153 First, half a year and a half. (1/2)

It's been about six months since the explosion, and I've turned twelve years old.

I've only lived for twelve years ...... Maybe it's because I'm living a very dense life day by day, or maybe it's because I have memories of my previous life, but I feel like I've lived longer than twelve years.

I feel like I'm about 30 years old.

Now, without talking about me turning twelve, let's talk about what happened in the past six months.

I've been working hard to strengthen the defense of the territory.

War was almost certain to break out, and I began to prepare for it, carefully and with haste.

The school that had been destroyed by the explosion was closed for half a year, but there was still no prospect of recovery, and I wouldn't be able to go to school for the time being.

Well, that's okay because I can focus on developing the territory.

There's probably nothing for Frank to do at the moment.

And since I've been busy developing the defense, I'm sorry to say that I've decided to leave all the commercial development to Elsie and the Holland Trading Company.

So, although I listen to reports from time to time, I haven't been involved in the development of the underground city for less than half a year.

According to the recent report, the construction of the magic tool factory is finally finished and the production of street lights has started, so the building construction of the underground city has started.

It's planned to open to the public in half a year at the earliest, and one year at the latest.

It's on schedule, or even much earlier than planned. That's really thanks to Elsie.

Oh, and by the way, I've stopped calling Elsie ”sir” and speaking to her with honorifics.

She asked me to call her by her first name like Shelly and the others because she felt some distance between us, so I did that.

Well, that makes me feel that way, so I tried to talk to Elsie using the same language as Shelly and Belle.

Oops, I digress.

As for the main topic, what I did during these six months, I strengthened the Knights and the city's defense equipment.

Strengthening the order means of course to increase the number of members, but I've held the monthly examination six times and increased the number by about fifty.

Huh?　Not much for the enthusiasm, is it?　But just like the first tryout, I had to choose carefully.

It would be bad if I was in a hurry and let the Kingdom's spies join us.

Even though I'm this cautious, the kingdom still sends spies to try out for the exam, and they're not going to let me skimp on the exam anytime soon.

But it wasn't all bad.

Rumors of the overly strict exams and of Bernolt's rise to the rank of captain drew world-famous adventurers and swordsmen to challenge him.

Although not as strong as Bernold, the number of people who are strong, and who seem to be getting stronger, is steadily increasing.

Incidentally, Alma is growing faster than I ever imagined.

I've been taking turns being an examiner for the entrance exam with Hermann, but recently I haven't had a turn to be an examiner.

Thanks to Bernold's sound guidance and competing with Hermann, I've become as strong as an S-ranked adventurer in six months.

Mastering attribute-free magic gave him even greater speed, and he changed from a two-handed sword style to a two-handed sword style in order to improve his technique of fighting with his hands, using his natural ambition and prodigious athleticism to become stronger and stronger.

Speaking of which, yesterday, with nine wins, eight losses and one hundred and twenty-eight draws against Hermann, Alma was happy to hear that she had successfully won for the first time. On the other hand, Hermann was really depressed.

Well, as you can see from the number of draws, the two of them are evenly matched.

Maybe tomorrow Hermann will win and lose nine out of nine.

Even so, he's even with the dungeon-trained Hermann, so I'm amazed at Alma's growth speed.

As such, we're still small in number as a group, but I think we've grown enough to be able to say that we're a select few.

I'd like to continue to strengthen the group at the same time to strengthen its members.

And as for our defense equipment, we have focused on the west side.