Volume 5 - CH 19.2

Chapter 5-19 : Snowy Mountain Ⅰ (part 2)

After climbing the mountain for a couple of hours, Lorea-chan’s pace started to slow down.

Even though she has quite a lot of stamina, she isn’t accustomed to climbing a mountain, so it’s not weird that she gets tired quickly.

「Lorea-chan, you’re tired, aren’t you? Let’s take a break.」(Sarasa)

「Y, Yeah… I’m sorry…」(Lorea)

Lorea-chan replied to me with an apologetic look.

「You don’t have to apologize. Don’t worry, you will adapt to the environment sooner or later, so don’t overburden yourself and take it easy or else you will catch a cold.」(Sarasa)

「Alright.」(Lorea)

When I raised my index finger and told her that, she loosened her expression and nodded at me with a smile.

It’s very risky to keep going when you’re tired. Your immune system may weaken and you would likely catch a cold. In some cases, you may lose your life, so I firmly told Lorea-chan to take a rest.

「Lorea, taking a break too soon is not a bad thing. I’m also a little tired, to be honest.」(Iris)

「Iris is right. We also need to take a break to secure the energy to fight monsters in case we encounter them on the way, so don’t feel bad about it.」(Kate)

Iris-san and Kate-san didn’t seem tired at all but she said that so that Lorea-chan doesn’t feel bad about taking a break so soon.

「Un. Thank you.」(Lorea)

Lorea-chan, who realized their kindness, smiled at them.

In terms of energy consumption, I think Iris-san, who uses a sword to fight monsters, uses more energy than Kate-san who uses a bow, shooting monsters from a distance.

It would be bad if Iris-san suddenly couldn’t move during a battle due to fatigue, so occasionally taking a break while getting ourselves used to climbing this mountain is not a bad idea at all.

Now that everyone agreed to take a break, we stopped by under a big tree to eat sweets and have tea for about fifteen minutes. After that, we continued walking.

We took frequent breaks while climbing the mountain, and depending on the situation, we sometimes prepared to camp while the sun was still high and rested early.

We really took our time to climb, and we finally got to the first mountain ridge after a few days of climbing the mountain.

The scenery from here was completely different from when we were still at the bottom.

「Whoaa…」(Sarasa)

「Wonderful…」(Iris)

Iris-san and I who walked a few steps ahead let out a voice of admiration and awe at the sight in front of us.

The first thing that caught our eyes was the snow-covered slope.

We need to descend that slope to reach our destination which is the neighboring mountain.

The slope and the mountain ahead were completely covered in white, meaning that it wouldn’t be easy to get to the destination.

「Wow, it’s all white…」(Kate)

「It’s beautiful…」(Lorea)

Soon after, Kate-san and Lorea-chan caught up with us. They also admired the beautiful scenery in front of them.

「I think we better put on our snow glasses and reapply sunscreen here. The sunlight is getting stronger.」(Sarasa)

We applied sunscreen on our faces and other exposed areas, put on our snow glasses, and started descending the slope.

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Because it’s slippery, descending a snow-covered slope can be extremely difficult, but not for us thanks to the snow boot artifacts I made.

「Store Owner-dono, these boots are amazing! I can easily walk down this slope with little effort.」(Iris)

「Normally, people would have a hard time descending a slippery slope like this.」(Kate)

「Yeah. I would have slipped a few times if I were wearing normal snow boots. The artifacts Sarasa-san made are amazing as always!」(Lorea)

「Hehe, thank you. This is actually my first time using these boots. I’m glad they’re working as intended.」(Sarasa)

By the way, when I went to a snowy mountain for practical training at school, the teachers only provided us with the minimum equipment. We had to prepare other equipment on our own.

I was just a poor orphan back then, so there was no way I could afford snow boot artifacts back then.

I ended up wearing hand-me-down ordinary snow boots from the orphanage and had a terrible experience walking down a snowy slope back then.

Now, I’m having a great experience with these snow boot artifacts I made. Descending a slippery snowy slope feels like walking on a flat road.

However, no matter how great my snow boats are, they still have flaws.

「These boots are great, but because we are walking on snow, it’s not as grippy as when we walk on the ground. I feel like the grip is only to prevent us from slipping.」(Kate)

「Is that so? …Hmm… Certainly, it feels a bit strange, but honestly, I don’t really mind it.」(Lorea)

Lorea-chan was jumping on the spot like a rabbit to test the boots. She didn’t slip even though she was jumping on a snowy slope.

「Well, there’s nothing wrong with the grip of the boots, but I think it will feel a bit strange when you are in combat.」(Kate)

Kate-san was right.

You won’t feel anything strange if you just walk normally, but it may feel a bit strange when you put strength in your feet to dash or dodge enemies’ attacks in a battle.

Actually, you can increase the grip power of the boots if you put your magical power on the boots, but I think it will be hard for Iris-san and Kate-san to do that while fighting in combat.

「Let’s see…」(Iris)

Iris-san dashed and did some quick steps.

「Hmm… Certainly, it feels a bit strange. However, it’s still much better than wearing normal snow boots.」(Iris)

「Well, it would be really hard to fight with normal snow boots after all. I wonder how Marley-san and his party members fought Giant Snow Centipedes when they explored this mountain back then.」(Kate)

「Marley-san said that some of his party members were heavily injured, right? It’s probably because they had a hard time moving around the snow while fighting.」(Iris)

「That makes sense. We are lucky to have Store Owner-san’s snow boots.」(Kate)

「Hmm, I think you two shouldn’t fight monsters until you get used to moving quickly with my boots. We should try to avoid encounters with monsters from here. Please don’t let your guard down.」(Sarasa)

Iris-san and Kate-san nodded at me in agreement.

While walking down the slope, the two kept dashing around to get used to moving quickly with my snow boots.