CH 25

Chapter 25 – I Built A Tower!

I was having a little trouble sleeping, when suddenly, a scream echoed through the village.

“…! An enemy ambush?”

I sat up abruptly.

At the same time, Iria and Mette, as well as Melk, who was sleeping on my stomach, woke up.

And when I looked, I saw that Iria was grasping my right hand and Mette my left.

‘Huh?’ I muttered for a second, but Iria and Mette let go of my hands as if nothing had happened.

“It’s close… It’s from inside the village.”

“That’s odd. But there was no cry from the watchtower…”

“Ah, that’s true.”

I answered, not mentioning the fact that they had been holding my hands.

Then Melk said,

“I think something is moving. From the east…”

“Perhaps a Kijin was startled after seeing the Golems. But they should have already seen them yesterday… In any case, we should hurry!”

And then we all jumped out of the tent.

It was still early dawn.

Outside, the Kijins and werewolves wondered what was happening as they got up.

Mette said,

“Where did the scream come from!?”

And then one of the Kijins answered her.

“It was from the stone stockyard!”

That was the place I had told the Golems to deposit the stone materials.

“What happened there…”

I headed towards the stockyard immediately.

“This…”

I became speechless.

What was spread out before me, was a collection of stone materials that were the height of a human.

How were they able to gather so many boulders in such a short amount of time… Huh?

When I looked, there were rocks that were moving on their own.

Apparently, they were headed towards the stockyard.

Nearby Kijins saw this and began to shake with terror.

Even Iria looked frantic.

“Si-sir Joshua. Did you create those living rocks as well?”

“Don’t be ridiculous…those must be…”

I approached the moving rocks.

Far away, I could see even more moving rocks coming our way.

And then I saw the thing that directed them on the ground.

“Wiz. Since when…”

It was Wiz the slime.

It extended a part of its body and waved at me as if to say, ‘hey.’

So the reason that I was having trouble sleeping was not because my hands were being grasped, but because Wiz was not there as my pillow.

“Are you using the slimes from the abandoned mine to transport the rocks?”

Wiz nodded in agreement.

So the reason that the rocks were moving was because there was a slime underneath.

The golems could focus on cutting out the rocks, while the slimes could transport them. That made things more efficient.

Even when I was in the Knights Order, Wiz had always been very helpful… He would even scratch my back sometimes.

“Thank you, Wiz. I thought that at the pace they were going yesterday, that I wouldn’t be able to start on the tower until the afternoon, but now, I can start right away.”

And then Wiz looked a little embarrassed and made a gesture as if to cover its face.

This slime really was very expressive.

“All right! Then let’s get to work building a stone tower!”

“Aye, let’s build it!”

“Aye!”

I said this to rouse the others, and Mette replied energetically, and Melk answered by thrusting her fish into the air.

And then, Iria shouted ‘Aye!’ awkwardly, and it was clear she was not used to doing it. And then she clumsily raised her hand as well.

I guess this really wasn’t her style…

As the others shouted, she looked a little embarrassed.

She really didn’t have to force it.

I mused over this while I started to absorb the rocks.

I would start with just a little bit.

And when I was sure that it wouldn’t crumble, I would carefully layer them.

As for where to build this tower, I was thinking about the north side.

Because the slave hunters often came from the north.

“First, I think I’ll make it an orthodox circular tower. Build…Tower.”

And like that, I started to stack the polished rock materials.

There was plenty of it, thanks to Wiz and the slimes, and so I would make a large one.

The inside would be hollow, and there would be a staircase that allowed you to reach the upper floors.

Eventually, I would like to install ballistas, catapults and other weapons up there as well. They would surely be useful when waves of enemies attack on a great scale.

I had assumed that all of this work would take at least an hour.

However, the actual polishing and stacking of the rocks was finished in a flash. If anything, checking the durability and reinforcing the rocks materials was what took most of the time.

Regardless, it was all finished in ten minutes.

“A mountain of rock…”

Gasped the Kijins and werewolves. Clearly, they had never seen a tower like this.

Iria looked overjoyed as she opened her mouth.

“It looks so much more durable than the watchtower!”

“Aye. Because this one is made of stone. And these stones are especially hard. I think they will be able to withstand a trebuchet.”

“In that case, maybe we should test to see how durable it is?”

Iria said as she unsheathed her sword. Mette did the same.

“No, don’t do that. The tower will definitely fall. I am sure of it.”

I said seriously, and so Iria and Mette sheathed their weapons with a solemn expression.

Uh, so they really wanted to cut it…

“In any case, let’s climb up. As it’s taller than the first watchtower, the view should be even better.”

“Yes!”

And so we climbed up the stairs and headed towards the top of the tower.

Apparently, they had never seen stairs before, and they were amazed at the slope.

Once we were at the top, we could see the surrounding lands from an even higher vantage point.

“Ohh! It’s higher than the previous one! Also, I was scared to move too much on the watchtower, but this one is durable enough to run around on.”

“Aye. It won’t break easily. And it’s strong against fire.”

Mette began to hit the floor with her foot.

It started to make me nervous about it breaking… While I was usually confident in my creations, the thought of it being used by Kijins made me feel a little worried.

“W-well, just don’t make it shake too much.”

I muttered, and then Melk shouted.

“Joshua! Look! Look! The trees over there are moving?”

“Moving?”

I turned in the direction that Melk was looking.

In the northeastern direction… Indeed, it looked like the trees were shaking.

However, it was much too violent to be natural.

It was as if the leaves were rising waves… Not only that, but…

“They’re heading our way?”

It looked like the trees were moving towards us.

Bonus chapter. Thank you, Aaron Nally!