Volume 3 - Chapter 21

TL Note: Kanpai = “cheers!” when drinking. I just left it in Japanese since I’ve already included the name suffixes in this translation. So I figured this would be the most appropriate for the translation style so far.

Volume 3 Chapter 21

The next day.

The guild lent us 15 men, and we took them with us to the place where we fought the elder treant. Our plan is to gather all the leftover lumber from the aftermath of our fight. However, the only lumbers we will be taking with us are those that can fit into Raypin-san’s ‘Dimension Home’. Everything else will be stored in this town’s and the guild’s storehouses.

When we got to the scene, the adventurers that came with us were shocked. They couldn’t believe the number of treants that seven people had managed to subjugate.

Then again, it probably can’t be helped as the total number of treants we subjugated were over 2,000.

The treants kept coming one after another, so we had no choice but to kill them off. And since hitting them in the face would finish them in one hit, we were able to kill them quite quickly. As a result, we ended up subjugating over 2,000 treants all in all.

Incidentally, I started to worry when I realized we had just killed so many treants that were originally trees of this forest. So I asked about it, and I found out that the trees of this forest were apparently of a variety known as Torigiri. The places they grow in is limited, but in exchange, they are vigorous, and grow fast. And within half a year of being cut, they’ll grow back. Even growing them from a seedling would only take a year before they could be cut as lumber. So there’s really no problem since the trees that have been cut will be back by next year. Moreover, the town here will be benefitting too as they will be getting the trees. And besides, there aren’t a lot of people who go this deep to get lumber anyway.

Hearing that explanation reminded me that this world is a different world.

If this were Earth, how many years would it take for a seed to grow into a tree? And yet here it won’t even take a year. Right, I’ve almost forgotten, but… this is definitely a different world. There are times when Earth’s common sense won’t apply to it.

After that, we gathered lumber while taking care of any treants that we came across. Asagi-san and the others kept all the lumbers in one spot, while me and Raypin-san stored it in our ‘Dimension Homes’, carrying the lumbers to the town.

Thanks to all the extra man power and the magic, we were mostly finished by 3PM. So we decided to inform the adventurer’s guild in Gimuru that a large number of treant lumber will be transported via cart. So I brought out my nightmare rimel bird in order to contact them.

With this, the treant lumber mission came to a close, and the rest of the helpers went back to the village.

But as for the seven us, we still have a job to do. That job is to disassemble and recover the elder treant.

The request we got from Gimuru does not include the elder treant. Since we hunted it, we could do whatever we wanted with it, but if we were to ask the guild for help in harvesting it, we would have to pay them accordingly.

The elder treant lumber is a first class material for wands, so we didn’t want to discard it. So instead, we decided to harvest it by ourselves. Only, because it’s so big, it’s going to take some time.

First comes cutting the branches. I could climb the ladder I prepared beforehand, and cut its branches. But because the elder treant is so big, there are some branches that I can’t reach even with this ladder.

So I had everyone else use the ladders to reach the ones that they could, while I opened my ‘Item Box’ and took out a rope made out of the sticky slimes’ thread that’s as strong as a wire. At the end of that rope, I attached a ring and knotted it. Then I had the metal slime cling to it and transform into a claw. With this the rope has turned into a grappling hook.

I swung the grappling hook, and carefully aiming at my target, I threw it.

The grappling hook flew, and it wrapped around a thick branch. After confirming that it was safe, I climbed the rope. When I got near enough, I started using ‘Wind Cutter’ to cut the surrounding branches. When there was nothing left to cut, I moved to a different part, and did the same thing.

At first I thought it was convenient that the branches would just fall to the ground, but then I remembered that they were also important ingredients. In fact, the branches were even more suited for wands than the trunk. And because we have to cut the branches first, there’s a chance that they might break when they hit the ground. It’s too bad, but it can’t be helped.

We silently continued to hack away like this, and somehow someway we were able to finish cutting off the branches within the day. But now I’m completely exhausted… If it was only once or twice of going up and down the tree, it wouldn’t matter. But having to do it that much just really takes everything out of you.

Come to think of it, I don’t really use wands all that much, do I? So since there’s material, maybe I should get one for myself?

The next day.

We’re going to continue harvesting the elder treant today.

We finished cutting off the branches yesterday, so today we’re going to dig out its roots. And so we did, but just as we were working, something unexpected happened.

As I dug out the area around the elder treant with the earth slimes using earth magic, I found old, crumbling wooden boxes and stone boxes beneath it.

“You guys! Look at this!” [Ryouma]

Asagi-san and the others came over.

“Is something the matter?” [Asagi]

“Did something happen?” [Mizelia]

“There’s something buried here. Look.” [Ryouma]

“This is… A wooden box?” [Mizelia]

“Why is something like this…” [Syria]

“For the meantime, we should unbury it and then take a look inside.” [Raypin]

Following Raypin-san’s suggestion, we retrieved the box, and took a look inside. Inside was a great number of muddy, white stones. Apparently, these stones are magic jewels that have already been used. Magic jewels are transparent before use, but afterwards, they turn into a muddy, whitish hue.

We took a look at all the different boxes, and it turns out they were all full of used up magic jewels. But there were also some magic jewels that weren’t fully used up yet. Amongst those were neutral magic jewels and dark magic jewels. After that, we continued searching for a while, and we came to realize just how many jewels there were.

For the meantime, we thought we should inform the guild about this matter, so Raypin-san went back to the town, and brought back an investigator from the guild.

When he came back, we continued our investigation until eventually we came across a number of dead human corpses. The corpses had already rotten away, but some of their belongings remained. Amongst their belongings was a ledger that belonged to a magic jewel merchant. From that we quickly found out that the merchant was a smuggler. And we concluded that all these magic jewels most likely belonged to him.

We don’t know if this place was supposed to be his hidden stash or the place where a deal was supposed to take place, but regardless, we now know the reason why that elder treant turned out that way. The elder treant absorbed the energy from the magic jewels, causing it to grow faster and bigger. And because of the power of the magic jewels, it was able to summon a great forest of treants, even becoming able to use dark magic itself. As for why it didn’t move? We figured that was most likely because it couldn’t after being weighed down by all of those boxes of magic jewels.

After the investigation concluded, we toppled the elder treant sideways. Then using large saws made out of the iron slimes and metal slimes, we cut the elder treant for easy storage. And then we stored it in my ‘Dimension Home’.

With this, we’ve finished our business in this town, and will be going back to Gimuru tomorrow.

But before that, we held a party inside the ‘Dimension Home’ to thank each other for all our efforts.

“There’s still some way back home, but we’ve finally successfully gathered all the needed treant lumbers. So since we’ve basically completed our task, let’s drink our fill today! Kanpai!” [Asagi]

“Kanpai!” [Everyone else]

At Asagi-san’s lead, we all began to eat and drink.

Today we’re having tempura along with our drinks. Actually, I’m partly the reason why. The thing is, there are a lot of edible wild plants in the forest, so all sorts were being sold by the town grocer. Then when I saw all the different plants, I ended up mumbling to myself, “I wonder if those’ll taste good when turned into tempura?” But then right at that moment, it just so happened that Asagi-san managed to hear me. And as soon as he caught wind of the word ‘Tempura’ he started talking zealously about it. The others heard about it too as a result, and after they said that they wanted to try it too, we ended up having tempura to go along with our liquor.

The others didn’t actually know anything about tempura. It just so happens that I talked about it from time to time during our travel, so they were quite interested in it.

But you know what’s surprising? I found out that this country actually doesn’t have a lot of deep-fried food. Well Asagi-san’s hometown has them, but apparently deep-fried food isn’t really a thing here.

And the reason behind that is because it takes up a lot of oil, making it luxurious. You can’t keep the oil either, so you have no choice but to throw them away. On top of that, because of a lack of culinary knowledge, deep-fried cooking is said to cause fires, making it a food that’s generally difficult to access for most families.

As for me, I think it’s a pity that people don’t know the taste of deep-fried food. But at the same time, I do know that it’s true that it costs a lot of oil. And you also can’t keep the oil since it’s bad for the body… Well, in my case, I could just use alchemy to remove the oxygen from the oxidized oil, making it possible for me to use it again as long as it’s not dirty, but that’s an exception.

I’ve actually been using alchemy in cooking like with juice or oil, but it does make me wonder from time to time. Am I using alchemy properly? But well… it’s convenient so I don’t really feel like stopping either way.

“Ryouma, your slimes really are strange, huh?” [Wereanna]

“Well it’s not really strange for slimes to be omnivorous and drink liquor, but…” [Raypin]

“They’re not just eating, they’re actually carefully tasting the food and the wine.” [Mizelia]

Right, actually, on top of the three guys and three girls, we also have a slime eating with us.

I caught this slime with the intention of using it as a part of my magic experiment, but it still hasn’t evolved yet. It likes dark magic, but as part of my experiment, I fed it wood magic instead. But then at some point in time, it started to drink with me whenever I would drink by myself.

When I first poured it wine, it finished it in one gulp, so it didn’t really feel like we would become drinking buddies. But then when I varnished the sticky slime’s sticky liquid on a slime-purposed wine cup, it gradually began to properly drink with me. And lately, it would pour alcohol for me whenever my cup would run dry, and it would even eat as it drank.

As I was explaining that to everyone, the slime suddenly began to shake.

“Hmm? Could it be–” [Raypin]

“What’s the matter, nyaa?” [Miya]

“The slime’s evolving.” [Ryouma]

“Eh!?” [Miya]

There’s no doubt about it, this slime is evolving. Everyone focused their eyes on the slime. And just like the other slimes, the slime began to release and absorb magic power until it finally evolved.

Drunk Slime

Skills:

Create Alcohol (Ethyl) Lv4

Disease Resistance Lv3

Digestion Lv5

Absorption Lv1

Split Lv1

Divine Protection:

The God of Wine, Tekun

…Well it drinks wine, I guess drunk slime’s perfect for it then. Same goes for its ‘Create Alcohol (Ethyl)’. And of course, it’s a given that the cause is drinking alcohol. But why does it have Tekun’s divine protection? I mean to begin with, you could actually grant slimes, divine protections?

…Well, I’ll just ask Tekun about it later. For the meantime, let’s take a look at what magic it likes… Is it darkness? Water? Wood? Which is it? It used to like darkness, and I gave it wood magic. As for water… well it did drink water regularly… is that the reason?

Then while I was caught up in my thoughts, Raypin-san suddenly called out to me.

“Ryouma, is something the matter, de aru?” [Raypin]

“Ah, umm… well it turns out that the slime evolved into a drunk slime. And it has the skill, ‘Create Alcohol (Ethyl)’, which probably spits out alcohol.” [Ryouma]

“Another strange slime, de aru?” [Raypin]

I brought out a cup and showed them the ‘Create Alcohol (Ethyl)’ skill. As expected the drunk slime spit out liquid that reeked of alcohol. Using ‘Identify’ I found out that it had 40% concentration, and was harmless to humans, so I drank it.

“Well, it’s wine alright, but…” [Ryouma]

“But?” [Raypin]

“It has no taste.” [Ryouma]

It didn’t have any particular taste or smell. It wasn’t delicious. This probably shouldn’t be drunk like this. Maybe if I mixed it with fruit juice or something I could turn it into fruit wine. Yeah, I should research this.

After I thought that to myself, we toasted one more time. This time to the slime’s successful evolution. Then after enjoying ourselves with the food and liquor, the day came to an end.