Isekai Nonbiri Nouka Chapter 1075: Yame’s Life on an Inhabited Island V

My name is Yame.

I’m the caretaker of the island.

Lately, we’ve been getting quite a few visitors.

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With so many visitors, the problem is where to have them stay.

I’d like to offer them the inn base, but I, the High Elves, and the Lizardmen are already staying there, so there aren’t many vacant rooms.

We could move into the houses that are being built, but the interiors aren’t finished yet.

Besides, we’ve gotten used to living together, so I’m a little reluctant to have everyone move into separate houses now.

So, we discussed keeping the current inn as the lodging for the island’s residents and building a new inn for visitors.

The reason was a lack of manpower.

We’re already struggling just to maintain the current inn. Building another one would be impossible.

Then the question became what we should do instead, and someone suggested that since all visitors really needed was a place to sleep, we could simply let them use the houses that are currently under construction.

I thought that was a good idea.

At present, the houses are designed on the assumption that a single family will live independently in each one.

So they have a living-dining room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a toilet.

That should be enough for guests to manage on their own.

They’ll have to manage somehow.

For guests who can’t cook, they can either come to the dining hall at the inn or take their meals back with them.

Sounds good to me.

I talked it over with Village Chief, and he said there was no problem with the plan, so I’d like to proceed with it.

Of course, any residents who want to live in one of the houses are free to move into one.

As for me, I’ll secure one house for myself, but I plan to continue living at the inn.

It’s a little unfair, but I want to use the house as a place to hold important meetings as the island’s caretaker.

The inn is open and communal outside of the private rooms, after all.

Though, for the time being, it’ll probably just serve as my emergency shelter and storage room.

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Then there’s the matter of manpower…..

Yeah, we don’t have enough people.

We can manage with one or two visitors, but once there are ten or twenty, it becomes a problem.

The High Elves and Lizardmen help out, but when they do, the island’s actual development comes to a halt.

Though even if development progresses, the lack of manpower will still be a problem.

Recruiting people would be the quickest solution, but it’s hard to ask someone to live on such an inconvenient island.

Even if it is much more convenient than it used to be.

What should I do?

It would be nice if there happened to be some wandering group somewhere looking for a place to settle.

Ah, but even then, a group of a hundred or two hundred people would be a problem.

The island couldn’t accommodate that many.

It should be fine in the future, but not right now.

So… around ten people?

If there were two or three families wandering around looking for a place to settle, I’d like to take them in.

……

Maybe it’s prejudice, but I have a feeling that two or three families wandering around looking for a place to settle would have some kind of trouble following them.

It might be prejudice…

I hope it is.

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………………

Thank goodness.

I was on guard for about ten days, but no one brought a wandering family looking for a place to settle in front of me.

I thought Village Chief might say he’d found some people, or the seakins might discover some survivors from a shipwreck, or Ursa might say she was taking care of someone and bring them here.

But no one brought anyone.

Thank goodness.

Whenever I started getting cautious about something, Gucci and the others always seemed to rise to the occasion.

Looking back, those were turbulent days.

I’ll just enjoy the peace and quiet I have now.

The manpower shortage is still unresolved, though.

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Yuri comes by irregularly and uses the Arti-Horse Aqua to steadily advance construction of the harbor and lighthouse.

I’m grateful, but she seems to be coming here rather often.

I wonder if she’s all right.

When I asked, it turned out she was getting frustrated with her work after all.

So she’d rather spend her time relaxing on the island… while operating the multipurpose humanoid heavy machine.

If Yuri is happy with that, I won’t force her to stop.

Just be careful of accidents.

That’s when you have to be especially careful, once you’ve gotten used to something.

Hm?

Tonight’s dinner?

Since the seakins are working hard too, we’re having a barbecue, of course.

All right, all right. I’ll prepare some alcohol too.

Do your best.

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The field Village Chief casually made on the island.

Can I really call it a field?

A grove of plants called bamboo had grown there.

This bamboo.

It’s light, strong, and easy to work with.

It also repels water, which makes it extremely useful.

It can be made into plates, cups, and even water bottles.

I wish I’d had bamboo like this back when I was alone. It would have been a huge help.

Ah, but cutting down bamboo without tools would probably be difficult.

It’s sturdy.

Breaking it with your bare hands looks hard, and if you try smashing it with a stone or something, the broken end would get all mangled. It might even split in strange ways and become unusable.

Fire is out too… Bamboo is difficult to burn, and when you put it in a fire, it can explode.

Very dangerous.

Hmm.

I guess you really do need a cutting tool like an axe or hatchet to harvest it.

Cutting it with string… would take a lot of patience.

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The Inferno Wolf has settled permanently in the kotatsu in the inn’s common room.

Maybe it’s become less wary, because lately it’s started sleeping on its side.

It doesn’t wake up even if someone makes a little noise nearby.

Even when it does wake up, it just looks at you as if to say, 「You’re noisy.」

Well, no one besides the Inferno Wolf really uses the kotatsu, so I don’t mind.

……

I told you not to bring food into the kotatsu, didn’t I?

We found a bone-in piece of meat inside the kotatsu.

There was still meat left on the bone.

Making that dejected face isn’t going to help. Rules are rules.

As punishment, I’m removing the futon from the kotatsu for a while and turning it into an ordinary table.

At my declaration, the Inferno Wolf gave me a pleading look… no, it practically begged me, but I’m not forgiving it.

A kotatsu is a place where you take off your shoes and get inside, so you have to keep it clean.

You wipe your feet before getting in, don’t you?

Anyway, the kotatsu stayed a table for about ten days.

The Inferno Wolf kept sleeping underneath it, looking like it couldn’t bear to let go.

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I usually tie my hair into two bunches on either side.

Village Chief calls the hairstyle twin tails.

However, this hairstyle.

It’s not very well suited for wearing a triangular headscarf when I’m cooking.

A chef’s hat doesn’t work very well either.

So when I’m cooking, I tie my hair together at the back.

Do I have a particular preference when it comes to hairstyles?

Not really.

But I do have a preference when it comes to hair length.

I don’t like it short.

The High Elves are the ones I can really talk to about this sort of thing.

After dinner, or on rainy days, we’ll talk about hairstyles from time to time.

Ursa and Yuri don’t really talk about hairstyles much.

The demonesses who were in the Big Tree Village… civil servant girls, was it?

I could talk about hairstyles with them to some extent.

There was a period in the Demon King’s Kingdom when unusual hairstyles became fashionable, and they showed me illustrations from that time…

They were called unusual for a reason. They really were unusual.

Things like hats braided into their hair or enormous ribbons woven into it actually looked fairly normal.

Some people piled their hair up and hardened it into something as tall as a tower, while others made things resembling miniature houses out of their hair and wore them on their heads.

I wonder if their hair wasn’t damaged.

No, more importantly, how did they even live with those hairstyles?

Even walking must have been difficult.

Well, I don’t criticize other people’s fashion, but I don’t intend to imitate it either.

I prefer a hairstyle that’s easy to move around in.

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There was a night when the wind and rain were particularly strong.

The inn was fine.

The bird house and chicken coop were fine too, but one chick was missing.

Apparently, it had been blown away by the wind.

The chickens were making a fuss.

I’ll go look for it, so you stay inside the coop.

We need as many people as possible for a search, but the strong wind and rain had turned various parts of the island into a muddy mess.

Leave this to me.

My magic has recovered a little, after all.

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It took me about half a day, but I found the chick.

It was safe.

Thank goodness.

The chick was safe because it had managed to reach one of the caves Village Chief had dug in various places.

There was even something there for the chick to eat.

Did Village Chief dig these caves in various places while anticipating situations like this?

……

I’m thinking too much.

Still, I should thank Village Chief.

When I brought the chick back, the chickens gave me a rather rough welcome.

I know they were grateful, but I don’t think pecking me is the right way to show it.

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Next time, the story will be told from a perspective other than Yame’s.