Volume 3 Chapter 117: Searching the Forest IV (2/2)

The next day.

Today, we’ll be working on the elder treant again as a continuation of our work yesterday.

We’re done cutting off the branches, so today we’ll be digging out the roots and then cut them off.

“Hey, guys! Check this out!” [Ryouma]

But something unexpected happened.

When I dug out the roots with me and my earth slime’s earth magic, many rotted crates right under the elder treant appeared.

“What’s the matter?” [Syria]

“Did something happen?” Mizelia]

“It seems something has been buried here. Look.” [Ryouma]

“Are these… crates?” [Mizelia]

“There’s a lot, nyaa.” [Miya]

“Why would these things be buried here?” [Wereanna]

“For the mean time, let’s take a few of them out and see what’s inside, de aru.” [Raypin]

As Raypin-san said that, we carefully retrieved the crates and opened them.

Inside one of the crates were many cloudy-white-colored stones.

“What are these things?” [Ryouma]

“They’re magic stones, de aru。Used ones. When magic stones have mana, they’re transparent like a crystal, but when they run out of it, their color changes to that of a cloudy white. So all of these have already been used up, de aru.” [Raypin]

“…It might be a good idea to inform the guild about this.” [Mizelia]

“I’ll go ahead and inform them, de aru. You can keep digging and examining the crates, de aru.” [Raypin]

No one disagreed with him, so Raypin-san teleported back to town.

As for us, we recovered the rest of the crates one after another and opened them. Most of them were filled with used-up magic stones. But there were also some magic stones that haven’t been used up yet. Among those, we found some neutral-type and darkness-type magic stones.

We also found out why there were so many magic stones here.

“I’m back. Did anything happen, de aru?” [Raypin]

“Good day. I was sent by here by the guild… Eek!?” [???]

The girl Raypin-san brought back with him wanted to greet us, but because of that she saw the things by our feet.

I’m sure anyone would be shocked if they didn’t have the time to prepare themselves. After all, the things by our feet are corpses. Skeletons, in fact.

“T-Those are?” [Guild Girl]

“They were buried with the crates, de gozaru.” [Asagi]

Although their bodies have long rotten, it could still be seen from structure of the bones that they probably belonged to several men.

“They still have some of their belongings with them too.” [Ryouma]

“Thank you very much…” [Guild Girl]

“Are you alright?” [Ryouma]

“Oh, I’m okay with blood and wounds, it’s just corpses like these that I’m bad with… Sorry about that. Please let me help you.” [Guild Girl]

I examined the corpses’ belongings with the frightened girl, and from the ledger they had with them, we found out that they were magic stones merchants. The illegal sort. These magic stones were probably the goods they were smuggling.

We still don’t know if the reason they chose a place this deep into the forest was just for a deal or if this was were they hid their smuggled goods, but we do know that it was because th elder treant was able to suck so much mana from these magic stones that it was able to grow so big.

Its also likely that it was because of these stones that it was able to summon so many treants and even became able to use dark magic. The reason the elder treant couldn’t move from here was most likely because it couldn’t run away while carrying all these crates full of magic stones.

“Thank you for your cooperation. I’ll leave you to continue your work. Have a nice day!” [Guild Girl]

Looks like she just came here to check the situation rather than investigate. She looked like she was running when she left.

After watching her leave, we went back to work.

Now that the elder treant has been laid on its side, I had the iron slime and metal slimes turn into large saws, and with those we cut the elder treant apart and then stored it in my Dimension Home. With that, we’ve completed all that we needed to do at this town. Unfortunately, because of what we found at the end, the sense of accomplishment that we should be feeling has turned complicated.

And so…

“How about we drink today?” [Ryouma]

In order to get rid of that strange atmosphere, as well as reward ourselves for the job we’ve done until now, we decided to treat ourselves to a drink after supper. The place we would be drinking at was my Dimension Home.

“We still have to travel back to Gimuru, but at least, we’ve already secured the needed lumber. This job is as good as done. Tonight, let us toast, de gozaru. Cheers!” [Asagi]

“Cheers!” [Everyone Else]

At Asagi-san’s toast, we all started drinking and ate the snacks in front of us.

The snack we chose to go with our drink tonight is tempura.

Apparently, you could get a lot of wild vegetables at the forest where we hunted treants. There was a lot being sold at the town grocery.

Only Asagi-san knew about tempura, but I talked a lot with the others on our way here, so they were already interested in trying out Japanese cuisine.

What was even more surprising, though, was the fact that the people of this country apparently don’t have many opportunities to eat deep-fried food.

“And here I thought French fries were commonly sold considering the Founding Festival we just had recently.” [Ryouma]

“It’s not like we don’t have deep fried food, but you know how deep fried food wastes a lot of oil? Well, because of that it costs a lot of money, and it’s also a bit wasteful throwing all that oil away. To top it off, you can’t reuse the oil because they say it’s bad for your health.” [Syria]

“And if you don’t know how to cook well, you’ll end up starting a fire. That’s why that sort of cooking is usually eaten at festivals.” [Mizelia]

So that’s why people tend to avoid it at normal households…

I think that’s a bigger waste, though. Using a lot of oil is the right way to cook. And besides, the reason why reusing oil is bad for the body is because of the oxidation, but in my case, I can just use alchemy to separate oxygen from the oil, and as long as the oil is clean, I can use it again.

…In fact, even if it’s dirty, I could just use Alchemy to separate the filth from the oil and I could still use it. I know it’s a bit late for me to be saying this, but I just realized that I’ve been using alchemy for cooking like with oil and juices. I wonder, am I really using alchemy correctly? Well, it is convenient, so I don’t plan on stopping using it anytime soon.

“I gotta say though, Ryouma, your slimes sure are weird.” [Mizelia]

“Slimes are omnivorous, so I suppose it’s not that strange to see one drinking, de aru, but…” [Raypin]

“It’s really tasting it. It’s even eating snacks.” [Syria]

Right. On top of the 3 men and 4 women in here, we also had a special guest. Mr. Slime.

Ever since I gave it ale, it would approach me whenever I started drinking by myself. At first, I thought it was just like the slimes that drank water, but it jumped straight into my mug of ale.

I eventually made a sake cup especially for it, and then gradually, it got more and more used to drinking.

Lately, it would even pour for me by itself whenever my cup went empty, and it also started eating snacks.

While I was telling everyone that, the slime suddenly started shaking.

“Oh, could it be?” [Raypin]

“What’s going on, nyaa?” [Miya]

“The slime is evolving.” [Ryouma]

“Huh!?” [Kanan]

There’s no doubt about it. It’s evolving. When I told everyone that, all eyes gathered on the slime.

Just like the other slimes, it started releasing and sucking mana, then after about 10 minutes, it evolved.

“…It stopped, de aru.” [Raypin]

What kind of slime did it evolve into?

Drunk Slime

Skills:

Produce Alcohol (Ethyl) Lv4

Disease Resist Lv3

Absorb Lv1

Split Lv1

Divine Protection: Divine Protection of Tekun the God of Wine

…Wait just one moment. It drinks alcohol, so it’s fine that it’s called drunk slime. It also makes sense that it learned the new skill, Produce Alcohol (Ethyl). That makes perfect sense since it likes to drink alcohol. But why in the world did it also receive Tekun’s divine protection? Can you even give a slime a divine protection?

..Ah, whatever. I’ll just ask Tekun about later. For the mean time, let’s check its mana… Darkness, Water, and Wood, huh.

Raypin-san called out to me.

“Ryouma, what did it evolve into, de aru?” [Raypin]

“Ah, umm… It seems it evolved into a Drunk Slime. It also learned the Produce Alcohol (Ethyl) skill. It’s probably a skill to produce alcohol.” [Ryouma]

“So another weird slime, de aru?” [Raypin]

I took out a new mug and asked the slime to show off its new Produce Alcohol (Ethyl) skill. As expected, when the Drunk Slime started puking out its guts into the mug, the substance stank of alcohol.

According to the results of Identify, the slime puke was about 40% alcohol and was safe for human consumption. But…

“Fuu… It’s liquor, alright. But…” [Ryouma]

“But?” [Raypin]

“It’s all strength and no taste.” [Ryouma]

It’s not particularly tasty nor smelly, it’s not delicious too. This isn’t something you drink by itself. You gotta soak it with something like Japanese plum brandy or some fruits and turn it into a fruit wine of sort. Yes. This needs researching.

While I was thinking that, we toasted again to celebrate the slime’s evolution. And as we enjoyed ourselves with the liquor and the snacks, we concluded the day in pleasure.