Why did Snowhill not build irrigation facilities? They had tried. But the Allos River was deep for its width, and its current was extremely swift. The channels they had painstakingly dug quickly collapsed under the force of the water.
Could they not buy stone from the dwarves and make them sturdy?
It took a great deal of money and manpower—to cut and move the stone, dig the earth to open waterways, and stack the stones.
Then how had they built their other stone structures?
The lord’s castle, which was not particularly large, was both a castle and, at the same time, a small industrial complex with foundational facilities such as a forge. It had been well worth building.
The same went for the harbor. There were merchant ships that came to buy bilberries and fishing boats that caught fish, so they had built a stone harbor to meet that demand.
Irrigation facilities, on the other hand, offered no guarantee that farming would succeed even after they were built.
Even in summer, the temperature was far lower than on the continent, so if the plants grew even a little late, winter would arrive before the harvest and kill them all.
Moreover, crops were already coming in to some extent through merchant ships.
In other words, there had been no reason to go out of their way to waste labor, time, and money building irrigation facilities.
But after the zombie outbreak, the number of merchant ships gradually dwindled until they stopped coming entirely, making irrigation facilities necessary. They were in a situation where they had to try farming anything they could.
However, they were barely scraping by as it was, growing potatoes and catching fish. They were in no position to buy stone from the dwarves, haul it over, cut it, dig the earth, and stack the stones.
But with the kiln the dwarves had built for them, they were now able to make bricks. That meant they could skip the process of moving and cutting stone. On top of that, stacking bricks produced in uniform sizes was far easier.
“So I’m thinking of trying to build irrigation facilities.”
The baroness said as much to Dawi in her office.
“…I see.”
Dawi did not understand why she was telling him this.
Dawi did not know it, but he had gained a great deal of favor with the baroness. Enough that she thought of him not as a trading partner, but as someone with whom she had a personal friendship.
When Dawi first brought the dwarves, the baroness had thought he would be angry.
After all, they had deceived him by saying they were his only trading partner and had signed an exclusive contract with him.
But Dawi had kept faith.
He did not trade with the dwarves separately, and passed the corn along with the baronial family in between.
And those dwarves had laid a road for them.
Meanwhile, the resources the baronial family had spent amounted to a few sacks of salt and garlic, along with wine and jam made from bilberries that grew all over the estate.
Dawi had even understood that the baronial family did not produce much salt or garlic, and had first suggested bilberry wine and jam as items of exchange.
The baroness had received reports on how the dwarves spoke of Dawi, and she came to know that, thanks to Dawi, their relationship with the dwarves—which had recently been souring over food trade—had rapidly improved.
What Dawi had said could be summarized in a single line.
‘Survival is symbiosis. The baronial family and I are in a symbiotic relationship, beings who live together.’
Of course, Dawi had not said it with that meaning in mind, but in any case, that was how it sounded to the baroness.
From the baroness’s perspective, Dawi had generously understood even after being subjected to a fraudulent contract, exchanged his corn for mere bilberries—almost as if donating it—and even improved their relationship with the dwarves.
‘And when we fought the wolf pack before, he helped the knights, saying, “If I saw it, then of course I have to help”…’
The baroness thought Dawi sincerely regarded them as being in a symbiotic relationship, and had willingly accepted losses for the sake of her family.
‘Though the aftereffects of war have damaged his mind… he was originally a person of upright character. Then again, perhaps it was precisely because he had such character that the stress of war was harder for him to endure.’
To the baroness, Dawi was no longer a “former military mage with a mental disorder,” but “a pitiable mage who bore the pain of war.”
At the same time, her perception changed so that the baronial family and Dawi’s ranch were not in a transactional relationship, but in an equal, symbiotic one.
And so, for the baroness, this moment was not time spent trading with Dawi, but time spent building friendship by discussing this and that with someone who lived in symbiosis with them.
“Once the irrigation facilities are built, I’m thinking of planting the crops from the garden that might endure here.”
“Yes… I see.”
“But we don’t have enough seeds or planting stock. We only grew them in the garden… and there’s nowhere else to obtain more.”
“You must have a lot on your mind…”
“That stone icehouse you mentioned—we’re thinking of making one too and using it starting next winter.”
“I see…”
It was now the season when spring was arriving.
After confirming that the ice on the lake had begun to melt, Dawi had come to obtain clothes to wear in spring, only to end up listening to the baroness talk for quite some time.
A while later, Dawi loaded the clothes onto the wagon and returned to his ranch.
With the road now made, it was a new wagon Dawi had asked the baronial family to build for him.
It was a wagon with a large cargo bed, focused more on transport than travel.
The strong Malmari pulled the wagon forward with vigor.
***
After confirming that the wooden latches on the house, stable, ranch, and stone icehouse were securely fastened, Dawi led Malmari down the mountain.
Today, Dawi was not heading to the Snowhill estate, but to the plains he had passed through before.
“It would be nice if I could find horses or cows…”
The purpose of this journey was to find new livestock.
Dawi packed nets, ropes, and the like in order to catch animals that could serve as livestock.
(Of course, these were things he had bought through trade with the baronial family.)
After descending completely from the Allos Mountains, Dawi saw the plains for the first time in a very long while.
And zombies as well.
“Guuuuuh!”
Bang!
The zombie charged at Dawi when it saw him, only to die with its head pierced by buckshot.
On the plains below the mountains, zombies had begun appearing here and there before he knew it.
“Before, they were all inside the castle… Did they end up leaving the castle because of me?”
Zombies that were not gathered in groups were not all that threatening compared to the wild animals of the Allos Mountains.
Dawi slowly dealt with the zombies as he explored the plains.
Unfortunately, however, he could not find any horses or cows.
“Was this a wasted trip…”
Just as Dawi was about to return to the ranch, he saw a castle in the distance.
It was the castle he had gone to before, the one that had become a zombie den.
Dawi led Malmari toward that place again.
Of course, the castle was not his destination. Dawi remembered that a wide wheat field stretched out in front of the castle, with farmhouses scattered here and there.
“Wow, it’s already been months since I almost died back then?”
Arriving at the wheat field, Dawi recalled the memory of that time.
The wheat field he reached after so long had passed through winter, and all the wheat stalks had fallen over.
But unlike Snowhill, perhaps thanks to the dry winter, the grains had not rotted.
(The moisture carried by the cold northern winds had dumped heavy snow onto the Allos Mountains, and after crossing the mountains, the wind had become cold and dry.)
Many birds were still pecking grains from the wheat field, and he could even see bird nests here and there.
Dawi began searching the farmhouses.
Perhaps there might be a farmhouse that had raised at least one cow.
Perhaps that cow might have miraculously survived until now.
He searched with that hope.
“Ugh… Uegh!”
But Dawi only found cows that had been trapped in their pens and starved to death. He did not find a single healthy cow.
After searching the farmhouses for quite some time like that,
Dawi opened the door to a place that looked like an old shed.
There were no sounds of cows or horses at all, so he had long since given up any expectation of finding livestock.
“I wonder if there are any useful tools, at least…”
Bang!
Dawi opened the shed door.
Then white feathers fluttered through the air.
Flap-flap-flap-flap!
“Hooooonk!”
“Quack quack quack quack!!”
Several geese and ducks burst out of the shed, crying noisily.
“J-Jackpot…!!”
Strangely enough, the geese and ducks were flapping around Dawi, and some of them were biting at his pants.
Dawi carefully looked inside.
This place was not an old shed, but a pen where ducks and geese had been raised.
Hay was piled high on one side, and wheat husks were scattered here and there.
In one corner, there was a space separated by walls and a door. The door was broken open, and plant stalks that looked like harvested crops were spilling out from within.
When Dawi went inside and took a closer look, they were harvested rye and barley.
Thanks to the dry climate, they had lasted until now without spoiling.
And because the door had broken, the geese and ducks had survived by eating them.
Dawi remembered the baroness saying she had no crops to plant.
‘I can just take some of this with me, can’t I?’
Dawi picked them up and stuffed them into Malmari’s saddlebags, then piled a great deal on his back as well and tied them down.
The geese and ducks quacked as they followed Dawi around.
‘At this rate, I don’t need to catch them and take them with me, do I…?’
If there was one problem, it was that they kept snapping at Dawi’s pants.
Dawi went back into the pen to see if there was anything else worth taking, and the geese and ducks filed in after him.
“Hmm… Doesn’t look like there’s anything more useful… Hm?”
Just then, an old water bucket caught Dawi’s eye.
The water inside had been stagnant for so long that an unpleasant smell was rising from it.
“Ugh, looks like the water’s gone bad… Wait, could it be?”
Dawi went outside the pen and searched the surroundings for a well.
Nearby, he found a well covered with a wooden board as a lid.
Dawi removed the lid, lowered the attached bucket, drew water, and set it down on the ground.
Then the geese and ducks rushed over and began gulping down the water.
“Quack quack quack quack!”
After drinking for quite some time, shoving one another and making a fuss as they fought to get at the water,
the geese and ducks scattered here and there, picking up grains that had fallen in the wheat field and catching insects to eat.
“Is there no way to take them all with me…”
After pondering for a while, Dawi went back into the old pen.
Then he came out carrying a small wooden basin that seemed to have been used as a feed bowl.
At that, the geese and ducks quacked and gathered in front of Dawi. Seeing Dawi holding the feed bowl, they had flocked to him in expectation of food.
“That does it! Malmari, let’s go!”
Dawi began heading back, leading the geese and ducks just like that.
Whenever the creatures tried to scatter, he pulled out a bundle of rye and shook it, or shook the feed bowl, and they gathered again.
If they still did not come, he plucked off some of the corn kernels, rye, or barley grains he had brought and put them into the feed bowl, and they flocked back to eat.