Chapter 21.4

This is…」

「I daresay he’s called in quite the difficult predicament…」

Not even allowed to say his last words, Barold had been pulverized with overwhelming power. Upon looking at the organism that he had called over, Julius and Douga groaned.

「Maybe it’s just idiotic to think of trying to come slashing at it from the front.」

「Maybe if it were done with the move that Hiroshi pounded into that man, but if we’re just discussing regular attacks, then yeah, I doubt that anyone would call such a person a hero.」

Looking at the size and movement patterns of the big thing, Makoto and Rayna exchanged their fed-up opinions. That wasn’t just confined to them, however. Everyone who saw the gigantic creature in front of them reacted in pretty much one of two ways: groan in despair or make a cynical comment at the absurdity of the situation. However, there was one person who didn’t display such an obvious reaction.

「It’s here it’s here it’s here…! My time has come, hell yeah…!」

Seeing the super giant caterpillar that had appeared in the inner castle courtyard, Hiroshi burst out in joy as his eyes glinted like fire.

Indeed. It was, in fact, an extremely large caterpillar that Barold had summoned, large enough to crash through Wulls castle. It truly was a foolish idea to advance from the front on a creature of this size on the bare ground. Perhaps it would be possible to slip under and slash creatures moving around on two or four legs, but if you were to try something like that on an organism crawling with their stomach to the ground like this, you would simply get sucked into their forward movement, run over, and end up a dead mess.

For better or for worse, the caterpillar itself seemed to be non-active, only wriggling in a relaxed manner to find a good spot to sit and not exhibiting any hostile behavior. However, even if this was just a caterpillar they were dealing with, if they were to end up not killing it all the way in one attack and it registered the damage, it wouldn’t be surprising for it to get angry and throw out some crazy attacks. Thankfully, none of the knights currently had any projectiles, and the mages were wavering about whether they should use attack magic or not, so no one had yet attempted any actual attacks.

Meanwhile, Hiroshi was all smiles when he saw that troublesome creature, eyes glinting. Normally one would question whether he had gone insane or not, but for those who knew about his track record or skills, they would be more likely to get what he was thinking.

「Hey, Hiroshi-kun. Could it be that…」

「Mio! Get me some o’them wood materials for a foothold ’n makin’ barrels! Brother, you ’n the other mages can fixate it in a suitable place with bind magic! Elle, or Goddess! Can ya get some mana to flow up from the earth and feed that to it!?」

Not answering Haruna’s question of realization, Hiroshi suddenly fired out rapid instructions. Unable to react to the sudden words, everyone just stared dumbfounded.

「There shouldn’t be any issue with the earth, Hiroshi-sama.」

Unlike the other people who couldn’t react quickly enough to his orders, Aearis answered joyfully like a dog wagging its tail in her eagerness to be of use to him. As everyone saw that, they returned to themselves and proceeded to carry out Hiroshi’s instructions. No one had any issues with following orders from the likes of a lower-class adventurer. It was more like they had determined that in a situation like this with no clear instructions, they may as well carry out someone’s order to see if it worked.

「If so, then how ’bout ya feed ’im a round of earth magic! Every other mage will still be focusin’ on gittin’ dat caterpillar into a fixed position! But don’t use any magic that’ll damage the thing! Once yer through with that, put a buncha healing or defensive or support magic on it without damaging it so that it eats the mana!」

「Understood!」

Happily following Hiroshi’s orders, Aearis poured more than enough mana from the earth and spirit channels in as the mages were furtively keeping the caterpillar in place.

「Hiroshi-kun, should I also get to pouring in the mana?」

Haruna felt like she could do it as she watched them, hence the proposal. However, Hiroshi shook his head at the idea:

「Based on yer practice, ya’d best help out Mio. Also, I’d like to have the other people gather as much spool as they can! Takes ’bout three days for it to make a cocoon ’n settle down, so during that interval, gather all that ya can!」

「R-Right now?」

「I am fairly certain that the shops in the castle town would be closing around this time……」

「Nah, all ya gotta do is go over to bars or restaurants ’n collect whatever they finished using. There’s also the stuff in the castle.」

Taken aback at Hiroshi’s directions, the knights made haste and scattered downtown to use human-wave tactics. Behind them, the mana-sucking caterpillar began spewing out thread to make a cocoon.

「Now then, this is the fight of a lifetime. Let’s see how far ya fulfill my expectations hereafter.」

As he nodded satisfactorily at the cocoon that was being made, Hiroshi decided to participate in barrel-making for the time being, leaving the area.

It was a rather unusual sight.

「Mio! It’s ’bout time for the one on top to open. You ready!?」

It was the morning of the sixth day since the emergence of the caterpillar and the morning of the third day since the cocoon had been completed. Upon completion, Hiroshi had been continuously weaving the thread at a terrifying speed when he suddenly raised his voice. Incidentally, he had not gotten a wink of sleep, nor had he stopped his hand even for a second since he had begun weaving. He managed to stay hydrated with a mana potion and ate whatever Haruna gave him that wouldn’t dirty his hands. With movements that didn’t refine anything more than necessary, he had finished the weaving process without stopping even once.

「Anytime!」

Mio answered Hiroshi’s call from where she was standing on the newly built scaffolding. She was currently standing in a higher position than the highest rooftop of Wulls Castle. If they hadn’t gone to such lengths, then they wouldn’t have been able to see the top of the cocoon that was high in the sky. Doubtless, one can imagine the sheer magnitude just by hearing that.

「Hey, Hiroshi.」

Makoto, who had come to retrieve the thread that had accumulated to Hiroshi’s side, called out to him in order to clear up something from the earlier conversation. During that time, a lot more spool was made and laid out, increasing the harvest. From what she saw at a glance, Makoto realized that the center was wrapped quite tightly, and yet it didn’t even take ten seconds to make each spool. Also, even though they were weaving thread at this speed, they had thoroughly laid automatic repair enchantments on everything, so if a regular craftsman were to look at this sight, he would possibly lose his sanity.

「What’s up?」

「What do you mean by the one on top opening?」

「Yeah. The chrysalis inside the cocoon should be visible purty soon.」

「And there’s something inside?」

「Yeah, if ya open the chrysalis, you git soup that you can use for all sorta things.」

Hiroshi answered in a nonchalant, detached voice as he continued to move his hand without stopping. Upon hearing his answer, Makoto simply made a face that screamed “The heck?!”.

「And it…wouldn’t happen to be its bodily fluid, right?」

「Sure would. At the moment it should be about startin’ to completely melt ’n then transform into a new body, so I bet we can take a super large amount.」

This caterpillar, despite its large frame, only took about ten days to grow wings after making cocoons. Therefore, the best time to gather that liquid was confined (ignoring the embryo) to when it was utterly melted around two to three days after the cocoon was complete. The fourth day after the cocoon was completed was when the torso would begin developing, the body would be practically complete on the fifth day, and on the sixth day, it would practically be a mature adult. In that sense, even weaving the thread would normally be done barely around the fourth day of the cocoon’s completion.

「Makoto-san. After ya git that cleared up, help out with gatherin’ barrels.」

「Yes, yes. But just what is this thread?」

「It’s soul thread, which is an ingredient for soul cloth. This thread is the highest level product amongst all threads.」

Makoto nearly dropped the spool of thread that she had collected when she heard Hiroshi’s absurd reply. He made a wry smile when he saw that, but proceeded to continue to use time and effort efficiently by gulping down a mana potion while continuing to work on the spool some more.

「Well, so that’s how it is. Even if we have a mountain o’these suckers, ya best deal with them pretty carefully.」

「R-Roger that…」

Feeling dizzy at the sudden outpouring of the thread that was legendary even in the actual game, Makoto decided to carry the thread she had collected to the provisional storehouse. By the time she turned back, it had already piled up to the size of a calf, but even then, as if to say “I can still make a bunch more, yo!”, the cocoon continued to accumulate thread and make her dizzy.

Furthermore, as to why they went so far as to prepare the provisional storehouse, it was simply because it exceeded the current capacity that Azuma Workshop’s storehouse had. Since they had been continuously gathering large amounts of materials from valuable sources as of late, even the workshop that had been expanded to the max was beginning to show signs of needing alternative storage locations.

「Now then, will the thread ’n barrels do the trick, eh…?」

Gathering up all the spool thread cores that they could in Wulls, they had even advanced to neighboring villages and collected/accumulated everything they could when they didn’t have enough, but this storehouse already only had about 30% free space left. Judging from the looks of things, they might just be able to barely squeeze in all of the thread.

In all honesty, they had no choice but to admit that they were glad that they didn’t have to do something as outrageous as use the spirit trees to manufacture the spool with a bunch of enchantments in order to wind the spirit thread. Of course, since regular cores would simply break during the winding process, there was a need to make a miniature adjustment before winding, but he had confidence that work of that level could be done while he was sleeping.

The real troublesome issue was with the barrels. Since only Hiroshi and Mio were the ones making them, even if Mio had continuously made them until yesterday, they wouldn’t have reached a thousand. He was pretty sure that they wouldn’t have been able to take out the remaining portion from the bottom anyway, although it was a bit risky to think that way.

「Well, we just gotta do what we can.」

He concluded with that feeling as he raised the speed of the thread winding. As for the result, when there were about three spools left, the cocoon all transformed into thread. As for the barrels, as expected, they were lacking in quantity, which prompted Hiroshi to briefly stop his work in order to fertilize them and then spread them all around the castle’s herb garden.

「Alright, we’re all done!!」

It was the late morning of the fifth day of the cocoon that Hiroshi’s yell echoed throughout Wulls Castle. Having finally accomplished the project after four days, after he confirmed once more that they had finished all the work, he at last let his body lie down from max fatigue.

「Good job, Hiroshi-kun.」

「Good job, Hiroshi-sama.」

Haruna and Aearis gave Hiroshi soft words of appreciation as he went fast to sleep with his face showing satisfaction. Haruna figured that it would be unreasonable to leave him sleeping here, thinking to call someone over, but then thought of a sudden prank. After calling Mio over as well, the three girls checked to make sure that Hiroshi showed no signs of waking up from his deep slumber before carrying him secretively into a room.

「I guess that just about does it for this affair?」

「I’ll say. It is probably the end of any work for me, with my lack of jurisdiction, as well as everyone else, who should have been outsiders in the first place.」

「Now all we need is for His Highness and His Lordship to do their part.」

The three girls whispered quietly as they watched over Hiroshi drooling in his sleep.

「Really, what a great job.」

Excited for more than one reason, Haruna softly touched Hiroshi’s hand. This was how the string of events that attacked Farlane had been resolved, in a very inexpressible way.