Volume 2 - CH 158

There are four materials in total that must be collected for this gathering request.

The first is Hipo grass.

You can find it by walking around the area, so I won’t go into all the specifics location.

The second is Pralis grass, a poisonous plant with paralyzing effects.

I was told that this can be collected in areas where there is a lot of water, and can be easily found along the riverside.

And the third is the strangely named Redogpop mushroom, which grows in clusters at high altitudes.

This mushroom seems to grow in colonies at high altitudes, and although it can be found, it is not within easy distance to look for.

In the mountains around here, it would take about four hours to go one trip each way.

Since the area surrounding the Kingdom of Salettana is flat, it would take a lot of time just to go to one different place.

We will have a discussion about this Redogpop later and decide who to go looking for it.

The fourth one is a fruit called Hitro fruit, which can only be picked at this time of the year.

I guess this is the reason why the deadline was limited to a few months.

The place where this fruit is collected does not seem to be so difficult, and it can be found in the surrounding area.

I wondered if they might sell these, but the request form says that only the Hitro fruit should be brought fresh, so it seems impossible to accomplish the request by purchasing them.

“The question is Redogpop or …… something like what the heck does that name mean?”

“I have no idea what it means, but it’s a red mushroom with characteristics like an umbrella, I guess?”

“……Pop?”

Let’s not worry about it.

“How about Uchikage, I think he’s the right man for the job?”

“No problem. I can be back in two hours.”

“Excellent.”

So, leaving the most time-consuming task of collecting Redogpop to Uchikage, the rest of us were left to search for something relatively straightforward.

I already had an idea of where it was, and it was not going to be a particularly difficult task.

For the time being, me, Reizen and Alena decided to work together to find the desired item for the request.

“It’s all ready, Let’s go”

“Aye!”

“Yes!”

“Well, I’ll go ahead. Let’s meet up here.”

After saying this, Uchikage quickly disappeared.

The one who would have the hardest time would be Uchikage, so I would make him some recovery water and give it to him tonight to make him feel at peace.

The rest of us went through the gate into the forest.

When we left the gate, I wondered if we had to go through any more procedures, but it seemed that if we were going out to fulfill a guild request, we only had to show our request form and guild card to pass through the gate, and we were able to pass right through.

This kind of thoughtfulness is very helpful, as it is a hassle to go through such a tedious procedure every time we go out.

We took Starhorse out and headed for the forest.

“…… Thirty minutes to the woods is so goddamn long.”

◆

When we reached our destination, we got off the wagon and parked it there.

On the way we were looking around for hipo grass, but there didn’t seem to be any around here ……, so we decided to go deeper into the forest to look for it again.

“Hmmm, there was quite a bit on the road coming from the Kingdom of Garott to the Kingdom of Salettana. ……”

“I couldn’t find it either.”

“I couldn’t tell them apart to begin with.”

“Oh, come on.”

One of them is out of the question …… and Alena, who has been looking for all this time, couldn’t find it either.

It probably doesn’t grow around here.

Then again, …… the lack of medicinal herbs in the vicinity may be making it difficult to accomplish the request.

The herb gathering is for low-rank adventurers, but if there are no medicinal herbs, they will not be able to fulfill the request and will have to pay a penalty fee.

If this were the case, there would be no adventurers willing to accept the request.

Hmmm…does this mean that there is simply a shortage of hipo grass?

The shortage of hipo grass has caused pharmacies and medical clinics to send out requests to the guild for deliveries of hippo grass, but adventurers who know about it would never accept such requests for cheap pay, and that is probably why so many request forms have accumulated.

The guild. Figure out what’s going on.

If they know that, explain to us how difficult it is to collect hipo grass when I bring that stack of requests to them.

“Well, if it ain’t there, it ain’t there. Let’s look for it steadily.”

“Ouren, I found it.”

“Seriously?”

“Pralis grass～.”

The medicinal herb that Alena brought was indeed pralis grass.

It is very easy to identify prallis grass, because the stems are yellow below the halfway point, so it is easily recognized.

“Oh! That’s great, Alena! I didn’t get it at all.”

” I don’t see any signs of water. …… Why is it here ……?”

I checked the surrounding terrain in the Haze manipulation, but there are no riverside or water areas in the vicinity of this area.

I wondered if they were supposed to grow near water, but I thought this could also happen, so I went ahead and collected the pralis grass growing in the area for now.

However, even though it is a poisonous plant, we can’t let it be completely eradicated, so we leave only the sprouts  and collect only the large ones.

“They’re poisonous plants, shouldn’t we just take them all?”

“That may be so, but when you collect them, you can’t sell the small ones for a high price. By the time they are big enough, there will be young sprouts again.”

“I see. ……”

Alena was convinced and collected only the large pralis grass.

There were quite a few of them, totaling nearly sixty.

It would have been better to leave some for the other adventurers, but there were still a frightening number of sprouts.

And with such a strong reproductive capacity, it would not be easy to eradicate these plants.

After putting the pralis grass we had collected away in my magic bag, we decided to search for more hipo grass.

In case you are wondering, it was very easy to find hitro fruits.

I had found them on the way here from the Kingdom of Salettana, but I thought they would lose their freshness if I collected them at the beginning, so I decided to collect them last.

So the only thing left was the hipo grass.

Although one of us is not going to be useful, we keep moving our heads and look around as we go deeper and deeper into the forest.

The sun is still high, so we can search for a few more hours, so there’s no need to rush, but we’re getting anxious when we don’t …… find any of the hipo grass.

“……!”

“……? What’s up, aniki?

” There’ s something big out there, you see?”

A large silhouette appeared in the expanding haze manipulation.

The silhouette was so faint that there was very little information to read, but in terms of size alone, it was about the size of the Red Boar that we had just defeated.

It seemed to be moving and heading straight for the direction where me and the others were.

“What do you want to do?”

“If we leave that big thing alone, the new adventurers who come to this area might get hurt. Let’s take it down.”

“Alena also agreed.”

“…… you two remember that we are also new adventurers, right?”

“” No worries.” y’see.”

Well, I really wonder if it will be all right. ……

As far as I was concerned, it might not be a good idea for us, who have no knowledge of monsters, to go after it alone. …… Well, I thought it might be a good idea for these two to experience defeating a big monster, so I left them in charge of defeating the monster.

I was afraid I might get in the way if I was nearby, and I was also afraid I might get caught in the middle of the fight, so I stood a little further away and watched them as they prepared to engage with it.

Alena took out her kodachi and made a ready stance, while Reizen stood in his usual stance, waiting for the opponent to come, and then I heard the sound of footsteps getting louder and louder.

“Holy carp! Alena, that’s amazing! What’s that?”

“It’s the Gravity Dome. Inside the dome, I can control gravity at will.”

“Dang! But how does your sword slice through its armor?

” I put the heavy weight on this kodachi only when I slice it.”

“It’s a brute force!?”

After that conversation, the monster that I sensed knocked down the trees as it fell made its appearance before the two of them.

The figure was that of an orc seen in manga and anime, and although they were a little surprised to see that it had solid armor and weapons, it looked like it would be quite a difficult task for it to walk while carrying its ample mass of fat.

However, they must not let their guard down because it has enough strength to push down the trees.

It is logical to assume that it has the muscular strength to walk with that fat in its body.

When the orc saw them, it moved its eyeballs and howled loudly, as if it had set its sights on them.

He lifted a large club in his hand with one hand and swung it in a wide swing, ready to crush the two of them together.

” 【 Gravity Dome】 “

As Alena muttered this, a transparent membrane seemed to spread around her, with Alena at the center.

It soon became invisible and seemed to assimilate with the air. …… is it working?

Then a loud noise rang out from the orcs.

I looked over to see that the club had been impaled deeply into the ground, while still in a swinging position.

The orc seemed puzzled as to why he could not bring down the club he had just been holding, but Alena did not miss the opportunity.

She immediately kicked the ground and flew …… at the orc.

“She flew!?”

Alena flew quickly in a straight line against gravity.

She flew toward the side where the weapon was being held, and the orc seemed to realize that Alena was coming, but was unable to deal with her, leaving a deep mark of a slash in its armpit.

“Guuuuuuuuuu!”

“Heave ho”

This time, she lands on the ground with a stomp and immediately leaps to take the orc’s upper body this time.

The orc sees where Alena was from the earlier trajectory, but she is already gone, and Alena slashes at the orc’s back as it tries to find out where she is.

The armor cracks and fresh blood spurts from the orc, but after slashing it open, Alena flies back up into the air and lands next to Reizen.

She seems to be a little concerned about the blood stain, but she shows us that she can handle it.

“Oh! Alena is amazing! What is that!?”

“Gravity Dome. It seems that gravity can be manipulated freely inside the dome.”

“Amazing! Eh, but you’re slashing the armor, how are you doing that?”

“This kodachi is weighted only when slashing.”

“Strength!?”

That’s amazing.

I’ve never seen her use such a skill before, but I wonder if she practiced it somewhere.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to move around so smoothly.

But now is not the time to be impressed by Alena’s skill.

The orc had not yet fallen, and it seemed to finally let go of its weapon and return the attack with its fists.

I had seen Alena’s attack earlier, but that was a fighting style where the attack was too straight and she seemed to be unable to evade because she was in the air.

The inability to evade is fatal in a fight.

I guess it could be that she hasn’t mastered it yet, but I will have to keep an eye on this later.

“”What do we do now? You want to switch?”

“Just a little bit longer.”

“All right.”

With that said, Alena readied her weapon once more.

Then she kicked the ground again, this time running on the ground instead of leaping to attack!