Volume 2 Chapter 5.2

Chapter 5.2

Translator: Einbedo

Editor: Weasalopes

“Would ya lookie here, either my eyes are playin’ tricks on me or I’m seein’ a wee lass, sweet as a pea, tendin’ to the crop.”

“Ya don’t get to see that every day, now do ya?”

“‘Tis times like these that make me wanna thank the lord for not lettin’ these ol’ bones of mine to wither away quite yet.”

Haruna let out a stifled laugh at the vocal admiration thrown her way by the elven folk who were tending to their crop. ‘Sweet as a pea’ implied her being on the cute side of the beauty spectrum which, in a vacuum, could be seen as a pure hearted compliment, if not for the fact that it came out of the mouths from members of a race unanimously known for their childishly pure complexions, and the fact that they were all lecherous old hags deep down.

“If that wasn’t heartwarmin’ enough, this one’s an experienced cook, she is.”

“One that doesn’t shy away from incorporatin’ some of the more, how should I put it, visually repulsive local produce in her repertoire.”

“There be no such thing as bad ingredients, only bad cooks.”

Haruna, having carefully picked out her words, cordially thanked them. Had she tickled their fancy with an overly enthusiastic response further teasing would have ensued.

“Have ya ever considered weddin’ anyone from the village?”

“Malga’s boyo’s still a bachelor.”

“So is Addo’s.”

“Senegal’s wifey disappeared without a trace after hearin’ out their revelation.”

Even the highly conservative rural elf communities had trouble sufficiently enticing the female population to marry into a bunch of farmhands. Haruna, not wanting to linger on a depressing reality of the rural lifestyle, interjected.

“Will you be thinning these out?”

“Hmm, well ’tis hard to say at this point in taim but I suppose doin’ so wouldn’t hurt.”

“Will this grow into a healthy crop even if not immediately planted?”

“Depends heavily on the temperature and soil quality but not to the extent that it’d only survive under the most ideal of conditions.”

“In that case may I take those off your hands?”

They were caught completely off guard by Haruna’s abrupt request.

“‘Tis no skin off our backs but what do ya plan on usin’ ’em for? If ya don’t mind me askin’.”

“Once we’ve finished our business here we’ll be taking a few experts on Lars wheat back to Wulls to share said expertise, so I figured we may as well make use of our test garden while we’re at it.”

“Fair enuff. I s’ppose ya will be wantin’ as much we can spare?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

The elves began poring over their supply of thinned out plantlings, selectively picking out all the nicer looking ones.

“How’s this look?”

“That’ll be plenty. Thank you so very much.”

“Don’t mention it. If ya hadn’t taken ’em off our hands they’d either be rottin’ in the garbage or be startin’ off a new life as fertilizer. I’m sure they’re the ones who’re the most grateful.”

“Won’t they have wilted away by the time ya get there?”

“We’ve got teleportation stones on hand so that’s a non-issue.”

The elves winced at the mention of teleportation stones. Even they were aware what a commodity tp stones were and yet Haruna was fully intent on using them all willy-nilly like as if it was no big deal.

“Teleportation stones, ya say?”

“Are ya sure there’s not a more practical use for it?”

“I appreciate the concern but if we ever were to run out we’ll just have Hiroshi prepare another batch.”

They were left completely dumbfounded at the reveal.

“The boy’s one ‘eck of a talented kid, ain’t ‘e?”

“You can say that again. I don’t believe you’d find a single craftsman better than Hiroshi at what he does even if you were to search the entire globe.”

“Mortifyin’.”

“Ya took the words right outta my mouth.”

“I’d say you were being overly dramatic but in this case that’s kind of to be expected.”

Haruna evaluated their reactions and deemed them to be perfectly reasonable. Expecting anyone to take the info at face value was a fool’s errand – Hiroshi was but a human and a fairly young one at that, on a pure numbers basis the hours he could’ve physically put into crafting were meager compared to that of other, longer lived races.

“Oh, and another thing.”

“Aye?”

“We were thinking about setting up a teleportation circle in this here village, how do you all feel about that?”

“Teleportation circle, you say?”

“Do we even really need one?”

With just two words a disturbance was caused. The rural elven community might’ve been simple, honest folk but even they weren’t unaware of the potential damage a teleportation circle could do to their village. The only reason they were able to protect themselves from outside treats was because their village was cleverly located in the middle of god knows where in the southern forest, which was massive in scale. Tp stones and Tp circles essentially nullified the one thing they had going for them.

Tp stones they were willing to let slide – they only allowed for so much carrying capacity, getting ahold of one was no small task and, to top it all off, they were classified as a consumable. No one in their right mind would ever think to execute an all-out attack plan with just tp stones and even if they did, so long as the line-up of baddies weren’t too ridiculously powerful, elves could handle them with relative ease.

As for Tp circles all of those aforementioned downsides were inapplicable. Granted while they didn’t allow for the simultaneous transportation of a large number of people like teleportation gates did, they did, however, allow a potentially infinite amount of people to teleport to a designed location just by using up a fraction of their mp and they could bring along whatever extra equipment they needed, so long as it fit nicely, along with them.

What most concerning to the villagers was that the tp circle, unlike tp stones, allowed people who had never even been physically present in that particular space to easily make their way over.

“Well I never really expected you all to blindly accept without being provided with all the fine details.”

“Ya had us worried there for a moment.”

“The teleportation circle will lead into our workshop, that way we’ll be able to port over whatever personnel and equipment we need for the cultivation of Lars wheat and it’ll be useful for the occasional recreational visit. We could just use teleportation stones to the same effect but that feels needlessly wasteful and inconvenient.”

“It would certainly be nice ta have easy access to Wull’s…”

“Is there any chance of your so called workshop bein’ taken over and used as a gateway for stormin’ our village?”

“This whole area would fall before anybody got their hands on our workshop.”

Haruna stated with an air of unwavering certainty. For one if Azuma workshop was ever to be taken over that would signify a foreign force overthrowing the royal family. Secondly some serious firepower would be needed in order to break through the workshop’s defenses, the kind that could only reasonably be afforded by Barold and his associates and by the time they got there the entirety of Farlane would’ve already been infested with miasma. The village’s feng shui was directly connected to that of Wull’s, so naturally if Wull’s fell, the village would fall alongside it.

“Also by playing around with the settings a bit it’s possible to block off access to anyone attempting to use the circle without our explicit permission.”

“Fair enuff but what if someone was to overwrite those settins, hypothethically speakin’?”

“Well for that hypothethical scenario to occur the one doing the overwriting would have to have an army large enough to crush Farlane’s knight order, get past the workshop’s security and, not to mention, they themselves would have to possess enough technical expertise to rival the world’s greatest craftsman. If all of these factors happen to somehow come together your village would be in certain peril regardless of whether there’s access to a teleportation circle or not.”

“That be so?”

“There’s only one group capable of pulling something as grandiose, as far as I’m aware, and they’d be much more likely to start off by contaminating the entire nation’s feng shui before taking any other action.”

Haruna declared remembering Barold’s immense physical and magical combat capabilities. Judging from his overall demeanor it was fair to assume that he was undoubtedly close to the bottom of the food chain within the group. At best possibly a project leader, at worst an overseer but either which way even someone as small, in the grand scheme of things, as him was powerful enough to singlehandedly lay waste to a city around the size of Wull’s. If more than one of him were to attempt to overtake the workshop there would be a good chance they might just succeed.

However if they were truly out to contaminate Farlane’s feng shui and wreak general havoc on the country they could’ve easily done so by now multiple times over, but they didn’t. That could only lead to the conclusion that they had other, more grandiose plans in mind that necessitated an oddly convoluted way of approaching things.

“It’s just that even the groups weakest members are powerful enough to singlehandedly lay waste to at least of couple of towns, so if they came at us with the intent of taking over no matter the cost, there’d probably be nothing stopping them from doing just that.”

“Freaks like that exist?”

“Well we’ve cleared out the ones in Wull’s but they were all bottom feeders.”

“If what ya be sayin’ is true ya must be real powerful.”

“The whole reason we’re here is to gain further leads on the group.”

They turned to one another to see how they all felt about the issue. They knew that Haruna wasn’t the kind of person to lie in such an unbelievable manner and they knew for a fact that Hiroshi’s craftsmanship far exceeded what would be expected from someone his age but the scope of their story was simply too grand for simple farm folk to make a definitive choice.

“This ain’t a decision for us to make, regrettably.”

“We’ll try an’ talk things through with the village mayer and the other elders.”

“Take all the time you need, no worries. We can discuss this once me and the group get back from Aranwen’s temple.”

They nodded in agreement and went right back to what they were doing. The fact that they were able to seamlessly transition from serious conversation to cracking dirty jokes on the spot, at seemingly the snap of a finger, made Haruna realize just how painfully set in their less than admirable ways the villagers really and truly were.