‘Hey. Do you know what kind of trees are good for firewood?’

I looked at the many trees outside of the town and asked the slimes.

However…

‘I don’t know!’

‘I don’t know either!’

I did not receive a good answer.

Well, it wasn’t like slimes or wolves went around burning firewood. So it was to be expected.

So I decided to just cut down a random tree.

“Uhhh…magic that is good for cutting trees…”

I searched through my inventory of magic for something that would help me.

And then I found something called ‘Axe Summon.’

That was exactly what I needed to cut down trees.

“Axe Summon.”

I chanted. And then a large axe appeared in front of me.

To be honest, I would have preferred a chainsaw, but there was no ‘Chainsaw Summon,’ so this would have to do.

‘This might be dangerous, so stand back.’

‘Understood!’

‘Okay!’

I told the slimes and the wolf to move back before I started.

After all, I had never cut down a tree before.

Even if I was able to cut it down, I wasn’t sure which way it would fall.

Most people in Japan don’t have the opportunity to hold an axe.

“…Like this?”

I muttered as I held it like a baseball bat.

…It didn’t seem exactly right, but hopefully, my skills would cover for me.

After all, an axe was still a weapon. Perhaps ‘Ultra Combat Art’ would give me a nice boost.

I thought about this as I swung the axe horizontally, with a baseball-like form.

And then…with a satisfying sound, the axe went one-third of the way into the tree.

…This was clearly due to Ultra Combat Arts.

The tree I was trying to cut was at least 50cm thick. It wasn’t something a novice could easily cut down.

With that in mind, I pulled it out and swung again towards the place I had just cut.

The blade of the axe went right into the gap and the trunk of the tree was severed completely.

Ultra Combat Art sure was useful…

And then the tree fell.

Thankfully, it did not fall towards me, and I quickly prepared to turn it into firewood.

The first thing to do was to cut off the branches.

“…Like this…?”

I muttered as I swung the axe without really thinking.

When using the axe, you could rely on Ultra Combat Art to take care of aiming.

It was almost scary that randomly swinging the axe worked with this skill.

I continued to swing the axe without really thinking, and the log was cut into pieces of just the right size before being split vertically.

…Eventually, I had something that looked just like firewood.

I thought this would be really hard work, but it was easier than expected.

Well, it would have been hard had I not had this skill.

Now, all I had to do was dry them out.

And so I looked through my magic again.

But…I couldn’t find anything that seemed useful.

Altering magic was used mostly for changing the shape of wood or metal, and wouldn’t help dry them out.

You would think that magic to dry things would be quite common…but apparently, there hadn’t been anything like that in the books I read.

And all my knowledge of magic came from those books.

There were so many of them, that I wasn’t even aware of all of them.

…Oh, well. I guess I could use fire magic.

If I used something like Hellfire of Death, there wouldn’t even be ashes left, but maybe there was something else that could help dry them.

That being said, it seemed a little silly to use fire magic for a long time just to acquire fuel…

Still, I searched for some fire magic I could use…

And then I had the idea of checking my Tamer Skills instead.

And then I found something at once.

— ‘Slime Water Absorption.’

It was apparently a slime exclusive skill. And it absorbed water.

If I could use this on the firewood, then all of my problems would be solved.

‘Do you know a skill called Slime Water Absorption?’

‘No.’

‘We have to drink water?’

‘Is the water good?’

The slimes were not aware of this skill.

They had used Slime Storage without me even telling them to, but it seemed like it was different with Slime Exlclusive skills.

Well, I guess I should try it then.