Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, my workaholic father usually only returned from work late at night, and left early in the morning since I was a child--which is why I never really interacted with him for most of my childhood, except on holidays, when he would force us to go camping. I never thought that I would be in a similar position even before I got married.”

 

It’s been a while since our last journey with the wagon. We rode on the wagon while we were in the Duchy Capital, but the Duchy Capital main street with its neatly laid paving stones is very different to the undeveloped narrow roads in the back country.

 

Since the branch of the great river runs along the main road, there are only a few carriages that are traveling along here; most are transported by small boats on the river.

 

“Rattle.”

“Rattle!”

 

Pochi and Tama are looking awfully excited ever since we’ve left the town. They’ve been pulling and shaking my sleeves from both sides in a matching rhythm to the shaking of the wagon, so it’s hard to read a book--even using my menu.

 

“Jeez, just what do you girls find so fun?” Arisa asks.

 

“Don’t you know?”

“Arisa is still green.”

“She’s no good,”

 

“Ugh, so cheeky, even though your just Pochi and Tama,” She says this for the sake of saying it, and doesn’t mean to offend.

 

Seeing Lulu who’s been giggling while facing the road on the coachman’s seat since a while ago, it looks like she knows the reason.

 

“Lulu, don’t laugh, tell me if you know.”

 

“I can’t, since it’s a quiz, you can’t ask the answer from other people.”

 

Arisa is growling, when she hears Lulu’s reply--since Lulu used lines that Arisa usually says to others, she probably can’t rebut it.

 

However, I also don’t know, I guess I’ll ask for a hint.

 

“I’m sorry, Pochi and Tama--I also don’t know though?”

 

I pat the heads of the two, who look like puppies that have been betrayed by their master--It seems that I am the bad one here.

 

“Monopoly of Master!”

“It’s nice to be together.”

 

“I see.”

 

It hit me that when we were in the Duchy Capital, we hadn’t really been altogether besides during breakfast, and sometimes lunch, and sleep--as well as ‘nighttime activities’.

 

Since, during the latter half I was like an overworking father who came home late after everyone had gone to bed; I need to make sure to fix that--I won’t be like my father.

 

“Tek.”

 

Mia, who was scouting with Liza and Nana, comes back while riding the hornless-unicorn. She is carefree as she leaps from the back of the hornless-unicorn, so I lean out a bit and catch her easily, giving her a quick hug and putting her down on the wagon.

 

“Master, a fallen tree is blocking the road up ahead.”

 

“Master, the way the tree has fallen looks unnatural. It feels like it’s artificial.”

 

The fallen tree is probably the handiwork of thieves to stop carriages. Since I found the thieves on top of the low hill a small distance from the highway when Liza and the others went scouting, I’ve already dealt with them with Magic Arrow--Magic is convenient after all.

 

“Pochi, Tama, change into your work clothes. Let’s remove the fallen tree.”

 

“Roger!”

“Hear hear.”

 

I told Liza that I would remove the fallen tree with Magic, but since she wanted to use the tree as training, by likening it to a Monster, I changed my mind.

 

This is just right to check the performance of everyone’s Magic Swords.

 

“Master, I wish for charging.”

“You can’t?”

 

“Tama is right, if you don’t charge it with your own Magic, it won’t be training.”

 

No one can use Magic Edge like Liza, but Tama and Nana are able to charge Magic into their swords without a problem. However, Pochi is the only one who’s having a hard time with it.

 

According to Arisa’s investigation, it’s not only because she’s short on MP, but she also needs to instantly operate a large amount of Magic, so it’s not going well for her.

 

Although, there isn’t any difference between the MP of Tama and Pochi.

 

“Yay, it’s done!” Pochi yells joyfully.

 

She has finally managed to put Magic into the short Magic Sword, and turns me with a ‘praise me’ aura. So I praise her, “You’ve done well”, while stroking her hair--her tail is waving so hard that Tama is frowning while holding her skirt down.

 

“First will be Nana. ‘Shell’.” Nana said, after taking a glance back at me, to which I nodded. She uttered the Command Word: ‘Shell’.

 

After filling the sword with Magic Power, once you recite the Command Word, the Magic Circuit carved on the sword will activate. ‘Shell’ generates a cylindrical Magic Field around the length of the Magic Sword.

 

Although the sizes of the Magic Swords of Nana, Pochi, and Tama are different, they all have the Magic Circuit.

 

It’s a Magic Circuit that’s normally put into shields and armour, but you can use a sword as a blunt weapon with it. It’s useful for if you wish to fight Undead, Monsters with acidic blood--so I try to experiment with it.

 

Nana displays the raised physical strength from the Physical Reinforcement Nature Magic by wielding a shield that’s larger than whole body, as well as a one-handed sword.

 

With just a single strike from Nana, a fallen tree, the size of three of my waists, is snapped right in half.

 

“Second turn, Tama’s going.”

“Third turn, Pochi!”

 

Tama is wielding two short-swords now, due to the influence of the Martial Tournament. She can swing them while keeping her balance, so skilled that you won’t think that she doesn’t actually have the Duel-Wielding Skill.

 

Pochi keeps the same style as before, using a one-handed short-sword, and a small shield.

 

Tama skillfully utilizes the weight of the two Magic short-swords, no, she’s utilizing the inertia from her assaults, striking the fallen tree as if dancing. Each of her strikes is only about 20-30% as strong as Nana’s, but since she’s hitting a lot--she cuts the thin branches in succession.

 

Pochi simply wields the short-sword and charges ahead. She’s powered up with the Heavy Blow Skill. Yet, it’s only about as strong as Nana, I wonder if it’s because of her physique, or her weapon.

 

“Fourth turn, Magic Edge, Heavy Blow.” Liza chants her skills, and then attacks in a low posture, while leaving red trails of light. The reason why she doesn’t use the Thrusting Skill is probably because in this case striking damage is more important than piercing.

 

However, spears have too much piercing power after all, she only leaves a big hole in the fallen tree, unlike Nana and the others who’ve smashed the tree.

 

I should discuss with Mara about making an attachment for Liza’s spear for when she’s fighting an enemy with piercing resistance.

 

Thinking about Mara, that reminds me--she asked to stay in the Capital when we visited the Bornean Forest. I don’t know if it’s common for Dwarves, but she feels uncomfortable around Elves. Well, she was fine with Mia, because of me, but a lot of Elves would make her nervous. Of course, I granted her the permission--I could also visit her at any time with Arisa’s Teleportation abilities.

 

With Mia’s Balloon Magic and Arisa’s Repulsion Magic, the fallen tree, that’s been torn into pieces, are removed from the road.

 

***

“Do you guys have some business in the village?”

 

“No, we don’t plan to stop by in particular. It looks like some things have been burned, did some thieves attack?”

 

When we were passing near a farming village, we got challenged by some armed farmers. The farmer who stops us has some burn injuries, the farmers behind him don’t seem to be burned. In addition, their weapons are all crudely made, possibly even improvised. Things like wooden spears with only the tips shaved, or spears with smashed obsidian stones as their tips.

 

There is hatred and fear in the eyes of the farmers.

 

“I-It was someone even worse than thieves--it was, a noble.” The young man announced, sounding like he was vomiting. I feel some glances from a house quite a distance away--there are likely women and children sheltered within.

 

“Was it a noble from around here?”

 

“No, I had never seen them before. He asked if we were hiding beastmen, when we told him we didn’t know--he burned our houses with Magic, and threatened us to confess.”

 

A noble who uses Fire Magic who’s searching for beastmen.

 

It reminds me of someone. The foreign noble who had tried to buy the white Tigerkin Princess in the dark auction. Since I don’t remember his name, I search for him by limiting the range to around the neighbouring town from here. It looks like he’s staying in the town of Puta, which is the one we happen to be heading to--let’s mark him, it’ll be troublesome if he mistakenly attacks Tama.

 

“That’s unfortunate. We also have to be careful not to get involved. These are thanks for the information, please accept it.” As I speak, I take out three Lower-Ranked Potions from the wagon, and pass them to the young man. Since he looked doubtful, I told him that they’re cheap Potions, and then we departed before he could say anything else.

 

“You’re quite generous, eh?” Arisa looks at me with a smile.

 

“They’re leftovers from when I was mass producing military-use Magic Potions, from an alchemy book I bought. But they’re not inferior to lower-ranked Potions that are on the market.” I rolled my eyes at here.

 

Arisa just smirked at me and then looked back out of the wagon.

 

They were the result of when I didn’t have enough materials, or if I omitted a step. I usually make them 20 times more diluted than the complete product from the Alchemy Book that I bought from the dark auction.

 

***

Three days after we depart the riverside town, which we had stayed the night after seeing the farming village that had been build, we can finally see the town of Puta at last. This town is filled with people called Magic Hunters that work by hunting Monsters to collect their Magic Cores--even though it sounds like the job will produce powerful people, most of them are not higher than level 25. In this territory, there are several towns where Magic Hunters gather.

 

I’ve learned the circumstances of this area around here from one of the workers in the Scroll Workshop. She began complaining when the Magic Cores had arrived from Puta, that they were small and had a low purity.

 

Around the forest near Puta town, there are eight nests with about 100 Goblinkin each, they are situated around 10 kilometers apart from each other. There are small nests with about a dozen Goblinkin all around the place--it seems that they’re probably hunted regularly, so that they neither become too many or too few.

 

Humans don’t seem to be the only ones hunting Goblinkin, various snake, lizard and frog Monsters are loitering around near the nests. Even now, there seem to be several parties of Magic Hunters that are hunting Goblinkin, loitering around in the forest.

 

One of those parties seems to have just been returning to Puta town, and from what we can see from here, they’re having some kind of trouble.

 

Good grief--there’s a lot of trouble in this world.