– Adventurer"s Life Day 32 (Thu) – Evening – Gado Village

It seems like the inside of Zem"s house is quite much to expect from a rural house, consisting of only a living room and bedroom where the structure is made from stone.

However, the living room we pa.s.sed by appeared to be his workplace, filled with various iron parts that I don"t know of, and are left leaning against the walls.

Various tools were lined up on a wooden shelf rather neatly. Though in fact, the whole place looks pretty neat, which says quite a bit about his work ethic.

Everyone gathered around the table as Mario began to speak about various things that happened right from the beginning… 

… After what felt like an hour of conversing, Zem agreed to work in "Rostam" after some persuasions.

Even in the village, the demand for woodworking products had been decreasing, and he was getting worried from that.

Also, he doesn"t seem to have any trouble moving out as his wife had already pa.s.sed and his child had already left the house.

However, it seems it will take some time for him to move out, since he"ll have to handle with getting rid of his unwanted household items. We"ll be going ahead of him while he makes his preparations.

By the end of the day, we all stayed the night at Zem"s place.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 33 (Fri) – Morning – Gado Village

"Take that and put it in a cart. Leave that huge chest as it is."

"Alright~"

I"m mobilising my skeletons to take care in organising Zem"s luggage to move… Before arriving to Comnes, I"m helping out Zem right now.

As expected of a woodworker, he already had 3 wooden carts with him.

Zem could only pull one cart, but since there"s skeletons that can be used here, he could bring much more of his items with him without needing to make any round trips.

The skeletons working with me here have pieces of fur and cloth Zem planned on throwing away, wrapped around covering portions of where their bones are showing. Since we won"t be here for long, I"d like to not trouble to villagers here as much as possible… Well I say that, but the feet and arms are still visible though…  

No, my biggest concern are the village kids here.

"Awesome!"

"Cool!"

It seems like they noticed it already, almost like there"s almost no point in me even doing this.

I had two skeletons play along with the children while the rest of us continue on working.

Speaking of which, there were another two skeletons I had, a.s.sisting with Benedetta"s sword practice.

She"s been at it for quite some time now, exchanging attacks back and forth.

Seems like she had some sort of complicated feelings since that wolf attack yesterday, and asked me early in the morning if she could borrow my skeletons for practice. Her ability as a swordfighter greatly diminished ever since she became a "Miko", so this sort of progress is already something impressive, but even so I doubt this much would be enough for her.

She"s been unable to swing her sword well almost like she lacked the muscle strength to use it, so instead she used a light branch from a tree and had been using that for the time being… Wish I could help her out on this.

In the meantime, I"m actually doing some sort of training myself.

The skeleton Mario controls had a serious improvement in its performance in fighting. Even though the strength hadn"t really increased, the difference between that and the normal skeletons is as obvious as night and day due to their skills.

Since that"s the case, I"ve been meaning to see if there"s any way I could manipulate skeletons in a way for it to perform better.

Seeing the skeletons as is, their movement feels autonomous and sluggish.

However, if I were to concentrate my thought process onto a single skeleton, there are times when it can move really quite well.

I can probably refer to this as some sort of manual control. Since that"s the case, I had a thought about if I were to improve my proficiency in controlling it manually, it can probably be really effective for battle.

So, while working in having the items moved, I"ve been manually controlling each of the skeletons with more detailed instructions.

The result of this was, I was able to get a single skeleton to tie a rope around Zem"s furniture to the cart… However, I can"t do the same with two or more skeletons at the same time right now, since it felt like there was some sort of intermission between instructions the moment I start to focus more on one of the skeletons, which actually makes it a little irritating… I"m not sure I can even improve on this, but this is all I have for now.

After a while, there was not much manual labour left to do, so I have some free time right now.

"A caravan group will probably arrive here either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow for me to join… That said, I appreciate you helping me out here Nemo."

"We"ll be heading back first now. Do be careful."

"Same back at you. I"ll see you at Comnes then."

After saying our farewells, we left the village.

The caravan group we"ve been travelling with yesterday will be heading further south, while we"ll be heading in the opposite direction up north back to Comnes.

"It"ll be evening by the time we arrive back at Comnes right?"

"Not really, there was that incident yesterday that had us on hold for a while, and not to mention since we"re not as many as before we can do this… I"ll leave it to you Benedetta."

"Uh… Yes…"

Benedetta gave a more sullen face than usual before singing out her "Hymn".

With the "Hasten" buff, we should be able to arrive to Comnes even quicker. Mario had been looking between us with a somewhat confused face, but I"d appreciate if he just accepts it for now.

My improvement was actually smaller than I thought… T.T

The two of Zem"s carts we"ve been riding on had been pulled along by skeletons had been affected by the skill, to the point where I can even feel the wind lightly pushing.

We had ourselves pa.s.sing by a number of carriages along the way… 

… Oh dear, we"re going downhill… This is actually kinda scary.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 33 (Fri) – Afternoon – Comnes Town – South Gate

"Really now, that"s really amazing! We"re actually already here! That"s amazing Benedetta!"

"… Yes…"

Mario… Stop it, you"re making it worse… 

Benedetta is making a seriously depressed face here… 

"Erm Mario, whereabouts should we leave the luggage?"

I threw a lifeline here to divert the topic.

"Adrianne should have rented a vacant house near the store, you should leave the carts there."

Hmm~…  so Mario"s wife already secured a building nearby the shop is it.

Speaking of which, that building from the other side of the road seems awfully thin… I didn"t notice it since the surroundings had always been quiet there.

When arriving to the workshop street, customers that saw the products shown in the store were crowding around and are busy by the entrance… 

Seeing such a scene, Mario runs into the store to give Adrianne a helping hand leaving us by ourselves.

It"s a shame, but there really isn"t much more we could do to help… We placed the carts by the building and informed Mario of that through telepathy.

Later, we stopped by the guild where I would make some potions while Benedetta exchanged the wolf pelts we had with us, then headed back to the inn.

Along the way, Benedetta seemed to have realised that time when I averted the topic when Mario kept on prying into her ability, so she gave a m.u.f.fled thanks with her face flushed… 

… She didn"t really give an explanation back then, so I was kinda confused for a while.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 33 (Fri) – Morning – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields

"… Ohh!?"

"It"s pretty empty now."

We arrived back to the all too familiar hunting ground… In order to not get far away from Mario, we had ourselves moving around closer to the town than usual, but the area is still much less crowded compared to before.

With this, we don"t have to keep competing with other adventurers as much anymore.

While waking, I had a chat with Benedetta.

"Are you sure you don"t want to accept this?"

"I really appreciate the offer, but I really don"t deserve something like this."

Benedetta replied so, as she starts to dismantle.

The reward I"m talking about here is the one from that forest wolf attack. Since the wolves were defeated along with everyone, I wanted to have the reward split up between us, but Benedetta being stubborn as she is wouldn"t accept it… Even Mario refused the offer when I brought it up to him through telepathy, leaving the reward all to myself.

… Having this much money on me makes me a little nervous… 

And so while talking, I was having one of the skeletons dismantle for me.

I was wanting to take some new fresh bones with me so I used the ‘Bone Manipulation" skill for that, but after that I handed the hunting knife over to the skeleton to finish the rest.

(… I wonder if I should buy some hunting knives?… It"ll be pretty amazing if I could have some extra hands in dismantling all of these.)

The precision in the way I control the skeletons is pretty good, though it"s not exactly as good as if I were to do it personally, but I don"t really get tired when doing this and I"m free during the process as well.

In the meantime, I was busy forming the equipment for skeleton B here.

Since Mario had been possessing skeleton B until now, I haven"t had the chance to have it equipped.

Right now Mario is possessing skeleton C.

Well with this, it"s like I"m dismantling and making equipment at the same time… 

Though if there"s anything that"s not going well, it would be the fact that I probably won"t have enough mana to take out the Golem anymore by noon, if things were to continue like this.

Of course, if I were to drink some mana potions I should be able to replenish it… Each of these are able to recover about a quarter of my mana.

Ever since a couple of days ago, the number of adventurers here have been steadily decreasing.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 34 (Sat) – Before Noon – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields

"… It"s the same time…"

"… You sure. I was sure it lasted way longer than usual…"

Ever since it was possible to hunt at the Gravel Fields again, two days have pa.s.sed and both ‘Necromancer" and ‘Sculptor" levelled up to 7 at the exact same time.

Of course, since I was expecting this, I already had the second hand iron weapons bought from the shop.

These were for ‘Plating" new skeleton equipment.

"Even when they happened at the same time, the pain was still somewhat the same…"

"What do you think you"ll do if the pain was doubled?"

"Stop… I don"t want to think about that."

Thinking of such a thing is already making me twitch.

"Alright, time for some more skeletons…"

"It really is an absurd skill…"

She sighed as she watches as I continue to perform making some armour onto the skeleton using ‘Bone Manipulation".

The number of skeletons increased again, but this time I only had one of them summoned at a time as I equip the each of them individually.

Of course, I also apply ‘Engraving" and "Plating" onto them.

In this way, I can have the skeleton summoned when only need be to save some mana.

No need to waste anymore than I already have.

"Alright. That"s 4 new skeletons all ready and equipped… In any case, could you please use your skill here."

"Understood."

I had 4 of the new skeletons accompany us.

It"s more efficient to move as a team here, especially with the support skill in range… "Hasten" is seriously useful like this.

… By the time Benedetta had finished buffing us… 

"Uwaa – !"

"It"s huge! Watch out!"

"It"s too quick to see! It"s not at the same place anymore!"

Shouts can be heard from behind the dense trees and thickets.

For a moment, I"ve been panicking that it might be my Golem that"s causing it, but judging by our positions, it doesn"t seem to be the case… 

None of the skeletons didn"t seem to have been in contact with the enemy either, so I first called all the summons back to me.

(I"ve been caught by surprise the last time like this…)

Whenever something unexpected were to happen, me and Benedetta would get together and have all our forces gathered around here.

This is in response to that last time when we went against that forest wolf group.

"There seems to be something around! We"ll head towards to where those voices were!"

"Understood!"

We set up a formation of skeletons surrounding us and the Golem leading the way.

—- Summoning Memo —-

A: Hatchet + 6/6, Kite shield (metal) + 6/6, Blood stained leather armor + 0/6.

B: Mace + 6/6, Round shield with iron frame (wood) + 6/6, Greek armor and helmet

C: Battle axe, Heavy round shield (bone) + 6/6 , Greek armor and helmet, Mantle

D-U: Club (Bone) + 6/6, Heavy round shield (bone) + 6/6, Greek armor and helmet 4

V-Z: Club (bone) + 7/6 , Heavy round shield (bone) + 7/6, Greek armor and helmet+ 7/6

・ One stone golem

*: + X / Y describes the level of "sculptor" / "alchemist" at the time of "engraved" / "plating" for convenience.