- my thoughts:
He was really exhausted and now he had a lot of work to do. He ordered his melee class soldiers to return to the village and he ordered one of the heavy cavalry to carry a message to Mony. He needed to move all these monster bodies to the surface. His previous meal experience was still lingering in his mind. He was really hungry and tired. He wanted to eat many plates of these monsters' delicious meat. He wasn't worried about the reaction of his villagers to this heavy cavalry. After that, he left some light cavalry units to guard these monster's bodies and wait for the arrival of Mony and her men. Ibro then moved to the nearest star. As he thought, it was a suspended gem like the one he had seen before. He then stained this gem with his blood and then he inserted it into the ground. He was experienced now so he opened the cages which contained his new villagers. He ordered some light cavalry to remain here and help these people to move back to the village. He didn't open a tunnel from here to the village. Two holes are enough. any more and he would increase the defense burden and the risks to his village. He was sure now that there was some deep hidden very dangerous enemy eyeing his village. He must be careful. Then he moved in a small tour to collect his long-awaited wooden treasure chests trophies. He noticed that these chest sizes were bigger than the previous ones. He didn't check them now as there were a lot of other areas waiting for his visit. He moved from one area to another repeating the same process. He noticed he was moving in circles around his village. He managed to reclaim the 24 areas near his village. They created three-layered circles with his village in the center. He got 240 treasure chests and more than 200k villagers. That number was really huge and exceeded his expectations by many folds. He thought he would attack maximum 5 areas like his, but he ended up in a massive war with 24 areas. Who was that crazy enemy of his that was trying this hard to annihilate him and his village? Although he succeeded, that was a really tough battle. If he didn't discover the small tricks in the beginning, he would have lost this battle in a very miserable way. After he finished his tour and reclaimed his new territory, he moved back to the village with his new people and his trophies with an empty stomach. He ate some rations during the way but this tour took around 8 hours from him so he got hungry again. He was really tired. He wanted to get some rest and had some sleep. He wanted to open these chests and hurry up to buy as many tokens as he could get, though. When he neared the location of his old territory, he noticed the sea of people who kept flooding towards here. He felt strange. The number of these people seemed to exceed the total population he freed from all these regions. He stood in his place and noticed these newcomers came in a long wide row that extended from behind his owned territories. He felt weird so he moved fast towards the opening of the nearest cave to his territory. As he imagined, Mony was there trying to get everything under control. Once she saw him she ran and said in a hurry: "My lord, you have rescued a lot of people. The number we received in our village now exceeded 300k villagers and they kept rising." "This is weird. I have only liberated around 200k. From where these extra people came?" She replied with great excitement: "They told me that they were released from many areas around us. Monsters there heard about the mightiness of our village so they released all their trapped people and they also withdrew from a lot of areas around here." Ibro had deep doubts about it. But that long row which came from the horizon was a proof for the truth of this matter. That long row didn't show any signs of stopping even after a few hours. Ibro ate some rations and postponed his resting plans as he had to know the truth of this matter. In this few hours, he received reports from Mony which confirmed the previous Intel. Ibro then sent a few light cavalry units to areas outside his territory. When they came back after a few hours he knew what they discovered. Nearly 35 areas around here had been vacated from monsters and were totally empty. Their people were moving in this village direction. If this info was true then he had over 35 new territories to gain with more chests to acquire. He moved rapidly towards the nearest areas but he was faced with zero rewards. He couldn't find the gem of this area nor he found a single chest. He checked all these 35 territories to find nothing. He felt frustrated. Was this a move from his enemy to deprive him of any more benefit? Was this enemy trying to get ready for a massive decisive battle with him? He thought that this gem and these chests were rewards from the game for his win in the war against these monsters. So the withdrawal of these monsters meant he lost this chance. But why about the gems? Why didn't he find any of them? His doubt was deepened. This was no normal scheme. He felt he was kept in the shadows while his enemy was laying his trap around him. He watched the huge flood of people that kept coming to his territory. This time Mony had many people to help her. The registry department people were moving in an efficient way to collect all new villagers' data. Ibro felt he couldn't find his answers here. These people were kept in the dark. He needed to get more info from other sources. He had only one source in his mind. This source needed a long time to reach him again. so, the only option left was again to get stronger. He ordered Mony to register all new villagers rapidly and then use their talents in the suitable fields. He also ordered here to raise the reserve militia army to 10k soldiers. He also instructed her to build more barracks. Although he had no available generals now but he might find a solution in the market. If he couldn't then he would train some of the good potential soldiers he discovered in this war. Although that would take some time, it was better than nothing. His first step was to get some rest. He went to his manor and used the bedroom for the first time ever. He slept for nearly 8 hours before he woke up from himself. He took some time to adapt to this strange mix of life between reality and game. He then went outside to find a lot of new buildings were built and much more were under the building process. He heard a lot of bustling noises. His quiet small village was going on the road of massive expansion. He estimated the new villagers to exceed the 500k threshold. He got some deserved rest so his brain was thinking more clearly. The first problem he thought of was the food crisis. Although he got huge numbers of monsters dead on his army blade, he knew that these monsters' meat would only suffice this huge number of people for a few days, or a week for maximum. He needed to find a more proper solution. Trying to buy his needs from the market would only alleviate the crisis for some time. He needed to know when his farms would yield crops and would this amount be enough for his population. This might be his enemy plot and trap. By this small move he was burdened by this crisis and also his advancement was kept in check. He couldn't ever think about any more expansion before he got enough preparations and be more ready. This crisis was just an example of what his enemy would use against him. He needed to know this enemy's true face. Unknown enemy was always a deadly enemy even if it was a fly. He wanted to understand the reasons behind his actions. If he knew the motives, he would then assess the true danger of this enemy. A mortal enemy would do anything to destroy his enemy. He must uncover this mystery as soon as possible. He had only one thing to take care of. He took out the chests from his Inventory one by one. He then collected all the items inside these treasure chests. These chests were grades above the previous chests as he got more items and rewards from each one. Each treasure chest gave him 20k gold coins and 20k worth gold coins of silver and copper coins. He also got 20 soldier tokens from each chest. The amount of weapons in each chest was enough to arm 200 soldiers. The building designs were more advanced and many of them were to upgrade the existing basic buildings for the higher grade. He also got some unique buildings and ten archer towers. The presence of these towers made him very excited and relieved. He could use these towers to secure his underground vast territory. He didn't yet understand the motive behind his enemy's last move. Why did he create a buffer zone between him and the surrounding areas? That was weird. if it was him, he would choose to weaken his enemy gradually by attrition wars like the one he just had. He had a headache. He needed to know more info about this game. His ignorance about this game would make him move straight to the heart of his enemy trap. He felt that the next strike from his enemy would be really heavy. He needed to get ready for any possibility of hidden dark moves. He took nearly three hours to organize the items he got from these chests. 240 chests were a really huge number. The ores he stored as usual inside his ores dimensional bag. He already had a lot of ores that would suffice him a lot for the next few months or even a year. The building designs were divided by him into three sections, one was left for Mony to build now.