“What I’m wondering is why a slayer would feel the need to steal grain. You’re all rich as kings to the likes of us.”
“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t stealing anything-”
“Just felt like dumping our hard earned farro on the ground for fun then?”
Taka extricated himself from the pile of grain, wincing at the pieces that had gotten into his shoes.
“I was just wondering how the valves in the silo worked. I’m happy to pay for the farro.”
“Didn’t find that out the first time?” The older man finally stepped out of the doorway to retrieve a broom and dustpan, which he tossed to Taka. He caught them instinctively and gave the man a questioning look.
“Don’t look at me. You never used a broom before?”
Taka had used a broom, but not since he’d gotten married. Pattina’s family were wealthy enough to employ servants, which had taken some getting used to. Now that he considered it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen one of their servants use a broom. The kind of high quality help Pattina insisted on had skills for that.
Regardless, sweeping wasn’t a difficult skill to remember. He gathered the spilled grain into a pile, before using the dustpan to transport it into a pot the old man reluctantly provided.
“That’ll be 50 notes. That is, if you weren’t just pulling my leg about buying it.”
Taka hoped he didn’t live in a world where such basic foodstuffs cost that much. He glanced down and analyzed the farro, just in case it was some kind of luxury good.
* Timber Farro (Common):
* Level: 1
* Condition: Good
* Description: Grain from the Timber Farro plant. A common source of food in regions with high levels of ambient plant or nature mana. Timber Farro supplements its nutritional needs with mana to grow more quickly without exhausting the soil. The stalks of this plant are thicker and stronger than most grains, resembling thin saplings. This woody quality is the source of the plant’s name.
“I don’t wish to insult you, but I don’t believe that’s a fair price.”
The old man looked him up and down, judgment written all over his face.
“Not for most people, but it's the price for you.”
Taka considered complaining further, but he didn’t want to make things worse. If he got kicked out of town, he wouldn’t be able to finish his construction project. Besides, he had the money from years as a slayer, without taking into account the wealth from Pattina and her family.
“Alright,” Taka said, counting coins from his purse and handing them over. He received the clay pot in exchange.
Embarrassed and disgruntled, Taka made to leave, but just as he passed through the doorway, he heard choking sounds behind him. He spun, ready to administer first aid, but found the old man covering his mouth with both hands, desperately trying to hold back laughter.
Taka felt the tense knot in his chest loosen. He gave the man a sardonic look, which broke the floodgates. Cackles rang out like church bells, loud enough to be heard by half the village. Between bouts of laughter, the man spoke to Taka
“I can’t believe…a slayer…50 notes.”
He gestured for Taka to put down the pot and tossed back the money as he finally regained control of himself.
“I wouldn’t normally object to scamming city folks, but I don’t think the goddess would look kindly on stealing from a slayer who saved the lives of Maylin’s two boys, and probably more besides.”
Taka smiled, more relieved that he hadn’t made a bad impression than for the return of his money.
Taka extended his hand to shake, feeling a lifetime of calluses and physical labor.
“Call me Taka.”
“Name’s Genu, but everybody just calls me Grandfather. That's what I get for kicking around longer than the rest of my friends.”
“Well, Grandfather, thank you for your mercy. Can’t say my wife would be thrilled to hear about me sprending that much on a bit of grain. She doesn’t even like farro.”
“Oh, so your wives got even you fancy folks by the balls? Color me surprised.”
Taka’s face flushed.
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Probably have a dozen fancy words for balls, but it amounts to the same thing. Not that I’m complaining. Never thought I’d miss the nagging until my wife passed.” A shadow passed over his face, but Genu pushed past it with the ease of long practice.
“Anyways, how’s the house going? You’ve got the village turned upside down with rumors about it.”
“You know I’m building?” Taka asked, surprised. The only ones who’d stopped to watch his work were the children.
Genu raised an eyebrow, looked Taka’s bulky form up and down, then glanced in the direction of the construction.
“Do you know what this village is called? It’s Root Perch Village 6. Most weeks, the most exciting thing that happens around here is a goat gets loose and gets stuck on someone’s roof. Not only are you building a monster of something, you shook the whole village when you dug out the foundation.”
Taka’s blush, which had only now started fading, returned in full force.
“Ah…sorry about that.”
Genu just laughed and slapped him goodnaturedly on the arm
“No need to apologize son. We know you’re doing something nice for Maylin and the kids, but you did make one mistake.”
Taka’s blood ran cold. If he’d made some error in his construction, not only would the house be at risk, the kids he’d left behind could be in danger.
“You didn’t ask us for help,” Genu continued, transforming Taka’s fear into confusion.
Genu proceeded to escort Taka back to the construction site and point out everything he’d done wrong. Apparently, there was a reason the village granary wasn’t underground. The risk of flooding was too great.
Taka was forced to explain how he’d strengthened the stone walls until Genu was satisfied they wouldn’t crack, and shaped a lip at the top of the stairs to prevent water from pouring down. In fact, after significant arguing, which both men enjoyed immensely, Taka raised the level of the first floor a couple steps up, to further alleviate the risk of flooding.
Next were the silos themselves. Their interior corners were too sharp, risking grain getting stuck and rotting away. Smoothing those out was easy enough, as was including an opening at the bottom similar to the village’s own silos, but it wasn’t enough for Genu. He had a gleam in his eye that Taka recognized from some troublesome slayers. In a slayer, he’d call it loot-lust, and do his absolute best to avoid working with that person.
Somehow, in Genu, it was endearing.
Genu wanted more silos, for more types of grain. He had dreams of expanding the village into a town at the very least. He suggested areas to serve as a root cellar for vegetables, and more shelves for anything else they needed to store. When Taka reminded him that this building was intended to be Maylin’s home, rather than a village-wide storage area, he received a toothy smile.
“If I know my granddaughter, she won’t complain about having a village's worth of supplies under her feet.”
“Maylin’s your granddaughter?”
“Last time I checked. Who do you think taught her her seedspeaking trade?” Genu blew out a breath that sparkled with green bits of plant mana. Taka conceded Genu’s knowledge of his granddaughter's preferences and continued without complaint.
When it came time to create the first floor, Genu refused a stone floor, on the grounds that it would be too cold to walk on in the winter. He left and returned shortly with a couple of middle-aged men that looked similar enough to be brothers.
It turned out that Jacy and Yuma had more in common than their looks. They were both brothers, Genu’s sons-in-law, and carpenters. They scrambled to obey their father-in-law’s request for floorboards and support beams. Their skills with wood shaping, combined with Taka’s stone shaping, made the installation process simple and easy.
At every step of construction, Genu had further suggestions and people he insisted needed to get involved. Taka gave up on remembering names as dozens of men, women, and even children bustled in and out, bringing everything from furniture, to carpets, to doors.
It caused quite a stir amidst the growing crowd when Taka explained that the reason he hadn’t allocated any of the first floor to bedrooms was he was planning on building a second floor. There was some grumbling from the Jacy and Yuma, when a single look from Genu indicated they needed to bring more wood, but even through the complaints, he saw the glint of excitement.
The first floor was divided into four sections, a kitchen with a fireplace that could double as an oven, a dining area, and two open areas that Taka intended to leave to Maylin and her sons to use as they needed.
A central pillar and four arches connected to it from each wall served to divide these rooms and support the floor above.
The crowd took a break for dinner, during which more than a handful of single women and men made increasingly overt romantic advances on Taka, to Genu’s obvious amusement, until he had his fill and shooed them away.
Taka took the moment of freedom to ask a question that had been itching at him.
“I haven’t seen Maylin or her boys since this morning? Do they know what we’re building?”
“Of course not,” Genu snapped an answer to the stupid question, “You think I’d give up the chance to see the surprised look on her face? Besides, if she knew we were building her a palace, she’d be harassing you to make it smaller this whole time. Never managed to teach her to take the gift she’s offered, instead of arguing she doesn’t deserve it.”
“So where is she? You don’t have them locked away do you?” Taka didn’t think that was likely, but Genu had pointed out his lack of subtlety hours ago, and that was before the entire village got involved.
“I wouldn’t be much of a village elder if I couldn’t keep a secret without resorting to imprisoning family. No, we had word from the fifth village that they needed a seedspeaker a week or so ago, after a cracked roof, a bit of rain, and mildew.” He gave Taka a meaningful look, reminding him of their earlier arguments about the importance of keeping water out of the grain supply.
“Not an emergency, but I may have implied otherwise to Maylin after I caught you in the granary. I even suggested she take the boys to keep their minds off what happened today. She shouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning, nightfall at the earliest, and that’s not likely since she won’t want to keep the boys up too late.”
Taka had to admit, that was a better solution than he would’ve thought of, even if he lived here and had that information. Pattina liked to tell him that he was as subtle as the flint he conjured, and she wasn’t wrong.
The second floor took shape even quicker than the first. It was split into four rooms like the level below, but with actual walls between them. Three were bedrooms, and the villagers furnished them as such, with a mishmash of whatever furniture and bedding they had to spare.
The last room was left for the family to use as needed. The only thing inside was the collection of personal effects Taka had salvaged from their previous home.
By the time the roof was formed and covered with slate tiles, everyone was exhausted. Taka received offers of hospitality from several sources, but he waved them away, choosing instead to set up his bedroll in the empty first floor room in the new house.
Repeatedly exhausting his own mana, helping with moving the larger pieces of furniture, and most of all, the constant stream of gratitude and questions from the entire village had wrung him out like a dishtowel. All he wanted now was to sleep until lunchtime tomorrow.
Genu ensured he didn’t get his wish.
“Get up you old layabout,” the village elder said, poking a walking stick into Taka’s gut. Running on well honed instinct, Taka conjured flint around an arm and used Stone Armor to form a wicked gauntlet, which he used to catch the walking stick before Genu could attack again.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Whuh, huh, what?” Taka said, calming the spike of fear and energy in his veins.
“Jumpy little thing, aren’t you?” Genu said, “But it comes with the job, I expect.” He tried to pull back his walking stick but it didn’t budge. “Mind letting go before you break my stick. Yuma made it for me. Don’t tell him, but I’m rather fond of it.”
It took a few laps around Taka’s groggy head before he understood and obeyed the request.
“What time is it?” Taka pulled himself from his bedroll and rolled it up before packing it into his dimensional bag.
“Don’t rightly know. But I’ve had little Nita watching the road to village 5 since dawn and she sounded the alarm. Maylin will be here any moment, and I figured you’d want to greet her standing up, instead of on the floor.”
“You thought right,” Taka said, his high vitality and endurance finally managing the job of waking him up. He thought a prayer of gratitude up to the goddess for the miracle of increased attributes which, even if they didn’t make him a morning person, gave him the ability to survive them.
He gathered himself with the dozens of excited villagers and his heart warmed at their expressions of appreciation and excitement. He’d stayed here a single day and night, but somehow this little collection of homes felt more like home than his estate.
“Here she comes!”
“Get the blindfolds!”
Taka raised his eyebrows as a gaggle of children swarmed Maylin’s wagon as it came round the corner. Though the two story home they’d built together had to be visible from the road, they wouldn’t have been able to make out much from that distance, and it seemed someone had come up with a plan to enhance the surprise.
“Alright, alright,” Maylin said, helping each of her sons put on their own blindfolds before affixing her own, “But one of you’s got to take the wagon to the granary. Can’t exactly drive like this.”
The ever mature Nita took the reins.
“No problem, LinLin, my mom has me drive all the time.”
“Keep the ride smooth. We picked up a guest in the back, and he’s still asleep. With the way he looked, it’d take the moon falling to earth to wake him, but better safe than sorry.”
Nita nodded and guided the large goat that pulled the wagon to the side of the hard packed earth that passed for a road before leaping off and following the other kids. She obviously had no intentions of taking the wagon anywhere before seeing Maylin react to her new house.
Dozens of hands grabbed onto whatever they could reach and dragged the three blindfolded people to stand in front of their new home. Maylin smiled at their antics while her boys squirmed and laughed. The younger of the two tripped on an unseen rock, and nearly fell, but was held up by the crowd around him.
Taka’s excitement was joined by a generous helping of nerves. What if they didn’t like it? What if they thought it was too big, too simple? He was hardly an architect and upon examination, the structure was closer to a warehouse than a true home?
Ignorant to Taka’s growing panic, Genu shooed away the excited children and took Maylin’s hand in his own.
“Maylin. I’m sure you suspected we were up to something.”
“When I left, sure. After getting to the fifth village and seeing their ‘emergency’, I knew.” She added air quotes to the word, emergency. Genu laughed and scratched the back of his head.
“I never was too good at bluffing, it’s how your grandmother won my hand in a game of Andawitch.”
Taka could practically hear Maylin rolling her eyes. Andawitch was a game involving tiles, bluffing, and, usually, gambling, which he was also very bad at.
“We were always going to rebuild your home, granddaughter, but thanks to our guest, we were able to build a home worthy of you. Seems he felt bad about knocking the last one down.”
The crowd chuckled, and Taka felt a blush rise in his cheeks.
Maylin huffed and turned to her right, away from Taka.
“I told you, you didn’t need to do anything. My boys are more important to me than some building.”
Yuma, who she was actually facing, put his hand to his chest and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, ‘who me?’. The crowd hooted and hollered.
“Are we getting a new house?” one of her sons asked, pulling on her sleeve.
“I want my own room!” her other son shouted while jumping up and down.
“Why don’t you take off those blindfolds and take a look?” Genu said. The kids ripped the blindfolds off, as if they’d become scotching hot and gasped at their enormous new home. Maylin took hers off slowly, and Taka’s anxiety spiked. When she saw the simple home he’d created, her mouth fell open.
“You should close that if you don’t want to catch bugs.” Genu reached out and pushed up on her chin. Maylin shook her head and slapped his hand away, but her glare melted when she looked back at her new home.
While her sons ran forward in a frenzy, Maylin floated forward, as if in a dream. Taka’s fear vanished, this moment crystallizing in Taka’s mind. His chest swelled with pride as Maylin reached the front door. Her hand reached up to cover her mouth and her eyes shone with unshed tears.
Like a bolt of lightning, the shutters on a second floor window burst open, drawing every eye. Maylin’s younger boy, his cheeks flush with exertion and excitement.
“There’s four rooms, so I can have two!”
The frozen moment shattered, and suddenly everyone was moving. A group of women, including Maylin’s sister, towed her inside and started showing her around. Taka jumped when a small hand slipped into his. He looked down to see Nita flashing him a smile.
“Grandpa Genu told me to get you. Don’t you want to see what you made?”
“What do you mean?,” Taka said, bemused, “I think I remember what I made.”
Nita shook her head and marched forward, forcing Taka to follow.
“You made a house. But now it's home.”
“How old are you? You sound older than my grandmother.”
Nita gave him a pointed look and tugged harder on his hand to make him move faster.
“My mom says I was born old, but all babies look like that when they come out.”
She pulled him up to the front door, dropped his hand, and pushed him from behind. Taka stumbled inside and froze as all the women looked over at him. One of the younger women, who’d been blatantly flirting with him at every opportunity, smirked at him. Her name, Koko, had stuck with him when so many others had left his head faster than a sinner left temple, simply due to how she’d pressed up against him as she’d said it, activating every one of his fight or flight reflexes.
“It’s the man of the hour. You should’ve seen him carrying boulders around like they were pebbles, such a big, strong man.”
She let out an irreverent purr that became a yelp when another woman slapped her.
“Leave him be. He’s a married man,” she gave Taka a pitying look, “Besides, if he blushes any harder, he’s likely to pass out.”
Taka winced and rubbed his nose, doing his best to hide his face.
Maylin eventually rescued him from his rescuer.
“They were just telling me that you added a small area for me to work, but I hadn’t seen it. Is it upstairs?”
“No ma’am,” Taka said, standing at attention, “It's down in the basement.”
Maylin did a double take.
“Basement? We don’t have a basement.”
“You do,” the pitying woman said, gesturing to the side door that led to the stairs, “I’m sure the Slayer will show you.”
“Well, Mr. slayer-,” Maylin started.
“Just Taka, please.”
Maylin gave him a considering look, but eventually nodded in agreement.
“Well, Taka, if you wouldn’t mind showing me the basement…”
As if performing a combat drill, Taka lept into action, opening the door and guiding the group inside.
Maylin’s hand traced the strata in the stone handrail as she descended.
“You must be a stone mage then, to have made all this.”
“Not a mage,” Taka corrected, “I don’t have the head for spellcraft. I’m just a brute with an earth manipulation skill and a bit of stubbornness.”
“Earth manipulation?” Maylin asked, eyebrows rising, “Not stone?”
“Like I said, I’m a bit stubborn.” Taka answered, doing his best to dodge any more questions about his abilities. Using general skill as a substitute for more specific ones was common enough, though it did require a certain degree of persistent practice.
He really didn’t consider himself to be anything special, just a slayer with a useful talent and enough experience with his abilities to make proper use of them. Anyone else with the advantages of time and money could’ve done the same or more.
Taka quickly found something to divert the conversation.
“Nita told me you were a seedspeaker and Genu helped me make some silos to hold the grain you need to work on.”
Maylin immediately shifted into a forthright professional, peaking into every inch of his silos, running a finger over the interior corners, and checking how smoothly they opened at the bottom.
Taka was intensely grateful he’d gotten Genu’s advice before showing them to her. When she got to the dishes he’d shaped from granite on a whim, she gave him a curious look.
“Did you make these?”
At Taka’s embarrassed nod, the women started passing them around and cooing.
“I’ll need a set of these?”
“My Jacy carved us some wooden plates, bless his heart, but I wouldn’t say no to a set that doesn’t stain.”
“How much for a pitcher like this?”
Swarmed with requests for dishes and offers of payment, Taka didn’t know how to respond. He certainly wasn’t taking any of these people’s money, but he’d intended to go and check up on Delsin as soon as he was finished here, and he’d already stayed so much longer than he’d planned.
Strangely enough though, he found he didn’t really want to leave. While he wasn’t fond of the crowding and attention, it was certainly preferable to the solemn deference or flowery language full of double-meanings he got at home. Pattina had scolded him on more than one occasion for his rudeness for refusing requests or incorrectly answering questions that Taka hadn’t even realized had been asked of him. He was a straightforward man, and it was refreshing to be around straightforward people.
“Leave the man alone, I’m sure he’s tired after all the work he’s done,” Maylin said, going around to retrieve each dish that was being examined and returning them to the shelves.
“Easy for you to say, you’ve got a new house, and what have I got?” asked the woman who was apparently married to the carpenter, Jacy.
“You’ve got a lovely home, a beautiful daughter, and a husband that loves you.”
“Well, I don’t have a husband.”
“Halona, your wife is more useful than any man in this village,” said Maylin.
“I don’t know,” Koko said, reluctantly handing over the bowl she’d taken, “I can think of one man that might be useful, and I don’t have a husband.” She gave Taka a shamelessly seductive glance, and might’ve said more, but Maylin was having none of it.
“You’ve had more marriage offers than the rest of us combined. It’s your own shattered fault no one was ever good enough for you.”
Koko stretched to her full height, half a head taller than Maylin.
“Oh, so I suppose you’re gonna swoop in and keep all the dishes for yourself in your big, fancy house?”
“I believe we’ve already established that the dishes are already taken.”
“Well, you already had your chance with your last dish. Not my fault it ended up shattered.”
“At least I haven’t eaten off every loose dish within 10 miles.”
All the other women were glancing back and forth between Koko and Maylin, like they were kicking a ball back and forth.
Taka was very confused.
“I can make more dishes, just need to get more granite, and that’s not a problem.”
“Of course you can sweety,” one of the women said, patting him on the arm. Taka didn’t like the looks he was getting from all the women. Half were pained, like he was a child too stupid to understand basic math. The others were giving him looks too similar to Koko for his taste.
“I’ll go get started on that,” Taka said, eager to escape. He ascended the staircase and did his best to ignore the giggles.
The first floor was even busier than the basement, as half the village admired their handiwork, as if they hadn’t seen every inch of the building before Maylin had arrived. The slapping of sandals preceded Maylin’s two sons flying down the staircase. When they saw him, they flew toward him. Taka wasn’t sure what to expect, but each of the kids slammed into one of his legs and wrapped themselves around it like a pair of Burdocks, a common and annoying plant monster that releases seeds that stick to anything and siphon away mana.
“We each have two rooms!” shouted the older one.
“I want three rooms!” shouted the younger. Taka realized that, despite building them a house, he still hadn’t gotten their names.
“My name’s Taka, what’s yours?”
“He’s Aiden.”
“He’s Lenno.” Clearly these boys spent a lot of time together.
“And what would you like to say to Mr. Taka?” Maylin said as she came through the door to the basement.
“Thank you, Mr. Taka,” they chorused in unison. Lenno, the older of the two, raised his hand, as if he was in class.
“Do you have a question, Lenno?” Taka asked with a smile.
“That Deselin guy is your apprentice, right?”
Taka made a note in his interface to use the kids name for Delsin at the next opportunity.
“Close, Delsin is my partner.”
“Alright, so why does Dugdude hate leaves so much?”
“What?”
He heard a thudding sound outside, followed by a commotion. Rushing to the door, Taka didn’t know what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t Delsin, covered in ash and dried blood, picking himself up from where he’d fallen off Maylin’s wagon. His eyes were frantic, darting around the crowd until they found Taka.
“Leaves!” Delsin shouted, stumbling toward him, “So many leaves. Who needs them?” He dragged a large sack behind him, made from his old cloak. It was poorly made, and leaked out the occasional leaf.
“No one needs leaves, unless you’re making salad, and no one likes salad.”
Taka noticed quite a few men in the crowd nodding in agreement. He would’ve smiled and agreed along with them, if he wasn’t so worried about what had happened to his partner.
Delsin collapsed when he reached him, and Taka dropped to his knees beside the man.
“I did it, sir. I killed the Leaflings.” The slayer’s panting breaths were nearly sobs. “But never again.”
Taka took a moment to identify one of the leaves that had fallen from the sack to confirm it was a dead monster, rather than an ordinary leaf.
* Leafling Corpse (Common)
* Level: 2
* Condition: Good
* Description: The corpse of a leafling, a plant affinity monster with blade and teleportation abilities. This corpse is a moderately useful alchemical substance, but is most prized for its internal fibers, which can be spun into thread with various magical properties.
“You did well, Delsin,” Taka said, patting the man on the head. Taka had sent the kid out to be humbled, but he’d never imagined he’d break down to this point without calling for help.
A creeping suspicion crawled up from Taka’s stomach and he hesitantly opened his messages. A flashing dot beside Delsin’s name indicated unread messages from the man, right beside an icon that indicated the alerts had been silenced.
Taka flashed back to this morning, gathering stones, when he’d been irritated by his partner’s constant updates.
“Shatter me,” Taka swore, before hesitantly opening the messages. There were too many to read all of them now, so he skimmed for the highlights.
Delsin: “First contact with the enemy. Expect I’ll be heading back within the hour.”
Delsin: “These are nasty little buggers. Might need a bit longer. Will keep you updated.”
Delsin: “Healing potions low, please advise.”
Delsin: “Do we need this forest? Can’t hide in the leaves if there aren’t any.”
Delsin: “What would you- OH BREECH, NOT MY- Stop transcribing. Don’t-SHATTER ALL OF YOU- Send.”
Delsin: “Can the Pulse skill be used to push away smoke?”
Delsin: “Nevermind. It can’t.”
Taka looked between the messages, the dead Leaflings, and the ash and blood all over Delsin’s clothing.
If that forest was standing and unscorched when he checked on it, he’d eat his dimensional bag.
He couldn’t help it. He shouldn’t.
He laughed. He laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe, and his ribs started to ache. Surprisingly, after a bit of grumbling that Taka graciously ignored, Delsin let out a few chuckles of his own.