Turns Out None of Them Were Any Good

With no other choice, Eleven gave up on one lucky mole, letting it cling to life for another half a minute.

Warren watched, his mouth agape and his eyes nearly popping out, as Eleven slammed the giant moles into the ground one after another. He could feel the earth trembling beneath his feet with every thudding impact. Was Eleven even human?

"So this is what a real mage is like..."

Warren could not help feeling bitter. The magic he had been so proud of seemed utterly useless. Compared with a proper mage, he fell far short, and the other mage was a child even younger than he was.

While Warren was wallowing in self-pity, Eleven had already knocked out all the moles. He zipped back down in front of Warren and brushed the nonexistent dust from his hands.

"Done!"

Eleven let out a long breath. Delivering so many intense attacks in succession had been far from easy, even for him. But he had also vented all the frustration that had built up over the past six months in one go. As expected, giant beasts like these were great—he could go all out without holding back!

Hearing Eleven, Warren instinctively glanced at the misters mole lying like corpses in rows along the edge of the swamp. Then he looked at the swamp, which had fallen silent and become perfectly flat.

Perfectly flat?

Wait! What happened to the buildings that used to be in our village?

Even if they were buried in mud, you didn't have to demolish them! We could have cleaned them up and still lived in them!

Warren turned stiffly to look at Eleven, who was tapping and poking at the moles lying like corpses, with the expression of someone admiring his spoils. He looked so pleased with himself that he might as well have had "praise me" written on his face.

Warren covered his forehead, unsure how to bring it up. Finally, he slapped his forehead and decided to leave it to his grandfather!

"I'm sorry!! I got carried away for a moment!!"

Eleven knelt before the old village chief, apologizing to the villagers in deep embarrassment. The job had been to get rid of the giant moles occupying the village so the villagers could return to their homes. But after Eleven's intervention, well, nobody could go back.

"Forget it, forget it. It couldn't be helped, fighting monsters that big. A lot of the houses were already uninhabitable. Now we just have a few more to rebuild. Sigh... We won't hold you responsible."

The old village chief looked at the youngster bowing his head and admitting his mistake, then glanced around at the equally helpless-looking villagers. Finally, he sighed, feeling that he really could not make things difficult for a child.

"Then, then what about the payment..." Eleven was still kneeling there, fidgeting with his fingers as he asked cautiously.

The old village chief picked up his teacup, took a gentle sip, and said mildly, "We can only pay you half."

Eleven breathed a huge sigh of relief. He had not expected to get even half the payment. After all, he had demolished their entire village. He was thanking his lucky stars they were not asking him for compensation!

"Oh, right! The job isn't completely finished yet. There's still a big problem!" Once Eleven had relaxed, he suddenly remembered something.

Across from him, the old village chief suddenly froze in the middle of sipping his tea and gave Eleven a peculiar look.

Eleven read a strange feeling in his emotions. He had never sensed it before, but it seemed to say, Oh my! This little rascal is rotten to the core!

The old village chief was shrewd from years of experience. Hearing Eleven bring this up only now, his first thought was naturally that Eleven had held something back, intending to leave a problem in the village if the villagers did not treat him fairly.

But looking at the utterly bewildered and somewhat silly-looking boy before him, the chief felt he might indeed have been overthinking it. So he took another sip of tea as casually as ever. "Oh? What problem?"

Eleven had been a little intimidated by the air of an old fox the village chief had displayed for that instant. Now on his best behavior, he answered honestly, "These moles came here to pursue a female mole, but I didn't find her."

That was right, Eleven had embarrassingly inspected every single mole. He was just that conscientious!

"So I wanted to ask you, are there any other places near the village where moles live? Or have any moles appeared in the village before?" Eleven also straightened up his attitude and asked in all seriousness.

The old village chief and the villagers around him all racked their brains, but in the end, they shook their heads. Just as the chief was about to declare that they knew nothing, Warren suddenly cried out.

"Ah! I remember! Wait here a moment!" Warren ran out as soon as he said it. Before long, he came running back, holding something in his hands.

"Mo~"

(ㅍ_ㅍ)

Hearing that familiar cry, Eleven was beside himself!

Lying in Warren's palm was a mudskipper the size of his hand. No, looking closer, wasn't that a freaking miniature mole? It was just a little more delicate-looking.

Eleven and the villagers all turned their murderous gazes on Warren at once.

"Um, um, I picked it up a few days ago..." Warren stammered, sweating all over under their gazes. "Then, then the village flooded, and I forgot about it... Um, they can't be the same kind, right? I can't communicate with this little one, after all..."

Eleven covered his forehead, not wanting to look at this guy anymore. This guy really was a traitor to humanity! So he was the one who had led the invaders into the village!

According to Warren's account, this little one was most likely the "goddess." As for why she could not communicate with Warren, who knew? Maybe the goddess was underage!

The villagers had now figured it out too and looked at Warren in utter speechlessness. The simple villagers did not bear him any hatred; they just wanted to beat up this idiot.

"Sigh... Sorry for the trouble!" The old village chief snatched the little mole from Warren's hands and passed her to Eleven, deep weariness showing in his eyes.

Eleven had nothing much to say. He carried the little mole over to the big moles and waved her in front of them. The moles, who had been lying in the sun like salted fish, suddenly perked up. Every one of them sprang to its feet and stared at the little mole in Eleven's hand, their eyes filled with infatuation.

Seeing this, Eleven understood. Their judgment had been correct: this little thing was the "goddess."

After glancing at Warren, who was being beaten up in the distance by someone he could not make out, Eleven carried the little mole into the air in front of the big moles. He intended to lure them back to the great swamp where the village chief said they had originally lived.

"Come here! You loli-con uncles!"

Eleven thought the line Cana used to trade insults with the uncles was especially fitting here.

When the big moles saw Eleven carrying off their goddess, how could they stand for it? They charged after him one by one, howling as though they had not just been lying there like corpses.