, I believe we can get back all the money we spend to provide for them each year.”
Even if these lessons were forced upon them by the royal family, the border lords never received any financial assistance for it. It was the sort of thing they had to operate entirely at a loss. Unfortunately, given the damages from the localized barrier crises in the past, the border lords couldn’t exactly refuse either.
Arven trembled at Abigail’s suggestion. “Lady Abigail... You’re a genius, aren’t you?”