Nothing happened for nearly a minute, but then finally, a prompt appeared.
Would you like to gather the loot from this rotting Ogre corpse?
Yes/No?
I selected Yes and watched as the ogre corpse vanished and was replaced by a waist-high pile of brown, smelly compost with a small pile of toenails, the ogre’s skull, and a weird bony orb next to it.
You have found:
Good quality monster fertilizer x12
Ogre Toenails
Ogre Trophy
Ogre Core
“Hey, Ranic, what’s an ogre trophy?”
“Technically, by itself, it’s just bones. Adventurers keep them as a sign of their combat prowess so they can boast to other adventurers. The rest of us use them to build warding poles to scare away similar monsters.”
“Okay, I also got an ogre core. That’s the thing clerics use to give a blessing, right?”
Ranic looked up and frowned. “Yes. Though, it’s strange you received one. Monsters always form a core by the time they reach their max level, but the chances of one forming before that go down with each level. There should have been less than a 1% chance of it forming at only level 26. Pass it here, please.”
The ogre’s core looked kind of like a rubber band ball made from bone. The orb was only about the size of a baseball, but I quickly learned it was heavier than it looked when I picked it up and passed it over. It was as heavy as lead.
Ranic took the orb and studied it, running his fingers over the ridges.
“I heard larger cores are worth more,” I said.
“They are,” Ranic said slowly, “but it’s really the tier of monster which the core comes from that gives its value. Ogres are a second-tier monstrosity. Their blessing gives a two-point bump to constitution which classifies the blessing as uncommon. The size of this one suggests it would be able to bless six people with the ogre’s blessing when used.”
“So, how much is it worth?”
“Well, it’s a functional core by the looks of it, so you will easily sell it for 30 crowns if you went to an adventurers’ guild. You will, of course, lose half of that to taxes.” My eyes widened as he handed it back. “But still, you caught a lucky break. Now, stop bothering me. I’m trying to work.”
I grinned and I put down my spear, gathered the other various loot drops, and took them inside the house to put them away. Getting the core was just the cherry on the top when you considered the ogre’s experience was worth more than what I’d received from the wolves.
After a few minutes of private celebration, I returned to the barn and picked up my farming tools. At my level, it only took me an hour or two each day to tend my single field of squash: picking one weed would make five others teleport away, and watering seemed to go a lot farther than it had when I was level one. The farm’s visual overlay showing me each plant needed significantly less water than in the past, but, even with the shortened work day, an hour was still an hour too long in my opinion.
God, I hated farming.
Thankfully, I wouldn’t have to do it much longer. The experience I’d received from these kills was truly impressive. If it all sold at auction, then I’d be a third of the way to affording a heritage seed. I already knew which path I would take after passing through my threshold.
Once I became a farm manager, I could employ other farmers and have their work count towards my next three thresholds. I’d still have to manage my farm or have Ranic do it, but at least this way, I wouldn’t have to work on it myself.
Those thoughts were my only comfort as I went outside and got to work.
Chapter Twenty
CALAMITY
The problem with being smart is you are rarely wrong. However, when you are wrong, you can be so spectacularly wrong that people will look at you and think, God, what an idiot. I remember reading about an engineer who died in a spitting contest. He understood physics better than his competition, so he knew that having a running start would give him an edge, putting more power behind his loogie when he hocked it. Knowing this, he ran towards his apartment balcony to beat his competition. I don’t know if he tripped or wasn’t particularly gifted athletically, but the competition ended with him going over the balcony railing, eleven storeys up. His mistake was he thought he knew all the variables and that made him willing to take a more significant risk. It’s pretty much the same mistake all smart people make before they die in a way others view as idiotic. And it was the same mistake I’d made tonight.
Smoke made it challenging to follow the pair of nine-foot-tall cyclopes as they leapt over the open trapdoor into the barn. The pair landed on top of the burning hay line, muffling the noise and stifling my light.
I felt no happiness, no excitement, only an intense dread as smoke overflowed the barn, drowning out the scent of death clinging to these creatures. The levels of these monsters were high enough that I couldn’t see them, which put them all above level 25, and into their second tier of growth.
Tribal, rhythmic grunts and growls bombarded my ears, disorientating me and disabling my ability to use sound to track positions. I had four cyclopes trapped inside the pit trying to claw their way out by standing on each other. They’d hooted supportively as their allies leapt over their heads, succeeding where they failed.
Hand trembling, I pulled the lever.
Three logs, connected to the crossbeams by ropes, supporting five-foot-long cross-bladed spearheads that were almost two feet wide at the base, disengaged from the roof and swung towards the barn door. The two cyclopes roared triumphantly, increasing the volume of the chant, as they stepped off the burning hay to charge me, each of their single eyes filled with animalistic rage.
The log spears collided with the middles of their chests, parting flesh like oversized kebab sticks, leaving them impaled to the face of the log.
The two massive creatures looked down in astonishment as they began coughing blood, their small minds unable to comprehend what had happened. The third spear swung wildly, hitting them on the backswing, sending them tumbling, wrenching the spears inside them.
My attention moved to the cyclopes climbing out of the pit. There wasn’t time to watch the other two and make sure they were dead. There were too many of them. I had to keep track of the other targets if I wanted to live through the next few minutes.
Everything had gone horribly wrong.
I pulled the other lever, gripping it so tight my knuckles turned white, and the oversized axe blade came free, cutting the first escaping cyclops in half before locking on the other side.
The three largest cyclopes waiting outside the entrance realised three of their own were down, changed the rhythm of their chant, and finally charged.
My hands moved. I pulled another lever, releasing the swinging spike walls on either side of the entrance as they charged through, trying to leap over the pit where the trapdoor had been. The walls came down in a curved arch, striking the two outside cyclopes as they tried to clear the pit. A dozen steel spikes penetrated each one as they were thrown off-course, falling short of the barn floor at the opposite end of the pit. They went down, landing inside, striking walls, before hitting their allies and the spikes at the bottom.
The third cyclops made the jump, safely reaching the other side, only to be struck by the backswing of the same axe that killed its ally seconds before. I let go of the lever and moved my hand to the one which controlled the second axe.
My knees began to shake. There was no excited anticipation of the reward waiting for me at the end. If just one of them reached me, it was over. There was nothing I could do. Even a level 50 warrior couldn’t go toe to toe with a cyclops—and I was just a farmer.
My attention turned to the pit now occupied by five injured but alive cyclopes. I could use the second swinging axe twice like the first. Other than that, I only had two swinging spike walls left which were located right in front of me. It wasn’t enough to deal with five targets.
The only trap that could
was my trump card. But using it was the very definition of running off a balcony to win a spitting contest. Of course, then the other two cyclopes showed up, adding their voices to the ones in the pit.
They charged around the corner of the barn and through the door, leaping either side of where the swinging spike walls had come to rest over the pit. They dodged the swinging axe that had been triggered twice, so it could no longer lock into place, and was now swinging back and forth like some forgotten Indiana Jones death trap.
The dodge would have been more impressive if the first one of them hadn’t run straight into my second swinging axe and been cut in half. It probably still would have been impressive if the second one didn’t run right into the swinging spike wall when it was only ten feet away from reaching me, halting its momentum completely. The barbed spikes held the twitching cyclops in place as it growled at me, trying to push its way through the painful obstruction. Its head towered above me, as it stared down with fierce rage, its massive body no less imposing for being trapped.
I watched for several seconds to make sure it didn’t have enough fight left in it to pull itself off the spikes. It didn’t. One of the spikes had gone through the side of its mouth and head, forcing its jaw open at an awkward angle that would cause it to nearly decapitate itself if it tried to remove it the wrong way.
The distraction gave the ones in the pit an opening and I almost missed the next escapee—but caught it just in time with the last swing of my second axe.
The axe blade took off its right leg just below the hip, throwing the cyclops to the side of the barn. If that had been its only injury, it might have managed to come for me, but it had already been hit by a spike wall and fallen through the trapdoor.
The fight left it as it came to rest near the wall.
I turned back to the trapdoor. “Fuck off,” I shouted, utterly done with the night's events, but seeing five more figures appear outside.
These weren’t as big as the others. They were adolescent cyclopes, by my guess. They were no taller than I was, only wider. I didn’t have time to analyse them and check if I was right, though, as they hurriedly moved to the edge of the pit and tried to help those trapped inside escape.
I watched them for almost three seconds before finally making a decision. “There’s too many of them.”
I pulled the red lever and grabbed the war pitchfork Ava had made for me as I dove behind the reinforced wooden wall. The wall was one of the many new additions. My experience with the trolls had shown me I occasionally needed a safe place to hide. I grabbed several thick layers of canvas and pulled them around me, rolling into a ball, exhaling as hard as I could.
Yes, I had painted the lever red because it was my trump card, and yes, doing so had been highly unnecessary. Maybe even a little childish. But it was the self-destruct option. And since I didn’t have a big red button, I settled on a big red lever.
If I survived, it would make what happened next a hundred times more epic.
I listened as a delayed counterweight slammed a pair of sledgehammers into two barrels of moonshine positioned above the pit, where the spike fall used to be. The barrels shattered the way they were designed to, dropping a hundred gallons of highly flammable liquid down onto the pit and the burning hay surrounding it.
Boom!
Heat, light, and sound came from all directions. The force of the blast shook my whole body, even behind my reinforced cover. The roar and heat of the flames drowned out the chanting as a prompt filled my vision.
Well done, you have killed several Cyclopes with a unique kamikaze firebomb trap and gained a level in the Trapsmith skill.
Skill: Trapsmith
Level: 3
Effect:
+6% to your trapsmithing ability
+6% to your effectiveness at locating and camouflaging traps.
I dismissed the prompt as I moved several layers of the canvas off my face and looked around to see flames. All the hay was on fire, along with a fair amount of wood. I took a breath under the canvas, hoping that there was some oxygen left trapped in there with me, and then rolled out from under the canvas, taking only the bottom layer with me since the top layers were likely on fire.
Once I was out, I pulled the canvas tighter to fight off the heat and looked back and confirmed that the top canvas layer was on fire in a few places. It was good to know that at least part of my plan had worked. The whole attracting a low-level razor boar and her piglets plan had left me dealing with this cyclops fiasco.
I turned, needing to see the damage my trap had caused.
A half-second glance towards the entrance said that was a bad idea. What I really needed to do was get out—the barn's front half was already a wall of flames. I ran towards the nearest dead cyclops anyway. It was pinned to the spike wall, its back on fire.
I had no idea if the little ones had been blown free from the barn by the explosion, allowing me recover the cyclopes experience from them later, but even if one had I wasn’t going to take the risk and potentially waste the experience I’d gained here. I slapped my hand against an area that wasn’t burning.
Well done, you have successfully defended your farm against 14 Cyclopes.
I held my right hand out, under the canvas, and felt a melon-sized green crystal begin to form as I turned and ran for the ladder.
You have earned 498,638 farmer experience. Would you like to absorb it?
Yes/No?
I automatically said No, but that didn’t stop me from reading the number. It was an insane amount of experience. It was just shy of what you needed to reach level 100 from zero. It was more than 2400 crowns worth of experience, even at base.
Holy shit, if some of these carcasses managed to survive the fire and if some of the caged wolves were still alive, I was going to make so much money.
That thought vanished as I reached the ladder. You couldn’t spend money if you were dead.
Going up is never a good idea when you are in a burning building. Especially when the walls are already covered in flames. That is like, a basic rule of fire. However, if your only means of escape is on the floor above you, that rule must be broken.
I tossed the experience up to the empty hayloft since I didn’t have a pocket that could fit it, leaving myself free to focus on survival. My chest screamed for air as my heart hammered, but I didn’t dare breathe in. There was so much smoke I’d immediately start choking. I didn’t drop my war pitchfork as I ascended because with this whole pitchfork master rank, it was just as easy for me to climb with it as without.
I reached the top and stumbled across the hayloft, scooping up the crystal and tucking it under my arm like a football. Thick black smoke stung my eyes, making them water, and blinding me to anything more than a few feet in front of me.
My movements came entirely from memory. Over the last few weeks, once I realised blowing up the barn with me in it might be a necessity, I’d planned out an escape route and then practiced blindfolded escape drills.
I found the latch and opened the hayloft loading door. It probably had some fancy farming name, but I had never been interested enough to learn. I grabbed the escape rope next to the exit and put my foot through the loop at the bottom, and my hand through the second loop farther up, and then climbed through the opening. The rope reached the end of its slack after only a few feet, going taut, pulling against the counterweight.
I dropped the crystal and canvas onto the ground outside to hold the rope better, then leaned back and stepped off, trying my best to keep upright as I dropped towards the ground like a one-legged rock climber. The counterweight engaged and slowed my descent, weakening the shock as I landed, but there was still some pain where I had previously broken my leg. I pulled my hand out of the loop and then grabbed the rope with both hands to safely pull my foot free from the other loop like I had practiced. I’d run this drill so many times I could do it in my sleep—or while panicking and running for my life.
I let go of the rope and it shot u
pwards. I heard a crash inside as the counterweight landed. That was an afterthought, as I’d already picked up the crystal and started running.
This whole night had turned to utter shit so fast. Sure, there had been that screw-up with the second group of trolls last week, but that was nothing compared to this.
Wolves howled from somewhere on the farm as I ran through the dark for the temporary safety of the house. As I crossed the gap between the back of the barn and farmhouse, the wolves trapped in the cages growled at me. The mostly-eaten carcass of the razor boar sat just out of their reach, her piglets nowhere in sight.
I was halfway to some semblance of safety when a wolf leapt out of the shadows.
I skidded to a stop and held my ground. Wolves in packs were sophisticated hunters. Wolves alone and confused were not. I had no idea if it was the magic of a farm or just the way monsters behaved in this world, but this wolf was far more aggressive than it should have been. There was a bloody burning building right next to me, for crying out loud. The damn animal should have been running in the opposite direction.
Against all reason, it charged me.
I thrust the two prongs of my war pitchfork into its shoulder, pushing it away from me, redirecting its energy, before turning and striking it in the side. I moved quickly and cleanly, landing hit after hit, relying on the insanity I had lived through when I first went into the woods. I overpowered it with my weight, pushing it around with my size. In a handful of seconds, it was over. The wolf lay on the ground, unable to rise. I didn’t let up. I slammed a point into its neck once and then followed it up by impaling its eye.
“You need to get inside, Arnold,” I said, looking around to make sure the area was clear. “Good idea.”
There were dozens more wolves out here, hiding in the night. Salem was supposed to be leading them away, but if this one had turned and come back, there might be others.
Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer Page 22
