abcnovels
Chapter 350
Chapter 350
Chapter 350: Military Achievement Emblems
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
In the newly-born Oak Town, enormous oak trees were growing at a pace discernable to the naked eye. A faint green essence of nature spread through the air, while white specks of light traveled between the trees. Soon, the height of these trees far surpassed that of ordinary ones, and it only took an hour for nothing but skyscraper trees to be seen.
And what came together with the trees was a change in the dimensional natural laws. Any slightly powerful individual could detect something changing in the air—a powerful sensation arose, one that brought about the feeling of being in a different world. Amelia’s dimensional will was descending upon this location.
And what came together with the dimensional will was a massive wooden door that suddenly appeared before the oak trees.
This door was a bit more than twenty meters tall and over fifty meters wide. Adorned with wood spirit-style decorations, its wooden doorframe was covered in vines, while the runes, which appeared carved onto it, were actually made of trees and plants. It exuded a simple natural beauty.
In front of this towering door, Samantha was but a tiny pea. Yet she attracted everyone’s attention when she placed her hand on the door handle.
*Creak!*
A gentle push opened the door slowly. Only then did the adventurers discover that it was even brighter on the other side.
*Boom.*
Wooden feet made the earth tremble with every step. Colossal plant war machines that were only capable of growing in the Forest of Dreams passed through this door, heralding the arrival of the heaviest artillery in the wood spirits’ arsenal in Oak Town. Along with these machines came wood spirit guards who brought with them various strange mechanisms.
Unlike forest fairies from fairy tales, they didn’t drive magical carriages—they rode atop mechanical objects, painting a scene that, indeed, seemed to be out of place. A tiny wood spirit would be perched on the seat of a motorcycle, forced to use her tiptoes to drive. Meanwhile, a whopping total of six wood spirits would manage to fit themselves into one sidecar. Watching this, I couldn’t help but recall a certain motorcycle show at a certain major country’s military parade. [1] Wasn’t there some joke about one motorcycle being able to fit a full camp of soldiers…?
Only now could everyone breathe a sigh of relief. These seemingly cute fellows were the true elites of the wood spirits. Their arrival represented that Oak Town had truly become a part of the Forest of Dreams.
And this mismatched style of the wood spirits wasn’t limited only to motorcycles—they also carried the newest dwarven rifles and cannons and were equipped with steam valves on their belts. These valves were capable of shooting out hooks attached to claws in under half a second, which would stick into tree bark and allow them to swing between the trees. This was a roaming tool that I especially prepared for them.
Although the newly-born wood spirits race possessed excellent magic talent, especially in nature magic, they had no intentions of rejecting the mechanical. Instead, due to the special relationship I had with them, they were hugely interested in the newest products of magical engineering—and this wasn’t mentioning how they assisted me in running Thorn Garden and selling the latest products. They even ordered large amounts of magical engineering products for themselves, and many wood spirits focused on further researching this field in the hope it would become one of the foundational treasures for their species.
What they researched and purchased was based on their physical advantages and shortcomings. Their specialties were quite obvious, and they possessed many excellent qualities which didn’t need to be explained. Their shortcomings were that they were very diminutive in size, which induced in them a lack of mobility and melee combat prowess. This made them particularly interested in transportation tools and long-range weapons—not in mechas as they already possessed magical plants and strengthened outer shells.
This wood spirit, who had to use her tiptoes to drive the motorcycle, was the best evidence that normal-sized transportation tools would be quite difficult for them to use. In fact, Samantha had even requested for me to create smaller versions of these tools just for the wood spirits’ use. I had hence offered a certain design to her that caused even Samantha to break out into a full smile, a rare sight. But it was only the second day when she had flipped out on me and even sent a full squad to hunt me down—what an unreasonable personality!
“…Which idiot told her that my design originated from baby carriages? I’m definitely not going to forgive her. Hmph, with wood spirits’ body shapes, it’s quite obvious that large baby carriages are of the perfect size for them. Forget it—even if this design of mine gets rejected, I still have backups.”
“Does it even need pointing out? Samantha was just too pure to notice. You bastard; you even put baby toys and bells on top. Don’t you know that Samantha is now treating this as the greatest humiliation of her life? You actually dare to even make a backup design plan? Let me guess—is it a baby chair or a baby bed?”
“…Neither—it’s a toddler sized scooter! You can ride it with only a single foot! It’s perfect for those who are incredibly short. Would you like one for yourself, Harloys?”
“All I need is for you to become a nicer person and allow me to return my normal body size… luckily you didn’t say roller skates. Have you heard that there’s a new addictive song going around recently? Let me sing it to you…”
Cough, let’s not go off on a tangent anymore. From a certain standpoint, the wood spirit species and I had a very special relationship.
From an outsider’s point of view, we were obviously all on the same side. And, to tell the truth, the Three Virtues indeed listened to me.
Currently, Samantha had total control over the entire species, which basically meant that the entire species was on my side. But if you truly looked at the source, the real creator of the wood spirits race was Amelia. My current authority over them came from Amelia delegating her authority to me. If Amelia woke up, and she had any conflicts with me, the wood spirits were likely to listen to their mother, instead…
“Isn’t this pretty much just like how, when most children see their parents fighting, they choose to side with their mother that raised them rather than the father who’s outside working to make money?”
The silly cat’s analogy made me feel mysteriously uncomfortable, but I had to nod in agreement. This was the logic behind the world’s working. Although everyone knew in their minds to choose logic over emotion, when it came down to it, people—by far—would choose emotion over logic
“Not only that, the very foundation for why they listen to me is that Amelia told them to listen to me. Especially when you consider that the wood spirits had intelligence and their own wills right from the moment of their birth, and that Amelia’s very existence is also the Forest of Dreams that nourishes them. The wood spirits have an astonishingly high level of dependency on Amelia. Perhaps, under Amelia’s leadership, the wood spirits will be the single most unified intelligent species in all of history.”
I felt that that was quite an acceptable result as I had no ambitions to steal away the wood spirits for myself. However…
“For some reason, I feel uneasy when I think about how Amelia has control over such a powerful species.”
“…Don’t mention the possibility. I’m also worried that she’ll suddenly go insane and have some strange thoughts. In the past, her insane rampages had limits, but if an entire species goes wild together with her… that would be quite the sight.”
Alright then. When I considered the insane Plants vs. Zombies along with the fact that Amelia kept climbing the Calamity Rankings, I had a strong feeling that this was all the more dangerous—in fact, it was no different to an insane woman with a nuclear button.
What, you’re saying that I match all of the above conditions as well? That I’m also highly dangerous? Humph! I must defend myself! I—I—I… Hmm, why do I feel that these words actually sound quite reasonable?
“…Maybe. At the very least. Just barely. My actions still have limits to them. I should be, at the minimum, someone slightly less dangerous and prone to rampages than Amelia.”
Cough, to normalize the conversation, even if I didn’t feel safe, there was nothing I could do about it. I could only try to create some sort of “safety” in the future.
Right now, after the wood spirits took full control over Oak Town, the happiest were actually the Contract Heroes. After all their hard work, the time had now come for them to reap the rewards.
An all-out battle had been expected from the very beginning, so the wood spirits gave out abundant Justice Point rewards. Although the main fighting was done by others, in the end, the adventurers had done their jobs. Even though there were no performance bonuses, the base promised payment was still given to them.
Also, they received a little something I had created.
“Oak Town Divine Miracle Battle, Copper Medal?”
“…I have one as well? All I did was guard the town.”
Military achievement medals were also a part of the credibility system I established. In this era where knights were reigned supreme in terms of popularity, nothing signified glory more to a warrior than military accomplishments, accolades, and rewards. Yet the review systems in this world were far too rough. Only nobles would record their glorious past accomplishments on their family emblems.
Even for nobles, only truly amazing deeds—like, for instance, slaying a dragon—would get recorded in the family records and emblem. And this would typically not be accomplished within one’s lifetime. Any commoner warrior would only be able to “prove” their accomplishments by telling everyone about them. Unless a commoner was able to reach the level where bards started making embellished stories about your deeds, a warrior’s reputation would never even leave his locality.
But now, I was making things much simpler. A small military achievement emblem would be proof that you participated in and contributed to this battle. Even if it didn’t prove much, it would still look quite cool to wear—perhaps it would fool a few girls.
“It’s nothing more than a piece of battle memorabilia and costs only a few copper coins to make. But it’s quite excellent at attracting people and increasing the degree of their loyalty… Once all of them have a bunch of medals on their hands, it won’t be easy for them to just toss aside their achievements. From a certain standpoint, this is another type of wealth, but one accumulated through hard work.”
Considering that the average intelligence of people in this world wasn’t low at all, and that I’d witnessed plenty of fake and pirated products with high degrees of similarity, I figured that just like my previous world, counterfeiters would soon be appearing. But since my military medals all had serial numbers and recorded all the names of the individuals they were awarded to, counterfeiting these would be quite difficult.
I wore a medal as well, although mine was golden. For this first ever major battle, I had created three types of achievement medals: bronze, silver, and gold. The gold-ranked medals for each battle would forever be handed out in an amount less than ten. And since I felt that I indeed helped out in this battle more than any other mortal, I took a gold medal for myself.
Upon hearing that the Goddess of Wealth shut herself in her Divine Kingdom after her incarnation’s self-destruction, and considering how she viewed money as more important than her life, I had Mary give Beyana a 24 karat pure gold special, custom-made medal along with her two pieces of God Equipment for me, a sign of my friendship. I even made sure it would glow in the dark so that she could use it as a light bulb at night even if she didn’t want to wear it. It would shine even from one kilometer away, which would make one appear really rich.
But several days later, one dawn, I discovered a meteor above. Before I even had the time to make a wish, I discovered that it was aimed directly at my head. If it weren’t for the fact that I reacted fast enough, my head would have been crushed.
“…Hey—hey—hey, isn’t this just too rude? Even if she didn’t want it, she didn’t have to do this to me.”
And when I discovered that this almost-fatal “weapon” was actually that custom-made military medal, of course I was enraged.
“…Really? I don’t think that Beyana would be that type of person, let me take a look…”
The silly cat was skeptical as she snatched the military medal and read the words engraved on its back out loud.
“I give my gratitude to the venerated Goddess of Wealth for her self-destruction. She is a classy Goddess, a pure Goddess—one who has risen above vulgar interests. When she self-destructed herself, she had let forth a blinding flash that illuminated the path towards to future for every one of us. Her gravestone is the stirring symbol for our progress. To remember her glory and carve her greatness in stone, I shall erect a great sculpture. It shall symbolize the illustrious moment of her self-destruction. –Roland Mist. …Roland, I’m truly astonished she didn’t personally descend again to kill you herself.”
Actually, if it weren’t for the fact that others were currently blocking Beyana’s Divine Kingdom, perhaps she truly would have done so! Beyana was currently busy shouting “Let me go, I’m definitely going to kill him!”
“What? I’m just following the clichés and making top-level equipment seem cooler. In this day and age, without some commentary etched onto Myth-level equipment, it won’t seem cool no matter how good its stats are.”
“…Um, considering that Goddess’s past record, I think that you should give your wallet over to me for safekeeping. At the very least, you can’t let my stomach suffer together with yours. It’s wrong to abuse cats.”
“Only when your personal benefits are involved will you recall that you’re a pet. How convenient.”
Although I was complaining, it did seem like I really antagonized—accidentally, of course—the Goddess of Wealth this time around. When considering that I usually wasn’t lucky to begin with when it came to my money, I directly handed over my wallet to Harloys, but…
“Ahh, where’s my money?”
“…Were you robbed? Has she cursed you that quickly?”
“…Beyana! She actually took action so swiftly!”
[…I have two pieces of news for you, one good and one bad. The good news is that you weren’t cursed. The bad news is that you don’t need a curse, because your luck stat is already zero. You should stop blaming others for your bad luck—it’s completely your own misfortune. Still, you should feel lucky that, with your luck stat, you don’t have to worry about it ever getting any worse. Are you sure you don’t want to change your job class to spearman? A curse of giving you a luck rating of E is probably more like a luck increase blessing to you.]
Fine, I directly ignored my System’s comments. Since the System promised that I wasn’t cursed, I felt slightly reassured. The rather “vindictive” Goddess of Wealth was indeed someone who gave me a headache.
“Harloys, do you have any money? Otherwise, we’re going to be sleeping on the streets.”
“…Have you ever seen any house cat that carries around money? How about you pawn that new gold medal of yours for some cash?”
“…I’ll consider it. However, I have an even better idea. You can transform into a magic sword, right? I’ll pretend to be someone lucky enough to have picked up a magic weapon on the battlefield—wicked merchants will automatically come to me. Then, I’ll sell you off, and you can return to me by yourself. Repeat a couple times, and that’ll make enough money for our room and board. Hey, don’t run! I’ll even give you one-third… fine! Half! Half!”
In the end, my plan to punish the wicked merchants failed due to the uncooperative nature of the “product” I wanted to sell. At least the wood spirits took us in, saving us from the pitiful fate of having to sleep out on the streets.
The True Gods had all returned to their Divine Kingdoms, tossing Ah Gen to me to take care of. As for Auntie Mary and the gay Wood Elf God, the former had zero interest in military achievement medals and instead made me give her a large batch of high-quality alcohol. As for the latter… I wanted nothing more than to hide from this gay God that I couldn’t win against in a fight as he kept sending seductive glances towards me. Why would I go contact him of my own volition?
With Little Red’s assistance, I had finished the preparations for the first part of my evolution Quest. The blood let out before us was more than enough to fill a swimming pool.
“How strange. Little Red was so quick to agree to donate some of her blood. Recently, Little Red’s been acting a little strange… Could it be that—”
“Spring’s arrived, a time when every species becomes more active. It’s now the season for animals to go into heat.”
Harloys casually added more to the mess on my plate, but how could I possibly be distracted by her red herring? I kept thinking about it over and over before I finally came to a realization and stated my conclusion.
“…Could it be that she picked up something dirty off the ground and ate it? She’s so old already—how could she possibly do something so foolish?”
Note:
[1] ED/N: Any idea what this is referencing?