episode_0058

“Boss. Is that really your friend? Not a bear?”

“He looks like a real bear, but he’s my friend. When we were kids, we ran around here and there together.”

I didn’t even tell the adults that Grill’s nickname was Baby Bear. Now it really just looked like a bear, so you might mistake it for a real bear. Surprisingly, since there were beastmen in this world, there were also talking bears.

I didn’t want my friend’s species to change to beastman in Jienna’s mind.

Anyway, after talking about my friend for a while, it became quiet again. Watching the snow fall from the sky along with the sound of skeletons hammering hard in the blacksmith shop gave me a strangely calming feeling.

Clink ding ding ding ding ding ding!

However, while I was passing the time in a daze, bells suddenly started ringing throughout the village.

“Boss, what does this mean?”

“… … This is definitely a danger signal.”

This sound was the bell that rang when a dangerous situation occurred in the village. The interval between ringing the bell was adjusted depending on the level of danger, and ringing it as quickly and strongly as it does now meant that it was very dangerous.

Moreover, in this world, there was no periodic training to prepare for danger like in the past life. There were only real situations. Of course, the bell ringing now was also a real situation.

“Evacuate! Evacuate!”

And, as if to prove it, people who appeared to be security guards were running around the village, shouting for people to evacuate.

Wondering what the hell was going on, I stopped a security guard who happened to be passing in front of the blacksmith shop and asked what had happened.

“Trolls are approaching town! You must take only the things you need immediately and evacuate quickly!”

“Troll? That troll, one of the large monsters? A troll is coming?”

“Yes! It’s that troll!”

For a moment, I couldn’t understand the guard’s words when I heard the word ‘troll’. No, why on earth would a troll, one of the largest monsters, come to our village?

I tried to deny reality for a moment, but at that moment, the words of my friend Grill, who had visited me a while ago, came to mind. What this means is that all the animals in the surrounding area have disappeared, and even the goblin village has completely disappeared.

The troll, who had completely run out of food, wandered around and attacked the goblin village and ate it up. Trolls, not satisfied with that, began to flow into the village.

Trolls have an incredible level of regenerative ability, and they have to eat a lot of food to maintain that regenerative ability. Naturally, because of this, they have excellent overall senses for finding prey, including a highly developed sense of smell that makes it easy to find food.

So, it was not impossible for them to find food and find it, and then flow into the village. It happened when a really bad situation overlapped with another bad situation.

“I have to lead an evacuation first!”

The security guard continued to shout as he rushed out, saying that he was inducing an evacuation because he was thinking about the troll. As the sound spread, people were seen packing up their belongings and running out of their homes in shock.

Realizing that the current situation was not a good one, I immediately turned my attention to Jiena.

“Ziena. Go home and take care of my parents.”

I left my parents, who were resting at home, in the care of Jiena. Although Jiena is currently a slave and works as a store employee, she was originally a mercenary. It was said that he was a person capable of briefly entrusting his parents with escorting him in a chaotic situation.

“What about the boss? The boss should go too! They call you a troll!”

“Ah, go first. I’ll take a look at the situation.”

“… … Don’t get hurt.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“Of course! If the boss gets hurt, who will pay that salary!”

“Ah… … . Yes.”

I was momentarily impressed by Jienna’s concern for me, but then cooled off.

Anyway, I looked at Jienna for a moment as she started to run towards the house, and then ran straight to where the wooden fence was. I planned to first look at the situation and decide what to do.

“Bring the arrow! You guys there, ready for dialysis!”

“The opponent is a troll! Just physical attacks won’t work!”

“I know! You go to the herb shop and sweep up all the poisonous plants! Even if it’s a troll, it won’t be able to withstand an arrow coated with concentrated poison vinegar!”

As I approached the wooden fence, I saw several guards running around busily. The guards, who I thought were doing their job properly, were moving around with a bunch of arrows or carrying rocks like crazy.

But the faces of those guards were full of fear and horror. It was because I could clearly see a troll slowly walking from afar. Because it was simply a large monster measuring 4 meters in height, it could be identified with the naked eye even though it was still far away.

The guard commander was giving all kinds of instructions in an attempt to somehow keep morale up, but they didn’t seem to have any particular meaning. They had poisonous plants and all, but there was actually no guarantee that they would be eaten by trolls.

In the first place, there was no way that a poisonous plant like that could be sold in the village herbal medicine shop. In fact, the most certain way to deal with a troll was to hit it with overwhelming force.

So now we don’t need a lot of guards or poisonous plants, but we need knights with strong power. Knights who manipulate mana and gain a level of power that cannot be compared to that of ordinary people. Of course, there were no knights with great power in this village. The only knight left was Amy’s father, a retired knight, and it was impossible for him to deal with the troll alone, as he retired from the knight due to injury.

The guards also knew this fact, so much so that some of the guards quietly ran away. These were mainly people for whom this village was not their hometown. Those whose hometown was the village tended to have a spirit of sacrifice, as if they would die here even if they had to die. It seemed like he was trying to buy time for his family and friends to escape.

I wondered if I should add even a little bit of strength, but no matter how much I thought about it, it seemed like it would be impossible to stop the troll with this amount of strength. It was a waste, but it made me think that it would be better to buy time by deploying some skeletons.

“… … Huh?”

However, while I was thinking of using some of the skeletons to kill time, I noticed the researchers all busy moving around together.

I don’t know if it was because of the performance bonus I paid, or because their technology was improving day by day, but these were researchers who gathered at the R&D headquarters every day to conduct research and development, even in the middle of winter. And now, the researchers were all moving something together with great enthusiasm.

“Why didn’t you evacuate? The security guards must have run and told you to evacuate.”

“Ah, that’s it. There are some materials we studied and things that should not be damaged… … . I plan to just hide that.”

As the researchers spoke, I looked at the items they were moving. They were wooden blocks filled with all kinds of pictures and letters that I was just beginning to learn. Woodblocks were used because thinner woodblocks were cheaper than paper, and naturally, the contents were records left by researchers during research and development.

Since we were told to always keep records if we did something, the amount was quite large. It was so heavy and bulky that it would be lighter than several adult men packed together.

And, when I took one out from the pile of wooden boards and checked it, my eyes widened.

“The process of smelting iron from the blast furnace directly into steel? Is this real?”

“For now, this is a small-scale experiment. I made it small at headquarters… … . I can’t even move that… … .”

The researcher, who seemed very disappointed, responded that he would like to tear down all the facilities if possible. Additionally, since other researchers were showing similar reactions, they checked a few more woodblocks.

“A blueprint for a new type of farm equipment that is good for plowing the field? Research into the process of first filtering and smelting impurities from iron ore? A tool that can produce iron more efficiently with fewer skeletons? Research on alloys that can be obtained when mixing different types of minerals? What is all this?”

“There was nothing particularly urgent in winter, right? The boss didn’t ask for anything… … . So we did our own hard research. This is a woodblock recording the process, but there are still more left inside the R&D headquarters.”

“There’s more left?!”

“Yes. Moreover, there are a lot of equipment inside that cannot be brought in… … . I am moving on to the idea that I must at least protect this.”

When I heard that more money was left at the R&D headquarters, I was shocked and looked towards where the R&D headquarters was located. Through the open door, I could see other researchers coming out, gathering various items.

And, after seeing that, I changed my mind. Rather than simply deploying a few skeletons to give them time to escape, I decided to subdue the trolls even if it meant deploying all of the skeletons.

If the loss was simply the loss of a building, it could be easily restored, but in the case of facilities built for experiments, it was not easy. This is because it had value beyond the simple cost of production.

I thought that the things in the R&D headquarters were more valuable than all my skeletons here, so I gathered all the skeletons who were working hard at the blacksmith shop to make things even in this situation. They even recruited skeletons who were doing domestic work at home.

“Open the warehouse and arm yourself with the items inside!”

After gathering all the skeletons, I immediately armed them. Items that were left over after trying to sell them all before winter and prototypes that were being created in new forms were covered with skeletons.

Dozens of skeletons began to arm themselves in front of the blacksmith shop. They were commonly equipped with helmets to protect their skulls and breastplates to protect their ribs, and were made to carry weapons including arming swords.

Although there was a bit of a lack of weapons, all the skeletons were armed, holding at least hatchets and kitchen knives.

And, after finishing arming the skeletons, I led the skeleton unit and moved toward where the troll was approaching.