Chapter 24 : Gifts and Trials

Estel Village greeted me more splendidly than I had expected.

Leaving aside the stone altar, which was built better than the wooden one on the cliff, Rachel’s clothes, which welcomed me, were very luxurious.

At a glance, they were not clothes that could be easily obtained in this backwater village. I wondered if they were made with money collected from the village, but when I checked the gazes of the residents, they didn’t seem to know either.

It seems that the village chief personally went out of his way to get them.

First, as a response to the invitation, I created a rain cloud to imprint myself on the residents. When dark clouds gathered in the sky without a single cloud and wet the great plains, the residents seemed dumbfounded.

Only then did the residents offer me a fervent greeting and begin to praise me.

They also presented the things they had hidden behind their backs in front of the residents. They were the two swords, a bow, and a string that I had received from the village chief before. However, the appearance was very different from the beginning.

“This is······?”

[My will is imbued in these items, so treat them with care.]

The bow was imbued with the power of wind, and the two swords were imbued with the power of water and lightning, respectively.

I had a hard time making these until this morning.

The idea to enchant these weapons came to me by chance.

First of all, after receiving the weapons from the village chief, I was wondering about how to deal with them when I suddenly thought of the weapons of the gods. Items strengthened by the power of God to overwhelm the enemy.

I thought that I could make that too.

After that, it was a battle of time and effort.

I don’t have a shaped bookshelf or a table made of obsidian, and I have no knowledge of magic. So what I aimed for was responsiveness.

Like the storm that ran wild when I gave the order before, I was trying to create a system that responds even if I don’t give orders for a long time.

I designate a specific part of the sword, give an order to the water, and plant a kind of trigger that activates it.

For example, if you hold the sword and slash from top to bottom, lightning will shoot forward.

Since I designed the system, it was time to build it. This took the most time.

Fortunately, water was the easiest and fastest to make. The sword, named Haeilgum (Sea Overflow Sword), is characterized by creating a protective shield that surrounds the owner with a blue light.

The next thing I touched was the bow, and I broke out in a cold sweat while putting wind into it, which I couldn’t even hold in my hand, with mental power. Pokpunggung (Storm Bow), unlike Haeilgum, was designed only for attack. The technique is simple: it shoots arrows faster and stronger. And it makes a blade-like wind blow along the trajectory of the bow.

Finally, there’s Cheonroegum (Thousand Lightning Sword)… this guy is actually unfinished.

That’s because lightning itself doesn’t summon properly, and collecting it was also extremely difficult.

Unlike water and wind, where if one escapes, you can just reach out to the one next to it, if this guy escapes, you have to chase after him.

It was even more difficult to chase after because it was lightning and fast.

‘It’s just lightning.’

In the end, I decided to change the strategy. I induced the lightning to come on its own.

Just like setting up food and traps to capture a wild boar, I also made a trap.

I took out a mineral that looked like metal from under the sea, made it long, stuck it in the ground, and waited. It was a crude lightning rod, but that alone made the lightning go crazy.

When I roughly made clouds, I caught the lightning that rushed in droves and crammed it into the sword, and it was made so quickly that it made me feel like my past hardships were in vain.

However, the problem is that I couldn’t properly build the system because I was busy putting it in.

[Haeil and Pokpung will follow your hands well. But Cheonroe is different.]

First of all, the moment you catch the guy, you get slightly electrocuted, and once you swing it, a huge lightning bolt pours out towards the front.

It literally pours out. In fact, Cheonroegum was like a crowded subway on the way to work.

Then why give an unfinished sword as a gift? The reason was simple. It was to inform them of the awareness that they should carefully handle weapons imbued with the power of God, and at the same time, to show some of my power.

‘It’s definitely not to meet the deadline, hmm.’

Besides, the power of these weapons decreases over time, and in the end, they return to normal weapons. In other words, you have to pray to me and recharge.

This was also a kind of insurance device for Estel Village.

‘Looking at their expressions, that will never happen.’

The village chief, who received my weapon, had an expression that looked like he was about to cry at any moment. I was worried that he might cry, saying that there were a lot of things, and it was really hard.

I wondered if I should directly designate a user because there were only three compared to the total number of residents, but the village chief seemed to have already designated a nominee.

First of all, it was certain that Jonan was in it.

[Chief, I trust that you will use that item meaningfully.]

“I will make sure that I never hurt the trust of the Dragon God.”

With those words, the gift-giving ceremony ended, and the official Estel Village visit event ended. It’s uncomfortable for both me and the residents if I stay any longer.

So I gave the village chief a nod and returned to the cliff.

That night, the village chief visited the cliff. The village chief stuck a torch in the ground and bowed his head to me.

“The residents are rejoicing. I thank you once again for the grace of the Dragon God.”

I nodded slightly and went straight to the point. It was about the knight who would visit the village in two days.

[You said that Count Craystist and the knight named Failer are of good character.]

“I can’t dare to evaluate the Count and Sir Failer, but the people of the Barony respect them.”

[That’s why you agreed to show the appearance of a sacred beast first.]

“Since they know the true meaning of a sacred beast… I thought that even the Count and Sir Failer wouldn’t dig deep into the matter.”

The sacred beast that the village chief gave me as an example was the phoenix. When a phoenix appears nearby, the land of the area becomes fertile on its own, and the weather becomes warm.

But if you attack them for the phoenix’s heart, the area will be instantly engulfed in flames, and the area will gradually become devastated. Even if you do that, you might not get the heart, and the probability of getting it is very low.

‘In the end, a sacred beast is a goose that lays golden eggs.’

The people of the nearby villages, who already know the value of the sacred beast, do their best to protect the sacred beast. On the other hand, people who are not local residents do anything to cut open the goose’s belly and obtain the golden heart.

Surprisingly, some lords take advantage of the latter’s side.

In other words, this was a kind of test.

Depending on how the Count’s family reacts to the sacred beast they will send as a decoy, their attitude towards them will change. It was a decision I made because I couldn’t build a relationship with the Count’s family like I did with Estel Village through Rachel and Jonan.

Of course, I have devised a second plan in case things go badly.

‘Let’s just go nicely.’

I was human too, so I don’t want to treat them badly. Moreover, there is also the fact that I want to believe the village chief, who praised them to the point of drying his saliva.

It feels rather icky to break a person’s mind. When I saw the corpses of the mercenaries who attacked me before, I felt just like that.

‘It felt like… seeing a trampled centipede corpse.’

Therefore, I thought of insurance with a sacred beast and follow-up measures for Plan B, but I wanted to skip it and establish a hotline with the Count’s family.

How much more would the Count’s family do in Estel Village, where they are struggling to get my help?

I can even sprinkle rain on the entire estate and tear off property, and sign a service contract to live a comfortable life.

Therefore, I was very much looking forward to the coming two days.

That long-awaited day came.

‘This f*cker?’

And when I saw the knight’s behavior, I cursed.

The time the knight came to the village was six hours later than the original time. The sun, which should have been at the top of the sky, was setting, and the faces of the villagers were tired.

The knight entered the village with all sorts of decorations as if he had brought the king’s letter. Even from a distance, the knight’s face looked very annoying.

The village chief and the residents who greeted him were sweating and trying to keep up with his beat.

‘He’s nagging a lot more than I thought.’

I expected a good young man like the one that the village chief and Jonan praised so much, but he was completely different. The rugged face tanned by the sun looked more like a butcher than a knight.

‘Were the village chief and Jonan like battered wives…?’

Otherwise, it was unbelievable that they praised me while being treated like that.

Apart from that, I was angry that my people couldn’t do anything to the knight. I understand the difference in status.

But the knight’s actions had nothing to do with the difference in status.

The appearance of suddenly slapping a villager and harassing a maiden was like the nature of a knight.

‘······I have to discard Plan A.’

As my heart began to boil, the whale that was leisurely swimming next to me returned to its original form and became part of the sea.

Also, the production device that Jonan and Gaiser were ordered to make last night was broken by the wind, and the sky darkened.

Lightning burst out with blue eyes, and I watched the setting sun.

Finally, the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, and the guy entered a house.

I slowly got up and flew up.