They were right to say that anywhere can be home; my life on the island had settled down somewhat, and every day was fulfilling. But at the same time, when people get used to a routine, they have the tendency to seek further comfort.
“With that, I think we should make a road to the Divine Beastfolk village,” I said.
“What do you mean ‘With that’?” Reina asked, confused by my sudden suggestion.
“Oh, I mean, I recently had this feeling when I went to the village searching for Luna... The path there is sort of lacking, don’t you think?”
“Well, this was originally an untouched forest, after all.”
“Exactly. But now we’re here, and we often go to the village to trade for various goods, so...”
It wasn’t too much of a hassle for me and Reina because we could use Storage magic, but Zelos and Merlyn used the game trail for all sorts of errands, which had to be extremely inconvenient. Because of this, they hadn’t yet been able to go to the village to pay their respects, though they had struck up individual connections with Luna and Elga. The biggest factor in this was simply that the timing hadn’t worked out, but in addition to that, I also thought that being hard to get there was an issue itself.
“I hope that by making travel more convenient, we’ll all be able to meet each other more easily,” I added.
“Hmm... Well, why not? If there’s a road, it’ll be easier for me to go there too. But, are you really sure it’s all right?”
“Huh? Why wouldn’t it be?”
“This area was originally Divine Beastfolk territory, wasn’t it? Right now they’re letting us use it, but what if they don’t look kindly on us clearing space for a road?”
“Oh...” I hadn’t considered that until she mentioned it. I had simply thought we’d be able to deepen our relationship once there was a road to the village, and nothing else. “What should I do?”
“First of all, try asking Suzaku. If she says it’s all right, then we can build the road. If it isn’t, we’ll come up with something else.”
As we spoke while heading to the Divine Beastfolk village, we came across Elga, but when we explained the situation to him, he said that Suzaku had disappeared somewhere.
“She’s gone?” I asked.
“Yeah, she left for Wilhelmina’s place yesterday and hasn’t come back,” Elga replied.
Apparently she had left in an unusual hurry, and this was the first time Elga had seen her like that.
“Will she be all right?” I asked.
“Well, she can just revive if she dies, so I’m not sweating it or anything, but a lot of the Beastfolk are really worried after seeing our elder in such a rush. Ugh, I’m beat...”
Elga put it in a way that was very much like himself; he always spoke roughly, but he was a caring person. He had probably been giving advice to all the anxious Beastfolk. Perhaps that was why he appeared more worn out than usual and seemed to lack his usual intensity.
“So, what were you going to talk about with our elder?” he asked.
“Oh, actually...”
I went on to bring up what I had been discussing with Reina. Building a road would make trade smoother, and above all I wanted to make it possible to deepen our relationship with the Divine Beastfolk. Also—though I hadn’t mentioned this to Reina—after returning from being briefly summoned to some faraway place, I had realized something: I cherish this island as if I were born here. That was exactly why I wanted to learn more about this place, and why I especially wanted to talk to the people of the various other races that lived here. The first step would be to make it even easier to reach the Divine Beastfolk we’d already formed a connection with.
“What, that’s it? We’d welcome a road too, so it’s no big deal,” Elga said.
“Huh? Is it really okay?” I said.
“For sure. We Divine Beastfolk can travel that path without any issues, but the Beastfolk have no clue when a monster might show up. If the road has your scent on it, the monsters won’t dare to come near, so you’d actually be doing us a favor by making it safer.” Then, he made a welcome offer. “Heck, I’ll even help you out.”
“Then today, I think I’ll draw up some plans. I’ll start work on the road tomorrow,” I said.
“By the way, Arata, how are you planning on building it?” Reina asked.
“Huh? I mean, I’m going to chop down the trees with magic, then use earth magic like always to flatten out the ground,” I replied. I assumed I could simply build the road the same way I did the one to the river, but Reina let out an exasperated sigh.
“You know, Arata, mana isn’t endless. It’s a long way to this village, and you’ll run out before you can finish... Wait, have you ever run out of mana?”
“Not yet, I don’t think.”
The moment I said that, Reina looked at me with shock, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. As of late she had been handwaving away whatever absurd things I said with a brief response of, “Well, that’s just Arata for you,” but I hadn’t seen such a dumbfounded expression from her in a while.
“I can’t believe it... Can you actually pull it off? But then, that would mean your mana capacity...” Her voice trailed off.
“Oh, but I’m not sure either, okay? It could just be that I’ve never used all my mana. I might actually have a pretty small amount.”
“That’s definitely not it, not when you can use Storage magic that much.”
Now that she mentioned it, I felt like she had said a while ago that Storage magic scaled in proportion with one’s mana capacity. Considering I hadn’t yet seen the bottom of my Storage spell, perhaps my mana capacity was, like everything else about me, abnormal.
“Hahh...” Reina sighed again. “Well, whatever. I’ll get a headache if I think about this any more... That aside, there’s something else.”
“What’s that?”
“What are you planning on doing with the trees you cut down? They should all fit in your Storage spell, but...”
“Oh... That’s right.”
I could just put the wood into Storage, but that wasn’t the issue. Building such a long road through the forest would require felling a large number of trees. And trees were living things too. I didn’t know how important nature was to the islanders, but they’d definitely lose their trust in a human who haphazardly destroyed it.
“If that’s what you’re worried about, just give us the wood,” Elga said. “Then, the Beastfolk will make something else out of it.”
“I don’t know... We’re talking about a pretty huge amount,” I said.
“Maybe we can build a workshop. We’ll store as much of it as we can there first, then leave the rest to your Storage for the time being.”
This probably came from a mindset of reducing waste as much as possible. Sure enough, putting the wood in my Storage spell meant it wouldn’t rot, and if it was too much for me to handle, we could find other ways to work with it.
“Okay then, let’s go with that,” I said. “I’ll start with building the road for the next few days, so can you explain everything to the village?”
“You got it,” Elga said. “If you guys can gather the wood, then we’ll be able to put our labor toward something else. That’ll be a real help.”
“Then in return for the wood, give me something else, all right?”
“Just let me know what you want.”
The concept of money didn’t exist on this island, so barter was the norm. Additionally, it was generally assumed that the one proposing a trade was supposed to make an offer that was favorable for the other party. I thought this created an environment where it was easy for people to ask for things from others without worrying about imposing on anyone.
“All right, I guess I’ll get to work, then,” I said.
“I’ll help too,” Reina said.
We returned home and spent the entire day getting ready, then we began to move along, cutting down trees as we went.