All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 119: His Cleanliness

I wasn’t normally one to be self-conscious, but it felt like most of the castle had come to watch me cut the grass. What was so fascinating about it?

It was only a little after my third revolution around the castle that Trent joined the crowd. After a few minutes, he stepped out and cleared his throat. “Master Void, do you have any plans for those grass clippings you are harvestin’?”

I paused in my work. Did I have plans for the grass? I didn’t know if I would really call them plans, but I did have a few ideas of what I could do with it. I wasn’t going to act on them much immediately, though, and I was definitely open to others. It would be silly of me to think that I would know what to do with the grass better than the humans who had been working at this for a long time.

Trent was an older human, one that everyone in the castle looked up to, so I had to assume that he knew a lot. Even if he did spend most of his time playing in the dirt. Of course, he cleaned himself regularly, so he couldn’t be all bad.

I did my best to let Trent know that I had a few ideas but was open to suggestions. I made sure to try to slow down my beeps for clarity, but still, I was mostly left with a blank look. Trent looked around with a slightly frustrated look on his face. “Of course, both Bee and Tony left. Why didn’t they think that the young god might want to talk to people in the meantime? Darn kids.”

The crowd looked around at each other for a couple seconds in shared consternation. After a moment, Felix stepped out from between a couple of the larger kids he had been hanging out with. “Uh, Mr. Trent?”

Trent scanned the group of people before finding the source of the small voice. Meeting Felix’s eyes, Trent spoke in a slightly gentler voice than I had heard him use before. “Yes, Felix?”

“Uh, I think that, Voi-, I mean, uh, Our Lord Excellency was tryin to say that he- it, it was happy to get ideas, but wanted to keep a little bit for… something I didn’t quite get. I think that’s what His- Its? Goodliness was tryin to say.” The boy eventually stumbled through an explanation. But honestly, I couldn’t complain. That was a much better and more straightforward translation than most of the ones Bee did.

Trent turned to look at me, seemingly trying to evaluate whether I agreed with the statement. I tried to figure out a way to signal my agreement with my arm or sword, but every move I could think of was distinctly negative or too ambiguous. With a mental shrug, I did my best to let out a positive beep. Trent nodded before turning to the rest of the people.

“I’m sure that you all have better things to do rather than bother Void. He’s tryin’ his best to serve the community. You should all follow his example and consider what you could be doin’ to pitch in more.” Trent grinned. “If anyone needs suggestions, I’m happy to help out.”

With that promise of more work, the people quickly dispersed. Some, though, appeared to have a certain fire in their eyes and walked with more purpose than before.

“Felix, could I ask you to stay with us for a moment?” Trent said, catching the sleeve of the small boy before he could slip away with the rest of the people. “I think I’m going to need a bit more translatin’ before I also can start to understand Void. It seems you younger people are a bit closer to ‘im.”

Felix nodded and walked closer to me alongside the older man. Trent squatted down to be near my level, but Felix just sat on the ground like the children tended to do. “So the first thing that I would normally do with a grass field like this is cut it for hay. Now, we don’t have nearly enough animals to eat everything this could produce. So composting it would be nice. We could get some piles and then use it later for fertilization in the spring.”

I considered what Trent said. Composting? I wasn’t familiar with that term. Or fertilization, for that matter. Having the animals eat it did seem like a simple and useful solution if that was a possibility. Trent did speak with a lot of confidence when it came to plants and stuff. Perhaps he would be able to explain a few things about that area to me. I let out a series of beeps for Felix to translate.

Felix listened to me and licked his lips. Looking up nervously at Trent, he turned back to me. “Uh, Lord Void, could you perhaps repeat that last bit, I- I didn’t understand all that.”

What, where was all this “lord” and “excellency” stuff coming from, Felix? I asked why he didn’t talk to me like he did when we were just playing. Nervously he looked back up at Trent. “I don’t know, are you su-. Uh, is that really what you want?”

Yes, of course, I didn’t really care what people called me, but it seemed that Felix was a bit uncomfortable with that idea. Still, the odd manner of address just seemed so out of place. I did my best to impress on Felix that he didn’t need to treat me any differently in front of other people than all the children did normally. No one was going to get mad at him for not using the right honorific or anything.

Trent watched our back and forth passively. From his expression, I wasn’t able to tell how much of the conversation he could put together from just Felix’s side, but he seemed more than willing to let us finish. Eventually, Felix nodded and said, “If that’s what you want, Void.”

Turning to Trent, Felix relayed my message rather well. “Void wants to know - what does taking plant food out of the field do to grass later on?”

Trent blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting this line of questioning. “Uh, I’m not sure grass draws that much from the soil that isn’t redeposited by rain and the natural wildlife. But I suppose it’s possible that, after a long enough time, the grass would suffer a bit. With a little fertilizer, I’m sure it would come back. The problem comes up more with crops. Normally the solution to that is to let one third of your fields lay fallow each year. That gives the soil a chance to recover without the need for fertilizer.”

After enough context clues, I was finally able to understand what fertilizer was. Well, ‘context clues’ was a bit strong, as Trent pretty much explained the whole thing to me. But that gave me a good idea of what composting was, even if I didn’t really understand how the process itself worked.

I got Felix to interpret my next question. The boy took a couple of repeats to understand the whole thing, but eventually, I was able to simplify it enough. Felix wet his lips and squared his shoulders, clearly taking his job as my translator very seriously. “Mr. Trent sir, Void would like to know how you make compost. And how long it takes for the stuff you compost to turn into useful plant food. Also, how long it would take to make fertilizer.”

Trent rubbed his jaw. “Why don’t we start headin’ over to the pile I started a little while ago? We can talk about it more with an example.”

—

Bee and Tony had made incredible time, despite all her teasing. Tony was able to maintain a pace only possible because of his high levels. It was probably helped by a similarly high endurance. But the fact that she couldn’t confirm that meant Bee was starting to get frustrated with her scan skill.

Sure, it was incredibly useful and everything, but it hadn’t grown nearly as fast as she would have liked. She was already one of the most powerful people she had ever met, and she hadn’t even been able to see her own full status, let alone anyone else’s.

Of course, skills getting stronger wasn’t just levels and experience. Using them was how they really evolved and adapted to the user, as well as grew in power. Time was the largest factor in that, so it was a bit unfair for her to expect them to grow at the same rate as her level. Especially with how often she forgot to use it. Sure, skills still developed a bit without use, but then they’d never truly be great. In fact, most people had more experience with skill training than leveling because of the lower risks associated. She really needed to focus on this one more, especially since using it didn’t require much risk at all on her part. Not like combat skills, at least.

With Greg finally on the horizon as they left the forest, Bee considered if they would be able to find sheep before the sun went down. They might make the city, but it would be close. “Do you want to stop and spend the night here while we still have shelter?”

Tony looked at the edge of the trees and shook his head. “I’m not sure. It seems like the forest is as much of a trap as it is a shelter. Somehow we managed to avoid the undead on the way here. I’m not sure that I believe that the forest is empty of them yet though. I think it would be better if we had a clear line of sight around us.”

“If we can see all around us, then everything around us can see us too.” Bee pointed out. “Besides, we took several days on the way back from Greg and we were surrounded by the forest the whole time.”

“Did you forget that Void was with us the whole time? I don’t think a kid did more than scrape his knee the entire trip.” Tony said, with a little bit of the earlier teasing returning to his tone. “Maybe we set up at the edge of the forest so we can have a little fire in the tree,s but also have half of the open area behind us?”

“We really don’t know anything about bushcraft, do we?” Bee sighed in frustration. “I looked a little bit in the library about it, but it turns out that people who like to run around in the woods all the time aren’t really inclined to write books about it.”

“I know a thing or two about roughing it, but yeah, not in hostile territory so to speak. But I don’t really know if any of the tricks would apply to the undead, even if we knew them.” Tony said as they stepped off the path and started looking for a place to put down their packs.

“Well the undead are not the only thing we have to worry about. Did you forget Void driving off those kingdom scouts? We also just sent a - uh, an envoy I guess? - to the kingdom’s armies to try and repair relations. But to them, Void and its followers are possessed, demon worshiping cultists, or something.” Bee said, dropping her pack next to a rock. It looked like it would make a good windbreak. Perhaps she should have mentioned that to Susan. Though she probably knew that anyway if she was investigating them.

“I’m sure it can’t be that bad, right?”