If the Empire were to withdraw due to the actions undertaken by Barbro—
Would this be the best thing to happen? Father will no longer be able to ignore my opinions, and my chances of becoming the next king will become certain.
“Very good. That would be the best.”
However, if it was just a passing whim as to why Ainz Ooal Gown had decided to help Carne Village, then the possibility of him taking the bait would be low. Were that the case, then when the time comes, Barbro would just have to forcefully conscript the villagers for the coming battle. The conflict the Kingdom was facing this time required the mobilization of an entire nation. Mere peasants from Carne Village had no rights to refuse.
Although his father might have given the people permission to refuse conscription, the current situation had changed. At this moment, the commanding officer — which happened to be Barbro himself, had the right to decide what could or could not be done.
If the peasants from Carne Village were able to slay Ainz Ooal Gown, this would demonstrate that he was only at the level of a human and could be publicized as propaganda for all to see. It could even be used against the Empire.
Barbro couldn’t help but tremble at the perfect strategy that he came up with all by himself.
Honestly speaking, although he always assumed that his head was never as good as his brother’s when it comes to scheming, but it now looked like that might not be the case after all. Barbro began to marvel at the discovery of his own hidden talents finally starting to bloom.
The coming of winter was hell for small villages. All they could do was pray for the coming of the warmer seasons while weathering the cold days in their homes. If spring was late, or if the harvest in autumn was meager, they might be forced to eat their seed stock, and people would still starve to death even if they did so.
Although the fields did not need to be tilled in winter, village life was still closely associated with the words “activity”. There were many tasks to be done indoors, like tending the livestock and maintaining the farming tools. Besides, their homes, huts and stables all needed to be cleaned. There was simply no time to rest.
This was especially true in Carne Village, where they had to support the carnivorous monsters like ogres. They couldn’t rely on snare traps alone to hunt up enough meat to solve that problem, so the villagers had ended up raising pigs instead, buying them with the sizable amount of money they received from selling the herbs they had harvested.
The goblins led those pigs into the Great Forest of Tob to graze on roots and stems. There was only a small number of pigs right now because this plan was still at an experimental stage, but if it went well and if they could make it through the winter, they would steadily increase the number of pigs to raise in the future.
Normally, they would need to pay taxes to the landlord of the land they were grazing on, but fortunately, Carne Village did not need to do that. The reason was because the Great Forest of Tob was the dwelling place of monsters, and was not ruled by humans.
Carne Village’s future seemed very bright indeed.
All of this was thanks to Ainz Ooal Gown, who had saved the village and given it much support. In addition, the Dark Hero Momon had subdued the Wise King of the Forest. Many people in the village gave thanks to the two of them, and some even prayed to them over breakfast, revering them in the same breath as they did the gods.
It was precisely this overflowing of hope that gave the new chief, Enri Emmot, so much work.
Today, Enri, followed by Nfirea, were heading to a small hut for their work.
In a frontier village like Carne, everyone in the village worked together like they were family. If they did not do this, there would be no way for them to survive. They shared their farming implements and even took turns to use their community cows to till the fields.
Because of this, the care and feeding of the livestock was a group activity. And the hay for the cows in winter was stored in small huts just like this one.
Enri opened the wooden door and entered, followed closely by Nfirea. Holding herself upright as though she were still opening the door, Enri sat herself down onto a pile of hay, sinking her rear into the dried grass with a soft plop.
After closing the door, Nfirea sat by her side, his magic mote of light illuminating the surroundings.
“Chief, you should save the playing around for after you finish this; we still need to see if we have enough hay and then make several decisions afterwards.”
“You’re calling me Chief again…”
Nfirea couldn’t help giggling at Enri’s bored reply.
“Well, who cares, anyway? I am the Chief, after all. That’s right, Agu thinks I can squish all the goblins into paste if I felt like it! Compared to that, all these problems are nothing!”
Ever since she had won her arm-wrestling match with Agu, the village people were muttering “it might be true”. The atmosphere that sort of thing produced was very troubling. Incidentally, she had not challenged the ogres. If she lost, it wouldn’t prove anything, and if she won, or at least lost narrowly, it would get even worse.
―Does this mean if I let Enfi get away, I’ll never be able to get married?
Sweat slowly beaded on Enri’s hands.
“Ah― right. Aren’t you going to open the window? It’s dry now, so opening it should be fine.”
“Eh? No, no need, we don’t need to, right? And look, we’ve got a magic light here.”
“Really? Well, if Enfi doesn’t mind, then neither do I.”
Magic illumination was brighter than the sun. She knew this, but Enri’s suggestion was based purely on the logic that “since the sun’s out, isn’t it wasteful to use mana for a magical light”? In addition, she wanted to change the current mood in the room. There hadn’t been any reason for that and she didn’t particularly mind when he refused. However, sitting next to her, Nfirea seemed to be having some kind of strange reaction, with his ears being bright red and all.
Is it really depleting so much of his mana? But I heard light-creating magic wasn’t that tiring… did he use some other spell before coming here? Come to think of it, he doesn’t smell of herbs. In fact, he smells kind of… nice.
“W-what’s wrong, Enri?”
Nfirea’s words came out in a panicked squeak as Enri pressed her nose close to him.
“Mm? Ah, no, nothing, I just thought I smelled something nice…”
“Y-you did? Well, that’s good to hear. That must be the cologne I made.”
“Really… why don’t you try selling it in town next time? I’m sure it’ll fetch a good price.”
“No, that… this… isn’t meant for…”
“Hm-mm… well, forget it. Anyway, there should be enough hay in this hut. Shall we move on?”
“Mm, yeah. Then, before we move on, let me check on something first. It’s cold outside, after all.”
“…Well, this place isn’t that warm either… ah, forget it.”
“That… about that. I wanted to discuss something with you.”