The 26th chapter of the web novel is titled 「難題を超えて新天地の前に立つ」 in Japanese, which translates to "Overcoming the difficulties, standing before a new land". It was first released on Syosetu (September 2015), and later translated to English by Yoshi on LightNovelBastion (April 2019). For a full list of media related to this chapter available on the wiki, see this category.
Synopsis
Driving away monsters, and sometimes hunting them, Vandalieu's caravan crosses the Boundary Mountain Range. Caring for the sick, delivering the former captives who have been impregnated. After three months of arduous travel, they arrive in a ruined city.
Summary
Vandalieu and the ghouls are building their own road through the Boundary Mountain Range, only touching the edges of its countless devil's nests. They encounter many monsters the ghouls have never seen before, like a wolf that looks like a hedgehog. The monsters are so unintelligent that they didn't understand how dangerous it is to attack a pack of Ghouls on their own. The monsters' corpses were used as food and their fur to make clothing for the cold weather. This was a very welcome occurance, because the ghouls' stores of orc meat had decreased considerably recently. Despite staying on the nests' fringes, they still encountered some large monsters sometimes.
They encounter a flock of five wyverns. The ghoul warriors fired their arrows at simultaneously, while the women released various spells, despite being inexperienced with long-ranged attacks. Thus the ghouls relied on Bone Bird, whom the wyverns delegated two members to quickly deal with and prevent its mobility, which was its greatest strength. Vandalieu makes a lemure release bloodthirst, which scares off three of the wyverns. He orders the ghouls to aim at the two that remained, whose movements were slowed enough to be simple practice targets. Bone Bird offs one of the fleeing wyverns with spirit feathers and its talons. Three wyverns fell onto the mountain's surface, while Vandalieu let the remaining two escape to preserve his mana.
He had to pay attention to his mana pool, because if he were to collapse, the ghouls would have to pause their exodus until he recovered, since they were unable to advance without him, as he was responsible for making the roads. Even worse if something like a landslide were to occur. Kachia marvels at how the group was able to defeat three wyverns so effectively, and shares a little about herself. Van sends Bone Bird and lemures to keep watch from the skies, while they stay to dissect the wyverns.
"The next problem was more complicated." Many of the captive women rescued from the noble orcs had given birth, so they had to keep an eye out for young black goblin, anubis and orcus children as well. He ponders a little on how he'd inadvertently created new races, before being comforted by his companions who didn't seem as concerned about this development. That's when the invisible Darcia suddenly reminisces about his attitude to breast-feeding changed when he was a baby, something she's been doing more of due to the baby boom; He shrinks with shame, while the living armor sisters explains that he's got nothing to be embarrassed about, as he's still a child. The last of the impregnated women were due soon, so the agony would soon be over. Bilde asks if she can name her child after Van, as his name contains two dakuten. She's in her 7th term, and will be giving birth soon alongside nine other ghouls.
"The last problem was taking care of the Ghouls whose physical conditions had deteriorated from having left the Devil’s Nest. They were paying attention to make sure that nobody was becoming sick." Tarea had become particularly weak, so much so that she could be compared to an otottsuan.[F 1] He checks her condition for a shadow of death, and intends to use youth transformation when her time came close as well. Tarea reminds him to not forget the live-dead lying nearby. He pulls the live-dead next to Tarea, along with the entire rug it was lying on, with his superhuman strength skill. He then proceeds to talk to the fetus, since that's something he remembered from a TV program on Earth. He tells the unborn child of bright future prospects, without mentioning the bitterness of his past lives:
| “ | When they arrived at the Devil’s Nest, they would repair parts of the ruined city, find beast monsters with delicious meat. If there were remains of an old public bathhouse then Vandalieu wanted to repair that too and soak his body in the baths, and next time he would definitely succeed at fermenting walnuts and acorns to make something close to miso. (…) He accidentally let some of his knowledge from other worlds slip, causing Kachia to tilt her head in confusion at the mention of miso, but Vandalieu took no notice of it. | ” |
Tarea suggest that this scene almost makes it seem like a real family, but this notion is poked holes at by Kachia, and she is teased by Zadiris, whereas Basdia is a bit jealous that she got ahead of her.
| “ | Tarea smiled as she spoke while Kachia questioned her words. It was easy to tell at a glance that all of them were of different races, but if one ignored that, then perhaps the scene could be imagined as the older sister (Tarea) and younger brother with a large age-gap (Vandalieu) looking after the pregnant mother (the Live-Dead). | ” |
Like this, the ghouls' journey across the mountain range went smoothly, and Vandalieu gains the engineering skill. And halfway through May, 3 months after starting their migration, they've finally reach the ruins. As they enter the city, they're struck by the sheer scale and mysterious atmosphere. Vandalieu confirms there's a lot of undead, thoough there's probably also other monsters or perhaps dragons inhabited the place. Van begins surveying the area for a suitable place for the ghouls to build a settlement and find a source for food and materials. He sends out undead insects, but many of them had been unexpectedly crushed by monsters or mysteriously stopped responding to him, so Van has to survey in person.
The unknown before him made his heart throb with excitement. He had always been forced to live in a limited world in his previous lives, so he felt excited about the notion of adventure. They set up camp just a little outside the ruins, and Vigaro stations some lookouts. "Because a new adventure was awaiting them, they had to make sure that their physical conditions and Mana were at their maximum." The population was closing in on 600 after the baby boom, among them around 50 black goblins, 100 anubises and 60 orcuses. "Their population now exceeded what Bugogan’s village had achieved." The children vie for his attention, perhaps because of the influence of death-attribute charm, or because they've simply learnt from their parents; Regardless, they're very attached to Vandalieiu.
Footnotes
- ↑ Otottsuan (おとっつあん) is a term for father that was used in the Meiji era (1868-1912) and the entire line seems to be a cliché/overused line in historical drama films. This is basically just a very roundabout way to say that Tarea is really old.
Appearances
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