Demesne

Ryan did not miss hot, humid summers. The feeling of swimming in hot water just from walking around, covered in sweat because the water vapor in the air increased its thermal capacity, wanting to die just make it stop… thank goodness the baths and the river were right there. At least the occasional gust of wind felt nice and cool. Well, cool for him. Even after seven years on this planet, the latitude still felt slightly chilly for him even in summer. Well, during summers that they weren't experiencing terrible heatwaves.

He missed air conditioning. He missed it so much! It was right up there with his family, chocolate and ice-cream! He supposed that on a planet where all non-human mammals were aquatic it was no surprise that dairy wasn't a thing, but still…

And now he was spending this hot, humid summer day wandering the woods with a group of armed men and women, which was agonizing. Still, he couldn't let the suffering show on his face. Well, he couldn't let it show too much. It would be bad for morale. Thank goodness that he was healthy!

"Found some!" someone called to Ryan's left, and the search line. "Seven eggs! And I think they're still raw!"

There was a small cheer at that. People started carefully picking up the eggs and taking them to the litter carrying the eggs they'd already found, which were resting on a bed of leaves for cushioning to keep them from cracking. They also had a hand cart full of water skins, a third of which were now empty. No one wanted to be the one to fall over from heatstroke, after all.

The eggs were an unfortunate consequence of Lori's expanding the demesne: things that used to be outside the demesne were now suddenly inside as the borders moved with the expansion. When the things in questions were trees and rocks—and in one instance earlier that day, a dragon scale that had remained unnoticed until that day because it had been covered in Iridescence—that wasn't a problem. When the things were beast eggs, however…

As last year had shown, fertilized eggs that remained within the boundaries of the demesne could hatch and reintroduce beasts back into the woods after the population had been driven off by the presence of the demesne. Thankfully, the choker population wasn't too bad. Sure, they were pests, but they didn't go out of their way to attack people and even the older children had a reasonable chance of driving them off. Plus they were good eating—they tasted like chicken, ha ha—even if they couldn't feed all that many people compared to their larger cousins.

Ryan had also been amused to learn that while the wild chokers were normally wary around people, avoiding them more often than not unless they were occupied with eating a bug or something, they ran from Karina on sight.

But amusement aside, since the demesne had expanded, that meant there was a chance there were more eggs within the demesne's new borders. As such, to be sure there weren't any eggs left behind by leapers, waddlers or, fuck their lives, a typhon beast or some other mega predator now inside of their demesne—that last was unlikely but not impossible—he had been leading men to patrol the inner edges of the demesne, sweeping nooks and crannies for eggs. Unfortunately, being a good leader who didn't ask people to do something that he wouldn't do himself meant that he also had to do this himself. So making his way through the hot, humid woods it was.

Thank goodness he'd kept measuring the demesne's growth. That meant he was able to tell people exactly how far from the edge they had to check each day. Lori's growth rate was around twice what it had been during the winter, which meant that every day that Lori had expanded the demesne that summer, the edge had grown by ten meters on average, sometimes more. The solid week she'd had an expanding spree had gladdened his heart while at the same time being absolute agony as they'd had to keep checking a growing perimeter.

And that was just on this side of the river where the dungeon and the village was. They'd basically given up on the side of the demesne on the other side of the river. If large beasts started hatching there, he'd just have to ask Lori to try and perform a controlled genocide on any large lifeform that wasn't human shaped. He was fairly certain she could accomplish that.

Thankfully, the beast eggs weren't all that hard to find. Unlike birds, beasts were too big to lay eggs up in trees, and everyone he'd bought along knew how to look for beast eggs in the wild. Wild beast eggs were apparently something the militia and those who'd had to live on the edge of the demesne foraged to supplement their food, and it didn't matter how far along the egg was.

It wasn't quite balut, but the eggs filled their stew pot well enough, with the shells being ground up as fertilizer or for whatever chemistry the tanners needed to treat the leather they were making.

Once the eggs they'd found were on the litter, joining ten more eggs of various sizes they'd already found, they reformed the search line and continued on. Ryan swept his eyes across the ground, looking for eggs or anywhere eggs might be hiding. He knew he wasn't any good at this. The one time he'd found eggs so far this summer—which had turned out to be a small clutch of choker eggs—it had been because he'd almost stepped on them.

Yes, he wasn't very good at this. Still, that was no reason not to try.

Fortunately or unfortunately, they didn't find any more eggs by the time they reached the midpoint of their search and stopped to head back to the dungeon for lunch. The eggs they'd found were carried to the kitchen, where they'd be added to dinner, or more likely tomorrow's breakfast. Most of the men and women who'd gone egg-hunting with Ryan went straight to the baths, but a few just walked towards the river, took off their tsinelas and threw themselves in. This far into the summer, no one batted an eye, although as a responsible lord he waited for them to get out of the river before heading to get a bath himself.

…

He really should help Umu and Mikon when they did the laundry next time. His clothes smelled absolutely terrible.

––––––––––––––––––

After making sure Lori didn't need him after lunch, Ryan got ready to go out and suffer some more.

A hand came down on his shoulder. "Rian, we've talked about this," Riz said. "You're the one who said that we would rotate the people who go out to check for eggs in the afternoon so that no one gets overheated. That includes you. Now stay here and rest."

"Come on, Riz. Doesn't this count as officer work?"

"Oh, please, this is sergeant work at most. We've already talked about this, Rian. Now go and take another bath, you still look sweaty."

Ryan immediately stifled the first response that came to mind, then the second as well. When the third reply threatened to be equally quippy, he decided to fall back on the lessons he'd learned from his dad. "Yes, Riz, you're right. I'll do exactly that." He could only fight so hard against something he actually wanted to do, after all.

She nodded firmly, looking satisfied. Behind her, Mikon was smirking at him, while Umu was pouting in that way she did when she felt left out. They'd undoubtedly recognized the 'keep the wife happy' tone in his voice. "Good. Oh, don't sulk. There's plenty of work for you to do here. Lanwei and Gunvi were looking for you."

"Yes, Riz. You're right. I'll do just that."

She gave a satisfied smile—God, she was gorgeous—then glanced towards Umu and Mikon. "You two make sure he doesn't overwork himself, all right?"

"Yes, Erzebed," Mikon said, smiling widely. "I'll do just that." Umu pointedly turned her face away to hide her expression, but Ryan recognized the way her shoulders were shaking. Riz shot the pink-haired weaver a suspiciously look, but Mikon masterfully deflected suspicion by leaning forward and giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Be careful, all right? Find us a lot of eggs so we can make yolkoil."

Ryan felt the usual surge of inadequacy and arousal as he saw the two of them being affectionate. After all, why would two beautiful women—one a short-haired sporty tomboy type, the other a long-haired beauty with huge tracts of Binder-untaxed land—possibly be interested in him when they already had eyes for each other? Ever since Riz had told the story of her disastrous first visit to a brothel and Mikon had shown her how having sex with a woman was actually supposed to go, the two had started becoming closer and more intimate, which… all right, it was really hot.

He did his best to suppress that feeling. Umu, Mikon and Riz said they were all interested in him, and he wasn't going to self-sabotage and turn this fantasy romance into a self-destructive Greek tragedy.

That said…

"Don't forget to drink water," he said, stepping forward and kissing the opposite cheek. "Be careful out there, all right? The bugs are biting."

Riz rolled her eyes, but her pale cheeks had a noticeable blush.

"You want to give her a 'good luck' kiss too?" Mikon asked Umu.

Umu gave her a Lori-perfect flat look, then turned towards Riz and waved her hand in Lori's little 'stop bothering me about that' gesture. "Get going."

Riz made a two-fingered downward clawing gesture that Ryan had learned was the northern equivalent of giving someone the finger and smiled. "Glitter you too, Umu," she said lightly.

"Don't use that gesture where children could see," Shana chastised as she passed by, making Riz jump a little and visibly wince.

Ryan winced as well, though definitely for different reasons. To Riz, being chastised by Shana was somewhere between getting scolded by the Pope and St. Peter at the pearly gates. They were very devout dungeon worshippers where they came from, it seemed.

For him…

One day. If he'd just convinced Lori to go to River's Fork one day earlier instead of having her wait… Shana wouldn't be like this, acting like Lori because she thought it was how a proper Dungeon Binder was supposed to act…

He shook his head, exhaled. What's done was done. Do better next time. Obsessing about things like that was for humanoid arachnid persons.

Riz left—a little more humble—to lead the afternoon's egg-sweeping party, leaving the three of them. Ryan kissed Umu on the cheek too because he wanted to and so she wouldn't be so pouty, and kissed Mikon too when she leaned towards him, one cheek presented.

This… it was a fantasy romance. Yes, he had known it was something possible—Mang Carlos was living proof of that, poor Ate—but he'd never really thought it was something that was possible for him. His last crush had friend-zoned him, and their relationship had actually been more fun that way. And ever since he'd gotten isekaied… well, he'd been too busy learning the local language through brute force immersion and getting a job to look.

And now they were like this, and they'd come on to him and…

Ryan put those thoughts as Mikon kissed him, then immediately tried to kiss Umu, had somehow not managed to see the pattern that had emerged over the last few seconds. "Well, I better go and find Lanwei and Gunvi," he said, starting to turn away. "I'll see you two—"

A hand came down on his shoulder. "And where do you think you're going?" Mikon said cheerfully. Next to her, Umu was rubbing at her cheek and blushing as she glared at the other weaver.

"Uh, to get some work done?" he said.

"Now, how is that restful?" Mikon said. "You've been outside in the heat all morning. No, you're coming with us to the work floor. We told Erzebed we'd make sure you didn't overwork yourself, and how are we supposed to do that when you're out of sight? They're looking for you, they'll find you. You sit down and rest where we can see you."

"That's not working," Ryan said.

"Ryan, you work far too much," Umu said, taking hold of his hand. "It's not harvest season. You don't need to be working from sunrise to sunset."

"Actually, at the rate Shana and Tae are working—"

"Well, they haven't caused a harvest today," Mikon said, holding his other hand and—yup, those were her breasts against his arm. Down, boy! Sit! Stay! "Now come on."

Ryan wanted to object… but… well, he didn't really want to anyway. "Yes, Mikon. You're right. I'll do just that."

She smirked at him as he let himself be led down to the second level.