Chapter 17

Caepron smiled and patted the grubs on their backsides, "Good job little ones." He could have sworn that they gurgled in agreement with him. He had the builders finish up the designing of the place, cleaning the area, and setting up railings and areas to store bodies as needed. At the end of the day, they had managed to make what would appear to anyone as a giant warehouse, with two giant grubs in the middle. There were storage areas for bodies, areas to clean them and take any useful parts, and then there were mana storage areas as well. They also made a second underground warehouse for future use. Caepron then had 12 guards stay and become security for the area. They would be replaced every twelve hours and have areas where every 3 hours 3 guards would nap while the rest patrolled.

Afterward, Caepron, along with the rest of the soldiers and the builders, headed back to the village and had dinner. Caepron had several soldiers deliver food to the security guards as well. The hunters had brought back a good haul, along with a few ores and money. The resource groups brought back large amounts of building materials, which old Lui had them put in what was being considered the building depot. After dinner, Thomas came up to report to Caepron about the day. "We had a good hunt, sir. No one was hurt, and we were able to train the new troops as well today, making them have a basic understanding of combat and the use of their weapons. We did however come across something strange today?" Caepron nodded his head to Thomas to continue and keened his ears to hear this part. " We noticed what appeared to be giant reptile tracks, specifically snake tracks. At first, we just found one track and thought there was just a large serpent in the area. However, we later found that there was more than one, and they seemed to be moving in a large formation to protect and fan out to cover ground, almost as if they can think and plan against attacks. I would ask that your majesty come with us and a larger group of soldiers as well to see if we cannot find these reptiles and finish them off before they become a hindrance." Caepron nodded his head and agreed with what Thomas had said, if there was a large group of beasts in the area, they needed to take them down so as not to leave a problem that will get bigger later.

Caepron had Old Lui prep the supplies to hunt down this group and headed off for the night to cultivate and rest. The next day Caepron summoned the next batch of villagers. He pulled 26 of them to become different types of troops and had 10 of them become Light cavalry. He then left the village with 10 workers, 70 normal soldiers, 5 giants, and Thomas and himself. They would each have taken a horse to ride, but they had not finished the saddles in time for the trip. They headed out towards the giant redwood forest to track down the large reptiles and see if they could get a large number of rewards for it. They arrived at the forest roughly an hour after leaving the village. They spread out with infantry in front along with two giants, the workers, Thomas and Caepron, a giant in the middle, and a giant on each wing and the rest of the infantry spread out around the sides and back. They kept in close proximity to make sure nothing snuck up on them and that they could watch each other's backs. After about a half hour they finally came upon some tracks that looked like several large reptiles had come by. They were roughly 2 feet wide at the largest section, and they moved in a pattern similar to the way a snake slithers along the ground. The odd thing was that there were occasional hand prints in some areas and what appeared to be tools and weapon marks once in a while.

They continued to follow the tracks until they led to a large river that spread roughly 20 meters across. Caepron had the giants take axes to the trees and cut two of them to create a bridge across the river. He had troops spread out to watch the area and had the workers help the giants. After an hour or so they had the two logs together and set up a rough floating bridge tied together at the ends of each other. He had all five giants push it across and then lead the way along with Thomas, a few spearmen, and archers. Once they reach the other side they stood guard so that the rest of the troops could get across. They put stakes into the ground on both sides to make sure that the bridge stayed in place. They kept going, occasionally birds and wild animals would make sounds. But nothing approached them and they had seen nothing of the wildlife. They continued to follow the tracks and found that there were more and more tracks as they kept going. They had reached what appeared to be a clearing that opened into a large lake. They slowed down and hid among the brush at the edge of the woods, as they finally saw the target of their hunt… But it wasn't large snakes, they were Naga!!!