CH 16

Chapter 16 – I Thought Of A Strategy!

It was still the night that the werewolves had come, and I was back in the tent.

“I see. So the werewolves were attacked too.”

Iria nodded at my words.

Melk and the others of the Marites tribe came from a village that was about five hours north of here on foot.

However, last night, a group of two-hundred slave hunters had attacked the village, and burned down all of their tents.

Though, the slave hunters we had justed defeated were a different group, and they had encountered them by accient and were persued.

In the end, nearly half of their number of a thousand had been captured. The rest had escaped like Melka. But as they all scattered in different directions, many had yet to reunite with the others.

Hmm…there must be a lot more slave hunters than I was expecting.

If they were launching attacks on this scale, they must have something like a base somewhere to keep their prisoners.

And once they had enough, they would try to sell them across the lands.

Or perhaps it was self-sufficient base, and they meant to make the slaves work there. The selling of demi-humans was illegal throughout the continent. And I thought it was likely that most of them were made to work on farms.

“I want to release them, but…”

We did not know where this base was.

Not only that, but we still didn’t have a sufficient fighting force to take down a base.

Iria nodded with a serious expression.

“We of the Fendel tribe have also lost nearly ten people during the past year…”

That’s right. There had been many appearances of slave hunters in this area.

If the Marites tribe to the north were attacked, then this village to the south might be the next to be burned down.

But whether we went out on the attack or focused on defense, it was necessary to fortify this village.

“I see. I’ll do my best so we can help them. Will you keep the werewolves here for a while?”

“They did ask if they could stay. And I wish that we could accept them, but the housing…”

“So you don’t have enough tents. You can leave that to me. I’ll build a few simple huts.”

“You will? In that case, I think everyone will be satisfied! Ah…”

The small wolf that slept at Iria’s chest, Melk, had woken up.

“Morning…Iria…no, it’s not.”

She sounded very silly.

Melk had still spoken in a formal way during the day, but perhaps this was how she usually spoke.

“Hehe. It’s fine, you can call me Iria. Sorry for waking you up. You must be tired, so you can go back to sleep.”

“I’ll do that.”

And then Melk went straight back to sleep.

Iria stroked her cheek with a sad expression.

“It seems that her parents were killed by the slave hunters…and her tribe put her in chage.”

“I see…”

But she was still so young…

The slave hunters needed to be stopped immediately, or similar tragedies would continue to be repeated.

However, as I had already said, our fighting force was still weak and poor.

I needed more materials to make armor.

From what I could see, just today, the Kijins had gathered wood materials and hunted around ten Hell Alligators.

In that case, I could increase the number of watchtowers and craft leather armor and shields.

As for other things we needed, there was metal…

“Hey, Iria. Are there any mines…or caves nearby? It would be best if it was very large, where someone has already dug before.”

“There is one to the south! There is a hole that was dug in the shape of a square, and we assumed someone had made it! There were very shiny stones as well…”

“An ore deposit…that was abandoned, then. How long would it take to travel there?”

“You could reach it in half an hour. I will take you there tomorrow!”

“Thank you. That will help.”

And since we had horses now, it wouldn’t even take ten minutes to reach it.

That day, I built about fifteen small huts before going to bed.