Disturbance at Dawn
Satou here. They say necessity is the mother of invention, but you still need to understand the basics of what you’re trying to do in order to turn an idea into reality. I think the father of invention is consistent day-to-day effort.
After the potion debacle with the witch of the Forest of Illusions and the viceroy’s aide, our new friends saw us off as we departed Sedum City.
The younger four girls sat in the back of the horse-drawn carriage, waving an emotional good-bye to the people shrinking in the distance as they returned the gesture.
I left the younger set to their business and checked in on Lulu, our driver, at the coachman stand.
Since Liza and Nana were riding on horseback, I couldn’t see them from inside the carriage.
“Master, there will be a good deal of pedestrian traffic heading to and from the gate for a while, so I think we should take it slow.”
“Sure. Drive safely.”
Lulu spoke in a soft voice from the front of the carriage, her glossy black hair, light-blue dress, and warm-looking white shawl rippling in the breeze.
She was considered ugly by the aesthetic standards of this world, but from my point of view, she was more beautiful than any celebrity.
“Master, Nana and I shall lead the way.”
I turned toward the voice and met Liza’s dignified gaze.
“Make sure you give pedestrians the right of way.”
“Understood.”
The new leather armor I’d tailored for her in Sedum City and her traveler’s overcoat obscured most of Liza’s orange scales, a characteristic of her Scalefolk tribe. At most, I could catch a glimpse of her tail.
Her trademark black spear was evil-looking enough to draw attention, so she usually kept it wrapped in cloth. I’d improvised the weapon out of monster parts in the labyrinth beneath Seiryuu City back when I saved her.
It wasn’t any stronger than an ordinary steel spear, but since Liza seemed to treasure it, I didn’t try to stop her from using it.
Following a little behind Liza was Nana, a homunculus with a long blond ponytail.
She was wearing the same leather armor as Liza, but her ample chest was straining against it. Unlike Liza, she wasn’t wearing a helmet, so her beautiful but expressionless features were exposed to the sunlight.
“Nana, don’t try to let the horse take care of things. Don’t force it.”
“Master, your instructions have been registered, I report.”
I gave some directions to Nana, who was still unskilled at horseback riding, and she responded in her usual robotic manner.
Without instruction from Nana, the horse moved to follow Liza in front of us.
“Satou.”
Mia the elf emerged from the back of the carriage, waving a hand at me.
Her pale blue-green hair was tied into two long pigtails, and her pointed ears peeked out from behind them.
Since their kind didn’t show themselves to humans very often, she usually hid her hair and ears under a hood to avoid any trouble.
Her short lime-green dress suited her childish appearance, and due to the chilly weather, she was wearing tights and a cardigan that matched Arisa’s.
“Licorice.”
As usual, the reticent Mia spoke to me in a single word.
She probably meant she wanted some thorn licorice as a snack.
I took out a jar from the Garage Bag, a magic tool that could hold far more than it appeared. When I opened the lid, a subtle, sweet scent wafted out.
I stuck a toothpick into a piece of the aloe-like, emerald-green substance inside and handed it to her.
“Aaah.”
Mia opened her small mouth demandingly, so I went ahead and fed the thorn licorice to her.
“Yum.” Mia smiled happily and put a hand to her cheek.
Given her appearance, it was hard to believe she was actually far older than me.
“Smells sweeeeet!”
“Like licorice, sir!”
Sniffing at the sugary aroma, Tama and Pochi hopped up from the back of the carriage.
Tama, with her pointy, furry ears and short white hair, rubbed her head against my hand like a real cat. She was a member of a rare race of cat-eared folk.
Pochi sat up eagerly, giving me puppy-dog eyes to match her dog ears and brown bob cut. Her tail mirrored her excited expression by wagging side to side.
She was from a race called the dog-eared folk, a rare presence in the Shiga Kingdom like the cat-eared folk.
Both of them were wearing their usual white shirts and poufy shorts. The outfits matched, except Pochi’s shorts were yellow, while Tama’s were pink. Their overcoats were the same color as their pants.
“Wait just a minute, all right? I’ll give you some, too.”
“’kaaay!”
“Yes, sir.”
Tama sat next to Pochi, and they waited patiently together.
For elementary school–age girls, they have great judgment and manners.
I poked more toothpicks into the licorice and held out the jar to them.
“Aaah?”
“Aaah, sir.”
The two of them opened their mouths like baby birds in an imitation of Mia’s behavior, so I popped a piece of licorice into each of their mouths.
“Deliiish!”
“It’s so sweet, sir. Pochi’s happy, sir!”
Tama clamped the licorice between her teeth and stretched it, while Pochi expressed her joy by waving her hands and tail.
“Do you want some, too, Lulu?”
“Yes, please.”
Since Lulu could hear the girls cooing happily, I offered her a piece as well.
Lulu shyly popped the licorice into her mouth, then smiled gracefully.
“Excuse me! Aren’t you forgetting someone?”
Arisa showed up a little late to the party, so I gave her some candy as well. She was hiding her unlucky purple hair under a golden wig, and she was dressed like a princess in her dark-red cardigan and fluffy pink top and bottom.
“It’s a bit sad to leave Sedum City, no?” Arisa chewed away on the licorice as she spoke. “Perhaps it’s because we left after the festival?”
The festival had celebrated the triumphant return of the troops after they successfully drove the attacking kobolds out of the silver mines. We wanted to check it out, so we’d stayed about five days longer than planned.
“Festivals are greeeat!”
“It was fun to see everyone smiling, sir.”
“Mm.”
Between the parade of floats and portable shrines and the chance to taste festival-exclusive cuisine, it had been a very enjoyable couple of days.
This event had ended the day before, so we were finally resuming our journey to return Mia to her hometown.
“There are a lot of soldiers, aren’t there?”
Lulu was right; there were indeed ten or so soldiers walking in formation on the main road.
This struck me as a little strange, so I opened the map to investigate. According to it, these men were conscripts from the villages of Kuhanou County.
“Injured.”
“They must be coming back from the silver mines.”
Mia’s single word referred to the fact that most of the members of the group were sporting bandages or walking sticks; the wounded soldiers probably had to wait until they could move again before they were able to go home.
“Hey there, sweetie, wanna marry my son?”
“Those’re some nice hips. Think you’d like to spend the night with me?”
“Idiot! If yer gonna compliment something, start with that rack!”
The men still had some life in them despite their injuries, as a few of them made vulgar comments about Nana as she rode past on horseback.
Nana only tilted her head, so at least she didn’t seem anxious or uncomfortable.
“Ugh, those buffoons are infuriating!”
“Vulgar.”
Although Nana was the target of the sexual harassment, Arisa and Mia were angrier to hear it from inside our vehicle.
“Perhaps I’ll make them regret it with a taste of my Impossible Jail spell…”
“Please don’t. Nana, we’re trading places!”
Arisa was rolling up her sleeves and making to stand, but I had her sit back down and called out to Nana instead.
I switched roles with her and rode my horse side by side with Liza’s. Sitting in a carriage is certainly easier, but horseback riding once in a while is nice, too.
I heard Arisa shouting something like “death to sexual predators!” in the back, but Lulu seemed to be keeping her in check, so I figured I could just let her be.
Once we passed the intersection of the main road and a path to the silver mines, there was far less pedestrian traffic, so I gave the horse back to Nana and returned to the carriage.
Mia could hardly stand to watch Nana’s utter lack of skill with horses, so I had them ride together while the elf gave her brusque guidance.
“Watch the road.”
“Mia, there was a squirrel in that tree, I report.”
“Road.”
“…Understood, I reluctantly report.”
Nana seemed dispirited by Mia’s scolding, though her face was as expressionless as ever.
I heard a soft “Achoo!” from Lulu in the coachman stand.
“You should wear this to protect you from the wind.”
“Th-thank you.”
I removed a fur coat from Storage and handed it to Lulu, then took over the reins for her so she could put it on.
“It’s gotten colder than I expected.”
“Yes, a chilly wind keeps blowing from the direction of those mountains.”
The mountains Lulu referred to bordered the Muno Barony.
“Maybe it’s because there’s nothing to block out the wind here.”
I looked past Lulu as she slid her arms into the fur coat and surveyed the main road.
As we neared the mountainous border, the vegetation had changed, and rocks and grasslands replaced the trees.
I’d heard from a merchant that the Muno Barony was colder than Kuhanou County, but I hadn’t expected it to get this chilly.
I took a hand warmer out of Storage and infused it with a little magic power.
This was something I’d devised during our stay in Sedum City, a magic tool that resembled a silver electric pocket heater. I kept it inside a small purse so as not to burn anyone’s skin.
“Lulu, wear this, too. I don’t want you getting cold.”
“Thank you very much… Ooh, it’s so warm!”
Wrapping both hands around the device, Lulu pressed it to her cheeks to stave off the chill.
The expression on her beautiful face relaxed at the warmth.
I wish I could take a picture of this.
If we used that smile in advertisements, I bet shares of this little gizmo would rise 30 percent in value.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave the reins with you for so long,” she said.
“It’s all right. It was worth it, since I got to see your lovely smile.”
I didn’t mean to sound so flirtatious, but I also wanted to compliment her to ease her inferiority complex.
“Oh…but I…”
Lulu’s face flushed bright red.
“Guilty.”
Mia poked her head in between Lulu and me on the coachman stand, pouting moodily.
“Me! Do me next!”
Then Arisa appeared in short order, flailing her hand wildly in the air.
“All right, all right. You’re cute, Arisa.”
“Excuse me, that’s not nearly as sincere as what you said to Lulu! Put more love into it!”
Arisa harrumphed and pounded my arm lightly, but there wasn’t much power behind it, so I doubted she was all that angry.
Given the unexpectedly severe temperature, I took some time on our lunch break to mass-produce some earmuffs at Arisa’s suggestion.
I accented each somewhat retro headband-style ear warmer with a colored ribbon so they wouldn’t all look the same.
“Comfyyy!”
“My ears are happy, sir.”
Tama and Pochi seemed pleased, despite normally favoring lighter clothes, and they kept coming over to show them off to me.
“You both look very cute,” I told them, and they squirmed bashfully.
It was nice to have a journey peaceful enough for such a lighthearted exchange. Aside from one sighting of a distant pack of wolves, our trip was completely uneventful, and we reached the mountains by the time the sun started to set.
We proceeded along the narrow pass, and after about an hour without encountering any other people or carriages, we arrived at a fortress that also served as a checkpoint.
The gate of the fort was closed, but I could see a soldier in the fixture above the gate, so I approached.
“You there, with the carriage! What business do you have at this fort?!”
“We are humble peddlers, traveling to the Ougoch Duchy by way of the Muno Barony.”
“…You’re passing through the cursed territory?”
When I gave a polite response to the soldier, he gave me a dubious look.
“Don’t you know this is a danger zone full of monsters and outlaws?”
“Yes, we are well prepared for it.”
“Fine, then. However, we cannot allow you to pass through the checkpoint at night…”
According to the soldier, the air in the valley near the border was thick with venomous insects and vampire bats at night, so passage was forbidden for safety reasons. It was especially dangerous for horses, he said.
He suggested that we spend the night in the nearest village, but I’d seen a suitable spot along the path before, so we decided to spend the night there.
“Master, I have a request.”
At the camp, Lulu approached me with a serious expression. She wanted me to teach her how to cook a delicious steak.
First, in order to find out what her weak points were, I had her try cooking one.
“Ahh, that won’t work, Lulu. You can’t keep flipping the steak or pushing it down with the spatula.”
“Really? It smells good, so I thought this might be all right…”
Lulu looked discouraged, so I patted her head and explained.
“That delicious smell is the flavor coming out of the steak and burning. So it’s better to only flip it one time so that the good juice won’t come out.”
I’d read that particular factoid in an article online a long time ago.
As a matter of fact, my “Cooking” skill had also taught me that it wasn’t good to turn the steak over frequently, but I figured my explanation would be easier for Lulu to accept. Really, I doubted my secondhand summary was too far off.
Next, I taught her how to cook it step-by-step.
“If you listen closely, your ears will tell you when the timing is right.”
“R-right!”
I explained that the sound of sizzling fat was a good indicator of the temperature of the frying pan.
I must have been getting closer while I was talking, because Lulu was bright red up to her ears. She looked so cute that I couldn’t help whispering in her ear while I explained the techniques.
“Once you’ve prepared the meat and put it on the pan, you have to restrain yourself until the juices start to come to the surface.”
“R-right, I-I’ll restrain myself!”
The pitch of Lulu’s voice was reaching new heights.
Whoops, looks like I went too far. I didn’t want to cross the line into sexual harassment, so I backed off, but this just made her disappointed. It’s hard to figure out what to do with adolescent girls.
As I affectionately watched her serious profile, I continued my culinary lecture.
After a few attempts, Lulu had gotten the hang of it, so I plated the steaks, including Lulu’s failures, and made a Japanese-style sauce with the juices from the meat and soy sauce.
I figured if the failed steaks were still left over at the end, I’d take responsibility and finish them, but the beastfolk girls took care of them in no time flat.
Leaving the after-dinner cleanup to the other kids, I sat in the shadow of the carriage and started preparing magic-tool materials to create some appliances for warmth.
My plan was to make a heating device for the interior of our carriage. I figured a floor heater would be ideal so that we could use it while we slept.
I tried to employ the know-how I’d gotten from making the magic circuits.
I figured the best approach would be to fashion a slatted wooden frame and place a metal pipe containing the heating circuit inside.
My documents had nothing on how to make a magic battery, but I had pulled together a workable substitute for my hand warmer by combining the basic magic circuit, the anti-diffusion magic from the potion vials, and so on. I figured I could use that here as well.
It would work for only about three hours at a time at most, but it should be fine if I just had each night-watch replacement refill the magic supply.
I’d stocked up on wood and metal in Sedum City, so the work proceeded quickly enough.
Of course, without my many skills supporting me, I’d never have been able to produce a magic floor heater for a carriage in less than an hour.
I stowed the completed tool in Storage for a moment, then installed it in the carriage.
I gave it a try by infusing it with magic and lying down, and a gentle, pleasant warmth came up through the floor.
There was a bit of a draft, though, so I’d have to get everyone to help do some weather stripping later.
“What’re you up to?”
“Making a heater.”
Arisa poked her head into the carriage inquisitively.
“Warm.”
“I never knew there was a magic tool like this. You’re amazing, master!”
Following Arisa’s lead, Mia and Lulu came in, patted the floor experimentally, and offered their impressions.
“I never imagined I’d find floor heating in this world.” Sprawled out lazily on the floor to bask in the warmth, Arisa suddenly opened her eyes wide and closed in on me.
“K-k-kotatsu! Make a kotatsu next!”
“Why would we need a heated table if the carriage is already warm?”
“Aww, come onnn… Don’t be like that! Pleeease, make a kotatsu next! Pretty please!”
Arisa’s desperate pleading threatened to overpower me.
“Oh, Arisa, that’s enough. Can’t you see you’re bothering master?” Lulu scolded Arisa gently.
At times like this, it was easy to think of them as sisters.
“Awwww. But kotatsu are the best things everrr… That’s one bit of Japanese culture that I think we should spread to this parallel world.”
I thought she was exaggerating a bit, but I didn’t want to take the wind out of her sails.
Arisa gazed up at me with teary eyes, so I had no choice but to nod reluctantly.
“All right, all right. I’ll make one when I have some time to kill, all right? But you’ll have to make the blanket part yourself.”
“Hooraaaay!”
Arisa leaped joyously inside the carriage. Her skirt flipped up past her navel, but she didn’t seem to care.
“Kotatsu, good.”
Mia nodded with quiet approval as Arisa rejoiced.
Right… I guess there was a hero hundreds of years ago who handed down some Japanese culture to the elves.
Arisa fervently explained the structure and virtues of a kotatsu to an attentive Lulu.
At this rate, she’d be asking me to cultivate mandarin oranges and make mochi. Since there was rice in the Ougoch Duchy, sticky rice for mochi shouldn’t be a problem, but I had no idea where to get oranges.
I’ll have to look for them when we get to a good trading city.
Now, putting that aside, I wanted to show off my invention to everyone else.
“This feeling is truly superb. It isn’t quite as warm as a hot bath, but the temperature is excellent in its own right.”
Liza gave me rave reviews with unusual passion.
It was popular with the other girls, too, of course.
Just as I’d predicted, the effect lasted only about three hours, but that was good enough.
It had gotten cold, so I planned to reduce the night watch to three shifts. I was planning on taking the graveyard shift, so as long as I refilled the magic supply before and after my watch, we should be able to keep warm all night.
For the night watch, each shift would include either Pochi, Tama, or me, since we three had heightened senses for detecting enemies.
The inside of the carriage was nice and warm with the combination of the floor heating and weather stripping, so everyone would be able to sleep soundly without a cold draft.
That evening, Arisa and I read a picture book aloud, complete with spirited reenactment for the others, so I gained the skills “Ad Lib” and “Ventriloquism,” along with the title Lousy Actor.
I don’t know who comes up with these titles, but I wish they’d stop giving me such insulting ones.
On the late-night shift with me, Arisa was shivering in the cold wind, so I decided to try using the Shelter spell I’d just learned from a Magic Scroll in Sedum City.
When I selected it from the menu, a transparent dome about ten feet around covered us.
“Ooh, it’s not cold anymore. Is this a spell you learned in Sedum City?”
“Yep! …Oh, but this’ll be a problem.”
It was keeping out the wind well enough, but the smoke from the burning bonfire was accumulating inside the dome.
I guess this defense magic stopped air from flowing in or out of the barrier.
“Oh dear, you’re right. If we’d nodded off without noticing, we might well have choked to death.”
“Seriously. I’ll cancel it for now.”
I deactivated the Shelter spell, and the smoke escaped into the sky.
“Perhaps you ought to make a chimney?”
“I’ll give it a try.”
I took three rods out of the Garage Bag, stuck them in the ground, and wrapped cloth around them to make a simple tube about three feet tall.
Then I made a Shelter barrier that would intersect with the tube.
The tube stayed as it was. This was good, since I wasn’t sure if the barrier would crush it or cut it off.
When I collected the cloth and rods, there was a hole where the tube had been.
Unlike Shield, you couldn’t change the position of the barrier, so it wouldn’t be usable on the move, but if I added a hole for going in and out like an igloo, it would likely come in handy for the night watch.
Like the heater, this spell lasted for three hours. Even when I used it from the magic menu, this didn’t change. It was probably a precaution to make sure the people inside wouldn’t suffocate.
The menu version seemed stronger than when I used it from the scroll, but I didn’t know how much stronger, since both versions broke from a single punch. Maybe I’ll do a strength test with the help of the beastfolk girls in the future.
By the way, Shelter wasn’t the only spell I acquired in Sedum City.
I also got the Practical Magic spells Short Stun and Magic Arrow and the Earth Magic spell Pitfall.
On the day I’d gotten the scrolls, I went to the abandoned village near Sedum City late at night to test-fire each spell so that I would be able to select them from the magic menu later.
Just as when I used Fire Shot, the spells were fairly weak when I used them directly from the scrolls, but their performance improved by leaps and bounds once I used them from the magic menu.
The two attack spells could now fire up to a hundred and twenty shots at once, and even Short Stun, which was intended to be nonlethal, gained enough attack power to lay waste to a large tree.
Both of them consumed a base amount of ten MP, plus one point per every two additional shots.
In terms of efficiency, they were still no match for Fire Shot, which could melt a rock wall into lava with just ten points, but they’d be easier to use against monsters than my usual Magic Gun.
The Pitfall spell initially created a hole that was just four inches wide and four inches deep, but once I used it from the magic column of the menu, it could make a hole up to forty feet wide and deep.
This size could be altered in units of four inches, so the spell would have uses besides its intended purpose. Mainly, making holes to use as toilets or for throwing away garbage.
However, it didn’t provide any way to fill the holes it created, which was a bit of an issue for me.
When I made a hole with Pitfall, where did the dirt go? The earth on the sides and bottom of the hole became hard as rocks, but if all of it had been compressed, the walls should be way harder than that. I had to assume that most of the dirt was disappearing somewhere.
I was somewhat intrigued, but not enough to go out of my way to do extensive research, so I figured I’d ask an Earth Magic expert or researcher if I met one.
While Arisa and I were chatting about the sillier points of magic, our night-watch shift flew by in no time at all.
The next day, we prepared to depart at early dawn and headed to the fort just as the sun rose.
“Hey, you’re the guy from yesterday. I’ve heard that the Muno Barony is in such desperate poverty that the robbers from there have been coming this way instead. You gotta be careful, not just with bandits and soldiers but even with ordinary villagers.”
“We will. Thank you for your advice.”
Whoa there, you equated Muno Barony soldiers to bandits without even batting an eye, I mentally quipped. My verbal response was simply to thank the soldier for his kindness.
Apparently, there weren’t any tolls to cross the barrier.
On the contrary…
“If you encounter any unreasonable demands on the other side of the fortress, you just run back here. Once you’ve crossed the border, our soldiers can come right to your aid.”
“I appreciate your concern. If anything should happen, I’ll be sure to take you up on your kind offer.”
Thanking the soldier again, we started the carriage toward the barony.
While I drove, I thought back on the rumors I’d heard in Sedum City about the Muno Barony.
The territory had always been dangerous, but thanks to a famine that had been going on for the past three years, much of the population had fallen into slavery or turned to crime.
Not only had fraud and embezzlement by government officials become standard there, but the negligence of the soldiers meant that the main road was overflowing with monsters and bandits.
The border fortress that we’d be passing next would be just as bad, with scoundrels who would take all your cargo under the pretense of a “tariff” or kidnap women from nearby villages.
The reason we were leaving for the Muno Barony so early in the morning was to try to avoid these nasty soldiers.
Such disgraceful men weren’t likely to go to work that early, and I knew there was no barrier on the Muno Barony side of the fortress.
I had some alcohol ready to use as a bribe just in case, but I figured if anyone approached us the wrong way, I could just have Arisa put them to sleep with Psychic Magic and get through.
Idle soldiers doze off on the job all the time, after all.
Once we came out from the fort on the Kuhanou County side, we found ourselves traveling along a narrow road wedged between steep cliffs on both flanks. It was barely wide enough for two carriages to pass each other, and visibility was quite poor.
After we continued through this ravine for ten minutes or so, we made it to the roughest part of the border.
Before us was a valley about a hundred feet wide and almost a thousand feet deep, along with a rope bridge just barely wide enough for a single carriage. The Muno Barony waited on the other side.
“Liza, Nana, pull back. Wait here with everyone else, please.”
I called to Liza and Nana before they could cross on their horses ahead of us, and they returned to wait with the rest of the group.
“I’m going to make sure it’s safe on the other side. If I tell you from over there to run, don’t wait for me—just make a break for it, all right?”
“’kay!”
“Yes, sir!”
“…R-right.”
Pochi, Tama, and Lulu were the only three who obediently agreed.
“Satou.”
“You’re not going to do something insane on your own again, are you?”
Mia and Arisa were anxious to stop me.
“Don’t worry. I’ll come back as soon as I’ve seen what the fort over there is like.”
I patted their heads, then left Lulu as the coachman and jumped down from the carriage.
“Master, permit me to accompany you, I entreat.”
“Forgive my presumption, master, but please allow me to join you as your guard.”
Nana and Liza both wanted to come along, but I decided to minimize the number of people and bring only Liza. If anything did happen, I was confident she could take care of herself.
“All right, Liza, come with me. Nana, you wait here.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Understood, I respond.”
I took over Nana’s horse, and Liza and I safely crossed the rope bridge.
On the other side was a plaza with enough parking space for a few carriages and a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot rock wall that blocked my view of anything beyond it.
Now, it was time to collect some information.
I selected Search Entire Map from the magic menu as a starting point to learn about the Muno Barony.
I’d known the area was big, but I was still surprised by how vast it was. Its strange shape made it hard to tell, but I’d say it was at least the size of Hokkaido. However, that was a rough estimate, since I didn’t actually remember how big Hokkaido was.
The entire territory was relatively flat, and northwest of Muno City was a forest that covered about 30 percent of the territory. The rivers came together in a lake at the center of the forest, then continued on as one large river that flowed past Muno City toward Ougoch Duchy.
The main road connecting Kuhanou County and Ougoch Duchy ran along mostly level ground except for a few low mountains.
On the other hand, a range of much higher mountains bordered the barony.
Like Kuhanou County, this area’s map also had a few blank zones of various sizes. The biggest one was located inside the large forest.
Now that I had a basic grasp of the geography, I moved on to investigate enemy presences and refined the search parameters on the map.
First I checked whether there were any reincarnations with Skills: Unknown like Arisa—none.
Next, anyone over level 50—also none.
Then, anything over level 30 that might be a threat to the kids—this time there were results.
Several targets fit my parameters. And the nearest one was in the fort in front of us.
The rest were pretty far away, so I suspended my search for now and brought Liza with me to get a closer look.
Following the path that cut through the rock face, we reached a desert slope.
The fort was in the middle of the barren region, and sitting atop the half-crushed structure was a hydra. Its four heads were rooting around underneath the rubble.
The cold, dry wind carried the crunching of huge teeth gnawing on something.
I checked the map, but there were no survivors nearby.
“Liza, take care of my horse, please.”
Leaving Liza in charge of the animal, I started descending the slope.
The hydra’s perch was about a thousand feet away from me as the crow flies.
This thing was level 44 and nearly twice as large as the one I’d seen between Seiryuu County and Kuhanou County.
“M-master, please forgive my arrogance, but I believe we really must retreat in this situation.”
Liza stared, ashen-faced, at the enormous beast that would have been right at home in a monster movie.
“Don’t worry. It’ll only take a minute, so just wait here.”
In order to ease Liza’s worries, I decided to show her a bit of my real strength. I figured she could keep a secret, so it should be all right.
Once I was a bit farther away from Liza, I chose the Magic Arrow spell from my magic menu.
Since this was such a wasteland, I probably could have used Fire Shot without a problem, but since the spell moved at only about fifty-five miles per hour, there was a risk that the hydra would dodge it from this distance.
Thus, I chose the slightly faster Magic Arrow this time.
When I activated the spell, a menu popped up to let me select how many arrows to fire. I could choose any number between one and one hundred and twenty. Without hesitation, I chose the maximum.
A small red circle appeared on the hydra in my AR display, just like a target mark in an air-battle simulator.
However, since its heads were currently hidden, my attack might not be fatal.
I deliberately kicked one of the stones at my feet to draw the hydra’s attention.
The monster reared its four heads and raised its bat-like wings in an intimidating posture.
When I concentrated on the four heads of the hydra in my mind, the target mark changed instantly to reflect my thoughts.
Fire.
I mentally pulled the trigger.
The spell consumed seventy magic points, and magic bolts the size of small spears appeared before me and fired at the hydra in rapid succession with a loud blast.
I wasn’t sure if it was because of my high level and stats or some ability, but time seemed to slow until I was watching it frame by frame.
The first Magic Arrow was blocked when the hydra produced a red film around its body. Arrows two and three struck the membrane, the fourth pierced it, and the fifth arrow bore straight into one of the hydra’s heads.
Before the impact could move the head away, the sixth and seventh arrows reduced it to pieces.
From the eighth arrow on, the only effect they offered was to splatter the remains of the head until nothing was left.
The arrows that had hit their mark continued on, pulverizing the dead trees, soil, and rocks behind them until the landscape was utterly transformed.
It was an overwhelming display of violence, as if I’d been firing a large-caliber autocannon.
After the one hundred and twenty Magic Arrows had finished annihilating the hydra’s four heads and the mountain behind it, the flow of time around me finally returned to its usual speed.
Pressing a hand to my ears in case I’d torn an eardrum, I checked the log to confirm the death of the hydra.
Having lost all its heads, the rest of the hydra was flung backward, wrecking the remaining half of the fort. The ensuing tremors, thanks to its immense weight, reverberated through my stomach.
I covered my mouth with a cloth to protect my throat from the dust in the wind.
I returned to Liza, who was stunned speechless.
“It’s over,” I told her.
“Master, please forgive my earlier foolish remarks. While I certainly knew that you were strong, I had never imagined this degree of—”
I casually hushed Liza’s dramatic display of surprise.
“Sorry, but could you keep that magic a secret from the others?”
“Yes, even if it costs me my life.”
Okay, you don’t need to take it that seriously.
“No, if your life is at stake for some reason, please just tell them.”
I accepted the reins from Liza and rode the horse over to the corpse of the hydra.
From up close, the immense creature was truly stunning. If I’d run into it in my original world, I probably would’ve been eaten before I could even think to run.
Amid the reddish-brown stained rubble lay brutalized bodies and broken weapons.
Although I’d been told that this was a hangout of ne’er-do-wells, I still couldn’t help feeling pity for their terrible deaths.
It wasn’t quite enough to make me want to bury the bodies, but I could at least have a moment of silent prayer for them before leaving.
We carried on over the blood-soaked ground, dismounting in front of the fort that was now the tomb of the hydra.
Once I landed on the ground, the slight whiff of iron in the air became a stench.
I asked Liza to recover the monster’s core, then retrieved one of the fallen swords at my feet and thrust it into the ground as a grave marker.
Then I pulled out a bottle of liquor to use for funeral rites—a far cry from its original purpose. I’d originally bought it in case I needed to bribe my way past this fort.
Sprinkling the liquid over the sword, I prayed for their souls to rest in peace.
While Liza was getting the core, I continued my investigation of the Muno Barony.
Returning to the search for enemies, I discovered a relatively high number of monsters level 30 and above.
In the mountainous area to the west-southwest of here, there were more hydras like the one I’d just defeated. My search had returned only one level-37 hydra, but on closer investigation, there were two more hydras of levels 29 and 24 over there, too.
The area was practically on the other side of the territory from where we were now. So that hydra traveled all the way from there? I don’t know what the cruising range of the average flying monster is, but they could be trouble.
Not that I’d have any difficulty dealing with them, since I had an antiaircraft spell now.
Most of them seemed to live in the mountains far away from the highway or human habitations anyway, so we probably wouldn’t encounter any.
I also found a single hell demon on the list. What’s more, he was located in the lord’s castle in Muno City. Most likely, he had employed a wicked plot that was responsible for the decline of this territory.
I examined the detailed information about the demon. He was level 35, a lesser hell demon like the eyeball I’d fought back in Seiryuu City. His race-specific inherent skills were “Flight,” “Transformation,” “Doppelgänger,” and “Lesser Magic Resistance,” while his general skills were “Psychic Magic” and “Ghost Magic.”
This time, I searched specifically for hell demons and found three others. All of them were level 1, with the title Doppelgänger. They must have been created by the stronger demon’s skill of the identical name.
These copies had the same inherent skills as the other demon save for “Doppelgänger,” though they had only one general skill of either “Psychic Magic” or “Ghost Magic.”
One was in Muno City, and the other two were in different towns. The one that had infiltrated Muno City was acting as a magistrate, among other things. I’d have to be careful of this guy.
Come to think of it, the demon in Seiryuu City was possessing a human…
Just to be sure, I searched the map for people with the status Possessed and found two knights.
There were higher-level knights to be found in the castle, but after a bit of comparison, I realized that they’d been chosen because they had the most crimes in their Bounty field. This made sense, since the guy being possessed in Seiryuu City was a villain, too.
Unless they posed a threat to my kids, I had no intention of deliberately setting out to defeat them, but it’d be another story if any of them got in our way like the hydra had. In that case, I’d use my full power to take care of them.
It’d be a huge pain if the lesser hell demon ended up summoning a greater hell demon and reprising the labyrinth incident in Seiryuu City, so I put a marker on all the demons and possessed knights so that I’d know if they went anywhere suspicious.
During our stay in the Muno Barony, I decided it’d be best to check the situation on the map at least twice a day, once in the morning and once at night.
If there were any signs of danger, we could make our move.
But, of course, the safety of the kids in my care came first.
As I finished my investigation of the demons, Liza returned.
“Master, I have recovered the core.”
“Great, thanks.”
I accepted the core and slipped it into a sack in the horse’s saddlebag. It was deep red, about twice the size of a softball. Examining the grade, I found it was a very high quality.
“I’m going to take a little break. Do you mind calling everyone over?”
“Yes, right away.”
After I gave instructions to Liza, I remembered the half-buried bulk of the hydra in the rubble of the fortress.
“I don’t want to worry everyone, so let’s keep this monster a secret.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Liza nodded meekly, then mounted her horse and left to summon the others.
After seeing her off, I went back to collecting information.
This time, I looked up the addressee of the letter I had been tasked to deliver for the old witch from the Forest of Illusions.
When I searched for giants, I found only one result. It was near the blank area in the large forest, so I guessed that the giants’ village was probably in there.
The old witch’s tower in Kuhanou County had been in a blank space, too, after all.
We could probably travel most of the way in the carriage, but if we wanted to travel on the side road leading into the forest, we’d have to take individual horses or go on foot. A peek with the map’s 3-D display confirmed this suspicion. The side road was about a twelve days’ journey away.
Next, I studied the distribution of people.
The population was awfully small. Though the barony was much larger than Seiryuu County, there were far fewer people. Muno City was the only place with over ten thousand people; the other towns and cities numbered only a few thousand at most.
There were several villages along the main road and the border, but most of them had only around fifty people.
And, consistent with the previous information I’d gotten about this place, many of the commoners’ conditions read Starving.
The discrimination against demi-humans in the Muno Barony was so severe that there wasn’t a single one in Muno City, and even the other towns and villages were entirely segregated.
Among the mountains more distant from the highway, there was a smattering of little settlements with less than a hundred demi-humans of the same variety.
In addition, there was an abandoned mine city, inhabited by kobolds, in the mountains near the west-northwest border. They belonged to the same clan as the ones that had hit the silver mines in Kuhanou County. The distance between the two was almost thirty miles, so I was impressed that they’d taken on such an expedition.
At any rate, the famine was even more severe than I’d expected.
If they could use this hydra as food, a lot of lives would probably be saved, like what they did with whaling in Japan after World War II…
Maybe it could be edible? The meat from the frog monster and the rocket wolves was delicious, and we might meet someone who knew how to cook it.
Each of the hydra’s necks was as thick as a horse’s body. I cut one into round slices of about three feet with the Holy Sword Excalibur and put them into Storage.
I stored the rest of the body, too, of course.
Suddenly, remembering what the hydra had been eating, I checked the details of the corpse in Storage. It was possible to remove the contents of the stomach separately.
Using the Pitfall spell, I made a hole about fifteen feet wide and deep.
I emptied the contents into my pit: the bodies of the victims from the fort. I knew I wouldn’t want to see the state they were in, so I averted my eyes.
I moved away until I wouldn’t be able to see what was inside the hole, offered another moment of silence for the victims, and left the fort.
> Title Acquired: Gravedigger
After descending the slope in front of the fort, I dismounted from my horse about thirty feet away and waited for everyone.
I took a deep breath of the dry air, then released it slowly, hoping to dispel the emotions that had settled over my heart like rust.
Having been in this parallel world for a while, I should have been used to encountering death by now, but it still just didn’t feel good.
As Lulu and Arisa waved at me from the coachman stand, I returned the gesture as I tried to pull myself together and ran to meet the carriage.
Once I met back up with everyone, I returned the horse to Nana and had Lulu drive while I soothed my heart playing old maid with the younger kids in the back using a handmade set of cards.
About two hours after we’d left the fort, Liza and Nana returned from their scouting mission.
“There are several men and women sitting on the side of the road some distance ahead, sir.”
“Master, they did not appear to be hostile, I report.”
The people turned out to be the head of a village, his granddaughter, and two other young serf women.
I had already seen that there weren’t any dodgy creatures or robbers along our way, but I had sent them ahead because I didn’t know what these four were up to.
“I wonder why?”
“Well, this gives us a chance to hear out what the locals have to say.”
Brushing off Arisa’s suspicion, I checked our food supply in Storage. Some of our lower-quality meat like bear or brown wolf could probably serve as a suitable payment for information.
I took over the coachman’s position from Lulu and headed toward the intersection between the main road and the village road where the four were waiting.
When our carriage entered their field of vision, the man who was apparently the village chief leaped to his feet and hailed us with a wave and a yell.
His granddaughter was on my radar, too, but I couldn’t see her. She must have been hiding in the shadows.
“Can we help you with something?”
“I’m the chief of the village over yonder. You’re a peddler, ain’tcha?”
While I exchanged introductions with the leader, I reviewed their information.
My AR display said the man was forty-three years old, but he looked like he was in his sixties. Just as his Starving condition implied, he was gaunt and rather pale.
Despite the cold, he wore no coat over his filthy-looking tunic.
The serf girls, who were in their early twenties, were probably freezing as they sat on the side of the road. They wore nothing but simple sack dresses of unbleached cloth, and their feet were bare. Furthermore, the dresses were so short that the girls were in danger of flashing their underwear just by walking normally.
Strangely, they seemed better nourished than the village chief. They were certainly skinny, but they didn’t have the Starving condition.
After we finished our introductions and standard chat about the time of year, we finally reached the meat of the conversation.
“See, there’s something we’d like you to buy.”
“You don’t mean those serf girls, do you?” I asked.
The village chief shook his head.
“No, no. Come over here.”
“Sure.”
The man’s granddaughter crawled out from a little hollow off to the side of the road. She was gaunt, like the others.
She was wearing what appeared to be her grandfather’s coat, and the hem dragged along the ground as she approached.
“What I want you to buy is my granddaughter. She’s still young, but if she grows up anything like my daughter, who was the most beautiful girl in the village, she’s sure to be—”
I cut him off there.
“You want to sell your own granddaughter into slavery?”
“If she stays here in the village, she’ll starve to death, like as not. The soldiers at that fort might kidnap or kill her…”
The village chief averted his eyes bitterly.
So the stories I heard in Kuhanou County weren’t just rumors.
“By my reckoning, she’d be better off getting bought by a kindly seeming merchant such as yourself.”
Personally, I think it’s best for a family to stay together even if they’re poor, but then again… I’ve never been starving to death.
The chief was eyeing the healthy-looking faces of the younger kids as they were peering out from the carriage.
“Please buy me, Mr. Merchant.”
The chief’s granddaughter spoke very clearly for such a young girl. Her expression was solemn, and it looked so desperate that I was a little intimidated.
“Please! If the village can buy rations with the money, so many young children will be able to make it through the winter…”
The girl folded her hands in front of her face pleadingly.
Arisa was gazing at me with wide eyes, but I had no intention of buying this child.
“I’m sorry, but I have plenty of slaves.”
Really, they’re more like family than slaves anyway.
My flat refusal left the chief’s granddaughter in despair, and she lowered her head miserably.
At this, one of the serf girls who’d been watching with great interest stood up.
“Chief, is it our turn to negotiate?”
“…Go ahead.”
The two serfs removed their tattered clothing, exposing their naked bodies. They were so emaciated that it was more painful to watch than sexy.
“Mrrr, lewd.”
“E-excuse you!”
Arisa and Mia leaped out of the carriage to cover my eyes.
“S-so cold!”
“Yes, it’s especially cold today.”
Through Mia’s and Arisa’s fingers, I saw the two women hunch over for a moment, shuddering in the frigid air.
Well, yeah, that tends to happen when you take off your clothes outside in the middle of the winter.
“Mr. Merchant, wouldn’t you like to buy yourself a good time?”
The older of the two serf women struck an odd pose as she launched her sales pitch.
“The price is one copper coin, or you can fill this pouch with grains and potatoes.”
“Ah, of course, meat is welcome, too! It doesn’t have to be anything as fancy as rabbit or bird. Any meat will do just fine, even rats or monsters,” added the younger.
Monster meat, huh…?
Perfect, now I can find out what kind of meat is edible.
“Monster meat?”
“Yeah, insect monsters are usually pretty bad, but legs from crickets and grasshoppers and the like can be quite tasty—”
“There’s a shortage of food around here, see. We’re not forcing the serfs to eat monsters or anything.”
The village chief cut in with an excuse.
“They eat wyvern in Seiryuu City, too. I’ve had some before, so I’m not going to judge,” I reassured him, and he patted his chest.
Admittedly, I might have wrinkled my nose at it before we tried that rocket wolf meat, but not anymore.
“I don’t need any slaves or ‘good times,’ but there is something else I’d buy,” I said.
“Something else? I’m not sure what else you’re hoping to buy from a remote village like ours…”
“What I’m looking for is information.”
“Information?”
I nodded. “I want you to tell me anything to do with the current situation in the Muno Barony.”
“I’m just a simple farmer. All I know is what goes on in our village and the ones nearby.”
“That’s good enough. I can offer you brown wolf meat in exchange for the information.”
I saw the two women hugging each other with joy through the cracks between Mia’s and Arisa’s fingers.
Just put some clothes on before you catch a cold, please.
What I learned from the chief about the village and the surrounding area was that things were in bad shape.
Since they’d had poor crops for the last three years, they’d depleted all the edible wild plants and tree nuts in the area, which caused the wildlife to retreat deep into the mountains, and, because of all the monsters, sending people out to forage farther away only led to casualties.
Most of the monsters around here were level 10 and up, so they were probably too strong to take down with farming tools.
“We sold some of the girls from the village to a slave trader early in the fall, so we were able to stock up for winter with that money, but…”
“Did some thieves show up or something?”
Judging from his hesitation, I guess it had something to do with the government, but I figured an indirect question would prompt him to explain more easily.
“No, most of the thieves around here are just penniless young folk from neighboring villages. They’re not so heartless as to steal our stores for winter.”
“Of course not!” one of the women interjected. “Those thieves are our best customers.”
“Unlike those soldiers in the fort, they even give you food afterward,” the other added.
So that was why they didn’t have the Starving status condition.
“I heard they were heading to the next territory over because there’s no one to steal from here.”
“Yeah, they said they were going to a far-off town ’cause of the recent fighting in the silver mines.”
I thanked the serf women for their report, then returned to my conversation with the chief.
“Was it monsters, then?”
“If that were the case, we’d have just given up and accepted it. But it was a tax collector… He took almost a third of our winter reserves, saying it was a wedding gift for the baron’s daughter.”
The village chief heaved a weighty sigh.
I don’t think 30 percent of the winter food stores for sixty people is a contribution for a wedding gift. It sounded more like a tax collector had taken an unofficial extra share to keep.
“You didn’t appeal or anything?”
“If we did, they’d demote the whole village to serfdom.”
“That can’t be right.”
“It’s true. Haven’t you heard about Tonza Village? They made the whole settlement into serfs, and now no one lives there.”
I searched the map for the name the chief had mentioned, and sure enough, all of the village’s former inhabitants were now slaving away in the vicinity of Muno City. So the story was true.
Even if you took into account that a hell demon was probably behind all this, it was a cruel predicament.
I was a bit curious now, so I pressed for more information.
“Do you know who the baron’s daughter is intended to marry?”
“According to that tax-collecting scoundrel, it’s some hero.”
A hero?
I searched the map, but there was nobody with the Hero title. This guy must be a fake.
“Say, village chief. How old might this baron’s daughter be?” Arisa leaned in and interrupted after listening to the conversation.
“I believe he has one nineteen-year-old and one twenty-four-year-old.”
“Is that so? Thank you. Pardon me for interrupting.”
Apparently satisfied by the chief’s reply, Arisa retreated into the horse-drawn carriage.
“I’m sure the fee he took was poppycock, but the part about her getting married is true,” he continued. “I heard it from another village chief, too.”
“I see. Thanks. I’ll get your payment together, so wait a moment, please.”
I climbed back into the cargo area of the carriage, then withdrew the wolf meat from Storage via the Garage Bag. Of course, touching raw meat would contaminate my hands, so I’d placed the pieces in waxed waterproof bags within Storage before taking them out.
Since there were about sixty villagers, two pounds for each person should be enough.
I removed two bales of rice, too, and set them down in front of the chief.
“O-oh? But this is so much…”
Peering into one of the bags over the chief’s shoulders, the two women shrieked with joy. The chief’s granddaughter was overwhelmed and celebrated by flailing her hands in a rather bizarre manner.
I decided to add two more bags of the same size.
The village chief toppled backward onto his rump in shock.
It might have been a bit more than necessary for the information, but I decided to treat it as a chance to get rid of some of my surplus stock.
Once we had started on our way again, I gave the reins back to Lulu and spoke to Arisa in the rear compartment. It turned out the other kids had been so quiet because the trio was fast asleep.
“Why did you ask about the baron’s daughter’s age earlier?”
“I wanted to find out whether the hero was real or not.”
I tilted my head in confusion. “How would that question help?”
“Remember how I told you that I’d met a hero before?”
I nodded, then grimaced at the recollection. Generally, I tried to keep the memory of being pushed down by a naked little girl buried in the deep, dark recesses of my mind.
“Why are you making a face?”
“Forget it. Just go on,” I brusquely prompted, so Arisa crept closer to me and plopped down.
“You see, that hero actually had a Lolita complex.”
“…What?”
I stared at Arisa in surprise.
She responded by closing her eyes and puckering her lips together in a kissy face, so I pinched her nose.
“Owie! Goodness, you could stand to be a bit nicer to me. Let’s see… I met Hayato Masaki, the hero, in the castle of my old homeland. When he saw me, he shouted in this weird voice, like, ‘Yes Lolita! No touching!’ Until a woman in his retinue smacked him.”
Arisa winced a little at the memory.
Who are you to judge? You’re the one going after a kid.
I almost muttered this aloud, but I resisted, since it would distract from the main issue.
“I see. So based on that, you know the hero must be fake?”
“That’s right. Want to hear more about him?”
“Eventually, but not right now.”
It was enough for the moment to know that there wasn’t a hero in this territory. Further information about this weirdo could wait until I had lots of time to kill.
In the evening, we passed another village and exchanged food supplies for information as we had with the first one.
We didn’t learn anything new this time, but since what they told us was similar to what we’d heard from the first village’s chief, it at least added credibility to his account.
I still had brown wolf and bear meat stores, but at the rate things were going, it’d run out before long.
Since the young serf women from the first village had mentioned eating monster meat, I decided to try sampling the hydra from this morning before dinner.
I took a round slab of meat out of Storage via the Garage Bag and placed it on top of the folding table.
Everyone else, who’d been preparing for camp, turned at the sound.
Tama and Pochi in particular were staring at the meat with great excitement.
“Master, is that by any chance…?”
“I don’t know if it’s edible, but I figured I’d try it once.”
Noticing from the color that the meat was from the hydra, Liza was asking me with astonishment.
My “Analyze” skill had told me there wasn’t any poison, so I figured it should be fine. Just in case, I’d wash the blood out before cooking it.
Liza offered to cut it into smaller pieces for easier cooking, but she seemed to struggle with it.
“Is it hard?”
“Yes… I can scratch the surface of the skin, but I can’t quite cut through it.”
Wow, I bet I could use the skin to make pretty good armor or something, then.
I borrowed a knife from Lulu, who was practicing next to Liza, and used it to butcher the meat. Trying to force an ordinary kitchen knife through the skin would likely chip the blade, so instead I sliced off a test piece from around the hole of the esophagus.
Since the serf girls had said it was tasty, I decided to sample the rear leg of a grasshopper-type monster, too. This was one of the monsters I’d slaughtered with a halberd in the Cradle incident.
Its exoskeleton was harder than a crab’s shell, so I took a steel one-handed hatchet out of Storage and hacked off a four-inch piece.
I then chopped this in half lengthwise so it’d be easier to eat. Inside was fibrous black meat with green streaks from the tendons. I’d been hoping it would be white, like crab meat.
I sprinkled some salt onto the leg and the hydra meat, then arranged them on top of a wire mesh screen and set it over the fire. I went light on the seasoning because I wasn’t yet familiar with the flavor.
Lulu watched intently from off to the side, trying to memorize the technique. Her eagerness to learn was admirable.
Taking care to give Lulu as good a view as possible, I started cooking under everyone’s watchful eyes.
Once it was done, I transferred it to a dish with metal tongs I’d purchased in Sedum City.
First, it was time to try the small cut of hydra meat.
It was hard to eat it while Pochi and Tama gazed up at me with their mouths open wide, but I couldn’t give them any until I was sure it was safe.
Feeling a little guilty, I popped the hydra nugget into my mouth and chewed it.
This is actually really good.
It tasted like a cross between rabbit and poultry. The flavor was bland, like chicken, but also gamier than the light eel-like taste I’d sort of expected.
I preferred the rocket wolf, but if I came up with a good sauce and cooking method, this could certainly make a delicious meal.
I checked my log but didn’t see anything abnormal.
Next I picked up the leg. It looked like grilled crab, except for the color, but it smelled grassy, sort of like freshly cooked green onions.
I cut the meat into chunks the size of imitation crab.
Stabbing one onto my fork, I examined the color. Holding it up to the fire and inspecting it, I saw that cooking it had darkened the meat further. Putting it into my mouth took considerable courage.
Resolutely, I plunged it into my mouth—and it was like rubber.
The taste itself wasn’t that bad, but I couldn’t say it was delicious. The green streaks were strangely bitter, so it would probably be better to remove those before cooking.
It would work in a pinch, but I had no desire to add it to my regular diet.
Just to be sure, I checked the log again, but this was safe, too.
“Does everyone else want to try some?”
I didn’t really need to ask; I was met with a chorus of yeses, so I let everyone else have at it.
Arisa narrowed her eyes, Tama’s ears and tail stood up straight, and Pochi waved her hands and tail around happily.
“Mmm! I’m rather afraid to ask what kind of meat this is, but it’s delicious, so I’ll let it slide.”
“’liiish!”
“Meat is just the best, sir.”
Arisa, Tama, and Pochi gave the thumbs-up to the hydra meat, although Tama’s review was some strange word that Arisa had taught her. Most likely, she was trying to say delish.
“It really is delicious,” Liza commented. “What method of preparation would suit it best, I wonder?”
“Ahh…that was really good. It’s sort of like rabbit, so maybe a stew?” Lulu suggested.
“Skewers would be an excellent choice as well, I advise,” Nana added.
“Stew sounds excellent, too,” Liza said, “but since it’s so big, I think it might be nice to stuff it with vegetables and steam it.”
“Doesn’t that seem a bit too extravagant? It sounds like something you’d have at a festival feast.”
After downing the hydra meat and smacking their lips, the other three excitedly brainstormed different cooking methods.
Liza’s suggestion of steaming it sounded good to me. We had more than enough ingredients to spare, so I wanted to try it sometime. I’d have to request it from her later.
For now, it was more important to look after Mia, who was sitting alone outside the mosquito net looking cross.
Elves couldn’t eat meat, so I felt bad for her.
“Mrrr.”
“If you puff up your cheeks like that, they’ll never go back to normal.”
“Satou.”
I poked Mia’s inflated cheeks, then held out some dried fruits wrapped in a handkerchief.
I had dried them myself after I purchased the fruit in Sedum City.
Lulu had befriended the maid at the inn we’d stayed at and learned the recipe from her.
“Yum.”
“What do you think we should make with these?”
“Hmm.”
While carefully eating her snack with both hands to make it last as long as possible, Mia knotted her brow in contemplation.
I’d never been one for dried fruit, so all I could think of was putting it in yogurt or cereal. I passed to Mia the task of figuring out a recipe.
Next, we continued our taste test with the insect legs…
“Springyyy?”
“The meat man has a good mouthfeed, sir!”
“Yes, it has a very nice mouthfeel. If we could successfully deal with the bitterness, it would be even more delightful.”
The beastfolk girls enjoyed the texture of the insect meat, but it received a lukewarm reception from everyone else.
“We’d have to either cut around these hard streaks or slice it more thinly.”
“Ugh, gross! It might be better as ground meat, but the taste wouldn’t be worth all the effort.”
Lulu shuddered at the unpleasant flavor but considered possible cooking methods nonetheless. Arisa, too, offered suggestions for improvement as she wrinkled her nose.
“Master, I would like to rid my mouth of this taste, I entreat.”
Nana found the astringency particularly unpleasant and tugged on my arm with all the distress her unchanging expression could muster.
“We’ll have dinner soon, so you’ll have to wait till then.”
“Your instructions have been registered, I report.”
I handed Nana a glass of water as I chided her.
So the insect legs were a failure, but a 50 percent win was good enough for me. The hydra had been quite tasty, and if nobody had any stomachaches or anything in the morning, I figured we could start testing out the edibility of various monsters once a day.
At any rate, tonight’s main dish was a stew with copious vegetables and a rabbit we’d bought in Sedum City.
Lulu was on cooking duty tonight; her abilities had already started to surpass Liza’s, even though the Scalefolk girl had the “Cooking” skill. I was eagerly anticipating her future as a chef.
Leaving the others in charge of cleanup, I opened the map to check the situation around the camp.
I’d noticed earlier that an undead-type monster had popped up on my radar, so I examined the details. It probably wouldn’t come out in daylight, but it might start to encroach on us later in the night.
Along the main road were a few abandoned villages where more undead were prowling about: skeleton monsters with single-digit levels, ghosts around level 10, and wraiths approximately level 20.
As we always did before bedtime, I tossed some monster repellent powder onto the fire.
Apparently, the smoke from the powder worked on undead monsters, too: The ghost on my radar retreated to a certain distance away. After that, it made no attempts to approach.
Since our safety was secured, I glanced over to help with cleanup, only to find that they were just about finished.
“Do you need something, master?”
“Not really. You can just relax.”
Liza asked me as a representative for the group, so I assured her that they didn’t need to do anything else.
The advance guard—the beastfolk girls and Nana—started training in a field near the campsite with wooden swords and spears, while Arisa and Nana sat across from each other at the fire and began discussing ideas for spells I should invent.
Lulu changed into trousers and started doing some yoga-like exercises on a mat near the fire. Arisa had apparently taught her.
I thought stretching was a good idea, since there weren’t many opportunities for exercise while traveling by carriage. In fact, I wished Arisa and Mia would exercise once in a while, too.
Once everyone had set about their business, I sat near the mat and arranged my supplies for magic-tool crafting.
I was planning to make a kotatsu next, per Arisa’s request.
A kotatsu big enough for eight people wouldn’t fit into the Garage Bag, so I planned to make four two-person kotatsu that could be linked together.
Step one was briskly assembling the table portion with timber bought in Sedum City.
It was harder than the slatted wood frame I’d made before, but thanks to my “Woodworking” skill, the construction went surprisingly well.
I designed it so that the legs and the heater would be detachable.
Creating a safe heating element proved pretty difficult. I covered it with wire mesh so that clothes and such wouldn’t touch it, then installed a wooden frame so nobody would get burned on the hot mesh.
I’d originally bought the mesh for cooking meat and fish, but I had plenty to experiment with.
That should prevent any injuries. Then I envisioned Arisa or Pochi kicking the wooden frame, so I rounded the edges to ensure it wouldn’t hurt their feet.
Next, I whipped up a heating circuit for the kotatsu. With this setup, you would have to stick your head under the kotatsu to supply magic, but since creating a cable to run outside would be a pain, I left it as is. I could always just keep an eye out for cable components next time we reached a big city and craft one without too much effort.
Now to make a top for the table…
There was a large rock on the other side of the carriage about five feet around, so I used the Holy Sword Excalibur to slice off four slates less than half an inch thick.
Holy Swords really are something else. The surfaces of the slates were as smooth as if they’d been carefully polished. I couldn’t put them into the Garage Bag at this size, so I cut them down to the dimensions of the kotatsu.
I decided to make the table portion easy to disassemble for storage, too. I have to say, making screws without any tools was a little annoying.
“Arisa, it’s done.”
“What? You made it just now? It hasn’t even been two hours.”
“That’s because I used some things I already had instead of starting it from scratch.”
Secretly feeling a bit proud of myself at Arisa’s surprise, I set my handiwork on top of the rug.
Then I reached into the Garage Bag I’d brought along with me, pulled out the quilt Arisa had made yesterday, and placed it between the heated table and the slate on top to complete the job.
When I let some of my magic power flow into the heating circuit inside, a soft, gentle warmth radiated from the kotatsu.
I told Arisa and Mia that it was ready, and they immediately shoved their feet under it.
“Aaaah! No winter is complete without a kotatsu.”
“Mm. I want oranges.”
It sounded like they had mandarin oranges in Mia’s elfin village. I’d have to remember to pick some up when we brought her home.
Finishing her pseudo-yoga, Lulu toweled herself dry and eyed the new contraption curiously. Her hair, damp with sweat, clung to her skin in a way that bordered on sexy. Once she becomes an adult, she’ll probably be dangerously attractive.
“So this is a kotatsu?”
“Yeah. You can try it, too.”
At my recommendation, Lulu delicately slid her feet under the blanket and looked pleased.
Now the vanguard group had paused their training to approach curiously.
“Is this another magic tool of your creation, master? How very wonderful. I look forward to using it on night watch.”
“Kotatsuuu?”
“It’s warm inside, sir.”
Tama and Pochi stuck their heads under the quilt, sniffing around and patting the device studiously.
“Master, this is too small for everyone to use, is it not? I inquire.”
“Don’t worry. There are three more of them.”
I pointed at the other kotatsu a short distance away, though some assembly was still required.
Before long, the vanguard team called off their training, and instead I ended up leading a practice session on how to put together and take apart the kotatsu.
Once everyone could handle that, I had them try supplying it with magic, but Lulu and the beastfolk girls couldn’t quite manage it.
Lulu and Liza had used the Tinder Rod before, but it automatically absorbed magic when you pressed the switch. This was probably harder.
“It’s all right. You’ll be able to do it sooner or later.”
I comforted the kids who hadn’t been able to do it and readjusted the night watch shifts accordingly.
After all, if nobody on a particular shift could supply the magic, the heating would stop, and they’d get cold.
That evening, I was on the late-night watch with Nana.
Since there weren’t any animals or monsters around that would harm us, I decided to do an experiment I’d been meaning to try for a while. Just to be sure, I asked Nana to use her Foundation Magic spell Sonar to keep an eye on our surroundings.
I went outside the igloo-style Shelter wall and began some prep work.
This time, I wanted to attempt forging a Holy Sword with the instructions I’d gotten in Sedum City.
Arisa’s hint had helped me decode the cipher, and the resulting text was a guide to making “blue,” a special circuit liquid for creating Holy Swords, and then using that to create the special blade.
The blue seemed doable enough, but the sword itself required special casting equipment and the help of various magic experts, so that wasn’t feasible right now.
However, the process bore a close resemblance to the one for making demon blades described in Trazayuya’s documents, so the liquid itself could probably be used for other magic tools. I fished through Trazayuya’s documents and found a guide to making Holy Stones that I could try instead.
These were the elf version of the barrier posts I’d seen keeping monsters away from villages. According to the documents, the effect radius was about half that of the barrier pillars.
There were several types of Holy Stones to choose from, so I picked the easiest kind, which had an effect only when it was infused with power.
I did a search in Storage to make sure I had enough material on hand.
All right, let’s give this a try.
First, I’d need to make the blue.
The materials were similar to those used for making the circuit liquid that was needed for crafting normal magic tools, but blue’s stabilizer was powdered gold and gems, and dragon powder was required instead of ground-up cores.
Dragon powder seemed to be particularly rare. Once I’d figured out the recipe for blue, I’d immediately checked at all the magic and alchemy shops in Sedum City for it, but none of them had any.
Fortunately, I’d found a vial of dragon powder while exploring the labyrinth under Seiryuu City with the beastfolk girls, so I wouldn’t even have to mess around with the scales I’d plundered from the Valley of Dragons.
Following the instructions, I began the formulation and transmutation.
It was more difficult than I’d expected. If I lost focus at all, the dragon powder would start vibrating strangely, as if it was about to separate, so I had to keep constantly adjusting the flow of magic.
Come on, Satou. Concentrate!
After dozens of what felt like very long seconds, the blue was finished.
> Skill Acquired: “Precise Magic Manipulation”
Good thing I pulled it together and focused. It would be a shame if the finished blue deteriorated, so I moved it safely into Storage for now.
Next, I prepared a thin stone slate to use for the magic circuit of the Holy Stone. I’d utilized a similar one when I made the kotatsu.
With a sharp metal rod, I carved the lines of the circuit diagram–like design into the stone—then cleaned the dust and dirt off the surface with a cloth.
Then, in Storage, I filled the precision carving rod with the liquid blue. The tool was like a pen with a slim opening, used for depositing circuit liquid into the finely detailed grooves of the design.
Since the characteristics of items in Storage didn’t change, I took advantage of this to keep the blue fresh while I created my circuit.
The blue seemed to harden faster than the normal liquid. This made it easier to trace the intricate pattern, but without my Storage system, I think it would’ve been ridiculously difficult.
I completed the task and poured some power into my handiwork.
Since the circuit was so delicate this time, I moved the magic with the same precision as sorting grains of salt with chopsticks.
Using the “Precise Magic Manipulation” skill I’d just gained, I was able to move less than one point of MP at a time, down to two-digit decimals. As I did so, a faint blue light began rising from the circuit.
It was similar to the glow of a Holy Sword.
The color of this light was probably why the liquid was called “blue.”
Normally, the light was red-based, so it was easy to differentiate between the types of liquid.
Just as I’d added about one point of magic, the Holy Stone’s core began to work. I kept slowly increasing the supply of magic until the circuit was completed, about five points.
A pillar of blue light appeared around the slate, about three feet wide and twenty feet tall.
At a glance, it seemed to be a simple beam, but if you examined it from different angles, you could see the circuit pattern repeating over and over again.
Nana emerged from the Shelter igloo, where she’d been keeping watch.
“Master, the monsters shown by my Sonar magic have suddenly disappeared, I report.”
I shifted my gaze to the radar occupying a small corner of my field of vision.
Sure enough, the monsters around the edges of the display were gone.
“This light pillar has a monster-repelling effect.”
“Master, according to my information library, only Holy Swords emit a blue magic light such as this, I report.”
Expressionless, Nana tilted her head as she regarded the pillar.
“Yeah, this uses the same material as a Holy Sword.”
“I see… It is quite pretty.”
Nana nodded without looking away. She seemed to be entranced by it.
I left her to it for now, since I wanted to investigate the performance of the light pillar.
On the map, there were no longer any monsters within a third of a mile of us. They had been driven away and were now huddled in a neat ring around the area of effect.
I looked at my log, too, and found that a few ghost monsters had been destroyed when I activated the stone. The insect types were still around, and only a few skeleton monsters had been defeated, so my circuit was probably particularly effective against undead-type monsters that had no corporeal form.
Makes sense, since this is part of a recipe for a Holy Sword.
The effect range of a blue-based Holy Stone was a little less than the three-hundred-foot radius of a barrier post, but it was still ten times more than that of a Holy Stone made with normal circuit liquid, according to my documents.
Since the range of our go-to monster repellent powder was partially dependent on the wind, I was glad the Holy Stone had such a good radius. The problem was this exceedingly conspicuous pillar of light. At this height, it was probably visible from the nearby villages.
I tried using “Magic Manipulation” to reduce the Holy Stone’s strength by making myself part of the circuit, much like how I’d supplied Nana with power before. I let the magic flow through it and me, gradually lessening its power inside.
My plan was to temporarily remove all the magic and then try again, but…
“Master, the light has disappeared, I report.”
Though she was still expressionless, Nana’s announcement sounded vaguely crestfallen.
“Would you like to try powering it?”
“Yes, master.”
At my recommendation, Nana eagerly approached the stone and started pouring magic into it.
It was probably more difficult than usual because of the delicate circuitry; a few beads of sweat appeared on Nana’s forehead.
She got the hang of it soon enough, though, and the stone started emitting a pale-blue light. This time, the pillar maxed out at around six feet in height.
“That’s enough, thanks.”
“Understood.”
Nana seemed a little out of breath, so I handed her a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow.
According to her status, Nana had expended about 3 percent of her MP.
Judging by the information Arisa had given me before, Nana should have about seventy points total, meaning that this had cost her almost twenty times as much magic as me. Given the size of her pillar, the difference was probably greater.
Clearly, my magic efficiency was rather unusual when it came to tasks like this.
Since I could do it with essentially no loss at all, the ratio seemed way too different. My guess would be that a single point of magic could have different densities or something like that. It seemed likely, especially considering the size of our respective results.
Incidentally, the Holy Stone stayed in effect until morning with the magic Nana supplied.
With a few experiments during the night watch, I discovered that interrupting the light or covering it with a Shelter wall didn’t alter the effect.
I’ll have to make a cylinder with a light-shielding curtain tomorrow so that we can put the Holy Stone inside it and ward off monsters that way.
I still had a huge stock of the inferior monster repellent powder, but I figured there would be a use for that eventually. Holding on to it wouldn’t cause any trouble, so I squirrelled it away in a corner of Storage for now.
As I reviewed the map before bed, I noticed that the demon’s doppelgängers had been reduced from three to just one.
In exchange, the demon himself had changed from level 35 to 37. Apparently, creating a doppelgänger meant losing one level, and that level was recovered when the doppelgänger returned to the main body.
If the thing possessing the knight was another doppelgänger, it was probably best to assume that the hell demon’s real level was at least 40.
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