Game Difficulty
Is Crazy
Chapter 12
The next day.
After staying the night at Baron Fabien’s mansion, Glen spent the entire morning practicing swordsmanship in the courtyard.
Only when the sun was high in the sky and the penalty of the gray ring ended did he head straight to Baron Fabien’s office.
“You said you want to go to the Haven mines right now, Young Master Glen?”
As Fabien widened his eyes, Glen set down the teacup he had been sipping from.
“Yes. That’s right.”
“No, why would you go to that filthy place of all places?”
“I heard that you’ve been having headaches over problems with the mines lately, so it caught my interest.”
“What? Problems… with the mines?”
As Fabien’s gaze wavered slightly, a sharp glint passed through Glen’s eyes.
“Sir Fabien. Are you perhaps having trouble lately due to a decrease in Haven’s iron production?”
“Ah, ahahahaha! Th-that’s not true at all. Haven is very peaceful—”
“Don’t brush it off. I know everything worth knowing. Sir Fabien.”
At that, Fabien lowered his eyes as if he had been struck in a sore spot.
It was a completely different expression from the bright face that had boasted endlessly the day before.
“Yes…… that’s correct. Haven’s mines produce the most iron in the northwestern territory of the Papal State. But to be honest, the situation surrounding the Haven mines is not very good right now.”
Because of their large scale, mining operations had become more active, and workers were going deeper and deeper into the mines to extract iron ore.
As a result, it became increasingly common for them to enter the deep parts of the mine—restricted zones where monsters appeared.
Eventually, due to damage from monster attacks, the number of workers decreased every year, and naturally, Haven’s iron production gradually declined as well.
“Your father regularly led expeditions to carry out purification operations, didn’t he?”
“Yes. As you said, every three months, the lord, Henry Wordsworth, leads troops to reduce the number of monsters.”
“But the rate at which monsters increase is higher than the purification cycle, I assume.”
“That’s exactly it.”
Fabien’s cheeks drooped.
Glen tilted his head slightly.
“Is it impossible to carry out purification with your knight order?”
“Of course, my brave Canary Knight Order enters the restricted zone once a week to reduce the number of monsters.”
“And yet the workers are still being attacked by monsters?”
“Yes. The knight order fought valiantly, but the number of monsters was so great that we couldn’t purify all the way to the deepest part of the restricted zone.”
Fabien’s eyes lost their focus.
“There were that many monsters?”
“O-of course! My Canary Knight Order is brave enough to rival even the Gray Wolf Knight Order!”
“Ah, yes…….”
It was hard to believe outright when Fabien’s eyes lacked so much confidence.
“Anyway! Those monster bastards are the problem! No matter how much we pull them out by the roots and cut them down, they keep increasing and crawling out from somewhere, causing endless trouble!”
Fabien shook his cheeks in anger, then quickly became dejected.
“In any case, because of these issues, some merchant guilds seem to be preparing to gradually pull out.”
“No matter what measures you take, the situation doesn’t improve. If they’re sharp merchants, that’s how they’d move.”
Even a city that looks prosperous on the surface always has places that are rotten once you look inside.
Perhaps Fabien’s excessive boasting about Haven the day before had been a kind of defense mechanism to avoid or conceal these bad circumstances.
“By the way, Young Master, you seem to know these details very well. Why do you want to go to the mines?”
“Oh, it’s nothing much. Sir Fabien, you haven’t spared any support for Avenue even in difficult times, so I thought I’d repay you, even if only a little.”
A deep question filled Fabien’s eyes.
Looking at him, Glen smiled gently.
“I’ll go to the Haven mines myself and wipe out the monster seeds.”
Of course, the reward would be expensive.
That afternoon, Glen headed to the mines west of Haven together with Baron Fabien’s Canary Knight Order.
After traveling for about forty minutes from Fabien’s mansion, they arrived at a small mining village set up beneath the mine.
As they rested there, the village miners came out to greet Glen’s group.
Soon, a middle-aged man with thick hair knelt before Glen.
“I am Milton, the village chief and the mine foreman. I’ve only ever learned how to swing a pickaxe, so I don’t know proper etiquette for addressing a noble guest. My apologies.”
“This man will accompany us and guide us to the restricted zone.”
It was Norman, vice-captain of the Canary Knight Order and Fabien’s eldest son.
Glen approached Milton, lowered himself, and met his eyes.
“There’s no need to apologize. God looks at the heart of His followers, not their form.”
After lightly tending to public sentiment, Glen and the Canary Knight Order entered the mine with Milton leading the way.
As they were about to enter the tunnel, Norman asked in a worried tone,
“Is this really possible?”
“What is?”
“I heard that you told my father you’d wipe out the monster seeds.”
“Yes. I did.”
“But even the lord of Wordsworth, a 7-star holy knight, couldn’t wipe out the monster seeds.”
Norman’s face darkened.
Periodically, the lord of Wordsworth and his men would go deep into the mine and slaughter every monster they found.
Yet monsters still swarmed there even after such powerful figures acted, so it was only natural that he couldn’t believe a boy not even twenty yet who claimed he would wipe them out completely.
“Ah, that story. To put it simply, I’m different from my father.”
Unlike them, Glen knew very clearly.
He knew how to stop monster regeneration.
“Different? What do you mean?”
Turning to Norman, Glen replied with a relaxed expression.
“God is with me.”
“Pardon? What do you mean by—”
“Now then, let’s hurry. Milton, how far is it to the restricted zone?”
Watching the back of Glen’s head as he walked ahead, Norman wore a confused expression.
Guided by the foreman Milton, Glen and the Canary Knight Order reached the deepest part of the tunnel.
『Restricted Zone Ahead』
『Monsters Appear Beyond This Point. Turn Back』
Pointing at the warning signs, Milton explained,
“In reality, workers don’t even come this far. And yet the monster bastards cross this sign and abduct the workers.”
“Abduct.”
“Two get taken every week. It’d be nice if we could at least get the bodies back, but since they’re monsters, we gave up on that long ago.”
Glen rubbed his lips, then shrugged and took the lead.
“Two a week, huh…… alright then. Let’s go in for now, Sir Norman.”
“Yes. Duncan, stay here with the foreman. The rest, follow the young master.”
“Yes!”
“I wish you good fortune.”
Leaving Milton behind, twenty men advanced into the darkness.
“Chiiiiik!”
“Keeeek!”
Bestial cries echoed from all directions.
At the same time, hundreds of red eyes flashed in the darkness.
“They’re coming! Front line, shields forward!”
At Norman’s command, the knights in the front planted their shields on the ground.
At the same moment, a mass of black shapes poured onto the shields.
Thud! Bang! Thud-thud!
“Kiiik!”
What fell beneath the shields was a swarm of rats the size of wild dogs.
The rats battered the shields once.
Then Norman, who had been waiting, shouted,
“Knight Order! Exterminate the monsters!”
