After a delightful and comfortable sleep in Karen’s arms, the next morning arrived. We went through our usual routine of me refusing to leave Karen’s warm embrace before we decided what to do about yesterday’s little surprise.
Well, honestly, there wasn’t much of a choice other than calling for Korwen and Ria. Especially Ria, since she might know… what the heck was actually going on with that pitfall.
“Mm… Mmm....”
And now, the four of us stood right in the room of tentacles, waiting for Ria to finish inspecting the pitfall.
“Mmm…”
“... Miss Ria?”
“Mm…”
Ignoring Karen’s call, Ria kept staring at the pitfall, touching it, throwing things inside and the like. She had been doing this for several minutes already. The longer it took, the more nervous I felt, awaiting her judgement.
It took a few more minutes until Ria finally stood up and faced us again.
“Mmm… It’s… not an illusion…”
“... Yes?”
Karen tilted her head at the out-of-place statement. Seeing how we could touch it and even jump inside, it was quite obviously not an illusion. Not sure why she had to go out of her way to state the obvious.
“Mm… I admit… I have… no idea… what it is…”
“... None at all?” I asked for confirmation.
“None… It is… likely… Space Magic… But… I don't… really know…”
“I see…”
That was unexpected… There was actually something she didn’t know about either.
“Is Space Magic that unusual, Miss Ria?”
“It is… Space Magic is… very rarely… used by… humanoids… There are… a few monsters.... who use it… Or rather… we believe… they use it…”
They believed they used it… So they couldn’t really confirm it?
“Most magic… requires a certain… amount of knowledge… of the phenomena… you want… to invoke… But… space is… barely understood… And only… very few are… able to use… it… Spirit Magic… is the sole… exception…”
Spirit Magic, huh… The more often I heard about it the more amazing it felt… Like, couldn’t it do just about everything? And yet, it seemed that Spirit Magic was also rather rare.
“Ria. That’s all fine and dandy but I have two questions. First: Is this magic safe to use?”
“Mmm… It does… seem to be… stable… Captain… It’s not… Yumi who… controls this… But these… tentacles… Monsters who… use this… type of magic… do so by… instinct… Or… No...”
She stopped for a moment, furrowing her brows…
“It might be… closer to… how we breathe… We do so… automatically… There is… no need to worry… about controlling it... “
“In other words, you believe there is little chance of it going out of control or somehow breaking apart or whatever else could happen with magic?”
“That is… correct…”
“Mh. I see.”
He nodded a few times in confirmation.
“Then, the other question: What would happen if this wagon moves?”
“Move… you say? Move… I think… It should stay… fixed on this… floor?”
“Mh. Then, could this be used for transporting the ogre?”
“...”
The.. ogre? Wait, he wanted to transport it with this pitfall?
“Mm… No… I don’t think… that is… possible…”
“Why?”
“Mm… Karen… Yumi… Could you… demonstrate?”
“Eh? Demonstrate?”
“Nn? What do you mean?”
What did she want us to demonstrate now?
“Mh… Karen gets… trapped and… tries to escape… And Yumi… tries to… prevent it...”
“Ahh…”
How the heck was I supposed to prevent that, though? Did she want me to transfo— No, wait… Maybe I could remotely take control of this pitfall?
“I’m fine with that but… Yumi?”
“Nn… I think it should be doable for me to take control of it.”
I squatted down and tried to perceive the pitfall’s mana. Which was done quicker than I expected. Maybe I was slowly getting the hang of things. Either way, I took hold of the mana and sure enough, the pitfall was under my control.
“The opening closed, huh… You know, for a pitfall it’s kind of visible, though.”
“Captain… It’s not like that because I wanted it to… Ah, but maybe the tentacles around it can cover it up.”
Then it should be pretty hard to see if the surroundings were also full of tentacles.
“Sis. Do you want to jump in by yourself?”
“If possible… I don’t really want to step on something I know is going to give in…”
“Nn, okay.”
Relatable.
I opened the pitfall again so that Karen could jump inside.
“Then, here I go. Ho!”
With a cute yelp, she jumped inside. Honestly, while not wanting to step on the opening was one thing, she sure was brave to jump into such a weird space. Even if Ria said it was fine, something inside me just screamed at how ridiculous this was.
But everything seemed to be okay. Karen was inside the pitfall—inside the weird space—once more.
“Yumi, should I just come out now or are you going to do anything?”
“Nn? Ah, wait… Uhm… let me see…”
How to prevent her from escaping, huh… That was easier said than done…
Okay, let’s try this… I hope this will work.
There wasn’t much I could do in that pitfall. I could only close the opening and attempt to restrain her with the tentacles inside the pitfall. But the normal tentacles would never be able to restrain her. But, maybe those strong ones could? With that thought in mind, I tried to change the tentacles inside the pitfall to exactly these strong ones.
“Ohh? Ohhh?”
A surprised sound came from Karen, seeing how the tentacles attempted to restrain her now inside the darkened pitfall.
“Mhm, that is a little... Yumi, is it okay if I use all my strength? I might hurt the tentacles… Actually, I don’t think I can get out without severely damaging them...”
“Eh? All your strength? Uhh…”
If she used all her strength… and would severely damage them… wasn't she going to rip them apart? I… I wasn’t sure I could stand seeing that… Actually, I didn’t even know what was going to happen if those tentacles were ripped apart… And what if she accidentally destroyed the pitfall and the magic there?
“Mm… Karen… Do it…”
“Miss Ria? Is it fine?”
“Mm…”
“Ria… Uhhh... Sis, it’s... Okay… I think?”
If Ria said she should do it… Well… I dearly hoped nothing would go wrong there. I’d like to trust Ria about this but I couldn’t help but worry.
No. No, after all, I couldn’t risk something happening to her! I had to sto—
“Then here I go.”
Before I could do anything, the unpleasant sound of something being ripped apart echoed in my ears. Then, with surprising force, the pitfall opening broke open and Karen jumped out. Covered in pink blood. The sight made me feel faint a little.
“Mm… As expected… It’s too easy… to escape from…”
“I actually feel a little… Yumi, are those tentacles okay? Mm? Yumi?”
“Ah? Ehh… What?”
“The tentacles. Are they okay? I did, uhm… hurt them a little.”
Snapping back to reality, I processed Karen’s question now. The tentacles. Right… The pitfall seemed to be stable but what about the tentacles inside? I totally hadn’t expected Karen to be… using that much brute force.
“Nn, let me… Huh?”
The opening of the pitfall… had already recovered and looked exactly the same as before. I opened the pitfall and peeked inside…
Yeah… It looked the same as before?
“There’s… nothing wrong with them?”
“Eh? No way.”
But there were no damaged tentacles at all inside the pitfall nor any blood.
“I didn’t hold back, though…”
“Nn… Did they… recover that fast?”
“Seems like it…”
Scary… They recovered just as fast as my hair did, didn’t they?
“I see. Certainly, if Karen can escape this easily, then there’s no way the ogre couldn’t. But, Ria, what if the ogre is bound already? The biggest problem was that it might thrash around.”
“Mmm… It might… work…”
“Might work, huh. That’s better than nothing. Okay, if we don’t find an alternative, we’ll go with this plan, Ria.”
“Understood… Captain…”
“You heard that, Yumi?”
They were… going to use this pitfall? To transport the ogre?
“Yumi.”
“Ah! Yes, I did! I understand, Captain!”
“Good.”
He nodded with a satisfied expression.
“Now then, I still have work to do so let’s quickly get to the next point. Yumi, Karen, were you planning on joining Fenna’s mission?”
“Eh? Ah, yes. We were planning to go to her before breakfast…”
“Mm… I think it should be fine if it's Fenna’s squad.”
“Nn?”
I tilted my head at the weird murmur.
“I’ll talk with Fenna after this. Yumi, try to get some experience in making use of these abilities there. Whether it is this pitfall or something else.”
“Experience…”
“Yes. There’s no point if you know what you can do if you don’t know how to apply them. And experience is the best teacher for this. Fenna and her squad are trustworthy and shouldn’t babble about whatever you do.”
“I see…”
Experience, huh. That… That was true. Maybe if I had had more experience, I could have defended myself properly against Yumelia without being saved by the Elder. As it was right now… I probably really needed it, huh…
“Ah, also… Just in advance but you shouldn’t worry about leaving behind evidence or stuff like that. Nobody is going to link a pitfall filled with tentacles to a mercenary group. Not in a cave that was inhabited by ropers anyway.”
“I… I see…”
I hadn’t even thought that far ahead yet… Actually, I didn’t even know if I could just place a pitfall right there… I’d need some mana crystals for that first, anyway.
Still, it would probably worry me once we were there, so it was reassuring to hear it in advance.
“Now, before I forget, one last thing. Yumi, how much mana can you put into those pink crystals? Or rather, how many of those small mana crystals can be turned into a single pink crystal?”
“Eh? I don’t quite know how many… why?”
“Mm… Word got around that we were buying up the mana crystals that are mostly considered worthless and a merchant approached us. He has a huge amount of those mana crystals he wants to get rid of and is selling them for pretty much a pittance as long as we buy up everything.”
I had a bad feeling about this…
“... How much is everything?”
“Way too much. Even if we tried to make as much space as possible, we wouldn’t even be able to store half of it. Maybe not even a third.”
“Ahhh… so you want me to make more of the pink mana crystals to save on space?”
“Exactly. Good thing you’re so quick on the uptake.”
Great... That sounded like a lot of work.
“Well, it’s not like you have to do it immediately, but the faster, the better.”
“Nn… I understand. Captain, may I ask what you even paid for them?”
“Three bronze coins per crate.”
Wow.
That was… pretty much nothing.
“But we had to buy up everything for that price. Since it seemed like a worthwhile investment I bought them all up. Hahaha!”
No, that wasn’t something to laugh at. Okay, maybe it was from his perspective. But if it was that much… That meant dozens over dozens of crates, right? I didn’t even want to imagine dealing with that…
“Anyway, I lingered here already for too long. Fenna is probably with her squad right now, so go over to her. Also, don’t forget to tell Merim that you two are joining them so he can deal with the duty plan. We probably won’t see each other until you are back so… Mm...”
Korwen furrowed his brows, then grinned mischievously.
“Karen! Yumi! Line up!”
“Eh? Ah, yes!”
“Yes?!”
“Mm. You have a mission to fulfil, understood?”
“”Yes!””
“Then, go out there and make the Dragon Knights proud! Good Luck!”
Karen and I froze, staring at him dumbfounded. We exchanged a quick glance, then grinned.
“Yes, Captain!”
“Yes, Mr Captain!”
Seeing our response, Korwen laughed out loud, then pressed his large hands down on our heads.
“But don’t forget. Your own lives have priority. Come home alive.”
“Nn, understood.”
“Yes, Mr Captain.””
“Good. I’ll be looking forward to hearing the report.”
With those words he walked past us, still laughing, and left the wagon.
“Mm… He’s… in a good… mood…”
“Is he?”
“He is… anyway… I too… wish you… good luck… Ahh… do you mind… if I… research these… in your absence?”
“The tentacles? I don’t mind…”
“Mm… Thank you…”
If it was Ria, she might find something we had overlooked after all… Although… Hopefully, she didn’t blow up the wagon… She wasn’t going to… right?
“But… I am going… to get… breakfast now… So… Until you… come back…”
“Nn, bye, Ria.”
“Until then, Miss Ria.”
And Ria left as well, with significantly slower steps than Korwen.
“Yumi.”
“Nn? What is it, Sis.”
“Let’s do our best.”
“Nn.”
After our meeting with Korwen and Ria, we had gone to Fenna and talked with her about joining the reconnaissance team. She happily accepted. There was just one problem.
“We’re… walking?”
“Yes. We’re walking.”
“I… I see…”
The cave was quite far away and it’d take approximately half a day to get there on foot. The whole reconnaissance mission was expected to last a total of three days barring any issues.
The first day we’d walk there, set up camp and make a preliminary search of the cave and the surroundings.
The second day would be mostly spent with a thorough reconnaissance or even the extermination of the ropers should there be no nest mother.
And the final day would be the return trip.
That’s going to take a lot longer than I had expected…
I thought the whole thing could be done within a day… And now it turned out that I had guessed wrong.
“We have a lot of time, so if you can’t take it anymore, don’t hold back and tell us. Understood?”
“Nn…”
I really didn’t want to hold everyone back though… Well, it wasn’t like we were running there, so I should be fine anyway. I walked most of the day back in the slums as well and it was fine.
Afterwards, we had breakfast—where we found Merim and informed him as well—and then went back to the wagon to prepare for the trip.
“Yumi, are you sure you’ll be fine?”
“Nn… I hope so…”
“I’ll carry you if you can’t walk anymore, so tell me when it gets bad, okay?”
“Nn…”
Back at the wagon, we dressed ourselves. In gear. Well, I was in gear. Karen only had some random assortment of mercenary clothing for now. Meanwhile, I was wearing the armour dress again. And only now I remembered the problem…
It’s heavy…
The armour dress was, after all, armoured. And weighed quite a bit. Honestly, it wasn’t so heavy that I was unable to leisurely walk around. Alas, walking around the entire day with this might be a slightly different issue.
“Nn, I wish I had at least decent shoes…”
“Ahh… But there’s not much we can do about that, is there? Not until we can enter the city again.”
“Nn…”
I had gotten some old hand-me-down shoes from Mrs Korwen, replacing the oversized sandals I used to wear. But even so, these shoes were more of an emergency solution since neither were they a good fit nor were they made with the intent of mercenary work. Instead, these were made for children that were playing around.
I’d have to visit a proper shoemaker sometime in the future to get proper ones.
Karen was luckier than me though. Unlike me she wasn’t a midget, so the mercenaries had some fitting shoes that were her size.
“Haaa… If I can’t bear with it, I’ll tell you.”
“Oh? You’re surprisingly honest.”
“Nn… It’s better than me collapsing or hurting myself, right?”
I already knew that I wasn’t as strong as Karen. Neither was I a properly trained mercenary. My stamina was absolutely horrible and I was physically rather weak. Of course, I wanted to change that. But things didn’t change from one day to the next so for now, I had to live with this.
“Huh... “
“Nn? Something wrong?”
“No, just a bit surprised. And happy, I guess?”
“... Why happy?”
“Mm… Because I might get to carry you around?”
“...”
If it made her that happy, maybe I should just ask her to carry me from the beginning?
No, seriously though… She just wanted to have an excuse to grope me all she could, didn’t she? I bet that was it.
“Haaa… Do we have everything?”
“I think we have packed everything else we need. You only need to finish whatever you wanted to try out.”
“Nn.”
Korwen had reminded me of something earlier. The mana at my disposal was rather lacking so I had to compensate with mana crystals for it. But space was, of course, a little problem. I couldn’t carry a few dozen mana crystals around and until now, it was Karen who always carried some. Which had proven to be rather fatal when Yumelia appeared, since Karen hadn’t been with me at the time.
“Nn… Let’s see… We really used up quite a lot of them already, haven’t we?”
The crate I was peeking in had already lost a substantial amount of mana crystals… Well, seeing that Korwen had apparently bought an enormous amount already, there was probably no point in me trying to save any.
“What are you going to do, Yumi?”
“Nn, I want to make a mana egg and store as much mana inside as I can.”
“... Is that going to be fine?”
“... Probably. I mean, that mana crystal Lily showed me before contained a huge amount of mana. So it’ll probably be okay.”
Mana crystals could contain enormous amounts of mana, according to Ria. Their size and hardness differed with more mana, but even the largest ones could still be carried by a single person. All the while having enough mana to devastate the continent. Truly scary.
“Okay, let’s start.”
I scooped up a few mana crystals and transferred the mana into one of them, creating the initial mana egg. Then I scooped up more, transferred the mana again and repeated the process. Then repeated it again and again and again… and again… and again… and…
This is too slow!
The mana egg took the mana without any problem but it was just a really slow process… At this rate we wouldn’t even finish with one crate before we had to leave.
Okay, let’s do it this way.
Instead of scooped up the mana crystals… I dumped the mana egg into the crate. Yeah, this was better. Now I could just drag the mana into the mana egg from inside the crate. Perfect. And a lot faster.
“That’s… decreasing fast…”
“Nn…”
The crate steadily emptied itself, dozens of the pebble-sized mana crystals breaking apart after having their mana taken. Just like that, more and more mana was packed into the tiny crystal with no end in sight.
“... Seriously?”
After a minute, the crate… was empty, safe for that one pink crystal lying at the bottom. And the remains of the other crystals.
“It doesn’t feel like there’s all that much mana inside, though.”
“Nn…”
If I tried to probe into the mana crystal, I could feel the rather large amount of mana. But just relying on mana sight itself, the mana egg seemed as if it had only little mana. Still more than those tiny crystals but compared to the real amount it was little.
“... Should we try another?”
“Are you sure that’s going to be fine, Yumi?”
“Nn, I think so.”
The mana egg actually felt a little larger compared to before. As if it had grown from all the mana. Likely, it was just going to grow more if I fed more mana into it, right?
“Sis. Can you carry down that crate?”
“Ah, yes.”
The crates, safe for the one that was now emptied, were stacked on top of each other. Only thanks to Karen could I even get to another one.
“There you go.”
“Thanks, Sis.”
And once more, I threw the mana egg into the crate and began the process anew. Dragging mana from the regular crystals and transferring it into the pink one. The mana crystals crumbled and disappeared one after another as I fed them to my little pink egg.
Around halfway through, the pink mana egg… started to significantly grow in size, causing me to come to a halt.
“Nn?”
“It’s… getting rounder?”
“Nn… It is.”
It wasn’t shaped like an egg anymore... A little disappointing. It was now nearly round. If I fed it more, it’d probably become perfectly round.
“Okay, let’s finish this.”
Once more I dumped the mana egg—or more like, mana ball now—into the crate and continued. A minute or two later, this crate was empty as well. And the pink mana crystal was now perfectly round.
“Nn… See, it can perfectly fit all that mana.”
“I can see that… But I don’t even feel all that much mana from it.”
“It’s still there, though.”
It was there. A lot of it. Honestly, the pure amount scared me a little. It was nearly two crates worth of mana crystals. That wasn’t a small amount. It was a lot. Honestly, I had no comparison what the hell you do with this much but… Yeah… My own perception said it was a lot. Good enough.
“Yumi, you’re not going to add another, right?”
“I mean, I could try but… I think this is enough for now…”
I felt a bit intimidated by the amount, to be honest. I shouldn’t take my random experiments too far when we had somewhere to go.
It’s a good thing it didn’t explode.
Thinking over it again, maybe I should have spent a moment to think about it again… I just had blown up something after all.
“Well, anyway, this should be more than enough mana for whatever I am going to do over there.”
“Isn’t this even way too much?”
“... We might need it.”
I could make it explode if I had to… Oh right, I completely forgot I could make them explode…
“Yumi?”
“Sis, I just remembered. They can explode.”
“... You’re a little late. A little too late.”
“... True.”
The memory of the unfortunate ogre with its boner hissed had been buried very far away. But yeah… They could explode…
“I don’t think I should explode this one...”
“That’s a good idea. I would recommend against that as well.”
But… Nn… I shouldn’t forget that again.
“Sis, is there anything else like this that I forgot about?”
“Huh? Uhm… I don’t think so?”
“Nn…”
Well, if it’s the only thing…
“Mm… You did try to grow those flowers before, though. If that counts.”
“Ahhh…”
That evening where I found out that flowers are goddamn carnivores here. Yeah… Rather than having forgotten about that, it just didn’t seem to be as important so far… Growing things didn’t seem like an effective way of protection. Except what the Elder did… The Elder… Huh? Wait…
“Hey, Sis. What kind of magic does the Elder use?”
“The Elder? I thought she uses elven magic.”
“Yeah, but, what kind of magic is it? Like, she can make things grow, right?”
“Eh? Yes… Huh? Wait…”
I might have found someone who can teach me about Life magic… Although, whether she was willing to teach me was a different issue. But asking wouldn’t hurt.
“This might be great news…”
Seriously good news. Why did I even miss that? I already knew that she had a lot of knowledge but...
Maybe I had resolved myself too much that there would be nobody except maybe Yumias who could teach me anything… And then I completely overlooked it. But… maybe there actually were people who could teach me about these things.
“Yumi, I hate to tell you, but that will have to wait until after we come back.”
“... Sis, couldn’t you have waited a little more until telling me that?”
I had been in such a good mood, just now.
“But you’re right, it’ll have to wait until after we come back. For now, I think we’re really done now, aren’t we?”
“I have everything.”
“Nn. Then, let’s go.”
After locking up the wagon, we made our way to the spot we would meet up with Fenna and her squad. It was just right next to the camp so it was hard to miss. We parted with the escort following us and walked up to them.
“Oh, Yumi, Karen. There you are,” Fenna said, having spotted us.
“Nn, did you wait?”
“No, not in the least. You’re right on time. We’re still waiting for two others anyway. Once they’re here, we can depart.”
That was good. At least we weren’t the last ones.
“Still, seeing you all dressed up like a mercenary does feel a bit weird.”
“Is that so?”
“A bit. The biggest problem is… that armour suits you as well.”
“Huh?”
Now, that wasn’t something I had expected to hear. More like, I thought for sure she’d say I’d look like a kid playing mercenary. And not that the armour suits me.
“Speaking of which, you’re not going to bring the banner?”
“...”
No way in hell I was going to bring that. Did she want me to die from exhaustion?
“Woah, that’s the first time I saw you making a clear expression and it’s a look of disgust…”
“... I wonder why.”
“I was just joking anyway, so don’t look like the world is ending, okay?”
“...”
As long as it really was a joke…
“There’s no point in bringing such a large thing anyway for a reconnaissance mission. I’m actually more interested in Karen… You didn’t bring any weapon?”
Speaking of which… Karen was wearing some armour but no weapon at all…
“Ah, I do actually.”
“Huh?”
“These.”
She lifted her arms that were covered in gauntlets.
“You aren’t going to tell me those gauntlets are…”
“They are… For now…”
“For now?”
“Yes. I consulted with Mr Vice-Captain and Mr Wormaz. To make the most out of my strength, something heavy would be the most appropriate… And Mr Wormaz then insisted on making it himself. So, until then I’m supposed to make do with these. Mr Vice-Captain said that it would be more effective for me to just punch things than swing a weapon I am not accustomed to.”
A punching Karen… Those metal gauntlets sure did look like it’d hurt a lot getting punched by them…
“I see… Right, you got quite a lot of strength, I almost forgot. I guess it’s okay then. Well, you should leave most of the fighting to us for now anyway. Make sure you protect your Yumi for now.”
“Understood!”
“Mm, good response. You both are slowly getting the hang of living with us, don’t you?”
Getting the hang, huh…
“Nn, we try our best…”
“Your best, huh. Well, that’s good. Just keep at it and time will do the rest.”
“Nn.”
“Oh, seems like the last two slackers have arrived as well.”
Fenna looked into the distance. Between the tents, two women were rushing in our direction.
“Good, good. Then we’re all accounted for. Time to get a move on!”
“””Ohhh!”””
And like that, our first reconnaissance mission was going to start.
Rinne
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