Hello. This is Kyotaro. The same Kyotaro who learned, after consulting with his father about income tax returns, that travel expenses and such could be tax deductibles depending on the distance. I was probably taught something similar in the training course, but honestly, I couldn’t really remember. The first and second half of that week were just a jumbled mess in my head now. But thankfully, when I asked Layla, it seemed like she was able to absorb the knowledge just fine. I was so grateful that Layla could remember things that I myself forgot.
…I was even more thankful for her thoughtfulness and discretion whenever I asked to give me privacy.
All those things aside, I was going to a dungeon that was about 4 stations away. This dungeon was commonly called the Forest Dungeon.
The dungeon store for it had quite a few people. It might be the busiest dungeon store I had gone to so far. After changing and getting ready in the similarly busy locker room, I entered the dungeon.
The dungeon being relatively vast was kinda a good thing in that I was less likely to ran into someone else. Frankly, at this dungeon rank, I was more afraid accidentally attacking another person than I was of fighting monsters. Sure, the other party would be an Awakened One too, meaning they had some degree of durability, but I still prefer to avoid injury incidents and especially being sued. There weren’t much talk about it online, but there were apparently people who would fake being injured and extort the other party. Talk about scary.
But anyway, I summoned Layla as per usual and readied my sword. I was half-swording it, meaning I had my other hand at the ricasso so that I could hold the weapon like a spear. The dungeon was a “forest”, so there were many plant life in there to serve as obstacles.
At a glance, I could mistake it for a forest in northern Europe I once saw on TV. The grass only grew up to the ankle, but the row of trees here grew so tall, maybe even 10 meters tall.
Incidentally, the blue sky that can be seen through the gaps between the trees was actually fake. Something like the glowing moss from the ant dungeon was apparently growing up there and illuminating the dungeon. Supposedly, if you were to walk all the way to the edge, you would bump into a green-colored, craggy rock face.
To be honest, I found it questionable to call the place a dungeon, but since the people with innate knowledge about magic and stuff were calling it that, there wasn’t much for me to say.
“Well then, here I go.”
“Yeah.”
Layla then tapped her stick-like staff to the ground and uttered “Oh, Earth”. Almost simultaneously, I felt magic power flow beneath me. There was no visible change that happened though. A few seconds later, Layla turned to face me.
“It doesn’t look like there’s any nearby.”
“I see. Then, let’s go forward a bit.”
“Yes.”
What she did was probe the magic power in the ground so that we could get a certain something in this dungeon. This certain something was actually why there were so many people exploring this dungeon. If possible, I wanted us to find it soon.
And so, while remaining vigilant, we pressed onward. After a while, I began to hear the fluttering of an insect’s wings. A large one’s. We quickly hid behind a nearby tree and scanned the area. Before long, we discovered the source of the noise. It was from a giant bee. It was really the only way I could think of to describe the human-sized thing flying between the trees.
It was called a Giant Bee. I agreed that it was rather simple as far as names went, but I also thought nothing could beat a name that was easy to understand.
The monster seemed to be hunting for prey with its inhuman compound eyes. Layla took that opportunity by pointing her staff at it while she remained hidden.
“Oh, Trees”
The surrounding trees wriggled and their branches began to stretch strangely downward. The branches soon pounced upon the Giant Bee in an effort to entangle it. Although the Giant Bee seemed surprised, it still managed to avoid the branches by lowering its altitude. Those compound eyes weren’t just for show apparently, as the Giant Bee noticed not only the branches but also me who ran toward it. In fact, it even directed the stinger in its butt at me.
There was a strange sound and then the stinger flew out. The stinger in question was the size of person’s arm and was coated with what looked to be poison. Just a scratch from it was probably enough for the poison to enter my body.
The stinger flew at about 200 kilometers per hour, but I managed to avoid thanks to my Magic Eye. I continued to close the distance and then thrust my sword at the monster from below. I succeeded in stabbing its abdomen.
I then twisted my sword as I threw the monster into the ground. A small cloud of dust arose when it crashed. With its carapace and wings squashed, the Giant Bee could only trash around while opening and closing its mandibles. I stabbed the monster once more, this time fixing it in place. To end it, I bashed its head in with the sole of my foot. While feeling the discomfort from the sensation of trampling over the insect’s head, I confirmed its death. There didn’t seem to be other Giant Bees nearby.
“Good work, Master”’
“Thanks. You too, Layla.”
“Well then, I’ll begin searching this area.”
“Yes, please.”
I watched Layla press her staff against the ground in the corner of my eye while watching our surroundings. I must say though, her Nature Magic was highly compatible with places like this. On the other hand, on dungeons that looked man-made, it was rather tricky to use. But then again, that was why we were preparing magic tools for her. And yes, to increase the magic tools she had under her belt was one of the reasons why we came to this dungeon.
“…I found one. About 50 meters in that direction.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
“Yes!”
As expected of Layla, she found one right away.
Just barely resisting the urge to sprint, we made our way to the place she described. Once there, I found trees and plants that seemed indistinguishable from the others in forest…
“There it is.”
In the place she pointed her staff, I noticed a certain plant that was different. It had leaves that resembled that of an eggplant’s leaves.
“Alright, let’s proceed as we discussed. I shall keep watch of our surroundings.”
“Okay.”
I stabbed my sword in the ground nearby, and instead grabbed my dagger. I knelt down, touched the leaves with my left hand, and firmly grabbed it. After confirming that I could pull the thing out without tearing it apart, I proceeded to do so in one go.
When I did, a strange root appeared. It had a human-like face, with eyes and a mouth. Under normal circumstances, that kind of thing could probably be explained as just some trick of the eye. However, we were inside a dungeon. This was not a normal place at all.
The eyes and the mouth on the root opened and it was about to let out otherworldly shriek. Before it could though, I used my dagger and beheaded it. Could I even call what I did as beheading? At any rate, that silenced the root and it lifelessly dangled in my hand.
It was a Mandrake. The most popular among the popular magical plants. Its roots took on a human-like appearance, and pulling it out of the ground would make it let loose a shriek that could make a person faint. Or worse, the shriek could kill a person.
Well, Awakened Ones should apparently be safe as long as their Resistance stat wasn’t too low. Still, since the Mandrake’s scream could attract monsters, it was best practice to cut it before it could scream. Plus, letting it scream would be a nuisance to the other adventurers in the area.
I used my dagger again, but this time, it was to gently dig out for the rest of the Mandrake. I placed that on the ground and took out a water bottle from my Item Bag. Obviously, it wasn’t so that I could hydrate myself. Rather, the water bottle was to serve as storage for the Mandrake.
The water bottle might look ordinary at a glance, but it had magic circles inscribed at its bottom and at its lid. Layla had drawn them for me. It was a magical tool, in other words. Such magical tools were needed to prevent monsters, plants, and even the soil originating inside a dungeon from eventually turning into particles of magic power and then be dissolved by the air when they were brought outside of a dungeon.
As long as someone poured magic power into these magical tools, whatever was inside would maintain its form. And if a mage fiddled with magic power when “processing” whatever was inside, it could apparently remain existing even outside of the magical tool containers.
As for why I chose to use a water bottle for the magic tool, well, it was about the right size, it was cheap, and it closed tightly. Truly the marvel of mass production.
I had also asked out of curiosity if we could make a large version of this bottle magical tool so that we could store monster corpses and hand it over to research facilities. The answer I got was that it was possible, but it would require several materials I had never even heard of before. Supposedly, those required a quality that was far beyond what this bottle offered.
At any rate, to gather Mandrakes was the main reason many other adventurers were visiting this dungeon. According to what I heard, they served as great materials for magic potions, hence why people wanted them.
With the so-called Quest System starting in June, requests to gather some would likely be issued too. We wanted to get some for ourselves before that happened, before people gathered too much to turn in and there was nothing left. Problem was, many other people thought that too and were here early like us.
“Let’s gather as much as we can before we go home. There’s no restrictions yet on how many we can gather, after all.”
“I agree. As long as we don’t happen into too much trouble, of course.”
“Yeah.”
I deposited the bottle into my Item Bag and continued walking. Before long though, my Magic Eye activated.
“Gah!?”
When I dodged to the side as quickly as I could, something dropped from the sky. Well, to be more accurate, a Slime dropped from the tree branch above. This semi-transparent, amoeba-like creature then slithered its way toward me.
I decided to have Layla take care of it since my Magic Eye activated again just as I was stabilizing myself from my dodge. A downward swing of a scythe was coming from behind me, so I defended by raising my sword.
The attack came from a Secret Mantis. It was a gigantic preying mantis that had a light brown coloration. It was easily over 2 meters tall, even discounting its antenna. The scythe I stopped gave off a dim light and even to my untrained eye, I could tell that it was sharp enough to cut an iron door in half.
“Oh, Earth”
I saw in the corner of my eye Layla take down the Slime in one attack. Meanwhile, I pushed the scythe up, turned around, and then slashed at the monster’s abdomen. The monster was cleaved clean in half and dropped to the ground. As it writhed there, I drove my sword toward its head and finished it. Its corpse convulsed until the last moment though, making me utterly disgusted.
“Are you alright, Master?”
“Yeah. That surprised me though…”
Especially by that Slime. If it somehow managed to wrap itself around my head, I could blast it away with my Magic Power Discharge, but then I would probably be hit by the mantis in that span of time. Slimes were truly despicable monsters, weren’t they? The mantis alone wasn’t much of a threat, but in tandem, the danger they posed rose significantly. I had heard stories about adventurers dying to their combo attack.
The mantis had a Physical Strength stat of C but its Endurance stat was quite low, so many adventurers could force their way through, but even so, casualties happened every now and then. Another reminder that dungeons were trying their best to kill us.
“…let’s explore in moderation…”
“Yes. Safety comes first, after all.”
My chest was still pounding out of fear so I said that.
After a total of 4 hours for both our morning and afternoon sessions, we called it a day. Regrettably, I didn’t get any Item Drops. On the bright side though, we managed to gather 10 Mandrakes. An adventurer would ordinarily gather about 5 or 6 in a day. Indeed, praise be to the great Layla.
…by the way, if I sold these Mandrakes, I could get 300 thousand yen for each one. That price made me hesitate for a moment. But then again, if I were to buy one, the price would likely soar to at least 500 thousand yen for each one. So, with a heavy heart, we decided to use all of them instead.
My parents weren’t home that night though, so Layla was able to comfort my grieving heart and blast my troubles away. My mind clear, I thought that life was more important than the money I would make from selling the Mandrakes anyway. I mean, once I die, I would lose everything. Which begs the question, why did people even have to fight…
* * *
The next morning was a pleasant one and I was perfectly fine both in body and mind, but I stuck to my decision of taking a day off so that we could prepare for emergencies. I say we, but Layla would be the one doing most of the work.
“Then, let us begin!”
“Yes, please, sensei!”
“…would you like to try some teacher-student role play later?”
“…yes, please, sensei!”
“Understood. But let’s save that for later.”
My heart throbbed in response to Layla’s teasing smile.
Damn it, my parents are in the living room right now, you know!
But enough about that. We were currently looking at the items on top of a blue tarpaulin spread in our home’s backyard.
The items were as follows:
2 chopped-up Mandrakes on a small dish
Rose seeds I bought online
mortar and pestle
portable gas stove
small pot
wooden spatula
liquid fertilizer
a plastic bottle filled with tap water
measuring cup
2 slightly large flat plates
Having calmed myself, I realized how perplexing this lineup of items were.
While I stood there like an idiot who possessed no magic knowledge at all, Layla beside me put the Mandrakes and the rose seeds in the mortar and sat with her legs crossed.
The hem of her mini-skirt was turned up and revealed her pretty thighs. Yes, bare skin between between her skirt and knee-high socks!
My eyes widened at the sight of it, but I had to restrain myself. As such, I asked permission to take a closer look at what she was doing.
There in the mortar was the mashed Mandrakes and rose seeds. When it looked like a light-brown grated yam, she stopped grinding and set the pot on the stove. She poured the water inside the bottle. By the way, she had put a marker on the bottle beforehand so that she knew just how much she should pour.
Next, she carefully poured the liquid fertilizer in the measuring cup into the pot.
Every now and then, she stirred the pot with the wooden spatula.
It was easy to imagine that anybody seeing this would ask why we were using something like liquid fertilizer. Layla’s answer to that was: “originally, I would have needed to boil a bunch of medicinal herbs, but this has every component we need. It’s very convenient!”
Modern technology sure was amazing.
Once the water had mixed well with the liquid fertilizer, she also poured in the mashed Mandrakes and seeds. She finally turned on the stove and once again stirred the pot.
“Oh, Water. Oh, Earth.”
While she stirred with her right hand, she held her left hand over the pot and said so. And then, faint green light poured out of her palm and into the pot. With normal methods, this process would produce nothing of note, but that was why we were employing magic as well.
After about ten minutes, she turned off the fire, let the residual heat in the pot warm its content for a bit longer, and then poured it into the flat plates. The finished product looked like some black clay.
“All that’s left is to knead them into pill the size of my fingertips and let those dry in sunlight. Would you like to give it a try?”
“Might as well make myself useful.”
And so, the clay-like thing was torn into smaller bits, kneaded, and then set on the other flat plate. Seeing what we made, Layla gave a satisfied nod.
“Now we just have to wait 3 days.”
“Ohh”
To be frank, I didn’t really get it, but things seemed to have gone well.
“We can use these to buy time in an emergency?”
“Yes! If you channel magic power and then throw it, it will rapidly grow into a bramble and wrap itself around the target. Alternatively, it can form a sort of barricade. I had somewhat improved its strength, so I believe we can use it to stall for time. It’s a single-use item though.”
“I see”
Oh, it’s that kind of magic pill.
Layla seemed to be able to make magic pills too with her Magic Tool Creation superpower, so it was certainly convenient.
By the way, the reason we didn’t use a Silver Apple was due to the nature of these things being disposable. Because it was very much likely that we would use these magic pills and then leave whatever sprung from it untouched, other people might figure out through one means or another the existence of Silver Apples. However slight the possibility might be, I didn’t want that to happen.
“Then, next we’ll make Warding Incense.”
“’kay”
I replied so while taking out the materials from my Item Bag.
I enjoyed watching her work more than I expected. I mean, I didn’t get what or why she was doing things, but that’s besides the point. It was more about the romance of watching raw materials get turned into magic tools or pills. Every healthy high school boy would surely agree.
But anyway, the Warding Incense we were about to make was especially incompatible with my Silver Apple.
Allow me to digress and talk about a certain Greek myth. More specifically, the one about Atalanta and the golden apples. There came a point in the huntress Atalanta’s life that she set a challenge to those who wished to marry her: they must best her first in a foot race. However, for a time, none has managed to outrun the quick-footed Atalanta. That was until a certain man dropped golden apples during their race, distracting her each time. After 3 apples, she lost the race and became his bride.
There was more to the story, but that was irrelevant to my point. And my point was that the golden apple in the story had the power to draw the attention of people.
Now, what I had were Silver Apples, but according to Layla it did potentially have a similar power to draw attention. She even warned me back when I materialized one for the very first time to not let anyone else catch sight of it.
We grew a Silver Apple tree every now and then, but Layla was always making modifications to the pot it was in. We also warned both my parents to not look at it.
Anyway, that was more or less the reason why we couldn’t use it an item that was meant to ward off monsters. If we tried, the magic power it possessed would attract them instead. Totally not what we wanted.
I thought about such things as I watched Layla make the incense. Indeed, not everything could be solved by my Silver Apples. …that said, the wooden spatula Layla had been using was made from the tree of a Silver Apple we grew. It seemed to be working well.
Also, I looked up how much Obstructing Brambles and Warding Incense went for. When I discovered it was for crazy prices, I seriously debated whether we should sell these. But, well, I kept that my secret. Besides, I likely wouldn’t be going back to that dungeon anytime soon. There would be even more people there and I might end up not gathering any Mandrakes at all.
I wish I can be allowed to grow my own Mandrakes at home.
Q: did the myths really say that golden apples had the power to attract the attention of people?
A: the myths in this work do…
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