I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm

Squish. Squish. Squish. Squish.

Dozens of footsteps were heard advancing through the moss-covered ground, still soaked from a recent storm that had barreled through the area.

The group marching was a mix of a few dozen men, women, and children, yet despite their numbers, it was difficult to find a single one of them without an obvious injury or draped in tattered clothing. Soft grunts could be heard as those with leg injuries struggled to keep up with their peers.

In front of the group was a man who looked to be in his thirties; his clothes were especially torn. Most of the remaining pieces of cloth were nearly soaked through with blood, and an especially deep wound could be seen on his shoulder. Nonetheless, he not only continued leading their march, but he even did so while carrying a young boy with a twisted ankle on his back.

While resting on his back, the boy looked at the man's wound with an anxious expression.

"Dad, does your shoulder hurt?"

He paused for a second, debating whether or not to downplay the injury, before quickly deciding there was no point in hiding it.

"Yes, it hurts a lot. That spear really went deep, but thanks to the creator of the world, it will heal eventually... all of us will be okay."

His words were louder than he thought, and they were met by a sudden shout from a woman behind him.

"How can you say we will be okay!? They took our village! Even if we heal, there is nowhere to go back to!"

The man glanced back at the woman. Tears filled her eyes, barely holding back from streaming down her face. Although he wanted to comfort her, there was nothing he could say. There was no way to get their village back. There was no way to bring back their homes. It was impossible to bring back those they lost. Starting over from scratch wasn't a choice- it was really their only option. So, that's what he said.

"We will need to start over. We have to keep moving until we find somewhere to rebuild."

"And where will that be!? You know as well as I do- there is nowhere on this side of the world that is empty!”

While what she screamed wasn’t necessarily true, it was undeniable that the area near the plateau was getting very crowded. On their journey so far, a small village could be seen roughly every half hour of walking. As enticing as settling in these gaps would be, it would undeniably lead to conflicts with the neighboring villages in the future. The amount of wood, food, and land they require would only increase with their population, and fighting was bound to break out when two villages needed the same resources. That was a lesson they now wore on their bodies.

“They took our homes and slaughtered everyone who would not leave! They are worse than the invaders the creator of the world has us fighting against!"

Her cries echoed through the air while the group continued their march to the sounds of her unanswered pleas for the priest to step in. Obviously, such desperate mutterings would never reach his ears with their distance from Rygard growing larger with every step.

“Dad… will we have to cross the river to find somewhere to stay?”

The father glanced at the boy on his back.

“No, that would be impossible. The river is very far from here; we can not rely on generosity that whole way.”

“Then what will we do?” he asked.

The father gazed back off into the distance, “We will need to continue south. There have been fewer people the further we have gotten from Rynntara… there is still a chance we can find space. If not, we may be able to find a village to join.”

The kid fell silent for a few moments before softly speaking again.

“But… what would happen if our new village gets taken over again?”

He could feel a slight flinch from atop the father, yet the man continued walking. His outwardly calm demeanor remained unchanged despite the thoughts that must’ve been raging in his head.

“… Then we will deal with that if the time ever comes.”

Such a reply was not very reassuring, yet it was the most he could offer to the young boy. There was no telling what the future held for them; while he was fairly confident the women would be able to join a welcoming village, the man knew it would be a tougher ask for himself. Those new to a village lacked a connection to the people and to the land itself. Without that bond, what reason would they have to defend those people and their homes when they are threatened?

Their village was not the first to be taken, nor would it be the last. In this ever-growing conflict of resources and greed, the number of wandering people was only growing. Even though many tried to help and care for those in need, their numbers only added to the strain on the land and made neighboring villages look increasingly anxious at the thinning spaces between their farms and homes. As in their case, once that worry inevitably ended in conflict, those who had recently arrived and had been accepted were the first ones to scurry, simply moving on to find the next village to take them in and becoming wanderers once again. They had no ties, no loyalty, and no reason to fight.

The man bit his inner cheek.

Now they were the ones in that uncertain situation with no village to call home. If given the chance to join one, would he truly be able to view it as his home? If that new village was attacked the way his old one was, would he be willing to lay down his life to defend that land?

He didn’t know.

Yet time would not wait for him to come to the conclusion in the slowly darkening sky.

As he continued to march, he knew there was only one way to settle that debate in his mind.

“I will figure it out when the time comes.”

His words repeated as the sun finished its descent over the horizon.

.

..

...

"Whoa! Look at those trees, Dad! They look so weird!"

The father followed his son's outstretched finger and squinted into the horizon, where he spotted what looked like extremely tall and thick corn stalks pillaring out of shallow water. These giant green plants twisted and arched in and out of the water, bearing an odd resemblance to a bundle of rope that was haphazardly tossed into a puddle.

"Those are not trees at all. We must have reached Buggy Bog," he muttered.

"Buggy Bog?" the kid tilted his head.

"It is an area that was set up after the last invasion. Oracle Ruglace was able to take back seeds from those giant plants and some creatures that the creator of the world called buggy boys. They were being protected here to let their numbers grow."

The kid's eyes sparkled, "Wow! I want to see them!"

"It seems like you will get to see some soon."

Contrary to his son's excitement, the father appeared much less enthusiastic about the situation.

The group had been traveling for roughly two weeks at this point and had been surviving mainly off the plentiful fallen cherries littering the ground and the occasional wild chicken that crossed their path. Thanks to the regeneration mutation given to them by the creator of the world, most of their minor injuries had healed- only the major ones, such as the one on his shoulder, would need a lot more time to recover. Even the man's son was now walking by his side.

Yet while the group grew healthier with every passing day, the reality of their situation only grew more apparent the farther they moved south.

"In the end, there really was not a good place to settle," he mumbled.

The trend of villages becoming scarcer the farther south they went held true until the end. A few areas on their journey even seemed oddly perfect and devoid of settlements, though sudden strong storms moving through the region quickly revealed why few had made permanent homes there.

Although the man was considering changing directions to look for a potential opening, either east toward Woodwrath or west toward the river, his exhaustion from traveling was increasingly warming him up to the idea of asking already established villages to take them in. With the group nearing the water marking the start of Buggy Bog, now was his first opportunity to try.

Just as he was about to take his first step into the shallow lake, however, a young voice came out from above him.

“It looks like we have some guests!”

“There have been a lot of them recently.”

The group glanced up where they saw two teenagers resting at the top of an arched swamp vine.

With a grin, the older teen swung down and landed in the shallow water with a splash, while the younger of the two scooted down the arch, skillfully balancing his feet on the vine’s ridges. He was stopped in a standing posture just high enough for the man to need to raise his head up to keep him in sight.

“They do not look very great,” the older teen pointed toward the group, “How many are there?”

“Hmm… one… two… three…”

As the younger brother counted the group agonizingly slowly, the man gazed curiously at the duo. His focus particularly landed on their clothing.

Their clothes seemed to be made out of a material unknown to him, neither corn husk nor cloth. It made no sense for it to be made out of mountain chicken hide for obvious reasons, which meant that it was a completely new type of clothing.

Although the clothes themselves were simple tunics, tied at the waist and with loose sleeves to not hinder their climbing, the soft silver threads seemed to give off an unfamiliar feeling of luxury to the man.

As he slowly shifted his gaze up, he quickly met the teen’s eyes, who were already looking at him with a smug expression.

“I am guessing you are curious about my clothes?”

“Ah- yes. I am sorry for staring. I have just never seen anything like that before.”

“I thought so. Most of the others have asked me about it too, so I had to ask my grandparents to tell me about it.”

“… The others?”

The teen ignored his mutter and began explaining.

"Around the time when our grandparents were young, a weird group of people came here asking to see some buggy boys. From what I was told, people visiting Buggy Bog were a lot rarer back then, so they were given a full tour of the area. You all would not know this, but when the baby buggies first start growing, they wrap themselves in this soft, stringy material. Anyway, the leader of that group was apparently obsessed with it for some reason. We really only used it for small things like bandages back then, but the leader of that group gave us this wooden thing that let us make cloth out of it in exchange for some buggy boys and swamp vine seeds to take back with him."

"I want to see a buggy boy..."

The father and the teen both looked at the kid, who suddenly whispered. The teen reached into a small pocket on his tunic and pulled out what resembled a plump green caterpillar. He took a few steps and handed the tiny creature to the boy, which promptly curled up in his hands.

"Be gentle with her, she just laid some eggs earlier today."

The kid's eyes readily glowed with excitement, "I will! It is so cute!"

After glancing at his son's expression and the buggy boy in his hands, the man turned back to the teen, "That is all good to know, but you mentioned something about others. Have more people come down here recently?"

"Way too many," the teen sighed, "Everyone has the same story. I do not know why the villages in the north started fighting all of a sudden. We have been taking people in to help us watch over the buggy boys and gather their silk, but we are reaching our limit on how many people we can support. Most of the villages around here are either spread out on small islands in the lake or are resting on the lake's edge in the south. There is only so much room we have to house people, even with the supplies from the mergos."

The father's expression shifted to one of disappointment, while his son looked up from staring at the buggy boy.

"Who are the mergos?"

"Oh, that is what we call the guys I was talking about before. They come back every few seasons to exchange whatever they have for our extra cloth. It is always different people, but they bring everything you can think of," the teen leaned closer to the kid and whispered, "I heard they even brought mountain chicken hide once."

"Wow!"

Their conversation was practically going in one of the man's ears and out of the other, however.

"If you are running out of room, we probably will not be able to join, I assume," he probed once their voices died down.

The teen stopped and shook his head, "There does seem to be a lot more than we can take in."

He then looked back at the younger teen balancing on the swamp vine.

"Did you finish counting?"

"Almost! Thirty-one... and thirty-two! I got it! They have thirty-two people in the group!" he beamed.

The kid raised his eyebrow, "He just finished counting? I could have done it faster than that."

"He fell off a swamp vine last week and hit his head pretty hard," the teen explained, "Things are a bit slow for him right now."

"... Should he really be climbing right now, then?"

The father's interjecting concern was met with a shrug, "He said he was fine. We need to make sure we keep track of the baby buggies before their silk blows away, so he can not just rest forever at the village."

"Right... but about our numbers..."

"Ah, no. There are definitely too many of you," the teen shook his head and made an 'X' with his arms, "We can take ten at most."

A sigh slipped from the father's lips, "I thought so. Wait... did you say ten? Why did you make us wait five minutes for him to count- we clearly have more than ten people here!?"

"Huh? I just told you he hit his head. He needed the practice to help him get better."

"... I am starting to think you also hit your head."

The teen's posture stiffened, "You could tell!?"

""...""

After a brief silence, the father took a deep breath.

"Okay. We will try to find somewhere else to stay. Do you know if there is any open land near here?"

The teen slipped into thought with his hand on his chin, "Hmm... you can always try going toward the river. Other than that, there is definitely land about two days' south of here that is free, but it is not exactly livable."

"Oh... are the storms bad there, too?"

"No, it is not that. The area is just very hot. There are no trees or even any chickens running around for food- the whole place is just covered in this rough and dry dirt, the color of corn."

"... Does such a place even exist?" he asked skeptically.

"That is what I heard from a friend of mine who lives in a village on the southern edge of Buggy Bog. I have not seen it for myself, though."

"Hmm..." The father turned back to speak to the group, "What do you all think? Should we try to find this place?"

They all started murmuring.

"There is no way that can be true, can it?"

"I do not know, but this place is definitely hotter than our village. It might keep getting hotter the further south we go."

"But can it get hot enough for no trees to grow?"

After listening to their voices for a few moments, the father made a suggestion.

"I know we are all tired of traveling. The area is only two days of travel from here, so I think we should go see it for ourselves before we are forced to head toward the river. It could be weeks before we find a good spot if we go that way."

Following a brief debate, the group soon reached a consensus on that plan, and the group made its way through Buggy Bog with light guidance of the teens. Their journey went smoothly, and they appeared on the other side of the lake with the only casualty being the kid's mental state after they failed to catch enough fish and were forced to eat some of the buggy boys.

Contrary to what they were told, the region just south of the Buggy Bog seemed normal; there were cherry trees, chickens, and moss, just like how it was near their original village. Unfortunately, there were also numerous small villages in this area that were taking advantage of the abundant resources provided by their proximity to the shallow lake.

Without many options, the group continued moving south until they came across something that stopped them in their tracks.

"... The dirt the color of corn... he was right!"

After another day of travel, the towering cherry trees vanished over the horizon. Where they were expected to stand was instead a seemingly endless landscape of pure sand and desert.

The father kneeled down at the edge of the line of sand and scooped up a handful before letting it slowly fall through the gaps in his fingers.

"I have never felt dirt so dry before... no corn or tree can stand in this soil."

A wave of sighs and groans sounded out from the exhausted group.

"So, what do we do now? Do we go back toward the giant river?"

"That was what we planned to do..."

The father slipped into thought, tuning out the voices from behind him.

Throughout this entire journey, he had been attempting to pick the most logical options. While he knew his decisions were for good reasons, it appeared that hundreds of others made the same choices that he did, just with the fortune of making them earlier and the blessings of open land because of that timing.

"There is a lot of land toward the river... I have no doubt we will find something that way," he began, speaking his thoughts out loud, "But surely more people will do the same thing and our children might face the same problem we did. To make sure they do not have to fight for their land, maybe we should settle on land that no one would want to take?"

One of the women from the group stepped up, "What are you talking about? Are you saying we should make our village in there?"

The father shook his head, "No. We can not do the impossible, but... there is a chance we will not have to."

With cautious words, the man made his suggestion to the group.

Just like how there was some nice land between the lake and the sand, he figured there may be something similar between the sand and the sea. Rather than moving west toward the river that split the continent in two, he instead wanted to move east to the sea it was raised upon. After all, he figured most would turn away at the sight of the sand and not bother looking for something so narrow and out of the way. Despite the group being a bit skeptical, they ultimately decided to give the proposal a chance, only for their travels to stop far before reaching the unending waves.

"This... is a river!"

Indeed, the group's observation was true. Although it was small, they spotted a river flowing south from the giant Buggy Bog lakes and cutting through the hot and hostile sand.

"Dad! You were right- there is good soil on the edges of the river!"

Sure enough, on both sides of the river were enough brown dirt and patches of moss wide enough to fit three homes side by side.

The group was still split between being anxious and excited.

Dipping his hand into the water, the father spoke, "The air is hot, but the water is cool. The land is tight, but the soil is good. The place is not ideal, but that just means no one will want to take it."

He looked at the group.

"I think we found our new home."

With those words, the first set of humans made their way into the giant desert in the south of the realm, walking alongside the fresh flowing river, swimming with life. It would not be until much later that they would find the giant oasis that the creator of the world had hidden inside the harsh desert- a new haven would emerge.