The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 5 - Chapter 258

Chapter 258:

An Even Rarer Rarity

“Zoooh…gooold…” It was so cold that I couldn’t even talk right. I hadn’t imagined the forest could possibly be this cold. I’d assumed it would be just a little colder than the village since the trees blocked out the sun, but did the forest really need to be this freezing? I don’t think so.

We were at the dump collecting potions while Ciel hunted to fill its stomach…and it was just too cold. Even the potions were icy to the touch.

“Pu! Pu, puuu.”

“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”

Why are you guys acting totally normal? “Mr. Druid, are slimes resistant to the cold?”

“I’ve never heard anything like that. But judging by the look of Sora and Flame, they must be.”

“Yeah…I’m jealous.”

“You seem to do better in the heat than in the cold, Ivy.”

“I do. I’m figuring that out for the first time this winter.”

My fingers were so stiff that I kept dropping the potions and wasting time. Oops! There I go again. I was rubbing my hands together, but they were frozen to the core and just wouldn’t warm up. Druid noticed and gave my hands a squeeze.

“Wow, they’re so cold.”

“I know.”

Druid’s hands felt warmer than usual. Or maybe my hands were just much colder than usual?

“I just remembered that they sell winter gloves.”

“Winter gloves?”

“Yeah, they make gloves for the winter so that people like me who have to grip a sword can be better protected from the elements.”

Druid was indeed wearing a glove on his remaining hand. It was designed to protect his palm from the hilt of his sword, but since he wasn’t carrying a blade, it was hard to visualize how it worked.

“They make gloves that look like this, but they’re for the winter.”

“For the winter…”

Aha! A pair of gloves completely unlike the one Druid was wearing materialized deep in the recesses of my memory. It was probably Past Me’s memory. Maybe that means there were winter gloves in my past life. They sure do sound warm.

“Where do you think the winter gloves are?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I mean, which store? An item shop or a clothing shop?”

According to Past Me, it was probably a clothing shop. Actually, I didn’t seem to have any knowledge of item shops from my past life. Maybe that type of shop didn’t exist there.

“We’ll ask Rose. If she doesn’t have any, we’ll go to Modd.”

“Are you sure, sir?” I was so happy that I forgot to not call him “sir.”

“Yeah, when it’s this cold, your hands are so numb you can’t even hold potions.”

Even after Druid had warmed up my hands, they were still throbbing and aching from the cold.

“Okay, let’s fill up that bag before Ciel gets back,” Druid said.

“Sure.” I’d better do my best not to drop any this time. “Mr. Druid, do you think it’s okay for us to ignore that noise?”

While we were picking up potions and talking, there was a pong-pong sound around us. And I hadn’t asked Flame not to make magic stones while we were out… In fact, I’d requested the opposite.

“Well, you know, the village does need them. And we can always shove them onto Captain Tableau…er, I mean, he’ll kindly take care of them for us.”

Did Druid just say “shove them onto”? Is it really okay for us to shove all our problems onto Captain Tableau when he’s already dealing with so much uncertainty?

“Don’t worry, it’s all right.”

If Druid says it’s all right, I guess it’s all right?

“But we should make sure Flame isn’t straining itself too hard.”

“Yeah, judging by all the ponging noises, it’s really outdoing itself.”

“Ha ha ha!”

It sounded like Flame was working a little too hard. Maybe I shouldn’t have given it so much encouragement.

“This ought to do it.” My magic bag was filled with potions and swords. Our current haul plus the stash at the inn was just barely enough for us to get through the winter without needing to come back to the dump again.

“Wow, we got a lot, didn’t we?” Druid marveled.

“Yeah. Sora and Flame should be okay all winter now, even if it’s too cold to go into the forest.”

“Now Ciel just needs to go hunting.”

He was right. If Ciel got hungry, it would need to head into the forest to hunt. I didn’t know what it would do if the forest were blocked off by the ice and snow.

“We’ll need a confidant to help us, just in case the worst happens.”

He was right. But who could we take into our confidence?

“Mr. Druid, who do you think would be a good confidant?”

“Guild Master Priya.”

“Really?”

Now that was a name I wasn’t expecting. I’d just assumed he would say Captain Tableau.

“If we want to charge through a winter gate that’s blocked by ice and snow, we’ll need to know how the forest changes. The adventurer guild gathers that sort of intel.”

That made sense. If we wanted to go into the forest with any idea of how it changed, that was how we’d have to do it.

“Well, let’s talk it over later.”

“Okay.”

We headed over to Sora and Flame. The pong noises had stopped a little while ago. Flame had probably gotten tired and fallen asleep.

“Well…this exceeded my imagination.”

The sleeping slime was surrounded by piles of magic stones. I think I’d better not encourage it from now on.

“Pu! Pu, puuu.”

Sora, looking very satisfied, was doing its after-dinner stretches. I kept an eye on it as I gathered the regenerated stones into my magic bag one at a time.

“You know, Rose was very impressed with the magic stones Flame regenerated,” Druid said.

“Impressed? Why?”

“Well, there’s something that even I didn’t notice until Rose pointed it out to me…”

What could it be?

“The spent magic stones Rose gave us to be regenerated were only around Level 7 or Level 8.”

Whoa, really? So does that mean that when Flame regenerates magic stones…

“But the magic stones Flame regenerated were at least Level 5. It upgraded the magic stones a little from their original levels.”

“I guess that must be what happened.”

“So then Flame can upgrade magic stones.”

Level 7 and 8 magic stones became Level 5… In just a few minutes, Flame, already a rarity, had become even rarer. I wished I could just pretend I didn’t hear what Druid said. I gathered all the magic stones, then I picked up Flame and left the dump.

“Pu! Pu, puuu.” Sora looked quite pleased with itself. The dump was, after all, the only place where it could eat to its heart’s content.

“I think Ciel should be back soon,” Druid said.

“Yes, I hope so…”

I searched for Ciel’s aura and faintly sensed something like it, but it was still rather far away.

I pulled a warm towel from my magic bag, set Sora and Flame on my lap, and wiped them off. Sora enjoyed it very much, but Flame resisted a little. It probably thought I was trying to wake it from its slumber.

“Flame, I’m just giving you a wipe-down.”

After I somehow managed to finish, I wiped my hands with the towel while it was still warm. Then I made sure the towel was placed properly in the bag before transferring Flame from my lap to the bag.

“Huh?”

Flame’s body was red all over. It was a slightly transparent red, so it was very pretty, but there was a bit of a…stain?…on the slime’s chest area. I softly touched it, and Flame didn’t show any signs of pain. In fact, it didn’t really react at all. I wiped its chest again with the now-cold towel, but I couldn’t get the mark off.

I looked at Sora, who was playfully bouncing around nearby. I remembered that Sora’s coloring had suddenly changed in the past, but it hadn’t looked like a stain. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep an eye on Flame for a while.