Chapter 157: Tiny People II
After flying back for a long time, upon reaching a certain point, Takeshi stopped flying and switched to walking to avoid even the slightest detection, such as someone coincidentally passing by.
Takeshi had arrived home. The whole group was training when they suddenly sensed Takeshi's energy. Although Aoto was not focusing on sensing and scanning the surroundings at that moment, even while sitting idle, his range was quite far. Not to mention Takeshi was dashing at a very high speed, causing everyone to sense him one after another.
Aoto stood up abruptly.
"It's Takeshi."
Everyone's expressions changed; Kazuka and Elyssia also stopped training. Together, they walked toward the direction Takeshi was coming from.
Takeshi ran into everyone's line of sight with a joyful face and rushed over, the earth sphere still flying beside him.
Aoto suddenly shouted: "Password?"
Takeshi's smile suddenly vanished, as if realizing and remembering.
"Six strings, one knot."
He quickly pulled a string out from his person; this string was tiny, looking as if it had no use at all.
The group quickly lowered their guard and hurried closer.
The reason everyone was so vigilant was for a reason; before leaving, the group had reminded Takeshi to avoid impostors. In case someone was "waiting by the tree for the rabbit" outside and took advantage of the moment Takeshi went out to turn into him or attack him to impersonate him.
In this world, there are many things that can impersonate, much like the way Aoto's ring can envelop another's energy around a person to avoid being sensed.
Takeshi flicked his hand; a patch of earth was tossed away from the ground, then Takeshi's earth sphere opened up, and the plot of land that was the home of the tiny people was placed into the gap he had just created on the ground.
The group stood blinking their eyes in curiosity, not understanding what Takeshi was doing. In this world, every creature has energy, whether much or little. These tiny people had never used energy before, plus their energy was quite small, so even Aoto did not sense them unless he emitted energy to scan.
Aoto and Elyssia only felt that there was *something*; they didn't even dare to confirm it. Both thought Takeshi had brought back an ant colony, but seeing the surrounding wall structure like that made them feel it was correct because Takeshi would build for them.
Takeshi excitedly pointed downward. The tiny people were trembling as there were up to six giants around them; everyone was terrified. The village head fell to the ground shaking and looked up, silently knowing this was his wrong decision.
Takeshi waved his hand, signaling them to come closer.
"Come closer, this is very interesting."
The group huddled their heads together and sat down; everyone's eyes opened wide in surprise.
Kazuka yelled and jumped up, pointing down:
"Are they tiny people?"
Ayaka smiled cutely.
"They look so cute."
Airi glanced at Takeshi.
"Where did you get these tiny people from?"
Takeshi recalled in his head and gave a brief report.
The group nodded in understanding.
Aoto pointed down.
"These tiny people are very hard to find; you must be very lucky to be able to find them. There are even people who search their whole lives and still haven't seen them."
"They are very useful; some nobles own them just to have them act as carriers and pour tea, although they aren't equal to servants, yet they bring something very interesting."
Elyssia tilted her head.
"I haven't read books about tiny people, so I don't know either."
Kazuka pressed closer, wanting to see clearly the tiny people who were trembling in fear.
"Hey guys, they seem to be afraid of us."
Airi: "Of course, we are so big."
Takeshi spoke down.
"Don't worry, we won't do anything to you. These are just my friends, be calm."
The village head was the most discerning and calmest; he stood straight and spoke up loudly:
"O Great Giants, please let us live."
The group watched Takeshi communicate.
After hearing, Takeshi understood that they seemed extremely afraid.
"We won't do anything; I brought you to my home. Rest assured."
Kazuka quickly came up with an idea but then suppressed it.
"Then ask if they need anything, Takeshi?"
Takeshi nodded.
"Do you guys need anything? We will provide it for you."
Takeshi quickly used his Earth element ability and rebuilt the two sections of the city wall that he had damaged.
The tiny people—the residents, the soldiers—were all shocked at the sight of Takeshi simply waving his hand and the two walls returning to normal, while building them was measured in years.
Elyssia was curious.
"Hey, is it okay to let them live here? If we bring them down into the house below, if they want to come back up, it might take them years."
Takeshi began to negotiate:
"Hey? Is it safe for you to live up here?"
Village head: "O Great Giant, on the ground there are many dangers for us."
Kazuka quickly asked:
"So what do you eat?"
The old village head turned toward Kazuka, who was lying on the ground with his hands propping up his chin in interest.
"Sir, we usually eat wild grass and eat ant meat. Ants are also a danger and also our source of food."
Ayaka: "I think we should just let them live here; it's safe here too."
Takeshi saw they had quite small and unsafe earth houses. He quickly reached out his hand, imagining in his head.
Then from the ground grew solid blocks of earth in column shapes, quite large for them—giant. Making something at a detailed level was very difficult for Takeshi, so the holes inside those boxes had a few that were quite small and ugly.
A few earth columns had to be divided into three floors.
"I can only help you like this; you guys design the rest yourselves."
Quickly, both sides ran back and forth to prepare.
The girls went to pick up tiny sticks and brought them back for the tiny people to use.
Takeshi sensed into the ground and from one point, he pushed out in four directions, creating a large hole beneath the tiny village.
Aoto and Kazuka each carried two large buckets of water. Some distance away from the tiny village, there was a hole. This hole was created by Takeshi for Kazuka and Aoto to pour water from a distance so it would flow to the large water storage area beneath the village. After the pouring was finished, Takeshi quickly filled the hole back up.
Kazuka happily held a small stick; he stood in the middle of the village, poked it down, and then pulled the stick up.
"This is your water well."
The tiny people quickly came to surround the well with small pebbles brought back by the girls.
Along with that, Takeshi destroyed the city wall in one direction, then expanded the village's range of activity. Initially, the city walls were just pebbles pieced together with earth mixed with water, but Takeshi created extremely tightly compressed earth walls; moreover, he let a few small pebbles protrude like spikes.
At one corner of the village, Airi planted a wild fruit tree. This fruit tree was edible and not sour. The tree was small to them, but to the giants, it was no different from a great ancient tree; its small canopy covered a part of the village and created shade, while also providing fruit for them to eat.
Next, they planted a few wild grass plants, also quite large, to serve as a place of shade for them.
The village was noticeably improved in no time. The village roads were made very beautifully, with stones scattered along the path; small grass was planted by everyone to help the place look greener.
Every tiny person was happy and grateful toward the group; the old village head also nodded, feeling that this was a wise decision.
The group sat a little distance away from the small village. The location was very beautiful; the village had four large tree bases at its four corners, behind was a giant thorn bush spreading to the left, the right was quite empty, and in front was the large rock that was the group's house.
Kazuka used his fingers to pinch a yellow ant, the other hand pinching a black ant.
"Now, which ant should we choose for them? Without ants, they will quickly become lazy people."
Ayaka: "Yellow ants bite quite stingingly; it seems they are venomous. It's fine if they bite us, but since they are tiny, they will face danger."
Takeshi pointed to the black ant and shook his head at Ayaka's opinion.
"But black ants increase in numbers very quickly; they will be outnumbered and overwhelmed soon."
Airi: "Wouldn't it be interesting to release both types?"
Aoto also felt the same.
"Truly, they are safe within Takeshi's city walls. Those pebbles of Takeshi's are also very slippery; ants can't crawl up. The city wall having those stones added is a natural defense mechanism."
"They only guard all day with a small number of soldiers anyway. Whether they want to go out hunting for food is up to them; giving them two types of ants is no problem."
Elyssia just sat listening to everyone discuss; she didn't know what to say.
Kazuka seemed to realize.
"Wait, if we release these ants and they don't make a nest where we want, and just crawl away, then what?"
Takeshi rubbed his chin.
"No need to worry about that. We will provide food and give them a few ants along with a queen ant. It will be hard for them to go anywhere and they will be forced to stay and make a nest; afterward, we can monitor them. If they crawl away, we catch them back."
Kazuka: "If the tiny people are defeated, we will step in and help them; otherwise, let them survive on their own."
The whole group found it reasonable, so they settled on choosing both types.
Takeshi used his Earth element ability; he tried his best to create two different nests for the two types of ants.
The yellow ants had their nest on the left of the village, beneath the sparse thorn bush cleared a bit by everyone; on the right was the nest of the black ants. The reason for doing this was to avoid the two types of ants massacring each other; although it would put the village in a pincer position, everyone was still quite confident in the tiny people.
What ants need to develop most is sugar, so everyone mixed sugar-water that Airi had previously bought onto a tiny plate created by the group to provide for the ant colonies on both sides.
Afterward, they also notified the tiny people; the agile tiny people had gone to scout at the ant nests but did not dare to get too close as they might be detected. They also quickly prepared weapons made of stone, stone arrows, and sharp traps.