It had been a few days since we started rebuilding all the villager's homes. Vespera was already done with the concrete wall to protect the place, so she was now helping me construct all the new buildings.
Yoru couldn't do much since he couldn't use earth or nature magic that well, so I told him to scout around the village just in case any monsters tried to attack us during our work times.
The shadow dogs were in the same boat. Although they weren't technically my familiars, they still listened to me if I asked them to do something.
I asked all the shadow dogs to keep watch around the village, again, just in case a monster slipped through and somehow made it in.
It was pretty funny seeing the villagers interact with the shadow dogs. These were supposed to be strong beasts that were violent and vicious, but they all acted like cute little puppies with the villagers.
I saw a kid playing with one of them, probably around seven years old. I think he was the child of that nice lady who let me stay in her house the first time I arrived here.
Although, I didn't talk to him back then since he seemed a bit shy at the time.
'To me, this just looks like a kid having fun with his pet. In reality, it's a kid having fun with a vicious beast.' I thought as I glanced at the shadow dog that was being petted by the kid. 'Aww, that's a cute beast, though…'
"Heeeey, big brother Ichiro!" yelled the kid as he waved at me.
"Hey! Sorry, I never got your name…" I said after I approached the kid.
"I'm Luke!" he said confidently.
'I guess he isn't shy anymore…'
"Do you like shadow dogs?" I asked.
"Mhmm! I love them! This one is always playing with me too!"
"Hah, that's good!" I said as I gave the kid a pat on the head.
We ended up building a huge shadow dog area next to the village for them to get fed. Two of the dogs were pregnant, so we had them rest there.
Aside from that, we also built a town hall. It wasn't huge or anything, but it was big enough to hold all the villagers in case we had an emergency where they needed to be sheltered.
I also built a few offices inside, thinking that Jackson could use them from time to time. When I told him that, he said: "But I'm not really the mayor, though." and he had a point.
But honestly, the Lord hadn't shown up once ever since I got to the village. In fact, we were making all these changes and I was certain that he didn't know about them.
For all we knew, the Lord could've been dead a long time ago, and the village had just been forsaken by the kingdom.
Either way, it took us three days to fully build the town hall, which was now the biggest building in the village.
Since I didn't really have the time to go hunting and trading with the villagers during all that work, I asked Vespera to have her demon spiders gather materials from the forest and hunt down any edible monster, then bring them to us.
Once again, it was quite funny seeing the villagers interacting with the demon spiders that were bringing all of those supplies to the village.
It took a bit longer for the villagers to get acquainted with the spiders, which was understandable, considering shadow dogs could be cute, and demon spiders were mostly scary.
However, once they saw the spiders bringing in fruits, vegetables, meat, and wood, they realized they had gained a powerful ally. Of course, people weren't as inclined to pet them as a shadow dog, but these spiders didn't really crave, or like affection like shadow dogs did, so it was fine.
After we were done building all of the villager's houses, I started building a few extras, one for myself and my familiars, and the rest in case new people moved into the village.
It was during that time that Vespera came to me with bad news.
"Ichiro… we found them…" she said.
"You did!? Where!?"
"They are still a bit far from here. From what I can tell, they are two days away… But…"
"But?" I asked with expectancy.
"It's not the cave we found, Ichiro. The entire goblin horde of the forest is coming this way…"
I immediately went running to see Jackson, who was hanging out at his new home. I told him that Vespera's demon spiders had seen the entire goblin horde coming this way.
From what she told me, there were hundreds of goblins, about a dozen hobgoblins, two goblin champions, and the Goblin King.
"Vespera said they are about two days away…"
"I see, so we have no time to ask for backup in any of the cities… Goblins won't attack during the day. They always raid at night. We should use the time we have to make preparations quickly!" Jackson exclaimed as he made haste outside.
Operation "Destroy the Goblins" had begun. I spent a few hours making tons of weapons and gear for the villagers, with Vespera's help, of course.
We thought it would be safer if they all had a way to defend themselves in case we couldn't stop all of the goblins.
There were 16 adventurers in total, including Jackson, eight village guards, eight shadow dogs, my two familiars, and me. We were in for a pretty rough time, to say the least.
I had never seen any of the other goblin variants that Vespera mentioned, so she told me a little bit about them.
Hobgoblins were a taller and stronger version of the goblins. Apparently, they were ranked B, and some of them could be as tall as 6 feet.
The good thing was that they couldn't use magic, so they depended heavily on their sluggish movement and weapons.
Goblin champions were ranked A. Vespera told me that those guys could actually cast some magic and, in some cases, regenerate their wounds.
They were a bit taller than the hobgoblins, but they were born in a completely different way.
Hobgoblins were goblins that evolved with time, while Champion Goblins were born from humanoid women that had been toyed with by the goblins.
The fact that they had two of them meant that they had captured some.
The Goblin King, of course, was the leader of the entire horde. He was ranked S and was said to be able to cast extremely powerful magic.
It was from his magic that the goblins were created, so they all saw this creature as their god. When I asked Vespera where the Goblin King came from, she said that only Devils were able to create those monsters.
'Devils, huh? Sounds scary…'