I’m Not Going To ‘Wipe You Out,’ Okay?

Bangagonga didn’t return to the house in a dejected state until quite a while had passed.

“Sorry, Fels. I kept you waiting for a long time.”

“No, don’t worry about it. More importantly, there’s something I want to ask—what exactly is this ‘frenzy’?”

I felt awful asking Bangagonga about it, considering he’d just had to kill one of his own because of it… but if it was some kind of illness and we caught it, that would be a disaster.

“We’ve traveled from very far away. This is the first time I’ve heard the word ‘frenzy.’”

“So that’s how it is. Humans are said to be less prone to frenzy, but it’s not like it can’t happen at all. It’s better you know.”

As he said that, Bangagonga’s expression shifted slightly. Probably… from tired to serious. Probably.

“Frenzy is when the eyes turn red, you lose reason, and become violent. Monsters and demons often fall into frenzy. Fairy-folk like us are less prone than demons, but still more likely than humans.”

Huh… so goblins were fairy-folk… Bangagonga was a gorilla-muscle man with not a speck of ‘fairy’ in him, though…

Some ridiculous image of Bangagonga dripping with chunky accessories and doing rap or hip-hop flashed through my mind, but I shook it off and kept talking.

“Why does that happen? Do you know the cause?”

Even while thinking dumb thoughts, this Overlord spoke calmly.

“The cause is the Demon King’s mana. The Demon King’s power leaks out from the northern lands and reaches even here. When someone unconsciously takes it in and exceeds their limit… they fall into frenzy.”

There’s a Demon King…?

“I see…”

Also, why were Demon Kings always in the north? Was that just me?

“There’s no way to save someone once they’ve fallen into frenzy. And there’s no way to prevent it, either… Before they lose all reason, we send them on. That’s the only offering we can give.”

“…I’m sorry for making you remember something painful. But I appreciate the information.”

“Yeah. Being careful won’t change much… but when the time comes, don’t hesitate. To protect their dignity—send them off not as mindless beasts, but as someone you love.”

“Thank you for the advice.”

Yeah… I probably can’t do that… Earlier, I fought pretty smoothly, maybe because my adrenaline was up, but when I saw Bangagonga take that goblin’s head… my stomach nearly crawled out of my body.

I just can’t handle the ‘everyday life’ part being that brutal.

The stink of blood and organs—things I hadn’t noticed at all during the fight—felt horrifyingly vivid afterward… Why didn’t I notice it while fighting? Adrenaline, I guess. Adrenaline was terrifyingly effective.

“Bangagonga. What are you planning to do now?”

I’d asked what I needed about frenzy, so I switched topics.

People who can slide back into the original subject without any awkwardness are amazing, you know? I can only hard-cut the conversation and force it back on track.

“…I don’t know how many knights will come… but if we fight, we’ll probably just be wiped out. But if we abandon the village and move deeper into the forest—so deep humans can’t reach us—then the elderly and children will likely…”

I hadn’t seen any children at a glance, but… of course they existed.

Moving, clearing the forest, making a place livable… I could only imagine it, but it sounded brutally hard. And there were monsters, too… There’d be dangers everywhere.

Convenient for me, though.

“Bangagonga, I have a proposal. Why don’t all of you come to my place?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Come to my base. I’ll guarantee at least food, shelter, clothing, and safety.”

I wouldn’t house them in the castle… but I could have them build a settlement below it. If Otonoha and the others helped, we could probably manage it… Raising a town’s development level was the dev department’s job, right?

“Didn’t you say earlier that you came from far away?”

Right, I did.

Yeah… saying convenient things on the fly was dangerous… Though it wasn’t a lie that I came from far away, technically.

“…The base already exists. Right now, we’re using it as our hub while we gather information and do other activities.”

I forced myself to meet Bangagonga’s gaze as I said it.

I couldn’t read his expression well, and hopefully he couldn’t read mine precisely either… I hoped.

“…But that base is a human base, isn’t it? There’s no way goblins like us could set foot there.”

“No problem. It’s true that the ones there are humans…”

Are they really humans…? No—now wasn’t the time to get stuck on that.

“Humans are all that’s there, but no one will try to drive you out against my decision. Right, Lynferia?”

“Yes. I can state with certainty that no such person exists.”

I didn’t even turn around when I asked, and she answered immediately.

I appreciated the answer, but… if I’m about to do something stupid, please stop me, okay? I’m not smart at all.

Still… my people really did look like they’d wholeheartedly affirm anything I said.

I almost stared into the distance for a second, but the talk came first.

“You’ll be uneasy, but you don’t need to worry about that point. Of course, trusting someone you just met is hard… but that’s something you’ll have to choose to believe.”

“…Let me think. This isn’t something I can decide alone on the spot.”

“Sure. But don’t forget you don’t have much time. The knights could attack at any moment.”

“I know. I’ll reach a decision today… Can you give me some time?”

“Go ahead.”

When I said that, Bangagonga left the room with heavy steps.

Yeah… I get it.

Now then… I’d tried to be as friendly as possible, but depending on how their discussion went, it wasn’t impossible they’d panic and attack us.

In that case, we needed a plan.

When I turned around… for some reason, everyone was glaring at the door Bangagonga had left through with terrifying eyes.

“…What is it?”

Stammering wasn’t very Overlord-like, so I took a breath before asking.

“For a mere goblin to refuse to accept Your Grace’s mercy at once… Fels-sama, should we not wipe this place out?”

Lynferia spoke like she was suppressing boiling fury.

No, give them time to think and talk, at least…

“Lynferia. ‘Haste makes waste,’ right? For goblins, changing where they live is a huge decision. And it’s a proposal from humans—people they don’t even feel kindly toward. They should think calmly, with their feelings settled. Otherwise, the lower ones won’t accept it.”

“But… after receiving Fels-sama’s own words directly…”

“Calm yourself, Lynferia. I told you—this is from the beginning again. I’m now nothing more than a minor lord with no clear territory. I haven’t even revealed my status. It’s only natural Bangagonga can’t simply trust me.”

“……”

This wasn’t about generosity… I just wanted them to get better at reading the other side’s circumstances.

“Your anger comes from loyalty to me, and I’m glad for it. But exposing your inner feelings at the negotiation table is a blunder. Exercise restraint.”

““Yes!””

…Sure, I could say it out loud too. Doing it in practice was another matter.

Anyway, we needed to settle the plan first.

“Ururu. Is anyone eavesdropping?”

“There is no one nearby… monitoring us…”

Ururu appeared at my side as she spoke. I nodded, then continued with a ‘just in case’ discussion.

“We don’t know what decision the goblins will reach, but the possibility they panic and attack us is not zero.”

“In that case, we will annihilate them immediately.”

“…Hmm. But annihilating goblins that yield five times the ‘magic stones’… would be a waste.”

“Then how about raising them as livestock? Those who bare their fangs once have no need for free will.”

…That escalation was way too fast, Lynferia.

“Then wouldn’t it be better to make them slaves and use them as labor, hmm? They should at least provide their own food.”

“I agree with Kamila. The amount of ‘magic stones’ we can get from goblins won’t cover the castle’s upkeep. Even if we increase their numbers, it’ll take time—so I think working them while we do that is better.”

Otonoha backed Kamila’s suggestion.

Well… ‘slaves’ sounded less insane than ‘livestock,’ I guess. Probably. But still—slaves?

“…Wasn’t it said that goblins multiply faster than rats?”

Eisha, who hadn’t spoken until now, tilted her head with a finger on her cheek.

That pink-haired child’s cuteness was absurd. I almost wanted to pat her head, but the only future I could see was getting arrested.

“Eisha, judging from the number of goblins in this settlement… they can’t multiply that fast. According to that big goblin, they’ve been here more than ten years. The walls and buildings match that. I’d say their reproduction speed isn’t much different from normal humans.”

After a brief silence, Eisha looked off in a completely different direction and said:

“…So the human village chief lied to Fels-sama. …Then it seems we must ‘wipe out’ that village chief before the goblins.”

Wipe out!? Not just a scolding!?

Our child cleric was terrifyingly radical.

“Eisha, calm down. That was a superstition from an uneducated villager. There’s no point treating it like fact. If you react to everything, there will be no end.”

“Y-yes.”

Eisha drooped. I walked over and lightly patted her forehead.

This should be acceptable, right…? And she was wearing that cleric hat, so it was basically the only place I could pat without it being weird.

“Mmyeh!?”

Eisha made a strange noise and looked up at me with her eyes wide.

She usually kept them half-lidded—so she could open them. For the record, Eisha’s main affinities were Holy and Light, so her hair was pink and her eyes were gold.

“Now, we got off track. If the goblins panic, we’ll follow Kamila’s plan. Capture them alive as much as possible. Kamila—if you use magic, you can restrain them without injury, right?”

“Of course. It’s simple.”

“Then in that case, we’ll leave it to you. Ururu, keep watch so the goblins don’t escape.”

“Understood…”

That covered the ‘goblin attack’ scenario… Next was the ‘submission’ scenario.

“Otonoha. If the goblins accept my proposal, how long would it take to build a residential district for them?”

“Can I mobilize the entire dev team?”

“Yeah. There’s nothing else we need to develop right now.”

“If we haul construction materials out from the castle, it won’t even take a week. If we have to procure the materials too… then drying timber and such will take a while.”

Wait—if you cut wood, you can’t just use it right away?

“Construction materials… we’ve got a decent stock, right? Though only Ilmitt would know—”

When I mentioned the minister of internal affairs who wasn’t here, Otonoha smiled like it was fine.

“If it’s materials, I’ve got it covered. We have 999 construction materials. For a settlement of around three hundred people, we’d have leftovers even if we used one.”

I see… Construction materials were the item you used to raise a town’s development level. In Legions, the smallest village started at a population of a thousand, and raising its level cost one material.

“…Considering the future, we might as well plan to build a castle town.”

“City-building, huh… Starting from scratch is a first.”

In Legions, you basically could only develop existing towns.

“Work out the urban plan with Ilmitt and Kiriku. We’ll probably end up housing races other than goblins, too. As for candidate races to take in as citizens… ask Bangagonga or something. And of course, we’ll take in plenty of humans as well.”

Beast ears, elf ears… I really hoped those existed.

“Sure.”

Otonoha nodded happily at my heavy-handed delegation.

“And the mana collection device—how long does installation take?”

In the game, it took one turn to build, but one turn was a week… so how many days was it actually?

“For the big city-model, about five days. For the small one you place in a dungeon, I could assemble it in under an hour. The annoying part is the barrier device.”

“Barrier device?”

Did Legions even have that?

“It’s a device that keeps monsters from getting close so they can’t destroy the mana collection device.”

“…I see.”

The game didn’t show it, but it must’ve been part of the setting.

“Is the only difference between the city version and the dungeon version the communication function, the inter-base travel function, and that barrier device?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Does the barrier react only to monsters?”

“No. Anyone who isn’t authorized can’t pass.”

“Then for the village outside the forest, we might be better off using a dungeon-type mana collection device. It won’t be within our territory, so we don’t need base travel or communication. In fact, making it untouchable might be better.”

“Good point… I think you’re right, Boss.”

Otonoha smiled brightly and muttered that this was the kind of thinking she needed.

Using a game system in ways outside the system’s intended use still seemed hard for my vassals… but if they gained experience and grew, it would help me a lot.