Clop! Clop! Clop!
Ethan rode a horse, bringing along a cat and a scarecrow, as they returned to the villa together.
On the road.
The scarecrow hopped and hopped, and then its head once again—
Thunk~
Dropped off its neck.
Then it went "gurururu" rolling off to the side.
The headless scarecrow turned toward the direction its head had rolled away, then started chasing after it from behind.
Unfortunately, without a head, the scarecrow couldn't see where its head was at all, so it could only hop around blindly.
Ethan quickly got down from the bone horse, ran over to where the scarecrow's head had rolled, picked it up, and pressed it back on while saying, "Scarecrow Big Bro, don't worry!"
"When we get back to the villa, I'll definitely have the best craftsman re-weave your neck and head together!"
"That way your head won't fall off anymore!"
"..."
In the scarecrow's eyes, besides pain, there was only one thing left.
Despair!
Especially when it thought about. How it still had to stand in this person's garden for an entire year. It felt even more desperate.
———
"Lord!"
"It's the lord, the lord has returned!"
"Quick, look! It really is Lord and Daji coming back!"
The people at the villa hadn't gone to sleep yet.
One after another, they had been waiting at the front gate of the villa, waiting for the lord to return.
At this moment, Cook Four and the others saw figures moving in the mist from afar, and the first one to walk out of the mist was a yellow cat. Other than Daji, there was no one else who looked like that.
So everyone instantly boiled over with excitement.
Especially White Eagle. It was so excited that it flew straight out of the villa, quickly reaching Ethan's side.
Then it simply landed on top of Ethan's head, curiously looking at the horse Ethan was sitting on, tilting its head.
"Gu?"
As if saying.
'Why does this horse only have bones left, yet it can still walk?'
"Everyone, sorry to keep you waiting so long."
Only after leaving the mist did Ethan wave at everyone.
At that moment, the residents who had been holding onto doubts finally rushed toward Ethan and surrounded him.
"Lord, you're finally back!"
"You have no idea how worried we were!"
"Lord, where exactly did you go? Are you alright?"
"Lord, if it weren't for you saving us, the ones who wouldn't be able to come back might have been us!"
Hunter Five and the others immediately started sobbing.
Ethan waved his hand helplessly and with a laugh, "Alright, alright. Let's talk about this after we go back, otherwise someone's going to say I'm padding again."
"What does padding mean?", Everyone looked confused.
"Padding means talking a lot of nonsense."
Ethan casually explained.
Cook Four quickly stepped forward, grabbed the reins of Ethan's horse (they came with the saddle), and said, "Alright, alright! What the lord means is that he's thirsty and wants to drink water. Stop crowding around him. Let the lord go back first."
"Yes, yes, let the lord go back first!"
Everyone nodded one after another.
Only then did they escort Ethan back into the dormitory cafeteria.
Originally, Ethan planned to go straight back to the villa. But thinking that there were many things he needed to explain to the residents, and also some items he needed to give them, he dropped the idea.
They might as well all go to the restaurant below the dormitory. It was more spacious there and could fit all the residents together.
"Lord, you didn't come back all night. Where exactly did you go?"
"And Lady Daji seems to have been seriously injured. Is she really okay?"
"Lord, were you hurt?"
Voices overlapped one after another. Ethan didn't even know whose question to answer.
He simply raised his hand to press down, signaling everyone to quiet down.
After that, he recounted what happened last night in the simplest story he could manage.
Even so, everyone still opened their mouths wide in shock.
"There's actually an inn here?"
"And inside the inn there are monsters? Well, not really monsters, but non-human races?"
"Could it be that we've come to a magical world? Huh? Why did I say 'come'? Wasn't I born here?"
"That witch actually wanted to capture our lord. That's way too dangerous!"
"That's terrifying! If the lord had been captured, would he have ended up like that Mr. Scarecrow, turned directly into a scarecrow and stuck in the garden? That's so pitiful!"
"No way!"
Ethan immediately refuted, "He ended up like that purely because he's a three-second man. I'm not like that. Even if I got captured by the witch, I'd still be the strongest servant."
"So that's how it is!"
Everyone suddenly understood and cast sympathetic looks toward the garden.
"Ahem!"
Ethan quickly coughed to cover up his slip of the tongue, then said, "This world is indeed far more dangerous than we imagined."
"So I've decided that starting today, we're going to do everything we can to improve your abilities."
"At the same time, I'll do my best to strengthen our territory's defenses. Only then will we have some ability to protect ourselves in this world."
"Yes, Lord!"
Hunter Five and the others felt that in the ice plains, not only had they failed to help the lord, they had even dragged him down.
So he said with deep guilt, "After 8 o'clock, I'll immediately take them out hunting. When we come back, I'll have them continue training all kinds of skills, striving to help the lord as soon as possible."
"No! No! No!"
Ethan shook his hand and said, "That's not what I mean. Although strengthening combat training can improve things a bit, for grinders like us, leveling up that way is still too slow."
"So I've decided to let you all level up rapidly, inside and out."
"Otherwise, with your current abilities, going out there would just be feeding energy to wild monsters."
"Huh?"
Hunter Five and the others were all stunned.
After a long while, Hunter Five finally asked, "Then Lord, what should we do?"
"This!"
Ethan said, then he directly spread out several skill books, spell books, and weapon crafting blueprints in a row in front of the residents.
"Wow!"
All the residents stared at the scrolls in front of them in amazement.
"What are these?"
"You don't even know what these are, so why are you saying wow?"
"Because they look really awesome! Look, those scrolls are even glowing with golden light!"
"So what are these leather scrolls for? Are they secret manuals?"
"More or less. You could say they're martial arts manuals."
Hunter Five was the only resident who had ever used a [Skill Book · Slide Tackle (Fake)], so he naturally understood the benefits.
Because of that, he could proudly explain to those who didn't know, "Ask Ivankov and the others, and you'll know how I dealt with that water ghost back then."
"That was thanks to a martial arts manual the lord rewarded me with."
"Back then, I slid straight in!"
"Whoosh!"
"Guess what happened next?"
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