Power Of The Guardian Beasts

At present, the population of Tree Village, where I served as lord, was about 120 people, while Guinea Village had around 100 residents.

On top of that, there were roughly forty members of Sandstorm stationed here, along with former bandits currently undergoing rehabilitation, bringing the total to around 260 people.

If I included Dark Elf Miria-san and the traveling merchant Ran-san as well, it had grown into quite a sizable community.

With this many people, the number of those possessing aptitudes had also increased considerably.

While I couldn’t do much myself beyond staying involved, Shekuri-san—who had secured assistants and increased manpower—was now having the aptitudes of newly settled villagers checked in parallel with the rehabilitation of the former criminals.

When I saw the results recently, I was shocked.

The number of people with combat-related aptitudes—especially magical ones—had increased dramatically.

Previously, our frontline consisted of Dan, who had the Warrior aptitude, and Meg, who possessed the Pirate aptitude, while the rear line was made up of Fiona-chan with Fire Magic and Makurei-kun with Water Magic—just four people in total.

Now, however, the frontline numbered six and the rear line five, more than doubling our previous strength.

Among them, the most noteworthy were Karut-kun, who had the Swordmaster aptitude, and Daril-kun, who possessed Holy Magic Combat Art.

The two of them already seemed to have considerable skill, and Nadja had selected them as platoon leaders within Sandstorm.

Incidentally, Daril-kun was also a rare Earth Mole enthusiast in Tree Village.

He was one of only two people who had chosen the Earth Mole as their Tree Guardian Beast.

“Mole… so cute…”

“Kyu!”

Daril-kun was a very taciturn boy and rarely spoke.

But he seemed utterly smitten with the mole, and it was said that villagers had already witnessed him playing with it around town on multiple occasions.

And of course, aptitudes weren’t limited to combat.

There were production-type aptitudes that created things, like my Tree Planting, as well as specialization-type aptitudes that greatly enhanced one’s original abilities.

By the way, since many classified aptitudes overlapped with one another, this categorization wasn’t truly clean-cut.

For example, Aira possessed the combat-type aptitude Water Magus, but because it enhanced intelligence and magical control when using magic, it also had aspects of a specialization-type aptitude.

The reason I was heading out now was to visit the home of Maton, who possessed one of those specialization-type aptitudes: Mathematician.

“Well then, I’m heading out.”

“Woody-sama, are you sure you’ll be all right without me? If you could endure about ten days, I could force myself to Guinea…”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but with Tree-to-Tree Teleportation, I’ll be there in no time.”

Tree-to-Tree Teleportation could only move a single person.

When I’d tried bringing someone along before, I’d been told:

Living lightly was convenient, but I really wanted to do something about the inconvenience it caused Aira, Nadja, and the others.

As I thought about that and activated Tree-to-Tree Teleportation, I noticed a change.

Among the selectable trees, some were glowing brightly.

Once I thought about it, the reason became obvious.

“The trees being protected by Tree Guardian Beasts… they’re glowing.”

To confirm what that change meant, I activated Tree-to-Tree Teleportation.

When I tried teleporting together with Aira—

—the next moment, Aira and I were standing in Guinea.

“Eh… Woody-sama, this is…?”

“Yeah. Looks like I can finally teleport together with someone.”

Aira looked stunned.

When I’d teleported for the first time myself, I’d been just as surprised.

Wondering if I’d worn the same expression back then, I headed toward our destination with Aira.

“Maton, are you home?”

“Ah, yes~ I’ll open the door now, so please wait a moment~”

I heard a voice from inside after knocking.

It sounded like she was home—

Crash-bang-clatter!

…She really was cleaning, right?

The noise coming from inside was unbelievably loud.

“Woody-sama, shall I take a look inside?”

“…Yeah, please. It might look like an accident scene in there.”

After announcing herself, Aira went inside.

Following her scream from within the House Tree, I then heard rhythmic splashing sounds.

It seemed she was cleaning using water magic, as water began seeping out from under the door.

After everything dried and about thirty minutes had passed, we were finally given permission to enter.

“Sorry for the wait.”

Maton scratched her head awkwardly as she spoke.

Because her eyesight was poor, she wore thick, bottle-bottom glasses, and her cardigan was riddled with holes and frayed threads.

Behind the slovenly woman stood the fruits of Aira’s tearful efforts—an absurd amount of garbage and junk piled together.

I deliberately averted my eyes from it all and got straight to the point.

“Maton, if you’re willing… would you like to try working as an official in my territory?”