She Professed Herself The Pupil Of The Wiseman (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

AFTER DEFEATING THE MONSTER that had terrorized them for so long, the hunters headed home in high spirits. They were fatigued from the long, hard-fought battle, but their expressions were livelier than ever. The hunters at the back of the line glanced over their shoulders at the four Holy Knights carrying the carcass of the tyrant spikeback back as a trophy.

It wouldn’t have done for true hunters to abandon such enormous game, but as the younger hunters prepared to lift the behemoth, Mira had told them that she would handle transport duty for the return trip.

Now, along with three additional copies, the very Holy Knight that had fended off every one of the monster’s attacks was carrying the remains of their enemy home. To see such an intimidating summons used as a pack mule… How could the hunters not laugh?

“That was nothing like I’d heard of. Who says summoners are weak?”

“Beats me. I’d say people haven’t seen the real deal.”

Mira smiled, knowing upon hearing the hunters’ voices that she had sown more seeds for summoning’s revival.

“Thanks. I think they’re gonna make it,” Dran said to her quietly, watching the joy return to his young hunters, now freed from their fear of death.

“Don’t mention it. This couldn’t have happened without their willpower. It takes guts to be courageous when you’re battered and broken,” Mira replied, happy that the hunters were back on their feet.

“Think so? Maybe you’re right.”

“Damn right. They did great,” one of the older hunters next to Dran agreed, emotion welling up within them as they watched their juniors.

***

Upon their triumphant return to the fortress, the hunters split into two groups. One group would prepare for the monster-slaying celebration that Dran had proposed on the way home. The other would begin processing the tyrant spikeback while it was still fresh.

Dismissing her knights, Mira headed to the butchering room. It positively reeked of blood. Ten hunters were already hard at work cutting the beast apart. Loot drops were considerably messier than they used to be, Mira realized. Now people actually had to cut monsters apart to get their materials.

In Ark Earth Online, players stored defeated monsters in a special section in the Item Box. After that, they could use the butchering ability—a selectable option from the Item Box menu that essentially traded a monster’s carcass for materials—to reduce the beasts to materials, or they could take the monsters to an NPC to have the job done.

After checking, Mira found that she could no longer put monster carcasses in her Item Box. Her Ethereal Arts: Itemization spell simply had no effect on them. The butchering ability was thus rendered unusable.

Once the beast was properly butchered by the hunters, it would become material items such as hide, bones, and meat. If Mira recalled correctly, Solomon’s hypothesis was that they were perhaps treated as living things—rather than items to be broken down for crafting and whatnot—while their carcasses remained intact.

Despite having the butchering ability, Mira could not participate.

“That’s hunters for you. They know what they’re doing,” she mused as she watched them work.

Although this was the hunters’ first time butchering a creature like this, their handiwork did not falter once they got a good grasp of the tyrant spikeback’s anatomy based on its external features. That was all part of being a good hunter.

“Are you sure you’re fine with just the monster’s core? This one’s a big deal,” Latry said, taking a break from butchery. Since the hunter’s savior had only requested a single item from the kill, his expression wavered between joy and concern.

“Not a problem. Besides, you’re the ones who did the hard work. I simply offered my aid. If I leave you the corpse, it’ll feel more real too, right?” Mira laughed, her face a picture of composure and somber kindness.

“Well, that’s fair. Thanks! We’ll take you up on that.”

Mira hadn’t attacked the tyrant much, only had her Holy Knight bash it with its tower shield to keep its attention. It was no lie that the hunters were the ones who had finished it off, although the means of their victory didn’t quite satisfy them. They knew that Mira had spent considerable time and effort and asked for little reward.

After accepting the tyrant’s core, Mira left the butchering room and went out front. At his comrades’ urging, Latry left a few moments later to check on Melissa.

The sky was dyed a golden hue, and soon the curtain of night would fall. Bright, merry bonfires lit the celebration. Mira watched the hunters rejoice with a sweet smile on her face.

Just then, a woman walked over rather timidly and addressed her in a humble tone. “Excuse me, Miss Mira? May I ask a favor of you?”

Distracted from her internal musings, Mira turned to find a cute girl in her late teens. “Hrmm, what now? Let’s hear it,” she responded.

Unbothered, the girl smiled and lifted her shirt up, pointing at her bare skin. “Do you see this? Umm, I noticed that there weren’t any scars left when you treated Melissa. Can you remove this too?”

Her finger traced a scar along her ribs, where it looked as though she’d been lacerated. It wasn’t the work of the tyrant, but an old wound that had healed long ago. Still, the scar stood out boldly on the girl’s side. A man might show it off as a badge of honor, but perhaps such blemishes bothered even huntresses.

“I haven’t tried, so I can’t say whether it can be removed. Shall we see what we can do about it?” Mira leaned forward, secretly enjoying the view while inspecting the site of the wound. Although the girl’s exposed flesh was…distracting, Mira was quite interested in seeing how this test of Asclepius’s skill would work out.

Oblivious to Mira’s ulterior motive, a big smile bloomed across the huntress’s face. “Yes, please! Thank you so much!”

After Mira summoned it, the snake slithered from its magic circle up Mira’s body. It coiled around her right arm and awaited orders.

“Asclepius, you can heal this woman’s scars, can’t you?” Mira held out her arm. The white snake turned its head and nodded to her immediately. Its eyes seemed to say that this would be an easy job. “Oho, then by all means, go ahead!”

Asclepius opened its mouth and bit down on the skin next to the woman’s breast.

“Ack!” The prickly pain made the huntress gasp and shudder, but soon the discomfort abated, and she loosened up. She looked down, and another smile graced her face as the treatment worked.

Ripples spread from the spot where Asclepius had bitten the girl, causing the scar to disappear. In its place, skin as smooth as a child’s emerged. 

“Such fast-acting medicine,” Mira murmured to herself in admiration. “I had no idea it could do that.”

Asclepius finished, and neither a scar nor bite marks remained.

“Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!” The patient told Mira and Asclepius with a grin.

“That is the true power of summoning,” Mira said, never one to let an opportunity to promote her craft slip past.

“Wow. Summoning is incredible, huh?” the girl replied, to Mira’s gratification.

“Me too, please!” came a second voice. 

Then another asked, “Can you fix this?”

“Got room for one more?”

Seven other young women closed in on Mira. They’d watched her treat Melissa, and now this procedure. Their minds were made up.

“I do not mind at all,” Mira answered magnanimously. She pointed to the first newcomer who’d requested healing and asked, “Where is your injury?”

The woman looked sheepishly at the people around her preparing for the celebration. “Erm, could you do it inside?” she asked apologetically, her cheeks slightly flushed.

Mira turned and noticed that many of the men running around were glancing over curiously. At the same time, the first girl she’d treated realized she had just bared her skin in public, in front of onlookers.

“Why didn’t you stop me?!” she cried to her friends.

“We were too interested in seeing how it worked…”

Mira soon found herself shepherded to the underground room, and she began treating the women.

“Here it is.” The first woman half-lowered her culottes, leggings, and finally underwear, presenting Mira with her backside—an awkward thing to show outdoors indeed—and requesting, “If you’d please…”

Mira saw a circular scar—likely the result of some sort of horn gouging the woman.

“Hrmm, all right.” Mira reached out and squeezed the location under the guise of “examination.” It was round, firm yet pliable, with all the womanly softness that one would expect. She savored the feeling and grinned in sheer delight. Her hand moved swiftly, and she felt emboldened by both the woman’s consent and the fact that her petite, feminine form would not be perceived as a threat. “This should be no problem at all!”

After enjoying herself—er, “confirming the problem”—Mira nodded and had Asclepius heal the woman. Once the scar disappeared, the women squealed with delight.

Mira healed one young woman after another, taking each opportunity to feel inner thighs, cleavage, and more. She was truly enjoying the perks of being able to summon a physician.

***

After the treatments were done, the stars in the sky began to twinkle, and the celebration finally started in earnest. Outside, a grand feast was underway. Now that the hunters didn’t have to stay huddled inside, they’d taken all they could from the fortress’s stores for this happy occasion. Their faces were truly joyful as the party raged on. Confidence had swept in and banished their worries.

Mira jovially enjoyed the drinks made from the bounty of the forest and talked at length about the power of summoning, savoring the hunters’ praise. Not even half of them listened to her whole lecture, yet Mira still got herself nice and drunk and enjoyed the party.

One by one, the hunters fell to drunkenness and fatigue, consigning themselves to peaceful sleep.

As things wound down, Tomoki approached Mira and sat next to her. “Thank you so much for saving us.”

“Oh, please. With my summoning powers, it was easy.” Even inebriated, Mira was still a committed hype-girl for her discipline.

“Of course. I specialize in production, so I always envy fighters such as yourself.” Tomoki said, politely brushing past her bragging as he began to tell his own story.

Tomoki had specialized in woodworking—specifically staves and bows. Then, one day, he tried sculpting and fell in love. Soon, his sculptures sold for prices equal to his painstakingly made weapons, and demand for them surpassed that for his other wares.

Tomoki explained that he had modeled statues after the three gods, making him something like a Japanese Buddha sculptor. He added with a wry grin that he had the honor of sculpting for the Three Great Kingdoms. Something he’d started for fun had taken on a life of its own.

For that reason, he had resolved to come to the Forest of the Devout in search of the perfect wood for carving. Indeed, if any forest had the right material, it would be the one that contained the Elder Tree.

“From there, I managed to get the hunters’ help. I have an idea of where I can find the right wood, but…well, all this happened,” Tomoki said with a sigh.

Expressed as an adventurer’s rank, Tomoki’s strength would be somewhere between C and D. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against the tyrant spikeback, but if he really tried, he should’ve been able to flee. When Mira asked why he stayed, Tomoki replied that he at least wanted to be there with the hunters to the end.

She nodded in understanding, then asked him about the thing that weighed heaviest on her mind. “Incidentally, I have a question. Long ago, monsters wouldn’t appear in places that weren’t their habitats. Is that a common occurrence now?” Perhaps Tomoki knew more about what was going on, now that the game was reality.

After a moment of thought, Tomoki finally answered, “Monsters only inhabit areas that aren’t their habitats when they’re forced to. Usually, that has to do with humans’ impact on ecosystems…but this time, I’m totally stumped. With these attacks, the types of monsters and the habitats they come from are far too diverse.”

“I’d say so too. What could the cause be?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

The two brainstormed, staring into the dark forest beyond the bonfire.

Once Tomoki’s drunkenness spirited him away, Mira sipped her own drink and noticed Melissa sitting next to Latry. Melissa wasn’t fully recovered, but color had returned to her face, and hunger had returned to her belly.

Noticing Mira’s gaze, Latry and Melissa came her way.

“Melissa can walk around on her own now! It’s all thanks to you, Mira. Thank you so much,” said Latry.

“Um, Latry told me everything. Thank you for saving my life,” added Melissa.

The pair bowed deeply. Melissa’s face betrayed nothing but gratitude; Latry’s was a mix of gratitude, joy, and returned confidence.

“Don’t mention it. It’s good to see that you’re better,” Mira replied before diving into a lecture about summoning’s usefulness, abilities, and applications. An outsider might’ve processed it as gibberish, but to those in the know, it felt as if they were listening to the great Danblf himself. 

Or at least it would have if anyone actually listened. Mira’s words simply melted into the ongoing commotion, cool night wind, and twinkling night sky.