Living on Borealis-9: The Story Of A Reincarnated Human

Chapter 9, Part 6: Rebuilding

To keep you from hearing the reminiscing of an old man, I'm going to cut out a lot of the stuff between when I passed out again to my next adventure. 

Basically, a month went by, and a lot of things happened. Tyr stopped trying to kill us so much, Scarlet and I got along together like peanut butter and bread, Kai taught me a little bit on how to swordfight, and Luna lost her everloving shit at me while trying to teach me how to be a Werewolf. I, apparently, am not the best of students. She refused to train me after that.

We also had a lot of work to do with restoring The Town. The Raiders, in a bit of desperation as we closed in, had killed every prisoner they had taken, so we had to do a lot of corpse disposal. It wasn't really that bad...at first. But if you've ever smelled gangrene before, multiply that by around thirty. And then cube it, because I had an enhanced sense of smell. I am never going to forget the smell of rotting flesh for the rest of my life...It wasn't my last time either...But that's for later. We had to bury all of the bodies in six-foot-deep graves, because they would otherwise become Zombies who, in Tyr's words 'They'll mope about the place for a wee while, keel o'er in the streets, an' then we hae the pleasure of' tidyin' up their zombified bodies.'

Way to be positive, Head. Does that mean we get to throw you into the burial mounds?

Eish.

Anyways, after taking care of the corpses, we had to then move on to supplies. Luckily for us, a caravan had been nearby when we set out for a village, and they were willing to connect us with a caravan to start coming to our town and supplying stuff. Really easy to work with, come to think of it. Turns out, the caravan company they had was dirt-poor, and really needed any business they could get. So, food and stuff was on the way.

Then it was the case with rebuilding. I played 'Darkest Dungeon' in college, I thought it would be cool to rebuild a town and stuff. But goddamn! It's hard! Let's just take a house. If it wasn't burned down, then it was likely broken in or blasted apart. So we'd have to replace the doors and windows, and I'd have to take count of how many bricks we'd need. Luna would go off to fetch the clay, while Kai made brick moulds for the clay to set in. Meanwhile, I had to clean out anything of vague value, like coins hidden in safes, or fine rugs that weren't TOO ripped up. That would be a payment to our trader friends.

But if the house wasn't blasted or broken, then we could use it to hold our stuff...Or for adventurers. After we made our first few payments to the traders, mostly with coins and gemstones I was forced to grave-rob, our little town had begun to have various visitors. Not many interesting people, but...still interesting people nonetheless.

Unfortunately, we had to kind of...'charge rent', if you catch my drift. Take, for instance, one guy who came to us. He walked into town, saw a house that wasn't too dilapidated, and took a nap on a couch there.

"We can't just let him sleep on OUR beds!" Tyr hissed.

"They're not technically our beds. They're up in the keep," I corrected him. "And besides, even if they were, dude looks tired. Let him sleep."

"We shouldn't, Matt." Luna said, bleary-eyed from the long nights we had to guard The Town. Unfortunately, I had destroyed the gate into town, so we had to have different watches. Tyr's were the best, because his job was to scream as loud as possible if someone tried coming in.

"I...Sorry, but I have to agree also. This person isn't going to just stay here like it's a hotel." Scarlet sighed.

"Fine. Let's just...ask him nicely, I assume."

"Sure." Luna said, gritting her teeth.

We did not ask him nicely. Because Luna got trigger-happy and ripped his spine out like she was the motherfuckin' 'PREDATOR'!

But, at least his armour sold for a good price. Just wish it wasn't blood money. I didn't talk to her for three days afterwards, though, and I still haven't forgiven her.

Anyways...Town restoration was going well when our caravan arrived again. But this time, they came in through the bridge. Usually, they would just wait outside and blow a horn. But as they entered, they just started unloading their stuff.

"Hey, guys. Why are you here?" I asked, jumping down from a roof I was boarding up.

"We're...very, very tired, Matt. I hope you and your friends don't mind, but we're going to...be stayin' here for a while." The lead trader said. He was a big, bushy-bearded Dwarf. And I say big in both meanings. He was almost five feet tall! And just as broad! But he was pretty good, and he was a nice guy based on the conversations I've had with him.

"Oh, ok. Sure. What's going on with you guys, though, you seem troubled." I said, helping a sickly-looking trader carry an equally sickly-looking mule.

"We got attacked...by Leshy."

"...And?" I asked. The only Leshy I knew was from the video game 'Inscryption', and unless these dudes had been attacked by a naked card-game enthusiast who lives in the woods, I didn't know what they were talking about.

"You...Don't know Leshy?" The lead trader asked.

"Nah."

"Leshy. The Trollson. Bane of drinkers. Taker of virginity-"

"Ew!" I exclaimed.

Luna, luckily, understood, and ran over to me. "Matt, virginity in the idea of something being untouched. Leshy eats one bite of all of your supplies, and then throws them away to go bad. He dulls swords. Unpolishes armour."

She turned to the lead trader, who was looking at me with a weird expression, mouth slightly open and breathing hard like he was about to yell at me.

"He's a bit...thick, you know?"

"Oi! I'm not fuckin-"

Luna's gaze was enough to shut me up. I could transform into a half-Werewolf on command now, and I felt a lot more confident, but...I felt like I was a tiny puppy who's about to get scolded. Especially with her hand digging into my back. So, I shut up and looked away.

"You've got a mouth on him, huh? Better get a new leader as soon as you can." The lead trader grunted disapprovingly. Jackass. "Anyways, we got attacked by Leshy. He's getting hungrier and hungrier. Not only did he eat all of our open food, but also three of our animals and men. He ran off before we could even hit him back, though, that's the kicker. We'd run him outta here, but...Swords are dull."

"No issues. We can easily sharpen them, and hunt down Leshy. All that we ask in return is payment." Luna offered.

"If you bring that big fucker's body to me, I'll give you all the gold to the company's name!" The trader leader said.

"You've got a deal!" I said, shaking his hand. All the gold we could get would be a huge help.

And as you can easily guess, we succeeded. It was just a Giant, I had my sword poke his belly and throw him off a cliff. Yay!