By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 15 - Chapter 18

Chapter 9, Episode 27: Prepare to Return

The next day, I was left with some extra time on my hands. Now that I’d gathered my grandparents’ keepsakes and Korumi had released the souls he had bound to the village, I’d accomplished pretty much everything I wanted to accomplish in the Sea of Trees. There was nothing on my to-do list except to wait for the leader rhino to show up.

Glen was off gleefully hunting, perfectly happy with how my goblins had cleaned up his game yesterday. Although I considered tagging along with him, I couldn’t leave the village in case the leader rhino appeared while I was gone.

After thinking about it all morning, I’d decided to clear up the ruins of the old village that lay scattered around the central manor and clean up the grounds. “Let me ask you again—are you sure this is okay?” I asked.

“Yes, no problem,” Korumi said.

The part of the village surrounding the manor had been used as a reenactment stage to soothe the souls of the old villagers. Now that all the Undead souls were released, it served no purpose. Left alone, there was a nonzero chance that Undead would appear without Korumi’s help. Korumi had been the one to suggest we clean it up. If Korumi, who was attached to the village more than anyone, was ready to let go, nothing was holding us back.

This wasn’t my first demolition project, and the overall workflow would be the same, but I started by scoping out the area in this environment that was far from Gimul.

“First, we remove the rubble and weeds,” I announced. Summoning sand slimes from the Dimension Home, I changed a portion of the ground to sand with Earth magic. In the same way that I had demolished the decrepit orphanages in Gimul, I created a tornado of sand to shave down everything from the weeds to the lumber, rocks, and dirt walls.

“Then, we take care of the sand and remove other materials,” I said. With the magic of my soil slimes, I buried the sand and pulverized rubble. At the same time, this exposed everything that was buried. Metal fences were dug up and set aside, and roots of the weeds were given to the huge bush slime. Now, the entire area was a pristine field. The whole process was wonderfully efficient, even though I took the extra time to pack extra soil around the heatwood trees without damaging their roots to prevent any of them from falling onto the manor. In the end, I had the huge bush slime cover the ground, and all traces of man-made structures were gone.

“That was so fast!” Korumi said in amazement from the other side of the manor’s fence. He looked no different than a little boy watching construction machinery work with complete admiration.

“That was only the first section. We’re going to go over a lot more,” I said.

Seeing how most of the buildings had been made with natural stone and lumber, they would completely return to nature. My process seemed to work here just as well as it did in Gimul, so I’d continue demolishing the rest of the structures. I continued around the manor, clockwise, clearing section after section.

Around noon, Glen returned to the village. “Welcome back,” I greeted him. “How did it go?”

“Didn’t see a cannonball rhino, but it was a good hunting ground—loads of monsters I didn’t see in the shallow end of the forest that needed to be cleaned up. The meat and guts are all yours, and take the rafflesia hotel petals while you’re at it,” Glen said.

“The petals too?”

“Yeah, I never would have thought to grab them on my own, and I don’t even know how to use dye, let alone where to sell it. Sure, I’d probably get a bunch of offers if I asked around, but then I’d have to choose who to sell it to and negotiate on a price... Too much of a headache. Much more simple to go out hunting so I can stuff my bag with game you’ve cleaned up for me.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. There’d be no skin off my back. “You’ve got a deal,” I said.

“Great. You got lunch for us, right?” Glen said.

“Coming right up.”

I started working on lunch, but then I noticed something.

“What’s that look on your face for?” Glen asked.

“Try this meat.”

“The same snake meat?” Glen took a bite of what I offered. “Hm? Is this a different one?”

“No, it’s from the same immortal snake. I kept it properly, and my appraisal says it’s not rotten, but it tastes kind of bad, doesn’t it?” I asked.

“Well, the stuff we had until yesterday was too good. This stuff isn’t bad, but compared to yesterday’s...”

Compared to yesterday’s meal, this meat was somewhat harder and drier. Since the meat hadn’t spoiled or anything, it might have had something to do with the immortal snake’s regeneration. The half that regenerated might have expended energy and nutrients stored in its body to do so, leaving the meat wanting.

“So if we want the best quality meat, we need to kill that thing in one shot?” Glen asked.

“As long as we sever its head—that’s how we got our first batch. It’s all guesswork, of course. This was my first time hunting an immortal snake. Even when severing the neck, it may have to be in one cut to preserve the flavor. Maybe it’s pretty difficult for normal people to taste the same quality of meat we did,” I said.

“Normal people don’t come this far into the forest, and definitely can’t take out an immortal snake,” Glen said.

I laughed in agreement and asked what he wanted to do with this less delicious meat. Glen said he’d eat it, asking me to hunt for the premium cut if I saw an immortal snake again. That would be a priority for the next few days, especially since I wanted some of it as a souvenir for the Jamils and their employees.

***

The next day, I was carrying on with the demolition of the village when I spotted what looked like a small farm...that had been nearly drowned out by the vegetation of the woods. Most of it was in ruins, except for a vine that wrapped around a supporting pole with grape-shaped fruit at the end.

Considering that thought, I returned to the manor for the time.

“Korumi,” I called once I was there.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I found something that seemed like a farm over there... Oh, it might be faster for you to read my memory.”

“Okay... That’s definitely the black pepper farm,” Korumi confirmed. Maybe I should harvest the pepper before bulldozing the place. Even though it hadn’t been maintained, some vines were growing on their own.

“Do you want to grow black pepper?” Korumi unexpectedly suggested.

“Do you know how to grow it?” I asked.

“I do. That farm was abandoned a while ago, but the farmer built one in the courtyard too. And it has other spices,” Korumi said. He went on to say that some of the former villagers couldn’t let go of the time the village thrived on exporting spices. Even after becoming bound spirits, they continued to grow them in the manor’s grounds. Thanks to the fact that Korumi had to read their memories and thoughts to produce the best illusions, he understood how to grow black pepper and other spices. Using his power of illusion, he showed me how to pick the right branches to propagate. “I’ll show it to the goblins who have nothing else to do,” Korumi said, apparently excited for an excuse to talk to his new goblin neighbors.

Isn’t his power too convenient? I thought. I still struggled to wrap my mind around the fact that Korumi was a self-managing house. He carried with him generational knowledge acquired through the memory of the villagers, and by using his mind reading and illusion abilities, he could communicate with monsters and other species—almost like an ideal version of VR or AR.

Korumi had lost control in his search for companionship, but he was just a little kid. Still, I couldn’t help but be reminded that he was still a monster with powers that concerned the gods themselves. Korumi just hadn’t thought of how to utilize his powers, but there were a hundred and one ways to take advantage of his abilities.

“Ryoma!” Korumi said, having reappeared. Technically, he’d always been there since he was the manor itself, but anyway...

“You surprised me. What’s up? I thought you went to see the goblins,” I said.

“I forgot to ask. Do you want to grow rafflesia hotels too?”

“Wait, you can grow them? Were you growing them?” I asked.

“It’s not difficult,” Korumi explained. “As long as the flower is undamaged, you just have to put it next to a support. The only problem would be that no one can live close to it...and you’d have to risk your life to harvest it?”

“Those are pretty serious problems,” I pointed out.

“Some of the final villagers tried. They said they were going to make it rich and go back to a normal life,” Korumi said.

“That never, ever, works...” Was the cluster of rafflesia hotels Glen had found the relic of this endeavor? Even if they felt desperate and backed into a corner, they sounded just like the people who tried to get out of debt by winning at the casino or lottery. “Sorry, rafflesia hotels can fetch a nice price, but it’s not worth making this village unlivable.”

“I can keep gluttonous flies away with illusions,” Korumi offered.

“Still, I don’t want to keep those too close. It’s not like I need the money, so I won’t get into that anytime soon. If I need one, I could just grab it from the cluster that’s already there. By the way, did Glen give you the rafflesia hotel materials and the other stuff he doesn’t want?”

“They’re all in the warehouse,” Korumi confirmed.

“Thanks.” There was no reason to rush the demolition project, so I decided to grab those materials first. If he left me a lot of materials native to the Sea of Trees, I wanted to see if any slimes took a particular liking to them.

I went down to the warehouse and tested them out.

“Wow...! I guess I should have expected the plant slimes to gravitate towards these,” I said. Some of the weed slimes reacted to the heatwood branches and seeds found in the guts of monsters, while others reacted to the rafflesia hotel petals. Lobelia the scientist had talked to me about tree slimes before, and I wondered if that was what these weed slimes would turn into. Would the one attracted to the heatwood branches evolve into a different slime than the one attracted to the heatwood seeds? There was one way to find out.

Is there a slime that evolves from rafflesia hotel petals specifically, or would it evolve with any flower? That was an important question to test because of how rare rafflesia hotels were. So much so that for a moment, I considered farming them after all... Before I made any decisions, though, I’d prioritize using the readily available heatwood and see if any slime evolved into a tree slime.

Another material readily available was raptor meat. Caulkin had told me about a slime that evolved from a constant diet of monster meat. Caulkin had gone broke from that experiment, but I could provide that supply for free, simply by making my way back. It’s worth a shot. “So much to look forward to... Now I should gather any materials I can that are close to the—”

“Ryoma! Chop these up now!” Glen shouted as he ran into the warehouse.

“Glen? What are you—?!” I found him holding two enormous snakes, one green head in each arm, their bodies coiled around Glen’s in a bone-crushing hold.

“You found more immortal snakes?!” I asked.

“A little ways off from the village! There were bigger ones too! I’ll bring more. Slice them and dice them, will you?”

“Got it,” I said. “Korumi?”

“On it.” Korumi materialized out of thin air, and the pair of snakes fell off Glen’s body and began to sleep on the floor.

“That makes it easy,” I said.

“Good! See you soon!” Glen shouted, and ran back out. If there were more immortal snakes out there, the village itself had to be close to their natural den. While that also meant the village was more dangerous, it made this place the perfect base for gathering materials. While preparing to kill the enormous snakes, I began brainstorming plans to gather those materials in the afternoon.