About two weeks since the research institute opened.
No results from the institute yet, but development around the base was progressing smoothly on the whole.
Right now we were in the middle of tearing down the initial wooden construction and transitioning to stone.
The central district where our homes were had been largely rebuilt and was beginning to look like something you could genuinely call a small town.
“Stone buildings really do look the part!”
“Once the residential renovation is finished, the plan is to switch the defensive wall to stone as well. Thinking about the confrontation with the Goblin King, a wooden fence simply won’t be enough.”
“Agreed. Though we should make it a good size bigger, with future expansion in mind.”
“Yes, the plan is a diameter of approximately five hundred meters.”
“Isn’t that a bit large?”
I gave Makina a slightly exasperated look.
The area we were currently developing was roughly three hundred meters across.
Five hundred meters in diameter would be nearly three times the area.
The Kobold settlements were still flowing in, but that still seemed like too much.
“Not at all — that’s actually on the modest side. We’re also planning to build several large facilities inside the wall that take up considerable space.”
“Such as?”
“The research institute, administrative offices, and Master’s castle, among others.”
“The first two I can see, but a castle? That’s just not necessary.”
With the Kobold settlements joining one after another, the base’s population had grown considerably.
But it was still only in the hundreds.
We’d graduated from being a settlement, but it was still more village than town.
Building a castle in a village was plainly excessive.
“Is it? I believe that to realize Master’s ideal way of life, a castle with space for a large number of servants is absolutely essential.”
“……I won’t argue that point, but there’s an order to things!”
Since my dream was eventually to live surrounded by maids, I wasn’t going to strongly deny it.
You could say I was doing the whole domain-lord thing precisely for that reason!
……That said, achieving it would have to wait until this place was far more prosperous and the population had grown.
If I was going to build anything resembling a castle, that was a conversation for when the town had ten thousand people or more.
Back in the Embance Kingdom where I used to live, castles were the exclusive domain of the great nobility — earls and above.
Right now my domain, by any realistic measure, was closer to a knight’s holding than a baron’s.
“Understood. However, securing land after the fact is difficult, so let’s set aside a reasonably generous area now while we can.”
“……Not too generous, please.”
When I said that, Makina didn’t reply.
……She was absolutely planning to claim a huge plot.
Ever since the upgrade, Makina had a habit of quietly ignoring what I said.
Never in any direction that undermined me or caused harm, so it hadn’t been a problem so far.
Maybe this too was evidence of her higher intelligence.
“Even so, a wall that size is going to need a tremendous amount of stone.”
“Which is why I’ve been advancing plans to expand the quarry on the rocky mountain.”
“Oh — so that’s why Alicia and the others are out there surveying the caves on that mountain.”
For the past three days or so, Sword of Dawn had been out doing a survey of the caves on the rocky mountain.
I’d thought it was a safety survey for the Kobolds — caves where mana pooled tended to attract monsters — but apparently they were also checking in advance that the quarry expansion wouldn’t create any problems.
“If Alicia and the others’ survey comes back clean, we’ll start the expansion work immediately. The research institute has been developing a new ultra-large golem, and once it’s operational, we should never have to worry about stone supply again.”
“That’s impressive. When are they expected back?”
“It depends on the size of the caves, but there should still be some time yet. I expect them back tomorrow at the earliest.”
Then I’d better have something good ready for when they get back.
Everyone would come home hungry, no doubt.
“Now that I think about it — what are we doing for hunting while Sword of Dawn is away?”
“I’ve had the Lancelot-types handle it. That said, our base’s population has grown quite substantially, so if hunting continues at this rate, we may deplete the monsters in the surrounding area.”
Even in the Great Forest, monsters didn’t exist in infinite supply.
If you kept hunting within a limited range, running them down eventually was only natural.
“……That’s a bit of a problem. We’ll need to set up some livestock.”
“The difficulty is that the Kobolds don’t have a tradition of animal husbandry. We’ve been looking for monsters suitable for domestication, but haven’t found anything promising.”
Makina’s expression was troubled.
We humans could get by with grain, vegetables, and fruit and have meat only occasionally, but the Kobolds leaned heavily carnivorous.
In fact, Popol and Lopul had been visibly listless when they’d gone a while without meat.
As a short-term measure we could push the hunting range further out, but we’d need a reliable means of getting meat regularly.
“Hmm — we could start trading. There’s other things I’d want to import besides meat.”
“With the other demi-human races in the Great Forest?”
“Right. Mumul mentioned trading with the Elves before. They’re counted among the Six Kings — I’d expect the Elves to have a fairly developed civilization.”
“Let’s go ask Mumul about it right away.”
And so we headed to Mumul’s house to hear what he knew about the Elves.