Ragnar's short and emotional meeting with the people ended.
Everyone retired to their homes with smiles on their faces to rest for the night.
Ragnar spoke with the mourning parents for a few minutes before returning to his hut as well.
While strolling to his hut, he spared some time to properly observe the state of the small community.
There were only about two dozen huts in this small community. A bit farther from the settlement of thatched huts, there was an even bigger structure—it had the same appearance as the normal huts but was about twice the height and thrice the width of an actual hut.
"This should be the storage house," Ragnar whispered to himself.
The storage house is where the people store the harvest from their farmlands. An elder usually governs it and is in charge of distributing the farm produce at the right time.
Ragnar found the position of the storage house totally unsafe. If anyone actually wanted to break in and steal everything, they only needed to wait until everyone was asleep.
Also, there was no one guarding the storage house, which would make the job of the thieves much easier.
"There are a lot of things I need to change," Ragnar sighed.
He finally reached his hut and shut the locust-ridden door behind him.
He sat down on the makeshift bed. Ragnar noticed that it was made of feathers, furs, and many other soft materials and was wrapped with rough fabric.
"At least, I do not have to sleep on bamboo," he thought, disregarding every thought about the condition of his bed.
He proceeded to call out Onyx and requested details of his new territory.
_
Name: 10th Hamlet
Rank: FF
Progress to F-rank: 13%
Population: 36
Main resource: Small farmland
Remark — Tiny, diseased, impoverished, and dirty
_
"Hmm," Ragnar hummed as he studied the details.
He wasn't surprised about the low population and the remark. If someone told him the crowd he met earlier was the total number of people living in this Hamlet, he would instantly believe.
Also, the Hamlet was really tiny, dirty, and impoverished.
"Sigh, so much work to do."
Ragnar heaved a sigh.
"Onyx, can you wake me up early tomorrow?"
|| Affirmative! ||
"Nice, do that."
After ensuring Onyx would play its part as his new alarm, Ragnar retired to bed and fell asleep.
***
|| Rise and sun, sunshine! It's morning!! ||
|| Rise and sun, sunshine! It's morning!! ||
Ragnar was awoken by the blaring noise of Onyx repeating the same annoying sentence over and over again.
"You're not even useful as an alarm, of what good are you, Onyx?"
|| I was never created to serve as your alarm, host! ||
Onyx argued back.
Ragnar simply ignored the virtual assistant trying to imitate how humans sound when they're furious and stood up from the bed with a grumpy expression on his face.
He started performing some routine morning stretches to brace himself for the day.
"Ragnar, who were you speaking with?"
He was performing his unusual and awkward morning exercise when a sweet feminine voice drifted in from the doorway.
Ragnar instantly halted his unusual routine and turned towards the door.
There stood a beautiful young lady with fiery red hair and gentle green eyes that gazed at him with fondness and curiosity. She had a well-structured face and luscious lips that were on par with models on Earth.
Although she wore the same ragged clothing as the other villagers Ragnar had seen last night, hers was somewhat cleaner and even accentuated her curves. One could even notice how neatly she had patched her dress to look less ragelike.
Ragnar was somewhat enticed by her unique appearance and forgot he was staring too long.
"Ragnar?"
Only when she called his name did Ragnar jolt back to reality.
"Were you speaking to yourself earlier? Are you sure nothing is wrong with your head after resurrection?" she said in a concerned tone as she stepped closer.
Standing in front of Ragnar, she stretched because she was shorter than him and gently reached up to feel the temperature of his head.
Ragnar simply stood there speechless as he had no idea who she was.
She wasn't among the crowd he saw last night, and since he had no memory from the original Ragnar of this world, it was difficult to tell who she was.
She quickly noticed the unfamiliar, confused gaze on Ragnar's face and frowned.
"What Noah said was true—you really don't remember anything. That is very sad."
Ragnar felt relieved after she said that and immediately reacted.
"I'm still trying to recall everything as much as I can. Maybe if you introduce yourself a little bit, I might recall a little."
Ragnar said with a gentle smile, but in actuality his mind was in chaos—his social skills and life could be compared with those of a hermit living in a cave; he had no girlfriend in his previous life because he didn't know how to hold a conversation with one.
The one time he tried dating online, his pickup line was so great the girl had to block him to prevent herself from falling in love.
Now that he was in front of an actual lady, Ragnar felt rather uncomfortable.
Fortunately, the lady in front of him was friendly and easygoing.
"My name is Merlina, and we are best of friends, including my brother, Noah. We usually do everything together, including patrolling the village, taking care of the animals, and traveling to the stream to fetch water."
Merlina spent one minute introducing herself, and based on her introduction, she was really close with the Ragnar of this world.
She even mentioned that they met each other when they were little. At that time, the Third South Continent War had just concluded.
"Third South Continent War?"
Ragnar found the term rather unusual and also felt that it would be important to learn about the war.
"You don't remember the Third South Continent War?"
Ragnar shook his head in response.
"Alright, I'll explain as we walk—there's something I need to show you right now."