Chapter 12: Restless

「Fireball, fire lizard, stick out your tongue. If you don't, I'll lop that tongue off!」

Ken’s singing voice rang through the village, and the firewood flared alight with a pop without any tinder.

「“You’ve really gotten the hang of it, haven’t you.”」

Songs like the ones Ken was singing could now be heard all over the village.

Singing itself doesn’t add any special effect that boosts a spell’s power.
But a simple tune set to a spell is apparently easier to remember than rote memorization, so even those who still can’t read could memorize several spell-songs.

As a result, most of the villagers have now learned magic at least to the point of producing real flames.

It’s all thanks to Ai and Ken mastering practically useful magic and demonstrating its utility to the adults.

Now that everyone can make fire, there’s no need to keep such a careful watch to be sure the flames don’t go out while I’m away.

Fish stored in the simple freezer now keep for about three days once thawed, as long as they’re cooked. In other words, we only need to go fishing once every three days.

What’s more, by manipulating the trees even the children could pick nuts high up, and they sometimes even caught small birds and beasts.

Food conditions improved dramatically, and even the adults, if only every few days, began learning magic alongside the children. Language too, of course.

Life in the village was going exceedingly smoothly.

—Save for one concern.

「“Sensei.”」

It was when I was fretting over what to do.
The one who spoke to me was a man who seemed to be the most advanced in years in this settlement.
It was Gai-san, Ai’s father.
…In the end I named all sixteen villagers myself, but even I have to admit my naming sense is awful.

「“Hunt. Go. You come?”」
「“…All right. I’ll go with you.”」

Well, it’s not a problem I can solve just by brooding over it.
As a change of pace, I decided to tag along on Gai-san and the others’ hunt.

Now that they’ve learned some language, I can hunt together with them. They’re vastly better at the hunt itself, but with me there I can make up for their lack of firepower. We can even go after big game you couldn’t take with stone spears, so lately we’ve often been hunting together.

「“Sensei! I’ll go too!”」

No sooner had we moved to leave the village than Ai came darting over.

「“No.”」

But Gai-san thrust out his arm and stopped her.

「“Hunt, men, do. Women, wait.”」
「“But…”」

At Gai-san’s peremptory tone, Ai looked at my face.
Their society is patriarchal, with the father holding absolute authority. Because she’s involved with an irregular like me she’d gotten a pass until now, but by rights Ai, being female, is someone who must not go out on hunts.

More than that, even the act of defying her father’s will like this is not permitted.
After all, she couldn’t even complain when she was offered up as a divine offering.
I do have thoughts about how she’s treated—almost like an object—but that too is something decided by their own logic. It’s not something I should butt into out of my own ego, at least.

「“It’s all right. We’ll bring back something big, so be a good girl and wait for us.”」
「“…Okay.”」

At my words, Ai lowered her gaze and nodded reluctantly.

「“Be careful!”」
「“Try not to botch it—okay?”」

With Ai and Nina’s voices at our backs, we headed out to hunt.

Their customs and my concern actually align.
It isn’t about the status of women.
It’s simply that there may be too few people.

Not counting Nina and me, there are seventeen people in the village.
Of those, eight are children; among the adults there are five men and four women.

With nine adults to eight children, if the generations turn over as-is the population will ever so slightly shrink. And in a world without even the concept of medicine, there’s no guarantee everyone will safely grow to adulthood.

Women, who bear and raise children to maintain the population, are the most crucial; thus you can’t have them doing something as dangerous as hunting. The old-fashioned custom of “women stay to keep the home” is, at least here, rational. After all, this is that very old age itself.

That said, no matter how much I think on it, as a dragon I can’t have children with them—and as a dragon I certainly can’t bear them. I’ve confirmed that this body is male in this life too.
All I can do is protect them, hunt game, and do my best to advance magic while I’m still alive.

「“…Huh?”」

Lost in such idle thoughts, I realized we’d walked quite a ways without my noticing.

「“Are we heading out of the forest?”」

When I asked, Gai-san nodded once.

Basically, both they and I have always hunted in the forest.
Partly because it’s close to our cave base, but also because hunting on the plains is especially difficult.

First, there are far fewer trees Nina can manipulate and turn to our side than in the forest.
She can now manipulate grass as well, but compared to trees grass is so feeble that it’s nearly impossible to catch the large beasts that live on the grasslands.

I thought I might be able to snatch them easily by diving from above, but that too came to nothing. The moment they saw me flying they hid behind cover, making them incredibly hard to find in the first place, and the faster you go in flight the less maneuverable you become. It was extremely difficult to dive and seize quick, darting prey.

It was the same for Gai-san and the others; that’s why they basically hunted in the forest too.

We passed by the outpost Nina and I once built in the forest—only a few months unattended and it was already falling apart—and left the woods. Beyond stretched a vast prairie.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever crossed the forest entirely on foot without flying at all.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long to get through.

They weren’t at Nina’s level—who could push through brush without so much as a leaf catching in her hair—but Gai-san and his men were practiced enough in moving through the woods that they walked almost as fast as on open ground.
If anything, the pace was nearly enough to make me a hindrance.

Once out on the grassland, Gai-san and the others set off without hesitation.
I couldn’t tell if they had a destination in mind or were walking at random; in any case, I trusted them and followed.

『“See.”』

Then, all of a sudden, Gai-san raised his voice and lifted his spear.

If I recall, that was the signal for spotting game, but I couldn’t see it at all. As I peered around, they set off again—not crouching to hide, not breaking into a run—just walking normally.

Was I wrong about them having found prey?

Puzzled, I followed along—and suddenly realized.
Gai-san had indeed found sign of game. Only it wasn’t the game itself—
it was the footprints.

To me it looked like nothing but bare ground with sparse grass, but Gai-san kept crouching to check the earth here and there.

『“See.”』

We walked like that for what felt like about two hours when, at last, Gai-san truly sighted the quarry and declared it.

「“Sensei. There.”」

And, kindly enough, he even told me in Japanese.

「“Yeah… I see it. It’s fine.”」

There was no way I wouldn’t notice it.

「“You seriously mean to hunt that?”」

When I asked just to be sure, they all nodded in unison.

「“But, I mean, that—”」

With a thudding beat filling my ears, I tilted my gaze upward.

It had been a while since I’d last looked up at a living creature other than my mother.

「“It’s about the size of a small building, you know?”」

There was no one in this world yet who could understand that metaphor for the giant beast.