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Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Early the next morning, leaving Noel, still half-asleep, to watch the house, I headed toward the mountain where the Demonic Wastes lay.

My home sits between this mountain and the village, so if monsters were to spill out of the Demonic Wastes, my house would be the first to be attacked.

(It’s my precious home after all… I absolutely have to protect it.)

Up to now I’d only grown thorny plants to encircle the village, but that alone probably wouldn’t be enough. I needed to build a wall. A wall of plants.

The question was where to draw the boundary. Thinking that I at least wanted to protect the area where I’d grown plants, I walked along the river and stepped outside the thorns, only to find someone had arrived before me.

「Ah… good morning, Witch-dono. What a coincidence.」

The person standing by the riverbank with some kind of papers spread out turned around to look at me, narrowing his single golden eye gently as he smiled. It was Leoheart, smiling as always.

There was no one else around, and of course Nikolaus, whose presence I could normally sense by his magic, was nowhere to be found either. Still, I looked around, wondering if perhaps other knights were nearby.

「There’s no one else here. Thanks to Witch-dono’s thorns and Purifying Flowers, there are hardly any monsters around this area, so I judged that a preliminary inspection could be done alone.」

Apparently he really was alone right now. Villagers would come as far as the watermill where my house stood, but they wouldn’t go past it toward the Demonic Wastes. Even though my house and the village were protected from monsters by the chain-rose plants, there was no reason to approach danger unnecessarily.

The entrances through the thorns were on the south side, facing the Demonic Wastes, and on the north side opposite it. Heading north would apparently lead to other towns and the royal capital, Ilai usually came from that road.

Those who went out toward the Demonic Wastes were mostly knights heading out on investigations, so the southern entrance was kept open for their sake. If monsters appeared, I had instructed it to be closed and tangled shut with thorns, and any monsters caught there I used as food.

「Are you on patrol, Witch-dono? Thank you for your hard work.」

(You’re the one working so early in the morning, Leoheart-san. Being a holy knight must be tough…)

Since there was someone here, it would be best to avoid doing anything too flashy. I nodded at the word 「patrol」 Heading straight back might raise suspicion, so I moved closer to Leoheart for the moment.

「…Witch-dono, it’s just the two of us, so it’s fine.」

He whispered this to me, and after a brief pause I realized he meant that there was no need to worry about my voice being overheard.

Because Leoheart has a curse-nullifying constitution, my voice doesn’t affect him. Even so, I possess a skill called 「Diffusing Voice」 which causes my voice to carry easily, so even when I’ve confirmed there’s no one around, I still need to speak quietly.

「…This preliminary inspection you mentioned…」

「…Yes. Since Witch-dono has created these thorns, we’re planning to add a defensive outpost around this area. A treatment station in case of injuries, a supply storage warehouse, a watchtower, and so on…」

The paper Leoheart was holding turned out to be blueprints. It seemed plans were already underway to build a base here, and this inspection was for that purpose.

As I looked over the blueprints he showed me, I remembered Ilai talking about gathering materials… about how dangerous people might have to come and go for this.

(Hmm… I can probably make most of this myself. Just like Ilai-san said, if I’m here, we might not even need building materials. …But this is a bit too close.)

Apparently the plan was to build this outpost right next to the thorns I’d set up. That put it far inside the area I wanted to protect.

(The area where the plants I made through diversification exist is actually pretty wide. Asking humans to protect that much is a bit much…)

The plants I scattered will naturally propagate and grow if I don’t give them commands about growth. By sensing them, I can roughly tell the range, and it seems that Purifying Flowers are growing around the boundary of the Demonic Wastes.

In other words, that boundary is around the place where Leoheart had collapsed. I’d originally grown plants along the river up to that point, and after that they seem to have grown by absorbing toxins and magical power flowing out of the Demonic Wastes, forming a boundary line of Purifying Flowers.

(Well, it’s better if it’s farther away anyway. If something happens, I can go protect it myself, and it’s more convenient to have some distance so humans won’t see.)

The area was simply too wide to have humans protect it. So for now, I decided to let them build a human outpost here, and think about the boundary separately.

I leaned in again to look at the paper in Leoheart’s hands. Maybe I got too close and startled him, I thought I heard a small intake of breath. When I looked up, our eyes met.

「Um, Leoheart-san.」

「…Yes.」

「If I… do things my own way…?」

「…Please, go ahead.」

Even though there was no one else around, I asked in a whisper. Leoheart matched me, replying in a small, restrained voice.

Leoheart was apparently the captain, so he should have the authority to make decisions regarding Bit Village. Since he’d given me permission to do as I liked, it should be fine for me to build the outpost however I wanted.

(It just needs to have the same functions as the buildings in the blueprint, right? Okay, let’s do this.)

The buildings themselves didn’t need to be especially sturdy, unlike the wall. They weren’t meant for living in, just for temporary use. In that case, there was no need to make them as elaborate as Nikolaus’s lodgings.

As long as there was a defensive wall and a few boxes, it would be sufficient as a base. Combining various plants I’d absorbed, I built an outpost for humans.

At the same time, since there was no need for fencing inside the wall, I withered and removed it. I could just relocate that to the outside of the wall.

(It feels like building a sandcastle in a sandbox. This is kind of exciting…)

Since I was at it, I expanded the range of the thorns that covered the village and made them taller, forming a wall. All the thorns were oriented outward, while the inside was combined with leaves of other plants to resemble a garden hedge, so that even if someone bumped into it, they wouldn’t get hurt.

Then, among the thorns, I grew flowers that fired seeds like a machine gun, grasses that tried to eat monsters like carnivorous plants, and trees that swung their heads with coconut-like hard fruits to bludgeon attackers to death, plants that would actively attack anything that came at them.

These had surprised even me in the Demonic Wastes, so they should be effective against other monsters as well. Attack is the best defense. Of course, I’d ordered them not to attack humans, so they were safe for people. It turned out to be quite the fortress, I think.

Still, I must have used too much magical power, because I felt a little lightheaded. …I was getting hungry too, so soaking in the water of the Purifying Flowers or going monster hunting sounded appealing.

「Witch-dono, this is…」

「If there’s anything missing, just tell me anytime.」

「…No, this should be more than enough. I didn’t expect you to go this far… but does Witch-dono really need to devote yourself to the country to this extent?」

Leoheart wore a somewhat conflicted expression. …Did I get carried away and overdo it? What if I looked like some inhuman monster to him?

(I, I need to earn points…!)

Even if they realized I was a monster, if they knew I was friendly, benevolent, and able to get along with them, maybe they wouldn’t try to subjugate me. Raising my favorability with humans was important.

「…Is there… anything you want?」

「Something I want…? What I want is…」

Because I talk to people so rarely, I ended up asking about the bribe far too directly. At this point it was nothing but hush money. Leoheart looked utterly perplexed and fell silent.