The mood in the settlement was at an all-time high.

  Mafu watched as the people of the settlement celebrated with the customary feast, dancing around the bonfire and singing in drunken orcish voices.

  It was not a beautiful sound to those who were sober.

  Mafu felt that something was lacking; of course, he came from modern society, so this feast seemed like a meager celebration. But there was more that was lacking, and that was entertainment and enjoyment.

  The alcohol had been a welcome gift from the dwarves, and they had left their wagons full of it as they returned to gather their families.

  But other than that, there was really not much to actually "do" in the settlement. It was just work, eat, sleep. Survival.

  Mafu had touched on this thought before, but other things had taken priority. However, if the counterattack on the Hollow Nest were to happen, he would have no part in it.

  Since it was impossible for his territory to encroach on the Hollows... goo?

  So he had a few ideas.

  The first idea was a hot spring. He did not know the specifics of how to build one; after all, he had been Swedish in his past life, not Japanese. But the premise was easy: hot water.

  Currently the orcs would wash themselves with the well water, and since Mafu had arrived, he had been pulling water from deep underground from all of the territory to make sure that the wells would never run out.

  With the forgefire mushrooms, he could easily heat up water. So what was left was just to construct an area for it. He had thus put the ants to work again, digging up a large area.

  He then weaved his mycelium tight around the edges and placed it on top of the dirt that would be the basin of the water. This would make sure that no water would leak.

  It honestly looked like a white-beige carpet, and Jod visited it the day after the feast to confirm that it did not feel bad to the touch.

  The area was quite large and was just outside the settlement for easy access. When it was filled with water, Mafu created an underground chamber for a couple of forgefire mushrooms.

  Eight of them, to be exact. Through some trial and error, running two of them kept the water at a slightly warm temperature.

  If he ran all eight, the water quickly became steam. That was an unexpected efficiency. At three to four of them he could maintain a high but tolerable water temperature.

  However, the steam from the experiment spawned his second idea, which should have been his first.

  He needed to create a sauna. As a Swedish person, he should have thought of that before a hot spring. The Finnish people would disapprove of him.

  Luckily, the concept was entirely possible. However, in a sauna you needed wooden walls. It just would not feel right without having them. So he procured some lumber from the orcs and some fungal wood from his own stores.

  He then had Jod and the ants work together to build three saunas. Two of them were entirely made out of lumber from the orcs, from the trees in the nearby area. And one was entirely made out of fungal wood.

  Mafu was not sure if the fungal wood would work. It had that weird rubbery quality after all.

  After that, Jod helped carve a few rocks. It had limited success. He wanted to make a hollow rock that could hold a forgefire mushroom. After a while of trial and failure, three suitable rocks were obtained.

  The forgefire mushroom inside of the rock was slightly visible through a few cracks in the rock, allowing for water to splash down onto it and turn it into steam.

  With his mycelium, Mafu had filled the cracks in between the wood, so no steam would escape the sauna.

  After all that work, Mafu felt satisfied and invited the dukes, Jod and Gwarth, for a trial run of the new bathing facility.

  Jod was familiar with the concept of using hot water to bathe, but Gwarth and the orc dukes found it strange to submerge themselves in it. They had boiled water to wipe down their bodies before, but never submerged themselves in it.

  Mafu realized that there was a possibility that none of them could swim. After all, there was no lake in the vicinity, and the few rivers that existed were too far away for the orcs to travel to just to swim.

  He had not made the bath deep enough that swimming was required, so that did not matter. But if he made a swimming pool in the future, he would have to be mindful of that.

  After entering the bath, the orc dukes and Gwarth quickly changed their minds, though.

  "Huh, it feels like my muscles are coming apart. It does not feel bad, though." "Said Gwarth," in a surprised but calm tone.

  "Auurrrghhhh." A long, unintelligible sound was heard from Parek as he relaxed his body. It was somewhere between a satisfied sound and pain.

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  Bulok, the totemkeeper, who was the eldest of the orc dukes and often the most resistant to try new things, had a new light in his eyes.

  "Ahhhh, I need to write in the stories for the future that a warm water bath is absolutely necessary for survival. All the wisdom of our forebears could not rival this."

  Mafu thought he was overexaggerating quite a bit but was still happy that Bulok was happy with the facility.

  Telim seemed to have slightly passed out. Mafu made sure to check on him so he did not drown.

  During all this, Jod was looking at the others experiencing a bath for the first time. At the same time, he made sure to feed his own experience of the bath through to Mafu. He knew that Mafu could not feel this himself in any other way.

  After the party had spent a good amount of time in the warm water pool, Jod guided the party to the saunas. The saunas were an even more foreign concept for the party, and this time Jod did not fully trust Mafu's praise of them.

  However, Mafu had earned enough trust at this point that they all willingly went in one of the normal saunas. After they had splashed a few scoops of water on the forgefire mushroom, they also realized the relaxing effect of the sauna.

  They spent about thirty minutes in there before Mafu had Jod guide them to another pool he had made. This pool was not heated, so the water was lukewarm. Ideally, it should be very cold water, but Mafu could not chill water.

  After they dipped in the water for a while, they all talked about the experience.

  "It does make you feel refreshed." Telim started the conversation.

  "Indeed, I feel many years younger." Bulok followed up.

  "Now all that is left is a cup of mead..." Was the input of the only dwarf present, Gwarth.

  Surprisingly, Parek was the one who had put the most thought into it.

  "This is a great improvement to our warriors. If they can end their training with this, they will become much more eager."

  "EXACTLY!" Mafu thought. After all, relaxing your body in a bath or a sauna after going through training or combat would be very effective. It would improve morale greatly.

  Jod asked Mafu when the facility would be available to everyone, and Mafu told him that there needed to be a women's/men's bath separately made first and that more saunas needed to be added.

  The dukes and Jod all volunteered to help with the construction to make it happen earlier, and soon the area had more than doubled, with twenty saunas and two warm water pools.

  Mafu had even expanded the first pool because the trial party had exclaimed that if the facility could not handle 300 men and 300 women at the same time, people would be waiting in line.

  That is about half the population, Mafu thought. Are they truly sure the demand will be that high?

  ---

  three days later.

  They were right. The facility had been used nonstop since its opening. Some of the orcs spent hours in it, alternating between the cold and warm water pools.

  This had a benefit that Mafu had not really thought about. He had used his mycelium in the pools to filter out the sweat and dirt, really anything but the water, and decompose it. This kept the water crystal clear and clean.

  And that had turned into another mana and experience gain for him. Not that it was massive; in fact, it was barely notable. But still, it covered for the cost of the facility quite nicely.

  The warriors were singing the praises of the bath, and some of them had started praying to Mafu. It was a weird feeling. The orcs themselves were not religious in any way, and this world seemed devoid of a god, so them praying was strange.

  But Mafu realized that they must have learned of gods through Bulok's teachings when they were young, and praying might be something inherent to all intelligent races.

  It is just, you know, Mafu was still here. He was not a god or anything. He was a mushroom.

  Mafu was happy that the reception of the bathing facility was this positive, though.

  ---

  The dwarves finally arrived. The top people of the settlement gathered to welcome them.

  Tudain was in the front, as usual. As he arrived, though, they could see that he had been wounded. His left ear had been cut in half, leaving only the bottom of it left.

  "Welcome to the kingdom!" Jod started with a loud voice. He looked troubled about Tudain's wound, and that some of the warriors following him seemed wounded as well.

  "Thank you, King Jod." Tudain answered and then continued with:

  "We come with 900 dwarves; I hope that the increase is not too much of a bother?" He looked pained as he spoke.

  "The more dwarves, the better." Jod answered instantly. In fact, with the increase in the farming, it would be no issue, and the dwarves clearly had been through some sort of conflict.

  "The council of Grend did not want to let us go, so we rebelled. Those on the fence decided that following the council was no longer feasible. So they joined us as they heard of an already established outside kingdom." Tudain explained everything quickly and concisely. He still looked in pain.

  "Are you hurting, Tudain? We can bring some herbs to help you if that is the case."

  "No, it is not physical pain. We said 650 dwarves, but 900 came. I have broken my word."

  Jod paused at the statement. It was in fact better the more population there was in the kingdom, for everyone involved. So why would this increase be something to be pained about?

  Mafu interceded with, "The dwarves' culture might put much more value on one's word than we do. For them, their word might be more important than anything else. So even if it is positive for us, he has still broken his word."

  "What can we do about that then? I don't want him to feel guilty about it; as you said, it is better for us."

  "Absolve him. Promote him to duke right here, and add that with this appointment any broken promises or words have been forgiven. That from this point on he is a duke of this kingdom, and that all is forgiven."

  "Right here? We have not even broached the subject with him."

  "We know from Gwarth that Tudain, Gwarth, and one other dwarf were supposed to be the leaders of the dwarves for the beginning of entering this kingdom. Would you want any other duke than Tudain? It would only create frictions."

  Jod took a few moments to think. After that he said to Tudain:

  "Hereby I appoint you, Tudain, as a duke of the kingdom. I also proclaim that any broken words, promises, or previous issues between us shall be forgiven and forgotten. For now, only the future awaits. How do you reply, Tudain?"

  Tudain looked entirely shocked. It was an expression that did not quite fit him, but he recovered quickly.

  "Are you sure? From what I've seen, the dukes are the ones who rule this place, no?"

  Jod smiled and said,

  "Yes, and from now on there will be three dwarves and three orcs among the dukes. I wish for one of the dwarven dukes to be you."

  "In that case, yes, I accept. I swear loyalty to this kingdom and to you, King Jod!" He dropped to one knee and lowered his head.

  "Then let it be known, from now on Tudain is a dwarven duke of this kingdom!" Jod proclaimed with a loud voice so it was heard by everyone present.

  The dwarves following Tudain did not quite know how to react to it at first, but the orcs and beast-kin started applauding and cheering, and soon the dwarves followed in the cheers.

  Next, the plan for how to attack the nest would have to be put into action.

  Mafu did not like that he had nothing to do with it, but he trusted Jod and the dukes, so he would have to leave it to them.