In this world, a week consists of six days, a month consists of five weeks, and a year consists of twelve months. In other words, a year has 360 days.
Noein and Mathilda had already spent four weeks in the forest of the Earlkvist territory. In one more week, it would be a month since they arrived.
“What should we do next, Mathilda?”
“…I apologize. In my ignorance, I can’t think of any good ideas.”
“Oh, no, that’s not it. I was just mumbling to myself. I’m sorry for worrying you.”
Seeing his serious and loyal slave genuinely distressed, Noein hastily added those words.
After four weeks of using golems to chop wood, they had cleared a fair amount of land. It was already more than enough space for just Noein and Mathilda.
Additionally, they had expanded the area for farming. They planted vegetables like beans and barley. In the field where they first planted potatoes, the sprouts were growing steadily, and they were taking care of them.
The pioneering work was progressing well, except for one thing.
“…How should we gather settlers?”
To claim a territory, one needs settlers. It’s absurd to call it a territory with just a lord and his slave, and golems can’t be counted as people.
However, to attract settlers, the place must have some appeal that makes people want to move there.
Is the Earlkvist territory a place people would want to move to? One couldn’t honestly say it is.
What they had was a field and a tent, a large amount of lumber from the trees they had cut down, and an endless forest.
Even the lord was living in a tent. Who would want to live in such a place willingly?
“At the very least, we need our own house.”
“Lord Noein, should we call craftsmen from Retvik to build a mansion?”
“I’d like to, but… money is the problem.”
When Noein was cut off from his family, his father gave him 300,000 Rebro as severance money. After buying Mathilda, he had 250,000 Rebro left.
In a rural village, 10,000 Rebro could support a peasant family modestly for a year, so it was quite a sum. However, it was far from enough for a lord to develop a village.
Moreover, to ensure minimal convenience, Noein had bought magical tools for fire spells like “Boil” and “Firestarter.” At the time he left home, he only had two humanoid golems, so he bought an additional horse-type golem and a wagon, along with potatoes and various other crops.
Because of this, Noein’s current funds were less than 150,000 Rebro. Hiring craftsmen to build a mansion would empty his wallet.
That damned father must not have expected Noein to succeed in pioneering with such a small amount of money.
Noein would live a few years in the name of Earlkvist, and when the existence of Maximilian Kivileft’s illegitimate son faded from memory, he probably expected Noein to die in the wilderness. The money was just for that interim survival.
“…Lord Noein, you look distressed. Are you feeling unwell?”
“Hm? Oh, I’m fine. I just remembered something about that damned father who gave me the severance money.”
Reassuring the worried Mathilda, Noein pushed away his troubled thoughts and refocused on the pioneering work.
Yuri was born a mercenary in the Kingdom of Lordberg.
No, “was” is more accurate.
To escape his position as the second son of a poor farmer, he fled his village before adulthood and joined a mercenary band.
Starting from menial tasks, his excellent physique soon saw him become a mainstay in the band.
Accumulating achievements and advancing through the ranks, he became the new leader at 35 after the previous one died in battle.
His first campaign as leader ended with his unit being sacrificed.
Hired by a powerful southern noble in the long-running conflict between the Kingdom of Lordberg and the eastern Parlas Empire, Yuri’s band was abandoned to buy time for the regular army’s retreat.
Faced with the extreme choice of upholding the mercenary’s code of absolute obedience or saving their own lives, Yuri chose life.
Abandoning their post, killing the knights who tried to capture them, they fled the battlefield.
Falling to banditry, they robbed travelers and merchants as they fled westward.
Reaching the kingdom’s northwest, they arrived in a certain viscountcy’s capital.
“Haa. Cutting wood every day does get tiresome.”
“I sympathize with you,Lord Noein.”
Noein continued to struggle with the problem of gathering settlers, without any good ideas coming to mind.
At best, he thought of “picking up destitute, homeless people and bringing them here.”
However, even for that, he first needed the capacity to support such people.
For that, abundant food and the farmland to produce it were essential.
Thus, despite finding the repetitive work somewhat monotonous, Noein continued the steady pioneering work.
Even if he couldn’t think of ways to gather settlers, the pioneering progressed, they got hungry, and they consumed food.
On the one-month anniversary of starting the pioneering, Noein again took Mathilda and the golems to Retvik in the Keinitz Viscounty for supplies.
Visiting Eliza’s store again, they bought several weeks’ worth of supplies and paid the fee.
Leaving Retvik’s west gate, they passed through the agricultural fields of Retvik’s residents, crossed plains dotted with small forests, and entered the animal trail in the Bezel Great Forest.
It was Mathilda who first noticed something.
“Ah! Lord Noein!”
Someone—or something—leaped out of the bushes. By the time Noein realized it,
“Stop, don’t move…”
A man who had leaped out grabbed Noein’s head from behind and pressed a knife to his neck.
