CH 29

Here’s the chapter, enjoy~

“Unreasonable. Absurd.”

“Here we go again.”

“No, I’m with Isla on this one.”

“Ah, right.”

It’s unreasonable to think that a simple sprain, fracture, compound fracture, or ruptured tendon can be healed by merely applying a splint and a bandage. I have to admit it.

“What can I say? Kosuke’s abilities are… rough.”

“Rough is a good word for it.”

“It’s not rough at all; it’s rather messy.”

It’s like I took a bunch of settings from different games and threw them together. The requirements are met, but the adjustments are messy. In my imagination, I pictured a system engineer who was asked to do something crazy by the client and had to do all sorts of crazy things in order to finish the project on time. Haha, no way.

“Yeah… I guess the world of God must be tough too. There are no glitches, so I guess it’s okay.”

“As long as it’s useful, it’s certainly not a problem.”

Sylphy nodded. Yeah, that’s right, let’s put it that way. Oh, the cooked Gizma meat is delicious. It’s plump and has a good texture. Really, if I didn’t know about the Gizma, I would think it was the meat of a large shrimp.

“It seems that the soldiers who were out in the forest have returned.”

“Yes, they are. So far, no one seems to have been seriously injured.”

The people who came back were carrying Gizma’s hind legs and larger shells on their backs. Yeah, that’s the kind of perk you need. The returning soldiers also replenished the bolts they had consumed, finished their meals, and regrouped. Among them were Lianes the Lamia and Nakul the squirrel-beastman. There was no sign of Zada, so she seemed to be resting properly.

“Are you going out for another hunt this afternoon?”

“That’s fine, but what about Kosuke? What do you think we should do?”

“Hmm, let’s see…”

A necessary element of shooting is securing the field of fire. I think it can be said that it is equal to ensuring the field of vision. After that, it is even better if there is a mechanism that can buy time before the Gizma reaches the wall. If the opponent is a human, barbed wire or wood spikes will work, but if the opponent is a Gizma… it should be something like a tank. I feel that barbed wire and wood spikes won’t even stop them, and they will be crushed.

No, if it’s a barbed-wire net, it can get tangled in their legs and give us a chance. But I wonder about the materials… I think it was in the crafting list, but it will consume a lot of iron. Under the current circumstances, it might be hard to use a lot of iron. I feel like there are less expensive and easier ways to accomplish it.

“I’ve got a few ideas.”

“Go ahead, speak.”

“First of all, we need to secure our visibility. Since there’s a possibility that we’ll be fighting at night, we’ll need lights.”

“That sounds reasonable. What do you have in mind?”

“We need to prepare torches.”

“…? Well, if we have torches, can we secure our visibility…?”

“Well, it won’t be an ordinary torch.”

Sylphy tilted her head with an indescribable expression while Isla looked at me with fixed eyes and gave me a sharp opinion. It seems that Isla is starting to understand me and my abilities. Isla is a smart girl, after all.

“Also, I’m going to place brick blocks to eliminate Gizma’s rushing power.”

“I see, that should work too.”

Perhaps remembering Gizma’s collision with a brick block and the massive damage it caused, Sylphy nodded her head in agreement. If we put torches on top of the brick blocks, we can secure our vision. So, after we finished eating, we decided to visit Danan and tell him that we would do something to increase our defensive capabilities.

“Umu… I suppose it’s better to wait until later to say anything. Let’s just try it first.”

Danan gave me permission easily. I feel that Danan is getting used to the way I handle things. I got Danan’s approval for the time being, so I decided to cut down the trees around the village first to secure visibility.

“No, overcutting is not a good idea, but…”

“Anyway, when Gizma’s attack starts, they’ll be cleaved down, and even if the elven spirit archers attack, they’ll be blown away, right? I think it would be better to cut them down first and use them as materials.”

“Mmm…”

Sylphy was reluctant, but I pushed past her and started cutting down the trees. It can be used to make torches, and if we want to put up wood spikes, we can have as many as we want. Wood is a really useful material that can be used for building materials, crafting materials, and fuel.

“That’s about it.”

“Oh, the forest…”

Sylphy’s ears twitched when she saw the situation around her village, which had been completely shaved. I’m sorry, Sylphy, but I’m going to have to put some serious thought into this…. Don’t tell anyone that I felt a little better after clearing a good portion of the land.

“The next step is to place the brick blocks… What shape should we use?”

“…Square is fine, isn’t it?”

“I think so. The size of one full block is fine.”

Considering Gizma’s physique, I placed the brick blocks in a moderate space. If I place the blocks too closely, the Gizma might walk over them. That’s not going to stop them. I also put up small walls of two blocks in some places to thoroughly eliminate Gizma’s rushing power.

“Is that it?”

“Yes, if we do this much, Gizma won’t be able to get close to the wall.”

The brick blocks that have been installed are visible from the top of the wall. If the opponent were the size of a man, the one-meter-high brick blocks would be used as cover, but this time the opponent was the size of a light truck. A one-meter-high brick block would not be enough cover. The defender’s launch point is a little higher anyway.

“The next step is the torches.”

I approached the bonfire I had built inside the wall, opened the crafting menu, and moved the torches I had been mass-producing into my inventory. In fact, I can make torches without building a bonfire.

・Torch――Material: Wood x 1

・Torch――Material: Wood x 1, Charcoal x 1

・Torch――Material: Wood x 1, Cloth x 1

The first one is a recipe that can be made from a bonfire, and the other two are recipes that can be made without a bonfire, using the craft and improved workbench at hand. It’s obvious that making them from a campfire is the least expensive.

I wondered if there was a difference in performance. But when I actually tried to make it, it stacks as a regular item. In other words, it doesn’t matter which method or material is used to make the item; the result is the same. If that’s the case, then it’s a good deal to use a bonfire.

So now I set up the torches on top of the brick blocks that I installed. Isla’s eye lost its highlight again when she saw the torches standing upright even though I hadn’t stuck them in, but I decided not to worry about the details.

By the time the torches had been set up on all the brick blocks, and the Woodspike-sensei had been laid outside the walls, it was almost dark. However, the area around the village was as bright as daylight, thanks to the large number of torches that had been set up.

“Hey, Kosuke.”

“What is it? Master.”

“Those torches don’t seem to be burning out.”

“It’s a torch, after all. It can’t be helped.”

“…I see.”

Sylphy let out a sigh as if she had given up and pressed her temples as if she were trying to hold back a headache.

The torch that was set up in the beginning, has already been burning for more than two hours, but it has not burned out or even shortened. Well, it’s a torch, right? It’s common knowledge that once a torch is set up, it will keep burning until it’s destroyed. Hahaha.

“The fire that never ends…”

Isla’s eye is completely dead. Her big eye, her charm point, has completely lost its light. I’m sure it’s an unforgivable thing from a magical perspective. No, it’s also completely fighting the laws of physics. It was like I was smiling with the middle fingers of my hands up in the air to it.

While I was looking at the brick blocks and torches that I had installed in the kill zone from the top of the wall and wondering if there was anything more I could do, the people who had gone out into the forest to hunt Gizma began to come back one by one.

They seemed to roll their eyes at the village’s change, but when they saw me on top of the wall, they seemed to understand and returned to the village. I can’t help but feel that the refugees recognize my insanity. No, it’s not me who’s insane; it’s my ability. Damn, they’re just the same…!

“By the way, are we going to stay here today and keep an eye out for Gizma’s attack?”

“No, Danan said that the guards would stand watch, but the rest of us will rest, so we’ll head back home too. Because nothing good will come if we all exhaust our strength.”

“I see.”

That makes sense. It would be pointless if we were all exhausted when the time came for us to do something. That was the moment I thought about it. I looked up at the sky and felt a sense of unease at what I saw.

“Isn’t the moon red?”

“Hmm? No, I think it’s the same as always.”

“Eeh…?”

In the sky of this world, the moon is called the Runicule. There are other planets in the sky that look bigger than the sun, but that’s okay for now. The problem is the fact that the moon in the sky looked reddish. No matter how I look at it, it looks like that. It’s like a bludgeoning raid. This is the very flag of a major attack.

“Doesn’t the moon look red to you too, Isla?”

“I think the color of the Runicule is more like yellow. It’s still yellow today.”

Isla stared up at the moon and then said so. It looks red to my eyes. Normally, as Isla said, the moon looked yellowish to me too, but today it looks red. A red moon, could there be anything more ominous than that in a survival game? No, there isn’t.

“What’s going on? Kosuke.”

“I don’t know why I’m the only one who sees the moon in red, but as far as I know, a red moon is a sign of an enemy rush, a mass attack.”

“Really?”

“What’s the use of lying about something like that?”

Hearing my words, Sylphy turned her gaze to Isla. Isla pondered for a while, then nodded.

“Everyone, including me, knows that Kosuke is different from the norm. I think we should be more vigilant if this is what Kosuke is saying.”

“Well… you’re right. I’ll go and contact the elders.”

“I’ll go report to Danan.”

“What about me?”

“Kosuke, you stay here. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I think about it as I watch Sylphy and Isla run off. As for the guards, the beastmen who are on guard duty are probably more qualified than me. I’m sure they have better eyesight than me. Then, what should I do?

“I guess I should make weapons.”

However, I don’t think I can make a projectile weapon more powerful than a crossbow. Well, I can think of composite bows, but I’m not sure if they’re as powerful as crossbows. It would be better if there were something that would definitely be more powerful than that.

“Hmm, I don’t think I’ll be able to make gunpowder in time after all.”

Should I go digging in the dirt of the toilet now? But if I’m not careful, I’m going to have to fight with the smell… No, should I still do it? I looked at the blacksmithing facilities while thinking about it, but I couldn’t find anything suitable. If I had a lot of oil, I could probably make a Molotov cocktail.

While I was thinking about this, I realized that it wasn’t… deep in the forest, but closer to the Great Wilderness. Countless roars sounded like they belonged to Gizma from quite far away. It seems to be starting.

“It’s no use begging for something you don’t have.”

I took out an improved crossbow from my inventory and held it up. As for crossbow bolts, there are plenty of them. I mean, I made 10,000 crossbow bolts, just in case. There are still more than five hundred of them left in my inventory.

“Okay, come if you want to come.”

We have thick walls that they can’t jump over, obstacles to delay the invasion, wood spikes outside the walls, and many crossbows. The number of archers is also sufficient.

I can’t see any reason to lose!