“Anyway, there’s plenty of preparation involved. It’s not like you can do this any time you happen to run into one in the forest.”
“Right. Oh, does this work on bugbears, too?”
“Nope. Must be because of those livers they got. The herbs don’t seem to work on ’em. So we either chase ’em into a big trap or use these guys.” Rain Grass patted the reptilian monster on the back.
“You use the lizards?”
“Yeah, they fight a lot with the six-legs. We use that. Tree-eaters are territorial and six-legs are just violent by nature. So if a bear wanders near our hunting area, we lead one of these guys to it. When they fight, the lizard usually wins, and the lizard’s easier for us to deal with, so it works out nice for us.”
“Wow! Amazing! That’s amazing, Rain Grass! This is stuff only forest-dwellers know!” Gaius spoke admiringly, eyes sparkling like a child’s.
“It’s not like I came up with it, stupid! This knowledge was hard-earned by my ancestors, who probably died figuring it out.”
“Mm... Experience built up over the generations... It’s a wonderful thing.”
“As for me, I learned it from Fog,” Rain Grass said quietly.
“...I heard you two were close as kids.”
“Yeah. She lived nearby and played with me all the time. She always looked after me, and my friend Sharp Ear too, since he was in diapers. Did you know? She was always leader of the pack of all the kids, even though she was a girl. She was so tough, one time she beat up five older boys all on her own.”
“Hmm... I never heard that, but I can imagine it.”
“Right?”
The two of them laughed together.
Maybe reacting to their laughter, the tree-eating lizard cried out sleepily, “Gweh!” The human and kobold were scared into silence for a moment.
“Anyway, that’s why she became a hunter so quick. By the time I got taken on my first hunt, she was already holding her own among the warriors of the village.”
Gaius nodded.
“She led our hunts for a long time, but she’d get real mad and hit you if you screwed something up. It was real scary! I thought she’d mellow out a little when she took Sharp Ear as her husband, but no such luck! She was still a complete hard-ass. Everybody was bummed about that.”
“Ha ha ha.”
“...And Sharp Ear... He wasn’t strong at all, so he shouldn’t have pushed himself like that.” Rain Grass muttered to himself, looking off into the distance.
Gaius had heard about this from the elder. When the kobolds’ previous village was attacked by adventurers, Rain Grass had remained there, fighting until the end. He’d seen terrible things, fought on even while things slipped through his fingers, and come back alive to continue to protect the things that remained.
“Thanks, Gaius. Thank you for saving my friends’ kid.”
So Gaius accepted the warrior’s thanks with a short “Mmm,” acknowledging it without humility.
As the two continued on, letting the conversation drop, they eventually saw in the distance a group of kobolds waiting with ropes, cloth, and sticks to receive the lizard.
“Mmh, I kinda gotta take a leak after riding this thing... Hey Gaius, wanna go for a piss after we hand this guy over?”
“Sure.”
The two warriors chuckled to each other and continued on their way to their fellows.
＊
The hastily constructed command center in the village square was really nothing more than a flattened floor with a roof over it. Nevertheless, it currently served as the kingdom’s brain and nervous system.
“Miss General, a spirit-speak report. They’ve finished installing a new trap. It’s around here.”
“Oh! Thank you. Umm, okay, here...”
After receiving a report from one of the housewife spirit messengers stationed at the command center, Sashalia marked down the symbol for “trap” on the great map spread out before her. The map was a product of hard work on the part of everyone in the village, especially the kobold hunters who were always running around in the area. A human outsider would sum up the whole of the Greatwood as “a bloody big forest,” but those who lived within it were familiar with the density of the trees in each area and all the changes in elevation as well. The map had any useful landmarks and dangerous areas noted on it and included anything that Sashalia deemed necessary for a war map to have.
“They’re done here too, Missy.”
“Oh. Right!” She marked another area as another report came in.
They’d started out just using spirit-speak during the construction of these traps to practice using it in the case of real battle, but they had discovered that it allowed them to keep track of materials and personnel from the command center, leading to much more efficiency in their operations.
“Bloody Claw’s unit has almost finished transporting the materials, so instruct Leaf Tail’s unit to receive them and begin the next stage of the work.”
The lady Sashalia had addressed moved her mouth soundlessly, eyes on the map, then looked up at Sashalia and reported, “Sent... Mhm, and they sent back ‘Got it.’”
“We’ve gotten used to this pretty quick, huh?”
“Well, we do practice every day. I’d say we’re good at it.”
The spirit-space in which the kobolds with shaman training exchanged their soul howls apparently exhibited the flow of time differently than the outside world. It was difficult for a human to understand experiencing two different senses of time; it was likely only those who did experience it could truly understand the feeling.
The spirit-speak soldiers had memorized all the tactical codes they’d thought up with surprising speed. This was likely due to their quickened sense of time brought about by their shorter lifespans, their race’s inherent learning speed, and possibly just a passion for the material. They’d even quickly developed a system based on regular pronunciation for uncoded communication, which was a delightful surprise to Sashalia.
“Sister Sashalia, can you help me with something?”
A kobold boy with rough, barklike fur had wandered into the command center.
“Now, Pinecone Fur, you know you can’t bother Sister when she’s busy,” said one of the ladies around the table.
“Aww, I’m sorry.”
Sashalia looked up from the map and smiled. “It’s all right, ma’am. What did you want help with?”
The boy’s tail wagged as he explained. “The little kids want me to read them picture books, so I asked Fluff to borrow some of Brother Emon’s, but I don’t even understand the titles.”
Sashalia glanced behind the boy and saw a crowd of small, fluffy children. The boys who were still a little too young to become warriors were looking after the young children in place of the busy housewives. Sashalia had taught Pinecone Fur and his friends to read, so he was looking to put that skill to use in entertaining the young children. Even the children were doing whatever they could to help out.
“Can you tell me which of these would be good to read to the kids?”
“Hmm... I haven’t read many of Emon’s picture books... Which did you want to borrow? One of the ‘Iron Knight Iwanoshins’?”
“Umm... They say, ‘The Priestess Repents, Part VIII,’ ‘A Lesson in Nighttime Etiquette with the Head Maid,’ and ‘Night Battle Drills with the Female General.’”
Fluff must have grabbed a stack from Emon’s secret stash and not from the books he had set aside for the children.
“...That priestess has got a lot to repent for, huh? I wonder how many volumes there are...”
“Does ‘repent’ mean something bad?” The young kobold cocked his head with a curious sniff.
“No, I wouldn’t say that...”
“Okay, I’ll read them the priestess one, then.”
“You will not. I’m just going to take those.” Sashalia plucked the picture books out of the kobold’s arms.
The little kids gave a chorus of “awws” in protest, but accepted Pinecone Fur’s suggestion of a game of tag instead and all filed out of the command center.
“That was really tiring...” Sashalia sighed, shoulders slumped, to which the housewives all laughed.