Translator: Cryus

3 Monster Summons are appearing in front of Master.
The shadow of the largest summon looms before me, catching my attention.
Its size is comparable to Master"s gatekeeper Stone Golems.
But instead of the stone armor of the golems, it"s baring its muscles.

It looks reliable.

The Roc Bird releases the monster from its talons, dropping it onto the ground.
From that momentum, it seemed as if the monster was pounded into the ground on its back.
But in fact, the monster is sliding on the ground, making a soft landing as it prepares to get up.
For a moment, it caused a gust of wind to blow.

What exactly did this monster do?

Something small is attacking the monster from under the shadow of the Red Ogre.
It"s fast and brave.
Due to the size of the Red Ogre and the monster, it looks small to me.
But it"s just my sense of perspective being screwed up. It"s bigger and stronger than me.

It"s a demon.
Something about it scares me.
There"s another Monster Summon hiding on the Yaksha"s back.

Its body is coated with gold and white fur, and its toes are black. The combination of the colors is striking, and I can"t take my eyes off it.
It resembles a heat haze, and yet it has little presence.
It"s a strange feeling.
Actually, it"s starting to disappear.
I can"t see it anymore.

My attention shifts instead to the Roc Bird, which is landing behind Master.
Its HP recovers greatly as Master casts a healing spell on it.
But it"s not a full recovery.
Master casts a spell immediately after that.

Suddenly, there"s a vibration in the air, which seems to converge around the monster.
The monster is inhaling the air, along with fallen trees and small stones.

The air stops moving.

The monster exhales in the next instant.
It"s as if it"s conjuring a tornado from its mouth. It"s a wonderful sight to behold.
The tornado is tunneling towards the Roc Bird.
It"s definitely disadvantageous for the Roc Bird, which uses its large wings to fly.

It"s a direct hit.
Or, it should have been one.
The Roc Bird remains standing, with Master in front of it.
What happened?

The Red Ogre is holding up the monster"s nose with one hand and grabbing its short but thick teeth with another.
It"s trying to drag the monster around.
The Yaksha is running around its legs.
It"s holding a broad hatchet in its hands.

It looks small from my perspective, but it"s actually pretty big.
Each time the Yaksha takes a swing at the monster, I see blood splashing out from it.
I hear the monster"s cries of agony at the same time.

The Carnivorous Taper must be pretty angry from taking damage.
The monster lets out a tremendous roar. In the next instant, the Red Ogre begins sustaining injuries all over its body.
It was a small tornado that sliced the Red Ogre"s body.

The Red Ogre is roaring as well.
Its body is covered in blood, but its wounds seem to be closing up.
Its muscles are bulging out even more than before.
It"s counterattacking.
Holding onto the monster"s nose, the Red Ogre starts swinging it around.
And then, it throws the monster.

The monster tries to open its mouth again, but is unable to do so.
The Red Ogre is stepping on its mouth.
Remaining on the ground, its HP is decreasing while the Yaksha cuts its belly repeatedly.
Meanwhile, the Roc Bird had flown into the air. It lands on the monster"s body as if covering it.

It"s pecking at the monster"s head.
It"s as if the Roc Bird is getting its revenge for the damage it received before now.
Master is riding on top of it.
The Demon Fox had climbed onto the Roc Bird, and is now resting right next to Master.

It looks like the battle is already decided.
I think the monster fought well… no, it fought bravely.
But in the end, it can"t do anything.
Not when it"s surrounded and overwhelmed by attacks from multiple directions.

Master… You"re strong.
I admire your strength!
But the road ahead seems pretty long for me.

The monster is dead, and the place is destroyed.
The forest is littered with fallen and ruined trees.
I"m surprised that we"re all okay.

Without showing any signs of taking the item drops from the monster, Master studies it carefully.
He"s clearly upset.
I wonder if there"s a problem?
Now he"s sticking his Survival Knife into the monster, as if he made a decision.
The ma.s.sive carca.s.s of the monster is disappearing.
There"s a small object in Master"s hand.

「Is everything alright?」

「Yes. There is no problem at all.」

The Demon Fox is staying close to Master"s feet.
It seems to have multiple tails.
No.
Something feels off.
Sometimes there"s one tail, two tails, or none at all.
It almost resembles a flickering flame.

「Do not see it as it is. It is but an illusion.」

I see.
Wait, then it may have been the work of the Demon Fox when it looked as if the tornado had hit the Roc Bird.
It"s perfectly logical if it had evaded the attack through the illusion.
It is a Demon Fox after all. They"re known to perform tricks like that.

When I approach the Yaksha, I can see that it"s about two or three heads taller than me.
It"s wearing leather armor. This resembles something.
It looks like a Buddha statue.
It also resembles an image of the Four Heavenly Kings stepping on evil spirits.
But the head looks different.

Its hair is long and wild.
The hair is covering its eyes, but I can see them when I change to a different angle.
Its eyes are bloodshot.
I feel terror, madness, and murderous intent emanating from them.
I"m paralyzed with fear.

Finally, there"s the Red Ogre, which is even bigger than the Yaksha.
Even though it suffered a direct hit from the monster"s tornado attack, I don"t see any wounds.
Its HP has almost recovered to full as well.
I don"t think Master healed it at all.
I"m impressed by its regenerative abilities.

There"s hair all over its body, and the definition of its muscles are terrific.
It"s as if the muscles themselves are its armor.
I wouldn"t be able to hurt a monster of this size.
It"s so huge that I wouldn"t be able to perform a Joint Lock or Throw it.
Obviously, I couldn"t possibly punch or kick it either.
I wonder if I"ll face a similar monster in the future.

It feels as if Master"s Monster Summons are looking at me and my companions all at once.
Even Volff and Helix look tense.
But only for an instant.
Master recalls all of his Monster Summons except for the Roc Bird.

「Now, let us go home.」

「Okay.」

It seems that I won"t be fighting a second round.
Honestly, I"m a little worried.
Are there many monsters here that are as strong as the one just now?
I won"t be able to handle myself if they start coming at me.

「The monsters around here have all escaped. Even if I tried to call them, they are too far away.」

I see.
I doubt he would want me to get involved in a fight like that.
Lucky for me.

With Master"s urging, we head to his house.
For some reason, the usual troubled expression on his face seems different.
I"m starting to feel a little uneasy, but I climb the Roc Bird and embrace the warmth of Volff and the Roc Bird"s feathers.

When we arrived at his house, I helped him make potions.
As usual.
But something happened.
Master failed in making potions.
Even though he was using Alchemy, all ten potions ended up with a Grade of C-.

「Oh, this won"t do.」

I felt even more uneasy.
It was obvious that something was bothering him.
After that, he managed to make Grade C potions.
But he seemed to know himself well.
He stopped after making about 250 potions.

「This won"t do at all. I shall continue after some rest. You may proceed with your own request.」

「Okay.」

Master left the cleaning to his Metalskin and went downstairs.
Was there a problem with the monster just now, after all?

Well, I can"t do anything about it anyway.
I should finish my quest.
But something else is different today.
Until yesterday, I had little to no MP to spare.
But now I can afford to use Alchemy a few times.
I"ll try using Quick Recreate on the best potion I"ve made so far.
I use 1 Healgra.s.s to make 2 potions, following the procedure for the Grade B- potion.

I"ve managed to make 2 C+ potions.
Quick Recreate is a part of the Making subskill, which belongs to the Alchemy skill. It seems that the grade will just end up decreasing.
I try it again, only to end up with C+ potions again.
Now I"ll try increasing the quant.i.ty.

I"m using 2 Healgra.s.s to make 4 potions.
This time, I"ve made 3 Grade C potions and 1 Grade C+ potion.
This won"t do.
Even though I want all of it to be Grade C, it"s not consistent.

I"ll try making 6 potions using 3 Healgra.s.s.
The result is 5 Grade C potions and 1 Grade C- potion.

How do I make the results consistent?

《Alchemy Level Up!》
《Job Level Up!》

Oh, that"s a convenient time for Alchemy to level up.
My job level has increased too.
It looks like I have to improve skills that are related to the job in order to level it up.
My Alchemy has been stuck at Lv.2 for a while until now.

I continue using Quick Recreate to make potions.
I"m using 3 Healgra.s.s to make 6 potions.
They"re all Grade C.

I"ve repeated it a few more times. There hasn"t been any Grade C- potions.
Now I"ll try increasing it to 4 Healgra.s.s and 8 potions.
The result is 6 Grade C- potions and 2 Grade D+ potions.

Yup. It"s a long way for me to go.
Gaining a level isn"t much.
I continue using Quick Recreate as long as I have the MP for it.
I ended up using all of the potion bottles provided by the Adventurer"s Guild.

I think I got a little carried away.
There"s quite a number of potions that aren"t Grade C.
Even then, I"ve managed to make 87 potions, which is more than the 60 they requested.
I"ve also managed to make 12 Recovery Pills.

Moving on.
This time, I"ll try making potions carefully by hand.
I haven"t been able to make Grade B potions, but I managed to make 4 Grade B- potions at once.
I"ll save this workflow just in case.

Now I have some free time.
I can continue making some more potions, but I just realized that I haven"t given Volff and my Monster Summons enough play time.
I"ll head further west while hunting.
According to Mio, there"s a village there. I should at least find out where it is exactly.

There"s still some time before sunset.
The rain has gotten lighter.
Right now, I have Volff and Helix summoned.
When I need to move around, I can just switch to Zangetsu.
It"s a little too late, but I"m starting to regret using too much MP for Alchemy.
I"ll play it safe and stick to this setup for now.
I"m briskly walking on the path to town, making movement a priority.
It feels a little far away.
For a moment, I felt like obtaining the【Endurance Run】skill, but I have Zangetsu for that.
In situations like this, I"m better off walking faster.

I cast Physical Enchant: Wind.
There"s only a slight difference, but I"m definitely faster thanks to the spell.
The Enchant spells sure are useful, and not just in battle.

Naturally, I encountered monsters even though it"s the path to town.
I hunted Wild Pheasants (F) with no problem at all, since I already know how to fight them.
The Lost Horses were the problem.
They"re fast and tough, and they tend to flee after receiving a certain amount of damage.
It felt like a waste when they ran away after Volff and I spent the effort to damage them.
It was even more of a waste when I had to use potions to recover lost HP.
We also ran into a monster I had never seen before.

It"s a racc.o.o.n with stripes.
It"s small and easy to defeat. At least, that was the first impression I got.
This monster has an ability similar to Master"s Demon Fox.
It made a duplicate of itself.
There was actually only one of it, so the easy solution was for me and Volff to attack them both at once.
It also used fire attacks.

I was shocked when a fireball suddenly appeared above it.
But it was also relatively easy to deal with it.
Apparently it has to stay still in order to use the attack.
Since there were no trees for it to hide behind, I wouldn"t get hit at all.
Well, I did get hit once.

The fireb.a.l.l.s vanished whenever I went up close to hit the monster.
It was dangerous for Helix to attack it from midair, so Volff and I took turns attacking it.
Physical Enchant: Wind helped me in this case too.
I had to chase it all the way into the forest.
The increase in speed helped a lot, despite how slight it was.

That was the only item drop.
It"s not as thick as the Wild Rabbit Skin. It doesn"t seem to be a good material for armor.
Looking at it, it reminds me of the old days where people used to wear scarves that resembled the skin of foxes and racc.o.o.ns.
It"s a little creepy when I think about it.

The sight of players catches my attention.
There are a lot of them around here.
There"s always a bow user in each party.
Among them, there"s even a party of 6 that has 3 bow users.

Wow.
They may be necessary, but they seem a little too popular.
I"m worried that they"ll hunt all of the Wild Pheasants (F).

Which reminds me that there are Wild Pheasants (M) in the forest.
I haven"t hunted them yet.
I wonder what items they"ll drop.
Since there are so many players, some of them must be hunting the pheasants.

There was a skill that leveled up while I was hunting.

I think I"ve used it a lot, but it has finally leveled up.
The only initial skill that hasn"t reached Lv.3 is Wind Magic.
I feel like it"s harder to level it up compared to my Racial Level.

I should proceed further down the path to town.
It"s a small village enclosed by a fence.
It looks reasonably large as I approach it. It also seems rather lively.
Maybe it"s because of the number of players here.

There"s a garden and an orchard in the village, separated by a fence.
There"s also a farm of some sort.
There are NPCs with yellow markers over there, with the occasional player with a green marker.
I wonder if they"re helping out on the farm?

While I"m scanning the village, I also notice that there are carriages moving along the roads.
There"s wood and fodder in most of the carriages, but there are also peddlers of some kind.
There are players inside as well.

Yup.
This is a nice place.

There are shabby makeshift lookout towers next to the entrance of the village. I guess this is the gate.
There"s a signboard that"s a piece of wood attached to a wedge. There"s a carving on the signboard.
I stare at it, and a small virtual window appears, showing its name『Legias』.
This is definitely the village that Mio and the girls were talking about.

I can enter freely.
The guard doesn"t seem to mind letting Volff and Helix enter either.
There are a lot of players in here.
Many of them seem to be making a living here with the same idea of business in mind.

Protagonist　Keith
Race　Human　Male　Racial Lv4
Job　Summoner Lv3（↑1）
Bonus Points Remaining 11

Skill Sets
Staff Lv3（↑1）Punch Lv2　Kick Lv2　Joint Lock Lv2
Evade Lv2　Block Lv2　Summon Magic Lv3
Light Magic Lv2　Wind Magic Lv2　Earth Magic Lv2　Water Magic Lv2
Alchemy Lv3（↑1）Pharmacy Lv2
Cooperation Lv3　Appraise Lv3　Identify Lv3　Cold Resistance Lv2　Grab Lv2
Horsemanship Lv1　Precise Manipulation Lv1　Jump Lv1

Equipment　Beginner"s Rod　Wild Rabbit Skin Breastplate+ Series　Snow Ape Arm Cover　
　　　Cloth Shoes　Rucksack　Item Box ×2

Items　Survival Knife

Monster Summons
Volff　Wolf Lv3

Zangetsu　Horse Lv2　Resting

Helix　Hawk Lv2