Chapter 34: Tumbleweed's Shoes, The Birth of a Slacker, and the Direction South!

After eating and drinking their fill, everyone started learning to make shoes, and Broly was learning too.

But his craftsmanship was rather poor; vines and hair in his hands would always turn into a ball-shaped lump.

"Stuff your foot in, and you should be able to wear it."

Black Pupil evaluated the shoes he had made.

Broly tried them on; they could indeed be worn, but being able to wear such round, rolly-poly shoes and still act haphazardly — probably only he himself could do that.

"Need a hand?"

Looking at the tumbleweed shoes on Broly's feet, even the youngest children found it hard to say against their will that they needed help.

"Broly-san, I think it's better to make my own shoes myself."

"Alright then, if you need help, just call me."

Broly was a bit disappointed; perhaps he shouldn't have finished the shoes so early.

"Need a hand?"

Cornelia saw he just wanted something to do, so she said: "If possible, Broly-san, could you help scrape some vine bark?"

Everyone's shoe-making technique was unskilled; if some vine bark was woven wrong, they basically had to get new ones and re-weave.

"No problem."

Broly picked up a small knife and helped scrape vine bark; this kind of collective handicraft gave him a feeling of playing Cat's Cradle, in which even just going through the motions could make him feel a bit happy.

After experiencing a brief elementary school daily life in the Type-Moon World, Broly could occasionally feel a sensation called loneliness on Planet Wanpa.

Although he rarely showed it, this feeling indeed existed, now manifesting in a behavior of wanting more sense of participation in collective events.

So he scraped a lot of vines, but in the end only a few were used; the rest could only be burned as firewood.

"You were done in by the wild kids bought as seedlings for screening, my ears shouldn't have heard wrong, right?"

"Lord Saikyuu, there's a guy in there who's extremely powerful, possessing monster-like strength......"

"Stop, I'm not interested in how you got done in. I only know Minister Honest gave you the order to form an Assassination Department.

And I've cooperated with this order, sending you the personnel and supplies that should be given, but you brought back bad news."

"My strength was insufficient, causing dereliction of duty. Please forgive me, Lord Saikyuu, but I still hope to get some support to wash away this humiliation."

"Gozuki, you're also from the Rakshasa Four Ghosts. Even you couldn't handle that guy; I suppose ordinary support wouldn't be of much use either?"

"If possible, I'd like you to ask Minister Honest for aid on my behalf, and send other Rakshasa Four Ghosts as support."

Gozuki said, gauze wrapped around his forehead.

"Gozuki, if you'd just said the Rebel Army attacked you, hindering the formation of the Assassination Department, I'd mobilize local troops to support you without hesitation. But you say it's because of a purchased kid that you failed?"

"He's a monster. His strength is terrifying. I can stake my life on that."

"Fine, even if what you say is true, what's the other party's identity? Are they the Rebel Army?"

"No."

"Since they're not, where do you get the nerve to ask me to help you seek aid? You losing face yourself is one thing, but don't make me lose face in front of Minister Honest too.

Right now the Empire needs people everywhere, and this generation of Rakshasa Four Ghosts is responsible for the Minister's personal safety guard duty.

So no one has time to go help you retrieve the face you lost on a kid. Understand?"

"But that monster intercepted the assassin seedlings we selected."

"The Empire doesn't raise trash, and I don't want to hear you complain about difficulties. Overcome them if you have them. Here, results are forever more important than process. Likewise, what Minister Honest wants is just the result of a successfully formed Assassination Squad."

Kicked out of the palace, Gozuki's expression was somewhat ugly. If he had the ability to overcome difficulties alone, why would he have come here swallowing his pride to beg for aid?

"That guy probably took us for extortionists."

Bill said.

"Miser, eyes only for money."

Gozuki cursed.

"Forget it, this is the Empire. The more serious people are about doing things, the more they lose out."

"What do you plan to do?"

"I'm preparing to directly use death row inmates for drug enhancement experiments and hypnosis manipulation. What about you? Still planning to go find that monster?"

Gozuki fell silent. A Teigu cut couldn't even injure him; what would going back do? He sighed.

"Same as you. I'll train those six little ghosts that came out first. The big shots above don't care, so I don't need to care too much either."

"You'll die if you fail missions in the future."

Bill reminded.

"Just a worthless life anyway."

As an assassin, Gozuki knew well the assassin's outcome. Dying of old age in a turbulent era is almost impossible; dying on some mission is reality.

Fortunately training assassins takes time. No matter how much he slacks off, he can have a few years of leisure. We'll see when the time comes.

As for that little monster who beat his face swollen, the Empire isn't worried, so why should he worry?

One thought of slacking off, and suddenly heaven and earth feel wide.

A generation's Demon Sword assassin, because he ran into a monster, reported upward, and the higher-ups didn't care — directly became a slacker.

【My strength isn't top-tier, but it's first-rate. A monster I couldn't hurt in the slightest even at full power — once it grows, what will it be like? If such a monster is recruited by the Rebel Army, what will become of the Empire? Heh......】

Thinking this, Gozuki invited the bald man beside him: "Want to go drink together?"

"No time. You're injured, drink less."

The bald man Bill said a line, turned around, and left.

After the vine shoes were made, the road was much easier to walk, but perhaps the direction they wanted to go out was different from where they originally came in.

A group of people actually walked for three days in the Gifnora Sea Tree Forest, following the path blasted out by one energy cannon shot after another, before reaching the forest's edge.

This place is the border of the Empire's Western Frontier, neighboring the Western Kingdom, with a stretch of dangerous Swamp Mangrove Forest woodland separating them.

The brown-skinned girl, upon seeing the Swamp Mangrove Forest, revealed a somewhat surprised and delighted expression: "This is Rivarina's hometown; I used to live in this kind of place."

She was captured by a slave capture team; she never expected that following the team walking through the great forest, she would actually be able to return to a familiar place of her own.

Of course, this place still isn't her home; it's just that with a reference point, she knew the direction her home should be in.

"My dad said the mangrove forest borders a giant tree forest to the north, that there are many terrifying danger beasts in that forest so we must not approach; if this here is the giant tree forest, then Rivarina's home should be a bit further in the southern region."

Looking at the girl's excited appearance, Broly said: "Then we'll head further south."

"Oh!"

The children chimed in agreement with his words; these days of rushing on the road had meshed this makeshift team together, and everyone was quite convinced by this big brother of theirs.

"Idiots, you're walking in the wrong direction; that way is east."

With Chikushi's reminder, the group of children who had been led astray walked back.

"One more time, we set out south."

Somewhat embarrassedly returning to the starting point, Broly shouted again.

This time, the direction was right.