Surprisingly, Green Shark was back on her feet after just two or three days.
The gaping hole in her stomach had somehow closed up, and with no particular aftereffects, she went out hunting.
...Honestly, it was fortunate, since our food stores were starting to run low.
"Huff... huff..."
Marmotte, whose shoulder had become infected, spent the entire night with a feverish head and sweat pouring off her like rain.
Fortunately, we had antibiotics, and her condition improved quickly by the next day.
It was around the time the scars of battle were finally beginning to fade.
.
.
"Are you starting to feel better?"
"Fortunately, yes."
The dark circles Marmotte had gotten from her all-night research had vanished completely.
It had not exactly been intentional, but after resting soundly for several days, she seemed to have recovered from her fatigue perfectly.
"Then shall we think about what comes next?"
"Let’s."
I had decided to settle on this planet.
That did not mean I did not miss home. It meant I had stopped thinking of myself as a castaway.
So it was only reasonable to think about the future as a colonist here.
Swish.
The two of them had nearly died, but it was not as though we had gained nothing from it.
The recent raid had been an opportunity to temper our lax minds once more, and the survivors had been awarded a sweet reward.
We had acquired not only their equipment, but, more importantly, valuable information.
"They were more cunning than I expected."
A bloodstained map we had found on the raider who had fired the last harpoon... presumably their leader.
It contained a rough sketch of this planet’s balance of power.
"First, this area should be the grasslands where we are."
A temperate grassland slightly north of the center. A silver-coin mark had been drawn there.
Judging by the arrows and notes on their raid plans, they must have come an awfully long way down from the north, where they had been based.
The area around this settlement was colored in several different shades.
"They must have been wary of these groups, and since this is a border region between other factions, they could not move about easily... Put simply, they only plundered in the unclaimed gaps between them."
"Hmm."
Green Shark had no interest in machines either, but this sort of layout caught her attention.
"For example?"
"The largest faction on this planet is probably here: the Ratkin Kingdom."
Marmotte pointed at the mountainous region in the center of the map.
Near the equator, it was warm all year round, and it was positioned so that they could expand in any direction and reach the entire planet.
Ratkin. I looked at Marmotte’s large, round ears.
"Yes. They are my kin. Except unlike me, they live underground—are covered in dust—are uncivilized—and are even barbaric."
"Um."
Perhaps noticing my gaze, she had begun speaking matter-of-factly, then started radiating a steadily mounting fury.
Some dark malice seemed to ripple off her, but I had no hobby of prodding at people’s painful pasts.
"They are idiots who think they can just breed indiscriminately, inflate their numbers, hand everyone a shield, yell ‘go,’ and win."
Though, if they were the largest faction, had they not won in the end? Still, there was no need to argue with her over it.
"It feels good when they burst with a pop after you smack them."
"If you ended up there, you would be forging armor every day and worked to the bone every night."
Setting aside Green Shark’s incomprehensible impression, their technology level was fortunately somewhere between the Middle Realm and the early industrial age.
It was reassuring that they had their own religion and that, rather than being hegemonists, they could be reasoned with.
"Next, over here: Miho Province."
A vast plain on the opposite side of the Ratkin Kingdom.
According to Marmotte, the fox-like race known as the Miho had long lifespans, used psychic powers, and even possessed advanced technology.
"The Inari Family even operates polygonal mechanoids."
"Their own mechanoids...?"
"I have only heard about them myself. I have never seen one in person."
Long-lived, psychic, and high-tech? What kind of absurdly overpowered race was that?
Were they actually Protoss or something?
"But their whole species is dependent on a drug called Sunification, their wounds heal slowly, and most importantly..."
"Most importantly?"
"Without vital essence, they dry up and die."
Vital essence. Before I could even process that occult-sounding term suddenly appearing in the middle of an explanation about high technology—
"It is a kind of life force, and absorbing it from the opposite sex is more efficient... You know?"
Marmotte blushed and gave a small nod.
I understood what she meant. There was supposedly a female-majority imbalance on the scale of entire star systems, so I should not even spit in that direction.
"Lastly, Yuran."
"Blegh."
As Marmotte mentioned the faction called Yuran, Green Shark’s teeth began to chatter.
What was it? Were they even worse than the Miho?
"They are closer to a tribe than a proper faction in terms of scale... Yes, well."
As if she found them unpleasant even to mention, Marmotte trailed off.
But I needed to know what they were like if I was going to avoid them.
"What are they like?"
"Outwardly, they are peaceful rabbits who dislike conflict."
"Like the Rabbies?"
"I hear they are a closely related species."
Rabbits. Was it like the relationship between humans and Neanderthals?
But why would being peaceful and conflict-averse be a problem?
"They are also strongly religious, and... um..."
"?"
Her continued hesitations were frustrating enough that I gave her a look.
Marmotte squeezed her eyes shut, then spilled it out.
"Their entire species is promiscuous. They do not discriminate when it comes to interspecies breeding, and if there is a man, they take turns using him. If that does not work out, women with women are fine too. They are utterly, utterly shameless bitches."
"Ah... I see..."
I had forgotten. This was the frontier.
I had learned a lesson: the most peaceful things were the most chaotic.
.
.
"There are also groups like Moyo by the coast and Epona in the grasslands, but... you do not really need to worry about them."
Just hearing the explanations made me feel as if my soul were being sucked out.
But apparently every faction had one thing in common: due to the shortage of men, sexual exploitation had become a traditional culture.
"What kind of insane planet is this?"
"...Seriously."
I was no longer trying to look at my companions with suspicion...
But I could not help shooting Marmotte and Green Shark sidelong glances.
"I dare say that no matter where you go, you will not be treated well."
In the end, the fact that I was merchandise worth seventy thousand silver coins would not change wherever I went.
Marmotte gripped the hem of my clothes tightly.
"There will be nowhere else that values you as highly as we do."
"No one can take my treasure from me."
I nodded.
I had worried that we might have to live as drifters, but...
On the contrary, this place—a battlefield of competing factions—was paradoxically the safest land.
"Still, we need to move soon."
"We should."
Position-wise, the Maru were the only ones who had raided us from quite a distance away, but someone else might have intercepted the signal too...
More importantly, we had already picked this area clean of resources, so we needed to relocate the settlement at least once.
"It will probably still be somewhere around here, though."
I gauged a decent location amid the borderlands between the various factions.
It looked like we would not escape our one-room existence until the day we left after all.
-----
The average frontier world today.
Now that I have written it, they really are Zerg and Protoss.
The Terran males are already being bred as livestock.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register