Unintentionally, Arthur started to pace around the newly formed village. Putting foot ahead of another, he started to follow the crude, wooden fence that surrounded the village.
With grass rustling under his feet, he ignored the occasional greetings from the villagers and addressed the issues he faced in deep thought.
With a somewhat unclear picture forming in his head on what he wanted to achieve in the short term, Arthur started thinking on what he could do to get there.
Farming as an idea seemed quite simple, but after some thought it became quite a conundrum. Where should he get the seeds that suited his needs and what about crop cycles and so on.
“Village chief! Bad news!”
Broken out of his thoughts, he raised an eyebrow at the man shouting and running towards him anxiously.
The panicking man wore a crude, brownish linen outerwear with a standard stone axe strapped on his waist. Arthur couldn’t quite recognize who the man was.
With a grime covered face, he arrived swiftly next to Arthur and caught his breath.
Patiently waiting for the man to be able to speak, countless thoughts ran through his head. ‘What happened? Why is he so anxious?’
“Chief. Sinde and the others from the hunting squad are trapped. We were hunting next to the small forest near the Snowstone mountains and we encountered some sort of creatures.” The man, Glenn, explained the situation in a hurry and Arthur grasped the gist of it.
“The hunting squad is being attacked? Go get a few hands to help you and get every axe and spear available. I’ll go gather volunteers for the rescue.” In a hurry, Arthur dashed off towards the main road.
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Standing in the summoning platform, Arthur asked for silence and started speaking.
“The hunting party has been attacked by unknown creatures near the Snowstone mountains. I will personally go to help them but I can’t do it alone. According to Glenn, the aggressors are similar in size to us and have humanoid features, but they distinctively resemble a rat or a mole.” Pausing for a moment, he took a glance at the expression of the crowd and continued. “Our people are trapped, and I hope some of you will accompany me to rescue our friends. Of course I intend to prioritize safety, but for a moment I can only promise that we won’t abandon our people!”
The crowd murmured with some agitation and anxiety. Only after a minute, one brave villager raised her hand and asked. “So when do we go?”
Arthur turned his head towards her and was visibly surprised. If his memory was right, this burly woman was in the second hunting group. “You are Heidi, right?”
The burly feminine woman nodded her head, flicked her dark brownish hair to the side and hooked the shoulder of the man next to her just as the man was about to say something. “It’s only right that we should help them. If we start losing hunters, then the only thing we have to eat is fish. You can count me and Kara in.”
The short man next to Heidi muttered in a small voice that they should find out about these ratmen first, but was quickly silenced by a small jab to his ribs.
“Wonderful! Any other volunteers?” With a hopeful look plastered on his face, he asked the crowd.
As his gaze lingered on the anxious crowd, more and more people started to show resolved looks on their faces, and soon enough, nearly half of the village had their hand raised up to the cloudy skies.
Arthur clenched his fist and cheered inwardly. The public address that he had dreaded throughout his time here gained plenty of support.
While it felt a bit unnatural for him to speak to a large crowd, he had gotten his point across clearly. At least that was his opinion when he saw the notification the next second.
Leadership increased +1 (5 → 6)
Arthur saw that Glenn and a few healthy young men were already done gathering the makeshift weapons in one spot, and announced the volunteers to pick a weapon of their choice for the rescue.
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‘We only have access to tools made from wood and stone, so to advance the technological level of the village, I need to find and process metals and minerals.’ On the way towards rescuing the hunting party, he thought deeply about his options.
‘For now, I think we can manage with stone axes, wooden spears and javelins.’ Arthur initially thought that he could convince maybe 15- 20 people to join the expedition, but greatly underestimated the solidarity of the village.
‘Well it’s a good thing anyways, I just hope that we won’t be too late.’ As he thought this, he looked upon the brave villagers behind him.
Yes, it was admirable. Taking up arms to stand up to their fellow villagers without asking anything in return. Maybe it was this mentality that made Arthur want to live up to their expectations and better himself as a leader.
“We can’t waste too much time. Pick up the pace and if worst comes to worst, try to be organized.” After turning his head to look at the serious villagers, he yelled.
‘If I had done better as the village chief, I could have teached them some self defense skills and medieval military formations…’ With a million thoughts running through his head, Arthur felt his incompetence to account for possible scenarios dragging the village down.
They had started off their way towards the Snowstone mountains. With plain, flat grasslands under them made their way quick and without major hindrances.
Arthur kept his caution up as he advanced with the villagers. After consulting Glenn, the route towards the last position of Sinde and the group was wild and pathless, but on the bright side it was relatively easy to traverse.
Half an hour passed, and the group saw more and more stunted trees. Wild grass and bushes seemed to blot the foot of the mountain range and Glenn recognized the place Sinde’s group was trapped in the distance.
“That’s the tree! I can recognize that red ancient tree even in my dreams! We are getting close!” With a relieved breath, Glenn exclaimed.
Arthur and the rest saw the red trunk with multiple branches filled with yellowish leaves. From the branches there were bright red bundles hanging like ripe pears.
Paying extra attention to this, Arthur turned to look at Glenn and asked. “When you were attacked, did you by chance try to pick out the fruits or provoke the creatures by accident?”
Glenn looked towards the ancient tree with a thoughtful expression. “We did collect all sorts of things since you did tell us to bring back all sorts of things to see if they were useful. You don’t mean?”
Arthur’s face flushed a shade of red and waved his hand. “Khm. Yeah I did say that, but in the future we will do the exploring first and then bring all sorts of things back.”
Once again, Arthur was reminded of the fact that he had not considered things thoroughly. It was highly likely that this incident was happening due to his opinions as the leader of the village.
With this in mind, he had to adjust the angle he was approaching this problem. ‘Am I making another mistake here? If the ratmen are simply protecting their turf and livelihood, I am thoughtlessly bringing a bunch of pissed off villagers. Wouldn’t this thing escalate even more?’
The road ahead seemed a tad more gloomy when Arthur signaled the villagers to continue forward.
With a few minutes to rest, the group moved forward with stone axes and javelins in hands, full of fervor. ‘How can I keep them calm without bringing the morale down? It would be best if we wouldn’t have to resort to violence…’
Minutes passed as the group neared the location Sinde and his hunter group had been attacked. Glenn anxiously ran ahead towards the verdant bushes on a hill leading to the foot of the mountain.
With Glenn leading the way and cautiously scanning the surroundings, Arthur signaled the villagers to follow his lead as they climbed the rocky hillside.
“Glenn, how is it?” Arthur yelled with a suppressed voice.
Receiving only silence as his answer, a premonition came to his mind. Arthur took deep breaths as he reached the hills’ summit and saw Glenn kneeling amidst sharp rocks.
“Glenn?”
Arthur approached Glenn and softly called out. With every step coming closer to the young hunter, he saw the youths shoulders tremble and hold something in his embrace. Startled, Arthur turned his gaze on the patch of grass next to Glenn and saw something in a puddle of viscous, crimson liquid and felt the cold wind blowing against his face. “Fuck me sideways, there goes diplomacy.”