CH 32

“Huff, huff… We made it back, somehow.”

We had all returned back home.

It seems that Aria was at her limit. As soon as we came inside, she undid her [Body Strengthening], and slumped into a chair.

I take her luggage from her.

“Then let’s sort out the loot. Kili, do you still have magic to spare?”

“Eh? Right now? Yeah, I guess…”

Kili replies, passing the water she had drawn to Aria.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be right now, but the sooner we do it the better quality loot we’ll get. If it’s left as it is, the magic will begin dissipating from the materials. That’s also the reason why I made Sui cast strengthening on her containers.”

The materials harvested from the Demon Forest basically contain large amounts of magic.

Left as it is, the magic will slowly leak out from them, leaving the materials as no different than what you get outside the forest.

However, if you store it in a container with strong magical power, the diffusion of that magical power gets suppressed.

The reason why I asked Sui to use strengthening magic was also to reproduce such a container.

“Is that so. Fine, let’s do it now.”

Saying that, I begin lining up the materials on the table.

Sui still hadn’t released her strengthening magic, so I could feel small amounts of magic from it.

“With this, I think we can get fairly good quality earth-attribute extracts. [Extract].”

The herbs picked up this time possessed strong earth-attribute.

By extracting only the earth-attribute magic extract, it is possible to make a nutritional supplement for growing plants.

As a guide to Kili, I use [Extract] on a single leaf.

Green liquid comes out of the leaf and flows into the potion bottle I made.

Since this bottle was going to be used for storage, I couldn’t use the ones strengthened by Sui.

This one was made by me a long time ago.

I think it had healing potion inside, but I threw it away.

It wasn’t all that important, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

Kili looked at me filling the bottle up intently.

“That’s how it’s done. Now you can try it. This green stuff is earth-attribute magic extract, so try and keep the image of taking it out.”

“G, got it… [Extract]!”

As Kili chants the spell, a green liquid pours out of the leaf, into the bottle.

However, the quantity she brought out was lesser than mine, and the color was also dull.

“T, that’s weird.”

“Well, that’s how it goes in the beginning. You’ll get the hang of it after repeating it a few times. The quantity can be increased by simply applying more magic, so try to improve the quality instead. You’ve extracted the target, but try not to squeeze out anything else…”

“U, understood. [Extract]!”

After a few more times, the color becomes a lot more clearer, but by then Kili’s magic runs out, so I end up doing the rest.

***

Afternoon is magic practice.

Truthfully, spending a whole day in the Demon Forest would make your magic go up by 1 so it’s a lot more efficient, but in case of an accident, you might lose your life so it’s better to think twice about doing so.

Besides, there’s another reason why they need to practice magic.

Even if they keep increasing their magical reserves, if they don’t know how to control it, they might end up hurting themselves.

Moreover, I was thinking of making an outer wall for the village.

“Now then, while Milia and Kili do their studying, and you three keep up with your magic training, I’ll raise up a wall in a flash.”

” “In a flash” you say, but is it really that easy to make walls?”

As I answer frankly to Aria’s question, she gives me a skeptical look.

“Lain is keeping it a secret for our sake, so let’s not disturb him.”

“That might be true but…”

As I was wondering how to convince her, Milia throws me lifeline.

No, I’ve already made it clear that I won’t teach them anything other than self-defense magic, so I guess Aria’s the one acting strange here.

“The knowledge of magic is a dangerous thing, after all. Simply knowing it is enough to have your life targeted.”

Milia is learning healing magic, on which the church is trying to lay a half-monopoly like claim on, so it’s all the more true for her.

It seems that she’d made a large enough donation which tilted her house, just to learn that unattainable healing magic from them.

Organized religion is bad in any world, I guess.

“In any case, I won’t stop you from looking through the window. Once Aria becomes familiar enough with magic, I’ll turn it into a lesson, so be patient till then.”

“…Alright.”

I leave behind the reluctant Aria, and head towards the outskirts of the village to raise the wall.

***

After seeing off Lain’s back as he leaves the house, I open the door to hallway in the dining area.

“Aria? Where are you going?”

“Observatory. He said it’s fine if we looked, so I’m going to the place with the best view.”

“Come now, it’s nothing to get so upset about…”

Lain said it’s fine to look from the window.

But he didn’t specify which window.

In that case, the one with the best view surely makes more sense.

It’s not like I’m upset, and trying to catch Lain off-guard or anything.

Yup, I’m really not doing that.

“I too, want to see Lain, from observatory.”

“Me too! I wanna see Lain nii-chan’s magic from the observatory!”

Sui and Reno also join me in wanting to see the magic activate from above.

Well, it’s not like only one person can be there at a time, so I guess it’s fine.

“I suppose, I shall join you as well. Since I didn’t see him activating magic to build the house either.”

“Milia’s going too? Then I’ll go too, I guess. Besides I don’t like the idea of me being the only one left behind.”

In the end, we all decided to head towards the observatory, to go and see Lain’s magic.