Day 50:
We were working again today, but this time our roles differed a lot.
Shirou, who retained much of his knowledge from his old world, was given the job of educating and training the imps.
Yan and Dodo, who were suited to do manual labor, volunteered to gather iron gravel littering the area, for I was sure that we were going to need the iron. To help them, I went and made each of them a leather backpack. Shirou was very adamant about this as well because he wanted to work on his smithing techniques.
Dori, the only girl so far, learned the basics of tilling the soil and, with a hoe that I made her, was working on the plots of land surrounding the fort walls to prepare them for planting.
I decided that I was going to chop down more lumber and transport it for further construction projects, like houses and towers inside the fort.
The fort's specification so far was that it was barely eight feet tall with an internal radius of fifteen meters. As it was, bullywugs -with their small stature and slippery limbs- would not be able to overcome this fort so easily. But still, it was a little vexing to know that the wall was only a little over a foot and a half taller than I was. Even if I did feel proud of making it, it was small.
Once Dodo and Yan returned with a sizable quantity of iron gravel, Shirou threw them into a new oven -I don't even know when he built another one so soon and without my help too- and began to pump in broken sticks and leaves as he fanned the air. It didn't take long before Shirou had made his first iron shortsword.
We ate the food that we had gathered the day before, and went to sleep feeling very productive.
Day 53:
Three of the imps and our sole Veshta Nerada evolved. Now, we had six trolls, two onis, and a single Faze.
I was pretty surprised by what the Veshta Nerada had turned into. Faze, from what my [Observe] told me, were a race of humanoids often mistaken for demons despite the fact that they were closer to humans than other humanoids like elves, fairies, trolls, and undead were. In fact, the only difference between humans and Fazes was that the latter were highly compatible with shadow- and darkness-related elements, allowing them to live and travel in the "invert world." There wasn't much information about the inverted world, but I got the gist of it.
Our Faze looked like a human adolescent girl in her late teens. Due to her "shadowy" nature, she was able to conjure her own clothes from the shadow, but I ended up making her a set of deer leather clothes anyway. Her eyes had no iris or sclera; everything was black with a hint of white at the very center of her eyes. I suspected that those white dots were the Faze's version of pupils.
She had short, ebony hair, and it fluttered lightly up and down like fire. Her skin was dark compared to what I had ever seen on a human. If she were to stand in any shade or shadow, the shadow would be shining like candlelight.
And she called herself Candy. Additionally, her voice was no longer composed of multiple tones. But neither did she sound feminine. That isn't to say masculine. No, she just sounded ... there. Neither male nor female -despite her body clearly demonstrating otherwise- and definitely not a scratchy-voiced adolescent.
She's very confusing.
Eh.
As long as she could contribute to the clan, he didn't mind.
"So today, we're going to go and make a map!" I declared.
Everyone looked at me, some confused and others in agreement. Those who were confused were mostly composed of the natives here, guys and girls who, unfortunately, did not get an education. The other half -really three people- was the elderly imp, Shirou, and Yan. Yan had more education thanks to Shirou, who taught the second troll to evolve what he considered basics. He couldn't write yet, but he did learn from Shirou some tactics, and Yan knew -after failing some hunts- that knowing the area was a very important piece if you wanted to survive.
Or at least I hoped that such a thought was what Yan had in his mind. Or whatever time Shirou used to teach him -and I know what Shirou taught him- would have been for naught.
"I got the east," Shirou said as he stood up, having finished his breakfast of deep soup first. "I'll also be hunting a little. The lack of variety in our meals has been upsetting me."
I grinned. I liked Shirou's cooking, however low quality it may be, due to the lack of ingredients available. "You got it," I replied easily. "But do take someone with you."
Shirou nodded and picked up one of the newly evolved trolls with him.
I turned to Dori, Dodo, and Yan. "Well, considering that none of you are good at making maps or anything similar, what are you guys going to be doing?" I asked them.
Yan stood up. "I'm going to go and collect some more iron gravel. Big Brother Shirou told me that he'd like some more," he said as he walked over to where he had left the leather backpacks. Dodo nodded and hurried along after Yan.
I turned to Dori after I waved them goodbye as they left the fort. "What are you going to be doing then?"
She fidgeted. "Well, I was thinking about ... just tending to the farm?" she asked/stated.
"I highly doubt anything is growing, though," I replied skeptically.
"Then I'll go out into the forest and see what I can find."
She stood up to leave the fort like the others, but I held her back with a raise of my hands.
"I want you to go and find out if there is any good source of water. Like a river or lake."
She blinked. "Why?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Since you just evolved, I guess you wouldn't notice. Because of our size, we need a lot more water than we did before. So far, we have been using animal blood to hydrate ourselves with a few pouches of water here and there that the imps gather for us, but what happens if all the imps evolve?"
"We'll need a lot more water," she replied, slowly understanding where I was heading. "But what about the animals?"
"Then we would have to kill a lot of animals to keep ourselves sated, and I don't think that's a good idea, not to mention that there will be flies everywhere."
She nervously chuckled. "I guess... So you want me to find water?"
I nodded. "But do keep yourself safe and don't wander too far out."
She nodded and headed out as well.
"Guess I should be moving too."
Before heading out, I walked to Shirou's new furnace. Or more specifically, the grindstone right next to it that he had finished putting together this morning. It was a simple pedal-spun, roundstone grinder. Shirou was upset that he couldn't find any good grindstone material. He graciously accepted his inability, though, and made up for it.
It was still a good grinder as far as I was concerned, especially for non-metal hatchets like the one I was holding.
I sat down in front of it and ground the edge of my hatchet.
After that, I spent the rest of my day chopping wood and moving it back to the fort. By the time I had moved twelve logs, Shirou had come back from his scouting mission with a roughly sketched map on a deer hide and was teaching the imps again.
I smirked. 'I guess he's that kind of a guy,' I thought as I headed back out.
Day 61:
The past week had been peaceful and quiet. There were no orcs trying to kill us. Our position was too far away from the bullywugs to be raided. We found a good supply of water, and Shirou used the knowledge of his previous world to build a small aqueduct underground. It took most of his time for the past week, but it was worth it. Unfortunately, it had to be manned during the day because it needed muscle power to transport the water. Dodo seemed eager to do just that.
Speaking of which, four more joined the secondary evolution rank. They were Ran, Sou, "Queen," and Dresa.
Ran was a green-skinned troll of the same height as Yan, except she was a girl. Sou was another troll like Yan and Ran.
It was Queen who was different. She was a peach-skinned Oni, the closest thing to a regular human that he had seen so far. She claimed that her colors proved her superiority until I smashed a log into the ground with enough force -using a lot of energy too- to send tremors throughout the fort. She shut up after them.
Dresa was an odd one as well. Instead of becoming a troll or an oni, she became a Kobold, a medium-tall dragon-like sentient creature. She stood on two legs and definitely had the same feminine features as Dori and Ran in the chest, groin, and bottom department.
Yeah, did I mention that evolving tends to leave one naked?
No one so far was upset about it, nor did anyone care.
Back to Dresa, she immediately took home to the cavern with a pickaxe I had made a few days ago, and was mining for days. She seemed really happy about making new tunnels, too.
Shirou had taken to spending more time with his furnace, trying to recreate some of the "Noble Phantasms," despite knowing that it was a foolish attempt. Dori was still farming, and Ran and Sou had joined her. The first sprouts had come up, and I liked how fast some of these vegetables were growing. I hoped that they would continue to grow at their current pace.
As for Yan ...
Well, he had taken to hunting.
Even without me or Shirou to accompany him, he would return with a lot of cuts and scratches and usually with a deer or some other creature on his shoulder. Whenever his hunt was successful, he would grin like an idiot. It would only grow whenever I gave him acknowledgement.
As for myself, I was training myself. Instead of focusing on LvLing Up as I had done before, in part due to the quests that had popped up, I had taken to working on my stats instead. In the span of the week, I had only LvLed Up three times, but the stat growth had exceeded 100 points total, which was 60 points more than what I should have gotten from only LvLing Up.
So why was I doing this instead of establishing dominance?
It's ... complicated. From my lessons with Shirou, with whom I had shared my plans, he told me about multiple ways to rise to power. He told me about people like Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Gilgamesh, Heracles, and so much more. I was amazed by what such conquerors had done. Back in the Elemental Nations, no one had ever made an empire spanning across various kingdoms in one's lifetime. It was mind-boggling.
And then he told me about a certain general by the name of Sun Tzu. A man who had mastered the art of war to the point that his published book, the Art of War, became the term to describe warfare beyond simple tactics, and his teachings, some of which Shirou remembered, continued to be passed down.
Totally mind-blowing. They probably stole some work here and there, but still, the scale was just too far-fetched for me. I actually didn't believe Shirou at first until he used his magecraft to show Gilgamesh's own weapon.
It was only after he showed me Gilgamesh's favorite weapon, Enkidu. My observation was going ham on the weapon. It couldn't get a read. "If this is just the favorite weapon, not the strongest ... I can believe some of what you said," I told him then.
But what he taught me had been something else. Or rather, a phrase from an empire that everyone in his world looked up to.
"Rome was not built in a single day."
The phrase said so much in so little.
Patience was key, Shirou was telling me. We had to be patient. We had to gather more members, preferably Oni, Troll, Faze, or Kobold, if we were to fight against the numerically superior bullywug. Not only that, it was unlikely that the clan was going to be able to take care of the entire mountain range with a mere 30 to 40 members at best.
I listened and agreed to go with his plan.
We would gather more members until we could at least match one of the bullywug villages in manpower. That would mean, however, that our clan would have to end up being at least 100 members.
We then discussed how we could go about doing that.
We agreed that our fort would have to be upgraded. While it would provide a safe haven for any raids against any real sieges, it would not last. The walls would have to increase in height and thickness. Possibly, a ditch would have been dug around the immediate area around the fort itself, while those who evolved would have to be taught archery or long-range magic attacks.
We also agreed that we can't be sitting here idle, so we would have to train ourselves. We would have to be ready to take in more members. So Shirou was working on food storage, food cultivation, and smithing, while I prepared to be the pillar of this clan. It's the strongest warrior and leader.
With no other "strong" fighters to compare myself to, I decided to just fuck it and went on a training regimen when I was not hunting. I kept on increasing my stats without stopping for the past week.
Now, looking back at my fight with the basilisk, I laughed at how weak I was compared to then. I really should have spent all my points sooner.
"Boss!"
I cringed.
It was now common for the imps to be calling me a boss.
...Something told me that this was Yan's doing.
"What is it?" I asked the imp flying as fast as it could towards me. Then just a mere ten meters before it reached me, it tripped in the air -a feat in and of itself- and rolled the next ten meters to me. I caught him gently in my hands, making sure not to harm him with my own strength. "Well?"
"B-Bullywugs! There's a h-h-hundred of them, and they're heading straight for us!"
Character Status by the end of Day 61:
Naruto [Imp Ruto] [Troll Ruto]
LvL 42
The Gamer
HP: 168.5(+131) (+1.5 HP per hour regen)
Mana: 640 (+5.9 per minute regen)
STR: 262
DEX: 83
AGI: 81
END: 110
INT: 84
WIS: 88
CHA: 45
Unused Points: 26
Spirit: 35
Magic: 24
Power: 24
Traits Taken + Earned:
Ambitious, Quick, Genius, Cynical, Stressed, Content, Teacher[Neutral] (Unavailable), Power Overwhelming, Strength is Key
Focus:
Growing
Racial Traits:
Beast Slaying (max)
Troll Blood (max)
Skills:
Archery (LvL 1)
Ambush (LvL 7)
Baiting (LvL 21)
Blade Mastery (LvL 4)
Charging (LvL 7)
Clairvoyance (LvL 1)
Crafting (LvL 3) - Construction (Subskill)(LvL 1)
Fishing (LvL 6)
Intimidation (LvL 7)
Leadership (LvL 9)
Listening (LvL 14)
Observe (LvL 40) + Structural Analysis (Reveals Physical/Chemical/Magical properties of target if LvL of Observe is high enough)
Physical Durability (LvL 2)
Projection (LvL 2)
Running (LvL 15)
Sonar (LvL 3)
Throwing (LvL 10)
Trapping (LvL 19)
Ironwood Clan:
8 Trolls (WoW)
3 Onis
1 Faze
1 Kobold (D&D)
22 imps (WoW + D&D)