Barnite closed an eye and took a good look at the raw metal I’d bent, then put it on a shelf against the wall. He was careful with it though, like it was precious. Then he took me around to the other mining facilities and talked me through it all. He even took me to the cavekin houses.
Wherever we went, cavekin were hard at work, swinging hammers or crafting tools I’d never seen before. All of them, without exception, looked really in their element. Just, totally content.
At the kitchen cavekin were happily cooking, and, uh...making some kind of inky black soup, while a bunch of young—I think?—cavekin waited hungrily nearby for the cooks to finish. Some of the other cavekin were drinking, and others were examining some pots filled with berries, which I guessed were alcohol in the making.
Yep. I guess this is just a regular portrait of cavekin life.
From what I’d heard, the cavekin had been through a lot as a people, and they must have all been pretty happy to finally have their lives back. And sure, they’d decided to start those lives in monster territory, but they were tough folks with tough defenses, so I had to imagine they had things covered. They were mostly fire-resistant too from what I could tell, so it’d take one heck of a monster to really give them trouble.
Once Barnite was finished showing me around, I said goodbye to him and the others, then hopped aboard Balers once more. My horse was in a real good mood now, and it looked like the cavekin had spoiled him. We headed to the border station, where we were due to spend the evening, and there wasn’t any hurry, but Balers was in such a good mood we practically flew down the road. I had to make sure I was right there with him because whenever I messed up in the saddle he got mad at me.
It wasn’t long before the border station came into view, along with all the fields that spread out in front of it. And boy were there a lot of fields. They went from the border station into the domain proper, and there were so many that they had multiple wells, and even huts for storing their farming tools. The scope was so big I scratched my head and wondered if the entire station crew was working on them.
I mean, that just might be the case. There’s not much else to do but drill and patrol.
The fields boasted a variety of different produce, and I saw dogkin running about too. They must have been helping out with the fields. It wasn’t just dogkin either; I also noticed some falconkin—a few of them were taking little breaks on the scarecrows that stood in the fields. The border station must have hired them—regular birds of all sizes feared the falconkin, and they steered clear of our fields when there were falconkin around.
It was actually thanks to Sahhi and his wives that the fields in Iluk remained undamaged by bothersome birds, and it looked like the hired help was having the exact same effect.
I rode Balers down a road through the middle of the fields and took in the border station walls. They stretched out on either side of the border station and were even more impressive now than when I’d last seen them. We trotted into the station proper, where people were bustling happily back and forth. There were the usual guards, but there were also some beastkin I’d never seen before.
Huh? Beastkin? Who are they?
One of the station guards noticed me and ran over to look after Balers while I saw to business. Moments later Mont arrived, his wooden leg clacking excitedly with each and every step he took towards me.
“So you’ve finally come. You’re curious about them beastkin, aren’t you? Remember how we saved some from the earth dragons a while back? Well, that’s them. They come here every now and again for trade.”
Mont told me the beastkin brought rare items to sell and bought up the produce the border station farmed, so it was a good deal.
“It ain’t got the fanfare we get with the Peijins, but we’re happy to have people buying up our surplus vegetables. That’s why we’ve got the market going today. We use it as a chance to teach them things like the local language, the teachings of the temple, and our customs. One small step towards good relations, you know?”
“I did notice the gigantic swath of fields out there,” I said. “So you’re selling produce too, huh?”
“Huh? The more fields the better, no? You sell the extra, and whatever you don’t sell gets bought up by the domain lord. A thriving agriculture makes for a strong military, and— Ah, wait a sec. The kingdom works by different rules, don’t it? And we don’t have an orphanage here either...”
I wasn’t following Mont, so I asked him to explain, and he told me about the laws that governed the empire.
Over there, the domain lord had a responsibility to buy up any produce that wasn’t sold. That produce was then cooked up and served to the domain’s sick and its orphans. Sometimes the domain lord bought the produce directly, and sometimes they bought food that was about to go bad. Prices had to be set so that farmers and merchants could maintain their living standards, but basically it accomplished two goals—it kept the needy fed, and it kept the farming industry thriving.
When farmers knew that everything they produced was a guaranteed sale, they always tried to grow as much as they possibly could and actively looked for ways to expand their farms and produce more.
I thought maybe this would mean that eventually the domain might produce too much food, but Mont said that agricultural land was limited in the empire, so that was never an issue. He said it was as simple as changing the laws if things ever got out of hand.
In any case, that was why Mont had it in his head that the more fields you had, the better. The end result was what I’d seen on my way here.
“Hmm, that’s not a bad idea,” I murmured. “We could help a lot of people with something like that, so it might be worth implementing. I mean, we don’t have an orphanage here, but...”
“Then just build one,” said Mont matter-of-factly. “Might not be any orphans here, but they’re around all the same, and people will be glad for us taking some in. Well, that said, we need to put ourselves in a good enough spot that we can take them in. Things’ll be nice and settled here by summer of next year, so maybe then?”
Before any of us could say anything else, a beastkin child called out to Mont and grabbed his attention. They looked like a little dog beastkin of some sort, and their tail was wagging like crazy. Looked to me like they knew Mont pretty well.
I hadn’t been to the western border station in a hot minute, so all this was new to me. I was kind of at a loss and just watched for a bit.