23 Chapter 23 - Rebuilding the Nation

Chapter 23 – Rebuilding the Nation

Author's Note: None today!

Quite frankly, the country's management was a mess.

From the papers on the king's desk, I learned that the kingdom had a severe monster problem, and he hired way too many mercenaries which led to the high taxes. I actually feel bad for getting the guy killed since he was doing his best, but what's done is done.

So, at this point, I had two priorities on my hands. One, eliminate the monster nest that was causing all the monsters to run rampant. Two, distribute the new BioSeeds to the peasants and redistribute them land from the nobles.

Seeing this problem, I asked Rishia to quickly write a new law that would give the peasants all the land that they were working on, with the nobles still retaining much of their land and their manors. Quite frankly, this was the best I could do to not piss them off too much while also revitalizing the agricultural sector.

And so, the Land Reapportionment Act passed unanimously through the 12-member national council, with the Prime Minister also signing off on it. They also passed my 3-year plan, which planned to use magic to create factories, which would operate on magically powered furnaces and steam engines and would consist of tons of Bessemer converters to create heaps of cheap steel. I also passed an executive order, cancelling all mercenary contracts that the king signed. The radical revolutionaries were obviously on board with this idea. They also sent messengers all around the country to inform the peasants of upcoming elections and their new rights.

On the streets of Messeblick, the citizens cheered as they heard of the new acts passed by the council. I greeted them a warm goodbye as I headed off to deal with the crises on my hands. The provisional president had no real powers anyways and was essentially a figurehead. That was exactly what I wanted, so that I could still go out and grind levels while the country could run itself.

According to the king's manuscripts, which I studied fervently the night before, the monster crisis was originating from a large mountain near the north-east of the country, which was dubbed "Monster Hill" by the locals. My plan was to distribute these seeds along the way and force the nobles to relinquish some land to the peasantry.

This plan went pretty well so far, with the vast majority of nobles, which very few remained due to the constant internal strife, begrudgingly agreeing to the newly-passed Land Reapportionment Act as it allowed them to retain much of their land and the fact that I was viewed as a revered religious figure. The few that didn't agree were swarmed by peasants and were forced at bow point to agree to the act.

Villagers far and wide, recently hearing of the news of the successful revolution, were applauding me as I arrived, delivering to them what they dubbed as the "Seeds of Miracle." I had gathered thousands of these seeds from Lerno, which had a massive surplus of seeds which was way more than they needed to feed themselves, and possibly the entire county over.

Soon after, I had reached the mountain. It wasn't exactly that large, at least compared to the border mountains between Melromarc and Arcium, but it was still impressive in its own right.

"Alright," I told my party. "The plan is simple. Go in there, kill as many monsters as you can, come out and sleep, and repeat. We will do this as long as it takes until the monsters are all dead, and hopefully we level up to 60-something."

"That's a good plan if I've ever seen one." Indigo remarked. "Short, simple, and straight to the point."

Eda, Welst and Rojeel all nodded in agreement.

After the break, we all entered the monster cave and went our separate ways. All of us should be strong enough to eliminate the monsters by ourselves and splitting up would cover more ground. The priority here was to eliminate the monsters and get out alive. Nothing else mattered.

Twang!

With the release of my bowstring, another dozen monsters fell dead. Over my numerous grinding and battle experiences, I had learned a way to draw the bowstring even faster than I could before, which really only facilitated killing lower leveled monsters, but these monsters were only slightly higher than my own level, and due to my legendary hero status, it should be easy to wipe them out.

I forced my way towards the center of the cave, after breezing through a multitude of spiders, lizards, and other creepy crawlies. I had leveled up quite a few times in the process, though evidently the amount of level ups has slowed down due to the higher experience requirement for higher levels.

Right as I was about to pack my bags, the most horrific monster that I had ever seen emerged. It had 8 eyes, 16 legs, was as large as a school bus, and had abnormal spikes poking out all over its body. This thing was at least level 80.

I shot a few arrows at it. It barely did anything.

"Indigo! Eda! Welst! Rojeel! Rishia! Help!!!!"

I fled the large central area of the cave and snuck my way into a tunnel where the monster couldn't get it. It clawed and clawed, causing rocks to collapse, one almost turning me into a pancake.

Luckily, the five party members quickly arrived at my aid. They swarmed the boss and began inflicting damage on it, though it wasn't particularly effective.

Emboldened by my sudden support, I emerged from my hiding spot and began spamming as many shots as I could onto the boss. Since we didn't have any particularly powerful attacks on us, the only option I had was to fire a multitude of weaker attacks to deal more damage per second, rather than going for powerful, long reload attacks.

Suddenly, the abomination launched a web of silk at me. I quickly dodged it, but it caught Eda off guard and pinned her to the wall.

Seeing this, the rest of my party retreated into a defensive formation, with Rojeel and Indigo at the front, and Rishia and myself in the rear. Welst stood in the middle, chanting spells that hurled themselves at the monster.

I was absolutely exhausted, and the rest of my party was as well. We were terribly low on pretty much everything, and it appeared that we were going to break soon.

A sudden but powerful attack swept Rojeel off his feet, and he was rendered unconscious as he flew towards the ceiling. We only had four people left.

A gust of wind knocked Welst to the ground, rendering her unconscious as well. Three people remaining.

Absolutely desperate, I struggled to control my emotions. I didn't want to die! I had come so far.

Feeling absolutely enraged, I fired my arrows faster than I ever had. Encouraged by this sudden show of courage and strength, Indigo and Rishia sped up their attacks.

With one final halberd to the leg, the creature lay dead. While Indigo looted the boss, Rishia and I tended to our wounded comrades.

"Thanks, Satoshi." Rojeel said as he winced in pain. "Without you, we'd all be dead."

"No problem. Let's just get out of here and rest for the night. We have probably wiped-out 90 percent of the monsters in this cave system, and we can take care of the small fries tomorrow."

Despite this costly victory, there would still be monsters roaming around. We had destroyed their eggs and burnt the walls of the cave to dust, preventing any further reproduction. This problem would eventually fade away, as the monsters would slowly run out of numbers and die out.

That night, our exhausted party could do nothing but sleep. We had even forgotten about dinner. We were just happy to be alive.

Chapter 24 out soon!