Armored Ant Nest (1)

The new year came, and it was March.

About six months had passed, and Cecil had recovered considerably. With Mihai's death in mind, Cecil was putting more effort than ever into lessons.

“Allen, take me hunting with you, too.”

Cecil had started saying things like that. It seemed Cecil wanted to become stronger. But the Baron hadn't given permission, so I told Cecil I couldn't take them.

In a little over six months, Cecil would turn twelve. Three and a half years had passed since I came to the mansion, and I could feel how quickly time went by.

Even after six months, I still didn't know what kind of duties the Granvelle family had. I'd once heard from Rikkel that the kingdom wasn't at war with any other country. Given what had happened to Mihai, I asked Rikkel again, but his answer was the same.

To the north of this kingdom lies a vast empire with territory dozens of times larger. They'd been at war decades ago, but had since signed a peace treaty and were no longer fighting. Rikkel explained all this to me again.

As for hunting, I wiped out all the Orc villages at the end of February. It took considerably longer than clearing out the Goblin villages, but it paid off: the Orc villages had disappeared from the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains. However, Orc villages weren't found only in the foothills within Baron Granvelle's domain. Someday, Orcs would probably come from somewhere else and start building villages again, but for now, they'd vanished completely.

As a result, preparations for mithril mining were proceeding on schedule, and enough workers had been secured for the mining site, which was set to open in April. With the Goblins and Orcs gone, quite a few adventurers had apparently changed professions. Hearing that made me feel guilty for wiping out the Goblin and Orc villages and putting those people out of work. But when I thought of the bodies of those who had actually fallen victim to them, I still believed wiping them out had been the right thing to do.

Preparations for the village that would house the furnace for refining mithril ore into mithril would begin in spring. They were also planning to start mining after summer...