After clearing out all the zombies around, they returned to the campfire to rest.
"You're really amazing, Sir Mage! To think you can make such powerful weapons! It's truly unbelievable!"
"Yeah, right?! Although it takes time to crank and reload, it's even more powerful than the castle's trebuchets! As expected of Sir Axel!"
"That's not all. The bolts could even kill a Giant Zombie in one hit! At this rate, we'd be unbeatable!"
And as if they were possessed, the girls started to rain praises over Axel. Of course, their praises were true in a sense, but it wasn't like Axel was the one who made the ballista. He simply bought it pre-made from the shop!
"Well, it would be useless without you girls using it, so it's our combined victory, not just mine." Axel smiled, trying to play down his contribution—acting humble.
"But still, that doesn't change your contributions, Sir Axel!" Eve leaned forward, eyes sparkling with excitement. "In the first place, no other mage I know can create blessed bolts on par with yours!"
"True." Even Arianne nodded, agreeing. "It's to the point that it'd be wasted if your lineage gets cut off in your generation," she whispered as she licked her lips.
Her words, which were basically a direct offer, quickly made Maria's face blush. Hearing Arianne made her recall the scenes from the night before, from which she still hadn't fully recovered.
"As I said before, there's no need to—"
And just as Axel was clarifying his stance, something happened.
Right in front of his face, Navi appeared along with a blinking red warning.
[Uh oh, contractor! Looks like the ones you need to rescue are in grave danger at the moment! You only have 3 hours remaining before they all die!]
"...!"
Axel stood up fast, reading the warning. It was the quest window—the second one regarding rescuing ten refugees—blinking crazily!
Added onto the window was a black, ominous countdown timer with a little over 3 hours left on it. Aside from that, the only other change was the distance between them. It should've been 50 kilometers before, but now it was showing 37 kilometers—and dropping to 36 just as he was looking.
'They're on the move towards here. I guess the lights acted as a marker for them...' Axel pondered.
"Sir Axel?"
Arianne, who had a teasing atmosphere earlier, quickly turned serious. She could tell that something had happened after seeing Axel's face change.
"Arianne, we need to go now," Axel spoke with urgency.
"The people I was talking about earlier that need saving... They're running towards here. Probably chased by zombies. We have three hours to reach and save them from danger."
"Say no more." Arianne stood up and picked up her sword without delay. "Which direction are they coming from?"
Although they intended to start the rescue mission tomorrow, they had to do it now.
...
Axel and Arianne jumped down the eastern wall before jogging forward.
They didn't run at their top speed since they couldn't fight well enough if they were out of breath—but most of all, Axel himself wouldn't be able to keep pace with Arianne's stamina.
On top of the eastern wall, the girls were on standby, manning the two ballistae. It was just in case, since knowing the size of the other group, they must be chased by Giant Zombies too.
Axel and Arianne were running at a pace of 10 km per hour, but...
"Haa... Haaah... this is... impossible for me...!"
Not even three kilometers along, Axel was already out of breath. Sweat covered not only his face but even his back—no, his entire body.
Although he was quite healthy as a person, it's not like he was trained to do marathons. Rather, going 3 kilometers without a break at a constant pace was already worthy of praise.
As he gasped for breath, Arianne turned back and lit him up with the floodlight she was holding. "...At this pace, we wouldn't reach them in time," she added grimly.
"..."
Axel himself understood that too.
He knew that he couldn't reach the refugees in time if they only ran at this pace. However, at the same time, he couldn't afford to buy anything that could help them speed up either. He had spent almost all his money on fortifications, after all.
Checking the shop, the cheapest thing he could buy that could maybe help them out was... worth 10 million Colts. And that was a simple bicycle at that.
"What to do...!"
Just as he was gritting his teeth in chagrin, trying to think of a way out of this situation... a beeping notification message appeared.
"Huh?"
Curious, Axel tapped it, read its contents... and smiled.
"Arianne!"
Axel shouted at her, commanding, "Go on ahead of me at full speed. Protect them as much as you can. I'll come after you after a bit of rest."
"Sir Axel..." She hesitated for a bit before sighing. "Well, there shouldn't be any dangers lurking around since we killed all the zombies. Alright, as you will!"
As soon as she gave a prompt salute, she turned around with the floodlight in her hands, pointing forward... and ran. Within seconds, she ran as far as over a hundred meters—her speed would be roughly 15 to 20 kilometers per hour right now, a speed that Axel could only dream of!
"Phew..."
The man himself simply sat down, with the floodlight he had lying on the ground, facing him. "Alright then... Let's work on padding our budget!"
The notification he received moments earlier was none other than WitchyGura's chat! And on it, the materials that were enough for his first order were exactly present—enough to craft 5,000 Voodoo Dolls and 100 Substitute Dolls, along with a thousand broken Substitute Dolls!
"No time to waste!"
Without hesitation, he began his work.
Mass crafting the Dolls was easy, but it required meticulous tapping. In the thousands range.
There is also the batch-crafting option, but he could only batch-craft 99 Dolls at once, and it has a long loading timer that was way slower compared to manually tapping craft continuously.
Still, with the materials present and the recipe already saved, he finished crafting all the dolls in just thirty minutes. His arm, finger to be specific, felt tired from all the tapping and dragging, though.
The 5,000 Voodoo Dolls were sold at 1,500 Colts each, earning him 7.5 million Colts.
But what took him more time to craft was the Substitute Dolls. After all, they couldn't be batch-crafted for some reason, and even just crafting them takes a lot of time—about a minute each.
Axel had to craft them by the recipe, one at a time, until he completed the 100 pieces required. All in all, it took him about 120 minutes to complete this step.
The 100 Substitute Dolls... Turned out the same quality as before...
Yes. It was the absolute same quality.
The same "National Treasure" level Substitute Dolls!