Chapter 34: Undead
"Hiro can make wood, right? Why don’t we just ask him to build houses and a wall outside? If we extend the wall, no one could complain. Or, we could construct higher-rise buildings in an empty plot," Rebecca suggested.
Hiro slapped Rebecca’s head in annoyance with his tentacle. He had such high hopes for her intelligence, but this idea made him doubt her intelligence. He suspected Rebecca’s earlier intelligence was a fluke.
"Um... I don’t think Hiro can easily craft that much wood, Rebecca. There must be a limit to how much he can produce," Marissa frowned. She looked at Hiro’s tentacle. Hiro nodded at her while still slapping Rebecca’s head.
"Really? It seems endless, though..." Rebecca poked Hiro. Hiro wanted to slap her head again in frustration, but seeing Rebecca’s guilty gaze, he stopped. He then slouched his tentacle over her shoulder in exasperation.
"If we don’t want to anger the locals, we need to expand the city," Marissa sighed as she studied the map.
The map displayed a neat circular wall denoting Quantora’s boundaries. To the west was a forest with small patches of farmland, while the east and south were dominated by sprawling agricultural lands.
Although it was risky, Marissa decided to expand into the forest. The Duke of Daneswald seemed to take this matter seriously, sending another batch of soldiers to help guard and assist in construction. Fortunately, the population of Marissa’s village was tiny—barely a thousand—so the new wall wouldn’t need to be excessively long. They just needed enough for housing. However, fate said otherwise. A soldier ran inside the manor, bringing ill news.
"Report: the monster horde has moved in the other direction as expected. However, after assaulting Silica, many villagers are fleeing this way. They’re attracting the undead into Litmus!"
"Hm? Silica is five days away. Why didn’t these refugees go to other towns?" John asked.
"The civilians reported that the lords there do not welcome them. We spotted them near our borders and are currently escorting them here."
"I see. Well, we will have Lord Seraphine on our side. Undeads are his specialty. We’ll be seeing some cooked bones and charred flesh soon enough," John sighed.