By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 1

Chapter 4 Episode 1: Fetch Quest

A month had passed since the Founding Festival ended and the Semroid Troupe had left town. In that time, the summer heat had gradually cooled off. I caught slimes in search of one to donate to the church, and in the process, I obtained a slime that had a preference for wind-elemental magical energy and ended up evolving it.

Slowly but surely, I kept up my training. And then, exactly half a year from the day I parted with the duke’s family, I stopped by the adventurer’s guild and got summoned by Worgan.

“Ryoma, seems like you’ve been busy lately,” he said. “I was worried you were gonna go off and stick with the merchant business for a while there.”

“Yes, well, I’m taking everything at my own pace.”

“Eh, when you’ve got people working for you, you’re responsible for them whether you like it or not. I get it. So, as for why I called you here, will you be free for about two weeks starting next week?”

I’d made more than enough waterproof cloth, so I had no urgent business. “Sure,” I said.

“Yeah? Then there’s a job I’d like you to take. It’s about collecting materials, and lots of them, so it’ll be easiest to have someone who can use space magic go along. If you could take on the job of transporting the goods, that’d be great. Also, the area you’ll need to go to has one of the monsters you want to fight.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you need to fight some treants. The materials you’ll be collecting are also dropped by treants.”

Treants were plant monsters that resembled trees. They would blend in with other trees in the forest and wait for a chance to attack humans or other monsters. Many of them lived in the Sea of Trees of Syrus. Their penchant for camouflage and surprise attacks made them dangerous.

“I’ll explain in detail when the other members of the team are around, so if you want to know more, come to the guild around noon tomorrow. If you’re still interested after that, I’ll register you for the job.”

“Got it, I’ll see you tomorrow at noon, then.”

“Great, have a good day.”

With that settled, I needed to tell the others that I’d be going out.

■ ■ ■

I visited the guild at the agreed-upon time the next day. When I went to the specified room, Miya was there.

“Meow? You too, Ryoma?”

“They wanted someone who can use space magic.”

“Yeah, they want us to gather a ton of stuff. What the heck could they be using all that for?”

“Who knows?”

We chatted about random subjects until Welanna, Leipin, and Asagi arrived as well. Finally, Worgan entered the room and described the mission.

“Well, it’s pretty much like this,” he began.

To summarize his explanation, this job centered around collecting wood. We just had to slay some treants and take the wood they dropped. It would take at least three hundred treants’ worth of wood, but if we collected more than that, we’d receive a greater reward.

I didn’t know how big a treant was, and I couldn’t guess how much wood we’d get from three hundred either. But it was going to be a lot, that was for sure. I could see why they wanted me and Leipin for our space magic.

The plan was to leave town in two days. I didn’t see any problem with that, so I agreed to take the job. Looking around at the others, it seemed like they were all on board too. But after everyone had officially signed on, Welanna had a question.

“What’s all this treant wood for?” she asked Worgan.

“Oh, you know how the population of this town is decreasing, right?”

“Of course I do. One reason for that was the mine being abandoned. When there’re fewer jobs to go around, some people will just up and leave.”

“Right, and the previous boss of the public office didn’t care so much about any of that, from what it seemed. He didn’t do much of anything, but the new boss is pretty passionate about this problem. He wants to increase the population, increase the city’s income, and improve our environment. He’s got a lot of things going. This job was a suggestion from one of his staffers, something about building some big attraction in town to attract more people. But all that’s special about this town right now is the mine and iron.”

“Wouldn’t the place where the limour birds gather be a good tourist attraction?” I asked.

“That idea’s come up, but the grell frog hunt goes on around the same time, so it wouldn’t be great for tourism. We could put an end to the hunts, but then we’d lose the income from the grell frogs, so there’s no sense in that. Besides, the limour birds are only here temporarily. The public office wants something that’ll be here year-round.”

The idea of creating something to rejuvenate the city didn’t sound that easy to me. And besides, Gimul did at least have something to sell as it was. Rather than being so particular about this or that, they could make use of the advantages the city already had. They could just have more events like the festival, for example.

“What’s wrong with it being temporary? Just call it a seasonal thing,” I suggested.

“There’s nothing wrong with a seasonal event, but remember, this is a mining town. Once all the mines have been mined dry sometime in the future, that season will be the only time this city makes any money. We want to prepare for that day by producing something that can turn a profit year-round,” Worgan explained. Now that he mentioned it, that made sense.

“Well, I do get what you’re saying, though,” Worgan continued. “Gimul’s not in such dire straits just yet, so I agree we don’t need to rush into a huge project, personally. But that’s the direction things have gone in. Ultimately, they decided to construct a tourist district just past the southern gate, and the main attraction there will be an arena. There’ll also be inns for the participants and the audience to stay at, and fees for watching and gambling on the fights. That’s how they’re planning to make money, apparently. It’ll cost loads of cash to finish this project, but the profits from it should be massive.”

“An arena and gambling, you say?” Asagi said. “I don’t doubt that this will be profitable, but I fear that it will have a negative impact on public safety.” It did seem like it would make it easier for criminals and ruffians to roam the streets.

“That’s why it’s all being built in a new district. The inns that the tourists and arena participants are meant to stay will all be completely separated from the old city. This part of town can be the same mining town as ever. It will be governed by the same folks as this city, but you can think of it as an entirely distinct city to the south. To maintain public safety, they’ll be greatly increasing the funding for the city guards and hiring more men. The gambling will be managed by the city and thoroughly regulated. Now, this next bit is related to the answer to Welanna’s question, but the planning and construction for the arena will be handled by Perdor Beckentein.”

Everyone except for me was surprised. I could only guess that this person was famous. “Who’s that?” I asked.

“You don’t know, Ryoma?” said Leipin. “He’s the second son of Viscount Beckentein. He was supposed to assist his older brother with managing their territory, but he fled from home and put his heart and soul into architecture.”

“He’s considered the most brilliant architect alive today, but he’s almost famous for being highly eccentric,” said Welanna. It sounded like there was a lot to this guy, but it wasn’t any of my business to care.

“When he was approached about it, he said something about having a good idea in mind and took the job on the spot, apparently,” said Worgan. “But he absolutely insisted that the most important parts of the arena be constructed from treant wood. That’s why we want to start collecting treant wood now.”

It sounded like some sort of crazy artist thing. I asked if treant wood was normally used in construction, and I was told that it was possible, but it was mostly used to make staffs for magicians. Perdor Beckentein was apparently talented enough that he could make such unreasonable demands and get away with it. They called him an unparalleled genius. I thought about that until the conversation came to an end and everyone dispersed.

■ ■ ■

A couple days later, it was time for us to leave town. I used the time in between to make some preparations. Mostly, they involved moving everything in my Dimension Home to a storage room I set up in the mine, then sealing the entrance with earth magic to prevent theft.

I also tried expanding my Dimension Home the way that Sebas taught me. Each time I expanded the space, I felt like it took even more out of me. But thanks to my tons of magical energy and all my training, I managed to expand the Dimension Home to about the size of the first floor of the employee lodging at my store in Gimul. I had no idea how big a treant was, but this seemed like it would be able to fit a fair amount of wood.

I thought about this as I waited at Gimul’s southern gate. I was supposed to meet with the others, but it didn’t look like they’d arrived yet. However, I soon saw Leipin and Asagi walk toward me from a short distance away.

“Leipin, Asagi, good morning!” I greeted them.

“Morning,” said Leipin.

“Good morning, Ryoma. Are you feeling well?” said Asagi.

“I’m fine.”

Miya later met up with us as well. The guildmaster provided us with a carriage and two horses at the gate, in addition to some food for the road. Once we got all that together, our journey began. By the way, Mizelia was the coachman for the carriage.

There was nothing but the occasional tree in the plains south of Gimul, so we got to watch the lush scenery flow by us in peace. Asagi was the leader of the team, so while we rode toward our destination, he went over the plan.

“Miya, Welanna, and I shall be the ones to defeat the treants,” he said. “Leipin and Ryoma will do the job of transporting the vanquished treants. Leipin will also search for treants and alert us about any nearby monsters, and Ryoma will attend him. Does everyone agree with this?”

I nodded to express my approval. That was the basic plan, but I intended to do at least a little fighting. Everyone knew that I joined the mission to get some practice fighting treants, so they were going to let me get some experience with that.

Leipin was an expert on monsters, so I got advice from him about treants’ weaknesses and what to watch out for in combat with them. According to him, treants attacked by swinging their branches around, so it was necessary to be wary of attacks from above. Their weak point was the face-like protrusion attached to their wooden bodies. You could heavily damage that or the surrounding area, or alternatively, chop the treant down from below the face to slay it. But our goal was to turn the treants into wood, so it was best to dispatch them while doing as little damage as possible. Some damage was likely unavoidable, but it was something to keep in mind.

And in the event that we encountered a higher rank of treant, extra precautions were required. They were slower than ordinary treants, but their branches were thicker and packed more of a punch. They could also use wood magic to extend their branches or vines for obstructive tactics, so they were a nuisance in direct combat.

Incidentally, the way to tell a treant apart from a regular tree was to sense its magical energy. They looked exactly like regular trees aside from their faces, so if a treant was at an angle where the face was out of view, they could be extremely difficult to identify. But if you had the ability to sense their abundant magical energy, they could be easily located.

And one final detail: unlike trees, treants could move from place to place. They were even slower than slimes, but they could pull their roots out of the ground and use them to crawl. It was hard to imagine a tree walking around of its own will, though. That just sounded absurd.

“So what defines a monster, anyway?” I asked, after Leipin had gone over all the necessary information.

“What do you mean?” Leipin replied.

Leipin went on to tell me that monsters were creatures which started off as either plants or animals, but mutated into something else due to magical energy. Using treants as an example, they were ordinary trees that possessed magical energy and thus became monsters. If magical energy could cause these mutations, then there was no reason it couldn’t transform trees into monsters the way it could anything else.

Speaking of which, Pauline once told me about something called magicification. That was also a phenomenon where plants were transformed by magical energy.

“Does it not affect humans?” I asked.

“Large amounts of magical energy can cause a sickness called magical energy intoxication, but it would be impossible for the human body to contain enough magical energy to trigger a mutation.”

The human body had a defensive mechanism which automatically released magical energy so it would never mutate, according to Leipin. I asked about magical energy intoxication, and he told me that people who inherently possess a lot of magical energy are seldom inflicted with it.

Even regular people could only get it by using too many recovery potions or magic crystals, or by eating too much monster meat. But magical energy was mostly contained in the blood, so the flesh itself was mostly safe to eat. It would only cause mild symptoms, and it was considered rare and unlucky to become intoxicated by eating meat. People tended to joke about it and brush it off when it happened.

We continued to talk about it as we kept an eye on our surroundings, and continued forward at a leisurely pace. Leipin told me that monsters instinctively avoided attacking anyone who would pose a significant threat, so nothing around Gimul would go after a carriage full of adventurers. And just as he said, we weren’t attacked even once that day.

On the road to our destination, I had a deep discussion with Leipin about monsters and slimes, heard from Mizelia about all the places she had been, and chatted with Asagi about miso and soy sauce.

“Miso soup? That brings back memories,” Asagi said. “I’m surprised to hear you can get miso and soy sauce in Lenaf. Thank you for informing me.”

“Should I make miso soup tonight? We have the ingredients.”

“Really?! Then please do!”

Thus, I was put in charge of cooking dinner that night. Inside Leipin’s Dimension Home, I produced miso soup, nikujaga, and rice. Everyone loved it, but Asagi in particular wept tears of joy when he finally got to taste miso soup again.

“Asagi, have you not returned home in a long time?” Welanna asked.

“No, the island I come from is a long way from here. Returning home wouldn’t be easy. But most importantly, the dojo where I learned swordsmanship taught that those who become skilled enough with a sword are to become adventurers, so you could almost say I was forced to leave on a journey. I can’t return until I’ve either completed enough jobs through the adventurer’s guild to reach S Rank, or I’ve been away from the island for fifty years.”

“Fifty years? Why so long?”

“It’s how long the founder of the dojo traveled the world for, I believe. It provides a way to improve one’s swordsmanship and a chance to expand one’s horizons. Surviving in the outside world and making it back home is both a learning opportunity and a trial. There are powerful monsters that don’t exist on my island, as well as a wide variety of people, you see.”

“Who protects your village? If the strong people leave for fifty years, isn’t that an issue?”

“No need to worry. Only those who seek to master the blade leave the village. Some study swordsmanship for self-defense, some to defend the village, some are still training at the dojo, and some are dojo masters. Even among those who remain in the village, many are quite skilled.”

We ate as we talked, then got ready to sleep in our sleeping bags in Leipin’s Dimension Home. It was pretty spacious.

“Once I was away from my base for a long time to do research,” Leipin said. “I needed somewhere to put my household belongings, research materials, and monster specimens, so I spent years expanding my Dimension Home. I don’t spend so much time away from Gimul anymore, so now I leave most of my belongings at home, and for this job I came with even less luggage than usual.”

Apparently, he found it faster and easier to expand his space than to clean the place, which sounded a bit silly to me, but the results were nothing short of remarkable. Without much luggage in the Dimension Home, it felt nice and big, easily more than double the size of my own. I hoped to make mine just as big someday.

Once my sleeping bag was ready, there was nothing left for me to do that day, so I decided to go to sleep. We went to bed early, planning to depart at sunrise.