◇

I leave the duchy capital under the cover of the night darkness.

After I had gained high enough alt.i.tude with Sky Drive, I accelerated in one go with [Air Cannon]. I continuously spread Flexible s.h.i.+elds to act as wings. In order to get lifting power, I stack several Flexible s.h.i.+elds to make it look like wings. The shape might be far from being optimum, but maybe thanks to me using [Air Control], MP consumption is lower than when I only use Sky Drive, and it"s harder to lose my speed.

After approximately one hour, I"ve arrived at the grapevine mountain range near the Phantom Firefly Cavern of Oak.
It"s probably faster if I go through the cavern, but I"d like to gather some oak ores for gla.s.s-making, and carbonated water during the trip over the mountain range.

The oak ore mine of the duchy itself is located two kilometers to the west of the Phantom Firefly Cavern. According to the map, around 20 kilometers to the east in the mountain, there is a place for mining oak ores. There"s also a place where I can get silica a bit deeper from it, so I"ll go there.

I quickly create holes by using earth magic, and harvest the raw materials to the storage. There are terribly lots of underground insects on my feet. It was good that I noticed it halfway through, and took refuge to the air. If it was Arisa who hated insects, she"d be faint with bubbles on her mouth.

Contrasting to the name of the mountain range, grapevine, far from having grapes, there is barely any fruit on this mountain. I wonder if it was the center of grapes production during the era of the orcs?

There are phantom beasts called [Sky Deer (Amagica)] on this mountain. I ignored it since I was on the s.h.i.+p back then, but since I wanted to meet it once, I went to it.

This sky deer has a racial ability that"s similar to Sky Drive.
Yes, those deers run in the sky.

However, it seems they ran faster on the ground as the herd with 10 deers were running on the mountain when I found it. To be running in the middle of the night like this, I wonder if my mining activity have surprised them?

The male sky deers have more imposing horns than a moose, but they look like normal deers beside that. The leader-like sky deer is about three meters tall, but other than that, it looks like the other sky deers.

I wonder if they"d fly~?
I was thinking like that while floating in the sky several hundreds meters away from the sky deer herd, but I quickly moved my body in accordance to crisis perception skill that suddenly kicked in.

The leader sky deer lunged with great speed right at that time.

Flames are blowing on the hoofs of the sky deer. If we look at its legs that aren"t burned, we might think think that it wasn"t hot.

That sky deer charges at me many times, but since I have the ground shrink as my trump card, I continue to avoid it for certain. Apparently, leader-kun was acting as a decoy as the sky deers that were on the ground had escaped.

After splendidly evading the sky deer for several times, I sneaked behind it by using ground shrink, and landed on its back. It was involuntary since I felt slightly  mischievous.

The sky deer is jumping up and down in rage in the sky as if it"s gone mad.

I had ridden on a rodeo game once, so thanks to that, or not, I managed this without much hards.h.i.+ps. No, it might be because my horse-riding is at MAX.

Nevertheless, it seems that the sky deer always moves its head up whenever it hits the ground, maybe it"s its instinct. It should do a somersault since it can fly anyway. The deer seems to think that I won"t get off if it"s just rampaging around, it decides to plunge into the tree groves. I wouldn"t let it got hurt because of my little prank, so I put Flexible s.h.i.+elds in front of the sky deer to prevent it from getting hurt. When we got close to the ground, I used [Magic Hands] to pin the sky deer down.

When the sky deer had became quiet, I gave it some water to calm it down. Come to think of it, I have the [Tamer] t.i.tle, should have set it.

>[Taming Skill Acquired]
>[Animal Training Skill Acquired]

>t.i.tle [Sky Deer Rider] Acquired

Now then, since I"ve unexpectedly bullied the sky deer, I will exterminate some monsters that look threatening to them as an apology. Beside the leader, it"s probably dangerous for the herd to go against [War Mantis], and [Spider Bear].

Let"s put the flexible sword that I"ve just acquired at the scroll workshop yesterday to use. It"s a magic that use flexible s.h.i.+eld not to defend, but to attack. I can make up to 16 blades, and extend as far as [Magic Hand] does.

I approach the war mantises and spider bears that I"ve marked on the map from the sky, and quickly mow them down with flexible swords from the air. I catch the defeated monsters with [Magic Hand], and put them into the storage.

There are still few war mantises left, but there"s no problem even if I don"t annihilate them.

I rise along the surface of the mountain range, change to level flight when I reach high alt.i.tude, and leave behind the duchy territory.

◇

When I"ve come at the sky of the slightly nostalgic baron Muno territory, I"ll look at the state of Muno city"s development, and confirm how many houses have been built on the reclaimed land of Totona and the others along the way. As expected, people look like dots at this alt.i.tude without the fa.r.s.eeing skill.

I was intending to just pa.s.s through it, but since the number of thief on baron Muno territory hadn"t decreased much, I hunted them until dawn.

I"m in Nanas.h.i.+ silver mask mode this time. It"s the phantom figure who has defeated the demon of Muno city.

I approach the thieves hideout from the air, and incapacitate them with [Remote Stun] from outside. I carry the the unconscious thieves with [Magic Hand] by floating them, and transport the arrested thieves in bundles to the front of Muno city.

By using earth magic, I make some stone pillars in front of Muno city, and tie the thieves with ivies. Conveniently, the guards of Muno city seem to have low morale, as they"re sleeping on duty. How hopeless.

I did such roundup works repeatedly until the sky was turning white.
The safety of the highway will be quite better with this, but it looks like a new urban legend will be born. It"s a good medicine for the guards who sleep like a log.

While hiding myself, I peek at Totona and the others at the reclaimed land, I"m glad that their food situation is better than I"ve thought. It seems Ninsan has distributed the foodstuffs from the duchy capital back then.

◇

As the result of the side trip, I got to the Kuhanou earldom as the day dawned. I fly at the course where I won"t meet people on low alt.i.tude, make a landing near Nouki town, and walk toward there on foot. I get a lift on a wagon I"ve encountered on the crossroad, and enter the town. When I entered the town, I used the commoner ID that I had made in Seryuu city.

I help the old man who have let me ride with him to unload his wagon as a thank.

"Huh? Is this a round radish?"
"No, this is long round radish. There won"t be round radishes before the winter come."

Now that you mention it, it"s slightly elliptic. Since it was just right, I bought a bagful of long round radishes.
There was a shop nearby which sold lotus roots, so I also bought a bagful of the roots there. The lotus root is unexpectedly cheaper than the radish. It seems to be cheap since the lotus root are not cultivated, and instead picked in the wild.

I asked around the people on the stalls, but none were selling Kuhanou pickles. Ever since the public order of baron Muno territory has worsened, merchants who come from the duchy territory to sell Mirin disappear, so they can"t make it even if they want to.

d.a.m.n you demons, it"s your guys" fault huh.

They said that the general store which had bought flavorings and pickles from long ago might still have some stock left, so I decided to look there.
It"s a bit annoying to carry the groceries I"ve bought, so I ask the old man"s permission to put it behind his stall.

"h.e.l.lo."
"Ye~s, welcom~e."

Huh? Wasn"t this store supposed to have an old woman attending?
The one who"s keeping the store is a before-20 years old woman without make-up.

"I"d like to have some Kuhanou pickles, do you have some?"
"Ah, Kuhanou pickles is it, we"ve ran out of stock, but please wait a bit."

Regrettable, out of stock huh.
The onee-san clerk is calling out, "Obachan", toward the store"s back.

"What is it, your voice is loud."
"This customer wants to have some Kuhanou pickles."
"The store is out of stock."
"Aren"t there some that Obachan has pickled last month."
"Those ones used the relatively expensive mirin, so we can"t sell it at the store"s price."

For an instant, I thought that the two were doing a little play to raise the price, but it seems that the aunty honestly didn"t want to sell it.

I said that I had visited here with some great effort, so I would buy it even if it was expensive. Although she said expensive, one potful of around 500 grams heavy was two silver coins. I tried to sample it before buying it, and even though it tasted somewhat different, it was soy-sauced pickles without a doubt. I"d buy it even if it was two gold coins.

Mission Complete.

◇

Now, then since it"s going to take five days at the fastest to make the additional scrolls, I decide to go back to the elf hometown at once. I got close to the duchy capital along the way, so I put one small pot of around 100 grams of Kuhanou pickles to a small bowl and gave it to the prost.i.tute onee-san who gave me the information.

I arrived at the house inside Boruenan tree when it was very late at night.

With the help of the recipe memo, I compounded the curry powder. It was easily completed than I thought. However, I"m not confident if yellow curry will be accepted, so I begin to experiment some arrangement if I can make curry with different color.

It keeps not becoming the color of curry I want, so I make some home-made soy-sauced pickles and put it in the item box as a change of pace.

When I"ve successfully made the color of curry powder I want, I ma.s.s produce them enough for the ingredients I have in hand, and put it in the storage. Curry has many uses in itself, so it"s not going to be a problem even if I make a lot.

Since my body smelled like curry, I used deodorant magic, and went to bed. I can probably sleep for about three hours from now. I fell asleep while feeling pleasantly fatigued.