Chapter 43, The Hypocritical Paradise (Part 1)
Three months after traveling to another world in the Great Tomb of Nazarick, Karn Village
Another refreshing dawn descended on this village located on the edge of the forest.
As usual, Enri, a sixteen-year-old girl from Kahn Village. Emmett still got up early because she had to start preparing breakfast before the sun rose - she was not as skilled as her deceased mother in making a fire, so she had to put in more effort.
What's more, the breakfast she needs to prepare now is far more than enough for her and her sister.
After their parents died in a spring enemy spy attack, the surviving Emmert sisters immediately fell into serious life difficulties: with the pitiful strength of their small arms and legs, they simply could not complete so much farm work in their fields. The rest of the families in the village also lost a lot of their labor force in the massacre by the Silian Theocracy's special agents. Now they can't even work on their own fields, and they have no spare time to help these poor little sisters.
——Unlike the original work, Enri, who became an orphan, did not receive the horn that can summon goblins from the Lich King Ainz. Without the help of a group of loyal and reliable new family members (summoned goblins), everything had to rely on Do it yourself and your sister.
Fortunately, in the next few days, many people came from the fortress city. The refugees from Rantel fled to Kahn Village one after another. In addition to bringing countless chaos and bad news, the original labor shortage problem in the village was suddenly solved. The Emmott sisters used the coins and grain left behind by their parents to hire a relatively honest middle-aged refugee to serve as a long-term laborer. Finally, they no longer had to worry about farm work in the fields for the time being.
But as a self-cultivated family living in a remote mountain village, Enri's inheritance was naturally very limited, and she couldn't afford to pay commissions for a long time. In fact, she could barely feed herself and her sister with just the little food she had hoarded at home. And there will be no new income before the autumn harvest.
What's even worse is that the terrifying undead army is inside. Due to the raging violence in the Kingdom of Yestije, refugees from all over the country are still pouring into the remote village of Kahn, making the elders in the village worried that their village will be eaten alive by so many mouths.
Thanks to the unstoppable path, the great magician Ainz, who had previously sent his magical pet cat to save the village, received the royal order (actually it was the Gazef warrior who took a long leave to deliver the imperial edict and make up for the aftermath) and took charge of the resettlement. and refugee management duties. Therefore, Lord Ainz used his own money to import food from the Bajas Empire in exchange for work, and then distributed the food as wages. He hired refugees to cut wood and quarry stone, burn bricks and build walls, and built a mage tower in the village of Kahn. , and by the way, many houses were built in Kahn Village to accommodate the increasing number of refugees in the village.
Thanks to the generous great magician Ainz-dono and his project, the refugees who fled to Karn Village from all over the kingdom finally had a way to survive. The hard and busy physical labor also drained the energy of these people, preventing them from posing a threat to public order.
In addition, as a local, Enri also took the opportunity to take a job as a cook for laborers. Although the income was extremely meager, it could at least subsidize the family. In addition, she and her sister could eat some food together, which was more or less a fat and generous job.
So, at dawn this morning, Enri had already crawled out of bed and started preparing breakfast for more than fifty people.
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Before officially starting work, Enri first opened the curtains and opened the windows to let in fresh air and sunlight.
Looking out from the window of my house, I can see that the village of Kahn has completely changed today. It is no longer peaceful and peaceful in the past, but has become much noisier. Rows of simple cabins are like mushrooms after the rain. Generally, they popped up in the original forest glade.
——In the early spring of this year, Kahn Village was still a remote village with a population of just over a hundred. Not to mention decent streets, there were not even a single shop or tavern. But now, more than 3,000 refugees have come to Kahn Village from all directions to take refuge from the undead army raging in the kingdom. Such a rapid influx of people caused the size of Karn Village to expand more than ten times. According to the standards of this world, it has far exceeded the level of "village" and can at least be called a "town".
However, at this time, Kahn Village, or Kahn Town, although its population increased rapidly in a very short period of time, it did not look chaotic, but rather neat and organized. Because Lich King Ainz has regarded this place as his first human territory, he has carried out careful design and planning like a child building blocks or an elementary school student playing the game "SimCity" - in the past few months, Most of the refugees who fled to the village of Kahn were organized into We hired a construction team to build many single- or double-story longhouses with a mixed structure of masonry, stone, and wood according to the specifications of modern migrant worker dormitories and the actual construction technology level of other worlds. Each longhouse can accommodate up to a dozen people. Dozens of families form a neat community. Open space has been reserved between each longhouse as a future green belt and square, and drainage ditches have been dug.
Of course, such densely packed dormitories are obviously very small and can only provide refugees with a temporary shelter from the wind and rain. From a modern perspective, it is more like a refugee camp or a prisoner of war than a town. camp, and because they lived so compactly, the people in the longhouse could neither To make a fire for cooking or heating (to prevent fires), you can only go out to eat in a big pot. Water is also very troublesome. The only well in the village obviously cannot meet the needs of 3,000 people. You can only wash and wash in the open air by the river outside the village. , it really feels like living in prison.
Therefore, Ainz has a long-term plan, planning to create an alien version of a garden city... But in the short term, let's make do with a crowded refugee camp like this. In any case, having a roof is better than camping or sleeping in a tent.
However, even this simple version of the building complex is already very prosperous in the eyes of Enli, a village girl who has little knowledge.
In the past three short months, with the rapid influx of people from other places, a potential consumer market has quickly formed in Kahn Village. And the Lich King Ainz, who actually rules this place, has never thought of collecting commercial taxes - probably because he doesn't care about such a small amount of money.
As a result, under such relaxed conditions, taverns, inns, grocery stores and markets have appeared one after another. Recently, even brothels have opened. Among the refugees who escaped from the city, there are also some street prostitutes. In addition to There are no other skills to make a living apart from selling one's jokes and one's body. It's just getting dark now, and this newly built village has already woken up from its sleep, with the smell of cooking smoke and breakfast wafting everywhere. Some individual small traders also began to move their goods to roads with more traffic, set up their own stalls, and officially started the day's work to support themselves and their families.
However, this abnormal prosperity that suddenly appeared on the desolate border was obtained at the cost of the destruction of countless prosperous villages and towns!
——Through chatting with newly arrived refugees and businessmen, Enri vaguely learned that inside. A considerable part of the Yestije Kingdom has now turned into a very terrible and miserable world. Everywhere, undead creatures crawl out of the dirt and coffins, roaming the fields and pastures, bringing death and destruction to the living. Many villages were wiped out by surprise, and large cities and fortified castles may not be spared.
For example, the fortress city she is familiar with. Lantier, the origin of this undead catastrophe, has now completely turned into a city of death shrouded in black mist. On average, only one out of twenty residents in the city can escape... Moreover, even if they successfully escape, After being hunted by the undead creatures, I had to shed tears and say goodbye to my hometown forever, because it is no longer the hometown of the living, but a paradise for the dead...
By comparison, although her village of Karn was also unfortunately hit by the military disaster, more than half of the villagers survived, were not driven out of their homes, and could continue to live in their original houses. It seemed that Quite lucky.
But when she thought of her parents who were hacked to death by enemies to protect herself and her sister, Enri couldn't help but feel ashamed of her own heartlessness.
After stretching her arms and taking a deep breath, Enri rolled up her sleeves, cheered up, and started working next to the stove.
First clean the cabbage, onions and mushrooms, then peel the radishes and potatoes, then chop these vegetables into small pieces. Then he changed to a sturdier knife, took a piece of hard bacon, and chopped it into minced meat... Although it seemed like a very common household chore, if you consider that it was a meal for fifty people The portion of the rice shows that this workload is not that easy for a young girl.
In fact, under the pampering of her parents, Enri was not particularly good at cooking in the past. However, after her parents were killed and she was now an orphan, she quickly learned how to keep food on time under the pressure of difficult circumstances. Texture accomplishes this difficult task.
It can be seen that everyone's so-called talent is often forced out by the needs of the environment.
At the same time, amidst the chopping sound of the kitchen knife hitting the chopping board, my sister Nimu was also awakened by the sound of her sister cooking. She rubbed her sleepy eyes and got up from the bed, "...Ah...Good morning. , sister. Let me help too!”
"...Good morning, Nim. I don't need to help here. Rather than this, you'd better go get a few buckets of water."
For a little girl, fetching water from a big wooden bucket was quite hard work, so her sister's face showed an expression of dissatisfaction for a moment, but in the end she agreed to her sister's request dejectedly and stood up without complaining. Carrying the big wooden bucket, he walked out of the door slowly.
Looking at her sister's back, Enri couldn't help but stop for a moment. I felt an indescribable pain in my heart.
Her little sister Nimue was once a lively and willful child. However, since that massacre, the once innocent sister has grown up a lot in an instant. She has become very obedient to her sister and no longer acts coquettishly or makes noises. The level of "good boy" is just sad.
The smiling faces of her father and mother flashed clearly in her mind again.
Even though several months have passed, the scars left in my heart by that incident are still far from healed.
If your parents died of illness, you should be aware of it beforehand. After all, people are subject to birth, aging, illness and death. If his parents died in a sudden natural disaster or something like that, then at least he wouldn't resent others, and he probably wouldn't be left with the same psychological trauma as now.
But in fact, her parents died in a brutal massacre by the enemy in order to protect her and her sister.
An incident like that would obviously make people resentful no matter what.
Moreover, the enemy who planned the massacre in Karn Village - the Supreme Council of Priests of the Silian Theocracy, which sent troops to sneak into the kingdom to burn, kill and plunder, was a behemoth that she, a mere village girl, could not shake. Revenge for parents is a joke. As for the murderer who directly committed the murder, he had already been killed. The only thing she can do is to try to live well with her sister and not to live up to her parents' sacrifice...
Enri closed her eyes tightly, trying not to shed tears. If someone were around, she might even try to pretend to be calm in order to avoid letting others see her weakness. But when she was alone, the boundless loneliness still stung the scars in her heart.
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However, her busy life did not allow her to be so immersed in sadness. After only a moment, Enri wiped away her tears and continued the work at hand: if breakfast was cooked too slowly and the hungry workers complained, she would lose herself. If you accept this job, you won’t even be able to cry!
After cutting the bacon, Enri started to light the fire on the stove. She took out the smoldering wick from a special clay pot and used a skillful technique to ignite the pre-chopped dry wood, quickly turning the small fire into A blazing flame. The next step is to put the large iron pot on the stove, fill it with cold water, pour in the minced bacon, and sprinkle a few large bowls of dried beans into it to give the pot of thick soup some base. As for fresh vegetables, they should be put into the pot last.
At the same time, she took out another small iron pot and began to cook breakfast for herself and her sister - just like the ones for the workers, it was also minced vegetable soup and pre-made brown bread, with a little extra Wild vegetables and fruits.
However, even though it was the same stove, the water in the small pot obviously boiled faster. When the big iron pot just started to steam, Enri and her sister Nim were already sitting next to the stove, using hard The black bread was dipped in the hot soup in the small pot, and he ate it deliciously.
I have to admit that although life is difficult today, the content on the table is richer than when my mother cooked.
The most obvious change is that they now eat meat with every meal. Although in the past, I could occasionally get some meat from wild beasts and birds from the hunters in the village, such good things were really rare. As for the slaughter of livestock, it is a grand event that only happens once a year. The reason why they can eat so much meat now is first of all because the scope of activities of local residents in the forest has expanded than before.
The large forest surrounding Kahn Village has provided countless benefits to the villagers over the years - firewood for fuel, fruits and wild vegetables for food, animal meat and fur, and various medicinal materials that can be exchanged for money. But the problem is that although the forest contains countless wealth, there are also countless dangerous monsters. It is not a place that ordinary people can go deep into casually, otherwise they will risk losing their lives. Even the hunters in the village only operate on the edge of the forest. They rush out as soon as there is any disturbance, and naturally they will not gain much.
However, with the arrival of hundreds of refugees and a large number of adventurers, the situation has changed dramatically: the adventurers are all professional monster killers, and for the safety of their new residence, they launched a large-scale raid as soon as they settled in Combat. The forest monsters that frightened the villagers were not worth mentioning in the eyes of experts like them. Whether they were goblins or ogres, they were chopped down one by one under the swords of the adventurers.
Even if he occasionally encounters a powerful monster that the adventurers cannot deal with, Ainz the Archmage will send his followers or familiars-mainly those incredibly powerful cats, deep into the forest to fight against them, and then every time Can return with a great victory.
Moreover, just like a house cat would place a dead mouse it caught in front of its owner's door to claim credit, Ainz-don's talking cats would often bring captured or killed monsters to the village for display: A giant twenty feet tall, a giant snake coiled up like a hill, and a spider bigger than a hunting dog were all things Enri, a village girl who had lived next to the forest for sixteen years, had never seen before. There is even a towering man-eating demon tree, which makes the newly arrived refugees marvel at it and wonder how the aboriginal people of Kahn Village survived in such a place.
As a result, as the monsters in the nearby forest were wiped out, the hunters' range of activities was greatly expanded. In a forest like this that has been rarely visited since ancient times, the number of various types of prey is really quite abundant. And when those adventurers with superb martial arts joined the hunting team, the amount of prey obtained every day was enough to be called a bumper harvest. According to the established rules of this world, or the remnants of traditional customs from the tribal era, after hunters stripped the prey of the easy-to-preserve fur, claws, bones or horns, the remaining fresh meat and internal organs that were not easy to preserve were generously discarded. Land was distributed to the entire population on a per capita basis. If you are an "aboriginal person" in Kahn Village, you can also receive additional preferential treatment and a slightly larger allocation. Although the quantity is still small, fortunately, the Emmott sisters' appetites are not big, which is enough for them to enjoy a delicious snack.
In addition to hunting, in order to provide sufficient meat for the booming population, the newly arrived refugees, or immigrants, began to raise pigs in the forest. These pigs basically do not need feed. Instead, they are kept free in the large forest. Let them eat the roots of plants and fallen acorns, which is enough to keep them fat and strong. Moreover, the followers of Archmage Ainz seemed to have cast some kind of magic on these pigs, causing them to gain weight incredibly quickly. In just a few months, they were almost ready for slaughter. Many people have begun to imagine the deliciousness of fried pork cutlets.
Then, as a by-product of the expanded hunting range, the range in the forest where women could safely gather wild vegetables, fruits, and mushrooms also expanded considerably. Although the number of people in need of food suddenly increased dozens of times, this vast and fertile forest still has abundant production, which can meet the daily consumption of thousands of people. The conflict between man and earth is simply a matter that has no shadow.
Now, fresh fruits and wild vegetables can be placed on the dining table of Anli's home every day. There are also two jars of mixed fruit wine made from various wild fruits in the kitchen. From a food perspective, today's life can be called There is unprecedented abundance.
Although she was only a sixteen-year-old girl, Enri still knew very well that the reason why she was able to live such a nourishing life was that she did not fall into hunger, cold and embarrassment due to the loss of her parents, was not driven out of her home by the undead creatures that were raging everywhere, and was not It was all plundered by the hungry refugees, all thanks to the powerful and generous Archmage Ainz, and his equally powerful and well-meaning followers.
In Enri's knowledge, it is the great magician Ainz and his followers who are guarding this territory, resisting the invasion of undead creatures, and protecting the weak humans hiding here - except in the forest. In addition to hunting monsters, the cats sometimes drag a few Zombies or ghouls who had their heads smashed showed off their achievements to the villagers; it was also the great magician Ainz who maintained the order of this small world and prevented all kinds of crimes from happening; and it was he who donated generously, Work and food were provided to all who gathered here. Even the lives of himself and his sister, as well as so many people in the village who survived the massacre, were saved from the massacre by the great magician Ainz and his followers. This kind of kindness can be said to be higher than the mountains and deeper than the sea. People don't know how to repay. They can only hide this deep gratitude in their hearts forever. Therefore, every time she ate, she silently prayed to the gods, hoping that the great magician Ainz and his followers, these rare good people in the world, could always have good luck and make Karn Village what it is today. A relatively happy life can be maintained forever...