By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 12

Chapter 3 Episode 12: Setting an Objective

I swiftly got dressed next morning, just before Miyabi came to visit.

“Morning, Ryoma.”

“Good morning, Miyabi.”

“I figured you’d be getting up right about now. You’re an early riser. Breakfast’s ready, so eat if you can.”

“Thank you, I will.”

I was led to the same dining room table as yesterday, and everyone was eating fast. I tended to eat at about the same speed, though. Once we were done, Pioro and Clana had to go to work.

“You take care of things here, Miyabi.”

“Help out as best you can.”

“You can count on me! Ryoma, what’ll you be doing today? You’re not used to town yet, are you? I can show you around.”

“That would be nice, but don’t you have work to do?”

“Not a problem. I may be the president’s daughter, but I’m still only twelve. I’ve got basically no work to do. I only tend to the spice shop to train for the future. I guess you have your own store and you’re only eleven, but I think you’re an exception to the rule.”

She had a point there. If she was going to show me around, then I decided to give up on adventuring for that day and focus on making furniture instead.

“Then I’d like to make furniture for my store today, so if you could tell me about any places I could buy wood, that’d be nice.”

“Leave it to me, I’ll take you to a great store,” Miyabi said proudly. I followed her outside, where Drei returned from his mission to deliver a message to Gimul.

“Oh.”

“What’s—Eek?!”

Drei landed on my shoulder. He ended up between me and Miyabi, startling her so much that she jumped backward, her tail flailing. I heard that foxes from Earth didn’t express their emotions with their tails much, but maybe fox beastkin did. Her tail hadn’t moved much until now, so it could have simply been a natural reaction to shock. In any case, I felt the need to apologize.

“Sorry I scared you. This is my familiar.”

“A familiar, eh? Now that I take a good look, that’s one beautiful monster.”

“He’s a limour bird. I had him deliver a message to Gimul,” I explained as I took the letter attached to Drei’s leg and gave it a read. It was a response from Gimul, and from what it said, the letter must have reached the store before closing time yesterday. They planned on setting off early the next morning, expecting to arrive in three days. It was all according to plan. I told Miyabi this, then we started to walk again. I bought wood at a wood processing plant and placed it in my Dimension Home, then headed to my store.

■ ■ ■

I selected a storage room for my workspace and had my acid slimes create parts. The sticky slimes and I used nails and hardening sticky fluid to assemble and reinforce chairs, desks, and shelves. Miyabi silently observed. I thought she might be bored at first, but she didn’t just seem to be watching. Sometime later, she asked me a question.

“Ryoma, what are these things?”

“Slimes. Why do you ask?”

“No, no, no, these can’t be slimes. They’re not like any slime I’ve ever seen! How are slimes using tools?!”

“I taught them. Some of my slimes can also fight with sticks, spears, and martial arts.”

“Really?!”

“Really.”

I shaved down a leftover stick of wood with a polishing wheel and handed it to one of my slimes for it to show off its skills.

“Wow, it’s actually using that thing.”

“Right?”

“Are all slimes capable of learning these skills?”

“This was just an ordinary slime like the ones you’d know at first, but after enough training, this is what it’s grown into.”

“Huh... I never knew that was possible.”

“Most people don’t. Everyone gets surprised when they first see my slimes.”

“If you shared this news with the world, wouldn’t it be a huge discovery?”

“Maybe, but people seem to ignore slimes just for being slimes. Besides, I have no plans to publicize my findings just yet.”

I muttered about how wasteful that would be, then Miyabi stared at the slime again. She remained silent for a few minutes before asking another question.

“Ryoma, what are you doing next year?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Aren’t you eleven? When you’re twelve, you can enroll in an academy in the capital. It sounds like you’ve got a profitable business, so there’s no way you can’t pay the entry fee. Are you going to school or not?”

“I’m not interested. I’d rather live freely and train or go on adventures. Besides, from what I hear, it’d just be dealing with a bunch of people I wouldn’t like. I wouldn’t actually learn much.”

“Darn, you knew?” Miyabi sighed.

“You knew that too?”

“Of course. I’ll be going to the academy this year. I gathered info about it in advance, obviously. My dad’s also told me all about it.”

“I see. So why are you asking if I’m going to enroll?”

“You seem like a nice guy, and school might be more tolerable with you around. Relationships are supposed to be awfully formal there. And worst of all, I have a knack for magic, so I might end up standing out and getting unwanted attention from some weirdo nobles.”

“Why go to the academy at all, then?”

“I need to make connections for my future as a merchant. This academy treats nobles and commoners equally as a rule, so there’s no easier place to cozy up with nobles. But it’d be nice to have someone around who I can just chat with and relax. You seem good at magic too, so you’d be a great ally to have.”

She was pretty shrewd for her age. I always knew that merchants were scary. But this sounded like a reasonably common goal for students who enrolled at that academy. That was fine enough, but I wondered whether Miyabi was really good enough at magic to draw attention.

“So, you’re good at magic?”

“The best I can cast is one mid-level fire spell, but as far as students go, I’m a cut above the rest.”

She told me in more detail about how most new students could only use elementary magic, and there were even a fair number who needed a remedial course to learn elementary magic to begin with. If that was the crowd, then knowing a single mid-level spell was more than enough to stand out. That reminded me that fox beastkin were unique among beastkin in that they possessed a lot of mana, and they were supposed to be rare. I felt like I learned about this when I overheard a chat at the guild once. That might have been why Miyabi was good at magic.

This country had virtually no discrimination toward any race, and there was no problem with her being half beastkin, so she probably didn’t need to worry about that. When someone discriminated against another based on race, it was the racist who was looked down upon. Racism and oppression were supposedly commonplace a long time ago, but travelers from Earth from before my time toiled to put an end to that. There was still some jealousy toward the inherent talents of certain races, however.

“I see,” I said.

“Well, if you’re not going, then what can you do? I won’t force you, and I wasn’t expecting much anyway. If you did come to the academy, I would’ve warned you to watch out for the weird nobles and introduced you to some of the good ones.”

Apparently she wanted to support me. Miyabi might have been shrewd, but she wasn’t a bad girl. It seemed like she had her work cut out for her, but I hoped she succeeded. I continued to work, letting her lend me a hand with the more simple tasks as I finished assembling the furniture and tools. At some point Miyabi went to the adventurer’s guild, then returned to my store.

“Ryoma, there’s not that much adventuring work around here at the moment,” she said. “You’d either be running errands around town, gathering herbs in the southern plains, or hunting small animals.”

“Really? I heard in Gimul that a strong monster showed up around this city.”

“Oh, did you now? That’s why you can’t go north without being at least E Rank.”

“It’s that powerful?”

“No, a party of D Ranks could take care of it just fine. But most of the local adventurers aren’t even E Rank.”

Because of the dragoon’s guild, wyverns and other large monsters frequently flew to Lenaf. They scared off other monsters, so there were few to be found around the city itself. High-ranking adventurers found themselves with nothing to hunt and no way to make a living, so they went to other towns. The guards also never operated outside the town and its gates, so this monster was a bit of a nuisance. That was why only adventurers of at least E Rank could travel north of the city. Thankfully they didn’t limit it to D Rank and above.

“So I can go if I’m an E Rank?”

“Sure, and there’d be jobs picking herbs and such in the northern woods. Oh right, you’re an E Rank, aren’t you? I won’t tell you not to go, but be careful up there. If the monster spots you, don’t think twice about running away.”

I thanked Miyabi and headed to the guild. I figured that a girl who wasn’t an adventurer found it hard to approach an adventurer’s guild, so I rejected her offer to show me the way.

■ ■ ■

I arrived at the guild and went straight to the front desk to gather information. My source was a male staff member at the guild. He was the type of worker who went about business without asking questions. When I showed him my E Rank guild card, he didn’t comment on my age or appearance. Rather, he was quick to bring me the requests available in the area north of town. I received data on the monster there as well, and it was called a smash boar. They were large, vigorous boars with short tusks. Their hides were thick and it was hard to land a lethal blow on them without considerable strength. I had heard of these monsters before, and upon checking their unique features, I was sure I remembered correctly. Only D Rank adventurers or above could accept the job to slay it, so I took a request to collect herbs, then returned to Pioro’s store.

On the way there, I remembered the letter I received when I first came to this world. The grandparents from the personal history I made up had actually existed in this world. When the gods created my background, their souls were called upon so I could get permission to use their name. They were from a village called Korumi, located in a dense forest called the Sea of Trees of Syrus. It was a treasure trove of rare medicinal herbs, and it contained caves with scarce and valuable ore as well. Many villages were established in that forest for the purpose of obtaining those resources, and Korumi was one of them. But the Sea of Trees of Syrus was brimming with monsters, and one of the most dangerous regions in the country. Even on the outer edges of the forest, the weakest monsters were still at least D Rank and traveled in packs. To make matters worse, adventurers who sought to collect resources in the forest and perished in the process became zombies, skeletons, ghosts, or other undead monsters. It was far more dangerous than anything on the road to Lenaf. If one had no business there, it was best avoided.

But when I received permission to use their name, I was also handed the rights to their inheritance. They had nobody to leave it for, so it was hidden somewhere. They hoped that I would use it to carry out their wish, but wouldn’t force me to. If I did want to obtain their inheritance, though, I had to go to the village myself. Gain suggested that if I planned to do so, I should fight monsters that acted similar to the monsters there beforehand. One of those monsters was a smash boar.

I could have gotten to the village shortly after my arrival in this world if I had used my martial arts and energy meditation, but there was no guarantee that I could have made it out alive. That was why I stopped at the Forest of Gana. I ended up spending the next three years there to pursue personal interests, but now that I had left the forest, it was time. The wealth of resources and powerful monsters would make it the perfect place to train. I was also going to continue borrowing the name of these grandparents, so I thought it was best that I do what they asked. But first, I had to prepare for the task.

I thought about this as I returned to Pioro’s store and had dinner. When I told them that I planned to head north tomorrow, Pioro asked if I’d hunt the smash boar for them. Miyabi was quick to tell him off, and Clana chided him with a terrifying smile. I thought of it as a good target for training, but Pioro saw it as obstructive and thought it could be made into quality products. Smash boar meat smelled better than the average boar meat, and it was supposed to be soft and delicious. If I did happen to slay the smash boar, I would bring its remains to this store. I didn’t accept the request to hunt the smash board, but if I happened across it, I had to fight back. I couldn’t just stand there and let it kill me, after all. I wouldn’t hold back. And if I did happen to kill it, nobody could complain, really. That was a bit more devious than I usually was, but maybe all the hoodlums I had to fight lately rubbed off on me. I needed to be careful about that. After dinner, I returned to my room and prepared for the next day.