The group gathered around the fire pit and sat down on the fragrant grass watching a large fish being grilled slowly, but Arthur looked around himself in wonder. Mei was cheerfully chatting with Jonathan, but Banban was nowhere in sight. “Where is your pet Mei? Did it escape?”
“Banban let me know that it had to get something very important and would be back soon.”
“I just hope it won’t try catchin’ us off guard again…” Caleb muttered on the side quietly and shut his mouth when Mei looked at him ferociously.
“If it tries anything funny, I’m sure Nick would love to play with him again.” Jonathan hooked his arm confidently around Nick’s shoulder while the latter chuckled embarrassedly.
Arthur looked at the small pile of fish beside the fire, and felt gratified. Nick and Mei said that they didn’t even get a nibble from the sea, while Jonathan was constantly pulling fish with his crude fishing rod. It almost seemed like he was born to be loved by the sea.
Mei vividly told how the waves seemed to soothe just as Jonathan sat down calmly on a large rock and threw the fishing line to the sea. Nick went as far as saying it was more like a performance where the sea and Jonathan danced in the tune of waves.
Arthur made a mental note to himself to go fishing next time with Jonathan to see it happen himself.
Caleb was in charge of grilling the fish and he enthusiastically flipped it over the fire, leaving Arthur quietly lamenting about the fact that he was never too much into eating seafood.
With zero knowledge on how to cook or process fish, he just kept quiet and let others try to figure it out for him. While the atmosphere was amicable and harmonious, a small rustling of grass sounded from some distance away.
“Banban! You are back!” Mei cheerfully jumped around.
Nick muttered quietly something about how one can be so childish when they seemed to be approximately the same age. Arthur paid attention to the mutterings and wondered how old the people around him were. Making some quick estimates, he guessed that Nick and Mei would be around 20-21 years old, Caleb and Sinde seemed around his age and Jonathan was clearly the oldest, most likely nearing his fifties.
The group looked at the green groyote coming from afar. It seemed to carry something in its mouth.
As Banban came closer, Mei could see that the groyote was carrying two small pups with it.
“It has puppies!” With childish joy, Mei excitedly ran to Banban and led them to the group.
Gently lowering the puppies on the ground, Banban pleadingly looked at the berries that lay next to the fishes.
Arthur saw this and picked up the berries. “What’s so special about these berries? Some kind of delicacy?”
“I’m not sure but I think Banban is trying to tell me that the cubs need them to grow up healthy.” Mei answered with hesitation and extended her arm. “I don’t think we need a few unknown berries and the cubs clearly want them.” Blinking her eyes in a pitiful manner, Arthur couldn’t stand it and shoved the berries in her hand quickly.
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While Mei was happily feeding the berries to the cubs, Arthur awkwardly shuttled next to Caleb and started to put more wood into the fire.
“Lead, whachya thinkin? You look a little pale.” Caleb poked Arthur with a small, unnoticeable shove with his elbow and whispered.
“Nah, I’m good. For a moment I thought that Mei was someone I used to know, the pitiful act was uncanny.” Scratching his slightly unkempt beard, Arthur answered honestly.
Caleb took a long whiff, and smacked his lips. “Don’t worry bout’ it lead, eat up n you’ll feel better.’’ He eyed the roasted fish for a moment and felt that it was about to be ready.
“Heh, thanks man.” Arthur said with a wry smile on his face. ‘Yeah, it’s in the past. All these people are good people, even Nick. Listening to him, he’s not even saying “Yah” so I’d imagine he gets like ‘that’ only when he’s excited.’
With a lightened mood, Arthur grabbed the roasted fish cooked by Caleb and thought for a moment on how he wanted to start his village expansion.
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Since everyone was gathered, he took a light bite of the fish, chewed properly and cleared his throat loudly after swallowing.
Getting the attention from the group, Arthur introduced the quest he received to upgrade the settlement to a village, his personal plan and vision on how it should look.
He went on to ask about the opinions and suggestions for quite a while, until Jonathan stopped him, kindly reminding that he shouldn’t be fixated on the details just yet.
“So that’s the general idea. As far as I can tell, we will be getting new residents every day the same way you all came here. These new residents need to be taught the things from scratch, so are there any volunteers to help them get started?” Arthur looked around and asked.
With a brief silence, everyone was looking at each other and shaking their heads.Seeing that nobody was up for the task, Arthur asked why and felt kind of stupid.
“Shouldn’t you as settlement leader welcome the new population at least for now? When the settlement grows, it’s understandable that other people would take over that task, but for now I think it would be best that you do it.” Jonathan said slowly and unclearly while munching on a piece of roasted fish.
“Ah, fine… But please do me a favor. In the future, could you try speaking when you don’t have a mouth full of food? Manners, people, manners…” Resigned to his fate as a guide, Arthur made up his mind to teach proper etiquette.
Yes, it had been bothering him for a while. While these people were genuine and down to earth, they had no idea on mannerisms or customs. Just before starting to grill the food, Arthur had to stop Sinde and gather everyone for a lecture. It seemed so obvious for him to not piss where they eat, but nobody else seemed to be bothered about Sinde taking a leak just meters from the fire pit.
‘I can’t believe that I, of all people, have to teach personal hygiene and mannerisms. Where has this world come to…’ With a hopeless sigh, Arthur had gone on to explain the benefits and health issues of good hygiene. While he knew that he wasn’t the prime example of a neat freak, he couldn’t help but to preach about health hazards and risks of bad hygiene. As the finale of his lecture, he designated a spot far away from the summoning portal and the small stream of water as the toilet area.
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The dinner was over, leaving everyone satisfied and full of energy. Arthur and the others sat in a circle around the firepit, savoring the crispy taste of their food.
Even Banban and the cubs had their share of the dinner, and comfortably relaxed with the others.
At first it had been slightly awkward, with Nick staring at the groyote greedily but after he had his fill of the food and chatting joyfully with Sinde, the ferocity of his expression had been reverted to the usual friendly grin.
Arthur could see the cohesiveness of the group was getting better when people took the initiative to pat and play with the cubs, and Banban licked Caleb’s face after he had placed a freshly grilled fish in front of it.
Arthur turned to look over the horizon with a content smile on his face, and saw the sun slowly moving towards the great mountain range.
After realizing that there would be only a few hours before the sun set, he stood up, patted the dust off his bottom. “Alright folks, I think we should get the building started. There’s still sunlight left.”
The construction of small huts were astonishingly quick. After all; extra five pairs of hands with clear instructions from the system construction made it so. At the beginning of the construction there was confusion as the group looked at the designated spot for the foundation and materials to arrange themselves. Arthur explained clearly that they just needed to assemble the parts.
A few hours passed quickly and a row of small huts had been built in a semi circular manner. Some of the huts were destined to be empty tonight, but they would soon find their resident.
During the building, Arthur repeatedly stressed that the buildings in the future must have some space in between them in case there was an uncontrollable fire and there would be room for some alleyways. The embryonic form of a village was slowly starting to form around the summoning portal.
Arthur looked proudly at the wide, open space leading towards the sea. Separating the eight huts split with four on the left side and four on the right side, he estimated that the space for the main road would be somewhere around nine to ten meters wide.
After some consideration he decided that between the first row of huts and the summoning portal he could have an open plaza later on, but for now the space could be used for essentials.