《The Country of Monsters》Chapter 12
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As Harren was thriving with its age of agriculture and husbandry, we were still unable to procure a domesticated animal from which we could obtain a sustainable textile product for cloth making and tailoring. Nonetheless, Gorlin’s group found something that looked both like cotton and cat tails. The bad thing was none of the orcs or goblins knew if it could be used for clothmaking. The good thing was there was a group of crafty goblins, who would probably become tailors once we procure enough materials, and they were trying to make clothes with this odd plant. For sake of taxonomy, we decided to call the plant “libre”.
Lthrok’s group has found and tames 6 more wargs and were now trying to mate the ones which were already tamed. Apparently, taming a warg is not difficult as all it takes is to beat it in a one-on-one combat and mount it. Lthrok said that when mounted, they accept you as their superior. Still, engaging in a fight with one of these animals is a suicide attempt however you look at it. Only swiftness could save you from the looks of it unless you want to hurt your future pet with slashes of blade. Orcs, on the other hand are not swift – they rely on their muscles to overpower the wargs. When I watched Lthrok himself tame a warg, this was what I saw at least. Lthrok quickly grabbed the front legs of the warg the moment it jumped on him to try and bite his neck off. Throwing the huge body of the warg with the momentum of a spin as he pulled his right arm back while retaining his left arms position, Lthrok managed to slam the warg to the ground and get on top of it.
Overpopulation was a big issue, so today I was going to attempt and manipulate the gate to let in less goblins and orcs. Somehow, a while ago, I started feeling like the magic that filled the invisible container inside me has become more docile as the container kept expanding. Now, it felt almost as if I could redirect my magic and close the gate even before anyone comes through it. Yet, I have never actually tried to practice this, so I doubt whether it would work.
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Another question I have is whether casting other types of magic instead of opening a gate would satisfy my magic overdose – So far, I have only opened gates with my magic because I felt like I had too much accumulated in me. If maybe there is another way of using all that magic like Gobo practices shaman magic, I would not need to open gates anymore. This is also worth giving a shot. I should attempt to close the gate before a hundred monsters rush in today and try to use magic in a different form tomorrow to see whether I would still need to open a gate.
While outside, I walk towards the newly logged area and reach my hand out. I feel the magic slowly travel to my fingertips and as if passing through a membrane of some sort, it leaks out of its container. I redirect my magic to support the gate that appears before me, while keeping some to myself to use later to prematurely close it.
The monsters start to walk in from the gate. The scenario which by now I have already gotten used to. About fifty monsters in, I readjust my magic to forcefully close the gate. I redirect the magic still left in my fingertips to create a pressure to try and shrink the gate. My magic rushes onto the edges of the gate and slowly compresses it. The process is much slower than what I wished for, so I am now obliged to watch another ten monsters walk in. Still, the gate is closed before its time, and no damage was done to either the monsters, the place I opened the gate, my magic, or my body. Only the exhaustion I have familiarized with that comes with calling monsters from the other end of the gate.
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To rest, I return to my house. They insisted that I had a bigger, more special house, worth of a Chief – but they ended up building a mansion with stones from the cave and wood from the forest. It is also decorated. Hide of a wild boar hunted by Gobi was laid in the entrance to the three-floor building. Each floor was high-roofed and big enough to accommodate tens of monsters. They were slowly making new wood furniture for me, and no matter how bad their craftsmanship was, they were still the best furniture in Harren. My room was on the third floor, so I had to walk up there each time I came back and walk down from there each time I had to leave. I initially thought that they did this as a sort of a hierarchy or for me to be away from the enemies in case of an attack, but they actually told me that the reason was that the view from the third floor, and especially because it was higher up due to high-roof architecture, enabled me to see the whole town and a great deal of the forest. This is a good idea I could not think of by myself, so I ended up congratulating them. With this, I would be better able to strategize, and even in case of an enemy attack – say a big herd of wild boars or unknown beasts like feral wargs attack the town, I would be able to develop a better plan from the third floor as I could map my strategy better.
I close my eyes to the approaching night. If I can solve the overpopulation issue tomorrow – maybe even stop calling monsters when not necessary, that would be amazing for the town. Resources are not easy to come by and definitely difficult to manage.
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Rising World
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