The Farm Brigade and the Three Eyes cornered me with a request to expand the field. The other clay dolls stood nearby, stone eyes somehow filled with encouragement and hope.
Fluffy only just asked me to expand the lake again too... The whole area in front of the mountain has already turned into farmland. Should I clear some more land in front or... I’ll ask the Farm Brigade, I guess.
It was the wrong decision.
A massive section of the forest was marked to be cleared, with the mountain at the center. I hadn’t had any say in the decision-making process. The One Eyes, after consultation with the other clay dolls, had drawn a diagram in the dirt. I’d chuckled at first; the clearing they’d marked out had to be at least ten times the size of the mountain itself. Fluffy’s lake and Shuri’s nest had been marked out too, so I’d crouched down to examine the scale a little more closely, thinking that either they or I had made a mistake. By the time I’d stood up, everyone had already started making preparations, and the plan was approved without even a scrap of input from me.
It’s like my opinion is worthless to these guys...
I surveyed the finished clearing.
Ha ha, Koa looks so small from here... That’s weird, right?
It wasn’t, in fact, weird at all. The clearing was just massive.
The Farm Brigade had already started working on the newly expanded farmland, including one odd-looking area I couldn’t make sense of.
I’m sure that patch wasn’t in the original plan... Oh well.
The Farm Brigade and the Three Eyes seemed to be collaborating on something in one corner of the farmland. I’d leave it up to them.
I still thought they’d been a little too excessive in their demands. The new vegetable patch was shaping up to be about ten times bigger than the original one—another decision made without my input.
Fine. See if I care!
Before long, the Farm Brigade had finished marking out the plot, and the itsy-bitsy insects got to work tilling the soil. I shrugged and turned away to see how the others were getting on, only to find the antlets in the process of excavating a massive river to encircle the entire clearing.
What the hell?!
I went to put a stop to the unnecessary digging, only for one of the One Eyes to gesture that I’d approved the work.
I most certainly did not! There was no river on the diagram, see— All right, which one of you added to the diagram when I wasn’t looking?!
The One Eyes and Fluffy appeared to be in the midst of consulting on the best place to connect the lake to the new river.
I give up. Do whatever you like... Oh, what now?! You want me to clear the land on the far side of the river too?! Isn’t the garden big enough for you yet? I sighed. Fine. I’ll just do whatever you tell me to. Clearing trees is the only thing I’m good for around here anyway.
I chose to ignore the fact that they were clearly—and repeatedly—adding to the diagram every time I turned my back. I just went along with it. The plan now, apparently, was to dig another moat at the far side of the new clearing on the other side of the new river.
Ha ha ha. A moat? Cool! Um... Wait, how did it end up like this again?
The collective canines had approached me earlier, trying to ask for something. After ten minutes passed without me being able to figure out what it was, they’d given up and gone to the One Eyes. A few hours later, all was revealed as ten long, thin huts appeared along the fence encircling the mountain. The fence itself had only recently appeared too.
Oh, doghouses! Wolfhouses too, I guess? Yeah, I never would have figured that out.
Karen had apparently wanted more perches, because the One Eyes had made more of those too. The giant worms and the Three Eyes were satisfied for now, as far as I could tell, but Spider Boss had requested a private room on the second floor, which I didn’t learn about until after the One Eyes had already finished it.
The clay dolls are doing so well... I need to step up my game.
If this was a game, then my opponents were a bunch of giant trees—still, I tried my best, cutting down one behemoth after another and turning the lot of them into planks.
Time for a break.
I was the only one who felt so, apparently. Everyone else was still working—and a whole lot faster than I had been. Shuri and Spider Boss were on stump-removal duty, while the One Eyes were building more huts and fences on the freshly cleared and compacted ground. Fluffy and the itsy-bitsy insects were still digging out a canal for the future river.
In spite of their name, the itsy-bitsy insects had already grown quite a lot, which I probably should have expected. Each ant and spider was now around fifty centimeters long.
They grow up so fast... Like, alarmingly so. They’re strong too. Just like everything else here... Should I be worried? Nah. Means the work goes quicker, after all!
The Farm Brigade were working on yet another field, planting seeds and sprouting tubers in long, neat rows. Whenever they were close to running out of seeds, a baby spider would trot up with a fresh supply.
Great teamwork, guys... Why are you all so good at this?! While I’m just a glorified lumberjack... Well, I guess I’m pretty good at making planks too. Besides, it’s not like there’s anything else I’m allowed to do!
The river was fully excavated by the following morning, so I filled it with water and we all spent the day relaxing in the cool, refreshing flow.
It’s important to take a day off every once in a while. Especially for me! Yep, rest, recuperation... Ignoring the strange fish and shrimp things that’ve apparently already moved in... Ignoring that there seem to be more of them than there were this morning...
While most of us were working on the mass landscaping project, the wolves and the dogs helped out in the usual way, by hunting. With the way our family was growing we needed a lot of food just for daily sustenance, let alone to stockpile for a potential winter. The Gremlins could clean, skin, and butcher a carcass in just minutes now, and had somehow become able to use magic too.
Don’t acknowledge it, don’t acknowledge it. Nope, I didn’t see anything.
It took a few more days until I finally cut down and transformed the last tree on the far side of the river. Surveying the transformed forest through my Clairvoyance drone, I could scarcely recognize the terrain. Open land now flanked the river on both sides, forming the shape of an eye with the mountain at its center like a dark pupil.
I was exhausted. Off to the side, I could already see stumps being dragged away, the holes filled in, and the One Eyes building a bridge.
You’re all too damn motivated.
We had a barbecue that night to celebrate the end of the expansion project. Truthfully, it wasn’t very different from the barbecues we had most nights; I just wanted to celebrate, because...
No more damn trees! I’m free! Freeeeee!
I might have cried a little.