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Chapter 084: Identity of the earth tremor
Translator: Tseirp
Almost instantly, a herd of monsters capable of causing the earth to rumble appeared.
We first caught glimpses of wild animals before catching sight of wolves and the fixture of all fantasy settings, the greenish small humanoids, goblins.
“Forest wolves and goblins, orcs and trolls … there’s quite a number … but …”
As soon as I heard Lionel mutter that, the elves caused a diversion with their bows, reducing the speed of the Forest wolves’ approach as Cathy jumped out.
“I’ll take the troll so I leave the goblins and orcs to you.”
“I’ll stop their momentum.”
Lionel held his large shield and advanced while Paula controlled a 3 meter class golem and entered combat.
“Luciel-sama, please concentrate on applying 「Heal」 remotely. I will crush any monster that approach.”
Said Dolan as he readied his large axe and stood in front of me.
The lives of the goblin and forest wolf monsters scattered every time Cathy passed them by.
With every swing of Lionel’s greatsword, the torso of the monsters larger than him slid off, spurting out blood as the body collapsed, burning in bright red flames.
The golem sent the orcs flying with jumping kneepad attacks while, for some reason, without any fans present, touched its left elbow and held its left arm high, signalling with its index and pinkie finger as it ran around excitedly defeating monsters with a lariat, before holding both feet of its opponent and switching to a giant swing. As it mowed down the trees, the advancing enemy’s speed was further reduced. (TL: The golem pretty much did all iconic wrestling moves.)
“I’ll show you now that I’m more useful than dwarves. 【Spirits who dwell in the trees, accept my call, in exchange for my magic, bind the evil monsters.】
“The forest is the domain of the elves. I will not lose to the dwarf girl. 【Spirits of the wind, in exchange for my magic, become a wind blade that cleaves through the evil monsters.】
“Wah~ the 2 of you are amazing. I’ll stick to using arrows.”
When Milfeene chanted her spirit magic, the tree roots and branches wrapped around the legs and torso of the monsters, stopping their movements.
Then, Rician’s wind blades passed through, mincing up the monsters as Crecia’s arrows rapidly struck between the eyebrows and on the monster’s torsos.
Within that chaos, there still were monsters that broke through but Kefin and the others properly dealt with them.
I applied purification magic on the forest to remove the heavy stench of blood as I collected the monsters that were the source of the smell.
As I was collecting the monsters, I pondered about the earth tremor.
(There was without a doubt a great number of monsters but isn’t it weird that the earth tremor persisted for such a long duration with that number? Unless …)
Thinking up to that point, I inadvertently looked back and noticed that the number of trees clearly increased.
“Dolan, the surrounding number of trees increased. There’s a possibility that they are monsters.”
“What? But I can’t recognize any.”
There’s a chance that everyone did not notice treants mix in with the trees during the battle.
However, thinking that calling out to the others would upturn the precious advantageous situation we had now, I rotated my head a full turn and thought of a solution.
“Dolan, hold on to this.”
“Unuu … I’m grateful.”
Dolan stopped breathing and hesitated for a brief moment before he obediently received it and immediately installed it.
I took out Object X and the sound of the rumbling earth stopped.
“If it’s a treant, I’ll try slashing at it with this illusionary sword. Dolan, protect me with a shield.”
Tying the barrel of Object X onto my body, I transformed the illusionary cane into an illusionary sword and attacked the tree assuming it was a treant.
Channelling magic into the sword, it glowed palely and a red membrane appeared around the outside.
“… Now that I remember, the Flame Dragon said something about gifting me with something like a blessing.”
I murmured as I sliced at the tree in front of my eyes.
The next instant, 『Gugyaaaaa』, a death throe rang out as pale flames emerged from where I cut and the treant collapsed with a thud.
I felt no resistance from the slash at all.
While thinking about what a cheat-like equipment I was holding on to, I steadily cut down more treants as I stored them into my magic bag.
“What an amazing performance.”
Dolan did not mutter that when he saw me cut down the treants, instead he said that when he saw that the blade could not slice through normal trees when I accidentally slashed them.
Although it so easily sliced through treants, it only left a slight wound on normal trees and could not fell them.
Seeing me apply 「Heal」 on the trees after I accidentally wounded the trees, Dolan closed his eyes and said.
“It is defective as a weapon since it can only destroy monsters but it has unparalleled strength against monsters … no, if the compatibility is bad as well then …”
“Dolan come back to reality. We’re still in battle okay.”
Calling out to Dolan who was gradually sucked into the vortex of thought, the elf girls defeated the treants approaching him and confirmed their surroundings before falling to their knees perhaps due to magical power exhaustion.
As usual, Lionel and Cathy trampled on the monsters with a grin on their faces but I felt that the numbers had become considerably less.
“We’ll gather our forces before slowly retreating.”
I told Dolan as I cleansed the route without any monsters and collected the corpses of the monsters.
“It’s about time we retrieve the 2 of them before we return to the outskirts of the forest.”
When I called out to Lionel and Cathy, the 2 of them battled even more wildly and began to forcibly defeat the monsters as if to not let any of the monsters to escape, causing the monsters to gradually fear the 2 of them and flee.
“The 2 of them are definitely a class of their own.”
I muttered as I collected the monsters. After purifying the battleground, I felt the feeling of magical power depletion that I had not felt for a long time and announced that we would be resting outside the forest.
“Luciel-sama, what’s been bothering you from a while ago?”
“I’ve just been thinking about a few things … Kefin, this forest is undeveloped land right?”
“Yes.”
I asked Milfeene as well but I could not completely collect my thoughts.
“Lionel, did you see any unusual monsters?”
It was the first time I saw goblins and orcs so I could not judge if they were unusual and I asked Lionel.
” … The trolls and mandrakes usually only appear in forests with dense miasma so if you ask me, those are unusual.”
Touching his beard that had grown a little lately, Lionel answered after a slight pause but as expected, goblins and orcs are common.
“We’ve only delved quite shallow into the forest so the monsters might only be a small number but … doesn’t this mean that it’s a scam to attract adventurers to this land?”
“I believe it depends on what we say to attract them … but we might not be able to earn that much.”
“I think we should confirm with Ienith’s Adventurer’s Guild once we return.”
“I guess that would be a better choice.”
Later, I found out that apparently Kefin and the others entered the Flame Dragon labyrinth to level up and their boss Dollarstar forbade them from entering the undeveloped forest.
Then, I realised that the elves had strange looks on their faces.
“Is something the matter?”
“I feel like I’m somehow being held back.”
“By the … spirits?”
“No, but for some reason, I feel slightly sad when I try to leave.”
“Same for me as well. This is a first for me.”
The 3 elves said as they looked at the forest.
We directed our gaze at the forest as well but none of us had similar feelings.
” … There might be something present. However, we should get some rest for now. The magical power of the 3 of you are slightly depleted right?”
Confirming their nods, we began walking and soon exited from the forest.
“After the rest, Kefin squad and Yarubo squad will swap missions. Milfeene and girls please rest until just past noon. Dolan and Paula, help me with the dismantling of the monsters. Lionel and Cathy, I leave the lecturing of Kefin and the others to you.”
Kefin and the others turned pale upon hearing that.
Lionel and Cathy had really fine grins as they headed toward Kefin and the others.
We harvested 102 trees and 9 treants so it could be said to be a sizeable achievement for a duration of 2 hours but … Dolan dug a hole and retrieved magic stones from the inedible goblins and trolls before tossing them into the hole.
“Looks like there are a lot of magic stones with wind and water attributes and also those that don’t have any attributes.”
“I see. I wanted to do something about the corpses that remained but this is a happy miscalculation.”
“Bonus confirmed.”
Paula looked excitedly at the magic stones and chirped in.
“It does not only belong to you. I am also developing items as well.”
Rician lashed out at Paula so I quickly left the place. Dolan and the 2 of them resumed the dismantling job.
“Isn’t there a bit too many monsters?”
“This is all that is left so there’s no problem.”
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
“Understood. In exchange, please be generous with the meat.”
“Yeah. Hey~ There’s no better time for it so we’ll be having a barbecue!”
We soaked the meat in hot water once to remove the smell before mixing in spices and grilling them.
The elves could then also eat the meat with that pre-treatment, adding in and grilling the vegetables that we bought, we enjoyed a great barbecue.
After the barbecue meal and rest, my magical power was almost completely recovered.
While preparing to once again enter the forest, I was troubled with letting the 3 elves rest in the carriage or not due to their magical power depletion but it seemed like their magical power also pretty much recovered and they requested to tag along with the search.
“Alright. But don’t push yourselves.”
『Yes!』
Thus, I once again began exploration accompanied by the girls.
This decision resulted in an encounter that would influence Luciel’s life but that is a story of the distant future.
Author’s Note:
Thank you for reading.
The end of the year was supposed to be a break but it didn’t happen …
Thanks for doing this chapter!