“No, why would he go there? It is in the records! It says even the mercenary groups that went there with the blacksmith wanted nothing more to do with the place!”
The closed mine they had discovered not long ago while looking for a place for the prisoners’ labor.
It produced low-grade iron ore, and its location was so dangerous that it had been deemed utterly lacking in commercial value. They had not even been able to develop it properly before it was buried in the earth forever.
And Jamie had gone to that mine.
As much as Aiden hated to admit it, in the north, where people were precious, Jamie was one of only two senior officials who were somewhat good at their work.
“If something happens to him, you’ll have to do all his work, so why didn’t you stop him?”
Could it be, Kalisa?
Are you one of my people?
“Do you perhaps also find working so enjoyable that—”
“Absolutely not. I would like to pursue leaving work on time.”
“Tch.”
He had briefly been moved, thinking he had found a colleague who understood him, but she denied it immediately.
How cold-hearted.
“I wanted to stop him too, but is that bastard the sort to listen because someone stops him?”
“That is true.”
“And it was not just one or two people.”
“Huh?”
“Did you not notice that the number of servants has decreased?”
“What? Then do you mean...?”
“Yes. They all went hunting in various regions to prove their abilities. The problem is....”
“The problem is?”
“Similar things are happening in several other villages as well.”
“Damn it, then what about farming!”
A look of dismay appeared on Aiden’s face.
If they made one wrong move and missed the timing, who would sow the seeds and who would plant the seedlings?
“Fortunately, when the hunting competition rules were established, there was a clause stating that it must not harm their main occupations, including farming. The village chiefs apparently used that as grounds to stop people from leaving recklessly on hunts to prove their abilities. The message says only a minimum of three, or at most five or six candidates from each village, set out. Here.”
“Mm.”
Come to think of it, no matter how soaked in dopamine they were, they would not neglect farming during sowing season and show off just to prove their skills.
If they did, forget becoming candidates. They would be lucky if they were not beaten by the whole village.
‘The village chiefs must have tried hard to make sure only the minimum number of people left. Well done.’
The village chiefs were fairly capable.
They were not the leaders of their villages for nothing.
‘Do they have a different level of experience from people like apartment residents’ association presidents in South Korea?’
The weight of deciding what color to paint an apartment’s exterior walls and deciding the sowing season that would determine a village’s livelihood for the year could not possibly be the same.
In the end, prioritizing the greater good was the trace carved by decades of experience showing that doing so was advantageous for survival.
“...No, but why is only our lord’s castle in this state? Other villages had only the minimum number of people leave to prove themselves, so why is our lord’s castle—”
“Because the person in charge is Jamie.”
“What?”
“The person in charge of approving leave is Jamie, and that bastard ran first.”
“......”
When you come back, you are dead.
***
“No, is this really all right? You said the administrator might bring the hammer down if he finds out....”
“The water has already been spilled. Hup, behind you!”
WHACK!
“Kyaaaaak!”
The head of the one-eyed spider struck directly by the side of Jamie’s absurdly huge axe blade shattered.
Hiss, hiss, hiss.
They moved in a swarm.
In terms of numbers, there were only two humans, but before that overwhelming force, the spiders seemed to hesitate slightly.
“There’s no helping it now. If I want to soften the administrator’s anger even a little, I have no choice but to bring back results that will make his eyes pop out! Hup!”
WHACK, WHACK, WHACK!
Sounds more suited to a club than an axe echoed through the valley in succession.
Lower-ranking creatures mourned the spiders and slowly hid themselves away from the noise.
“Are we still far from the mine?”
“We are almost there, but... is this really all right? I am truly anxious....”
“Even if the administrator scolds me, I will make sure no harm comes to you, so do not worry too much and just clear the path.”
“If you put it that way... you must keep that promise, all right?”
“What kind of man do you take me for? Have you lived only being deceived? At the lord’s castle, when people say Jamie, they mean the symbol of trust!”
“...Ah, yes.”
The man in front of Jamie, holding a wooden stick and working hard to push through the underbrush to open the path, was an herb gatherer from a nearby village.
The mine had been abandoned, but the mountain could not be abandoned.
The owner of the deep, secluded mountain valley had become not humans, but beasts and monsters. However, as the mountain’s owner changed, all kinds of medicinal herbs had survived for a long time without being touched by human hands.
Because of that, this herb gatherer had desperately developed the methods of avoiding beasts and monsters passed down from his father’s father’s father, and recently, he had even managed to find a safe path to a point where the mine was almost visible.
Well, because of that, he had been caught by a massive knight—no, aide—from the lord’s castle and made to guide the way.
“Huff, huff. A little slower, please....”
“The battles are too fast! Hah... huff.”
There were people following behind Jamie.
They were the ones who had chased after him from the lord’s castle to prove their skills.
“I told you, who asked you to follow me? All the monsters here are mine, so why do you keep chasing me? Go back down!”
“Goodness, Aide! Please do not say that. There are so many beasts and monsters on this mountain, so why would you tell everyone to go back? If you keep saying that, I cannot go any farther either. I have seen your martial strength too, Aide, but there are times when numbers are absolutely necessary, are there not?”
When Jamie scolded the people following him, the herb gatherer immediately turned around and whined.
“Grr.”
In truth, Jamie did not mean it either.
No matter how much of a strongman he was, he was not a professional hunter. It would be difficult to continue hunting alone in the deep mountains.
“What about the others?”
“They should be working hard to catch up.”
“Then let’s rest for a moment before going on. Herb gatherer, would it be all right if we rested here for a bit?”
“Yes. This is beast territory, but this is also a place where grass that creatures with red blood detest grows in clusters. Unless something unusual happens, it should be hard to find even a single roe deer here, so it should be fine.”
“Oh, good. Good.”
“Goodness, I can finally live!”
At the herb gatherer’s words, Jamie and the rest of the advance party finally relaxed and began taking breaks in their own ways.
“I had no idea there was such grass. That is impressive.”
“My family has lived as herb gatherers for generations, so this much is basic.”
“A family trade, then.”
“Even in my grandfather’s time, our village supposedly earned more money from medicinal herbs than from furs and monster byproducts. Well, it cannot be compared to now.”
“Did the medicinal herbs suddenly disappear?”
“The opposite.”
The herb gatherer remembered the face of his now-deceased grandfather.
And with it, the words his grandfather had lamented whenever he drank.
“At some point, beasts and monsters suddenly began increasing on this mountain, so the range of ordinary herb gatherers like us kept shrinking.”
“That must have been difficult. The lord’s castle should have sent a punitive force....”
“Goodness, no. Thanks to that, the villagers were able to hunt beasts and monsters and survive the spring famine season, so looking at the whole, one cannot say it was only a bad thing. Is that not how everything in human affairs is?”
At the herb gatherer’s slightly detached appearance, Jamie’s expression turned ambiguous.
A resident who had suffered harm from the increase in beasts and monsters was right before his eyes.
But if he comforted him, the overall lives of the villagers had actually improved, so saying they should return to the past was also awkward.
‘What would the administrator have said at a time like this?’
The head that had been heated with hunting slowly cooled.
Emotion receded, and reason began returning to its place.
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
“You’re saying this place was not originally where both beasts and monsters appeared?”
“This valley is deep, so how could there have been no beasts or monsters at all? But their territories were not as sharply divided as they are now.”
“So when did that start?”
“Uh... I heard it began when my grandfather was entering middle age, so perhaps around forty years ago?”
“Forty years.”
Forty years was only about ten years before the time the closed mine had been inspected.
“That is strange. Whether it is beasts or monsters, they do not move their territories so easily.”
The stableman, who had come as part of the advance party and was resting with Jamie, quietly added his words.
“So it was not always like that?”
“Yes, sir.”
The herb gatherer asked what was so strange about that, but Jamie gave no answer and sank into thought.
The slower lord’s castle servants were arriving one after another.
But no one spoke loudly.
Jamie’s face was no longer that of a colleague doing something foolish with them, but the face of an official responsible for the region.
***
“Administrator!”
The next day.
Jamie returned.
“Did the hunt fail? Why are you back so early?”
Aiden asked as though he was genuinely curious, surprisingly without snapping at him.
‘This place already has no civil servant welfare to speak of, so once he used the leave, he should at least spend it properly. It would be a waste.’
Even if he was going to scold him, Aiden had not intended to touch the leave he had already used.
However, Jamie seemed to feel that such a thing was not important, for he snorted and came right up to Aiden’s desk.
“There is something I need to confirm.”
“?”
“The closed mine. Something is strange there. They say beasts and monsters suddenly began gathering there from forty years ago.”
“We already confirmed that before, didn’t we?”
The part about it beginning forty years ago was new information, but did it make any difference?
“They say the beasts and monsters do not keep clashing.”
“Hm?”
“Right at that mine, it is a boundary.”
“Is that strange?”
Aiden was undoubtedly the most reliable expert in the north when it came to administration, but as for the habits of beasts and monsters, his knowledge was limited to what he had read in a few books.
“If they were going to clash, they should have clashed long ago. The fact that their territories have remained unchanged for decades means there is definitely something there.”
Ah, then the matter was different.
“Explain in detail.”
Aiden’s expression also grew serious.
If the things blocking the mine were not there due to the natural order, but because of a specific reason,
‘We have to find out.’
If they learned the cause,
Perhaps that mine...
‘Can be developed.’
If that became possible, there might be something they could properly begin.
After all, there was already plenty of free labor sitting in that semi-basement prison.
‘We should help the prisoners escape unemployment too.’
No matter that they were criminals locked up for their sins,
‘What kind of person does not work?’
Aiden gradually began to grow excited at the thought that he might be able to scrape together even the last surplus labor force imprisoned in the dungeon and prepare new jobs for them.