Chapter 188: Ahh, but it doesn’t mean that I forgive you, you know

<< Ta-ta-ta-dah! Congratulations! Because you now have more than 300,000 villagers, your village has become level 11!>>

<<3,000,000 village points have been acquired as level up bonus.>>

<<You can now build more kinds of facilities.>>

<<Maximum village area has been increased.>>

<<The village skill [Teleportation] has been acquired.>>

The citizens of the territories that were directly controlled by the royal family—including the royal capital—were all registered as my villagers. Thanks to that surge, my villager count exceeded the 300,000 mark and made my village level go up.

That was not to say that my villager count was at just 300,000.

The royal capital alone added 50, 000 villagers. The other territories controlled by the royal family added about 150,000.

And when the royal family assumed control of the original Albert territory, another 200,000 villagers were added.

That meant, I gained over 400,000 new villagers all of a sudden. By the way, I had a total of about 160,000 villagers before this surge happened.

Of course, this villager count was only for the sake of my Gift. I had no power over them.

Well, I could use my village skills on them—like using Villager appraisal to look at some of their personal information—but I didn’t rule over them.

As for the number of villagers that were actually living in the village in the wasteland, there were about 20,000 of them.

It could be said that those 20,000 people were my actual villagers.

“20,000 is still so many though…”

By the way, the village has returned to the wasteland without incident.

The travelers and merchants who had arrived while the village was absent had quite a panic when they saw the village’s walls approaching. They later expressed the surprise and dread they felt that time.

I built a stone monument saying ‘The village has temporarily moved to the royal capital. ––Village Chief Luke’, so maybe that was why they waited there. Maybe next time, I should leave out the ‘temporary’ part and just write ‘The village has moved’ instead. Not that there would be a next time.

“That aside, the new village skill I learned is…teleportation? Does it let me move to a place I want to go to right away?”

I immediately tried it out. Upon starting, the map appeared before me.

“I see. So, it lets me move only to a place I’ve been to before. Plus, it has to be within what is recognized as part of my village.”

For the moment, I decided to teleport to the village’s gate.

The next moment I knew, the said gate was in front of me.

“Chief Luke!? Where did you come from…”

“Sorry to trouble you!”

I waved my hand at the startled guard and then went to Riesen.

“Woah, this is so great. I can travel this far in just an instant.”

“L-Luke-sama!?”

“Hello, Mitchell-san. I see that the king’s spy is still working as a governor, huh. *smirk*”

When I jokingly said so, Mitchell-san’s face stiffened.

“I-I beg your forgiveness for that time, Luke-sama. But I swear to you, I am no longer working as a spy.”

By the king’s command, Mitchell-san infiltrated the Albert territory and eventually became a governor. Even after the recent events, he was still the governor in charge of Riesen, the largest city in the northern region of the Albert territory.

Since the royal family was in direct control of the Albert territory, including the North, it was a simple matter of commanding Mitchell-san to remain as governor.

“Haha, I was just joking, Mitchell-san. I can understand that you had no other solution but to do what you did.”

At that, Mitchell-san breathed a sigh of relief.

“Ahh, but it doesn’t mean that I forgive you, you know.”

“Wha!?”

I said such a mischievous thing and then used Teleportation again.

After trying out various things, I confirmed that I could really travel instantly anywhere within what was recognized as my village.

Moreover, it seemed like I could also bring villagers with me.

“Amazing! We can really travelled to the royal capital with this!”

“I guess I can come home anytime now.”

“S-Selen!? Since when did you get here!?”

Millia and Selen were astonished when I brought them with me.

Almost as surprised as them, if not more, was Selen’s father, the current head of the Bazurata noble house. Yes, the place I brought them was Selen’s family’s castle.

Transferring my consciousness to a body double was pretty comparable to teleporting to that location. However, that was if I was only teleporting myself. Being able to teleport with a villager completely changes things.

I didn’t know yet up to how many villagers I could teleport with me at the same time, but no matter what number that might be, I still probably would have used teleport—if I had it at the time—over moving the entire village all the way to the capital.

“I guess we should back now. …uhm, you two don’t have to stick so close to me, you know.”

Selen was grabbing on one of my arms and Millia the other.

In order to teleport somebody with me, there must be physical contact apparently. However, just holding hands was enough and there was absolutely no need to get this close.

“I just want to avoid getting left behind at a place like this as much as possible, you see.”

“Hey, what do you mean ‘a place like this’? This is still my family home, you know!”

“Can you not quarrel while I’m here between you two…?”

…yup, they’re not hearing what I’m saying.

At any rate, I apologized to Selen’s father for the whatever trouble we caused and brought the two—still bickering—back to the village.

Aside from the village skill, I also unlocked new types of buildings that I could build. They were as follows:

Beauty Salon (200)

Railway (50)

Railway Station (500)

Museum (500)

Factory (1,500)

“What!? Railways and Railways stations…!?”