Chapter 160

Chapter 160

A couple weeks passed, and as Ben's mood only grew as the results of all of his work starting to pay off, everyone else’s managed to degrade. He’d just finished his repairs to the last house, his ability to cut the logs into the lengths and shapes he needed greatly increased with the purchase of a saw and other tools he’d ordered from the merchant and came back to Fontesh’s home to find the girls looking defeated as they sat around the table, while Skoe was fast asleep in his shed, finally getting a break from the constant work Ben had assigned him.

“What’s got everyone so down?” He asked, trying to hide the spring in his step that came with finally being done his overwhelming level of work. They, on the other hand, saw no end in sight.

“It just doesn’t make sense!” Sachel cried. “We’ve been killing about twenty a night and we wait for hours more to see if we can draw more out without luck!”

“So they’re coming from somewhere else,” Thera said. “We hunt in the evening, more must be arriving in the early hours of the morning when we’re gone.”

“The issue is how we find them then,” Ralia sighed. “Even if we keep killing the ones in the forest, it doesn’t matter if we don’t get the ones at the source.”

“I’m sure you guys will manage,” He told them, trying to sound positive before asking for a favour. “But since there’s plenty of day left I could use some help. Sachel, think you could point me towards any rocky outcrops I can take advantage of?”

“Didn’t we get you enough that first night?”

“This is for something different. Thera, could I also bother you to help bring it back with your earth magic?”

“Sure, maybe the change of pace would help us think of something anyway.”

Despite seeming so defeated, Sachel led them out of the village and through the woods, slowly making their way, muttering ideas to each other as Ben left them to it. He couldn’t interfere with them too much so instead he reflected on his thoughts, thinking about how he’d make the statue. He’d at least gotten some proper tools from the merchant when she’d come back, among a couple other things he wasn’t sure if he would end up using or not, but he was confident it wouldn’t be too hard to make a statue that would satisfy the village and their goddess.

As he was thinking that though, the village managed to satisfy him instead.

Defense enhancement. I absolutely want a level to defense enhancement

Thrilled was putting it mildly. All of the work he’d put towards helping the village had just paid off in a big way, making him slightly harder to kill. It was a bit of a shame to put the reward to something on the zeroth level instead of waiting until it was at the second, but if how long it had taken him to learn it from Zandale was any indication, then he didn’t have an aptitude for the skill, completing quests was going to be the best way to get it anywhere. The sooner he got to the point that things couldn’t punch or chew through his delicate flesh, the better.

Using a proper hammer and chisel he’d ordered from the merchant, instead of the hastily thrown together stone ones he’d produced, he etched a line to guide where he wanted to work before adding an enchantment to the chisel to aid it in splitting the stone where he hit it, applying deeper cuts then it ever would have otherwise. Even still it wasn’t quick work, nor was it deep enough, he still needed to break it away.

Luckily he had an idea for a trick he could use, something he remembered from an old documentary he’d watched long ago. He found a variety of thick tree branches and cut them into wedges before hammering them into the cracks he’d made in the stone with his tools and enchanting. After that, it came down to using the resources he had on hand. Namely Sachel.

“Hey, would you mind using your water magic to make those branches absorb as much water as they can?”

“Hm? Yeah, that should be easy enough, why though?”

“Just watch, it will be great.”

She did as he asked and pulled water from the air, soaking each branch and the best she could for reasons she didn’t understand until a loud crack reverberated through the forest.

“What was that?” Ralia yelled, immediately on guard as Ben tried to calm her.

“Relax, Sachel just split the stone. Good work by the way.”

“Uh, thanks, but how did I do that?”

“Water expands the wood and forces the cracks that already exist to run deeper. Just need to do it to the other sides and we’re golden.”

He got to work placing more wedges as Sachel soaked them, until finally they had a block of stone in the middle of the woods, too big to do anything with if it weren’t for Thera’s magic.

She carefully lifted it into the air, moving it through the woods as she went and stopping for plenty of breaks as need be to keep it from slipping from her magical grasp until they made it back to the village.

The dryads by this point had grown used to Thera’s overwhelming displays of power as she brought back wood for construction, but this time someone stood in their way as they went through the village, the elder and head of the village, Hentath.