Getting up, the first thing I did was to go meet with the hunter group that only had 10 people and tell them not to go hunting for today and wait for me.

Afterall, I had woken up as Damian today, who will one day become their emperor. Its only right that I lead them to the belly of the beast.

As the hunter group nodded at me, I turned around to get some copper arrows, a bow, and a spear bow myself, and check out the rest of the village, and see what everyone else was doing.

Today was my 101st day in the new world, and after the construction group finished constructing another unit of huts a few days ago, I created the farmers, and teached them how to use tools, divert some water from the river for irrigation, and take care of the crops and make sure no critters came down and started taking bites out of our crops.

I mean, they hadn’t started planting the Dark Onions yet as there just wasn’t enough of them to plant down, but they were at least getting the soil ready which was, luckily for us, entirely black.

Meaning, it was the most fertile soil out there! So, the capitol would be supplying food for the rest of the empire, which would give me a lot of power after I had a few hundred thousand people living under me.

Was I going to abuse my power? I wasn’t planning to but having that leverage of food was going to be useful, even if I never used it.

On that note, yes, I had completed the quest A Big Village and had gotten the exp and research point from it, and a new quest, but I wasn’t planning on spending that research point now, no matter how useful iron tools would be.

Simply because Weapon Mastery, a skill and research that I thought would be... not so useful, was starting to seem more and more useful as I finally grasped that this world really had monsters in it that could kill me, and all of my people.

And I didn’t plan on letting them do that. No matter how powerless I was as a single person. But that is to be expected as no one can do anything by themselves, there are at least a few dozen people that are left in the shadows supporting everyone in their own ways.

And to protect my people, I’d need to actually make a standing army, which was going to be made out of professional soldiers, so volunteers basically. But I wasn’t sure if my army was going to be made from entirely volunteers as there simply weren’t enough people under my rule that would definitely say yes to becoming a part of a standing army.

The hunters, who were the closest thing I had to an army, were only that. Hunters.

I wasn’t exactly planning on kicking peoples’ doors, and conscripting them into the army, but conscription would... probably occur.

Getting my weapons in order, and checking my bows, arrows, and spear for a moment, and giving everyone back at home their orders on what to do today, I went back to the group of hunters led by my old friend Jonathan, and we delved into the forest, and I told Jonathan to lead me to where they usually encountered most of the animals they hunted.

I don’t know if this is important information but, every tier 2 monster they hunt isn’t from the same species. They are all just critters of the forest, turned into tier 2s.

And this variety of monsters could only be explained by a dungeon, but... something didn’t feel right.

As I had talked about it before, dungeons refer to 2 different things, a true dungeon with an intelligent dungeon core, or just a place with higher ambient mana than normal.

But none of those 2 seemed to fit into what I was seeing here. With the sudden increase in the amount of tier 2s, it could only be a true dungeon core but... only 5 true dungeons existed in this moon, and the closest one to me was 1500 kilometres away.

And this also couldn’t be a coreless dungeon as... they just didn’t create tier 2s this fast.

And another true dungeon appearing so close to me was also out of the cards as Rae said that this continent could barely support 2 true dungeons, so while another true dungeon could come to be somewhere else on the planet, it couldn’t here.

So, I was just... flabbergasted as to what I was seeing here. I just didn’t have any idea what it might be!

As we continued to walk through the forest, we encountered a few small critters that were not tier 2s and a wolflike creature with 2 tails that was actually a tier 2!

Fight against the 2 tailed wolf was... well, really sad for us. We had numerical superiority and ranged weapons, in the shape of 3 archers including me, but it still took us a solid minute to kill the wolf, and it manged to bite someone but thankfully I had brought a small bag of Opal Berries, so while his wound wouldn’t heal immediately, in a half an hour or so he would be fine.

And seeing us fight I came to a realization that I probably should’ve way before, there was no command structure in the group and everyone kinda just did their own thing.

...

“Rae, is there a basic military tactics research or something similar?” I asked Rae, who was watching everything from up the trees.

“Next level.”

“Well, fuck.” I muttered and tried to think of a way to fight more orderly in the forest.

And the thing is... fighting orderly in the forest is just not really possible as the terrain is uneven, and there is a lot of foliage in the way, so we can’t have a static battle line.

The best way I can see to separate our forces is to make 4 groups of 2 spear men, and 1 group of 3 archers.

Quickly, I ordered people to pick a teammate to stick with and put the spear men in an arrow like formation around the archers.

One group behind us, 2 to our sides and 1 in front of us.

And if we were to be attacked, only 1 group of spearmen would go after a single creature, and they would never have their backs against us, the archers, or to the monsters.

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It was a simple plan but simple was the best I could do as I simply did not have any military knowledge to support me here.

But in our next few battles against monsters, everything seemed fine, so I think I am going to continue using this battle tactic for the foreseeable future.

And use it for the foreseeable future I did as my foray into the forest was not as short as I’d like it, and we returned before nightfall and went into the forest again and again and again and—you get the point.

For the next week, I took that hunter group with me, and led them into the forest in hopes of figuring out where all these tier 2s were coming from and I failed to find anything... until the 9th day that is.

“What in the ever-loving hell is this...” I muttered in confusion as I stared at warped trees and plants that had also wilted for some reason.

Poking a warped tree with the tip of my spear caused it to immediately collapse down to the ground with a terrible noise and gave me quite the scare but it seemed that all of these plants were some how dead and dried... in middle of summer.

Well, not the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen... that’s a lie.

Then I led my men through the... warped forest, all of us on full alert to detect anything that seemed wrong, or any monsters that may attack us, and soon enough, we started encountering Tier 2 monsters, but none of them were strong. They all seemed to have newly reached tier 2 and were not used to all the excess mana in their bodies, so getting rid of them was quite easy.

And, though some were injured because we had encountered 3 monsters in the last half an hour of trekking through this alien landscape, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to return now.

If I did, and came back tomorrow with more men, we’d have an easier time! But we may also encounter more monsters tomorrow, and they probably won’t be monsters that only have reached tier 2 too! So, it just made more sense to go forwards, even if we may lose someone that—that was a price that I was going to have to pay as getting rid of... whatever was causing this many tier 2s to appear now rather than later was going to save the lives of tens of people.

And I didn’t have to search for long as after 20 minutes or so, and another 4 or so weak tier 2 monsters we reached... something.

“What am I looking at?” I couldn’t help but mutter as I looked at something that... looked like a tree sapling that didn’t even reach my knees.

But I was finding it hard to call it a tree sapling as... well, it was moving.

Wait, let me rephrase that. It was warping in weird ways as we were looking at it, and the colour of its bark and leaves was constantly changing.

One moment, it was a vibrant green that you could see on any sapling, the next it was yellow like the sun, and the next it was darker than anything I had ever seen.

“... What am I—” I started, wanting to ask a question to Rae as I wasn’t really sure what to do in this situation... well, except burning it down.

But as I turned towards Rae, I saw that she had a... fucking trombone in her hands and she was about to blow into it.

“...Don’t you dare—” But before I could stop her, her lips met with the mouthpiece of the trombone.

“DUUU DU DU DUUUU!!!” As she blew on the trombone, I could only close my ears with my hands and scream in pain because of its loud noise.

“AHHHH! RAE, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!” I then screamed at her in righteous fury as this really was not the time to be playing around.

“What? I am just congratulating you!” She then said, looking confused.

“What do you mean you are congratulating me? And why???”

“For this!” She then said, and with a flick of her fingers something appeared in front of my eyes.

*ding*

Secret Quest One Of A Kind completed! Rewards, 20 exp + 2 Research Points have been granted in the Empire System!

“...Secret quest?”

“Remember the times where you completed quest that you never had? Because you did them before I could give you the quests for them? I’ve decided to just rename all those quests to secret quests!”

“...And why did you blow a trombone right next to my face again?”

“...If you don’t like it, I can take away the exp and research points.”

“If you think that’s enough to stop me from bitching, you are greatly mistaken, and I am offended that you’d think so lowly of me.”

“Yeah... figures.”

“...Anyways, what makes this... thing a wonder of the world then?”

“Want to take a guess?”

“Well, it has a shit ton of mana inside of it, but it doesn’t leek any outside of it, so, is it because it’s a valuable mana herb?”

“It’s not a valuable mana herb, it’s a priceless one! You’ve found one of the few unique mana herbs on the planet!”

“And this mana herb turns animals into tier 2s? Can it do that to people too?”

“W-well... no—”

“Then what use does it have? Do I just—you know, burn it?”

“W-wait! Don’t jump to action! Didn’t you hear me! It’s a unique mana herb! Meaning that there is only one in the entire world!”

“And why does that matter? In a few centuries I can go to other moons and get a similar mana herb from there.”

“W-well that certainly is something you can do, but... umm...”

“...Okay then boys, start a fire and we’ll burn this thing d—”

“Wait! Yes, I remember! You asked for wheat right!”

“...Yes? But why does that matter? You are not going to give it to me if I don’t burn this thing down, right?”

“Well, yes, I won’t, but! Don’t you see the forest around us!” She said and did spread her arms wide and...

“I don’t really see a forest but a bunch of dead trees that are so brittle that a simple jab from a spear can fell them. Whatever this plant is its, needs to die for my empire’s safety, and for the sake of biodiversity.” I told her nonchalantly, and she just looked at me, exasperated, and started talking in an angry tone.

“URGH! Don’t you get it! This tree mutates things near it! And through enough trial and error, you can create any plant you want—given you go at it for a long time!”

“Oh! That makes... sense actually... but I am still burning this thing down.”

“Why?!”

“If I wanted to selectively mutate crops, I’d have to get close to the sapling and that’d mean I’d have to risk touching it, and I do not wish to become a warped piece of flesh.”

“You won’t! It doesn’t work on animals!”

“Wait—how? Plants and animals are basically the same thing, except a few small differences that is.”

“Just—do you want it or not? If not, I swear I am going to just snap it out of existence myself!”

“Jeez, calm down kid.”

“WHO ARE YOU CALLING A KID?!”

“Well, you. Remember we said I couldn’t call you the B-word. So, I can call you a kid however much I want.”

“...Well then.” She said, and started turning towards the sapling, and her hands moved towards it, but before she could do anything I grabbed her hands and blocked her from snapping my magical GMO maker out of existence.

“On that note, I think I’ll be taking it with me.”

“...You fucker...” She said as I made my way towards the sapling.

“Merci madam.” I replied like the true gentlemen I was. But there was still a minor problem. I could not leave this thing here, but I also didn’t want to kill it, so I asked Rae what to do.

“Don’t worry and just pull it and cut it from its roots. The roots that stay in the ground will die shortly, and the sapling itself won’t be dangerous to any plants as long as it doesn’t touch them, and it won’t die because it can subsist off of mana.”

Then I said as she did and wrapped the sapling in a few hides we got from the monsters we killed and cradled it like a baby in my arms.

“Rae, I wonder... what was your plan of giving me access to domesticated crops if I were to choose the rainforest continent? Surely there aren’t pre-domesticated plants there, right?”

“Yup, there are not.”

“Okay, so, what was your plan for that continent?” I asked her once more, but she did not respond, so I turned around and saw her just... not looking at me.

“...Haaah... Rae, what did you do?”

“W-what? I did nothing! Nothing at all!” But as she said that she was twitching in her place, and I could basically see her lying.

“But what could she have—oh no... Rae, please tell me another one of these... Rainbow Saplings doesn’t exist in the other continent.” I asked her, dreading the bs I’d have to deal with if that was the case.

“...Oh? Mommy is that you? Sorry Damian I have to go do something really quickly! I’ll be back in a few... weeks. See ya later!” She said, and fell face first into the ground, and melted into the earth and disappeared from sight.

And as I was left alone there with my men, the only thing I could say was...

“Haaa... fuck me.”