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TL: ALT
Chapter 44 – Day 43 of Living in the Demonic Land
This morning, we all helped build the kiln.
Sylvia, who has become a weapons dealer, started talking about how she wanted to build a furnace.
I’m going to help, too, because it seems like I’ll be able to collect the rent faster that way.
Jennifer wanted to make a bamboo basket, but she came to help because she thought it would be faster if everyone worked together. Maybe it was because she wouldn’t be able to handle a monster attack on her own.
Basically, Hel was the construction manager, stacking the bricks as they dried and hardened according to the plans.
“How can you make plans like that?”
“I just remember the kilns I’ve seen in the past.”
As she said this, Hel was kneading the mud that would be used as a binding agent.
“Heh~”
Cher already sounded weak from the monotonous work.
It seems that Cher had discussed with Hel many times whether or not it would be possible to use earth magic, but it seems that things made with magic are weak against magic and easily collapse. Around us were the remains of the kilns Cher had made with magic.
“It’s no use because they might just be using magic stones as fuel.”
While Hel pushed things further, we continued to pile up the bricks.
When we had piled them up to a certain height, we would cover them with clay and let them dry. When that was done, we would pile them up again in a different place. This was a repetitive process.
As the sun rose high in the sky, we took a lunch break.
As we ate our hearty sandwiches, a green tiger came out of the forest to the west. It was unusual for one to come so close to our home.
We threw some of the Haze Turtle’s leftover bones at the green tiger, and it gobbled them up hungrily but soon got bored and looked over.
“Is there anything you want to tell us?”
“What’s wrong?”
As Hel and Jennifer approached, the Green Tiger let out a roar.
It was strange that it threatened them when it had approached them itself. I thought that Hel and Jennifer weren’t good enough, so I approached it, and it started to sniff my hand.
“Can you tell anything by the smell?”
I tickled its lower jaw, and it let out a purr.
“Has my talent as a monster user blossomed?”
“It just sensed you were strong.”
Cher said as she ate her sandwich.
“I-i-if it came here looking for food, it’s a little overweight.”
Sylvia pointed out calmly.
Come to think of it, the Green Tiger is quite plump.
“But if it’s here to fight for territory, it should show a bit more of a fighting stance, don’t you think?”
I said, and then I heard a cry of “Gyaaa!” from the forest to the west. To the west is a stream that is the entrance to the demonic land.
“An intruder? Could it be that it came to call us over because of that?”
I fed Green Tiger half of my sandwich and patted it on the head.
“Makyo!”
Cher said, throwing me the knife I usually used. I caught it in the air.
Cher was wearing a robe and holding the staff that was most comfortable for her.
“For now, everyone else, wait in the cave! Make sure you can escape at any time!”
When I said, “Show me the way,” Green Tiger let out a “Gauuu” and ran off into the forest to the west.
Cher and I followed Green Tiger. There were also plants like bendgrass and razor plants, but Cher and I, who were used to the demonic land, were able to avoid them without getting hurt.
Cher changed the direction of the Green Tiger as it tried to pass through the field of swimming flowers by nudging it with her staff. We reached the riverbed.
There was a lot of splashing in the stream. It looked like a group of slime was eating something.
We watched for a while and stroked the Green Tiger.
“Peh!”
The group of slime spat out three robed people. All of them had stopped breathing, and their hearts had stopped beating. The cause of their deaths was probably drowning due to the lack of magic power in the water. When I opened their robes, I found that they had many knives hidden under their clothes. I wonder if they were assassins.
“Oh, that’s too bad. They might have survived if they’d just dropped their weapons.”
“Makyo, they have a mark on them.”
Cher pulled off the dead man’s clothes and found a tattoo on his hip. It was a crescent moon with a cross inside. It was on all three of them, so they must have been companions.
“Gabugabu!”
Green Tiger came out of the forest with a corpse in its mouth. It was a woman in a robe with a similar tattoo, and she had cuts all over her body and a broken neck. She must have entered the demonic land and been killed by the plants and monsters there.
“Are there any more of them?”
When I took off the robe, I saw that she also had a crescent and cross tattoo on her waist.
“Are there more of them? This is getting annoying…”
I said, looking at the forest.
“Are we under attack?”
When Cher said that, it certainly seemed that way. The demonic land is being attacked by those people with tattoos.
“So we’re being attacked? But if they’re all dead, we don’t know who they are.”
“Let’s look for those who are still alive.”
“Alright, let’s go!”
We searched the forest.
All we could find were Green Tigers and variations of Field Boars. What’s more, both plants and monsters began to tear apart the corpses we had left on the riverbed. One woman’s corpse even had half of her arm torn off.
“If the corpses are left as they are and eaten by monsters, they might become ghosts or zombies.”
To be honest, it would be a real problem if they turned into something incomprehensible like a ghost, let alone a zombie.
“Shall we show the captain?”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
Rustle, rustle!
Something was coming from the forest.
Cher and I immediately raised our weapons.
“Why aren’t they making a path? Geez.”
“Makyo! Cher!”
“D-d-don’t leave me!”
It was Jennifer and the others.
“What, is that you? Did you see anyone in the forest?”
“No.”
Hel turned and looked at the forest as she answered. They had come to check on us because we were taking so long.
“Oh, is it another corpse?”
“That’s right. It seems that people are starting to come to this demonic land unexpectedly.”
“Do you recognize this tattoo?”
Cher rolled over the corpse and showed the women the crescent and cross tattoo on the lower back.
“T-t-that is?!”
Sylvia seemed to know something.
“I-i-isn’t that the Church’s assassin group?”
“What? The ’16 of Hashis’?”
Jennifer, the former priestess, was surprised.
“There are 16 of them?”
“No, I don’t think they all work together. But I didn’t know they actually existed. How did you find out about them, Sylvia?”
“M-m-my father has been threatened by the Church in the past, and he told me about the ’16 Assassins of Hashis.’ H-h-he told me that if anyone came with a ‘cross on the moon’ tattoo, I should leave my house and run away.”
Sylvia’s father was a nobleman, so he probably had some conflicts with the church.
“So why do these people come to the demonic land? Are they hiding something that goes against the teachings?”
Hel asked.
“A demon race, an elf refugee, a fired priestess, and the survivor of a fallen nobleman. It would be strange if you weren’t targeted by someone.”
I said, counting my fingers. I didn’t want to hide them, but all kinds of troublesome people had gathered in the demonic land. It’s normal for a landowner to want to turn them away.
“I wasn’t fired! I quit on my own!”
“So you quit being a priestess after all.”
“Wha…! I’m the general affairs manager of the demonic land now!”
Jennifer declared loudly. How selfish.
“So what are you going to do with the corpses?”
Hel asked, examining the corpses, looking into the mouths and eyes.
“Burn them or give them to the captain, I guess.”
“They’re assassins. Do you think their comrades will leave the body alone? I hear they have a way to move the body.”
The body has information. If it is misused, it could destroy the organization. If that happens, the group of assassins will come back to get rid of the body.
“What a pain. Shall we put it on a stake and leave it out in the open?”
“That’s too cruel.”
“A-a-are you really human?”
Cher and Sylvia dismiss the idea.
“Then we’ll leave it to the military. We can’t handle it.”
“Hmm, okay!”
Cher used vines to bind the four bodies. Since there was no bag big enough to hold four people, they were wrapped in butterbur leaves and hardened with palm sap.
“Well, I’m off. They might still be in the forest, so be careful.”
The sun was already setting. I had no choice since I was the fastest runner.
“Be careful!”
I crossed the stream with the four bodies.
I made my way through the forest and onto the military training facility.
I’d been running for about an hour when I finally saw the building.
“Excuse me! I’m from the demonic land!”
I usually enter from the back, but since no one was there, I knocked on the front gate and called for someone.
Creak!
A young soldier opened the gate and looked at me quizzically.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m from the demonic land to the east…”
“Ah, I’ve heard of you. Please, come in!”
Thank goodness. If I’d been turned away at the gate, I would have been arrested as a suspicious person carrying corpses.
“It’s not your day to come here yet, is it?”
“Yes, there were intruders, so I came to talk to the captain.”
“I see. What are those heavy-looking things?”
“The bodies of the intruders. Four of them.”
“What?!”
The young soldier jumped to his feet in surprise.
“No, we didn’t kill them. They were killed by monsters when they entered the demonic land. But they look like assassins.”
“Assassins?”
“I think they are the ’16 people of Hashis.’ That’s why I brought them as evidence.”
“Whaaaa! I’m going to call the captain right now!”
The young soldier ran off somewhere, shouting, “Captain!” The other soldiers who had heard the commotion also gathered around.
“What happened?”
“Some assassins broke into the demonic land.”
After five or six rounds of this conversation, the captain finally arrived. He was wearing an apron as if he had been cooking.
“What happened?”
“Some assassins broke into the demonic land. They were already dead when I found them.”
“What about those big packages?”
“They are corpses. Four of them. Oh, does anyone have a torch? I’ve hardened them with palm tree sap, so if we melt them down, I can show the evidence.”
“Bodies? Oh, not the front entrance then, the back!”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
The captain led me into the backyard. The trainee soldiers followed as onlookers.
I dissolved the palm sap and rolled the four bodies onto the grass in the backyard.
“Look at the area around their waists. You can see a crescent moon with a cross tattooed on it, right?”
“This is…!”
The captain was surprised to see the tattoo.
“I don’t know much about them, but I think they might be the ’16 of Hashis’…”
“I see. This is quite a difficult case, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. I thought it might be a bit difficult to deal with in the demonic land, so I brought them here in a hurry.”
“I see. I’ll take them for now, but this is a training facility, so I might not be able to find out the exact details.”
“No, no, it’s not that I want to know the identities of these corpses, but I was afraid that if there was a corpse in the demonic land, the assassins would take revenge on me.”
“Oh, so it’s okay to burn them?”
“Go ahead. But are there any bad rumors about the demonic land that brought these people here? I’d like to know about that.”
“Ah. Speaking of which, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Do you have a moment?”
The sun was already setting. However, since I had gone back and forth several times, it wouldn’t be impossible to return. At worst, I could sleep in the forest.
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“Then this way.”
The captain gave instructions to his subordinates as he led me.
“Take these four to the morgue. The medical team will do the autopsies. Don’t contact the church people yet.”
There must be various political connections between the military and the church.
The captain led me to the usual trading hut, and we were alone.
“Actually, about the territorial rights of the demonic land I was talking about before…”
The captain sat down in a chair and began to speak.
“Yes, yes, what happened?”
“I think the deed will arrive at this training facility in about three days. At that point, the demonic land will become Makyo-san’s territory.”
“I see. Thank you very much.”
When I bought it from the real estate agent, I thought it was my land, so it felt strange at first. Finally, I can become a landowner recognized by the country.
“Ah, you are going to join the ranks of the nobility. Congratulations.”
“What? Nobility? Me?”
“It’s only natural, considering the size of your territory. Well, let’s leave that aside for now, but in three days, the private army of the nobles and the adventurers from East Kenya might invade the demonic land.”
“Eh? Why?”
“Before it is officially decided as your territory, the army here at the training ground cannot move so easily.”
“Is that because there is no good reason?”
“That’s right. So for the next three days, you’ll have to somehow defend the demonic land.”
“Even if you say that…”
There are only five of us, including me. How can we defend it?
“Well, this is a good place to gain some experience before becoming a noble. I’m counting on you.”
“Even if you’re counting on me… But I think the demonic land is bigger than you think. I wonder if it would be possible to occupy it in three days in case of an invasion. How many people are there over there?”
“I think there are about a thousand or two thousand. There’s also the East Kenya defenders.”
How can we deal with so many?
“Please give me a break. It’s impossible.”
“It will be fine. You have a powerful staff in the demonic land, right?”
How many staff should we prepare?
“Even if we manage to defend the demonic land, there will be a lot of corpses, right? What should we do?”
“It doesn’t matter if you burn them. If you want, you can send them back to East Kenya in three days. If you are recognized as a territory, our army can move in as well.”
I scratched my head and made a face.
“A defensive battle for the demonic land, huh? I don’t think it’s a place that can be defended at all.”
“Do your best. If East Kenya gains more power, it might plunge into a full-scale war with the Elf country. I want to prevent that at all costs.”
East Kenya borders the Elf country, so it seems like there will be a lot of diplomatic problems. It seems that there were already some skirmishes during the rebellion, so it must have been difficult in many ways.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I’m counting on you.”
We’ve got another problem.
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