Thanks to the word spreading from Kane Trading Company’s visit, immigrants had been arriving in the village nonstop. With more visitors, there were bound to be some oddballs.
Luckily, if they posed a threat, they’d appear as a red dot on my map. I also used the Villager Appraisal skill to double-check them, just in case.
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Delt
Age: 32
Village Affinity: Rebellious
Recommended Job: Physical Labor
Gift: None
“Rebellious, huh? That makes it easy enough. Let’s throw him in the rehabilitation center,” I said.
“Yes, Mr. Mayor!”
My ex-bandits turned guards forcibly dragged off Delt, who struggled and shouted. It was the perfect job for them, given their former experience.
“Huh? What’s a rehabilitation center? Hey, let me go! Where are you taking me?!”
Just then, a report came through.
“Mr. Mayor, there’s an elf approaching the village from the forest,” Saten said telepathically.
“An elf?”
“Yes, and they appear to be in a hurry.”
I wondered what was going on. Maybe they’d forgotten something the other day? Nah, it had to be something else.
“Let’s try reaching out to them with Telepathy.”
Saten usually manned the watchtower at the center of the village. It had been upgraded from a regular lookout post, enhancing its visibility so much that Saten could now see clear into the forest. With his Gift, Saten could communicate with the guards stationed all over the village and relay the situation in real-time.
A short time later, another message came in.
“They’re seeking help from our village.”
“Huh?!”
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“Captain! The vanguard has exited the forest!”
“All right!” Philia shouted between grunts of exertion. “Pull back immediately!”
She and the others had been holding off the orc horde at the rear, but they turned to quickly retreat once she received the message. Before long, they emerged from the forest as well and reached the frontier.
“Raaaah!”
The orcs burst out from the woods, still in hot pursuit.
“Keep going! We’re almost there!”
“Head for that fortress wall!” the elven warriors shouted, urging their comrades forward.
But then, something unexpected happened. Until then, the small and agile elves had been able to use the forest terrain to their advantage, but now, in the open wilderness, the larger orcs had the upper hand. With no grass and trees to block their path, the orcs could move freely.
Damn it... Maybe we should’ve stuck it out longer in the forest, Philia thought, but there was no point in having regrets now.
The orc horde surged forward like a tidal wave. They already outnumbered the elves and began overwhelming their exhausted warriors. It was clear that the elves could no longer hold them back.
This might be it! I must buy time, so maybe some can make it to the village!
Philia vowed to fight to the end as a warrior. Just as she turned, ready to make her final stand, several orcs charged her.
If only I could use that damn toilet one last time... She prepared herself for death, giving a wry chuckle for having such an absurd final wish. But then...
Ruuuuumble!
“Huh?!”
“Brawr?!”
A stone wall suddenly materialized in front of her. The orcs crashed into it at full speed, their cries echoing from the other side.
“What in the world?! Wait! That stone wall... It’s from the village!” The stone wall had completely separated the elves from the charging orc horde.
“Captain! Now’s our chance!” an elf called to her.
“R-Right!” Philia had been stunned for a moment, but now she snapped back to reality and quickly turned to continue the retreat. As she did, her sharp eyes—which had been honed from years of archery training—spotted a figure observing her from the central watchtower of the village.
“Lord Luke... You saved us...” she murmured before bolting toward the village.
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“That was a close one,” I muttered, watching the elves flee the orc horde from the watchtower. Thanks to the structure’s bonus effects, I could see even the farthest elves. Philia and the others had been staving off the pursuing orcs, but I quickly erected a stone wall to shield them just before they’d become overrun.
Our village seemed like it was limited to the confines of our outer wall at a glance, but in reality, our territory reached far beyond—that was why I could easily create a stone wall so close to the forest.
“But now what?”
The elven vanguard was almost at the village, and Philia’s party at the rear would likely make it to safety soon. But the real problem now was whether our village could successfully fight off that orc horde. From here, I could already see over a hundred of them, and more were pouring out of the forest.
Our only fighters were our guards and members of the hunting party, which only amounted to a few dozen people. Even though our defensive position gave us an advantage, I wasn’t sure we could take on that many orcs.
“Hmm... They just destroyed that stone wall with no problem. Maybe I could make more walls or even dig a huge moat to wear them out first? But orcs are really tough...” I muttered, brainstorming out loud.
Then it hit me.
“Wait! I think I know how to wipe them out all in one go!”
I left the watchtower and headed toward the northern gate near the outer stone wall. I’d upgraded it from a wooden structure to a much more solid gatehouse.
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Gatehouse
>>A fortified gate with a tower and double drawbridge.
Still, I was anxious to face off against that many orcs.
“What are we going to do?” Seren asked nervously. “Even all of us together can’t take down that many orcs.”
Meanwhile, Saten continued updating me telepathically, telling me the horde now numbered over two hundred. We’d probably need at least a thousand seasoned soldiers to take on so many. There was no way we could stand up to them head-on, even with our combat Gifted villagers.
This crisis was completely unprecedented, and now that Seren was panicking, the villagers would be even more shaken.
That was why, as the mayor, I needed to stay calm and steady.
“Right... But if we make the stone walls higher and thicker, they shouldn’t be able to get through. We could seal the gate completely too.”
“That could work, I guess.”
Normally, a regular stone wall could be destroyed or scaled, but if I used Facility Customization to make them gigantic, even the orcs would struggle to break through. The downside would be that we’d be surrounded by orcs outside the village. Luckily, we produced our food inside the outer walls, so we could easily hunker down for siege warfare.
“Leave it to me. I’ve got a better idea. Open the north gate!” I ordered the guards to raise the drawbridge. They probably thought I intended to shut the doors in the elves’ faces. “Now leave the gate and move back!”
They stepped back, confused.
I quickly created two long stone walls perpendicular to the outer wall, leading toward the fields. They formed a narrow passageway that funneled anyone approaching toward the northern gate.
“Wait, are you planning on reducing the number of orcs we have to fight at once? I mean, sure, we could probably take on about five orcs at a time, but we’d run out of stamina really quickly,” Seren said.
“Not exactly. Oh, here they come!”
Just then, the young men of the village arrived. Although we had more women, we did have nearly three hundred adult men in our village of over a thousand. They all carried spears I’d mass-produced through the Facility Customization feature.
“Wait, don’t tell me you’re planning on having them fight?! That’s crazy! They won’t be any match for those orcs, regardless of how many of them there are!” Seren protested.
“Don’t worry. I’m not sending them into battle the usual way,” I reassured her before turning toward the men. “I need you to help us,” I said.
“We got it!”
“We’ll gladly give our lives for the village!”
“We’ll defeat the orcs, even if it means going down with them!”
“Y-You don’t need to be so extreme...” I said.
Meanwhile, elves began pouring through the north gate and charging down the makeshift path. I’d delayed them a bit, so we had a few moments before the orcs caught up. The elves quickly made it down the path and reached us.
“Haah, haah... Lord Luke! I’m so sorry to drag you into all this...” Philia immediately said when she saw me, panting heavily. She was covered in cuts and bruises but didn’t seem seriously wounded.
“We can talk about the details later. I’m sorry to ask this, but I need the elves to help out right now,” too I said.
“Of course! We’ll do whatever it takes! That said, the number of those still able to fight is pretty low...”
You said whatever it takes, right?
“All right. Can I ask the elven warriors to hold this position? And ready your arrows, just in case.”
“Wait, so you want us to lure the orcs into this path and rain arrows on them? That might not be enough...”
“It’s just a precaution, like I said.”
The important thing was positioning the elves in a visible spot so we could lure in the orcs. They would be decoys, but I didn’t say that part aloud.
“All right. Hold on to those spears and spread out evenly along the stone walls on both sides!” I instructed the villagers.
Before long, the orcs arrived at the northern gate and entered the narrow passageway.
“We won’t have to worry about meat for a while with this many orcs...”