Get Rich Quick!

Alaric was currently outlining ideas and plans he had in mind for the acquisition of a gold coin. Normally only those wealthy nobles in bigger towns and cities had access to gold coins, but getting 1,000 silver coins was still in the realm of possibility.

He considered many ideas, such as bringing a new invention to the table, but they were all too long-term. Alaric's time limit was only 1 week.

"I guess the only way to get a good amount of coin is to go to the villages surrounding the forest. Of the 5, the richest are the Ryder Village and White Bridge.

White Bridge is a bit tricky, Chief Forger said that they're infinitely close to becoming a town, and are extremely prosperous. The Ryder Village, however rich they are, isn't anywhere near as threatening as White Bridge. The Ryder family controls all of the village's assets... and they're corrupt.

Although the Ryders were rich, they didn't invest much into the village's prosperity, the military isn't impossible to defeat, Wurst's existence alone scared them off, and they only have 2 weaker awakeners at the fray.

Rather than selling their hunt like the other 4 villages, Ryder Village makes its money through the extortion of the villagers."

In fact, Alaric hated the Ryder Village almost as much as Ravio Forger, the village chief. They were corrupt, but got away with it, while the other villages put in the hard work and climbed the ladder that way. Since it coincided with his plan to make money... Alaric could simply annex Ryder Village.

Alaric calculated in his heart. Although Ryder Village is just as weak as Forger Village, the poorest of the villages surrounding the Great Forest of Neuling, they were still a force to be reckoned with. No village has the time or resources to take control of them, and White Bridge is pacifist to the extreme, only keeping a militia for the sake of defense.

Each one of their two combat awakeners could kill 50 rank-1 slimes before needing a small break. On top of that, the main combat force of their village isn't even the military.

"The Ryder family head, Penne Ryder. Rank-2 combat-type awakener, with the talent of 'Temperature Control.' An extremely powerful talent, limited by Penne Ryder's low potential."

Alaric's main worry was Penne Ryder. His wife, Mellie Ryder, apparently only had a rank-1 specialist-type talent, "Sewing Proficiency." All of the Ryder children had yet to hit their 18th birthday. Alaric was confident that even a single slip slime could defeat the Ryder family.

Alaric thought, 'Slimes do, after all, have an innate temperature immunity. Regardless of whether Penne Ryder increases or decreases the temperature, slimes will be unaffected.'

Of course, Alaric wouldn't rashly attack the Ryder Village with just one slip slime. He needed to be cautious, and bring an army equivalent to that of the Ryder Village's in number.

'I don't know what hidden cards the wealthy Ryder family has in store...'

Every village had a trump card, especially the ones near the Great Forest of Neuling. The Forger Village had Wurst, so what was stopping them from annexing the other villages directly? Wurst wasn't that powerful in the grand scheme of things, White Bridge had formation-driven cannons, which were extremely powerful magical weapons of war. Villages around here needed to be prepared for Wurst, and even White Bridge.

The reason Forger Village was the poorest after all this time, is because Wurst knew he would die should he antagonize the other villages.

'Our trump card, a rank-3 awakener, was open to the public, and the other villages still didn't fear us. They simply didn't go out of their way to attack us.'

With his next goal decided, and a few plans laid out, Alaric exhausted his energy.

After negotiating with a snake-skinned merchant, moving the slimes to the cold storage, meditating, and strategizing, Alaric could only say one thing.

"Time to sleep, I want to sleep. Sleep... I must sleep."

...

Alaric rose from his bed. Although he slept relatively early, only 6 p.m., when he checked the time after waking up, it was already 7 a.m., probably because of pure mental exhaustion.

'Although I have worked hard every day since coming to this world, the mental toll of from everything going on lately knocked me out,' he thought.

Alaric quickly took care of his hygiene, and groggily directed himself toward the chief's house, where he was keeping the slimes.

'They should be done by now... do I have to name all of the 22 new slimes? No... they're mostly sacrificial anyways.'

After arriving, Alaric took in the scene of a house nearly clogged-up by the sheer mass that 40 slimes represented, thinking, 'If I bring them out all at once... the house might collapse.'

The slimes had even stacked up on top of each other in order to make room. Alaric began to plan for a designated reproductive area for slimes.

"I guess I'll bring the corpses in here, 40 slimes need 40 limbs. Thankfully, the limbs of the last 10 corpses are untouched. I only used 1 corpse for the slimes waiting in the cold storage."

Alaric quickly made his way to the cold storage, deciding that he would have a wheelbarrow built sometime soon. The idea of hauling 10 corpses to the village chief's abode wasn't pleasant.

Upon entering, he glanced at the four slimes who had apparently huddled together in a corner, 'Should I bring them back... nah.'

Using his rank-1 awakened body, Alaric threw each of the corpses with limbs outside of the cold storage and hauled 2 at a time back to the chief's house.

Alaric of course had already set aside the robes and daggers of these corpses, leaving them in nothing but their underpants.

"I seriously don't understand why you guys don't have some sort of armor underneath the robe, is it for heat management?"

Upon arriving with 10 corpses, Alaric opened the doors, 'Time to prepare for the evolution of 2 slimes!'