By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 15 - Chapter 7

Chapter 9, Episode 16: Camping Out with Glen

On our way to Korumi village, Glen and I came to a wide, murky river.

“We’re gonna cross here?” Glen asked.

“No. We’re going to follow the river upstream for a while,” I said.

“This way, huh?” Glen began confidently stomping along the river with me in tow. “Pretty far, this place. Even I haven’t been this deep into the woods.”

“Do you come to the Sea of Trees often?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t say often. It’s a good place to make a few quick bucks because I don’t have to go looking for strong monsters—they find me.”

“Not many places are teeming with A- and B-rank monsters... What a hellscape this forest is,” I added in realization.

Glen scoffed. “Says the kid who’s walking through the place like it’s his backyard.”

“After coming back here and seeing it with a fresh pair of eyes, I can see that it’s no place for a well-adjusted person.” The Sea of Trees was pretty much uninhabitable for humans. It finally clicked with me why my mentioning having lived in Korumi or of my intention to return there was met with such surprise. Anyone who knew what this forest was like would rightfully doubt my sanity for wanting to go back.

Suddenly, branches the size of average tree trunks threatened to crush us from above while roots like jagged spikes shot out of the ground below. I evaded both attacks with Space magic and sliced into the massive tree before me, sending a blade of air up along the trunk to sever a burl high up. At the same time, I heard a splintering boom from the next tree over. The branches and roots halted where they were.

“Damn, I did it again,” Glen muttered as he climbed down from the tree, not sounding too concerned.

“Are you okay?” I asked anyway.

“I’m not hurt, if that’s what you’re worried about. I put a little too much force behind it.” Glen held up his giant war hammer—bent halfway down the shaft. Judging by how sturdy the war hammer looked and the sound of an impact that resembled a cannon blast, he’d put in more than “a little” too much force.

“I don’t think you can bend that back,” I said.

“It’s supposed to be the toughest make in the royal capital’s weapon shop. Still too brittle.” Glen added that, because his use of physical energy was done subconsciously, he struggled with manipulating the flow of energy consciously. As a result, his physical energy boosted body often overpowered his weapon. He chucked the broken war hammer into his fanny pack like he’d done it a hundred times before.

“Do you have a spare?” I asked.

“That was my spare. No sweat. If I don’t have a hammer, I’ll throw my fist around.”

Apparently, he’s broken at least one other war hammer on this outing. He’d be just fine, I was sure. He’d have no problem brute-forcing through the forest like he had so far. “Any tool’s a hammer,” as the saying goes.

“That one was a tie,” Glen said.

“We’re not in a race,” I reminded him. “What do you want to do about these treants? Elder treants, maybe, seeing how big they are...”

“Either way, they take up too much space. Even my pack won’t fit the loot from them on top of all the monsters I’ve killed so far,” Glen said.

“Same goes for my Space magic.”

These twin treants—if I could call them that—spawned from a pair of giant heatwood trees that would take a good while to loot. Maybe we should leave them behind and come back later if we have the chance... Wait a minute. “We should camp here,” I suggested.

“Sure. Monsters might skirt around treant territory.”

“Their roots are firmly planted, so they won’t crush us overnight. We have a water source too—that stream nearby.”

“All right, it’s your call. I don’t know the way to where you’re going.” Glen pulled out a thick drape of fabric from his fanny pack and wrapped it around him like a cape. He rolled onto one of the heatwood treant’s roots.

“You’re not going to sleep like that, are you?” I asked.

“Sure am.”

Glen’s idea of camping out was so haphazard that a normal adventurer would have been eaten alive by bugs and leeches in his place. This was just another entry in Glen’s series of feral tactics to pierce through the Sea of Trees. Earlier, he’d let himself get drenched in the rain only to shake himself off like a dog once it let up. When I’d asked how he was going to deal with hypothermia, his only answer was “food and willpower.” He’d survived so far, so who was I to judge him? He wouldn’t catch me doing the same, though.

On second thought, I decided to summon a huge rock slime and had it turn into a makeshift hut. I wouldn’t be able to relax for the night if I’d left my traveling companion exposed to the elements.

“A slime room, huh? I didn’t even think of that. Plenty of adventurers whip up a wall with Earth magic, to shield them from the wind, but that’s about it.” Glen was walking in circles around the hut to take it in, just like he’d done with the immortal snake. He seemed more interested in my idea of camping out now.

Maybe I’ll spruce it up a bit, I thought. The interior’s all up to my slime, so there’s not much I can change. To make it more comfortable... I knew what to try. I summoned filter slimes through Space magic and put them in the hut’s air hole. Once I asked the huge rock slime to adjust the size of it, I had a sort of screen window that doubled as an air purifier. It would keep bugs out and could still be closed up quickly if a monster were to come sniffing. Then, I placed a bucket in front of the air hole.

“You’re gonna eat that ice?” Glen asked, peeking his head out of the entrance.

Okay, the content of the bucket kind of looked like shaved ice, but... “They’re slimes,” I said. Specifically, an ice slime evolved in the cold wave over New Year’s and a snow slime I’d been given by those kids I’d saved from kidnapping. “Both of them hate the heat and love the cold, but their natures are slightly different.”

The ice slime was better at staying cold and preventing itself from melting, making it the more heat-resistant of the two, with a preference for Ice and Water. Its gelid body could cool its very immediate surroundings—a block of ice that wouldn’t melt too quickly. On the other hand, the snow slime was more susceptible to heat. With an affinity for Ice, Water, and Wind, this pile of snow could produce a slight flow of air—it could cool a decent area.

“What does any of that mean?” Glen asked.

“Let me just show you. Step inside for me.”

Once Glen was inside, I had the huge rock slime close up the entrance and set up a light to illuminate the pitch-dark interior. Then I asked the snow slime to feed itself—powdery snow swirled from it.

“Oh?”

“Can you tell the difference?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s cooler in here,” Glen answered. “No, it’s just not muggy like it is outside.”

“The snow slime is dehumidifying the hut.”

Heat and humidity were two of the worst contributors to exhaustion in the woods. Humidity—or water in the air—could be condensed into rain or frozen into snow. The snow slime making a meal out of humidity-turned-snow made the air in the hut drier.

“The smaller the room, the more effective. Its purpose is only to gather water in the air, and it’ll weaken if I push it too far. I’m protecting the snow slime with the colder ice slime next to it. A layer of barrier magic helps keep the air in too.”

I let a magic barrier that kept coldness in without choking the airflow cocoon the two slimes in their bucket, and powdery snow began to fall from a tiny cloud within it. If the slimes had been kept in a glass sphere instead of a wooden bucket, it would have been a snow globe.

“Yeah! Feels like I’m outside the forest!” Glen cheered.

“High humidity on its own can feel awful,” I said. “The entryway is closed right now, but the slime will open one for you if you want to leave. Just put your hand on the wall.”

Now that I’d checked shelter off the list, I moved on to food—a quick and dirty instant meal. It was too cramped in the hut—because Glen was too massive—so I decided to heat it up outside. A quick Wind-magic mowing and Earth-magic paving turned our little clearing in the Sea of Trees into a campsite. Once I started a fire and set a pot of water on it, I just had to wait for our meal to heat while I had a cleaner slime wash me from head to toe.

Glen groaned. “Mrm— This stuff is great! I didn’t think I’d get my hands on food this good here!”

“Chew with your mouth closed, at least. And I have plenty more where it came from,” I said. There was a gluttonous look in his eye as soon as he opened the pouch I gave him, and he’d been inhaling the food after his first bite. In this kind of environment, even food on par with a simple, home-cooked meal could feel like a three-star dining experience. By the looks of it, the S-rank adventurer would agree with me. “I’m glad you like it, though. I almost expected you to turn your nose at it and whip out a filet mignon from your pack.”

“If I did, it’d be cold. And rotten. If it’s only going to be a day or two, I might pack some fresh food from town, but it’s only dried meat and bread if I’m going in for a long time. This is some sort of ration, right? Where’d you get it?” Glen asked.

“Through a connection I have with a certain noble,” I answered vaguely. “They’re not on the open market.”

“Cool,” Glen said. “That certain noble doesn’t mind you showing it off?”

“They’ve told me that they would rather have me save my energy than try to keep this secret by wasting time cooking meals I don’t have to or settling for poor-quality rations,” I explained. The Jamils told me this because they were primarily concerned with my well-being, but even from a strictly business standpoint, losing me and all my ventures would be a lot worse than leaking the secret of one proprietary invention. Besides, the other day they’d told me that they were going to expedite the manufacturing of these pouches because of the monster attacks and extreme weather last year. The pouches had been experimentally used as food aid for neighboring nations and had been given to Sever and Remily on their adventures.

“No trouble, huh? That makes it go down easier,” he said, cheeks stuffed with food, without a hint of concern. Suddenly, he pulled out an ornate liquor bottle from his fanny pack and popped its cork. It was such a fluid, natural movement that it took me a second to realize he was chugging it straight from the bottle. I held my tongue, though. This was hardly out of character for him. I doubted that he’d die from it. If he’s passed out in the morning, I’m leaving him behind. 

“Ahh! You need a good drink to go with good food!” Glen exclaimed, thoroughly enjoying what looked to be a strong and expensive liquor. Then a thought seemed to cross his mind—a rare occasion—and he reached into his fanny pack.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“This stuff is good, but I’m craving more meat. I thought I had some more dried meat in here...”

Knowing that his unique gift made him burn a ridiculous amount of calories, I’d already prepared ten pouches for him—apparently, that wasn’t enough. Immortal snake meat is edible, I recalled. It’ll still be some time until I’m out of the Sea of Trees. Better to make good use of it now. I asked the grave slime carrying the immortal snake carcass to spit out the headless carcass for me, saving the rest of the carcass for later. Cutting up the huge serpent alone would be quite the task.

While I was taking on cleaning and cooking the snake, its smell drew in several monsters that were promptly chased off by Glen. He might have been free-spirited and unpredictable, but I couldn’t deny he made for a trusty ally.

Wow, that looks good. As soon as I dropped the bâtonnet-cut snake meat onto the heated metal plate, fat sizzled off of it. Even without any added spices, grilled immortal snake smelled as appetizing as a yakitori skewer dipped in sauce.

“How much longer?” Glen asked, staring intently at the hot plate, having been lured back into the hut by the scrumptious aroma.

“I don’t know how long to cook them for best results. As long as they’re cooked through, they should be good,” I said.

I took a bite out of one of the seared bâtonnets—it practically melted in my mouth without being too fatty. “It’s delicious,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s written all over your face! Gimme some!”

“Let’s cook as much as we can,” I agreed, adding more and more meat onto the hot plate. With just a little pinch of salt and pepper, I could eat a thousand pieces of the delicious snake that wasn’t gamey at all.

“Now this calls for a great drink!” Glen said, then his expression soured. “What a waste... I’ve been crushing these things into a pulp.”

“You did turn yours into a patty,” I joked.

“Blades just break against them. By the time I kill it, it’s usually a dirt-and-meat-ball. I’ve never tried eating that before.”

We kept eating the delicious snake, until Glen finished his liquor and reached into his pack for another. “I’m almost out of booze too... You got any, Ryoma?”

“If you don’t mind home-brewed liquor.”

Glen laughed. “I should have asked what you don’t have! How much of it?”

“Just the batches that are ready for consumption? More than you can count.” I briefly explained how my goblin familiars were on a distilling kick, obsessively stocking up the stuff inside my Dimension Home.

When I passed him a two-liter bottle of white liquor, Glen chugged the whole thing in one go. “Not bad. Tastes good. Hits good. It goes down easy, and...it seeps through you, or whatever. I like it. How much do you want for it?” The look on his face did a much better job at conveying how much he liked the stuff than his words did.

That feeling he mentioned was probably due to the nutrients in the liquor. White liquor was distilled much like Japanese sake was, and a fresh batch had a similar taste and nutrients—like amino acids—as sweet sake. Back in the Edo period, cold sweet sake was a popular drink in the summer. A bottle of cold white liquor should have been just as effective of a coolant.

How much did I want to charge for it? No idea. I told Glen that I’d never intended to do anything with these except drink them myself, and he took out five more bottles of the liquor he’d started with. “Then trade me for the rest of mine. I never looked at how much they cost, but I went to the best liquor shop in town and told them to give me something good, whatever the price, so it should be decent stuff. For your batch plus the food. What do you say?”

“I can get fifty bottles right now. Double by tomorrow,” I offered.

“You got a deal!”

I gave him all the bottled white liquor I had from my Item Box. Neither of us knew the value of either side of the trade, but that kept things nice and simple. As long as we were both happy with it, there was no math involved.

“Oh, if you’re looking to buy some in the future, you should go to Fatoma. It tastes so much better when it’s made by professional distillers,” I said.

“Fatoma, huh? I’ve heard of the place, I think, but I’ve never been. Might be worth a trip.”

Then, chugging liquor and chowing down meat, Glen went on to tell me a lot of stories about his adventuring. None of them were very instructive. In fact, I was confident that only he could have gotten away with many of the things he did. But the stories were entertaining nonetheless.

There was just the two of us in a hut in the depths of the forest. Because he was so self-centered, I didn’t bother trying to be too polite. Occasionally chasing off monsters, we continued our raucous, easygoing barbecue late into the night.