How to Use the Lord’s Future Diary

Chapter 20

Etiquette had always originated from violence.

After all, the only reason civilized people dared to act rude was because they were certain their heads wouldn’t get smashed in.

If you wanted to teach manners to a lowly beast that dared to mock a human, fists were always the best answer.

‘Wow, this guy’s really something.’

But surprisingly, this one wasn’t ordinary either—despite taking my punches head-on, its fighting spirit hadn’t broken in the slightest.

I wondered if it was even possible to tame a creature like this, but since I had already started, I kept throwing my fists to see it through to the end.

“Khahaha, now then, who’s the real beast here?”

“Lord, at this rate you’ll kill the mountain goat.”

“Mountain goat! Mountain goat! Fighting! Show us your wild strength\~”

Perhaps it was some kind of underdog effect, but far more knights were cheering for the weaker side—the three-horned goat—than for me.

Well, that was the Johnson Knights for you.

Even the captain lived only to poke fun at his lord.

—We trust you, Master! Oorah!

At least Black Earth, perched safely atop Rudick’s head, was cheering only for me.

Unlike the knights, that rabbit seemed to be on my side.

Why did that make me feel so good? It was absurd.

To end this ridiculous situation quickly, I pressed the goat even harder.

After who knows how long, its fighting spirit finally began to wane, its eyes lowered, and it started to back away.

“Lord, I think that’s enough. Try mounting its back.”

“Huh? Just climb on like this?”

“This is the best timing, my lord.”

Punch first, mount later, huh.

It didn’t sit right with me, but I followed Dr. Nickel’s instructions and climbed onto its back.

The three-horned goat allowed it without resistance.

There was no saddle prepared, of course, but balancing on the back of a beast wasn’t difficult for me.

“But, uh, how do I make this thing move? Hyah, hyah\~”

I had mounted it, but I wasn’t sure how to control it.

So I tapped its belly with my legs, the way one did with a horse, and surprisingly, it understood and started walking forward.

Steering was just a matter of tugging on its horns to shift direction.

It was shockingly simple, almost uncanny.

‘Well, I’ll be damned…’

I rode the three-horned goat around in a circle, then returned to the stable.

The ride was better than expected.

Its size must have helped, because it shook less than a horse, and with its incredible strength, the ride felt much more stable.

‘Wow, I never even managed to get my own car in reality, but here I am with one like this?’

Since horses were the most common form of transportation, a three-horned goat was basically a supercar.

Sure, it wasn’t completely mine yet—more like a rental—but it still felt oddly satisfying.

“Ooh\~ Grizzly Johnson!”

“Iron! Iron!”

When I dismounted, the knights whistled and cheered.

They looked genuinely impressed.

“That’s it, Lord! You’re the first to achieve the feat of taming a three-horned goat.”

“Is that really what this is? For now, it looks like it submitted to me, but I wouldn’t call that taming…”

“Bah, just watch. Beasts like that are surprisingly sensitive to hierarchy.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.”

I gave a wry smile to the ever-confident Dr. Nickel and led the goat into the horned rabbit pen.

It felt awkward to tie it back up again.

‘Not sure if this is right…’

Truthfully, I didn’t think it was tamed.

A magical beast wasn’t something you could tame that easily.

It looked submissive now, but once its senses cleared, it would reclaim its wildness.

Then it would surely run away in search of freedom.

I put the three-horned goat in the horned rabbit pen precisely to avoid unnecessary trouble.

If I locked it in the stable and it rampaged, it could hurt the other horses.

‘So if you’re going to escape, do it quietly.’

The horned rabbit pen covered a wide field, spacious enough that even if it ran wild, it wouldn’t matter much.

The fence wasn’t too high either—if it wanted, it could leap over it with ease.

So my message was clear: if you’re leaving, leave without causing chaos.

And if it did escape, it would take Dr. Nickel’s swollen ego down a notch.

‘That’s actually pretty important.’

For now, Dr. Nickel wasn’t making unreasonable demands, but if his arrogance kept inflating, he might start throwing around baseless Otherworld Studies theories and asking for absurd things.

Of course, I could always shut that down, but even just arguing with that smooth-tongued doctor was exhausting.

“…But why are you still here?”

—Hhhrrrghh\~

Contrary to my expectations, the goat didn’t leave.

It munched on the Evil Spirit Grass littered everywhere and drank the water the caretaker had brought, lounging as if it were at home.

“Ha, as expected! I knew it would be like this.”

Dr. Nickel exclaimed in admiration at the sight of the docile goat.

It was truly an absurd situation.

Dr. Nickel had no proper evidence, yet strangely, his words kept fitting perfectly.

I couldn’t tell if he was just lucky or if he had some kind of insight I didn’t know about.

Or maybe the records of the ancestors really were…

‘No. That can’t be.’

—Absolutely impossible, Master.

I shook my head to get rid of such pointless thoughts.

---

The three-horned goat didn’t leave the territory and lived quite well in the horned rabbit pen.

Other than occasionally offering me its back to gallop across the field, it did nothing else.

Anyone could see it was living the good life.

No doubt it was because this place was far safer than the Forest of Illusions.

‘Pretty cunning for a wild beast.’

When the goat completely settled in the territory, the knights’ attitudes began to change.

At first, they were doubtful, but once they saw proof that a three-horned goat could actually be tamed, their stance shifted drastically.

‘Knights are fanatics for mounts. How could they possibly resist this?’

Their impatience was only natural.

The three-horned goat’s habitat was deep inside the Forest of Illusions—remote and dangerous.

Unless it was in a period of stability like now, capturing a goat was nearly impossible.

The Forest of Illusions would eventually regain its former state.

‘The knights’ eyes have completely turned red.’

Day after day, more three-horned goats were brought in.

The knights practically lived in the Forest of Illusions these days.

I heard Tito and his Rabbit Tribe friends played a big role too.

From safely guiding the knights to transporting unconscious goats back to the territory, they were surprisingly active.

Like that, the number of goats gradually increased until they exceeded fifty.

They filled up one side of the horned rabbit pen.

“What the? You even dragged back females and young?”

“Well, it’s better for them to stay in groups, isn’t it? Besides, my lord, it’d be too pitiful if a newly appointed knight ended up without a goat.”

“So now you’re planning to actually raise goats?”

“They resist fiercely when captured, but once brought in, they behave fairly calmly. It seems that ‘Ultra’ is quite influential among the local goats.”

It looked like Rudick had decided to make the three-horned goats the official mounts of the order.

He said they’d need at least one more herd to truly raise them properly.

‘This is getting very serious.’

By the way, ‘Ultra’ was the name I gave to the first goat.

It sounded strong the moment I said it, and personally, I liked it. But everyone else hated it.

Rudick even openly criticized it for being lame.

The only one who approved was Dr. Nickel. It showed he had some sense after all.

In that moment, my rock-bottom opinion of him rose a notch.

“It’s finished.”

The knights’ goat-raiding ended when the total number reached about one hundred.

They had dragged in every goat living in the underground canyon of the Forest of Illusions.

There were no goats left, so the operation had to stop.

‘They actually captured the entire herd… That’s madness.’

Leading the herd was Ultra, now my personal mount.

Just as Rudick had said, Ultra truly seemed to be the leader of the three-horned goats.

With Ultra keeping order, the others quietly accepted Johnson Territory’s rule.

‘Not that every knight actually got one.’

They had captured the herd, sure, but taming was each knight’s responsibility.

A goat only allowed the knight who had subdued it to ride on its back.

And it only allowed physical contact from its own master, so knights had to be solely responsible for their goats.

‘Well, that’s a matter of personal ability.’

Given the knights’ madness in kidnapping an entire herd for mounts, I had no doubt they’d find a way to make them rideable.

---

It had been about four months since the horned rabbit pen started operating.

And about a month since it stabilized.

At last, Butler Harold unveiled the slaughterhouse he had meticulously prepared and released its first yield.

With the population already booming, horned rabbits could now be supplied freely to the residents.

They said the slaughtering alone took a considerable amount of time.

Even now, the slaughterhouse was strongly requesting more workers.

Many residents wept tears of joy.

That was how delicious the meat was.

Until now, the best they had were smelly wild beasts or tough old hens. For them, this must have felt like discovering a new world.

High-grade beasts like horned rabbits rarely appeared on the outer edges of the Forest of Illusions.

What was a little surprising was that even the Rabbit Tribe joined in with the residents.

I knew they weren’t literal rabbits and could eat meat, but the sheer enthusiasm they showed was unexpected.

‘So the Rabbit Tribe likes meat too, huh.’

—Isn’t that obvious? Being Rabbit Tribe doesn’t mean they’re herbivores. All beastmen lean closer to carnivores.

‘Funny, since in the Forest of Illusions they only farmed.’

—That’s just because they were too busy running for their lives. Among beastmen, the Rabbit Tribe is the weakest.

So their farming had been their own desperate survival tactic.

The Rabbit Tribe seemed especially lacking in combat talent compared to other beastmen.

It felt strange to see rabbit-eared people devouring horned rabbits, but since they were happily working the fields at the same time, I decided it didn’t matter.

‘Thanks to that, grain consumption has dropped a little.’

With the Rabbit Tribe joining, the territory’s strained grain reserves had finally begun to stabilize thanks to the steady supply of horned rabbits.

At this rate, we’d hold out just fine until autumn, when grain prices would drop.

‘But aren’t those rabbits multiplying too much?’

—Honestly, I didn’t think it would be this bad either.

The horned rabbits were increasing at a staggering, unimaginable speed.

No matter how I looked at it, this was a number far beyond what the territory could ever handle.