SML Ch 14

Chapter 14

After a brief moment of deliberation, Reynald decided he had no choice but to go out and steal grain. No matter how abundant their supply of food was thanks to the wyvern meat, how could people live on meat alone? At the very least, they needed some loaves of bread to go with it.

Moreover, if they managed to steal grain now, it would make it easier to survive during the spring famine season. There really wasn’t any reason not to go.

Lyndon had said they needed to act on the night of the full moon. That meant they still had about four days to wait, which gave them a fairly decent amount of time to prepare. In three days, they’d be able to get potions refined from mandrake, which would make the grain-stealing operation much safer.

Before setting out in earnest, Reynald first sat Heide down and questioned him about the distribution of monsters in the area. He already knew there were around 2,000 ratmen, but if he was going to stay in this domain, he needed to get a grasp of the broader monster situation.

“Well, first off, there aren’t any monsters as numerous as the ratmen, so you can rest easy on that front. The ratmen’s breeding ability is just absurd, you know? Even if they suffer attacks from other monsters, they reproduce so quickly that their population immediately bounces back. That’s why there are so many of them.”

Apparently, the ratmen could maintain such a high rate of reproduction because they occupied the most fertile farmland in the domain. There weren’t many monsters intelligent enough to be interested in farmland in the first place, so the ratmen were free to cultivate the prime land, eat their fill, and produce litter after litter of offspring.

It was an upsetting reality from the perspective of the farmers, but there wasn’t much they could do. They didn’t have the strength to take the land back from the ratmen—or even to cultivate the land if they did manage to reclaim it.

“Then, after the ratmen, which monsters are the next strongest in terms of power or numbers? The lycanthropes?”

“No, that would be the swine tribe. They live in the northern forest of the domain.”

“…You’ve got to be kidding me. Swine too? How many of them?”

“Around a thousand. At least, that was the number confirmed last year, though I’m not sure about this year. They’re probably entering breeding season around now…”

Reynald let out a deep sigh. The swine were bipedal monsters similar to the ratmen, but instead of resembling rats, they took on the appearance of pigs.

They were intelligent enough to craft weapons, and they had such high fertility that they rivaled the ratmen in terms of reproduction, making them formidable opponents. If the swine had taken control of fertile land like the ratmen had, their numbers might’ve been double what they were now.

The only silver lining was that the swine stayed hidden during the winter months to raise their young, only appearing in the spring and summer. According to Heide, once summer arrived, swine herds would come pouring out, ruin the fields, and steal the crops. And they didn’t just ruin human fields—they did it equally to the ratmen’s fields too. That’s why the ratmen and swine ended up waging war against each other every summer.

Next in power after those two groups were the lycanthropes, with their numbers estimated to be around 400. Though fewer in number, they became stronger during a full moon, powerful enough to strike fear even into the ratmen and swine. During the full moon, lycanthropes were often so busy fighting other monsters that they ignored humans—but if one was unlucky, trouble could still fall on the nearby villages. Heide explained that it was best to stay hidden indoors during a full moon.

“There are also several hundred other monsters scattered throughout the area. The wyverns we saw before aren’t particularly numerous. Their numbers have probably decreased further after all the deaths last time.”

“Besides the wyverns, what other types of monsters are there? What are the main ones?”

“Well, there are so many that it’s hard to list them all one by one… For starters, there are a few dozen ogres in the forest to the north.”

“…Why the hell are there dozens of ogres?”

“Well, isn’t it better than having hundreds of them? Anyway, they’re usually busy harassing the swine, so they’re not a major concern for us. Also, in the nearby wastelands, there are a good number of quadrupedal monsters like skeletal wolves. On top of that, there are all kinds of other monsters roaming around…”

Heide tried to go into further detail about the various monsters, but Reynald didn’t want to hear anymore. What he’d heard so far was already enough to draw a conclusion. Reynald’s verdict was this:

“This place is a complete mess.”

“You’re not wrong… but isn’t that a bit too blunt?”

“What else am I supposed to call a mess, if not a mess?”

Heide gave a bitter smile and lowered his head, and Reynald let out a quiet sigh. This wasn’t a situation that could be solved even if a subjugation force was dispatched. The monster population in this domain was so overwhelming that they had even established a sort of ecological balance among themselves.

Even if they defeated one species of monster, others would quickly move in to fill the gap. And even if they managed to wipe them all out, the human population was so small that the monsters would eventually return and repopulate the area anyway.

Right now, the village had around 200 people, and only about 20 young men were strong and able enough to maintain order. There was no way they could take on thousands of monsters.

On top of that, the monsters living in this region included the ratmen and swine—ranked among the top when it came to reproduction rates. Even if you managed to exterminate them, some would inevitably crawl back from somewhere and breed again. Eradication was practically impossible. The people of the domain could never solve this on their own.

“Have you ever considered asking the kingdom for help?”

“You think the kingdom would send a subjugation force to a rural domain like this? It’s not like there’s anything valuable to gain here.”

Reynald gave a wry chuckle at Heide’s accurate assessment of the situation. Fair point. For the kingdom to dispatch a subjugation force, the damage would have to spread to at least five or six neighboring domains—or the area would have to be sitting on a massive goldmine or something similar, making it worth developing.

Of course, this domain did have a mandrake habitat, but the only reason such a number of mandrakes could grow here in the first place was because of the monsters. mandrakes grow by absorbing monster miasma. If the monsters were exterminated in order to secure the habitat, the mandrakes would die from the lack of miasma. It was a ridiculous irony.

‘Now that I think about it, the sheer number of mandrakes growing here should’ve clued me in to the dire state of this place…’

The domain had around 200 people, while the number of monsters was well over 4,000. What kind of domain had a ratio like that? Even if it were the other way around—4,000 residents and only 200 monsters—it would still be a problem. But here, the numbers were completely flipped.

At this point, it was starting to feel like humans were the freeloaders in this domain. Reynald sighed lightly as that thought crossed his mind.

—

Four days later, the young men of the village donned crude armor made by roughly stitching together pieces of wyvern hide and headed out to steal grain. Of course, Reynald went along too. Heide tried to dissuade him, saying there was no need for him to head into such danger, but Reynald wanted to see with his own eyes just how many ratmen there actually were.

Since it was a rural village, swords and crossbows were hard to come by. Only about half a dozen young men—including Volant and Alex—were equipped with decent weapons. Not that they were heading into a fight anyway. As long as they could prepare for the worst-case scenario, that was enough; there was no need for everyone to be armed. The plan was for the armed young men to keep watch while the others quickly filled their grain sacks and fled.

“Still, I have to say—you lot sure are bold, deciding to rob the monsters’ grain stores.”

“To be honest, I didn’t get it at first either. I mean, seriously—stealing the food supply of a bunch of rats…?”

Alex, walking alongside him, let out a deep sigh and nodded in agreement. Being a newcomer himself, he hadn’t yet gotten used to the outrageous things the villagers did. On the other hand, Volant and Lyndon, both natives of the domain, just snickered at the remark.

“Hey, when you’re trying to survive, there’s nothing you won’t do.”

“Exactly! And Alex, you say that now, but you were munching on bread made from that stolen grain and surviving just fine. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

Alex, who seemed to have grown accustomed to life in the domain, gave a bitter smile and nodded, while Reynald, still unaccustomed to it all, found himself at a loss for words. But… well, yeah. When it comes to survival, it’s not so crazy to steal from monsters’ food supplies. Reynald decided to respect the local mindset and silently continued his march toward the ratmen village.