How to Use the Lord’s Future Diary-Chapter 115

Chapter 115
This time, I decided to go to Henil with Yuria.
Her eye for goods was far better than mine, being a merchant herself, and since we were visiting anyway, I planned to take a look at Henil’s specialties while we were at it.
–So, what’s your real reason?
‘Well, to give her a bit of a break. She’s been overworking herself lately.’
Maybe it was because I’d been giving her too many tasks, but Yuria’s condition hadn’t been very good recently.
It wasn’t just physical exhaustion—her mind had been burdened as well. The fact that she’d fainted while performing Shamanism had been bothering me ever since.
Now that the chaos in Levelium and the political tension among the southern lords had settled down, it was the perfect time to take a breather.
The trading business was also running smoothly, and the transport of supplies to Hawrun was proceeding without issue, so the timing couldn’t be better.
Even if she was the youngest daughter of a major merchant group, Yuria probably hadn’t had many chances to try fresh seafood. A little culinary adventure might serve as a good change of pace.
‘At this rate, I’m quite the generous lord, aren’t I?’
–Have you already forgotten you’re the one who dumped all that work on her?
“A seaside trip, huh? Not bad~ The east coast feels completely different from the west coast, right?”
“Well, of course. The seawater temperature’s lower on the east coast, so you don’t get annoying pests like Nagas. Though, you still can’t venture too far offshore.”
“Even just not having sea snakes around is something to be thankful for.”
“That’s true.”
No matter what that rabbit nagged about, as long as I was satisfied, that was all that mattered.
And since Yuria seemed genuinely excited about this trip to Henil,
…yes, I was definitely a generous lord who cared for his retainers.
“What? You’re dragging me to Henil too? I’m already swamped—what kind of stunt are you planning now?”
And so, another retainer joined the journey to Henil—
the alchemist of the territory, Peter.
The moment I informed him about the trip, he grumbled loudly.
He complained that he was already busy enough, so why was I hauling him all the way to Henil?
–Once again, proof of how cruel a lord you are. That male’s the biggest victim here.
‘Well, Peter is pretty busy.’
With the reconstruction of Hawrun Territory and the tunnel project both underway, the consumption of Mana Crystals had skyrocketed.
And Mana Crystals didn’t make themselves.
While we mined Mana Stones from the mines, those still had to be refined by alchemists into crystals.
Our alchemists were extremely capable, with a high efficiency rate for crystal synthesis.
But when demand exploded this much, just grinding out the crystals alone consumed a great deal of time.
You could tell how overworked Peter was just by looking at the dark circles under his eyes—thick enough to rival Dark Circles themselves.
‘And on top of that, he’s been pursuing his own research. He’s even made some progress lately.’
Since the Builders of the Golem School joined our territory, opportunities for learning had increased significantly.
Peter had always been interested in Item Making and Magical Enchantment, so he’d been eager to study those fields more deeply.
The Alchemy Workshop, being our only source of magical production, had always dabbled in various disciplines—
but except for alchemy itself, most of it had been makeshift work done on intuition alone.
Things that had to be done out of necessity but never properly learned.
Now that Peter was studying these things systematically, his skills were improving by leaps and bounds.
Of course, the Golem School’s builders weren’t exactly professional enchanters or item makers either, but compared to other schools, their research went deeper.
It was a level of knowledge perfectly suitable for an alchemist to learn on the side.
‘That’s how he ended up making something quite interesting.’
–Ah, you mean that magical device for squeezing peanuts?
‘Yeah. We’d talked about it briefly before, but I never thought he’d actually make it. The builders helped, of course, but still—huge progress.’
–Indeed. Gluttony is truly a driving force of innovation.
The peanut seeds we’d brought from the Forest of Illusions had grown surprisingly well, yielding quite a harvest.
Remember when we went to Haken for the festival? We’d talked about how, if we could get oil, we could deep-fry Horned Rabbits.
Once we had enough peanuts, we discussed pressing them for oil and using it for frying, and Peter eventually developed a simple magical press.
It wasn’t very efficient—basically just a device that crushed peanuts with physical force—but it did produce oil.
‘Fried food truly is divine.’
–You mean “Rabbit”? I can’t deny that taste.
Fried chicken is chicken. Fried rabbit is rabbit.
A simple naming scheme—
but the taste was anything but simple.
Even if it didn’t quite match the fried chicken I knew from Earth, the quality of the meat more than made up for what it lacked in seasoning.
It was a gourmet experience that could stand proud even by Earth’s standards.
‘It’s no wonder people in this world went crazy for it. Though, we can’t make it often due to the oil shortage.’
–Why not just buy oil, then?
‘Now that we know how good it tastes, the topic will probably come up at the territory council. Once trade increases, people’s interests will naturally shift that way.’
Anyway.
The reason I brought along the busiest man in the entire territory, Peter, was because of his ability to create magical devices.
After making the peanut press, Peter had developed enough skill to produce basic magical tools. And for this trip to Henil, his craftsmanship was absolutely necessary.
Because to produce salt in large quantities there, we needed to build additional salt furnaces.
‘And a salt furnace isn’t just an ordinary iron cauldron heated by wood.’
You might start with an iron cauldron, sure—but you don’t boil seawater with firewood.
You enchant the cauldron with a heat spell to boil the seawater.
The tricky part was enchanting the cauldron with heating spells and adding various convenient mechanisms.
That was Peter’s job.
Since two major construction projects were already keeping all the builders busy, Peter was the only one who could handle this task personally.
“You can make a salt furnace, right?”
“Salt furnace? Well, I can, but… don’t tell me we’re going to Henil to build one?”
“Exactly. We need to. We’ll be trading salt with the Beastmen.”
“Ah, that explains it. But do we even have a large cauldron ready? Making that alone’s going to be work.”
“I already asked the Lord of Henil to prepare one. By now, he’s probably forging them like crazy.”
I’d contacted the Lord of Henil in advance to inform him of our visit.
When I asked about salt furnaces, he said it would be impossible to make them himself—their magical capabilities were far too limited.
But he agreed to prepare large cauldrons ahead of time.
That way, once we arrived, all we’d have to do was handle the magical enhancements.
“So that’s why you brought so many iron ingots?”
“Well, might as well help while we’re there. Henil’s practically family, after all.”
“You do know the territory’s iron reserves are almost gone, right?”
“That’s… uh…”
“What? You plan to owe me again?”
“Repay what? I never borrowed anything. All that’s left is to go harvest a ton of it.”
However, the semi-isolated Henil Territory was severely lacking in iron.
If they made something as large as a cauldron, their entire reserve of iron would be gone.
That was why we decided to bring plenty of iron ingots with us when visiting Henil.
The problem was, our own territory had also run out of iron.
As a territory that used Iron Arrows, our iron consumption was naturally high, and with several construction projects underway, we needed a great deal of rebar as well.
We’d already used up every reserve we had, and now, after bringing along even the remaining ingots to aid Henil, we didn’t even have enough left to make more iron arrows.
No wonder Peter was worried.
‘Still, once the tunnel’s open, we’ll have iron to spare. The Lion Tribe alone has more than enough ingots to drown in.’
–The Empire bastards are too busy with their own troubles, and it’s not monster migration season, so nothing should go wrong.
‘Right. This is the perfect time to reinforce and prepare.’
Once the tunnel’s complete, we’ll become an iron-exporting region—no reason to be stingy with ingots now.
The sooner we finish building the salt furnaces, the sooner we can produce more salt and trade more efficiently with the Beastmen.
So, for now, focusing on increasing Henil Territory’s salt production was our top priority.
“Wow, it’s really coming along fast.”
“Everyone must’ve worked their tails off.”
On the way to Henil, we stopped briefly in Hawrun Territory.
The wall construction had already been completed, and interior work was in full swing.
Just as Elder Benetrang had said, they’d gotten almost everything in order.
Even the temporary residents who’d been living in makeshift shelters were gradually relocating here.
‘Still, the Builders’ expressions seem… off.’
–That’s the resentment of underlings who got stuck with cleanup duty.
‘Cleanup duty… yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it.’
The Builders—normally so energetic—looked unusually dispirited, and after hearing the rabbit’s comment, I could somewhat understand why.
After all, any Builder worth his hammer lives for large-scale construction.
And while this place was a big project in its own right, the real major work was elsewhere.
The grand tunnel project must have been something completely new, even for the Builders of the Golem School, a kind of dream job that would set their eyes ablaze.
But since Elder Benetrang and the other veterans from the Golem School had practically monopolized that project, the remaining Builders here were understandably sulking.
‘Well, that’s not something I can do anything about. They just drew the short straw.’
Still, whether I brought back fresh ingredients from Henil or treated them to the territory’s new delicacy, ‘Rabbit’, I’d probably need to prepare some special gift to boost their morale.
“You’ve arrived, Lord Iron.”
“Ah, Sir Albio, no, Lord of Hawrun. How have you been?”
“Yes, all thanks to your concern.”
As soon as I entered the castle, I was greeted by Albio Hawrun, now the lord of the territory.
He gave off a lively, confident aura befitting a newly appointed lord of a renewed domain—
‘…Or at least, he should have. So why does he look so gloomy?’
His expression was darker than even those of the Builders stuck with cleanup work. Something was definitely off.
“You don’t look too good. Is something wrong?”
“Well… ha. You could say that.”
“I see. What happened?”
“What in the world kind of battles did Johnson Territory fight through?”
“Huh?”
“Is this… really a place where people can live?”
Albio looked like a man having a full-blown existential crisis.
When I asked him what was going on, he said the monsters were driving him insane.
They crawled out of the Forest of Illusions whenever they felt like it—when he tried to clear land for farms, monsters appeared again.
Day or night, monsters just kept crawling out endlessly, making daily life unbearable.
‘Now that I think about it, even though many residents had already relocated here, the farmlands seemed untouched… so that’s what was going on.’
But there was nothing to be done about it.
Constant monster appearances were practically the average condition in this region.
Eventually, one simply had to adapt.
“You can live here. It’s still human land, after all.”
“But this is…”
“Overcome this hardship, and the knights of Hawrun will only grow stronger. Adversity that doesn’t kill us merely makes us tougher.”
“Ha… yes.”
For now, I soothed him with kind words.
There really wasn’t any other option.
In truth, the Forest of Illusions was nothing compared to the Monster Mountains—just a drop in the bucket.
Monsters did appear from time to time, but large-scale invasions were rare, and the terrain was easier to defend.
I hadn’t started this expansion here without thinking, after all.
‘The knights of Hawrun are more used to sparring than monster hunting, so adjusting to this atmosphere won’t be easy for them.’
–But if they keep at it, they’ll manage.
‘Right. Time will fix it.’
Still, the issue of farming was worth reconsidering.
Our territory’s residents had long abandoned agriculture, but the people of Hawrun were experienced farmers.
I thought they’d manage to cultivate this land somehow—but judging by the situation, that hope was misplaced.
‘In the end, the only ones who could farm in monster-infested fields would be the Rabbit Tribe.’
It seemed the people of Hawrun would need more time to adapt to their new home.