Kays Translations

Chapter 35: The Secrets of the Hokkaido Monster Farm

I was moved—because I realized that the Hokkaido Monster Farm was an outstanding survivor community.

Four months had passed since the Mushroom Pandemic, and disaster recovery aid, delayed by a month from the Tohoku Hunting Association, arrived. All of its details were meticulously documented in writing.

The envoy who brought the documents and supplies wasn’t a witch or wizard but an ordinary person specializing in livestock farming. They had three identical copies of the documents, one of which, after passing through the Blue Witch, ended up in my hands.

It was fantastic.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said, “Please provide information in writing.”

The Hokkaido Monster Farm had prepared the paperwork without me even asking. While it wasn’t meant just for me, it felt like it was done specifically for me, and I was touched.

The Blue Witch also shared the contents of the meeting between the Hokkaido envoy and the witches’ council. Their delay in providing support had a valid reason: difficulties in communication with the Mermaid Witch.

For the past three years, the Hokkaido Monster Farm had been plagued by a sea monster ruling the coastal waters—the Kraken.

Because of the Kraken, seafood from Hokkaido became nearly impossible to obtain. Ships were sunk, aquaculture facilities destroyed, and no one dared to build homes near the coast.

The Kraken, a formidable monster classified as Tier 2 under magic taxonomy, was known for its exceptional ability to escape. It would swiftly retreat to the ocean depths when injured or threatened, repeatedly evading joint extermination attempts by Hokkaido’s witches and wizards.

Despite Tokyo’s struggles with the pandemic’s aftermath, Hokkaido faced similar challenges. One of their key witches had succumbed to the pandemic. If anything, the farm itself needed aid.

Thus, Kraken extermination became the precondition for any support.

The Hokkaido farm couldn’t justify assisting Tokyo’s witches without a significant benefit in return. While it was odd to have to offer aid in exchange for aid, it was a harsh but understandable necessity.

That’s when the spotlight fell on the Mermaid Witch from the Tokyo council.

Although her intelligence had declined to the point where she could no longer speak human language, her prowess underwater was unmatched. Once she locked onto her target, she would pursue it into the deep sea and finish it off. There was no one better suited for taking down the Kraken.

The challenge was her dolphin-like intelligence.

While smart for an animal, communicating to her, “Go to Hokkaido and defeat the Kraken,” was not straightforward.

She once listened intently to such a request, nodded with a smile, and then proudly brought back a giant squid resembling a Kraken, tossing it onto the pier.

However, the breakthrough came recently.

The Mermaid Witch nodded again with a smile before vanishing from Tokyo Bay for an entire day.

A few days later, she returned as if nothing had happened, and shortly after, a Hokkaido envoy arrived by sea with a letter of gratitude for the Kraken’s defeat, along with the agreed-upon aid supplies.

The list of aid items was detailed in the documents, and I fully understood why such aid couldn’t be provided lightly.

The support consisted of monsters suitable for livestock farming.

Three types of monsters were provided, totaling 60 animals, with enough young breeding pairs for long-term propagation.

The aid also included detailed instructions for their care, essential tools, and a minimum supply of feed. Essentially, it was a magic livestock starter kit for Tokyo.

Even though the Hokkaido farm wasn’t overflowing with monsters, they made the decision to send these 60 monsters despite the strain it would place on them.

Given the repayment for the Kraken extermination and the use of bounty magic, they deemed the offering worthwhile.

Currently, the 60 monsters are being allocated to stables and pastures under the supervision of the witches’ council.

While I’m intrigued by monsters, I’m already overwhelmed with my fire lizards, so I’m glad that only the documents ended up with me.

According to the materials, the basics of monster husbandry begin with finding monsters that meet specific domestication conditions:

1. Feed: Monsters that consume vast amounts of food or require rare, hard-to-obtain sustenance are unsuitable for domestication.
2. Growth Rate: Monsters that take 20 or 30 years to mature to the point where they can produce meat or fur aren’t ideal for livestock farming.
3. Reproductive Capacity: Monsters that require large territories or exhibit extreme reproductive behavior (like arson) are difficult to manage and unsuitable.
4. Temperament: Monsters that are aggressive or prey on humans are obviously not fit for domestication.
5. Hierarchy: Domestication is only possible with herd-forming creatures that establish a clear hierarchy. In such cases, humans can assume the role of the group’s leader.

The guidelines were reasonable and even offered valuable insights for my fire lizard rearing project.

They consume only a small amount of charcoal, so feed isn’t an issue.

Their growth rate is unknown, but I don’t need them to grow quickly. If anything, given the risk of them transforming into humanoid fire fairies, slower growth is preferable.

As for reproductive capacity—no, thank you. You guys don’t need to multiply.

Their temperament isn’t especially docile, but it’s not overly aggressive either. They seem to defend their companions and show caution toward creatures larger than themselves, which feels fairly standard.

Lastly, hierarchy. They appear to have one. Among the three, a slightly larger, more developed one often takes the lead when scurrying around.

Overall, the evaluation is: “Unsuitable for livestock but potentially manageable as pets.”

The materials also outlined the next steps for domestication once the five criteria are met.

To domesticate the same type of monsters, multiple individuals are captured, and a gremlin is extracted from one of them and implanted into the body of the caretaker.

Once the implanted gremlin integrates with the body, the monsters with the same type of gremlin begin to recognize the caretaker as one of their own.

A caretaker who undergoes this process and integrates into the monsters group is referred to as a “Monster Tamer.”

The procedure may sound grotesque, but the benefits are immense.

Unless the species is one prone to territorial disputes or aggression within their own kind, the caretaker is no longer attacked.

With proper interaction, the caretaker can establish themselves as the leader of the group, gaining control over the monsters. This marks the success of domestication, and once a monster is successfully domesticated, it is classified as a “beast.”

However, the surgery required for this process is not straightforward and carries significant risks.

First Risk: Allergic Reactions

When a gremlin is implanted into the human body, some individuals develop symptoms resembling magic allergies.

• Magic energy might cease to regenerate.
• Spells could backfire uncontrollably.
• Even incantations might fail to activate magic altogether.

Physically, the body might reject the gremlin, resulting in localized inflammation, throbbing pain, or festering wounds around the implantation site.

Such individuals are unsuitable candidates for becoming Monster Tamers.

Fortunately, a pre-implantation test exists to check for allergies.

By submerging the gremlin to be implanted in a sample of the person’s blood for about 12 hours, any allergic reaction is revealed. If clotting and sedimentation occur in the blood, it indicates an allergy. If the blood remains clear, the person is not allergic.

The procedure, as detailed in the documents, is straightforward and easy to interpret.

Second Risk: Permanent Loss of Magic Capacity

Even if the allergy hurdle is overcome, embedding a gremlin comes with an irreversible cost: permanent loss of magic capacity.

As the gremlin adjusts to the body over approximately a week, the host experiences a low-grade fever and a gradual decrease in their magic capacity.

The amount of magic capacity lost equals the capacity held by the monster from which the gremlin was extracted. This lost capacity cannot be regained, even if the gremlin is later removed.

The Ultimate Risk: Magic Death

A person who loses their magic capacity entirely cannot survive.

If the implantation reduces a person’s magic reserves to zero, they disintegrate into dust and vanish completely—leaving no corpse behind.

This irreversible death is referred to as “magic death.”

The document contains a footnote in Professor Ōhinata’s handwriting, asking, “Magic death?”

The concept of magic death—distinct from brain death or cardiac arrest—has been mentioned before. Professor Ōhinata once defined it as “a state where one loses the ability to use magic forever.” While not incorrect, this definition is incomplete. A person who disintegrates into dust, leaving no trace of their existence, clearly cannot use magic.

While this raises intriguing possibilities about magic’s depth—such as whether resurrection magic could prevent death—it remains speculative. Without confirmed examples of resurrection magic, all forms of death, including magic death, remain the same: death is death.

The gremlin can be implanted anywhere on the body, though it is typically embedded in areas such as the hand or forearm for ease of use. The implanted gremlin also functions as a medium for activating magic, so it is preferable to choose a convenient location.

It is important to remember that the integration of a gremlin is merely the starting line for domesticating monsters.

Once the gremlin is implanted, the monster recognizes the caretaker as the same species. However, that alone is insufficient.

To draw a human parallel: Would you automatically trust or obey a stranger you pass on the street? Would you entrust your safety or livelihood to them?

Of course not.

After implantation, building a close relationship or a hierarchical dynamic with the monsters requires effort and expertise.

The documents sent by the Hokkaido Monster Farm detail the care instructions for the three types of monsters they provided. This includes methods for establishing hierarchical dynamics, training techniques, stable management, preferred foods, and optimal conditions for temperature, humidity, and ventilation. These instructions take up more than half of the documents.

The immense effort required to gather this information is evident.

Even with the debt owed for the use of the Fertility Magic and Kraken subjugation, it is astonishing that they would share the fruits of such painstaking efforts.

After all, many lives were undoubtedly sacrificed to compile this data.

How many people turned to dust while trying to understand the principles of magic death?

How many suffered from allergies?

How many were killed by monsters due to failed attempts at training?

When I think about it, the weight of the documents in my hands feels incredibly heavy.

These papers are written in lives. They are both a precious gift and a terrifying burden.

I’m just a genius staff craftsman living a quiet life in the countryside, making staffs as a hobby. Can I really take advantage of this opportunity? I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty, but then I saw a note stuck at the end of the document. It was written in Professor Ōhinata’s handwriting and said, ‘Using the melting-reconsolidation Gremlin coloring technique, a substitute for an embedded Gremlin was possible.’ That put me at ease.

It’s been less than three days since I received the materials from the Hokkaido Monster Farm, and the professor has already completed one application study at lightning speed. It seems that instead of extracting Gremlins directly from monsters, they’ve figured out you can draw blood from the beasts and create colored Gremlins for use as substitutes. And it looks like it worked.

If my developed techniques helped advance their research, I have no reason to hesitate or feel guilty about benefiting from this.

They’re probably losing their minds over there too—thinking they’d given us something valuable, only to get an even more advanced technique back in return. That’s just how Tokyo rolls! After all, Tokyo has survived just as many trials, if not more, than Hokkaido, that “land of trials.” Haha!

Anyway.

The materials from the Hokkaido monster Farm were phenomenal from start to finish. Most of all, they arrived just in time when I was struggling with how to handle fire lizards.

Judging by the sticky notes scattered throughout the documents, it seems that my magic capacity can handle embedding a Gremlin from around mid-tier Class-1 monsters. That’s pretty impressive for a human. Considering Class-3 and above are essentially reserved for witches and wizards, I couldn’t ask for more.

Fire lizards are Class-2 monsters, and this one is a youngling, born not long ago. Even estimating generously, it’s likely on the lower end of Class-1. Embedding a fire lizard’s Gremlin shouldn’t turn me into dust.

In other words, I qualify to raise fire lizards!

I don’t know if monsters increase their magic capacity as they grow, but it probably won’t decrease. It’s better to extract its blood and create a colored Gremlin for embedding sooner rather than later.

No sooner said than done.

I waited until nightfall and visited the fire lizards’ nest. Under the soft moonlight, in the metal nest inside the refrigerator, three fire lizards were huddled together, sleeping soundly. They were curled up, noses inflating with little bubbles as they snored. So cute. I wish I could’ve taken a picture.

But I didn’t come with a camera today—I brought a syringe.

I wanted to do a painless blood draw, but I don’t know much about the structure of fire lizards’ bodies. I’d have to make it hurt a little and hope they’d forgive me. Silently, I crept up to the nest and gently slipped the needle between its scales.

“Miik?!”

The startled fire lizard jumped up in surprise. I quickly drew a tiny bit of blood and bolted before the groggy lizard could figure out what was going on.

Sorry! But if I’d tried this during the day, you’d definitely breathe fire at me, right? A sneak attack was my only option. Please forgive me.

I checked repeatedly to ensure the fire lizards weren’t chasing me and returned home, where I fired up my furnace and created a melting-reconsolidation Gremlin using the fire lizard’s blood.

The resulting Gremlin, about the size of a thumbnail, was an oval-shaped blue that closely resembled the signature color of the Blue Witch.

Now, all I have to do is embed this somewhere in my body, let it settle for a week, and the fire lizards will recognize me as one of their own. That would give me the right to try raising them.

If I can train them properly and have them live in my workshop’s hearth or furnace, I’ll have the legendary magic workshop, powered by the flames of magical creatures, at my fingertips. How cool is that?!

If I can prove I can raise and train them properly, the Blue Witch surely won’t have a reason to kill me. Everything would work out perfectly.

…But still.

I had my workshop all set up and ready for a self-performed embedding surgery. I’d even done the allergy tests, but when it came time to actually operate, I hesitated. I just couldn’t make up my mind.

I mean, come on. Embedding this thing will reduce my magic capacity. Not just a little, either—there’s a good chance it’ll drop significantly.

This isn’t like embedding the Gremlin of some mutated rabbit or raccoon. This is a Class-2 Gremlin. Not only that, but it’s made from the blood of a super-hybrid born between witches. It’s on a whole different level.

Am I really okay embedding this Gremlin…? What if it turns out these guys aren’t really Class-2 monsters?

What if, as soon as I embed it, my magic capacity drops to zero, and I turn into dust?

Even if I don’t turn to dust, my magic capacity will take a serious hit, drastically reducing my abilities as a magician.

I’m a staff craftsman. I take no pride in being a magician.

But I don’t want to be weakened. Sure, embedding the Gremlin opens up the path to becoming a monster tamer, but… still… I don’t know…”

At the last moment, I chickened out. After some deliberation, I decided to put it on hold for the time being and wrote a letter to the Flame Witch.

Under the pretext of a “possible defect in the sealing mechanism,” I asked her to temporarily send the Flame Keeper staff, in which the previous Flame Witch was sealed, for maintenance.

The one who should take the most responsibility for the birth of the fire lizards was the Flame Witch. It might be bad to wake her up so soon after sealing her, but letting her take responsibility seemed like the cleanest solution.

As a fellow species (?) and their mother, the Flame Witch could probably train the fire lizards without me needing to embed a gremlin in my body.

However, the next day, I immediately received a reply from the Flame Witch, saying, “I’m worried about my sister, so I’ll accompany her during maintenance.”

T-that does make sense~! Of course, it would turn out that way…!

I wanted to refuse.

I wanted to tell the Flame Witch not to come and just send over the staff.

But that request would 100% be denied.

If a developer of a life-support machine suddenly said, “There might be a bug in the system,” you’d naturally be worried sick if you had a loved one in cryosleep.

There was no way I could reject her request to accompany. Denying it would be far too suspicious.

Not to mention, the Blue Witch, who delivered my first letter, had already remarked, “It’s rare for Dairi to make such a mistake,” and was a bit suspicious. I had miscalculated.

At this point, I might as well confess everything to the Blue Witch and the Flame, temporarily release the flame witch from her seal, and throw the fire lizard problem at all three of them.

But there was no way I could say, “These are your biological children, the result of your careless affair. Take responsibility.” Or, “Your sister tricked the Blue Witch into making these kids because she couldn’t control her desires.” Imagining the chaos that would follow was terrifying.

Even if I tried to watch the drama unfold from the sidelines, I’d gotten too close to the Blue Witch. I couldn’t distance myself from the mess.

So, I sent another letter to the Flame Witch, saying, “It was a misunderstanding. No maintenance is needed,” and then steeled myself.

I embedded the gremlin into the back of my left hand.

For the next week, I ran a low-grade fever, like I had a mild cold, and stayed quietly in bed to rest.

The Blue Witch offered to nurse me, but with her hovering around, trying to chat, pacing the room, or just sitting nearby giving off her presence, my fever-induced irritability got the better of me, and I ended up sending her away.

I understand that most people would want someone to care for them when they’re sick. When a friend falls ill, of course, you’d worry and want to take care of them.

But I didn’t want to be nursed. Sorry, I’m a bit of a socially awkward loner like that.

After a week, as the documents had predicted, my fever subsided.

Now, I should be recognized as one of their own by the fire lizards.

But I didn’t feel much different.

The gremlin embedded in the back of my hand felt like a large scab. It was just a little itchy.

A week later, I went to see the fire lizards.

The three fire lizards, still scurrying around the scorched ground as before, froze as soon as they saw me.

But unlike before, they wagged their flaming tails furiously and ran over to me, weaving around my feet.

They… they’ve warmed up to me!

It happened so easily!

Amazing. The idea that monsters don’t grow attached to humans might as well be a lie.

When I poked at their red scales with my finger, they squeaked softly and licked the finger I had poked them with.

Cautiously, I cupped one in my hand and lifted it. It didn’t get angry at all. But its body was so warm I almost got burned, so I quickly put it back down.

Even that didn’t scare the fire lizard. In fact, it seemed to enjoy it, and the other two tried climbing into my hand as if wanting to be picked up too.

Wow. Once they see you as one of their own, they’re incredibly affectionate. What adorable creatures.

Alright, little ones.

Your new big brother is going to take you to a new home and a new room.

From today, you’re part of the Dairi household. Forget about the Flame Witch being your parent. And don’t even think about going to the Blue Witch.

I’ll take care of your food and your habitat, so be the masters of my forge and kiln, and help me with my work!

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