The castle that Knight Commander Alexandricia had ordered wasn’t on the same scale as the fairy tale castles people usually imagine when they hear the word.
Coming from Japan, I picture castles with Japanese-style towers where a gruff dude with a topknot hangs out, or a more modern German-style castle with rows of Cinderella-like pointed towers that could have come straight from a Grimms’ fairy tale. But nope—the finished plan sketched on my parchment was more like a fortress of stacked stone blocks, with a few attached buildings spidering out that looked like churches or towers.
“We can haul stone here all day long and never finish building this castle,” I moaned.
“Don’t give up, Shooter,” said Elpaco. The two of us were heaving stone after stone to the site on shoulder yokes.
The stones had been carved down to the shape of bricks, more or less neatly—there were different sizes, see, and they were to form the foundation and castle walls. Any gaps between them would be filled in with clay. We were going to lift the stones using a wooden crane built on the struts and catwalks of the castle’s wooden frame, but the interior walls would be the same clay walls that the village had always used, built using earth magic and then fired at the end to harden them.
This last part would be done by the village chief. She knew the site well, now—she came every afternoon.
“I used to work at a construction site and I’ve built stage sets for a theater,” I said to Elpaco. “I think what we’re doing today is more like the job building stage sets. Nowadays, a lot of building construction is done with machines. But this…this reminds me of hauling stage platforms around.”
“I thought you were a warrior, Shooter?”
“I was. But before I came here, I was more of a, uh, part-time warrior. A wanderer from one gig to the next, going wherever the wind took me.”
“You’re amazing…”
“Oh, no, no. I just never managed to become a good grown-up and get a regular job. You shouldn’t praise me for that!”
“But being able to do all kinds of things is amazing. Right?”
Elpaco and I finished heaving the stones to the top of the hill and took a short break. Sweat dripped down my upper body. I wiped it away with the cloth that hung around my neck. Elpaco was soaked with sweat, too, to the point that his white lace-up shirt had become see-through. It hung open in the front.
I couldn’t help giving him a sidelong glance, not quite able to resist the “see-through” part. His shirt was made of thick material, so I couldn’t make out all the details, but the cloth was just transparent enough to let me make out the curve of a pair of tiny rosebuds.
If Elpaco hadn’t been a man in a girl’s body, for sure my heart would have started racing. Which it wasn’t, obviously. Pert little peaks pressed into the cloth of his shirt, and it absolutely was not driving me crazy. Nope.
“What is it, Shooter? Don’t look at me like that…” Elpaco blushed. “It’s embarrassing…”
“I-If you let the sweat sit on your skin, you’ll catch a cold and we don’t want that. Is Cassandra around?” Worried, I called out to ask if anyone had seen my wife, who was, like me, a straight person.
Since Cassandra was now the wife of a knight in the ruling class of the village, her rank allowed her to get out of working alongside everyone else if she wished. Obviously, my retainer Elpaco and I were both in the same position, but we at least wanted to help make up for the delays and joined in with the other workers. Meanwhile, Cassandra usually stayed at the work shed and oversaw general progress at the site.
“You called for me, Shooter?” Cassandra walked up to us with a smile.
“Elpaco sweated through his clothes. They’re soaking wet. Will you take him to get changed and rest a while?”
“Certainly. You must have worked very hard, Elpaco!” Cassandra looked down at Fuzzball, who was just a tiny bit shorter than her.
“Oh, um.”
“I’ll take over while you sit right here and relax,” I told him. “This job isn’t going to be done any time soon, so how about we take turns?”
“Okay…”
I glanced at Elpaco’s head and realized I was stroking his hair out of habit. Until then, he’d looked like he was ready to keep working alongside me, but that look shifted to a more placid expression and his tail started swaying. What a good pup. Not that Elpaco was a dogman—his tail didn’t typically wag like crazy whenever he was happy.
“I’m gonna start hauling stone again. This shortsword is just getting in my way, though. Would you hold onto it for me?”
“Certainly, husband. Try not to push yourself too hard.”
“I won’t. And shouldn’t you two find some shade? It’s pretty hot out.”
“All right. Let’s go find some shade and take a rest, shall we, Elpaco?”
“Okay…”
I handed Cassandra the shortsword that usually hung at my waist. I had tried wearing it at my hip in order to act the part of a valorous knight, but it did nothing but get in the way while I worked, so I had to get rid of it. Not to mention, shedding more equipment when I already had my shirt off made me feel that little bit lighter on my feet.
“Sir Slave?” one of the dwarven carpenters called to me. “The village chief said that some more laborers would be joining us this afternoon to help out. Did you hear?”
“I did, but I can’t remember… Did she say they were new enslaved criminals from town, or something else?”
“Oh no, sir! She’s simply recruited people from the settlements in the area. It’s almost summertime, after all. That means there isn’t much left to do in the fields, so they’re sending people over to us.”