Ch.40Imperial Special Forces (5)

Jack had officially begun the village upgrade process.

Once they reached level 3 city status, a decent standard of living could be guaranteed.

Currently, Starting Village was at level 2 village status, but it was quite underdeveloped compared to other villages of the same rank.

The reason was simple. Because it was the Starting Village.

This wasn’t another world that actually existed, but a world inside a game.

How much attention would game developers pay to a tutorial village where adventures were just beginning?

If they were crazy perverts, they might have planted Easter eggs everywhere, but the game company I knew wasn’t like that.

For example, settings that would make otaku go wild—like discovering that a legendary weapon to defeat the final boss was hidden near the Starting Village, or that an NPC you first met in the Starting Village turned out to be the mastermind.

They just took mediocre settings from here and there, mixed them together, and attracted players with flashy celebrity advertisements. I shouldn’t expect much.

Well then, let’s start by finding talented people.

I issued a proclamation in the administrator’s name requiring everyone with skills to register at the town hall.

I also offered incentives—promising special benefits when starting related businesses or opening shops in the future.

Soon, people began gathering at the town hall one by one.

Blacksmiths, carpenters, leatherworkers, jewelers, textile craftsmen, architects, smelters, doctors, hunters, miners, bakers, brewers, potters, navigators, civil servants, horse trainers, and so on.

A truly incredible variety of professions came to add their names to the “Master Craftsman List.”

I didn’t know enough to verify their skills, but I could easily test them later when related work needed to be done.

Among the Zilke Republic refugees in particular, there were highly educated professionals like accountants and lawyers. Their country seemed to be much more developed than ours.

“Ah, excuse me…”

The administrator, who was interviewing people at the desk next to mine, frowned and glanced at me nervously.

Wondering if he needed help, I turned around and saw a woman sitting in the chair in front of his desk.

She had short hair and a somewhat slender build, giving off an extremely gloomy atmosphere.

Our administrator was pretty gloomy too, but this woman had something different that overwhelmed his gloominess.

I just realized there are different types of gloominess.

“Mr. Jack… Please help me…”

The administrator looked at me with a goat-like whimper, as if about to cry.

“What’s the matter?”

“This person stated her profession as…”

I got up and went closer. What the hell? Assassin…?

The word “assassin” was written in the registration field.

So she’s a former assassin?

Glancing at her, I saw she was looking up at me with her head lowered but eyes raised.

Meeting those eyes, I had to admit.

I don’t know if she’s an assassin or what, but those definitely aren’t the eyes of a normal person.

“You were an assassin? If I may ask, where are you from?”

“The Zilke Republic.”

Her low, chilling voice gave me goosebumps. She was the stereotypical assassin.

“So you’re saying you worked as an assassin in the Zilke Republic? Hmm… I see…”

The woman didn’t answer and just stared at me with frightening eyes.

That kind of stare would make even Adelheid, the Remugen mercenary captain, or that crazy deputy captain back down.

“Anyway, I understand. Fill out your name here and I’ll call you again later.”

The woman took the pen, filled in the remaining fields, and silently rose to leave the town hall.

“Phew…”

After she left, the administrator let out a long sigh of relief and smiled grimly.

“An assassin? That’s going too far as a joke…”

“Since we have no way to verify it now, let’s just register her and check again later.”

With that, the classification of the village’s human resources was completed.

The administrator and I spent another day categorizing people by field.

The personnel issue was resolved, and next came civil engineering.

The most critical issue now was securing materials.

The village’s logging operation wasn’t enough to build the facilities needed for a level 3 city upgrade.

So I planned to meet with merchants from Odelin City to purchase the necessary materials.

We needed to acquire stones and various other materials, but transporting them by land would be prohibitively expensive.

We really needed to use the river flowing through the village for water transportation.

If we built a proper dock and acquired boats, we could trade easily without the threat of monsters or bandits.

If we could open a waterway to bring materials from Odelin City, the village’s construction work would become much easier.

After some consideration, I decided to gather the people who had registered as carpenters.

Three carpenters gathered by the riverside.

“I want to build a dock and boats to travel back and forth to Odelin City. Is that possible?”

The carpenters offered various opinions in response to my proposal.

They agreed it was possible, but it would take time and require a lot of materials.

They also said they would need laborers to help with the work. That was easy—I could assign knights for that.

“Then I’ll provide whatever you need, so let’s start work immediately.”

All the village’s timber was redirected to the planned dock site.

I selected capable knights and assigned them as assistants to the carpenters.

Good. Everything was going well.

Meanwhile, the scout team I had sent to Mestopin’s Junkyard unfortunately returned empty-handed.

The drop rate for items there was notoriously bad, so this was actually expected.

Even in reality, there had been many complaints about the probability being a scam.

Still, I decided to schedule regular patrols to the junkyard.

Despite the terrible odds, sometimes incredibly valuable items like the Shadow Coat from before would appear.

The patrol teams searching for resources around the village were bringing in some suspicious reports.

They seemed to be describing what might be mineral veins, but none of them had the expertise to be certain.

I sent a former miner with them to investigate.

Depending on whether there was a mineral vein and what type of mineral it was, our village’s fate could change dramatically once again.

Liberone and Mirella were traveling all around with the knights, collecting stones to pave the ground.

The method was simple. When they found a large boulder, Mirella’s opener and Liberone’s greatsword would smash it to pieces.

Then the knights would load the broken stones onto carts, flatten their surfaces, and use them for paving.

I would have preferred to use cut marble, but that was ridiculously expensive.

“Guardian Angel.”

Liberone, who had just precisely split a house-sized boulder in half, approached me.

“What is it?”

“About the knights’ training—I think we need to prepare for irregular warfare. Once we upgrade to a city, these men will all become part of the guard. Unless they’re regular army troops, most of their duties will be within the city. They need to be proficient in irregular warfare and urban combat.”

“That’s true. But how?”

“The Holy Knights don’t provide training for that, so it would be best to recruit other experts.”

Other experts… Maybe I should go to Odelin City and make a request at the guild.

The Empire has special forces directly under the Emperor, similar to counter-terrorism units in reality.

If I make a request at the guild, they might be able to find people from that background.

As I was coming down the mountain after parting with Liberone, I noticed some suspicious movement at the village entrance.

A horse was coming in with two people on its back.

But something was wrong with the riders.

One was slumped forward, almost lying on the horse’s mane, while the smaller person sitting behind looked like they might fall off at any moment.

They looked like travelers who had sustained serious injuries.

I hurried down the slope, shouting:

“Are you alright?!”

As I rushed toward them, I stopped abruptly when I could make out the rider’s face.

“You, you!”

The smaller rider pointed at me and gritted their teeth.

Small build, a face covered in scars but still cute and small.

It was the 2nd deputy captain of the Remugen mercenaries.

Then could the person slumped in front be… Adelheid?!

Just then, Adelheid slowly tilted to the side and fell to the ground with a thud.

“Don’t come any closer!”

The 2nd deputy captain, who had also nearly fallen off the horse, covered Adelheid’s body with her own and shouted sharply.

“She doesn’t look good. Let’s get her to the shop…”

“Give me the antidote! That’s all I need!”

“Antidote?”

What is she talking about? Antidote? Oh? Could it be?!

Adelheid, collapsed on the ground, had a flushed face, hazy eyes, and was breathing heavily.

She was clutching her lower abdomen, rubbing her thighs together, and curling up like a shrimp.

So the pig estrus potion actually worked on humans!

“Let’s get her inside first. Unless you want to leave her lying there… Huh? What’s that?”

I could see a group of armed horsemen approaching from the outskirts of the village.

The 2nd deputy captain’s face turned pale as she followed my gaze.

“Imperial soldiers…!”

Imperial soldiers? Why would they come to our village?

“Hey…!”

The completely flustered deputy captain bit her lip and turned to me.

“H-help us…! If they catch us, the captain will be executed…!”

“Hmm…”

“I’m sorry about before. Please help us… Save the captain… I’m begging you… I can die, but the captain absolutely cannot…”

I was shocked. The 2nd deputy captain was rubbing her hands together and shedding tears.

“I’ll carry her.”

I ran over and crouched down, and the deputy captain struggled to help load Adelheid onto my back.

As I rushed toward the shop with the deputy captain, I looked back and saw the imperial soldiers entering the village.