Several days passed in the blink of an eye.
During that time, Gauss led the villagers on several more goblin-clearing excursions nearby.
The villagers' teamwork and combat skills improved rapidly through real combat and the targeted instruction that followed.
Gauss's Monster Kill Count had quietly reached 5,631.
It had gone up by nearly two hundred without him noticing.
Besides training the villagers during the day, he also went out "hunting" at night.
Although he taught the villagers that night was no time to fight monsters like goblins, which had night vision, he had grown so much stronger that he could ignore that rule.
After all, his night vision was much better than a goblin's.
He hunted at night because he wanted to reduce the number of monsters near Goat Village as much as possible, making the village safer for a long time to come.
Inside the threshing ground, which had been turned into a temporary training field,
Gauss quietly made his rounds with Alya and the others.
He felt a deep sense of accomplishment.
The villagers had gone from fumbling around and moving awkwardly to conducting reasonably convincing group sparring drills. Their progress was plain to see.
"Clang!"
"Clang!"
The dull thuds of wooden weapons striking each other echoed through the air, accompanied by a few short, forceful shouts.
The shield-bearers stood at the front, watching the "enemy's" movements warily. Behind them, villagers with spears, pitchforks, and swords stood in staggered positions, ready to support the front line while remaining prepared for attacks from the flanks.
They also kept the archers protected within their formation.
Even Rhine carried a Light Crossbow and followed along with the formation.
But her crossbow wasn't loaded with real bolts. It held some kind of soft training bolts custom-made by Gauss, and she was only