Flames on the Horizon
Condal Village, surrounding Grace Castle, was transforming day by day. It had become as clean as Morta Village, most of the houses had been fully repaired, and every home now had a fireplace installed in preparation for winter.
The village buzzed with unprecedented energy, and the blacksmith shop let out joyful screams under the ever-increasing workload.
Smith had taken full responsibility for the lord’s vault room, while his assistants handled the forging and repair of farming tools, saws, hammers, and similar implements. With the surge in demand, Smith had pulled back the workers who had been reassigned to the logging teams.
“Is my axe head ready yet?”
“It’s over there. The one with the black cloth wrapped around the handle, right?”
“What about the extra hammers and nails the Morta village chief ordered?”
“Those probably won’t be finished until the day after tomorrow. But you can take the hammers first.”
The clamor of orders mixed chaotically with the ringing of hammers striking red-hot iron inside the forge. Despite the freezing weather where ice had already begun to form, the interior of the blacksmith shop was sweltering from the glowing metal and the heat radiating from the workers’ bodies.
“It would be so much better if Smith the master were here right now.”
Returning to their original workplace had been a tremendous joy, but the shortage of hands was painfully obvious. When Smith was around, he could easily handle the work of four or five men by himself. But he was currently occupied with the lord’s vault project. In fact, the foremen of every department were secretly watching for any chance to poach more workers from the forge or elsewhere. Because of this, whenever Smith appeared, the team leaders would quietly slink away from him.
“Listen to you, talking like you’ve got it made. Instead of complaining, why don’t you hammer out one more nail?”
At his colleague’s sharp rebuke, the man who had been grumbling broke into a wide grin.
“I’ve always wanted to do something like this. Heh heh heh.”
He smiled brightly as he recalled the days spent sighing in despair with nothing to do. Wiping the sweat dripping down his chin with the back of his hand, his expression was brighter than it had ever been.
As Chloe looked around the now-lively village, she couldn’t hide her joy. The work had begun out of necessity because of the mission from the status window, but seeing the people so happy filled her heart with a sense of fulfillment far beyond any reward. More than anything, she was overjoyed to feel truly needed.
“Good morning, my lord!”
“My lord! Thank you so much!”
Whenever Chloe passed by, the villagers greeted her warmly and expressed their gratitude. It was a complete reversal from the past, when simply seeing her carriage would cause favorability to plummet.
The sight of the lord being welcomed by the villagers brought proud smiles to the faces of Handsome and Anna, who walked beside her.
The negative values in the territory residents’ favorability had long since disappeared. Day by day, their affection continued to grow steadily.
The houses and roads repaired with Cloment were far sturdier and cleaner than before. Even when the wind blew, no dust rose, and rain didn’t leak through. The Tiese Stone, once considered part of Grace’s curse, had now become an indispensable and precious resource. Lighter and easier to obtain than other stones, Tiese Stone had also become a valuable way for children to earn pocket money.
Even now, it was common to see children wandering the village with small buckets. Older children would venture outside the castle walls to gather larger pieces of Tiese Stone, bring them to the foremen, and earn money. In Grace these days, there were opportunities to earn money everywhere—from adults to children.
If rumors of this spread beyond the territory, the residents who had left and those seeking work would surely want to return to Grace. Abundant labor was essentially the same as economic power for a fief.
Chloe smiled softly as she imagined this place bustling with people in the not-too-distant future.
“How is the Como Tree logging going? It’s not too dangerous, is it?”
The logging teams had been split into two groups: one focused on gathering general construction materials, and another dedicated solely to Como Trees. The Como Tree-only team received hazard pay, so it was always popular. Only the strongest workers were selected for it.
Chloe was constantly worried about the logging team that entered the Black Forest. She had hired mercenaries with money and assigned knights to them, but on days when logging took place, she remained anxious from dawn until dusk.
Seeing the concern on Chloe’s face, Red Bear quickly answered.
“As you instructed, my lord, they do not wait until sunset. They leave the forest at an appropriate time.”
“Still, everyone must remain vigilant. We never know when the monsters might attack, so don’t let your guard down for even a moment.”
The moment Chloe finished speaking—
Bwooo! Bwooo!
A massive horn blast that seemed to shake the eardrums echoed from all directions.
Bwooooooooooo!
After two short blasts came a long, drawn-out note. Red Bear’s face hardened with shock. At the same time, the peaceful faces of the people turned deathly pale with terror. The air, once filled with laughter, froze with tension and fear in an instant.
“What is that sound?”
Confusion spread across Chloe’s face at the sudden horn. But Red Bear looked even more startled than she did. The instant he heard the horn, he instinctively moved to shield her, then quickly turned and shouted.
“My lord, please take shelter inside the castle immediately!”
“Why? Is someone attacking us?”
The first thought that came to mind was that Viscount Patrasche, harboring ill intentions, had launched an assault on Grace Territory. But aside from the horn, there were no other sounds of battle.
While Chloe looked around in bewilderment, every single person turned ghostly pale and vanished into their homes. It seemed everyone except her understood the meaning of the horn.
Red Bear had assumed the lord would naturally know as well. Realizing his mistake too late, he spoke in the calmest voice he could manage.
“It appears there is a problem with the defense grass.”
“Defense grass? You mean that meadow at the edge of the Black Forest?”
At the mention of anything related to the Black Forest, Chloe’s nerves instantly stood on edge. And if it was the defense grass, it wasn’t just any plant—it was the grass that prevented monsters from descending upon the village.
“Yes.”
Urgency seeped into Red Bear’s voice as he answered.
“What could have happened to grass that was perfectly fine?”
“This signal means a fire has broken out. We’ll need to go see the scale of it to know exactly.”
“A fire? What about the logging team? Today is the day they went into the forest!”
More than anything, she was worried about the logging team that had entered the woods.
“Red Bear.”
“Yes!”
“Bring the logging team back safely.”
“Yes!”
The moment he answered, Red Bear sprinted toward the training grounds. His sharp subordinates would already be preparing to depart. After such a long wait, the peace they had finally obtained—he prayed desperately in his heart that they could protect it.
“W-what in the world is going on?!”
Even before they reached Morta Village, they could see black smoke rising into the sky. From the scale of it, the fire appeared to be massive. It was as if he could already hear the villagers, who had only just begun to live comfortably, crying out in despair.
“Hiyah! Faster!”
At Red Bear’s shout, the sound of hooves racing toward the village grew even quicker.
The defense grass field surrounding the Black Forest was burning at a terrifying speed.
As if announcing the threat to come, the smoke roared upward like a black pillar with a thunderous whoosh.
“What are we going to do about this!”
“Oh no, this is terrible!”
“What are you doing?! Hurry up and bring more sand!”
The villagers stamped their feet in fear that the flames might spread to the village, yet their greatest worry was what would happen once the defense grass had completely burned away. The sun was still high in the sky, so monsters wouldn’t descend on the village immediately—but sunset was only a matter of time.
Once the defense grass was gone, the village would be like a perfectly set table laid out in front of the Black Forest.
Everyone except the young children had joined the firefighting effort, but years of drought had left the grass bone-dry, and there simply wasn’t enough water to extinguish the blaze. The fire was spreading to new areas far faster than they could put it out.
“The knights have arrived!”
“Waaaaah!”
The logging team, who had urgently fled the forest after seeing the rising smoke, along with the villagers, were desperately fighting the flames when they spotted the knights and burst into cheers. Just the arrival of the knight order made the villagers feel significantly safer.
Even if the defense grass could no longer contain the monsters within the Black Forest, they believed the knights would protect the village.
Red Bear assigned all the knights to firefighting duties, except for those stationed to watch the forest in case of an emergency. The mercenaries did the same. Thankfully, they had sand prepared for construction, which allowed them to at least attempt to smother the flames.
Fortunately, the logging team that had gone into the forest had already returned to the village after noticing the smoke, so they could focus entirely on extinguishing the fire.
Years of continuous drought had left the river nearly dry, and the village wells had been empty for a long time. In a situation where they were barely rationing drinking water, using it to fight the fire would be the same as telling the villagers to die.
“We must put out the fire before it reaches the Black Forest!”
“Yes!”
The moment the flames touched the forest, it was obvious the monsters would sense the threat and come charging down toward the village. After all, they wouldn’t flee toward the Snow Mountain, where not even a speck of food could be found no matter how hard one looked.
The knights stripped off even their armor and swords, throwing them to the ground. They needed to be as light as possible to move quickly.
But fire moved faster than any human. If things continued this way, not only would the entire defense grass field burn away, but the painstakingly rebuilt village would be reduced to ashes in no time.
Red Bear’s and the others’ faces were blackened with soot, and their hearts, filled with despair, had grown as dark as the burning meadow.
“Don’t give up! Defend the village and the forest to the very end! Make sure the defense grass stops burning!”
Red Bear shouted until his throat felt like it would burst.
The defense grass field, once so vast its end could not be seen, now had less than a third remaining. They had tried to evacuate the elderly and weak outside the village, but the people refused to budge, insisting on lending even their small hands.
Oh God, please help us!
Red Bear cried out desperately as he hurled a sandbag with all his strength toward the flames. The heat, flickering like a serpent’s tongue, lunged at his entire body.