Unfortunately, I'm Not a Furry
When Chico said, “They’re here,” I thought he meant they’d come to the mansion.
That wasn’t the case. On the far side of the wall surrounding the southern edge of the village, I could see around twenty figures.
Why were they outside the village?
As we approached, I realized the group wasn’t human.
Feline ears and tails… Beastkin.
If I remembered correctly, the feline clan was called the Cat-roux.
“Why aren’t they coming into the village?”
“Yeah, I wonder why.”
“It’s obvious. The village is someone else’s territory. If something happened, it’d be hard for them to escape, right?”
So they were wary of us. In that case, this was my cue.
If it was a child approaching them, their guard would probably be lower.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
At the head of the group stood a girl. Maybe around middle-school age.
Chestnut-colored hair, and one blue eye and one gold eye.
She looked very catlike.
“A child came out, nya.”
She ended her sentence with “nya”. An impressively catlike performance.
Unfortunately, I’m not a furry, so it did absolutely nothing for me.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dermont, eldest son of the baronial family. While we wait for Chichiue to arrive, I’d like to hear what you have to say first.”
“Da~...”
“Ojou, he’s a human noble.”
“I-I know that, Orman! A noble, right? A noble. Yeah.”
Apparently the Desert Folk didn’t have a nobility system.
Still, Ojou, huh? That meant that girl was probably the daughter of someone important among the Desert Folk.
“Ahem. Umm... we’d like you to hand over the bandits, nya. Ah, not all of them. Just the leader will be enough.”
The bandits… She meant Boromioshi’s accomplices, I assume.
“I’m sorry, but that’s impossible.”
“Nyaaa!? J-just one is fine! You can bend the rules that much, can’t you!?”
The girl raised her voice irritably.
But impossible was impossible.
“Now, now, Ojousan, no need to get upset. Those fellows have already been escorted to the royal capital and are being interrogated. That’s why we can’t hand them over.”
“Eh... t-they’re not here anymore?”
I nodded. The Cat-roux gathered into a circle and began discussing something among themselves.
While they did, Father arrived, and I explained their request to him.
“Could it be that the Cat-roux tribe also had something stolen by that bandit group?”
When Father asked that question, they finished their discussion and turned toward us.
After Father introduced himself as the baron, the Cat-roux girl stepped forward.
“Ahem. I-I am Caro, daughter of Dando, chief of the Desert Cat-roux tribe. I have come as my tribe’s repre... repre...”
“Representative.”
“That! Yes! I’ve come as his representative, nya.”
She was the chieftain’s daughter!? They’d sent someone pretty important.
She then briefly explained why they wanted the bandits handed over.
“Six tribes live in the desert, nya. One of them, the Saruji tribe, is allied with the bandits, nya.”
“What? Part of the Desert Folk!?”
“Nya. About five years ago, they started working with the bandits and attacking merchant sandships crossing the desert. Because of that, merchants stopped trading with us Desert Folk...”
That had to be a serious problem.
The desert probably suffered from water shortages just like this place, and self-sufficiency was likely difficult there as well.
“On top of that, the western commercial nation of Leton has finally dispatched soldiers into the desert.”
The man called Orman spoke with a grave expression.
“Soldiers!? But the ones attacking merchant vessels were that Saruji tribe and the bandits, right?”
“Nya. But outsiders don’t care about details, nya. Desert Folk are Desert Folk. They think we and the Saruji are all the same, nya.”
So in a desert inhabited by several small tribes, if one caused trouble, everyone got blamed.
“The chiefs of each tribe somehow managed to explain the situation, and for now they’ve withdrawn their troops...”
“But we have to hand over those people within three months, nya. However...”
“However?”
“The Saruji abandoned the settlement where they used to live and ran off somewhere, nya.”
“But the attacks on sandships continue. So they must still be somewhere in the desert.”
I see.
That was why they wanted one of Boromioshi’s bandit accomplices handed over, to learn the location of the hideout.
“Chichiue...”
“Yes. We should send word to the royal capital immediately.”
But three months, huh? Even changing horses along the way, it would take two weeks to reach the capital.
A round trip alone would consume a month.
Even if they extracted the hideout’s location immediately, if it was far away, they might not make the deadline.
“If that’s the case, leave it to me.”
“To you, Fitcher?”
“Yes. Two days from now, a caravan from my family’s company will arrive. When it does, they’ll bring a very capable youngster who can help us communicate smoothly with my family.”
“A capable youngster?”
And a caravan? We hadn’t even placed an order with his family’s company yet.
“Ah, no need to worry. The shipment arriving the day after tomorrow is something I ordered personally. You could call it an initial investment.”
“I-initial investment?”
“To be frank, it’s grain, root vegetables, and all sorts of vegetable seeds. I figured if we sow enough varieties, at least one of them might grow even in the wasteland, so I stocked up on all kinds.”
I see. The vegetables he had brought previously had just run out.
He must have arranged this in advance to match the timing.
Pretty impressive for someone so young. But because of that, I felt a little guilty.
I appreciated how highly he thought of the baronial family, but there really weren’t any profitable opportunities in the frontier territory of Zenas.
I mean, sure, we had development funds equivalent to about two billion yen, but still.
“So you’ll investigate their hideout from your side, nya?”
“Yes. Well, not us personally, the royal capital’s knight order will handle it.”
“Either way is fine, nya. Then until that happens, we’ll…”
“Yes. Please come back when the time comes. Ah, how should we contact you?”
At my question, Caro, the chieftain’s daughter, tilted her head.
Hm? Did I say something strange?
“What are you talking about, nya? We’ll wait here, nya.”
Hm? Wait here...?
What do you think about this chapter?
