Grow Big
We returned to Westland.
I talked with Brother Chris as usual, but we didn’t touch on the engagement or the matter of me becoming the lord.
He must have been giving me time.
Normally I should be happy when coming back from the royal capital, but now there’s little joy.
Georges also looked like he wanted to say something, but he’s leaving me alone.
Brother Chris’s engagement is still confidential, so the attendants and maids don’t know yet, but they must have noticed that something happened during the family meeting when everyone else was sent away.
I guess I’ll spend my time slowly for a while.
While I was in the greenhouse, Rosa came in and dragged me to the administrative office.
“Why in the world do you think you can take it easy? You understand how much work has piled up, don’t you?”
She slammed box after box of documents onto my desk in the administrative officers’ room.
Hmm. Rosa’s gotten a lot more outspoken lately—strict with me, too.
But with this amount of paperwork, I can’t say anything. I started sorting documents silently.
“Isn’t there anyone we can delegate things to?”
“I’ve reached the limit of what I can handle alone as well.”
Rosa sighed as she said it.
“Young Master Reinhardt, we can’t deal with the work of the new district by ourselves.”
“We would be really happy if we had someone above us.”
Damian and Rosetta agreed.
Grandfather is already handling all the construction matters for the new district and taking in the farmers, so he’s busy.
We need someone who can be entrusted with interviewing applicants for the new district’s settlement, too.
A letter arrived from Bale saying the Cocotte eggs have hatched, but they don’t have enough incubators and want advice.
For sweets and the new district’s cooking, we’ll need plenty of eggs and meat, so we must raise many chicks.
I need to have Maria urgently make additional egg incubators.
The wool also arrived, so I should have her experiment whether it can be made into felt fabric.
One week later, I headed to Varshe’s fort carrying the incubators Maria made.
If the chicks I entrusted earlier have grown large enough, I’d like to have them kept at the Cocotte ranch.
It’s best if the Cocotte children can be raised somewhere they can be brought quickly in case something happens, so we’ve already arranged things with the ranch that toured the canning factory.
The ranch owner was curious, as he’d never seen Cocotte children before, and readily agreed.
Well, it was a ranch already testing whether Cocottes could be raised as poultry, so things went smoothly.
Around the Cocotte hut, seven Cocotte children were running about.
They had grown to about half the size of adult Cocottes—maybe a bit smaller.
About the size of chickens from my previous life.
The chicks that once fit on my palm seem to have grown safely. Good.
“They’ve gotten big in the short time I haven’t seen them.”
Bale looked pleased. “Yes, with only seven it’s manageable, but if we increase the numbers, it may get cramped.”
“Actually, I’m thinking of asking another ranch to raise the Cocotte children.”
“Really?”
“At the moment, this is the only place equipped to raise chicks, so I want to entrust them to another ranch once they grow to adulthood.”
“If you do that, won’t the problem of Dodorin fruit and Coco fruit—Cocottes’ feed—come up?”
“Dodorin fruit is already planted at the Cocotte ranch. Coco fruit… what should we do?”
Adult Cocottes love it enough to slam their bodies against walls, but Coco fruit only grows in this area.
According to Bale, the Cocotte children eat Coco fruit daily.
But since they can’t harvest it themselves or peel it, Bale’s family cracks them open and feeds them the pieces.
“Do they eat a lot?”
“No, the seven of them share half a Coco fruit per day.”
I asked about the adult Cocottes in the Great Forest, and it seems they don’t eat it daily. Even if a split Coco fruit is placed on the ground, sometimes they don’t touch it at all.
“In that case, supplying Coco fruit to the ranch should be manageable.”
If we plant Coco fruit around this fort and increase the number of trees, that should give us peace of mind.
I was told they have stored seeds, so I decided to plant some before returning.
Of twenty eggs, sixteen chicks hatched.
They get 30–40 eggs a day, but only about five seem close to hatching.
The remaining eggs can’t be eaten by Bale’s family alone, so they’ll deliver them to the mansion in the new district together with Varshe’s milk.
Also, around fifteen Cocottes appear at the fort each day.
They come in the morning, eat Dodorin fruit, and leave satisfied.
Among them, one or two apparently eat Coco fruit.
So Dodorin fruit is their staple, and Coco fruit is dessert?
Maybe it’s something they only want occasionally.
But it’s a great help that Bale carefully observes all this.
“Aren’t you getting busier than before?”
“It’s fine. Milking time has shortened, so things are easier now.”
I gave Bale’s family Guido’s dorayaki and ice cream as souvenirs.
We have to rely on them to keep hatching chicks and make poultry raising possible.
Meyer harvested the Coco fruit growing at the fort with wind magic, and we put the Cocotte children to sleep with Sleep Grass, placed them in cages, brought them back, and handed them to the ranch together with the Coco fruit.
Grow big.
What do you think about this chapter?
