Ch.236Visitor (3)

After receiving quite a detailed statement from François about the “state of brainwashing victims,”

Excluding the regular approval of final documents, the tasks I currently need to handle directly are mainly divided into two categories.

First, as mentioned earlier, I need to personally draft a sort of temporary manual for identifying brainwashing targets based on François’s statement.

Since even intermediate-level individuals cannot resist brainwashing that only the branch manager himself can perform, what I practically need to focus on are: one, the brainwashing that victims can use—which isn’t much different from other types of brainwashing, and the humans who are directly brainwashed and dispatched.

Particularly, while methods for detecting the former have been mostly perfected throughout human history, according to François, the latter is on an entirely different level compared to other forms of brainwashing.

Absolute obedience that doesn’t show on the surface until one’s true nature is revealed? With pinpoint detection being nearly impossible through ordinary means, perhaps burning everything to the ground would be the fastest solution if we wanted to address this.

But very fortunately, I have a quite clear countermeasure.

‘…Nothing yet.’

‘Ultra-intuition.’ A special factor that elevates intuition—impulsive desires or decisions made ignoring all logic and rational judgment—to a level similar to the five senses.

If someone brainwashed like that enters the village, my intuition will directly alert me to the ‘threat,’ and if I can determine their presence, I could certainly track them down through direct investigation.

Therefore, I was able to establish countermeasures for this issue relatively quickly. The second task that emerged at that point was the issue concerning the adventurers who keep coming to the village.

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Adventurers. Despite their romantic-sounding name that suggests embarking on some adventure, they’re actually closer to combat contractors or subcontracted personnel for dealing with monsters.

At the same time, it’s a path where one can achieve self-made success, as numerous as the fading stars.

Beyond propaganda, there are many cases of people from miserable backgrounds becoming successful adventurers, receiving titles or achieving respectable positions. While dangerous, it’s undeniable that this profession contains many opportunities.

Therefore, it’s not at all strange for these adventurers to dream of striking it rich, nor is it unusual for them to flock somewhere based on rumors—it’s just an annual occurrence.

And while the recent increase in adventurers visiting our village seems partly due to the branch manager’s intentional instigation…

In fact, even before that, our pioneer village itself is quite a good place for adventurers to operate.

First, the village is quite large with established infrastructure, so they can purchase things with money. Another reason is that the village’s security is very stable because I, as the highest administrator, am right here.

No matter how much adventurers are treated as potential thieves, they’re still human in the end. Most of them, except for some rude ones, love peace and don’t want to lay their bodies down in lawless inns in the first place.

Additionally, there’s a blacksmith shop with a skilled blacksmith, a temple that treats most wounds almost for free, and especially for those who find it hard to dislike alcohol, dwarf beer is an irresistible temptation…

Above all, it seems that the place adventurers visit most frequently is Gretel’s Witchcraft Workshop.

In K-fantasy games, potions might be considered consumables drunk during hunting or healing methods, but in this world, the value of potions is truly no joke.

A regular healing potion sold by the Alchemy Guild costs a whopping 5 gold coins. A budget healing potion costs about 1 gold coin.

For adventurers who often lack recovery methods in their parties, potions are literally spare lives, so they sell even at such high prices because there are no substitutes.

And in this situation, the price of potions that Gretel can mass-produce—dozens of bottles a day—is just about 10 silver coins per bottle.

Although the healing effect isn’t immediate and the performance isn’t exceptionally cheap, the fact remains that it’s a potion that can save lives.

In other words, it’s like buying a spare life for just 10 silver coins, so it’s not surprising that all the previously accumulated inventory is now gone.

But beyond these conditions, what truly increases the frequency of adventurers visiting the village is the fact that money-making opportunities have emerged near the village.

As mentioned earlier, adventuring is often chosen by people with no future as a last attempt at success, and even otherwise, many adventurers aim to retire after making one big score.

Since risking one’s life in battle is extremely dangerous and mentally burdensome, naturally more people want to save money and retire rather than fight as active adventurers for a long time.

…Although there are exceptions who become obsessed with their own growth, most adventurers inevitably have strong tendencies toward seeking a windfall.

And for such adventurers, the unexplored areas near our remote village probably look like a potential El Dorado with sleeping gold.

From untamed beasts in unexplored territories that can be hunted at will, to various rare herbs and resources, and even rewards or shares that can be received from the domain if a mine is discovered inside.

Especially in unexplored areas where human hands haven’t reached and otherworldly environments are maintained, there are many strong creatures proportional to the danger, and in this world, the corpses of such strong beings can be incredibly valuable.

The “crystal deer,” whose adult horn is worth at least 15 gold coins; the “fire mouse” skin—worth at least 5 gold coins per piece—used as material for fire-resistant equipment due to its flame resistance.

Additionally, monster entrails are mostly swept up by maniac wizards who are crazy about such things or nobles who want to use them as medicine, and monster reproductive organs, though actually just protein masses, are expensive because they’re said to be good for virility.

Even without taking such risks, one can also gather numerous herbs from the deep otherworldly forest that can be sold for gold coins per root.

Of course, realistically speaking, they spend as much as they earn, so they might not make enormous amounts of money, but nevertheless, their income is substantial enough to risk their lives, which is why day-fly adventurers flock here.

Thanks to this, as these gathered adventurers splurge tremendous amounts of money in the village as ‘consumers,’ the village has actually been enjoying a great boom recently.

Unlike medieval commoners who mostly have the ability to produce their own necessities, these adventurers are consumers who create external value rather than having productive capacity.

Beyond ordinary consumers, they have tremendous purchasing power because they need to buy and use things that ordinary people would simply self-produce.

The demand for inns has increased so much that the village has hurriedly opened vacant houses as inns and entered the business at the village level, while food and alcohol consumption has increased, and various meat by-products have become available.

In particular, meat, which is relatively less valuable among monster by-products and spoils easily, has often been released cheaply to the village, resulting in unexpected meat parties in the village.

Additionally, the village has gained benefits such as being able to place requests (subcontracts) for visiting adventurers, or selling outdated crossbows that had accumulated as bad inventory at low prices…

Of course, this series of situations doesn’t solely have advantages, with the most representative issue being that the frequency of troubles within the village has increased several times.

It’s truly maddening for me, but the rate of incidents occurring since they appeared in the village has increased several times… which was unavoidable considering the number of battle-hardened humans staying in the village.

However, saying it’s unavoidable doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t respond at all, and especially in this situation, it was all the more necessary.

“Lord Alzar! Another brawl has broken out!”

“Again…?! Send Droop! We have to do something about these people!”

Today marks the 34th incident, with at least 34 more brawls breaking out in less than two weeks.