Reincarnated to the Past 40: Home and Tribe (Patreon)

Reincarnated to the Past
Chapter 40: Home and Tribe

-VB-

Year 3 (Mid-Summer, 995 BC)

I hummed as a new power settled into me.

Rather than choosing something new, I chose to reinforce one of my powers.

Flexing my arm before striking ten times, I grinned at how narrow the slices of onions were.

I had my Enhanced Precision back, baby~!

Of course, sooner or later, I would end up combining this with other powers for improvements, but while I had it, it would be a really great asset, especially since - coupled with my Superior Swordsmanship and Minor Perfect Body Regeneration - I could use it to direct my currently superhuman fighting ability to even greater heights.

Like chopping onions to thoroughly uniformly that Ureya was gawking from my side.

“How?!” she whined. “I’m supposed to be the wife, not you!”

I grinned back at her.

More time she spent with me, the more I realized why I had felt at ease with her before we got hitched and then married; she acted more like a 21st century woman than a 10th century BC woman. She was, after all, still considered to be a wild tomboy among the tribeswomen.

“My skills with the blade just is,” I replied as I continued to chop up the vegetables in the kitchen.

She glared at me. “So you’re going to kick me out of the kitchen, too?!”

“Hell no,” I replied. “But you’re still tired from -”

“It’s been two moons, husband. I am no longer tired. Now, let me cook.”

I hesitated.

This was enough for the still wild tomboyish wife of mine to tackle me and then swipe the knife from my hands.

My son, no longer the ugly pink flesh sack at his birth but a cute and chubby baby, cooed from the side, obviously entertained by his old man being bullied. I threw a half-hearted glare at my son, only for Ureya to kick me while I was down.

“Stop glaring at Sicoru,” she harrumphed as she took over the meal preparation. “And if you keep insisting on treating me like a fragile newborn, I swear I will put arrows in you.”

Pouting, I got up from the wooden floor and dusted myself. Then I turned to Sicoru, my son, pulled him up from his crib, and carried him around the house.

“Sico! You’re mom is being mean to me!”

He stared at me for a moment before making cute baby noises and reaching for his mom.

“Ugh, betrayed by my firstborn.”

Ureya just laughed at my misfortune.

Then she quieted down.

“You’re going to try and convince the men to go to war, huh?”

I grimaced. “It’s for the future.”

“I know,” she said calmly but the thunk of the knife on the wooden board told me what she really felt. “You convinced me already. Explained so much why it is necessary. And I hate that I can even agree on some of those points and have to see you leave home. Again.”

“Sorry.”

“... And the worst part is that you are actually sorry.” She set the knife down and slid all of the chopped vegetables into the boiling pork broth. “And you know what you promised me.”

“‘To finish this business thoroughly so that we can remain home together,’ yes,” I replied.

Even if it meant razing half a dozen cities and salting the ground.

While that might not mean much for the average 21st century folk, my declaration was on par with promising the death of France in terms of how much of the known world I promised to burn.

“Are you also sure about setting those slaves free?”

The slaves in question were those I received as just payment from the meeting of arnsya one and a half years ago. While not everyone was getting released from slavery, I was releasing those with skills necessary to survive. If it wasn’t their knowledge in farming, then I released them on their ability to be a crafter. By not tying them to me, I was ensuring that while I wouldn’t directly be the beneficial party of their work, the tribe would benefit from having an influx of craftsmen and craftswomen joining the tribe’s economy.

“Yes.”

“Hmm. As long as you put our prosperity before your ideas.”

And that was a compromise I had to make. The world I lived in was not the modern world. It was so unforgiving and harsh. Sure, the tribe cared for you and whatnot, but there was so much less in all things. To survive, I had to compromise on continuing to keep slaves, especially the ones I “earned” from the Scythian raid.

Under no circumstances could they be released, not if I want them to survive.

“Alright. Bad talks are over. It’s time to eat.”

-VB-

The tribe’s leaders met with many interested parties sitting on the outer edge of the meeting circle in the chieftain’s longhouse. In the center of the meeting circle was a newborn calf, dead with its throat sliced open.

Ghigari clapped his hands. He looked pale.

“We offer our thanks to the gods of the earth and sky for the continued blessing we’ve received.”

The rest of the tribe, including myself, clapped.

“We offer you this sacrifice and ask you to continue to bless us.”

The rest of us clapped again.

Three servants - not slaves - rose up and took the sacrifice outside to be burned at an alter.

“Let the meeting commence.”

And then Ghigari turned to me.

“The reason for this gathering … is because of what you seek, Wiseman Alan. Please, speak, and convince us why we must go to war with a tribe we have no contact with to defend those who slighted us.”

I cleared my throat and the rest of the tribe listened.

“Back in my homeland, we educated certain individuals with the knowledge on how to govern. One of the fields of education was called politics…”

I spoked on and on about politics, how it was shaped, “history” of those who wielded it, how they came to wield it, why it came to be wielded, and more. I talked about geopolitics. Of feuds. Of kind and ugly human nature.

I summarized it all so that what I spoke of stood as evidence for why they should help me.

“... and so by either subjugating or eliminating these foreigners who are far from our immediate borders, we can prevent their disruptive influences from diverting our attention from our real enemies to the north and east.”

Because Scythians, while they have been repelled, were not gone. They still lurked beyond the green fields of Wallachia, roaming the Wild Fields of Eastern Europe. Now that the Greeks (Mycenaeans) knew of us, we also couldn’t hide away from them, not after having already conquered one of their cities. If it wasn’t the proto-Greeks, then it would be the kingdoms of Anatolia after they hear about us.

It was, after all, the nature of nations to subjugate those weaker than them by any means.

Ghigari hummed before he spoke. “While I find the ideas and thoughts of your former people fascinating, I stand by my decision: only those who voluntarily join you may go and not in the name of the Kettia. Are there any objections to my decisions?”

Many hands rose up. He counted the risen hands.

“Any for my decision?”

Even more hands rose up. He counted the hands.

He nodded. “The decision stands.”