NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39: 38. After-Battle 2: Village
Looking at things objectively, it wasn't a bad fight, less than 20% of their forces ended up succumbing in combat, and if you take into account that the majority only had 3 days a week of regular training as well as the fact that the majority died against a unusual group of larger goblins and a goblin-like creature, the results themselves were great.
But if you look at things from an external perspective, inside many mothers and sisters and brothers were mourning the loss of family members, and this only intensified the fear and resettlement they felt towards those they left behind. 'What happened to them', 'they are dead', 'because this god didn't help anymore', 'why this god helped them and not us', etc., most of these thoughts were fueled by grief but they were not totally wrong.
Many saw the state the "heroes" were in after the fight, as well as the bottles of new potions on the floor, some empty, others with some of the precious liquid still inside and some still intact. Many of those who lost loved ones in the attack immediately draw a quick but not wrong conclusion. God takes sides and it was not the side of those who died.
They were angry and resentful and these feelings were going to turn into something bad, everyone knew that. But at the moment they didn't have the luxury of dealing with this, one of the worst and most important things you have to do after a fight is clean the battlefield to prevent bodies from rotting in an open place and spreading disease and attracting pests. , such as flies and mice.
For the next 2 days that was all they did, the bodies of the unfortunate people who died were carefully wrapped in linen cloths and placed in Ivan's "warehouse" where the bodies of the nobleman and his subordinates had previously been. Otherwise they cleared the field of bodies, filled in the holes, dismantled the obstacles still standing, and piled the goblin bodies in heaps outside the village boundaries.
"Now how do we get rid of those pests that still cause confusion even after they are dead?" Gerard said sullenly cleaning a glass behind the counter.
In reality, they were already solving this problem, but they had too many goblins to deal with, they divided themselves into two groups to clean them up, one group took turns burning the bodies on small pyres but being careful not to let the fire get out of control in the first place. hot and dry climate. While the other was in charge of transforming as many goblins as possible into fertilizer, but both solutions were unable to support the amount of goblins, and the more time they "wasted" dealing with this, the faster their loved ones' glasses would rot and become unrecognizable to anyone. their funerals.
"The simplest way would be to burn them, but given the quantity and how flammable the goblin bodies are, that's not the best idea" Ivan said as he drank from the wooden goblet of strong wine.
It was a little after noon, some people had come to eat at the tavern but most preferred either to eat in their houses (or tents) alone or in the square, trying to find comfort among the crowd.
"In addition to turning them into fertilizer, couldn't we use them as bait in your hunts, Ivan?" The old chief asked from a table a little further away.
He seemed to have aged even more, but it was understandable. Imagine if your peaceful home ended up becoming the site of unscrupulous thieves who, despite not taking much, still seriously injured some members of your family and killed others, and you, being an older person, wouldn't have much to do other than try to help those you could while I saw those I couldn't help go away forever.
That's how he felt at the moment, a useless old man who can't do anything in two situations that his village, the village that his grandfather had helped build, needed him and he couldn't do anything because he was either passed out or simply see helpless.
"Hey, it's just me and 4 other brats who barely learned how to use a bow and move around the forest were able to actually hunt, the amount of goblins we would have to take would make us easy targets." Ivan responded by taking what the old man said as a joke, which was half right.
"But it wouldn't be a bad idea in itself." A new voice spoke, entering the room through the side door. "Considering the goal is just for us to get rid of the goblins, throwing them into the forest and letting nature take its course isn't really a bad idea. But we'd still have to consider whether they might end up poisoning a part of it considering how fast they rot, we could smell decomposing flesh even if it was miles away." Sofi concluded by sitting at another free table, followed shortly by Liem.
As always (or almost) she wasn't wrong, goblins weren't just fast at reproducing they also rotted quickly, normally a goblin left out in the open could rot the equivalent of 1 week in 3 days, if it weren't for Sofi's ice spell.
Both had just finished transforming the last of the goblin war boars into dried meat and leather, Liem had just delivered the bones to be used in the square's "communal soup" and finally decided it was time to eat something.
In these 2 days he learned more about where they were and how things were, which could be summed up in nothing good, Corruption was much stronger, the human kingdoms were much weaker, several other races were basically extinct and cults of evil gods strangely managed to win. strength and notoriety in these times. Liem credited this to the fact that when desperate, humans turn to anyone who gives them a sense of belonging, a modicum of power, and a modicum of importance, even if they thought this coming from an evil God was paradoxically strange.
In addition to learning he was also slowly introduced to the small village community and newcomers, in other circumstances the welcome would have been better but at the moment...
"So would you guys have any magical ideas on how to solve this?" Gerard asked, serving two doses of wine to the oldest and strongest members of the small community, with an additional lemon and clove for Sofi.
"Not much, just continuing things as they are seems to be the most effective."
Liem said tasting the wine, it wasn't the best he had ever tasted but considering he hadn't tasted anything in 200 years and this was a small village in a corner of another kingdom, it could very well be considered a great luxury.
"I highly doubt there are many people who will like this idea. The problem is not the goblins themselves but the time we are spending with them."
Ivan said, slightly irritated by the irrationality of some people but I still understand them. On the other hand, he himself still had visions of young people who he believed he could have helped but couldn't.
"You can stop there, I know that look and I don't care if you're a martyr, that doesn't solve anything."
Gerard soon cut him off, Ivan always tried to appear serious, sarcastic, irritable and often arrogant, but everyone who knew him a little knew that it was just a facade to hide the natural kindness he had.
"He's right young man, don't dwell on it, that's the work of the old people who didn't help, that is me." The chief said with both a slight tone of mockery and anger at himself.
"Well, playing this blame game doesn't help the problem. How are we going to take care of the remaining goblins and how are we going to bury the young people who died, those are the problems we have." Gerard brought everyone back to the main point and brought up the second most important.
Where to blame or if they should be buried in the village considering that this was not their home, it should just be a stop to rest and regroup, not to stay forever.
Obviously this was a considerable problem and another source of discord, both among the newcomers and the villagers. But before they could start thinking about this problem.
"DAD, CHIEF, YOU NEED TO COME WITH ME QUICKLY!!"
Matt threw open the front door, panting and with urgency in both his voice and his eyes.
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A/N: question, have I been able to maintain a satisfactory balance between characters so far?
Since I know that when it comes to launching chapters or grammar, I'm often not only one of the best, but one of my main concerns is whether the story would be at least interesting with very different characters.