The Strongest Wizard Becomes a Countryside Guardsman After Taking an Arrow to the Knee

Chapter 130 – Hanging out in Lindobal Forest

Since we were going to Lindobal forest, we thought Vi-Vi should come too.

I went out of the shack, and called Vi-Vi over from the village entrance.

「Vi-Vi. I finished making the entrance big enough for Doby.」

「I see. Good job. I still need time here.」

「Cruz and the others were thinking of going to Lindobal, do you want to come?」

「Nah, I’m fine. I have to finish this magic circle.」

「What, you don’t want to go?」

Seemed strange. I thought she’d want to see her home again.

「I’m okay. I already visited this morning.」

「Oh, really?」

「Yeah, it’s easy to go right through the circle so I go now and then.」

「I see.」

I never knew. She could have invited me…

However, it might just be sisters hanging out.

「Okay, let’s go to Lindobal!」

「Tell my sister I said hi.」

I went with Cruz and the beasts, and we made our way to Lindobal.

◇◇◇◇

As we stepped through, we saw a stone building.

It was very large with no decoration.

But we did hear a beautiful bell-like sound ring.

「Wow, this is a nice building!」

「The entrance is huge, as is the building. Doby could pass through with no problem.」

「I wonder how he’s doing?」

Cruz said happily.

The beasts were sniffing around. They were probably trying to sniff him out.

Just then, Vallimie approached.

「Hm? Al and Cruz?」

「Sorry for the surprise.」

「No problem. I show up at Mulg without warning too.」

Behind Vallimie was Rai.

We were all happy to see Rai again.

Femm, Moofy, Shiggy, and Rai all sniffed each other happily.

「Welcome, Al and Cruz. Beasts. So why are you here? I mean, you don’t need a reason.」

「We changed the shack so that Doby can fit through. We wanted to tell you.」

「Thanks for that. I’m glad you did it so quickly.」

「And…well we wanted to see the forest.」

「Look around all you want.」

I looked around and Doby wasn’t near.

「Where’s Doby?」

「Doby’s patrolling the forest.」

「Great dragons can fly pretty fast.」

「Yeah, Doby’s strong and can move swiftly. He does a great job patrolling.」

「Sounds busy.」

「He tells me right away if he senses anything. Then Rai and I go and hunt whatever it is down.」

I guess the forest was very well protected.

It’s almost how Mulg is well protected by all the magical wolves.

「How long until Doby returns?」

「Yeah, well, I think he’ll be back after an hour or so.」

Vallimie said while thinking it over.

Cruz pulled on my sleeve.

「Al! Let’s go for a walk in the forest!」

「Is that okay, Vallimie?」

「No problem here.」

「Yeay!」

Cruz was ecstatic.

「rya rya」

Sighisoara said in a happy cry.

Then Vallimie looked at us seriously.

「Cruz and Al, I’ve promised to protect all the monsters around here.」

「Promised?」

「Could you not attack them for me?」

Cruz looked a bit confused.

「Some of them might come at you, I mean, they’re monsters…you know?」

「You’re right.」

「So if you can, just run. They’re wild, after all.」

Rai stood proudly at attention next to Vallimie.

Then she rubbed Rai’s head.

「Unless you absolutely have to, promise not to kill them, okay?」

「Roger. You have my word.」

「Thanks.」

「Leave it to us!」

Cruz said proudly.

「I have work to do, so I have to go, but Rai can go with you.」

「That’s reassuring.」

「Moo」「Wuff」

The beasts were happy too.

So we headed off into the Lindobal forest.

There were a lot of beasts and monsters.

「There’s a lot here!」

『Magic wolves too!』

Since Femm was a wolf of a different pack, the magic wolves here were really on edge.

They watched us from afar. We could hear their distant howls too.

「They’re really on alert.」

『They know how strong I am.』

Femm said proudly. However, Femm didn’t run to or away from them.

We just stood there together, and acted calm.

「Moo Moo.」

On the other hand, Moofy was running everywhere.

She was freaking out because she was a herbivore at heart.

「Al! There’s a golem!」

「Where?」

「Over there!」

Cruz pointed over at a golem.

It was very far away. So far I couldn’t see it well.

「You have good eyes.」

「Eheh heh.」

I used my magic farsight.

There was a stone golem harvesting lumber. It would knock down branches and plant seedlings.

「A stone golem like that but made so small and yet performing such detailed work…」

Vallimie really had quite the skill with constructing them.

Stone really has low magic permeability. It’s easy to do simple magical jobs with stone, but detailed ones are quite difficult.

We walked a little more and we could hear the magic wolves howling loudly around us.

『They’re preparing to attack.』

They probably weren’t going to overlook Femm intruding in their territory.

「Maybe we should back off.」

『That would be wisest.』

No way we were going to face off in a territory battle in Lindobal forest.

We went back to the castle, and Vallimie greeted us.

「Oh, you’re back! How was the forest?」

「A lot of beasts!」

「True, true. It’s quite hard to manage them all, in various ways.」

Vallimie also laughed at Cruz’ loud reaction.

「The golem is really something. Hard to make stone operate that finely.」

「No surprise a pro like you, Al, would notice. It took me quite a while.」

Vallimie said proudly.

「Oh yes, if you’d like, you can see some of the golems here at the castle.」

「Really?」

「Sure!」

Vallimie showed us around.

There were golems all throughout the castle.

It was a big castle, but there was no staff or butler. Seems like the golems did all the work.

「This is really something.」

「Heh heh heh. Making them move like this take magic crystals.」

You could make a golem work through magic.

However, it took a lot to make and make move as well, so the magic would soon not be enough.

Because of that, you needed another magical source.

「Where are the magic crystals from?」

「From soil improvement magic circles. You know about them, right? Vi-Vi developed them.」

「I see. So there’s magic power in the forest’s soil?」

「Yeah! It’s filled with magic stones that were part of the Demon Lord’s old magic mine.」

That reminded me that Vi-Vi did say something about that before.

Mulg had a lot of magical stones as well.

Since Lindobal forest was s big, I’m sure she had no problem finding enough.

While we were talking about that, we approached a quite striking golem.

「Wow! Look that his one!」

Cruz was impressed and Vallimie happy at her reaction.

「This is a defense golem.」

「It’s made from orichalcum and mithril?」

「Yes, and there’s 100 of them.」

「Holy crap!」

Hard to imagine 100 of these things guarding her castle. I wonder how many soldiers she had.

Even 10 or 20 thousand troops wouldn’t be able to take this place.

As she showed us around, Rai growled.

「GRAWWWL!」

「Oh, that time already?」

「What?」

「Doby’s come back.」

In order for us to see Doby we went to the building with the transfer circle.

「gyaa gyaa」

Doby noticed us and happily approached.

Huge. But he looked a lot smaller that Timisoara.

「We made my building bigger so you could pass through Doby. Try it.」

「gyaa」

We all went with Doby back to Mulg.

「Now that my work is over, I can go back to Mulg.」

「Gaauuww」

Seemed like Vallimie and Rai’s work was over, so they’d come with us.

It was a lot of people, but we made it through fine.

「Doby, can you get through the shack door?」

「gyaa gyaa」

Doby squeezed right through. He then cried out happily.

「Good, now you all can come whenever you want.」

「gyaaa」

Just then, the storage door opened. Vi-Vi came running.

「What is it, Vi-Vi?」

「The inspectors are here!」

The inspectors were the officials in charge of levying taxes.

An official from the region had arrived in Mulg.

「Finally here, then.」

「Why are you taking it easy?! Your orichalcum shield’s been confiscated!」

「Whaaa?」

Something bad had happened, it seems.