༺ Lumberjacks in the Lumber Yard (1) ༻
Clank— Clank—
I have had this thought for a while already, but the horse-drawn carriages in this world were too horrible to be classified as comfortable rides.
While it was referred to as a horse-drawn carriage, in reality, it was more like a wagon since it only had a luggage compartment.
A more accurate reason for this problem would have been that the road or street, in the first place, was bumpy and unorganized to the extreme.
Clank—
It felt really painful when my butt bumped into the hard wooden floor of the carriage every time the wheels went over a protruding stone while loudly creaking.
It seems like this world’s aristocrats, and high-ranking adventurers bought their own private carriages and rode them around.
One day, I’d like to buy a carriage with good cushioning and ride it around too.
However, for the time being, I had no choice but to find a comfortable posture by tossing and turning in various ways to get used to this unpleasant ride.
If I moved for about half a day like this, I would arrive at the lumber yard. It was located in the west of Sodomora city.
“So how many lives have you killed till now, Pointy Ears?”
Everyone was arranging their equipment without uttering anything. Renee, the bronze-tier female warrior, who was diligently wiping the oil off her sword, opened her mouth to speak first.
The bald elf, who was muttering a prayer by himself, promptly replied to her question.
“This monk shan’t kill anyone. The nature of the unknown world isn’t about stealing or taking away, but coexisting with each other.”
“Elves really do spout some nonsensical stuff, don’t they? It doesn’t make sense to believe that a big tree is a god, in the first place. A God must be strong and cool. For example our Lord Mars.”
“There are many different forms of faith.”
“Alright, let’s say that you really don’t kill any living beings. . Then do you not even eat meat?”
“I don’t eat meat. Eating is done for the sake of filling one’s stomach, after all.”
Khalidur, the bald elf, was a little eccentric as it seemed. In this world where there was no other delicious food than grilled meat, what would you eat if you didn’t even eat that?
Were there some differences even between the elves? In Elfriede’s case, she wouldn’t even bother at all if there was no meat on the menu.
Immersed in the story, Luna opened her mouth after a long time and spoke.
“If you don’t eat meat, then do you only eat grass?”
“That’s right. We mostly only eat vegetables and fruits. That’s enough for us, Alfheim elves. How sad it is…tormenting another life just to fill your stomach?”
Was he something like this world’s version of vegans? Not very surprising, as not eating meat was one of the fundamental doctrines that would come up when discussing religious matters.
Basically, it had the same context as forbidding the act of killing. But I couldn’t believe that there was a religion that would forbid killing in this barbaric world. It was a little bit unexpected.
In Mars, the guild where I belonged to, “kill a lot and fight a lot” was our sole motto. How could there be a nonviolent religion? There was a huge difference between him and Elfriede, who was also an elf.
At that time, Luna spoke up once more.
“But grass and trees can also feel pain. Yet, you are allowed to eat them?”
Clank— Clank—
After Luna threw that question, silence momentarily filled the carriage. Laughter immediately broke from the bald Khalidur’s lips as he revealed his white teeth through his brown beard.
“Haha, this sister from this land said something incredibly funny. It’s the first time I’ve heard that grass and trees can feel pain.”
After saying that, he burst into laughter once again as if he had just heard a hilarious story. At the same time, Renee was also showing an expression that made it seem like Luna was blabbering nonsense.
I used to go through the internet to read the news, and I remembered seeing an article talking about this story. I couldn’t remember the exact words of the article clearly, but it more or less said that a particular experiment had shown that plants also feel fear and pain.
In a way, Luna’s opinion held a pioneering insight that was about hundreds to a thousand years ahead of her time.
“I-It’s true. Even grass and trees can feel pain…!” “
“Quiet! Let’s stop talking about what we eat. When we are at the lumber yard, you better not cause any disturbances because a warrior of Mars will slash down anything in their path.”
After saying that, Renee slid her sword back into the sheath. The carriage was again filled with an awkward air of silence, with only the rattling sound of the carriage that could be heard every now and then.
I asked Luna, who was looking at the clouds in the sky.
“What should I do at the lumber yard?”
Luna had more experience as an adventurer than I did. Therefore, although she looked like she knew nothing, she had knowledge in some areas that I did not.
“At the lumber yard? There are all kinds of jobs we can do there. We can cut down the trees, pull weeds, and can also drive away demons and beasts that appear nearby. Honestly, I’m also not really sure about what to do. This is my first time going there in person because it is a job that only a bronze-tier adventurer can do.”
Could I safely say that we would all be doing the miscellaneous work in a place with many trees? For more accurate information related to what the job might entail, I would have to reach the place and see for myself.
* * * * * *
The lumber yard was precisely like what I had imagined it to be. A long line of large trees dominated the forest, and stumps littered the ground. Depending on one’s mindset this could ever be seen as a friendly scene of lumberjacks doing their work or as a terrifying place filled with people who were holding frightening weapons.
However, if there was something that went beyond my imagination, then it would be the size of the trees.
Damn it, the trees here were at least about some tens of meters tall. The thickness of the trunk was also so great that it even far exceeded the size of Luna’s cabin.
In fact, there was a gap between the trees. That gap seemed to be a resting place and office for the lumberjacks. I couldn’t believe this. How could a house be built inside the tree itself? Therefore, the scene made me frown.
However, when I went inside, I felt like I was inside a house that had come out of a fairy tale with all the adorable furniture, the candlestick on the wall, and the tablecloth.
The problem was that everything in this place was too small, so someone with a big figure like me had to bend down to fit inside. Of course, the reason for the small size was because of a certain person.
“Oh, you’re here. I sent a request to the guild and eagerly awaited for the adventurers to come!”
Joseph, the owner of the lumber yard, was a man who was uncommonly much shorter than even Luna. He came from a race of dwarfs that were usually chunky and very muscular, so they looked like pebbles.
Although I had already encountered this race several times before, a person of this race was always intriguing to me, no matter how often I saw them. How could a race like theirs exist?
Then Joseph shouted angrily out of nowhere, causing his coolly braided red beard to flutter.
“Some motherfuckers are destroying my lumber yard! Please do something about it!”
Our party was utterly dumbfounded at Joseph’s sudden outburst, filled with vigor, What on earth was making this man so angry?
Then Renee, the party leader, calmly opened her mouth and spoke.
“Calm down. What’s the actual problem here?”
“There’s a very serious problem here! Those demon-like bastards are gnawing on my livelihood! Those bastards are Pluto’s henchmen, I tell you. The true motherfuckers from hell!”
A moment of silence fell on the lumber yard at the word of Pluto’s henchmen. Everyone narrowed their brows with a serious look, and so did I. I folded my arms and took a serious stance, mirroring the others.
“Are there any Pluto’s ruins near this place? If it’s something like malignant beasts or spirits coming out from that place, I’m afraid that it is not something we can solve.”
In contrast to her confident statement, Renee’s facial expression didn’t really match her voice.
However, her words were very reasonable, and most of the work related to Pluto’s ruins was a heavy task that needed the exclusive participation of silver-tier adventurers to solve.
In other words, it had nothing to do with someone who had just become a bronze-tier adventurer like Luna and me.
“There are no such things as ruins here. It’s just a tree. But it is a terrible tree!”
Joseph, the lumber yard owner, said that in a way as if he was trying to scare the shit out of us. Fuck, I came here thinking that I would just need to cut down a few trees and pull out some weeds. However, the situation turned out to be more serious than I had ever imagined it to be.
Luna threw a question at Joseph while I was feeling a little nervous from the sudden seriousness of the situation.
“What do you mean, how could a tree be terrible? Did the tree get sick or something?”
“You can say it’s something similar to that. However, please listen carefully—”
Crack— Clack— Clack—
When Joseph tried to explain something, a loud sound came from outside the tree house as if something was breaking and falling in the distance.
“T-These motherfuckers! How dare you have the galls to show up here!”
Joseph, the lumberjack, ran outside, brimming with deep and ravenous anger. He was clutching the axe that was previously placed on the wall.
At the sudden appearance of an unknown commotion, I, Luna, and all the party members had no choice but to follow him outside.
T-reeee— Tree—
Triiiii—
Following Joseph, as I went outside, the things that I saw first were trees moving around the lumber yard. The trees were as big as me, and they were moving on their own, dragging their roots on the ground!
Fuck, did it make sense for trees to be alive and moving like this? I didn’t believe that I was hallucinating. This seemed to be real.
“I’ll turn you all into a table, you punks!”
Joseph swiftly landed an axe the size of his body on the moving trees.
Crash— Crash—
Treeee—!
Then, from the tree, amber-colored sap began dripping out as though the tree was spouting blood. The tree then fell to the ground, making a loud noise.
“What are you guys doing? Hurry up! Cut it down! Don’t let these motherfuckers take root on this land! These guys will suck up all the nutrients from the soil!”
Unsheath— Unsheath—
At the urgent voice of Joseph — the lumberjack — Renee and I immediately pulled out our swords. However, while I was still seriously considering whether I could cut down these trees with this damn sword, Renee charged in with her sword held high.
“Araright!”
Then, her sword pierced into the thick pillar of the strangely wriggling tree.
Thrust—
Eeeee—!
The moving tree screamed as the blade made a slashing sound while deeply piercing the tree’s body. Damn it, I couldn’t believe that a tree could scream like that, and although it felt strange to describe a tree screaming, it was something that truly happened in front of me.
“W-Why isn’t my blade coming out? What should I do?”
However, Renee, who had driven the blade inside the tree, became flustered when her blade pierced deeper than she thought and wasn’t budging from its place. So, she started grunting while trying to pull the blade out of the tree trunk with all her might.
Treeughh !
Just then, the distressed tree, spouting sap from its wound, moved its branch and smacked Renee’s cheek with all its might.
“Ukh—!”
Screaming in anguish, Renee then fell far away, due to the force of the blow she received. Then the way she was wriggling, twitching, and trembling on the ground seemed quite pathetic.
Eeee—
Reeee—
Crack— Crack— Clack—
However, the problem right now wasn’t the fallen Renee. Perhaps because of the sudden attack, the trees became angry and began to surround us all at once.
Crackle— Crackle—
Facing the living forest’s siege, I felt like my whole body had become drained of all its colors.
Moreover, those motherfuckers only spewed fluid from the area Renee slashed with her sword, but they did not seem to have sustained any serious injuries.
“Hey, Luna, can we really do nothing about them?
“Stompers can be easily knocked down when we set them on fire. Their sap burns easily!”
Stompers? Did she mean it was what those tree monsters were called? Was setting this forest on fire really a good idea? Yes, indeed, there was nothing that could beat trees better than fire.
In fact, there was no exaggeration to say that most of the problems in this world could be solved by setting them on fire.
“No fire is allowed! Do you want to see all the trees in the lumber yard also get burnt? If I could solve this situation by doing something simple as that, I would have already had them decimated long ago!”
However, Joseph, the lumberjack, firmly forbade us to use fire to solve this situation. It must be because he would rather die than have the trees in his lumber yard — which was his livelihood — get caught up in a fire.
Holy shit, what the hell was I supposed to do now?
Just like that, Luna and I could only shiver in fear as the trees narrowed the distance. Why didn’t the bald elf, who had been watching this situation for a long time, come forward yet?
“Following the teachings of the great tree of the world, the monks of Alfheim always treat nature as their friends. Stompers are also a part of nature. I’ll come forward and try to solve this—”
Slide—
The roots and branches of the stompers suddenly wrapped around the bald elf’s ankle before he even could finish talking.
The bald elf’s body floated in the air like a rabbit caught in a trap. Twigs and roots began to infiltrate his clothes and wrap around his body!
“Please let me go, my friends!”
“L-Let me go! What the hell is this? Huh, where are they coming from? Argh!”
Other than that baldy, Renee was also lying on the floor in the same state. Small roots were penetrating through the joints of her armor.
I was worried that Luna and I might also fall victim to the stompers’ terrible tentacle attacks if we stayed like this. Therefore I swung my double swords wanting to at least do something to solve this situation rather than stay still and die without even putting out a fight.
Whoosh— Bam— Bam—!
My double swords soon pierced the huge wooden pillars of the stompers, and, as expected, they didn’t budge at all. Damn it! It was too much, wanting to cut a tree was still too much, it seems!
Gasp—
Still, when I mustered out all my strength, I somehow succeeded in pulling out my swords. And then, the stompers started spouting sap-like blood and faltered back.
If I did it well, is it possible to deal with them one at a time? With that thought in mind, I swung my sword again.
Tung!
Unlike before, when I swung my swords strongly, they would quickly bounce off without being stuck in the wooden pillar.
I wondered what was going on, but then I found out that the sap stuck to the swords was spreading along the edge and coating the blades, ruining the sharpness of the blade.
Sticky— Sticky—
Damn it, it was impossible to cut these trees down. What was I supposed to do now?
“There, big guy! Use this!”
At that time, something flew in front of me, followed by a swooshing sound, hitting the tree trunk. Due to the shock, the stomper, which was attempting to attack me, fell to the ground.
I wondered what it was. Looking at it, it turned out to be a giant axe. In fact, it was more appropriate to call it a huge lump of iron or a Battle Axe rather than an axe to cut down trees.
“Fucking hell!”
However, I didn’t have much choice in this situation I got myself tangled up in, so I grabbed the thick handle, pulled the axe out of the wooden body of the tree, and hit the stomper’s body with all my might.
Pull— Crash—!
Then, along with a deafening noise, that stomper’s thick body split vertically in two…
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