༺ Lumberjacks in the Lumber Yard (2) ༻
Crack—
Witnessing how the stomper’s body had been severed into two equal pieces like that left me stunned. Did I just cut this damn monster in a single slash?
Even though my strength had already increased by two points, I didn’t think it would be significant enough to pull off such a feat.
Treeugh…!
“H-Hassaaaan—!”
Turning my head to the scream that came from behind, I saw that one of the trees had caught Luna’s ankle, and she was now hanging upside down with her pink hair trembling violently in the air.
What actually happened was that two Stompers were now holding each of Luna’s arms and legs and pulling them apart as if they were trying to split her into two.
“Y-You motherfuckers!”
At this rate, Luna might get split into Lu and Na, like in the fabled judgment of Solomon.
In an instant, anger reached the top of my head, so I swung the axe sideways and tore apart that disgusting wooden demon’s body at once.
Crash— Crash—
Even though I was the one who was doing this, it still felt incredible and shocking to see how those thick pillars were smashed into pieces as if they were only sorghum straws. Damn it, I have become so fucking strong!
I, in fact, had my very own axe-wielding techniques.
Wielding an axe was a skill I had mastered long ago. It was because since I was a child, I grew up following my extremist father to cut weeds, I was also in charge of mowing the land when I served in the military, and then I also had to split the firewood for Elfriede’s bath when I was a slave under her.
Whoopsh—!
Crash—
Every time I swung the giant axe in the air, twigs and chips were scattered in all directions. Then, I eventually got Luna released from the grasp of those stompers. She then collapsed to the ground and rolled around.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“I-I thought they were going to rip me apart! But, you’re so amazing, Hassan! You could cut the stompers down in one go! How did you do that?”
“I’m not so sure either!”
Nonetheless, after saving Luna, what was left was to save Renee and that bald elf, Khalidur.
A loud cracking sound followed the giant axe when I swung it at the stomper that was restraining the bald elf. I managed to split the tree vertically right along its wood grain in just a single swing.
“T-Thank you for saving me!”
In the meantime, the bald fellow, who had become skinny enough to look like a scrawny ascetic monk, tidied up his clothes and clenched his fists.
“Take the wrath of Alfheim, you tree-shaped demons!”
Whoosh— BAM—!
Then the bald elf threw his fist at the wooden pillar. However, the punch did not affect the wooden pillar at all. With that, Khalidur was, once again, held captive by those strange roots and branches.
“S-Save me! I have no energy left because these trees have absorbed my body of all its mana.”
Fucking bastard, it was absolutely pointless to save him!
So I turned my back on the bald elf and decided to save Renee instead. Renee had already been attacked by all kinds of roots and had become a miserable wreck at this point.
“Ack, ugh, n-not there—!” yelled Renee out loud.
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…I thought we could wait a little longer and see what she would do in this sort of situation.
“Hassan, what are you doing?! You should hurry up and save her!”
I was jolted back to reality when Luna’s voice came from behind me. So I drew a deep breath before swinging the axe.
Reeeee—
Treeetttt—
All the tree monsters, including the stomper that was wrapping around Renee, stopped moving and began to creep back somewhere else.
I became alert due to the sudden change in the situation.
Sweep—
Joseph, the lumberjack, who appeared with another axe, stood next to me and explained the sudden turn of events to me.
“It’s those punks’ queen’s calling. Those damn stompers dedicate all the nutrients they’ve absorbed from the ground to their queen. Whoo, anyway, you managed to block them once. They will probably calm down for about a half day.”
“Let’s go back to the office. I’ll give you the details about the request when we reach there,” muttered Joseph, who turned around and went back into the tree house.
Luna and I picked up Renee and the bald elf lying sprawled on the ground. Then we followed Joseph inside the house.
* * * * * *
“Drink it up. It’s a sequoia sap. Although it has a lower sugar content than honey, it has a refreshing aftertaste. So it’s better to moisten your throat. It is also effective for recovering the energy you have lost to the Stompers.”
The lumberjack brought wooden glasses out of somewhere. It was enough for all of us to get a glass each. The amber-colored liquid overflowing inside the glass smelled sweet, almost like sugar water.
Slurp—
It tasted really clean and sweet when I tried it.
If I must make a comparison, should I say that it felt like maple syrup mixed in water? It tasted a little different from the sap taste I had in mind, but it was somehow worth drinking.
As I said before, sweet taste was quite a luxury in this world.
“It’s delicious.”
Luna also licked around her lips to express the delicious taste of the drink, and then she took a small scroll and a quill pen from a hanging pouch around her waist. She scrawled “Sequoia sap” on the scroll with her crooked handwriting.
“What are you writing?”
“I think it’ll be good as an elixir ingredient.”
Ah, she had her own way of studying. She was far more studious than I gave her credit for.
Joseph opened his mouth to speak again when he recovered his energy after drinking some sap from the wooden glass and eating some tasteless biscuits.
“As you’ve just experienced in person, these stompers have caused great damage to this lumber yard. The trees that are intact are suffering because those moving rootling bastards steal all the nutrients from my lumber yard without permission!”
Upon hearing the dwarf’s explanation, Renee, still with dull sunken eyes, asked a question.
“I heard that stompers are gentle creatures. Why did these punks start attacking people and absorbing their nutrients? I almost died!”
“Originally, stompers from this lumber yard have lived along with us, the lumberjacks, for decades. They would give us wood while we gave their useless lives meaning by ending their lives and procuring their wood.”
Fuck, how did they think that was mutual cooperation? Didn’t they just exploit these stompers’ lives and wood?
I didn’t know what these damn stompers looked like originally when they were gentle, but it would not be strange for them to become aggressive, after decades of exploitation like that.
After that, Joseph continued to speak.
“But one day, they changed. Let alone sucking up all the earth’s nutrients like the evil spirits who were hungry for nutriments; they also tried to absorb more energy by attacking people and animals. That’s all because of their queen.”
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Joseph was trembling in anger while clenching his thick fist. Luna asked him a question right then.
“Queen? It’s the first time I’ve heard that stompers have a queen. I know bees and ants have it but do stompers have a queen too?”
“Of course, there is no queen among stompers. Queen is just a name we, the lumberjacks, have given her. However, deep inside this woodland, there’s a terrible sorceress who’s driving these stompers into a rampage. Please catch that bitch.”
When I heard that there was a sorceress, I immediately imagined those peculiar bastards in black robes back in the Acheron swamp. Fuck, if they show up again, could we solve this problem on our own without someone like Hippolyte?
“Talking about sorceresses, wouldn’t this queen be part of Pluto’s Cultists?”
Renee swiftly pulled her sword out of the sheath. Her eyes were fixed on the blade, which reflected the gleam in her eyes, for a long time. Her gaze was complicated as if she was thinking of many problematic things.
“It was impossible to cut down stompers with a sword. Yet, you also don’t allow us to set it on fire. There is nothing we can do here.”
“Oh, about that problem, we have specially custom-made axes. They are axes that are made only for cutting down trees.”
Then Joseph pointed his finger to the corner of the room.
Various axes were neatly stored on the stands there. Among them was the Battle Axe, which I had swung around previously.
Sweep—
Renee got up and grabbed a small hand axe from the storage box. Then she frowned while looking at it for a long time.
“There is a real incantation on it. It must be expensive.”
“It can’t cut anything else other than trees, but that’s why it’s a great weapon to use against a tree monster.”
“Hmm, this axe is used just to cut down the trees—”
Renee soon slid the sharp axe blade into her palm.
Contrary to the expectation that blood would spill out, the axe blade only left a little mark on Renee’s hand, and not even a small wound could be seen.
“It seems like this axe really can only cut down trees.”
“Isn’t that how incantations work? They put restrictions on a thing, and the thing will only work around the restriction. Those axes are the most excellent blade in the world to cut down trees, but other than that, they are no different from blunt sticks.”
Now I could understand why the battle axe could split those stompers like that. It was partly because my strength had increased, paired with the fact that the axe worked perfectly for that action.
While I was trying to accept the reasoning behind what I had done alone, the bald elf spoke up.
“Are you saying that due to that incantation, this brother from the wilderness was able to cut down the stompers in a single blow?”
“No, the incantation doesn’t work like that. My battle axe didn’t have an incantation. Man, that was the most exhilarating axing I’ve seen in recent years. You’ve cut down some trees in your time, haven’t you? You’re a natural lumberjack.”
Rene snorted as if surprised by Joseph’s logic once again.
“There is nothing in the wilderness of Samaria, right? There is no tree over there. So, is there anything he could cut down over there? This skill is probably from the experience of cutting down a lot of human bodies.”
“That makes sense. Anyway, I’m glad that I can trust this skillful Samaritan brother over here. No matter what happens, please beat the queen to death.”
* * * * * *
We began to move after getting tipped off by Joseph about where the hideout location of the Queen of the Stompers, the sorceress, was.
This woodland was large enough to cover half of the forest, so could we even reach the hideout by walking through the trees for more than half a day?
If no other problem arises on the road, we probably won’t need to camp out tonight. Not that it was something we had to worry about since I had prepared and brought everything we needed for camping.
“Holy shh! It’s Hyacinth flower!”
Luna then dashed somewhere and got some dirt on her hands. When I saw what she was doing, it turned out that she was carefully digging out the roots of some white-colored wildflowers.
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“What are you doing?”
“I’m collecting medicinal herbs. Wow, there are a lot of mushrooms in the tree. They all cannot be found around Sodomora! I think it is possible to get 10 coopers per root!”
This woodland felt like a treasure trove for Luna.
Khalidur, the bald monk, muttered a few words while looking at Luna, who was busy digging mushrooms and wildflowers spread over the forest.
“It seems that you were just recently promoted to the bronze tier. When this monk still wore the iron necklace, this monk also made money by digging for grass and medicinal herbs. This is making this monk want to immerse into those memories again for the first time in a long while.”
Then he also began to put the mushrooms into his pocket.
The look in his eyes immediately changed after hearing the word 10 coopers per root. It turned out this religious man was also full of greed.
Whether it was the iron-tier or bronze-tier adventurers, they all seemed to make money by digging for medicinal herbs as a side job. This fact had always stayed the same, regardless of time.
“Hmph, medicinal herbs. I’m fine with all these, but don’t hold me back too much.”
Looking down on the worth of medicinal herbs and mushrooms, Renee was just watching us with her arms crossed as if she was looking at something pathetic. Just then, the bushes shook.
“Damn it! There is a rabbit! It can be our dinner menu!”
Renee screamed and disappeared deep into the grass thicket, abandoning her cool and calm attitude. What the hell? I didn’t expect this damn party to disperse like this.
I wondered if it was okay to do this. However, I couldn’t ask since no one was in the mood to talk. So I just kept digging mushrooms and stuffing them into my pockets. Because of this, I could smell the scent of mushrooms coming off all over my body.
Since it was 10 coopers per root, I already earned about two silvers with this many mushrooms in my pocket.
I lifted my head and looked around, wondering what the other party members were doing when my pockets were so full.
Soon I could see Luna digging under the tree’s roots with her hands like a dog.
Dig— Swipe— Dig— Swipe— Dig— Swipe—
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“I think there’s something here.”
“What’s there?”
“Look at the tree roots here, they’re slightly shaded in color. It’s also moist around here. When you dig in a place like this, sometimes you’ll get precious ingredients.” “
Luna’s appearance reminded me of my father, who would always do shading things like this on private property. He always used to tell me, there are many bees in the sunny mountain and snakes in the deep gloomy mountains.
“Alas, there is nothing here.”
Not long after that, Luna stood up while dusting her hands off as if she had lost interest.
“What were you trying to find?”
“Wildling. They’re worth about 30 silvers per head. They’re also used as potion ingredients, so it’s lucrative to even find just one.”
I didn’t know what this wildling was, but my eyes almost popped out of my eye sockets when I heard that this thing was 30 silver per head. I couldn’t believe that there was a beast worth 30 silvers each in this world. Was that something like the fabled white snake that fed on wild ginseng or something?
“They’re something that lived inside the forest. I think it’s around here—.”
Luna peaked at the tree’s base with a sharp gaze as if she was a detective chasing after a criminal.
“Is it supposed to be here?”
Swipe— Swipeee— Swipe— Swipe—!
Luna and I dug around the tree’s base for some time afterward, but eventually, we couldn’t find the fabled beast worth 30 silvers.
As we walked through the forest doing this and that, the sun had already set, and darkness plunged into the woodland. Due to the dense trees, no moonlight could come through the forest. Therefore, the evening must have come earlier than general.
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“Hassan, this must be an abandoned shelter! We can set up a tent here!”
While we were doing some work for the camp tonight on an empty lot of stumps among the trees, Renee finally showed up again while holding a rabbit.
“Boil some water!”
Thus, for dinner, we had a rabbit stew.
The herbs and mushrooms that had just been dug up were boiled in sap water.
Bubbling— Bubbling—
I put many things inside the pot and boiled them along with rabbit meat. The smell the stew was giving off was quite appetizing.
I distributed it to each bowl and only remembered afterward that there was a vegan among us. But it was already too late.
“Sorry, I completely forgot about you and only now remembered. Didn’t you say you don’t eat animals? Do you want me to take out the meat from the soup?”
“Put it underneath properly. It’s already dead. It is no longer an animal. So it doesn’t matter if I eat it or not.”
Damn it, you fucking fake.
Well, indeed, how could someone live without eating meat for a lifetime? It was a nonsensical story, to begin with.
We thus cooked such a simple stew dish and ate it.
It was super delicious, almost like ginseng chicken soup with a slightly spicy taste, because we sprinkled a little bit of habanero pepper oil that we used to chase away the deer last time.
“Brother from the Barbarian Lands, your cooking skills are better than I thought. Samaritans often said that the men from their homeland do housework too. It seems to be true.”
This baldy bastard talked to me after clearing all of his dishes. I had sensed it from the first time I met him, but he was a really creepy, and scary guy because he could show up behind someone’s back without anyone knowing.
“W-What, is there a problem?”
“I’m just asking because I’m curious. Have you ever met another elf beside me?”
“Another Elf—?”
Elfriede’s face flashed across my mind at that moment.
“It’s because you act like you know elves’ preference well. Didn’t you take this out when you put a lot of ingredients into the stew?”
This baldy pushed something towards me. I wondered what it was and ended up taking it out from the pot after noticing that it was ragrant glass.
I didn’t know the name of that herb, but because it smelled like shampoo, Elfriede, who has a picky appetite, didn’t really like that kind of spice. So I avoided cooking using it.
I took it out because Khalidur was also an elf. So, I subconsciously thought this baldy would have the same preferences as her, but I didn’t realize that he observing me.
“Why do you ask that?”
“This monk came from Alfheim to this Gaia continent in search of a fugitive. They had committed such a terrible sin. If you ever meet this elf later, please let this monk know.”
“What does this elf look like?”
“Oh, they can be easily distinguished from a distance. This elf is cursed from birth and deprived of their color. They have an overall pristine white body and only their eyes are of a shiny red hue.”
It looked like this fugitive elf was an albino. But anyone could tell that the one Khalidur was chasing after was Elfriede. I didn’t realize Elfriede was a criminal on the run from her hometown.
Well, she didn’t talk much about her hometown anyways, and at first thought, I had already expected there would be a reason for her to work as an adventurer in this distant place.
“But you must be careful because they are so beautiful that they can easily mislead people. Roses protect their beautiful petals with thorns, right? This sinner is someone like that, someone who cultivates their beauty in order to hide their thorns.”
“May I ask what crime they did?”
Khalidur, the bald fake monk, stopped talking as if he was pondering my question for a moment. His light brown eyes were wearing quite fierce glint, now that I have seen them.
“They set the World Tree on fire.”
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