My name is Yame.
I'm the manager of this island.
Lately, for one reason or another, we've had a steady stream of visitors.
And with more visitors comes the problem of where to put them up.
Ideally, I'd offer them rooms at the base's inn, but since the High Elves, Lizardmen, and I are staying there, vacant rooms are scarce.
It would be fine if we just moved into the newly built houses, but their interiors aren't finished yet.
Besides, having grown used to communal living, I feel a bit hesitant about scattering into separate houses now.
So, we discussed a plan to reserve the current inn for the island's permanent residents and build a brand-new one for guests.
However, that idea was scrapped.
The reason: a severe lack of manpower.
We're already stretched thin just maintaining our current inn, so taking on another one is out of the question.
Totally impossible.
When we wondered what to do instead, an alternative idea emerged: since guests really only need a place to sleep, why not just rent out the detached houses currently under construction?
I don't think that's a bad idea at all.
As it stands, those houses are designed under the assumption that an independent family will live in each one.
Because of that, each layout includes a living-dining room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, a bath, and an outhouse.
With a setup like that, the guests should be able to manage on their own.
In fact, I'd very much appreciate it if they did.
As for meals, guests who can't cook can simply come to the inn's dining hall or take food back from there.
Sounds great to me.
When I consulted the Village Head, he gave his approval, so that's the direction we'll be heading in.
Of course, any residents who genuinely want to live in a detached house are more than welcome to move into one.
As for me, while securing a detached house of my own, I intend to keep living at the inn.
It might be a little cheeky of me, but I want to use my house as a quiet venue for holding important discussions in my capacity as island manager.
At the inn, aside from the private bedrooms, everything is open-concept, after all.
Well, for the time being, it'll probably just serve as my personal refuge and storage shed.
Beyond that... there's the manpower issue.
Yeah, we're definitely shorthanded.
We can easily handle one or two guests, but once ten or twenty show up, it becomes a real headache.
The High Elves and Lizardmen pitch in, of course, but pulling them away stalls the actual development of the island.
Then again, even as development moves forward, the labor shortage will remain a persistent issue.
Recruiting new residents would be the quickest fix, but it's hard to ask people to come live on such an inconvenient island.
Granted, while I call it inconvenient, it's remarkably more comfortable than it used to be.
What to do, I wonder...
It would be great if there happened to be some wandering group out there looking for a place to settle down.
Ah, but even then, a group of one or two hundred would be overwhelming.
The island simply couldn't support that many right now.
It might be fine in the future, but currently, it's impossible.
Which means... around ten people?
If there were two or three wandering families searching for a permanent home, I'd gladly take them in.
...
It might just be a prejudice of mine, but I feel like two or three families wandering the world in search of a home are usually running from some kind of trouble.
It might just be a baseless bias, though...
I sure hope it is.
..................
What a relief.
I stayed on high alert for about ten days, but nobody brought a wandering family to my doorstep looking for a home.
I had half-expected the Village Head to pick up some strays, or the Sea Race to rescue castaways, or Urza to drag someone along saying, "Take care of them for me!"
Yet nobody brought a soul.
Thank goodness.
Usually, whenever I brace myself for trouble, Gucci and the rest of that crowd make sure to deliver exactly what I was dreading.
Looking back, those were truly chaotic times.
I should just gratefully embrace the peace of the present.
Even if our labor shortage hasn't been resolved in the slightest.
Yuri, who drops by intermittently, has been piloting the Underwater Multi-purpose Humanoid Mobile Heavy Equipment—the Artie Horse Aqua—and making rapid progress on the harbor and lighthouse construction.
I'm incredibly grateful, but I can't help feeling she's coming here an awful lot lately.
Is everything all right with her?
When I checked in on her, it turned out that work-related stress has indeed been piling up back home.
She finds it far more relaxing to unwind on the island... or rather, to blow off steam piloting the Multi-purpose Humanoid Mobile Heavy Equipment.
Well, if Yuri is content with that, I won't pry any further.
She just needs to watch out for accidents.
People are most prone to mistakes right when they start getting comfortable.
Hm?
Tonight's dinner?
Since the Sea Race has been working hard too, we're planning a barbecue.
Yes, yes, I'll have some sake ready as well.
Keep up the good work.
Then there's the field that the Village Head casually whipped together on the island.
Though I wonder if it even qualifies as a field.
A dense grove of a plant called "bamboo" has sprouted up.
This bamboo is quite something.
It's lightweight, sturdy, and easy to work with.
On top of that, it repels water, making it remarkably versatile.
You can fashion it into plates, cups, or even canteens.
I couldn't help thinking how reassuring it would have been to have this bamboo back when I was surviving all on my own.
Ah, but trying to cut down bamboo without proper tools would probably be quite an ordeal.
It really is tough stuff.
Snapping it with bare hands looks nearly impossible, meaning you'd have to smash a rock against it to break the stalks, but that would just crush the wood into a mangled pulp and split it awkwardly, rendering it completely useless.
As for fire... bamboo is notoriously hard to ignite, and when it finally does catch, the trapped air bursts violently.
Extremely hazardous.
Hmm.
Without a proper bladed tool like an axe or a hatchet, harvesting it might simply be out of the question.
Trying to saw through it with thread... would require an absurd amount of patience.
As for the Inferno Wolf who has permanently claimed the kotatsu in the inn's common room...
Perhaps having lost all of its natural caution, it has recently taken to sleeping flat on its side.
A little commotion nearby won't even wake it.
And even if it does stir, it just glares in our direction as if to say, "Do you mind? You're being noisy."
Well, since hardly anyone besides the Inferno Wolf uses the kotatsu anyway, I don't particularly mind.
...
Wait a second. Didn't I explicitly tell you that bringing food into the kotatsu is forbidden?
I discovered a gnawed bone stashed right inside.
With scraps of meat still clinging to it, no less.
It doesn't matter how mournfully you look at me; rules are rules.
As punishment, I'm removing the futon from the kotatsu for a while, reducing it to a plain old table.
At my proclamation, the Inferno Wolf shot me a pleading gaze... in fact, its entire posture screamed desperate begging, but I refused to budge.
The kotatsu is a space you only enter after taking off your shoes, so it needs to stay clean.
Even you wipe your paws before climbing in, don't you?
And so, the kotatsu remained a plain table for about ten days.
All the while, the Inferno Wolf slept underneath it, looking thoroughly dejected and full of regret.
As a rule, I usually wear my hair tied up on both sides.
It's the style the Village Head referred to as "twintails."
However, this particular hairstyle has a flaw.
It's rather awkward when I need to tie on a triangular bandana for cooking.
A chef's hat presents the exact same problem.
Because of that, whenever I'm in the kitchen, I bundle it all together into a single tie in the back.
Do I have any strong preferences about hairstyles?
Truth be told, not really.
However, I do have strong feelings about length.
Short hair just isn't to my taste.
The ones I can actually chat with about this sort of thing are the High Elves.
After dinner or on rainy days, we occasionally sit around and talk about hairstyles.
Urza and Yuri don't really care much for style talk, I suppose.
The demon women who were staying at the Village of the Great Tree... the Civil Servant Girls, right?
I was able to have fairly engaging conversations with them on the subject.
Apparently, there was an era in the Demon Kingdom's noble society when outlandish hairstyles were all the rage, and they even showed me some portraits from that period...
True to their word, those styles were genuinely bizarre.
They were so wild that having actual hats or gigantic ribbons woven directly into the hair looked perfectly tame by comparison.
Some had their hair built up and stiffened into towering spires, while others literally sculpted elaborate model houses out of their hair and balanced them atop their heads.
Doesn't that completely ruin your hair?
More to the point, how did anyone manage to live a normal daily life with their hair like that?
Just walking around seemed like it would be a struggle.
Well, while I won't openly criticize anyone else's fashion choices, I certainly have no intention of copying them.
For me, a hairstyle that's easy to move around in is best.
The other night, a fierce storm blew in with heavy wind and rain.
The inn weathered it without issue.
The birdhouse and chicken coop emerged unscathed as well, but one of the chicks went missing.
It seems the poor thing was blown away by the wind.
The chickens were in a total uproar.
I told them I would go search for it and ordered them to stay put inside the coop.
Since it was a search operation, having more eyes would have helped, but the severe storm had left the island terrain a treacherous, muddy mess.
This was a job best left to me.
My magic power has recovered a bit lately, after all.
After scouring the island for half a day, I finally found the chick.
It was completely unharmed.
What a relief.
As it turned out, the chick had survived because it managed to stumble into one of the caves the Village Head had dug around the island.
There was even food stored inside that a little chick could eat.
Did the Village Head dig those caves all over the place anticipating this exact kind of emergency?
...
No, I'm definitely overthinking it.
Even so, I made a mental note to thank him.
When I brought the chick back, the rest of the flock gave me a rather rough welcome.
I know they were just expressing their gratitude, but furiously pecking at me felt like the wrong way to show it.