“I have a report! The monsters have increased!”
I shouted this after running through the town and bursting into the guild.
There was no time to wait in a line at the counter.
This seemed to have worked because the manager came out immediately.
And he asked me:
“Are you…certain about this information?”
“Yeah.”
“…And how many would you say there are?”
I thought about his question for a moment.
Even now the slimes were giving me information, but they could not see all of the monsters.
Still, I could make a general estimate.
It was better than nothing.
“I don’t know for certain, but there should at least be 5,000… At worst, there could be tens of thousands. My own guess would be 20,000.”
The manager heard this and turned pale.
“20,000!? This town cannot deal with such a number! No, even if all the surrounding towns joined forces, we would still be hopeless! …Do you know which way the monsters have gone?”
“Currently, the monsters haven’t shown any obvious movement. But I know that they have been seen…in this area.”
I said as I traced the area on the map.
It was so big that it would be impossible to surround.
“…Then we can only pray that the monsters do not attack this town for now… If even ten percent of them attack us, this town will be destroyed.”
“I think it’s a little early to give up if we’re talking about 2,000. We could just use magic and…”
“It’s impossible. There are not even 100 Adventurers in this town. No matter how strong they are, each one would only be able to kill about 20 monsters. But given the reports about the level of these monsters, I’m not even sure if they could kill 5. Perhaps one person killing one monster should be considered impressive enough. And so you see, 2,000 is just impossible.”
…Was that how strong Adventurers were?
Well, Gale’s party had been hard-pressed when they were fighting monsters three to five.
It might be different with high-level Adventurers, but I guess there were no such strong Adventurers in this town.
That being said, it would be hard to destroy them all with my own magic.
I was pretty sure that there were limitations, and I couldn’t use ‘Hellfire of Death’ to annihilate the monsters without affecting the town.
If there was any hope…it would be in ‘Magic Creation.’
“So, what are you going to do?”
“If it comes to it, we’ll have to evacuate the town. …Of course, just running away would only end up making us food for the monsters. So we will have to think carefully about which way to go.”
“…Can you really help everyone in the town escape?”
“Not everyone. Those with strength will increase our chance of survival. We will at least have a better chance than if we stayed here. …Especially if there are more than 5,000 monsters.”
…In other words, they would abandon those who had no strength…
“…Thank you for the information. In any case, what’s most important now is the monitoring of the monsters. If we know what they are doing immediately, then we can plan accordingly. We’re counting on you.”
“Alright. I will continue to watch them.”
It was just as we finished the discussion.
The slimes that I had left in the field started to shout out at once.
‘The monsters have started to move!’
‘The monsters are headed for the town!’
‘These monsters are also going to the town!’
And-it wasn’t just the slimes that had been surrounding the monsters.
The slimes that were in the Dryad forest were also shouting.
‘The monsters in the forest are moving!’
‘Strange monsters are moving towards the town!’
It seemed that the same thing was happening near the Dryad forest as well.
From what I could see through ‘Shared Perception,’ the Dryad forest itself was the same, which was the one good thing among this misfortune.
‘So, which town are the monsters headed to?’
I would probably hear a number of names.
Maybe I would be able to estimate what percentage of them would come here.
Hopefully, it would be a number that was manageable for us.
And so I prayed while I asked the slimes this question—but the answers I got were all the same.
‘The town you are in, Yuji!’