~ Adventurer"s life Day 25 (Thu) Before Noon ~ Comnes Town – West – Gravel Field

“This thing is pretty amazing. Would this be the one called "Stone Golem"?”
"Yeah, it does look pretty strong… Ah, did you look into that with your magic eye?"

At the same time when summoning this Stone Golem, the Earth Golem behind crumbled back into dust.
… So in other words, once I"ve reached the maximum Golem summoning limit, the previous Golem would break down.
It"s quite different compared to the skeletons where the summoning simply doesn"t work once the maximum"s been reached…

The Golem"s body has been made completely out of stone, making it much heavier than that of the Earth Golem.
It had the same greyish color as the limestones it formed out from… Furthermore, a large cavity had also been made from that portion of the wall.

Incidentally, I was summoning this Golem to form at its largest size, however it still seemed to be about a head short from the earth golem that crumbled before. Not only that, but the entire body seems to be proportionally smaller.
The amount of mana being consumed didn"t seem to be any different from before, so this most likely is the limit for it.

(… Maybe it"s not the size, but perhaps the weight of it is what"s limited.)

Well, I suppose I can stick with that hypothesis for now.

I can"t really tell how agile it is from just looking at it, so I had it do some various movements.

(… This thing"s actually pretty dangerous…)

The ground shakes as it walks while the air reverberates everytime it moves its arms… it seemed much lighter than it probably is seeing how swift its able to move, even faster than the earth golem before.
It"s going to be really serious if someone where to get caught up in one of this guy"s punches…
I was thinking of measuring how strong it is by having a skeleton block it, but it"s likely going to get destroyed so I"ll hold myself on that…

(… Alright… How about this.)

Facing towards the wall it formed out of from, I had the stone golem throw out its full power onto it…

*Kabaam!*

Noticeable damage can be heard from the wall, however stones the size of hand b.a.l.l.s came flying out from it!

"Uwa!"
"Kya!"

Reflexively, Benedetta and I shot up our shields!… However, the rocks flew right over our heads so we didn"t come into contact with any.

"… Nemo…"
"… Sorry…"

Benedetta shot a glare at me, and so I immediately apologized back… She"s actually pretty scary even with her already serious face…

Wondering to myself now where the flying stones landed, I looked over behind me.

"Ahh!"
"Hm?… Did something happen?"

Following my line of sight, she freezes over seeing what happened…

"Uwaaaaa !! Skeleton eeeefffffff-!!"

Lying on its back with it"s arms up, skeleton F took a hit from one of the flying debris.
It"s spine close to the neck was shattered to a state where it could no longer move…

(… Move… Can you still move!)

I try sending out a command, but the skeleton didn"t even react with a quiver.

"It"s completely broken. This skeleton…"
"Uwaaaaa !!"

To think, our first ever loss was caused by a friendly fire…

~ Adventurer"s life Day 25 (Thu) Noon ~ Comnes Town – West – Gravel Field

"Aah… The shield"s been chipped… and the bag"s been ruined…"

The shield I"m talking about is skeleton F"s ‘Shabby Round Shield (wood) + 3/3".

The skeletons body is all made of bone and the bone shields are also much stronger than the shields this guy used. If I were to think about it, with that sort of set-up I can immediately replenish the loss in number, but it"s rare for my skeletons to get damaged that bad, so it make take some time for me to get used to it.
… Don"t worry skeleton F, your death opened up a new tactic for us.

"Couldn"t you just summon another one? You could probably do the same for its shield if it were made from bone…"
"…"

She made the exact same a.s.sessment as I did in my head.
However, even after seeing my earlier reaction, this woman sure is tactless…

"Alright, break time"s over! Let"s go all out on hunting today!"

Though the hunt looked like it was doing okay, we kept on encountering other adventurers that already had the place as their hunting spot and pa.s.sing by areas were the monsters have already been wiped clean, so the amount of loot we acquired today was not much.
Since the amount hunted is less than usual, there are still several skeletons not carrying anything.

"Ah… there was something I forgot to mention a while back!"
"… Eh? What was it?"
"It"s your new skills from reaching level 6 with your ‘Necromancer"."
"… Ah yeah… That went completely over my head…"

That"s right… We were interrupted half way from that party that pa.s.sed by us at the mine entrance…
I stopped to hear about it…

""Spirit Servant"?"
"Yes… that is what it says."

Hm. Most probably, ‘Spirit Servant" was the main summoning skill used back in the game when it comes to summoning ghosts.
However, nothing really happened when I used the skill… It seems that there are some conditions for this that I"m lacking… Am I going to have to go to a graveyard or something for this? Or maybe I just need to use this on monsters that had just been defeated.

For ‘Necromancers", these spirits are probably normally stronger than the skeletons from their base stats, but skeletons can take on equipment, and are probably easier to replenish since their bones are still available to use when defeated…
I might have to switch to this skill eventually later on though, but for now I"ll just stick with skeletons.

"Ouuuuch!!"
"… Already, sculptor reached level 6… It seems the new skill for this one is called "Modelling"."

Right after some skeletons defeated a Great King Yamori in the distance, pain surged from my body once again.
As usual, because of the increase in fighting strength, I haven"t even felt the time intervals between levelling widening yet… Just how does that happen.

"… ‘Modelling", do you know what this means?"
"I"m not really sure what it is either, but since it"s related to sculptor, then perhaps it has something to do with being able to shape clay or something?"
"… Sorry?"

Seems like Benedetta lacks quite a bit of imagination… to be honest, I kinda do as well…
However, if I could just say it simply, it would be…

… Looking down, I put some concentration on the stone nearby my foot.

"… Ah…"

(Would you look at that, it actually worked.)

The stone I targeted on had patterned engravings appearing onto it… and when I imagined it into a spherical shape, it formed into one much better than if I were to do the same with a hunting knife.

"So in other words, it"s a skill that can quickly sculpt and engrave items just by concentrating onto it."

I"m not quite sure how much mana this would cost based on the size I just used it on though… Most likely it would be added on along with the cost in using the "engraving" skill.

I try throwing out the stone onto a nearby rock… it seems that the "engraving" skill is working here at least.

Though the effect of this is really plain, being able to cut a considerable amount of time from sculpting skills already makes this one of the most useful skills in my a.r.s.enal.

"And lastly, I"m going to have to keep this in mind for now but…"

For every level increased from sculptor, also increases the size of the Golems, so I headed back to that mining entrance from earlier.
I watched as the as the rocks get attracted and molds into the Golem… and so after a while once it stopped, it reached the size similar to what that earth Golem was before.

It"s really slowly turning into a frightening thing… However, why is the Sculptor Divine Protection so unpopular when it has some amazingly strong skills like this?
Though for now, I wonder what new material I can make the Golem out of at level 6…?

~ Adventurer"s life Day 25 (Thu) Afternoon ~ Comnes Town – West – Gravel Field

Once I"ve finished up on checking on my skills, we resumed back to hunting.

The current gameplan when encountering a monster is that first, the skeletons would surround it, then the Golem would hold it down, to which I then finish it off by throwing a stone right at it.
There"s quite a number of adventurers around lately, so the pace is a little slower than usual, but we should be able to reach our capacity soon anyways.

"Alright! Skeleton F has returned! And it"s back in action!"
"Aside from F, all the bags from the other skeletons seems to be full."
"Alright then, let"s head back. Everyone march in line now."

Since there"s no need to lure monsters here anymore, I had the 21 skeletons line up in 3 rows, while me and Benedetta would walk behind them all with the Golem protecting us from behind.

The adventurers pa.s.sing by us all had various reactions, but we manage to explain things over and had no problem… Though I have to admit, I do get worried every time a group would start to shout and draw their weapons.

"… There sure is a lot of adventurers here today isn"t there?"
"The Gravel Fields is supposed to be Comnes" difficult hunting ground, and I also heard that not many adventurers generally hunt here… I wonder what happened?"

I can"t think of a reason myself on this… But that didn"t matter too much, because the question was soon answered after arriving to the guild.

~ Adventurer"s life Day 25 (Thu) Afternoon ~ Comnes Town – Adventurers Guild – Lobby

Once arriving at the guild, we had the materials checked at the exchange centre and created my potions like usual.
We had ourselves waiting in the lobby while the a.s.sessment is in progress, but there were many adventurers already here even at this time. It"s quite unusual… Moreover, I don"t even recognise a number of these people, despite already being here for almost a month.
In addition, since the exchange centre is now crowded with adventurers, it"s going to take a long time for us to be finished with this. I came back to Benedetta after taking care of our drinks.

"… So what"s happening here is that there has been trouble at the north, so the adventurers came here in large groups because of that?"
"That"s what it seems… I heard this from Ohmas. Because of the Church"s disturbance within the north, a number of the strong factions had been forced to flee, causing a great friction between nations due to the sudden change in the national power of each."

I relayed to Benedetta information I got from asking around the guild.

Adventurers are the type of jobs that thrive during peaceful times, however once the resources are shifted to fund for warfare, the guild would lose their funds to pay their adventurers properly, leaving them with unreasonable work.

And as the number of adventurers decreases, it becomes more difficult for the guild to complete more challenging requests, so the private sector gradually loses its vitality, and the power of the country declines.
Because of that, the state would, for the most part, give the guild some sort of support and preferential treatment.

… So well in any case, the guild right now is jammed crammed with people all bringing in some materials, giving the guild a different atmosphere to it…

"Oi! Tell me who that potion making guy for this is! I"m gonna take him to my party!"
"The guild is against disclosing such information!"

I can hear some disturbing things over at that counter… Ignore. Ignore…

~ Adventurer"s life Day 25 (Thu) Evening ~ Comnes Town – Inn – Nessos" Temptation

"Haah-. We sure did wait quite a while…"
"There were a lot of people there…"

Being tired from having to wait for several hours in the guild, we immediately head to bed once arriving back at the inn.
… As I thought, the beds in this inn really are nice… hm?

"Is that a bow sticking out from the bed?"
"That"s right… I was able to use it before, but now I"ve been unable to draw it anymore…"

She asked for the bow and tried out in pulling it…

"Eh? I can pull it a little further than last time! The string didn"t even move before!"
"Ohh! That"s something good to hear!"

Though it"s not there yet, she"s able to pull back the string half way.
Being a support cla.s.s, we can"t really increase our strength just as easily as others, but with grinding monsters like we had done seems to work… Alright!

"Hm? What"s the matter?"

She looked over to me after seeing me jump out of the bed.

"Nah, it"s just… I"m a little more pumped up right now."

Reaching out to the rack on top of my bed, I picked up my bone dagger.

I"ve been thinking along the way back from the ‘Gravel Fields" about this, but if I can remove the previous "engraving" from my equipment with the new ‘Modelling" skill, then with that I can "Engrave" with a higher level ‘Engraving" on the same equipment then can"t I?

… And so, once I tested it out with the Bone dagger, I managed to do it just like I thought.
Mana had been taken when I was carving it, so there"s no doubt that the ‘Engravement" had been activated.

Since I"m at it, I thought I could also do the same with the "plating" as well, except this time, I can just use the skill by itself anyways.
The finished result had a much more ‘stronger" metallic appearance…

… And with that, for each and every equipment with for the skeletons I called out, I did the same.

Right till what seems to be about midnight, I finished in placing level 6 "engravings" on every single equipment in the party…
Let"s test it all out tomorrow.

—- Divine Protection and Skills —-
Necromancer level 6: Undead Servant 21 Summons; Bone manipulation; Bonuses < bone="" weapon;="" bone="" armor;="" gathering;="" night="" vision="">
Alchemist level 5: Health potion create; Extraction; Plating; Poison potion create; Bonuses < throw;="" gathering="">
Sculptor level 6: Engrave; Golem (Wood/Earth/Stone); Bonuses < dagger;="" hammer;="" sculpting;="" gathering;="" mining="">

※ Level 6 additional skills not investigated

—- Equipment —-
Pig femur Bone dagger - 2 sets + 6/6
Barbarian robe + 0/3
Half-face guarded Viking helmet (bone) + 5/4
Heavy Round Shield (bone) + 5/4

※: + X/Y Arbitrary level of engraving and plating respectively.