Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire
Chapter 140: Plotting The Takeover Of A Takeover!? (4)

Chapter 140: Plotting The Takeover Of A Takeover!? (4)

** Bonus Chapter **

Sorry readers some of you may have noticed i was not putting out bonus Chapters recently, well i got into the groove and instead was doing some lengthier Chapters the last couple of days but we should be back on track for the general releases once again.

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"The villagers are all out in the fields to fulfill their quotas. Those who have come from other places are helping each other to cultivate their own fields. Hey, Gordon!" <Merol>

"Ou!" <Gordon>

The man called Gordon dropped the stone he was carrying and came over to Merol.

They tilt their heads as if they just noticed our presence.

"It’s been a while since we last met. The village chief didn’t reject them. So we asked them to work together with us." <Merol>

"Roger that" <Gordon>

Gordon nods easily.

It seemed like he had no intention of refusing.

I was worried that he would treat me like an outsider, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

"Did the village chief accept everyone?" <Gordon>

Then he asked, merol nodded vigorously, showing respect for the word of the village chief.

Then he began to explain why.

"I was seriously injured while fleeing here, but the village chief treated me. I feel like I received a great debt of gratitude. The village chief and the villagers are all good people. I was able to come to a village like this. You’re lucky. Anyway, I’m glad." <Man>

The man next to Gordon said so, nodding and smiling brightly.

They also seem to be basically nice people.

The original size of this village means that the majority of people here are actually refugee’s

"Thank you. I’m called Ain and this is here is Zint." <Julius>

I introduced Zeff using the similar but different Zint.

Zeff meanwhile nodded brusquely.

From that moment on, we started helping with village work, clearing the new field of large stones, and digging out the trunks that remained after the tops had been cutdown.

It was quite hard to work and sweat for the first time in a while.

I thought I had gotten a little stronger recently, but it seems like I’m still far from being physically strong enough to adapt to such intense physical labour.

However, I still had no choice but to grit my teeth.

For now, I need to blend into the village.

"Brother, show more strength. You have a better physique than me, what’s wrong with you!" <Gordon>

Gordon looked at me and said that with a mocking smile.

On the other hand, he praises Zeff tremendously.

"My younger brother has no match. Haha, he can do his job and another as well." <Julius>

When the men saw Zeff carrying two large stones at a time, they opened their mouths in shock.

I couldn’t close my mouth either.

This guy’s strength is that he is not only fast but also powerful.

But it seems better to tell him to tone it down a little now.

I look like a relatively incompetent person, don’t I?

I mean in comparison, Zeff is in the Upper 90’s for powerlevel while I’m still in the 70’s most of these villager due to constantly undergoing manual labour and strength training have higher power levels than me.

But it was already too late.

At the dormitory, Gordon treated me as a completely new kid and assigned me a bed at the end of the room.

And Zeff was praised for his work and was given a better bed than me.

Zeff can’t hide his confusion.

It looked like he was angry at the way they was treating me, but I guess he remembered his order not to make a fuss no matter what, so he reluctantly accepted that reality.

For a while after that, I suddenly found myself being told that I couldn’t work.

Shit.

This is why first impressions are important to people.

However, there was no need to show off his abilities just yet, so he was content to sleep in a corner where the cold wind was blowing in.

A few days passed like that after we joined the village.

"Uncle! Is this correct?" <Child>

If there was anything that changed, it was that I was given the responsibility of educating the children in the mornings, seems i was valued more for my intelligence than i was for my strength...

Of course, I only read the automatically translated text, so Serena was in charge of actually teaching how to write.

The village chief learned that Serena could read and asked her to teach the village children in the morning.

I agreed immediately to assist because there was nothing wrong with getting to know the chief more.

And Serena seemed rather happy to not be required to be in the fields all day long.

Moreover, for some reason, she was also knowledgeable about medicinal herbs.

She said she’d read a lot of books in the palace some of which covered medicine.

The same was true of the village chief, who was a self taught apothacarist, and the two got along well.

So I worked as an assistant while Serena taught her how to write.

"That’s right. Everything fits." <Serena>

Being a teachers assistant.

Many claimed i snuck here from manual labor, but even when the class is over i head to the men and put in my fair share.

Serena meanwhile was happily assisting the children calling out one boy and asking a simple arithmetic problem.

She plopped her hand on the boy’s head and gave him a friendly smile when he answered correctly, which encouraged the rest to try harder.

Then, when class was over, the children picked up big baskets one after another to return to their own chores.

"Where are you all going?" <Julius>

"Until I’m old enough to work in the fields, I’ll go to the mountains to collect wild vegetables and medicinal herbs!" <Girl>

The girl next to me, whose nose was dripping, answered.

Then, the boy from earlier opened his mouth and said

"We don’t just play around either!"

"Huh?" <Julius>

Are even the children busy in this village?

The people’s personalities may be positive, but the situation in the village is proof that this is not the case.

The villagers really worked all day long.

It’s like a machine.

Merol mentioned Norma on the first day, and it probably had something to do with it.

There must be some sort of quota set by Rushak for each village.

In this situation where he has become a farmer at this unfortunate time, considering his purpose, it is convenient enough to be exploited, so we have no choice but to watch him for the time being.

Isn’t the reason why we are holding our breath now for when the time comes?

Rushak will probably make even more unreasonable demands, his rebellion has no real loyalty so the best he can do is buy their loyalties any way he can, in this case with food.

That was my purpose hiding here.

The more unreasonable the demands are, the lower the public sentiment will be, and when that happens, opportunities will arise, opportunities to sow discord and cause a civil uprising against those just taking and gorging one what they can get their hands on.

If we share their hardships now, our empathy will increase.

That’s why it was important for me to spend time working like them, eating the same food, and struggling together.

When I finished my work as a teacher and went to the center of the village, I found the village chief and other villagers busy dividing the crops.

"That’s quite a harvest." <Julius>

When I express my honest opinion, the village chief sighs.

"Not really. This still won’t reach the quota." <Village Chief>

"How much is the quota...? The royal palace is too cruel!" <Julius>

"There’s nothing we can do because there’s a rumour that if we don’t obey, the village will be ruined. However, thanks to the frequent rains, we have a large harvest, so it looks like we’ll be able to meet our quota somehow. Even if it means a few skipped meals for the villagers, Besides which, you should be careful with your mouth. I won’t be responsible for what happens if you’re caught!" <Village Chief>

The village chief nods ending his light scolding, and the villagers also nod.

However, he only nodded, his face still showing concern.

It wasn’t my turn yet, so I nodded with a dull expression and headed off to help with the clearing work.

And that’s when it came right in front of me.

I could hear the mountains rumbling.

It’s a dull sound.

When I rushed there, I found that disaster had occurred.

A stone had fallen from the mountain above.

It’s a falling rock.

People who noticed this were panicked and ran safely outside the range of the falling rock.

However, one man who was working on the project was too late to notice the falling rock, and ended up getting his lower body crushed under a huge boulder.

"Mandel!" <Gordon>

When Gorden ran towards him screaming, the man who was crushed under him had a sad expression on his face.

"Cuckoo..." <Mandel>

Gordon tried to save the man by himself, but it was no use on his own.

So, all the men including Zeff and I joined forces, but the rock didn’t move at all.

Why on earth did such a large rock fall down?

It’s so big that even Zeff can’t do anything about it.

The Villagers who noticed this situation gathered from all over the place and tried to join forces, but the boulder remained unmoved.

The villagers shook their heads.

The village chief also shook his head with a sad expression.

"This is serious. It’s not like I’m crushed up to my waist and amputating my leg..." <Mandel>

"Please help me! This is my friend who ran away after all this trouble. He has finally settled down, so what is this...?" <Gordon>

"That’s right... But..." <Mandel>

The villagers, including Melol, clicked their tongues with pitiful faces.

Still, it couldn’t be helped.

"Hmm. Not that there isn’t a way." <Julius>

Dozens of people’s eyes gather at my words.

Then, Gordon, who was kneeling on the ground crying, grabbed my arm.

"Is there a way? Please help me. He’s a poor guy. He lost his wife and children in the war..." <Gordon>

"Is it so" <Julius>

Everything I’m doing here is to make them my people, convince them to give up on these lands and return with me to Aquitania.

So of course we have to do what we can.

But I’m limited by the system, just like when i tried making gunpowder and it failed, what if i try to create a pully and it also fails?

The village head asked me, showing interest in my words if there was a way to free the trapped man.

"What kind of method is there?" <Village Chief>

"There’s something called the pulley principle, and if that doesn’t work we can use a fulcrum. It’s about generating a lot of force with a small amount of force, but if you wrap a rope around a rock..." <Julius>

I began detailing my two planned method of better utilizing the force of the villagers, and luckily the Village chief was able to confirm that Pully’s at least are a thing, used in construction of city walls, and castles.

Good with basic physics we can certainly free the man, but then what comes afterwards...

In any case best to start with getting him free.

Of course, it would be unthinkable to operate it in such a rural town, but the principle is simple, so we don’t need any complex systems.

Creating such a device would not be a difficult task for the villagers, but I explained what I knew to the village chief.

"I don’t really understand, but I guess that’s the way to go?" <Village Chief>

"Yes. Please give me a little help. Everyone, thank you!" <Julius>

When I said that, the villagers started making noise, saying they should give it a try.

Thanks to that, there was no problem with the number of people.

The sky soon turned dark and work continued until late into the night.

And this is the result of this collaboration that began under the moonlight.

A crudely build scaffolding structure with a series of ropes hanging down creating a method of cutting the weight of the boulder in half, i just hope the structure holds up long enopught to free him.

The moment of truth came and the one end of the rope was tied excessively around the boulder as every man in the villager took hold of the ropes other end and began pulling.

and

It moved the rock.

"Ooooooo!"

Cheers go up everywhere.

At the massive boulder the entire village couldn’t move was now levitating above the man, while the women rushed forward to quickly recover him, before we let go dropping it to the ground once again.

I wasn’t too sure about that either, so I was pretty satisfied with the result.

The day I saved Gordon’s friend.

The attitude of the young people in the village towards me has changed, I’m no longer a weakling whose only strength is his mind.

The village chief sincerely treated Mandel’s leg, which had been crushed under him, it was a crude splint but they were fairly confident he’d be fine..

The village chief explained that although he probably won’t be able to walk anymore, his injuries are not life-threatening.

I hadn’t planned for this to happen, but I felt like I was getting used to it little by little.

And so another day passes.

My turn has come again...

There are far to many events for this small village

One of the children, who had climbed a nearby mountain to collect medicinal herbs, ran into the village crying.

It was found out that a beast had appeared.

When I heard that story, I immediately rushed to save the children who were running away from the beast and climbing up the trees.

From then on, I completely stopped doing manual labour and ended up helping the village chief with his work because I could read, and patrolling the village as a sudo guard.

Most of the village chief’s work involves medical treatment.

So I simply wrote a prescription.

By doing this, I was able to make my presence more clearly visible to the villagers.

I guess as time went on, I started to feel more like a deputy village chief.

"Thank you for your hard work. Now that we have a child, we have to work harder!" <Villager>

The village chief was a person who never forgot to encourage the villagers who were doing hard work.

It’s understandable that he has a lot of trust.

"Lord, even though you have the ability to exterminate beasts, as well as being able to read, please tell me honestly. I can’t help but think that there is a secret to your origins that makes you hide out here when you and your companions have other options." <Village Chief>

While the five of us were looking around the village, we were a little surprised when the village chief suddenly asked us this question.

Well, we certainly stood out too much, so I guess it can’t be helped to think that way.

"Well...could you please come over here?" <Julius>

In that case, I had no choice but to make a story that would convince the village chief.

What I learned anew was that this village chief seemed to have a pretty good reputation in the neighbouring villages due to his temperament.

It is probably because of this personality that Serena is said to be famous.

After announcing to the Chief just who the woman who was my "wife" really was,

And filling in some of the blanks as to how we really wound up here.

Since the truth cannot be revealed yet, there were some lies mixed in.

No, it’s mostly all a lie, but I can’t help it.

Now is not the time to reveal the truth.