Chapter 54 | Tatsuya Mercenary Company

More than a hundred abnormals all ran around, carrying all kinds of building materials with utmost efficiency.

A piece of log that would normally require at least ten people to carry was being carried around by a single person.

Concrete that normally required hours of excruciating mixing was being mixed by a single, frail-looking guy at breakneck speed.

Even Kazuma was included, using a shovel to dig out massive piles of dirt from the forest floor rapidly. He was messy and covered in grime. With that dead-fish look in his eyes, it was easy to see that he wasn’t enjoying this at all.

“You have a lot of money,” Tatsuya commented with his hands crossed behind him. Theo couldn’t help but raise a brow. What the hell was this guy talking about out of nowhere? “You even bought all the materials yourself. I thought that was included in our payment.”

“Damn. Really?” Theo frowned. If he knew that, he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to supply the outpost building materials.

They were currently in a forest, slightly west of the frontlines. Another day, and they would be facing some of the bandit forces. The closest settlement was a mid-sized town with a population of several tens of thousands.

This place was one of the targets for the Establish Locus sub-quests. With the help of the mercenary group, they would be able to build a base and also fight the bandits.

As far as Theo’s guess went, the mercenaries would have probably bailed on the quest if they didn’t have two more first-rates by their side.

As a prominent mercenary group so close to the frontlines, Tatsuya and his men were quite familiar with the ongoing of The Bandittide. Consequently, they knew that they would be facing bandit gangs with first-rate leaders. If unlucky, there could even be more than one first-rate in a single engagement.

Though they now had 3 first-rates and tens of main character templates with them. The weakest of the main characters were high-end third-rates, with the average being second-rate warriors. Even though a hundred people or so wasn’t that big of a force, having most of them be second-rates was an absolutely unhinged fact. Only the Empire’s forces had the same quality on the human half of Renovael.

“The surroundings are clean,” Satou suddenly appeared next to Theo, making Tatsuya’s eye twitch in annoyance. He didn’t seem to like his stealthy methods. Theo was unfazed, however. He was used to Satou after all.

“That’s good. We should have the time to finish the stuff up.”

“Mhm. The closest skirmish is about fifty kilometers eastward between a knight company and a mid-sized bandit gang. It seemed like the knights were about to fall back,” Satou said.

“They must have heard of us,” Theo nodded. Obviously, they couldn’t randomly join a war. They were joining on the knight’s side, and they had gotten in contact with one of the central knight companies. The knight lieutenant was more than willing to have such a strong group join their war efforts and had permitted their participation.

He was also fine with the place Theo had chosen. Apparently, this was the convergence point of several trade and supply routes. It needed defence, but the other wings of the frontlines weren’t free enough to move forces over. Theo and his team had practically chosen the perfect spot for them.

Well, his system had, but still…

“Hey man, we need help over here!” One of the mercenaries ran up to Theo. Being an Earthling, Theo had gotten familiar with most of the abnormals pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, that came with the downside of the employer-employee relationship getting a bit compromised.

Although the building efforts were going pretty well, having a mage that could raise earth was a major help. For some reason, none of the main characters here were mages. Theo seemed to be special in that aspect.

“I’m coming,” he sighed and followed along. He quickly held his hands downward and started rapidly casting very minor earthen walls to adjust the floor.

Why am I the only mage? Normally, there wouldn’t be this big a ratio disparity between warrior protagonists and mage protagonists… Theo contemplated. Truly, he hadn’t seen another mage main character so far. Well, not like he had met many mages either, but that didn’t change the fact that none of the mages he had seen so far were main characters.

“Wow! He’s so good at this,” a guy with blonde hair muttered, his face against the ground as he was checking if the ground was even. His name was Ronald.

“Right? You could make a lot of money doing this stuff, you know?” Another added, patting Theo on the shoulder.

Theo’s mouth twitched as he kept adjusting the floor.

“What was this for again?” he asked.

“This will be one of the guard towers,” Ronald answered. He was a main character with a swordsman template. He was also a transmigrator, taking over the body of a previous street thug and having a sudden change. He was apparently the bastard child of a noble, and Tatsuya had saved him from a bunch of assassins.

“I see,” Theo answered as he finished up. He clapped his hands and let the rest of the guys handle the building.

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He walked back up to Satou and Tatsuya, massaging his nape. Long Tian and Emma were off somewhere. Well, Long Tian was off somewhere, and Emma was busy bothering him.

“…And they usuall- Oh. You’re back? How many times has this been now? 15?” Tatsuya asked. Tatsuya was actually pretty young, a year younger than Theo himself. He was also very casual and friendly. Theo had expected him to be some brooding mercenary boss, but that wasn’t the case.

“Yeah. Probably something like that. We are a bit short on time,” Theo muttered as he checked his system panel.

[Establish Locus]

[Sub-quest]

[Location: Expand/Collapse]

[Secure the trade-route, fortify the location, and fight off three waves of bandits in three days.]

[Ally forces: 917/1500]

[Fortifications: 87/100]

[Waves: 0/3]

[Waves start in: 0:00:12:29:11]

[Reward: 1% participation points for defending against the first wave.