– Adventurer"s Life Day 44 (Tue) – Morning – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields

Once we had Benedetta get a good sleep in the inn, we left and headed towards the Gravel Field.

We have 36 skeletons here in total along with the stone golem… It"s been a while since I"ve hunted in the fields on my own (Centurion doesn"t count).

The skeletons were divided into teams of 3, 9 of those teams would be off to hunt around the area, while Centurion"s team + another one would be helping with the dismantling, while the remaining one would be escorting me along with the golem.

I"ll be taking direct control of a single team, namely the ones dealing with the dismantlings… As of right now though, I"m capable of increasing that number, but I"ll put it off for later…

While in thought, I called over Centurion and his team to come over to me.

"Is THERE anything you NEED?"

"I"m going to upgrade the equipment of you guys first."

While I was sleeping, these guys had been collecting up sh.e.l.led rabbit hides and bones, so I"m planning on using these to increase the defence of these guys.

First, the part below the breastplate to the waist area seems weak, so I"m planning on fixing some sort of skirt armor to it.

However, the front might probably interfere with the legs or something if that were the case, so I had them attached as plates instead to give it some flexibility.

Holes were punctured onto the bottom of the breastplate, and then tied leather strips onto those… With that, it shouldn"t get in the way of the legs even while running.

"The BALANCE on the FRONT side feels off Master."

"I see, so that"s the case…"

I"ve had this thought for a while on how awkward the skeletons look, wearing a helmet and breastplate, but have no any sort armor below the waist.

At least with this, it looks pretty decent… 

Furthermore, I"ve also made some shin pads and arm pads using sh.e.l.led rabbits hide.

I couldn"t follow this along with the hand part unfortunately… That"s a little too difficult for me.

And so, I began to finish things off by applying engraving and plating on to the armor… though I can"t really coat the fur with plating however.

With the exception of the exposed parts like the upper arms, thighs and feet, they seem like human soldiers… However, there"s probably no soldier that looks like this in this world…

“It"s easier to hide my WEAK POINTS behind the SHIELD with all the ARMOR on now."

"Can you try making some movements for me."

"ROGER."

Centurion swung his axe, moved his shield around, and even when he crouched down, the armor doesn"t seem to be getting in the way.

"There"s no PROBLEM in moving. The WEIGHT of it might make me SLOWER though, but the DURABILITY should make up for it."

"That"s good."

I had Centurion remove his equipment, and used that as a reference in making the other equipment.

The skeletons have pretty much the exact same figure, so there should be no problem if I were to make them all the same.

"… Oh no wait, that"s right."

"What IS it?"

"There"s some parts I wanted to add."

It"s some decoration on their helmets so I can distinguish them from one another.

Right now, the skeletons armor and helmets are the exact same, making it really hard to tell them apart.

With the necromancer ability though, I can distinguish them quite well myself.

But for someone like Benedetta, It"d be hard to coordinate with.

Until now, the skeletons all kinda have the same ability, so discerning them from one another wasn"t really needed, but with recent addition to Centurion and his team, it"s somewhat needed now.

It"s not like it"s not possible to differentiate them based on their weapons and shields, but even if it is just a second quicker, it won"t hurt just to make them a little more distinct.

First, I"ll have the bone made hair on their helmets about 5cm longer.

On top of that, I had the hide of Tagged Dogs, that were hunted earlier, cut into thin strips and clamped in between the bones of it.

With this, the comb above the helmets are decorated.

They"ve also probably did this for the same reasons back in those days… now these guys should definitely be easier to distinguish… I think.

However, the tag dogs hairs aren"t really sticking upright and are just slopping down… I should probably think of something to fix this.

"SOMEHOW, I feel the PRESENTATION of this is WORSE."

"… I"ll think of something later."

Centurion took off his helmet as he continued to stare at me… Really now, what is this?

– Adventurer"s Life Day 44 (Tue) – Before Noon – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields

Thanks to already being used to using the ‘Bone Manipulation", ‘Plating" and ‘Engraving", I had everything done for all 36 skeletons right before noon.

Furthermore, I even had the armor and helmet for skeleton A finished as well, so that really makes everything done… It sure felt long…

… Ah yeah, that"s right.

Since the number of skeletons now number 36, it"s best if I drop the alphabet naming for them.

I guess I"ll be referring them to numbers from now on.

So like, skeleton A would be 1, skeletons B would be 2… and so on and so forth.

In the meantime, the skeletons had already reached the number of monsters they could carry, and so we head back to town, pacing ourselves a little faster as Benedetta isn"t here to buff us.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 44 (Tue) – Noon – Comnes Town – Inn – Nessos" Temptation

After selling all the materials at the guild, I returned back to the inn and called out to Benedetta to wake her up.

I had been telling her things like, "if she were to sleep too much right now, she wouldn"t be able to get a proper sleep at night", like a mother would.

"… Good morning…"

I feel really bad doing this, but it"ll be a problem for her in the future so I try not to think about it.

Sluggishly walking outside, she came back seeming refreshed after washing her face.

… ? … Why would she have her equipment on?

"I know you already came back from hunting, but do you mind if we were go again?"

Mhm, I sort of expected this… 

I drank a mana potion to make up for using my mana all of this morning.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 44 (Tue) – Afternoon – Comnes Town – Inn – Nessos" Temptation

After we finished up with hunting and visited the guild, we returned back to the inn.

Though we finished at the same time as any other day, we did just made a round trip 3 times.

"Speaking of which, I"m planning on changing our hunting grounds tomorrow, what do you think…?"

"… The abandoned mine is it?"

She got it figured pretty quickly.

That"s right, it"s the area considered to be Comnes" most difficult hunting ground.

However, aside from the golem, everyone in the party wouldn"t be particularly hindered in the darkness.

With the addition of Centurion, the danger in hunting there significantly decreases.

For the past few days in the guild, I"ve been listening in to what the monsters are like in that place, and we should be more than enough to handle it.

After having a little prep talk with one another, we got ourselves prepared in heading to the abandoned mines tomorrow.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 45 (Wed) – Morning – Comnes Town – West – Abandoned Mine – Front

"Hahh hah…"

"Haah… We actually made it here using the least amount of mana…"

Catching our breath, me and Benedetta finally relaxed ourselves a bit in front of the Mine.

Escorting along with us are just 7 skeletons.

We had to cross the Gravel Fields first from Comnes to reach here, meaning we would be encountering monsters along the way. To conserve mana, I summoned the minimum amount, and fled from as much monsters as we could.

It was only thanks to Benedetta"s ‘Haste" hymn was this possible.

"Alright. Ready to enter?"

"Yes."

I haven"t been to this place before, so I"m being a little more cautious than usual, despite already being aware that this area shouldn"t be a problem for us.

As far as I know, none of the monsters inside should be any stronger than the forest wolves.

Taking several meters into the cave-like mine, the surroundings gradually begin to darken, but with the night vision ability of mine, this wasn"t really a problem. Benedetta as well don"t seem to be having any problems either as she continues to remain vigilant.

"… There."

"The first enemy is it."

About 6 giant bats were spotted clinging onto the ceiling… but, they"re not coming to attack us…

(… Will we need to pa.s.s through them first for us to be attacked?)

Even so, there won"t be any need to do such a thing.

I had the skeletons take up their shields, then threw out one of my special stones right at one.

Screech screech!!

I managed to get the 2 of them down before the rest aggressively came flying this way.

The normal skeletons are flailing their clubs about while Centurions team and Bendetta attack them with more precision.

(… Oh?)

They"ve been completely annihilated, to point where it even felt rather anticlimactic.

The bats here have an eerily similar face to a wolf"s, regardless of what anyone says, I"ll be calling these ones wolf bat.

"Why don"t these guys attack in the beginning?"

"Perhaps it has something to do with our numbers?"

Proceeding a little further on, there were more of these guys hanging by the ceiling and repeated the same as we did before… like that, a large number got taken down at once.

We continued on repeating the same pattern when advancing deeper into the mine.

"WHERE would it be FINE to DISMANTLE these?"

"Have the wings cut off, but make sure to keep the two in one piece."

"UNDERSTOOD."

The wings on these are actually waterproof, making it useful for a number of things.

Seems like the slime cloth has a compet.i.tor now. But in all seriousness, with its strength, it"s market price shouldn"t be any low.

Really now this place… easy monsters… the absence of adventurers, and even the materials are surprisingly valuable…

No wait, wait. There"s still other monsters we"ll need to be cautious about.

"!?… There"s something different coming this way… It has a human figure."

Clack clack

… I can see about 4 skeletons walking this way in front of us.

Of course, those guys aren"t on my side. They"ve been called skeleton warriors from what I know.

It"s said that as mana stagnates inside the cave, humanoid figures would begin to appear, though the details of how it actually happens is a mystery to me.

"Raise up your shields!"

The 10 skeletons close by raised up their shields in unison and in formation.

The skeleton warriors had stones used as their weapons and began ramming it onto our shields!

Bang bang!

However, it didn"t really cause much of a disturbance to the skeletons.

Those guys seemed to be a little more stronger compared to mine, but with the equipment included, there"s no comparison.

And more than anything, it doesn"t seem like those skeletons have any intelligence outside of simply attacking… immediately, a group of my other skeletons circled behind them.

"Alright! Aim for the spine!"

Even when hit from behind, the enemy skeletons haven"t responded and continued to pointlessly attack the shields in front of them.

The ones on my side had been attacking areas not protected, so once they stopped moving they were finished off by Centurion"s team.

Once they were completely defeated, we proceeded to dismantle them.

… At some parts of the bone, there are some areas with a brown and transparent material lodged inside. These rare materials are mainly used as a medicine or as decoration.

We"ve only managed to find one at the size of a thumb, but even this could be exchanged for quite a decent sum.

Another thing we encountered along the way was a giant lizard with no eyes, to which the skeletons managed to defeat easily. Inside it"s stomach, interestingly enough, were some blue stones.

These also seemed to be something that could hold value.

"It doesn"t seem to be any difficult as the gravel fields."

"Yeah, the darkness would probably be the biggest problem for other parties to handle.

Mm… Even with a torch on hand, it"s still difficult to see further away and notice enemies because of the limited range and the shadows it casts.

Though the skeletons fight rather sluggish, with their base strength and numbers, we"ve been able to push through pretty easily.

"In any case, don"t let your guard down."

Once we got back into formation, we proceeded on deeper into the cavern.

However, it"s still not known to us the two threats awaiting us within this dungeon.

—- Summoning Memo —-

Centurion Team:

Members: Centurion, Skeleton A, B

Equipment: Hatchet, Shield, Armor and helmet

Other Skeletons:

C + 33: Club, Round shield, Armor and helmet

Stone Golem: 1

TL notes: In case you didn"t know what are (‘cos I didn"t).