CH 162.1

Chapter 162.1: Ruined City Capture 2

After we killed that oversized kokko, we continued for a while, kicking the asses of the pack of monsters such as red wolf, raptor, or kokko whoever dared to block our way, and arrived without a hitch at the next fairy plaza.

After finishing the stewed kokko in spring onion, we ended the day with a good night’s sleep. We happened to find a spring onion-like vegetable, and I noticed that I could make skewers in just a moment with wooden branch and 『Simple Alchemist Formation』and most dishes with my skills, but I had nothing to lose by having a professional cook, right?

We had arrived at the second fairy plaza in this ruin, but we still couldn’t see the end of this ruin. This fairy plaza was nothing more than a checkpoint, we still had to continue tomorrow.

Now then, let’s start this day with another resourceful dungeon capture.

Soon enough, we heard deep, heavy footsteps of a gigantic creature. Yes, it was a huge creature, far bigger than the oversized kokko and was right there near us.

Fortunately, our team had Mei-chan’s intuition and my 『Presence Sense』. Thanks to those abilities, we secured enough time to hide ourselves from that giant creature’s eyes.

「GRRRRR… HUFF, HUFF.」

The monster who let out that growl and rough breathing resembled the Thunder Tyrano that fought the salamander for the prey. It’s appearance resembled that of a T-Rex.

The shape of its angular head and rock-like shell that covered its entire body resembled that of a Gore.

Though its size was smaller than t-rex, it came in a group of three. They were much bigger than a raptor and yet, they were terrifying guys who were moving in a crowd.

「They’re 『Grimgore』 huh…」

According to Yamajun’s note, grimgore was the superior form of gore.

In addition, the only information we had about them was the fact that their strength was befitting a creature of their size and the fact that they’re moving in small packs. In addition, they seemed to be able to use earth elements too. Since I didn’t think it was possible for them to chant aria, due to their race, they most likely used something like sand breath.

「They’re more troublesome than boss monster in a certain condition.」

「What shall we do, Kotaro-kun?」

「Well, let’s not confront them.」

We might be able to acquire a bigger core if we beat those grimgore but let’s keep that for later. There was no merit in challenging them in our current situation.

Thus, as we waited for them to leave this area from inside the building, I sent Rem the 3rd to lead a squad of skeletons to scout this area just to be sure, after she confirmed that the grimgores had already left this area, we resumed our dungeon capture.

And then, five minutes later, we stopped again.

「Hey, Kotaro-kun, that’s… could it be…」

In front of Mei-chan who gulped her saliva, like a predator finding their most favorite prey was lump of yellow with so many winged insect buzzing around it――

「Yeah, no doubt about it, it’s beehive.」

A huge beehive was hanging down below a ruined building. And for some reason, the bees that were hovering around it were bigger than their earth counterparts. Are they honeybees, hornets, or simply bee-like monsters?

Though I don’t know about their classification, the same logic must be applied here, never going near them unprotected. We should leave this place as fast as possible before those bees catch our presence.

「Maybe we should try to harvest the honey.」

But in my team, there was a hero who wanted to harvest the honey no matter what. Nay, since she will literally rob those bees of the honey that they painstakingly gathered, the word thief might suit her better.

Anyhow, our berserker seemed to have made up her mind to get that honey no matter what.

「Ah, but I think we shouldn’t take the honey if the bees turned out to be carnivorous bee.」

「But still, we have to get our hands on that HONEY!」

Uhm, I absolutely understand your feeling even if you’re not emphasizing it so much like that. I mean the devil whispe–woops, I mean the 『Pharmacy Intuition』 already whispered “It’s delicious you kno~w” in my head.

「As you wish, Mei-chan. Those are honeybees. They may look atrocious due to their big size, but they’re just an oversized honeybee.」

「YAAAY!」

My retreat was sealed by Mei-chan’s delighted cries.

That’s just how much… she wanted to eat those honey.

I mean, we never ate sweets after we were sent into this accursed dungeon. Even a man knew that the thing loved the most by women was sweets. Mei-chan’s-a gourmand-current condition was more than enough evidence for that.

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「Then, I guess we shall take a peek for the time being.」

「Wait, calm down, we have to be fully prepared before we challenge the beehive. I mean look, you don’t want to waste even a drop of the honey from the beehive, right?」

「Y-Yeah, you’re right.」

Well, I could only imagine the beehive explode into countless pieces once Mei-chan attacked with her halberd using 『Violent Tremor』while we’re retrieving the beehive. But, just in case, in the worst scenario in which she messed up with her power adjustment, the beehive might be blown to smithereens, scattering rain of precious honey.

I mean, I want to eat the honey too, it was already on the level that my 『Pharmacy Intuition』 gave a serious appraisal result, telling me it was really delicious, packed to the brim with nutrition too. All the more reason to successfully harvest it.

「Well then, first, let’s see what we can do.」

First, though Mei-chan had calmed down for now, who knows when she would jump the gun again if we spent too much time in this place, thinking about the perfect solution to harvest the beehive. Yup, since I never had any experience in beekeeping, I had no idea about the best way to harvest the honey from the beehive but… I guess we’ll have to make those noisy honeybees shut up first.

「Yosh, it’s your turn, REM!」

「GUGAGA!」

Rem the 1st and 3rd replied vigorously. And then, the skeleton platoon followed the two. The fifteen of them were forming beehive suicide attack.

As for the equipment, I gave them oil, torches, and a wooden pole made from the nearby tree branch. Next was a spider thread nest to retrieve the beehive.

First, the skeletons armed with torches attacked the beehive while making loud clattering sounds. Naturally, the bees got agitated by the noisy black skeletons and rushed to attack the latter at once. Countless bees surrounded the skeletons, turning them into a lump of black mass.

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「Their aggressiveness backfired on them. Now, commencing the operation.」

The skeletons that got surrounded by countless bees then set its body on fire. From the very beginning, I’d already smeared torch oil on their bodies to ignite them. Naturally, it would be engulfed in fire immediately if I let them hold the torch from the very beginning.

The skeletons that bravely sacrificed themselves to be burnt alive were burning like the most brilliant star along with the honeybees.

Repeating this over and over with the rest of the thirty-two skeletons should be enough to annihilate most honeybees. Man, a fearless yet weak servant sure was useful during this kind of time.

The two Rems were moving quickly, steadily lowering the beehive while expelling the rest of the honeybees inside the hive by lightly striking the beehive with the wooden rod in their hand. The fallen beehive got caught in Arachne Rem’s spider thread net, and just like that the three Rems brought it back to the fairy plaza.

The last thing we needed to do was squeeze the honey from the beehive, well tossing the beehive into the 『Witch’s Kettle』 was all I needed to do.

「YAAY, YAAAAY… I… I thought we would never be able to eat sweet again…」

Mei-chan was already in tears, elated by the sweet smell from the honey. Heck, she was already licking the honey that was dropped from the nest. The saying that sweet was a tranquilizer for women was true after all.

「A~h, my first sweet after such a long time is absolutely delicious.」

I mean, I also lost to the temptation and started licking the honey by the time I noticed it. The rich and mellow sweetness that spread in my mouth tasted like the most delicious sweet I’d ever eaten…

「Yosh, then I’ll do my best to make sweets with this!」

Thus, Mei-chan was walking towards the 『Witch’s Kettle』 for cooking while licking the honey moderately.

Eh, does that mean we’re taking a break from dungeon capture today?

Well, it’s not like there would be a problem by taking a day’s break or two. Today was honey-holiday after all.

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We departed for real the next morning.

The honey dumplings made by Mei-chan with our extremely limited ingredients were superb. As expected of a gourmand and chef, she could make dango that draw the best sweetness of the honey from the flour starch of bananatoes.

Since honey was an extremely rare treasure that we had no idea when we would find another one again, we decided to keep it secured in an air-tight and safe place, AKA treasure box and loaded it on Arachne Rem’s back for extra safety measures. It would last for quite a while since I flash froze it with 『Witch’s Kettle』. [TL : It seems the author has no idea that they would need a tight, secure, and clean box to store honey for a long time, meaning that freezing it does nothing to it. heating it will destroy its nutritional value though.]

Mei-chan’s willpower charged to the brim by the power of sweet

The greenery around the city ruin increased the further we followed the compass. Eventually, the sight of huge trees standing side-by-side with ruined buildings became more and more apparent as if the city was being swallowed into the forest. Naturally, the number of monsters and wild animals also increased the further we went into the forest. On the other hand, there was also more hiding places for the high zombies.

「… Haah!」

SLASH!

Mei-chan, whose morale boosted through the roof with sweets, easily swung the halberd and sliced the throat of a huge monster. And then, the giant lizard that received that fatal wound tottered on its feet for a second before collapsing with a thud.

The lizard, whose size was bigger than an alligator, crawling on the ground on its four limbs was poison-less basilisk. It was clinging on the wall of one building like a newt and suddenly rushed towards us as we passed that building.