Chapter 6: Reinventing

「So you're going that far out to hunt?」
「Yes…」

As we sat around the crackling campfire, Luka’s father—Tauro—wagged his tail weakly. Apparently, they’ve been going to hunt in a place nearly a full day’s travel one way from here.

Two days traveling, one day hunting. The children were happily gnawing on their first game in three days, browned to perfection over the fire. Their hearty appetites were a joy to watch, but the meat from the animals Tauro and his wife had caught was dwindling before our eyes. At this rate… it won’t last the day, will it?

「Why go so far?」

All Lycos Centaurs hunt while moving with the seasons. Their simple tents are made to be carried because they don’t settle in one place.

Unlike humans, they are completely carnivorous; they can’t fill their bellies with nuts or vegetables and provide all their meals through hunting. So they live by moving each season to places with more game. To be honest, my impression was that if there’s no game around here, they should just hurry up and move.

「The truth is… we lost a territorial dispute.」

Tauro’s triangular ears atop his head drooped limply as he murmured his reply.

「Each of us has our own territory, and its location is decided by a fight between the pack leaders. But…」
「You lost?」
「Hey, Yuuki.」

At Yuuki’s guileless words, Tauro’s tail drooped even further.

「So lately Father’s been going to hunt in the forest outside our territory.」

Luka said this as she wiped her little sister’s mouth in her father’s stead. The Lycos’ territories are basically only the grasslands. Their hunting is to run prey down and catch it when it tires—they’re not suited to hunting in the forest.

「As for me, I’ve got this—something Sensei made for me.」

With that, Tauro produced a spear tipped with a stone point.

「How nostalgic. You’re still using it.」

It’s been decades since I’d given it to him. I’d made it for Tauro because he couldn’t hunt well. In Hiiro, people imbue magic into those and throw them, but Tauro doesn’t need to. If he runs like the wind on his wolf lower body and thrusts out the long spear, he can easily take even a swift hare. For him, hunting might actually be easier in the forest than on the grassland.

「Let’s help them, Onii-chan!」
「Mm… even if we want to…」

It’s true they must have almost no leeway living like this. Luka is already run ragged taking care of the kids and can’t come to the school.

「Then they just have to win the fight, right? I’ll teach them how to fight!」

Yuuki hummed her usual spell, enhanced her body, and gave a little hop. Despite her small frame, she sprang several meters into the air. Most of the Lycos can’t use anything you’d call proper magic. If we brought in Yuuki’s magic—which is specialized for fighting other people—sure, they’d probably win… but…

「No, I don’t think that’ll work.」
「Eeh? Really?」

Body-enhancement magic is, unexpectedly, quite difficult. It’s hard to picture your body being stronger than usual. And even if you can use it, moving a body that’s been enhanced is hard. You think you’re putting in the same amount of force, but it’s too much; most people can hardly even run. Fighting while under enhancement magic requires considerable talent and training. I myself can barely use it at any practical level.

The Sword Clan has specialized in this magic for generations, casually stacking triple enhancements and even debuffs on the opponent—but honestly, that’s like a circus trick. Not just me—even Nina couldn’t do that.

「Besides, it doesn’t suit Tauro’s temperament.」

I’ve known him since he was even smaller than Luka is now, just a wolf pup. He’s always been gentle and mild; territorial battles don’t suit him. The same goes for me.

It’s true we’re closest with this Lycos pack, but it’s not like we don’t know the others. If Tauro’s pack expands its territory, another pack will just get squeezed. That’s not a very constructive solution.

「Then… then we won’t do anything?」
「No.」

I slowly shook my head in answer to Yuuki, whose brows had drawn together in sadness.

「Times like this aren’t for fighting over scraps. You make the pie bigger.」


* * *


A few days later—

「All right, it’s done!」

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I looked over the finished product. For something made by an amateur, it wasn’t half bad—even if I do say so myself.

「What is it?」

Yuuki cocked her head, and Tauro and Luka peered at it with the same puzzled look. Hewn from wood, it was shaped like a large box. The odd parts attached to its sides must have seemed like meaningless decorations to them.

「It’s a handcart.」

I gave it a pat as I said so.

There are two kinds of great inventions.
One is what we reach as technology and civilization advance.
The other is an idea discovered by a handful of geniuses that revolutionizes the world itself. The wheel is the prime example.

I’m no genius, of course—but I know what geniuses thought up. And if you know it, making a wheel isn’t all that hard.

「Load your game onto this and pull it back, and you can carry a lot more.」

I took hold of the rope attached to the handcart and gave it a tug to demonstrate. Despite its considerable size and weight, I could move it easily even in human form.

「If you can bring back more each time, you can cut down on the number of hunts, right?」
「But… with just this, it won’t reduce the trips that much, will it?」

Glancing at the handcart, Luka knit her brows in concern. Tauro has a broad back; he can carry two or even three deer. Since he and his wife hunt together, they can bring back nearly twice that. By contrast, this handcart can hold, at most, four deer.

Tauro can’t both carry game on his back and pull the handcart, so in total you’d only increase the load by about one animal—within the margin of error. Luka’s point was sound.

「—If Tauro is the one pulling it, that is.」

I couldn’t help but smile; Luka just blinked up at me in puzzlement.

「Yuuki, how’s the work?」
「Perfect!」

I shot her a glance; the red‑haired girl puffed out her chest and turned to face the little Lycos children.

「Okay, give it a try.」
「We are strong!」

Luka’s little brothers and sisters joined their voices in that spell, grabbed the handcart’s rope together, and gave a pull. The cart—far larger than their bodies—rumbled to life.

It’s a kind of trick for using enhancement magic.
There are two ways to grasp the image of becoming stronger. One is to feel close to someone who’s strong in a way similar to the strengthened you, and imitate them. For them, that’s Tauro. It’s hard to picture simply “getting stronger” with no reference point, but “becoming as strong as Tauro” is easy to understand.

The other is a technique only Yuuki can do: the daring feat of casting enhancement magic on someone else. This truly is something only Yuuki can do—neither her brother Amata nor any of the Sword Clan before her can.

Once you’ve actually had enhancement magic cast on you, you can quickly grasp what “being enhanced” means. Using these two methods, about half of Luka’s younger siblings managed to learn enhancement magic.

As for the other problem—that even if you learn it, acting while under enhancement is hard—the handcart itself solved it. With no effort made to lighten it, it was extremely heavy. Thanks to the wheels, they could get it moving, but only very slowly. There aren’t any paved roads on the prairie, either.

But that weight was the good part. The reason you can’t move well under enhancement, so to speak, is that you’ve swapped in a bigger engine while leaving the chassis the same. In that case, you just increase the load to match the added horsepower. If they poured that extra strength into the handcart, their bodies wouldn’t go berserk and lunge forward.

「With this, even little kids can haul game. Which means—they can go along on hunts.」

There was one more issue with their current situation. The Lycos teach their children to hunt by having them accompany the parents. But Tauro didn’t even have that leeway. If he took the children—dead weight—along on such grueling hunts, they wouldn’t bring back enough to feed everyone.

That’s why Luka had stayed behind alone to teach her little brothers and sisters how to hunt.

「Sensei, then—!」
「Of course, we’ll have to try it a few times and make sure it actually works…」

Leaning down to peer into the girl’s face, I asked:

「Will you come to our school?」
「Yes! I’d love to!」

Beaming, Luka wagged her tail as she nodded.