Chương 14

The merchants arrived to the village much sooner than people expected, and so, some villagers weren't able to make their entire batch in time. But more than that, the merchants looked haggard and worn. Sobelle got to know why after she listened to their conversation with the village chief.

"We were attacked by greenskins on the way here, it was two days ago and we hadn't stopped traveling since. We constantly looked behind us but saw nothing—" The bearded merchant was cut off when the chief punched him in the face. He looked betrayed and angered all at once, "why would you—""Do you know what you've done?!" The chief yelled, it made the merchant flinch. He rubbed his face with palm and said silent prayers to the Gods above, "they didn't attack you because they knew you were going to seek refuge.

If it had been a town, then sure! Everything would be fine! Guards were plenty in those places and mercenaries did quick work of goblins! Not here!" Sobelle's face paled as everything clicked. If the merchants led goblins here then that meant...

"I don't wanna get captured—" a woman said behind her followed by a while.

"W-we can defend ourselves too! I have tools and weapons and—" the merchant panicked and opened his carriage, and out came four women and five men. There was also a girl about Sobelle's age with them. One of the men looked like he was ready to die, he barely moved while everyone rushed out of the carriage and began crying. Instead, he collapsed to his knees and stared at the ground lifelessly. Sobelle had seen him once and knew he was the merchant's son.

"You have weapons and tools? What about the ones the goblins took?" Her father was the one who talked and now that he mentioned it, Sobelle noticed that some of the wagons were badly damaged.

"You brought goblins with metal weapons to our village!" Everyone looked angry at that declaration but before a mob could form, Sobelle stepped in. She let out an ear piercing nose—a favorite of her as a child— that made everyone cover their ears and look at her. Once all eyes were on her, Sobelle cleared her throat and calmed them down.

"We need every pair of hands we can get, they have 6 men. Don't make any hasty decisions." She pointed at her father and the other two village guards, "we also have the village guards, and also Thetras. If we played things right, we might just be able to survive this."

"Played things right?" Ilver, her brother's wife, laughed out loud and pointed at Sobelle.

"What do you think, this is some kind of game? We are not playing with sheep teeth here girl, we are in a life and death situation—""Which is exactly why we need to work together!" Sobelle shouted over her nagging.

"You absolute idiot! Why are you arguing instead of working?! There are goblins on our doorstep! Do you want to get captured?! Is that it?!"

"N-no, not at all..." Ilver took a step back but Sobelle had none of it, she pushed further into the woman's boundaries. She did it so much that Ilver raised her arms to defend herself, though no hit came her way.

"Then do anything you can to survive this. Work." Sobelle pulled back and faced her father, "let me run, please. I just need one more, one and then I'll go back here and help out. Just let me have this."

"... Okay, I'll watch you." Sobelle sighed in relief. She expected her father to say no but this was good.

"Thank you. I'll be back in a little bit, I'll run as fast as I can and finish my sprint." Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Sobelle got out of the village and did her usual thing, where she ran in circles restlessly. She didn't know if the Gods watched her do this but she prayed they did, because she wanted to ask them to reward her with stats early.

She needed just one more point of [Dexterity] to get a skill, and she knew that this would help her survive and save her village. And if it couldn't? Then it was better to fight the goblins with an extra skill than nothing at all. Sobelle finished her sprint and much to her disappointment, the Gods didn't reward her with stat points. Tomorrow, it had to be tomorrow. Sobelle grit her teeth and accepted the Gods' decisions with patience, she did not dare question anything they chose to do.

Everyone became busy preparing when she went back to the village, and she noticed something unusual with the way the men built the walls: they stacked rocks on top of each other and hoped that it would somehow hold against the goblins. Sobelle doubted this so she went to her father to tell him they needed to make a different type of wall but he only pushed her away.

"You've already said your piece Sobelle, let the men do the work." He didn't even do so much as look at her as he said this. Sobelle grit her teeth and ran to Thetras, who was hard at work with all the other kids his age. They too built walls, and Sobelle knew this wouldn't be effective so she tried to convince him as well but was quickly denied.

"Go away for now, we need to work." He grunted and dropped the rock he carried to the ground.

"We'll protect you."

"So what? The women would just stay still while everyone else fights? We need everyone to—" Sobelle couldn't finish because she was shoved aside.

"Move it!" One guy yelled. He glared at Sobelle.

"Haven't you done enough already? Stop acting like you're actually important and do what you said earlier and help!"

"Fine!" Sobelle ran away and headed to the place where she and Thetras chopped logs. She picked up an axe, searched for the longest branches, and sharpened them on both ends.

'I need six for every single one.' Sobelle counted how many she needed and paled from all the work she had to do.

'This is fine, I just need to what? Make walls that wrapped around the entire village twice over?' After Sobelle made 30 Palisades, she stabbed each one into the ground and formed this grid-like structure where each stick supported each other and held their weight together. She made 5 of them and then went back to sharpen more sticks. At some point, one of the men saw her and asked what she was doing.

"I'm making something that can actually stop something as agile as a goblin from charging at us." Sobelle answered without looking away from her work.

"Don't you guys have a wall to build?" Sobelle grunted when calloused fingers wrapped around either side of her cheeks. She was lifted from her seat and came face to face with the angry man, his teeth showing from how much he clenched his jaw. And Sobelle could hear the sound of grinding teeth. It grated at her ears and made her even more irritated than she already was.

"Listen to me girl, you're—""Don't you dare touch me!" Sobelle pushed him away but he ran back to her so she had no choice but to punch him on the face. He actually stumbled backward because of her hit and Sobelle took a moment to realize what she had done.

"You—""I what?!" Sobelle wasn't going to back down, she held her ground and stared the man in the eyes. She didn't know if she could heat him, he was a head taller than her and was muscular but Sobelle wouldn't let him push her around anymore so she'd fight until she couldn't move. The man exhaled, "you're lucky you're a woman." He left and Sobelle could do nothing but clench her fists and angrily stare at his back. She wanted to do more than just punch him, she really did.

But there wasn't time for any of that, she needed to build as many of these as she could. And quickly. Almost half of the village's outskirts were covered in her palisades before she ran out of wood. After that, she had to carry an axe to the forest and start cutting branches, which she then brought back to sharpen. She was the only one who worked on these things and so no one truly disturbed her.

Everyone else needed some kind of material to make the stacked stones stick so they spent a lot of time waiting, Sobelle on the other hand did not need any of this so they witnessed her make Palisades and somehow still refused to help her. Once she was done, she headed back home to rest but before she could, the chief asked her about what she built.

"What are those?" The old man pointed at the structures like he'd never seen anything like it before this.

"And why build them?"

"They're perfect for countering fast enemies that like to jump when attacking." Sobelle answered readily.

"They're also not done yet, I still need to tie rope around them."

"I see." The chief stepped aside and let Sobelle go and she went inside her house to do the Gods' trials.