Chapter 598: Be yourself
“Southern……countries?”
“Yeah. You don’t know anything about oceans”
“……What’s that?”
I’m going to invite Beatrice to join me on my departure southwards. Of course I want the elves and Emma to broaden their horizons, but the person who should broaden their horizons the most is the young Beatrice, who will be the one to guide Kalwin in the future.
“You haven’t even seen the desert”
“What’s a desert……I mean, stop just putting words together that you don’t understand and not explaining them”
“The sea……is a place where the water extends as far as the eye can see. It’s not like a river or something on that level, it’s just water to the point where you can’t see a bit of soil under or around the water. Also it’s salty”
“……I don’t understand what you mean”
“I suppose so”
I knew there was a landscape like that in the pictures too, but I can’t say I could imagine it until I saw it in person.
“The desert is a sand version of that. There are places where there’s nothing but sand for miles and miles”
“……Sounds boring”
“……It might not be interesting”
It’s a bit hard to be cut down to one word. It’s the highlight of tourism in Celesta, after all.
“Ho, there are other towns with tens of thousands of inhabitants and forests as rich as the forests in the north……you should come too”
“Why?”
“……No, you see, it would be good for the future of Kalwin to know about that sort of thing, wouldn’t it?”
“……I think Brian or High Priest Duke or someone will do the hard stuff, don’t you? Maybe what Brian expects me to do is, like, policing the people and stuff like that……”
She’rs aware that she’s more of a no-brainer. Even in ordinary countries, the higher you get, the more blurred the difference between power and force becomes and the more people want to be on top of others, even though they are idiots. I’m not saying that I’m familiar with that, but it’s something that Dianne and 100-man special duty commander Becker often say. No, that’s just it. It’s a shame that a woman from a country where you didn’t have the opportunity to study much, in your mid-teens, would underestimate the direction you’re going in.
“When I say that young people like you can be nurtured for the future, I don’t mean that in the narrowest sense. You never know what talents might blossom one day. Ten or twenty years from now, you don’t know what phase the country will be in, who will be lacking, who will be carrying what burden. We need as many people as possible in that country who know all kinds of things and can think about how they want to build the country”
“……You claim to be a blacksmith, but at times like this you talk like you know a lot”
“Uh……”
Well, it may be a bit lofty for me to say. To be honest, I still only have a vague understanding of politics. You’re pretending to know a lot, aren’t you? Just as I was cowering, Neia came to my rescue.
“It’s not something you want to learn and make boring theories about, Beatrice”
“……Wh, What, I’m not……”
“You don’t like not being able to speak the language, do you?”
“……Ah, I’m not smart enough to learn outside languages as quickly as you, I’m not!”
Ah, that’s the biggest obstacle. It’s true that it’s a hassle to have to translate every single time.
“I don’t learn because I don’t try to speak in the first place”
“What do you expect me to speak if I don’t understand?”
“You have to come across something you don’t understand yourself and twist your head to understand it right away. It’s the same as in martial arts. If you avoid it, you won’t learn anything. That’s why sonic shooting is also……”
“I, I can do that one now!”
Oh, she can now use shockwaves. Even though the void is still unstable. That’s a former hero.
“It’s not at the level of being usable with that thing. You have to take a deep breath and swing it as hard as you can”
“I’ve never shot anything before, so it’s no wonder!”
“If you wanted to try, you could have done it at any time. If you don’t have that kind of ambition, you will be left behind in the ever-changing world of Kalwin”
“Ugh……”
“That’s why, Smithson-san. Lets take her”
“Is Neia going with you?”
“Of course. There is no particular reason why she should stay in Polka. But if Beatrice is going to stay, we can’t just leave her alone”
Neia smiles happily. ……She no longer has that fragile feeling that she might fall off somewhere someday. She’s probably just looking forward to the trip.
“Alright then, you two are confirmed”
I nod and stand up.
The other people I’m going to hit are the cat beasts.
“Luna, have you heard?”
“The three Maple sisters aren’t leaving because they’re not conceived. Marone and Cute too”
“I don’t mind them just going to see their families”
“It’s hard once you’ve made up your mind. There aren’t many people from my aunt’s generation over here”
“Ah……that’s true”
The fact that there are only young people here may be a comforting aspect, but it is also a hardship. Soldiers can’t go home easily once they start living in the barracks, so after a while they start missing their parents’ homes. I was away from my parents when I was a child, so it wasn’t so bad for me. Especially when it comes to meals, they probably have a hard time because they don’t have a housewife who is used to housework. The food here should be good, but it’s hard to find hearty Celesta-style monster meat dishes……and even if we’re not being that extravagant, it’s hard to recreate the flavors of normal food from your hometown on your own. Apart from that, there’s no one to rely on or depend on……that’s also a tough place.
“I wonder if it would be possible to build an exclusive accommodation……or a communal area, or something like that, over here so that the cat beasts could live more comfortably”
“Over here?”
“The reason why everyone in the cat beast colony doesn’t go outside the colony is largely because they don’t have a place to live outside, right? They don’t just come to my place to have children, but to gradually build a foundation here, so that they can bring the whole culture of the colony with them……”
“You’re talking about difficult things……”
“No, it’s not that it’s difficult……it’s just that I think it would be easier for the cat beasts to live here if we could recreate the cat beast colony in a more complete way”
“I think it would be nice to do something like that at some point, but I think Polka has too many things going on together at the moment. Maybe we can wait and see how things go a bit more as they are now”
“Ah……yeah, I see that too”
Polka now has too many things going on, including contact with the elves, leverage from the various merchant associations to advance this, support for Kalwin immigration……and the acceptance of drug patients from Lapal and the annual visit of the crossbow corps. So far there has been no friction, but if any of these issues were to come together, it would create a lot of difficulties in cooperation. It’s probably best not to use Polka any more on a whim at the moment.
“I mean, you’ve finally got some free time, so don’t keep getting involved in weird stuff, I’d like you to be more patient with me”
Luna said this a little sulking and climbed onto my lap. By the way, the location was the hidden hot spring. It’s not like I wanted to do anything in secret or anything, but Luna begged me to join her.
“Andy said it was work, so I became a soldier too. I don’t have any more orders for the time being, so you can take your time and concentrate on me and the female slaves. It’s good that you’re thinking about the colony, but don’t think about everything that’s going to be a big job”
Luna brings her lips close to mine, running a hand through her wet silver hair. Oh, yes, I know. Now that I think about it, she’s been pretty devoted to me. For a cat beast who is rumored to get bored easily, she was quietly doing the not-so-interesting military duties, especially the behind-the-scenes work.
“Nn……”
“……N. I understand. Luna, I’ll stop thinking about big things for a while”
“Yeah. Do that. And if you work harder at breeding, I think everyone will be most happy about that”
“Luna too?”
“Yeah. I want you to make me a mother soon”
“……Okay”
I hold Luna tight and resume kissing her. She’s right. I should be more than happy to be in a situation where my cock is so welcomed.