Chương 3: Shopping for Land

Easterners used horses too, or so I'd heard, so it was a damn shock to me when one of the guards brought out a bird that was about as tall as a horse that stood on two lanky, orange legs tipped with sharp talons. His plumage was dark blue and red wattles drooped under his beak. Iudex Ryuga had chuckled at me wide eyed reaction.

"They don't have them where you come from, Westman? We call them cassowarys. Horses are better for war and such, but we use these birds mainly for couriers and quickly travelling about," he'd said.

"He looks a touch temperamental," I had replied.

"Indeed. Don't stand behind him, he has a mean kick and startles easily." And so we had set off. It was a decently long journey, passing along a well-worn dirt road that led from Tiode, over hills of grass and beyond even the fields and rice paddies that bordered the settlement. It was so far that the hissing sighs of the sea grew silent, and the village only became visible from atop the peaks. When we got there it was readily apparent that the old man hadn't been lying to me.

The fields were dull and lifeless, only weeds and patches of grass breaking through the soil, and the fields were littered with great rocks and old tree stums. He sat in the saddle, watching me with some measure of curiosity. He'd kept his cassowary at a light trot the whole way over and I had kept pace without fatigue or even falling behind him. Maybe it was unwise to give a glimpse of any profane power, but I was not in the mood to put on an act and start huffing and puffing for breath.

I looked around, scanning the fields. A fence had been partially erected around the border of this land, but most of it had been lost to time. The same could be said for the old farm house at the heart of the place, where it would take time and work to mend the holes in the roof. Ryuga ran a gloved hand through the flowing tails of his moustache.

"It's not much, like I said. The old fellow who bought the place was wealthy, but knew nothing of farming or ranching. The old soak gave up on it rather quickly and nobody has cared to take the place since." I nodded, folding my arms and continuing to examine the place. It wasn't too different to the aristocratic toffs back home, before the war, who fancied themselves as frontiersmen. Most of them gave up when the realities of farming dawned on them, or they just paid someone else to do the hard work for them.

"This is about... ten acres, thereabouts?" I asked.

"Just about," said the older man. It was more than I'd had back home, where we'd been sharecropping from the local lord. But I had an abundance of money to my name now, more than I'd ever thought possible in my youth, and this was a decent price for the sheer volume of land. Plus... I glanced over my shoulder to my pack. Among the things I had bought from my smuggling friend was a bottle of an alchemical solution brewed to nourish the soil.

It was not going to magically make this place lush with life, but it would give some strength to the soil. Enough that I could start to grow things upon the land, if I treated it well and kept crop rotation in mind. And with such space it would not be hard to erect a coop, raising extra coinage through the sale of eggs and chicks. Yes... this land was rough, but not unusable. It just needed the hand of a man who wasn't an ignorant fool.

And if it took time to get the land up to snuff, I could make money through hunting. At least as a temporary measure. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"I'll take it," I said. Ryuga stared at me as if I'd suddenly sprouted a second head.

"Pardon?" he asked. Must have thought my Babel stone failed and that I was suddenly speaking nonsense, such was his confusion.

"I said I shall take it," I replied, turning to fully face him. I had the distinct feeling he didn't want me living near his village, and I could not blame him. The iudex may not have known anything of my past, but I must have given off some unpleasant air through my presence alone. But, hells below, I wasn't in a mood to go trekking up through the wilderness or along the coast to find another place to try buying. Tiode seemed nice enough spot, had all the things a man could need.

Plus living by the coast gave me a vantage point to see Novos' war fleets if my old master ever set his eyes upon the east. A chance for a head start was important, any fugitive will agree. The old man sighed, resigned to this.

"Very well," he said.

"If you have the funds, then I will not stop you. You understand the risks of this land, and so you cannot say I have not been forthright and honest with you." I managed a smile, which felt... so odd. How long had it been since I smiled? What a depressing bloody thought.

"I appreciate that you have," I said, fishing around in my bag and fishing out a stack of the hexagonal silver coins.

"Come along then, Amon. Let us sign the proper paperwork at my office." I suppressed a small snort of laughter. With that accent of his, he had such a queer way of pronouncing 'Eamon.' Eamon Kosis. Eamon had been the name of my great grandfather, and Kosis had been the surname my aunt took after her binding ceremony to her husband. Well, it was hardly a genius fake name, but it would serve. Novos had known me, but nothing of my family. They'd all been ashes when we first met, after all. Still..

I would have to get used to being called Eamon. Or, Amon. It would not do to be confused whenever someone addressed me by what was meant to be my name. I set off, following Ryuga back to town as soft rains began to fall upon us. Once everything had been paid for, my signature written in a scrawl that seemed alien to the neat and complex characters of the Tsukian alphabet, I made my way back to what was my land and got to work straight away.

Though the rain grew heavy, heat blossomed inside of my chest like a furnace to keep me warm and dry. I'd freely admit that clearing my land would have been a heavy challenge for normal men, who doubtless would have had to hire help to clear the rocks and stumps that dotted my field. But, on my own? It wasn't a challenge at all. I glanced over my shoulder as I worked, my land giving me a clear enough view to see if anyone was approaching, and set about pulling stumps from the earth with the heft of one hand.

I'd flattened buildings and shattered siege engines with my bare hands. Even without tapping into the churning inferno in my breast, my strength was easily able to handle menial work like this. Each time I took a stump or rock I would simply toss them into the distant treeline, heedless of where they landed. So long as they were off my land, I didn't care. Still, even with my power, it was a process that took more than a few days. I toiled in that time, rising at dawn and working until sunset.

As with eating, I did not particularly need to sleep, but I was trying to get into the routine of doing so. In time I would need to pass as a normal person, and honestly sleep just felt nice even if I didn't need to partake. And working in the dark was a pain in any case. I spent my nights in the house. It was damp, breezy, and I was certain a family of very large spiders had colonized the rafters.

After the first few days, when I had gotten the fields looking somewhat presentable, I removed the ruined and rotten junk from the interior and cleaned as best I could. But I would need lumber, tiles, and stone to make proper repairs. The magic in my body could speed that process along, but I still needed the raw materials to work with.

At the end of the first week, where I had spent the past few days dripping small dribbles of my alchemical solution into the patch I'd chosen for my first crop, I had tilled a portion of the more vibrant looking soil and set a few wheat seeds I'd bought into it. Tools were one thing I did not need to worry about buying. A thought sent a pulse of heat racing from my core to my right hand, my thoughts shaping and sculpting that power into a hoe that could work the soil.

Ordinarily I had used that magic to sculpt swords, spears, hammers... all manner of killing implements. But the power Novos had given me allowed me to create tools, and they remained solid and tangible so long as they were near me. They only vanished if I strayed from them. I stood upon my land, my little patch of tilled earth in the early afternoon sunlight... and sighed. Well, I had done all I could do with what I had to hand. I'd need to actually... interact with my neighbours and do business with them.

The thought made me shudder.

"Fuck," I hissed. No man is an island, even an immortal and undead man. Steeling my nerves, I retrieved my pack and made for Tiode proper.