Been Waiting

“Hello there—”

I opened the door and stepped into the meeting room.

Contrary to expectations, it wasn’t packed with battle-crazed men and thick with sweat that made my head spin.

Instead, the people inside were split about evenly between men and women.

Their ages ranged widely, from early teens to late thirties.

The fact that no elderly people had turned out to have combat-type aptitudes later in life was probably fortunate—for both them and us.

“““Good afternoon, Woody-sama!!”””

The sheer volume made my ears ring.

When they noticed me, everyone stood up at once and bowed deeply.

How should I put this… very sports-club energy.

Before gathering them here, I’d asked Village Chief Degji-san to make sure they understood things roughly in advance.

Thanks to that, the discussion proceeded very smoothly.

“We would be honored to be allowed to enlist in Sandstorm!”

“Me too!”

There were twelve aptitude holders gathered here in total.

To my surprise, all twelve of them wanted to relocate to Tree Village.

“Being relied on for heavy labor in Guinea is of course gratifying, but… since I have an aptitude, I want to test how far my abilities can really go.”

“And even if it doesn’t work out, we can return to Guinea Village, right? If that’s the case, we thought it’d be worth trying at least once…”

I see—if you had an aptitude, it was only natural to want to use it.

Since defense was fully handled by Wood Golems, they had almost no opportunity to gain real combat experience.

They were working ordinary jobs in Guinea, but if you had a magic-related aptitude and were doing completely unrelated labor, frustration would naturally build up.

As they said, thanks to the enhancement from Tree Guardian Beasts, transporting multiple people at once was already possible.

I had enough points to spare, so letting them come to Tree Village on a trial basis wouldn’t be a problem.

Multi-person teleportation also seemed to be a function unlocked by raising my Tree Planting level, and as my level increased, it would probably become even easier for me to move people around.

“So that’s the situation… Aira, Nadja, please go easy on them, okay?”

“I understand, Woody-sama. This is what you call a cue, right?”

-It’s not a cue.

-…And that’s not me pretending it’s not a cue either.

-I’m serious.

-Got it?

Hehe, of course I understand… Aira had effectively turned into an I-understand-bot.

Her smile was beautiful around the mouth, but there was absolutely no laughter in her eyes.

Was it really safe to leave this to her?

She had a proven track record, so it should be fine—but for some reason, I felt uneasy.

“I understand. In other words, as long as I don’t break them, I can do whatever I want?”

“N-Nadja, you too—please go easy…”

Nadja cracked her knuckles enthusiastically.

She had a history of going a bit overboard when training Sandstorm before, so I was even more worried about her.

Even if they had combat aptitudes, they were originally just ordinary citizens, so she really shouldn’t do anything too extreme.

Absolutely no boot camps, okay?

“Leave it to me. I’ll turn them into first-rate warriors, kukuku…”

Nadja puffed out her chest with a grin that promised nothing good.

S-somehow I was getting really nervous…

“I’d feel uneasy leaving it entirely out of my sight, so this time I think I’ll watch the two of you train them as well.”

““We’ve been waiting for you to say that (you know)!!””

Apparently, the two of them had planned to drag me into this from the start.

I-I walked right into that one…

Still, I had been curious about how the aptitude holders who joined with Jinga-san’s group were doing, as well as how the original members like Dan and Fiona-chan had progressed.

Taking this opportunity to check on everyone might not be a bad idea.

And so, urged along by the two of them, I began using Tree-to-Tree Teleportation to send the aptitude holders of Guinea Village over to Tree Village—.