The Peerless Kobold - Chapter 10
I might have made a mistake by assuming that kobolds are the weakest among the members of the monster race. I’ve recently realized that if you pit an untrained kobold against a similarly untrained human, the kobold would probably win.
In other words, if they were thoroughly trained, then the kobolds could tap into their hidden potential and easily surpass humanity. As these thoughts filled my mind, I watched Ax swing his battle axe in a frenzy and looked back to the events a while ago…
The pack settlement is situated in an open area of the forest where lairs were made in the ground, but several trees blocked access to the central square. It all started when I decided to cut those down, and asked Ax to do it…
“Wafuh, wauuh, garuaouu.” (Hey, Ax, cut the trees over there.)
“Gurua, kuua~n.” (But boss, that’s impossible.)
Ax was second to Buster in terms of size, but despite being the second biggest kobold in the pack, he possessed a rather timid and reluctant personality.
“Guuruuh, kuaru wooan.” (Don’t give up right away, just agree to it.)
“Kyuuun!?”
A dull sound echoed as I kicked Ax on the shin.
“Fauh!?! Kuu, kuan.” (Ow!?! Alright, I’ll do it.)
And so, Ax reluctantly swung away at the tree with his battle axe, but…
It seems that the battle xe was made for fighting and not for chopping trees. Being unable to cut it well, he cried and whined repeatedly.
“Kuu, kuuafaan.” (My hand, my hand hurts.)
“Gaouuh, garuguoua voruaaoon!” (You’ll be fine, just get over it and it’ll go numb!)
As the sound of me firing him up echoed over his sobbing and whining… He suddenly snapped.
“Guruaa, guu, guruaa~n!?” (Stop, stop it already~!?)
“Uoaa!!” (Uooo!!)
Flailing around like a small, bullied child while repeatedly saying ‘stop’, the huge, well-trained kobold cleaved the surroundings in all directions with the battle axe in his hand.
“Gua, guruaan!?” (Rather than me, isn’t it you who should stop!?)
The battle axe that he swung haphazardly hit the spot where the tree had been previously cut, causing it to fall in one blow.
“Au?” (Huh?)
Unfortunately, the tree was going to fall in the direction of the guys from the village who came to watch, and a dumbfounded kobold cub looked up just as he was about to be crushed underneath it.
“Kyu!? Kyuu!”
“Guruaaa!!” (Buster!!)
“Uoooh, gurua!” (Leave it to me, chief!)
Buster, who was nearby, caught and supported the tree trunk that had almost crushed the less-than-a-year-old kobold cub who missed its chance to run and slowly lowered it to the ground. The sight reminded me again of the Kobold’s infinite potential.
After that, we calmed down Ax who was still grumbling and asked him to cut the rest of the trees on the central square, leaving the logs on the outskirts of the settlement. It would be nice if we could make use of the logs, but…during my time as a mercenary, I more or less had some experience with woodworking since fixing dormitories and mending tools was part of my job. But no matter what, specialized tools are still a necessity for any woodworking.
It’s not impossible to make similar tools out of obsidian, but it was preferable to make the tools out of iron, and we needed to have a furnace for any kind of metalwork. We would also need a heat-resistant hearth made out of volcanic rock and an iron hammer to forge, but… we don’t have any iron, so that means we would have to use stone hammers in the beginning after all?
