– Adventurer"s Life Day 47 (Fri) – Morning – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields

I had the party of ours stopped for a while in the Gravel Fields, as I got myself closer to a tree I had my eye on.

Right now, I"m going to try out ‘Sculptors” ‘Polpenius" Horse".

I do have a bit of a clue as to what this skill could probably do… There was that legend from a while back, about how Polpenius created a statue that moved an evil king"s heart.

In other words, there"s a possibility that this skill would work similar to how my Golems are created. Additionally, like how the Golem was first made, wood may be the first material I could use.

To test it out, I had Centurion cut off a piece of one of the trees branches… and after that, I try to use the skill onto it. At that the entire branch reacted, closing on itself and later forming into the shape of a horse.

“Cute!”

Benedetta immediately went over looking at it excitedly.

However, the tiny horse doesn"t seem to be moving at all.

Only when giving it an order did the horse began galloping around her, and she began to clap along like a child.

What a rare sight from her…

“Ohh… Could this be a horse?”

Philips also came over and gave a look like he was seeing something rare…

I later then summoned out the stone golem I"ve been keeping a hold of.

Unlike the southeast of Comnes, the western side has hardly ever been disturbed by humans, so it should be fine even if I were to cut a number of trees down… Having that thought in mind to rea.s.sure myself, I had the stone golem tackle one of them.

Placing the small wooden horse on top of the fallen tree, it broke itself apart and tried to wrap itself around the entire tree… I felt my mana draining quickly so I had to stop it before it takes any more.

After a few seconds, though a little smaller than those thoroughbred horses, it formed into a solid horse.

“Bururu!”

When it appeared, it made an odd horse sounding noise… other that however, it really is much like a golem.

Feeling something is off, I added in a saddle onto its back, using ‘Modelling" to carve onto it.

Benedetta, who seemed to be the most experienced in riding horses, gave it a test run and… oh, they"re pretty far already.

“Hohh… Looks good.”

“How is Sir PHILIPS with HORSES?”

“I had never ridden one… Aside from the king, there was no one else around in possession of one.”

“I had never RIDDEN one either. It"s RARE to see a HORSE here as well.”

With the constant threat of monsters, it"s exceptionally difficult to cultivate horses for even villages further north and south, making the horses sold at Comnes exceedingly expensive.

In contrast, cattles don"t require a field as large as horses", and it"s also much cheaper to feed too. Because of this, it"s much more common for caravans to be pulled along using cattles instead.

“This is amazing! I can"t even see that tag dog anymore!”

Sounds like they were playing around and vastly outran a stray monster in the distance…

Looking like she just remembered something, Benedetta sang out her ‘Hymn", applying ‘Hastening" to her surroundings. Wooden horse included.

This is much better than expected… though a little plain, it"s a summoned creature with plenty of uses.

“Sorry Benedetta, but I"m going to have to try something for a bit.”

“Alright.”

Rather than speed, we"re kind of in need of something to carry all the luggage. And so, when thinking of various ideas, I thought, ‘is it possible to split this in two?"

Putting my hands onto the horse and having this sort of thought in my head, it then split as easily as that…

Surprised at that, I walked up to the golem and did the same… and it did just the same.

… Huh…

After a while of experimenting, it seems like the limit they could split would be three.

… To think, the golem actually had such a function to begin with…

“Eh… isn"t this a good thing?”

“MASTER is making a DEPRESSED face.”

… Was it really showing in my face. Not that I"m too surprised, since the realization of this sort of makes me… well, it"s better to find it out now then never, I suppose.

I"m a.s.suming, like all the other skills, the number they could split can be increased when levelling up.

I won"t really think anymore than this. I had the golem returned and left only one of the horses out.

“Centurion! Have you and your team search for Yuusouryou and Suinetsusou when walking. Benedetta, use the horse and keep a lookout on our surroundings! Phillips! I leave it to you taking the lead!”

“Understood MASTER.”

“On my way!”

“As per your command…”

Like that,  we head towards the cliff of our usual destination.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 47 (Fri) – Morning – Comnes Town – West – Abandoned Mine

… It"s been an hour now ever since we left the town gates.

We"ve reached into an area where we would start encountering monsters in the Abandoned Mine.

“Now then, Phillips along with 3 from his team, Centurion and his team, and me and Benedetta team will split off and hunt in different areas… ah, actually I"ll leave one to Centurion"s team as well. Well then, see you all soon!”

Phillips and Centurion both gave a nod and began proceeding into different routes…

Being able to grasp the position between me and the skeletons is probably one of the most useful abilities here. This along with telepathic communication.

Like this, we could immediately rush to the other when help is required.

The 4 members in Phillips" team are hunting separately.

It"s a special trait Phillips has on his team.

As such, they all hunt separately with Phillips indirectly commanding them. It doesn"t seem like they"re having any problems there.

I"ve been peeking through the skeletons vision from their team from time to time, seeing whether or not they would get into any trouble.

In order to save up on mana, I"ve been limiting the number of normal skeletons I have out to 10, so that only makes 18 of us in total.

There shouldn"t be any problems if I were to summon out the golem in an emergency.

And so, I gave out orders to skeleton 3, which was the main reason why I left it with Centurion.

With the mattock, bought from Adonnis earlier, I had skeleton 3 dig up into the wall nearby.

“What"s this for?”

“Centurion has the ‘Mining" skill on him, and the rest of his skeletons should also have it too, so I wanna have them try digging out a tunnel.”

“?”

“This place here is a mine. Though the ore around here had pretty much been completely depleted, I was thinking I could perhaps ‘Extract" the left over materials.”

“Eh… was the ‘Extraction" skill used for something like that?”

Ah, that"s right… I never really did explain the skill have I.

At that time, skeleton 3 had started breaking apart the wall.

The broken pieces were gathered up on a slime cloth made from Rostam, then extracted all at once.

Different from last time, the extracted materials were completely separated from the rocks, and the wasted rocks were easy to take out. All that was left on the sheet was what look like iron sand.

I feel that the mana was used much more effectively now than it did back when I ‘Extracted" that rock salt. Having the ‘Alchemist" divine protection 6 levels higher probably has something to do with it.

“Now then, now"s a good time to try out that new level 9 ‘Alchemist" skill.”

“Is this that one called ‘Ingot"?”

I nodded to Benedetta.

That said, ‘Exploding Potion", or what was commonly referred to in the game ‘E Potion", was another skill I got from ‘Alchemist", but I"ll try it out another time.

After only about 10 minutes, we managed to acquire quite a lot of iron sand, so I finally tried out that "Ingot" skill.

When thinking up in the shape of an iron bar, it formed just as imagined… though there is a limit on its size, it seems like I"m also restricted into making it only to something like an iron plate or rod.

(Then again, this skill makes the job so easy, some blacksmith that dedicated their whole life into it would get furious if they were to see this…)

Right now, my mana"s been reduced to about a quarter, so I made a mana potion and drank it. With that, I have about half now.

I made about three more potions after that… though that did reduce my mana by a tenth from doing so…

"Guess I can try it out now…"

"Finding out the time limit for the next drink?"

"Yep. I"ll take a little at a time so I can try to figure out when."

… Once again, I repeated in using ‘Ingot".

“The hole carved inside the wooden horses already seems to be full.”

“Then, I guess it"s time to stop here huh.”

Trying to make an improvisation, I had carved out a cavity on the horse to load our stuff in, but as expected, it didn"t take too long until it became full.

“Like I thought, a cart would really be better for this now…”

“I suppose… but would it be fine when pa.s.sing through the Gravel Fields?”

“We can switch over from prioritising hunting to prioritising cargo holding with the skeletons when we reach there.”

“Ah, I see…”

Though in that case, we"re going to have to be careful not to gather up too much materials for that.

There"s also something to note, that inside the Mines have a relatively flat ground, given that it used to have to deal in transporting things around.

– Adventurer"s Life Day 47 (Fri) – Before Noon – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields

It seems like the cooldown time limit for the mana potion is about 45 minutes.

With the stone golem + 45 skeletons in operation, about a single mana potion would be used in an hour, so long as I don"t use any other skills in the duration.

It feels like I could probably use this quite reliably then. I just have to make sure I still have some mana potions left and not completely use up my mana… even then, that"s still not happening since I need my mana for other things too.

With that in mind, we switched up tactics a bit, and had Phillips, his independent skeletons, along with me and 10 of my skeletons, hunt inside the Abandoned Mine. While Centurion"s team, Benedetta on horseback, and 5 other skeletons are out in the Gravel Fields in charge with gathering herbal ingredients for the mana potion.

Also, the range limit in controlling the skeletons had been increased substantially when reaching level 9. The radius spans from the Abandoned Mine to the entirety of the Gravel Field.

We"ve also been managing to hunt inside the Mines for a long time since the materials gathered from the monsters there are pretty small and light.

(Master! There"s a strange skeleton up ahead!)

(What"s that!?)

Taking a look from Philips" vision, a large skeleton with horns protruding from its head was waving its sword about.

Could this one be, an ‘Elite"…?

(… Too slow!)

(Ah…)

After taking about three blows from Philips" spear, the ‘Elite" collapsed… It got taken down so quickly that I didn"t even know what it could do…

– Adventurer"s Life Day 47 (Fri) – Evening – Comnes Town – Adventurer"s Guild

Once we got back to town, we stopped by the inn first to leave the iron bars there… We got quite a bit of stares from the residences there as we got the skeletons to bring the bars to our room.

After that, we head towards the guild and dropped off our items by the exchange center and collected the reward in the lobby as usual.

What"s different today however is that right now, there are 4 of us huddled up around a table.

When arriving in town, Phillips stated how he wishes to see around. He was quite insistent about it, so it was difficult to refuse… his equipment had been an iron coating so he doesn"t seem as conspicuous as before… not that it made much of a difference, as we"ve been given quite a lot of stares until arriving at the adventurer"s guild.

“We got quite a haul today!”

“That arm had a lot of value to it.”

“The ENTIRE arm of it was like a GEMSTONE.”

Supposedly, the right arm of that ‘Elite", Phillips had defeated, was entirely made from precious stones.

Ohmas had given the advice of selling it at an auction, to which we had the guild deal with that matter. The reward will come tomorrow.

Even putting that aside, we earned quite a lot just from the materials gathered in the Mines.

I got a little too excited and started cheering when all of us gathered around the table and had our drinks.

That said, though it is only a small detail, it seems like Phillips and Centurion had been able to eat, drink and even taste, though I do wonder where that goes down to… I wanted to peek down their armor, but ultimately gave up and brushed it off as ‘magic".

“Even so, this is much different than from my time…The guild here has a much different procedure in dealing things…”

Phillips muttered so as he continues to drink…

Though it"s only a speculation, he feels quite distant from us as we all belong to a different timeline from his.

"Aren"t you lonely?"

"… I can"t deny that. However, right now I have met with new companions, along with a new world to explore in… The feelings I have for these is stronger."

"Mhm… "

The Comnia from his time, turned into the Comnes now…

From looking around, the position of both places didn"t seem to have changed at all.

However, the position of the river had changed, so he can"t be too certain. (tlnote*)

From what I heard about Comnes" history, this place was supposedly expanded from a once small camp created by some random merchant… Perhaps the history of this city had been lost once, when handed down from generation to generation…

Phillips spoke up, seeming like he realized something after a period of thinking.

"Oh, that"s right… Sorry about this, but tomorrow I"d like to have a look around this town"s walls. Will there be time for that?"

"Hey Benedetta, we"ll be going out hunting a little later than usual. Is that fine?"

"I don"t mind. I"ll join you two."

Seems like Benedetta is coming with us.

… I asked Phillips what the purpose in going there is, but he responded back with, "If it is indeed what I expect it to be, I will tell you"…

… Saying it like that sort of makes me more curious.

—- Summoning Memo —-

Centurion Team:
Members: Centurion, Skeleton 1, 2, 3
Equipment: Hatchet, Shield, Armor and helmet

Phillips Team:
Members: Phillips, Skeletons 4, 5, 6
Equipment: Spear, Shield, Armor and helmet

Other Skeletons:
7 – 37: Club, Round shield, Armor and helmet

Stone Golem: 1
Wooden Horse: 1

#Golems can be divided to a maximum of three bodies.

TL note: Dunno why, but seeing this made me really happy ^^