Chapter 71. Let's build a wall

First thing when building something small or big, you have to set the perimeters, and for that we had to tear down a portion of the already-built wall.

With some iron axes in our hands, we demolished everything in our path, people started to wonder what we were doing, but Toby and Bobby calmed everyone down telling them the plans for expanding the village.

Once they heard that, the worries left their expression. Some of them were even eager to help us, looks like they really wanted some space in this village.

But as we continued to work together, the villagers started to realize something.

Me and Merry worked fast, I mean really fast. It took three of them to keep up with one of us, they were surprised by this but didn't ask too many questions.

With the extra help, we managed to tear down half of the total wall. Since the new wave of people was more than the original residents, we have to triple the perimeter so everyone can live comfortably.

It was tough work, but with everyone's help, I think we can manage this.

"OK everyone, here's what we do. The new perimeter will be three times bigger than the original, so for that, we need a lot of wood to work with, so go do some chopping while I craft some axes."

People cheered and took out wooden or stone tools to get to work.

"Merry, you'll come with me for this work."

"But I can't craft iron tools yet."

"We won't be crafting, I'll show you how to use the Trading skill."

"Seriously!? I traded with the people from the Nether, but it never gave me any experience."

We walked towards the old part of the village, where it was more isolated and some bald villagers started to appear.

"I'm not surprised this didn't work, this skill can only increase with a villager from the Overworld. Also, this Is a skill exclusively for us, so there are no records anywhere in the whole world. But it's also one of the most broken skills to have, so don't go around telling people about it."

"That sounds exciting, so what does it do? How do I increase it?"

Finally, I found what we were looking for, a bald villager with a Fletcher uniform.

"Bob the Fletcher, how are you doing?"

"Hero! Bob well, Bob made lots friend."

"Glad to hear that, are you open for business by any chance?"

He smiled with all of his teeth showing.

"Bob always business ready!"

Out of nowhere, a gray tab appeared in front of us.

28 sticks → 1 emerald

1 emerald → 16 arrows

--------

20 flint → 1 emerald

Since I was only level 4, I had some discount and the first trade on the second row, but Merry can only trade sticks.

"This is interesting, so are the emeralds the currency of this world? How does it even work?"

"Every villager has a job given at their adulthood ceremony by the System, each job trades for different stuff and some are more popular than others. But remember, we have a different system from them, so try not to be too specific on what you want, just click and get the item."

"Ok... Let me make some sticks then."

She quickly took all the wood from her inventory and crafted some sticks out of it.

With her hands full she gave it to the confused villager.

"Why aren't you taking the sticks?"

"Friend weird, Bob no need sticks."

"But it says you trade for sticks! Trader, I think the villager is broken, can we trade with another one?"

I could only smile as she made the same mistake I did the first time I traded.

"There's no need to do that. You have to give the items to the screen, not the person."

"Like this?"

Suddenly all the sticks disappeared from her hands and she had an emerald in her inventory.

"Well look at that, it actually worked, and my skill is progressing. I'll give him all the wood that I have then."

"Wait don't-!"

But it was too late, the sticks were made and fed to the system.

"What do you mean I can't trade anymore?! I still have four stacks of those!"

I could only sigh at her predicament.

"Don't worry, you can trade with him again once he restocks."

"And when is that?"

"At noon and in the middle of the night."

"Uff, I guess this is a way to not mess up the economy of this world."

Oh, you can mess it up pretty badly even with those restrictions no problem, but that's not our focus now, our focus is to get some tools.

I looked at the trading tab and saw that I didn't have the restriction like Merry. Looks like everyone has their own system, not shared.

"Can you give me the sticks?"

She gave them to me with a confused look, but I just traded everything until I couldn't anymore. 13 emeralds to my inventory, that's a great start.

"You should be at level 2 right now, let's go and buy some axes."

"I was at level 2 from the beginning though."

She started at level 2!?

That's really good for her, even though it's the easiest level to get, probably a small bonus from the system.

"Let's get you some more levels then."

We walked around the village, and talked with every Bob available. They mostly cared about trading not what we were talking, it was a good exercise for Merry to have without geting weird glances from the topics we talked about.

I had to go to the mines to get some ingots for trading since limiting our scope only to a Fletcher would be stupid.

By the end of it all, Merry was level 3 with 10 iron axes, while I made some progress and also bought 11 axes.

"That's enough trading for today, you know everything there's needed to be known about this skill. Now you can gather the materials yourself and grind for this skill, trust me, it will pay off in the end."

This shopping spree started to hurt my ore chests already, I don't think I'll do this too often.

"It's actually pretty fun, so of course I will."

She said with a smile while looking at her inventory from time to time.

"Let's get back to work then. Give the axes to the people and we should finish this wall by the end of the day."

We split up to cover more ground and shared the new tools.

They seemed surprised by such gifts, but in the end this seems to greatly motivate them to work harder.

After I got rid of all of them except one, I went to chop my own trees.

It wasn't as fun as when I mined, the activity around me made it feel much more different, more like a community than a solo adventure.

The ones that were close to me tended to speak with me. Some of them were curious about me and Merry, others about the situation with the Zombie Lord but nothing that would slow down our resource-gathering process.

After an hour, we cut down a pretty big portion of the forest, so we decided to stop there.

We all gathered at one place and shared the blocks with a smaller group that would build the wall. There was no point in overcrowding this process since it would slow it down more.

Of course, me and Merry had most of the blocks, I decided to make the first row to outline the wall and then show the others how I made the wall.

After all was done, six villagers were working from one side, while me and Merry started from the opposite.

Since the wall was split into the exterior part and the interior part, there wasn't a problem with awkward movements.

We placed some blocks in silence until Merry was the first to speak.

"Trader, I thought the best way to gain fame in a fantasy world would be to kill a lot of monsters and climb the ranks of the guild. But this world is different, it's not like any fantasy book that I read, and I can see that people appreciate more when you work with them on a problem than just solve it, and leave for who knows how long."

"I'm glad to hear that Merry, this is indeed a different world after all, so we have to expect some different encounters then our usual normal. But does this mean you'll go and build around for the other villagers?"

She started to laugh out loud at that, before continuing to place wooden blocks.

"While I see the merit to this, I don't think this is my specialty. On Earth I was at college to study economics, that place is only good for memorizing stuff, just like high school. But I always retreated to my books, and that's where I felt the most comfortable, in a fantasy world with a sword in my hand. And ever since I came here, my desire got stronger, not weaker. But this also made me realize not to concentrate only on the combat, I should learn how to build as well."

I'm glad she's starting to get used to this world, at this point I'm not even sure if she wants to go back.

But I haven't given up.

She knows what's her role is here, but why I'm here in this world?

I was pretty satisfied with my life on Earth, I don't think I'm here only to be a teacher for the hero.

That would be pretty sad actually.

We continued to build in silence the rest of the day.

Finally, after a good few hours, both sites met and became one.

Once the last block was placed the whole village cheered with happiness.

The sun was starting to set, so we put some emergency lanterns over the new ground and prepared for the party.

We made a five-block tall bone fire with solid wood to hold the flame more.

People started to cheer, dance, and exchange stories, Merry even got dragged by some of the girls to teach her how to dance.

I was on the sideline with Bobby laughing at her attempt to do a wheel move because she 'knew' how to do it since she was a kid.

It was a great time, the people were cheerful, the food was good, especially the pumpkin pie, and the Bob vilgers were having fun as well which made Bobby happy.

The construction was not over for this village, there were still some houses to be built, some farms and fances to hold the animals.

But this wall represented a new beginning, a new start for everyone, the tension that was over everyone for the past few weeks slowly faded with the songs.

Sure, the army was still a threat, but they were now more prepared than before, and if they went down, it wouldn't be because of a lack of trying.

We stayed up late into the night before finally going to sleep.

The wall was finished, so only a few guards were needed to patrol over it to keep everyone safe, tomorrow they'll start building once again, but this time we won't be joining them, will be leaving toward the danger, to see what we have to fight against.

So that night I slept like a log until finally the sun was way up in the sky and my eyes opened.

"Ugh... Well, it's officially clear. I'm not a party person."

I got up and stretched around a bit, before going on the balcony to enjoy the warm sun all over my skin.

I was in one of the tall houses, I looked down and saw that the whole village was awake, I looked back into the house at the closed door beside mine.

I went back in and carefully opened the door besides my room, only to see Merry sleeping like there was no tomorrow.

I carefully closed the door and got out of the house.

"At least I'm not the last one to wake up."

Saying hello to the villagers, even trading with them until finally after two hours we were ready to leave.

"Are you sure we can take the horses?"

"Of course you can, we're staying in your village after all, and after all the help those two did yesterday, everyone will hate me if they heard you left on foot."

We could only smile at his comment and thanked him while we got on the horses.

It was a little confusing for Merry at first, but since everything is made of squares, it's much easier to learn.

So on the road we were, we had to galop for hours until the sun went down. We left pretty late so it was no surprise.

We stopped, made a quick camp, and slept for the night.

The horses were truly a blessing, they moved at great speeds and didn't get tired so easily, at this pace Bobby estimated we would be there in half a day.

So the next day at the first sign of light, we got back on the road.

We went like that for a good few hours, until trees started to change around us, they became more gray, more dead in a way, and then the ground started to look like that as well.

Soon we could see the bones of animals as well, it was not a pretty sight, it was like an graveyard in the making.

Finally, we arrived at a brick wall seven blocks tall.

"Well, here we are."

Said Bobby as we stopped our horses.