Post-war
After suffocating both of the petrified b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to death, the conflict finally came to a conclusion. In the end, the casualties were decent, mostly because they were all on the enemies’ side.
As I recalled that my Xifu was wounded, I swiftly carried her to the bed as I convinced her to rest
Afterwards, I dragged the corpses and arranged them side by side。 I couldn’t care less about covering them.
When I was done, I rushed back to the cave, and checked my Xifu’s wound.
Bullets used by a flintlock gun don’t fragment, so the internal damage should be little.
Looking at the wound, I could easily spot the small lead-like ball stuck in the flesh.
So I tried to remove the bullet from the wound, though the only tool I could use for it were the small scissors.
To be honest, I was already afraid of taking thorns out of my fingers Even more so, taking out a bullet from someone’s wound and treating it.
But, she’s my wife after all, so I have to do it.
Just like how we scratch our nose when we feel it itch, my hands trembled greatly due to subconscious physiological reflexes.
Taking a deep breath, I cracked my knuckles and looked at her.
Her face showed a relaxed expression……Hey, you do know that you just got shot, right?
“What is it?”
“Eh, nothing. If you are in pain, then bite me.”
“Ah?”
As I was speaking, I put the scissors over my lighter flame to sterilise it. In a fluid motion, I inserted the blade into the wound and forcefully tried to pry the bullet out.
”Sorry…..it must hurt, right?”
“It’s fine.”
As expected of my strong Xifu, even when being treated by someone like me who had no experience with taking out bullets, she merely knit her brows for a second.
The blood coming out wasn’t that much, so I decided against bandaging it. And even if I wanted to, I didn’t have any disinfectants such as alcohol.
As I stared at the blood-red wound, I realized that this was the first time in the 45 days I had been with her that she was injured to protect me, as well as that this was the first time we won a battle against an ‘enemy’.
What would you call an ‘enemy’ in this world?
I used to think that I only needed to guard against fierce beasts and bad weather, but now it seemed that danger would come knocking on our door readily.
I started thinking about how this whole thing happened, which left me with a few questions. The first was why did the humans come here?
I was pretty sure that there weren’t any humans in a 10 kilometre radius around our home, after all Nightfall Town was definitely more than 10 kilometre away.
Looking across the plains, there hasn’t been any sign of humans inhabiting it before.
Because of that I hypothesized that these 5 humans travelled far and wide to come here, and the camping supplies in their luggage only served to fortify my hypothesis further.
Then, if they travelled so far to come here, how did they find us so accurately?
It would sound too forceful, to say that it was because they saw the wagon with the big sheep that I tied near the cold river.
After all, the cold river was quite a distance from the cave, and the forest blocked the view from the outside.
Two possibilities floated in my mind. The first was that this group had already known of our existence as well as our position.
The second was that they had used some kind of device or other way to pinpoint our position.
Personally, I considered the second possibility as more plausible, seeing that glowing gem made me think it might be a tool to detect monsters.
If that is right, then my guess bore fruit.
These 5 people came here with a goal in mind, and that is to hunt down monsters.
However, a hypothesis is only a hypothesis in the end, and there were still many possibilities that I hadn’t considered yet.
Still, it wasn’t bad to expect the worst when your life was threatened. Especially considering how the Blond Leader threatened me, and how easily he decided to fire.
So in a way, there was no reason not to think of the worst case scenario.
Another problem that surfaced was the question whether or not there really was any need to kill all 5 of them?
During that time, my rationality had been completely taken over by my anger, so I hadn’t been thinking straight.
But to be honest, I couldn’t possibly let even one of those 5 people get away.
Had I had even an ounce of compa.s.sion when facing that woman Alyssa and thus let her go, then our position and existence would have been completely exposed.
By having them rest here eternally, there won’t be any more people that know our position.
Although this was the safest way, it was also our loss for not having interrogated them. To us right now, information was the most valuable commodity.
Putting aside whether my guess was right or not, I had to act now.
Right now, my next ‘big project’ was to bury and deal with these 5 corpses.
Other than the military sabre and the firearms, the only thing worth keeping on the Blond Leader’s corpse was money.
Next was the short-haired dude with a beard. There were many useful things on him such as supplies to set up a tent, as well as an a lantern reminding me of those from early Europe. The miscellaneous items include matches, wine pots, needles, threads and more.
I didn’t know what use the things on Alyssa’s body had except for the small handheld mirror.
The other two men didn’t have much stuff on them as they mainly carried food supplies.
In the end, the spoils we got were quite a lot. The 2 most special out of them all were a pocket watch and a glowing blue gem.
To the me at that time, these two items were definitely treasures.
Why? Because it’s a pocket watch! Having a pocket watch means having knowledge of the time!
Not only can I easily find out what time it is, I can also use it to calculate.
Additionally this pocket watch used the same time units and had 3 hands displaying hours, minutes and seconds just like the ones back in my old world.
Although the way the numbers were written was entirely different, the division of the dial was clear as day.
The blue gem, on the other hand, looked like a pendant, due to its sides being covered with metal.
What I was curious about was that it doesn’t glow when I or Medusa held it……
Well, I’ll look into it in the future.
After taking off all their clothes, burying all 5 bodies took me the entire afternoon. With so much fertiliser, my crops should grow quite robustly.
I initially planned to burn their clothes, but it was too bothersome, so I teared them apart and used them to fill in the gaps and holes of the door sill.
As for the canvas used to set up the tent, I draped it over the eave, which served as a decent waterproof roof.
Using the food rations I found in the luggage, I made a pot of stew.
According to my family traditions, only while it’s winter or when someone falls sick, would we make a stew, which made it’s appearance scarce on the dining table.
Although among the ‘spoils’ was bread which normally would be a ‘high quality food’, but it was so rough and hard that my gums would bleed……not to mention the cheese that smelled of rotten milk, making sugar the only edible one among them.
Although I call it sugar, it was more like crystallized honey. It’s yellow and white colour somehow raised my appet.i.te for it.
After mincing some girabbit meat and putting it into the pot, I threw in some sliced mountain herbs I had planted, added some cheese, spices to warm the body up, and some salt.
When the soup became thick and fragrant, I teared the bread into bits and threw them into the pot, to let the heat soften it.
I was used to make this kind of ‘Meal for the sick’ as my father had been through a time where his body had been weak causing him to fall sick easily.
Rather than going on an expensive trip to the hospital, he chose to recuperate at home.
I myself liked taking care of others.
From the point of view of my friends, it as if I was an independent person by not relying on others.
To be honest, when I take care of others, I feel that I am also being supported by the one I’m taking care of.
Although I would prefer to call this ‘When one is helping another, both gain strength’.
“Delicious?”
“Delicious, hehe.”
A beautiful woman eating……now that’s what you call eye candy. If she wasn’t hurt, I would have really done something……
“Eat more……”
As I fed her, I thought about what had to be done in the future.
As to why these people could find us, it could also be due to us exposing ourselves first.
For example, the smoke from the cooking fire, or when we came in contact with other humans. Could it be due to that time we went to Nightfall Town?
I don’t know how to explain it, but it doesn’t seems like the Nightfall Town residents have anything against monsters.
Wolflang the werewolf could already live there carefree, and the blacksmith even welcomed me and my Xifu warmly. The people in the bar were initially wary of us, but in the end they didn’t have any hostile intentions.
These 5 people shouldn’t have come from Nightfall Town, and that trip to Nightfall Town was really worth it.
As soon as possible I had to obtain as much information as possible so I could get answers to my questions.
All I knew was, that this was just the tip of the iceberg, and I had the prediction that both of our futures would be more than I could ever imagine.