Translator: Charlotte

I was wondering what these guys were doing so deep in the cave, when I saw one of them bite into the wall.
You trying to eat that?
They couldn"t have been digging that way, right?

「Gehih!」「Googag!」「Gubibib!i」

The goblins shouted nonsense at us, probably with the intent to intimidate.

「Arf!」

Volff barked back at them once. All the goblins fell silent.
Even though there were dozens of them, they were still cowards deep inside, huh.

I left thinking about it for later.
I charged into the group of goblins.
The goblins didn"t have any real weapons.
They attacked me with branches instead of clubs and stones they picked up off the ground.

Jericho walked past me and straight towards the large goblin in the middle, stepping on any goblins in his way.
I had already set up a makeshift front line with the other Summon Monsters, but I suppose Jericho would be alright.
The most important part was keeping the two bow-users Adele and Irina safe in the back.
There were a few goblins who managed to slip past me, but Toggle was in charge of taking out those.

Speaking of myself…
I turned into a killing machine, just in a different sense than Jericho. I was more focused on just taking out the goblin nearest to me.
I realised the goblins were really weak, even weaker than I expected.
Weaker than even Evil Ants.

Even on relatively weak punches, I could easily send them flying to the ceiling.
Wasn"t this supposed to be a zone after the forest maze? I felt like someone got the order wrong.
Oh well, I was just glad I could finally fight without having to use any MP.

「Looks like we finally got them all」

「They"re weak but there were so many of them…」

「At least we finally get to partic.i.p.ate」

They had different opinions for once.
I got to the dirty task of collecting all the item drops, when I discovered something pretty nasty.

Rocks.

Nothing but rocks.

【Material】Pebble　Grade E-　Rarity 1　Weight 0+
A pebble.
Can be used as a throwing weapon (AP+0　Power 2　Range 10)

I breathed a deep sigh.
The time I spent collecting item drops from the goblins was time I would never get back.
I spent a little over 10 minutes in the hopes of getting something other than pebbles but I was hoping in vain.
But after getting some news from Irina, I realised I may have just been unlucky.
Irina got an item that looked useful.

【Material】Limestone　Raw Material　Grade C　Rarity 2　Weight 1
A rock made of calcium carbonate. Since it"s not crystallised, it cannot be used as marble.

Calcium carbonate, huh…
A very useful rock, but a rare rock at the same time.
Well, I was glad the drops weren"t 100% pebbles.
Actually, I don"t know. Now I had to collect all the item drops, just for the chance of getting something other than pebbles.

Looked like a trap.
A trap set by the developers themselves.

A trap to make you to think, "Hey, this one might have something worthwhile!"
Or it might be a trap the same way Wild Dogs were…
I thought hard about which one it might be.
Well, there was only one way of finding out.

Curiosity just couldn"t be beaten.
Maybe that was just human nature.
I threw away all the pebbles I found and kept going.

While we were walking through the corridor, we checked out the side paths branching off to the left and to the right, but all of them soon led to dead ends.
Looked like the work of goblins.
It was annoying, but we checked each branch just in case.

At least the main road was easy enough to follow.
We ran into another group of goblins.
It was a smaller group than the one we met earlier.
Again, there was a single different goblin in the middle.
But this time, the goblin had a strange crown of feathers on its head.

Goblin Summoner　Lv.2
Monster　Enemy Target　Active

I used【Identify】on it. Apparently, it was a summoner…
Summoner vs Summoner, huh.
I wondered if it had any Summon Monsters. Besides the other goblins, that is.

I was surprised to find that it actually did.
The wolves Volff and U-chan noticed it.
It was stuck to the ceiling.
I directed my【Flashlight】to the ceiling and winced at how shiny it was.
Looked like it could reflect light.

Slime　Lv.2
Monster　Enemy Target　Active

S- Slime?
Typically, slimes were really weak enemies. But that"s changed recently.
I didn"t know anymore.
Was it a common small fry?
Was it a boss-level annoying enemy?

The slime jumped from the ceiling and onto Jericho.
But Jericho intercepted the attack with an uppercut.
A straight hit with his right fist.
But the monster"s HP bar didn"t go down whatsoever.
Looked like it was the latter.

I got ready to cast a spell.
I couldn"t cast the spell right away.
The sound of goblins jeering behind us really got on my nerves.

『Could you take out the group in the back?』

I used the whisper function to talk to Adele and Irina, telling them to take care of the goblins while I took care of the slime.
For this kind of slime, I knew a standard weakness they tended to share.
Ideally, I would use some kind of detergent, but fire was a close second.

「Pyrokinesis!」

I stuck my palm on the spreading slime and started a fire.
For a while, everything was silent.
I couldn"t see any actual flames, but the slime, halfway through swallowing Jericho, suddenly shrunk back away from my hand.
It jumped off of Jericho and turned into a puddle on the ground.

Well, at least there was a reaction.
But its HP bar might as well have stayed the same.

「Fire Shot!」

Huh?
A voice came from my right.
It was Adele"s.
An arrow of pure fire pierced the slime in front of me.
The flame continued to grow and engulf the slime.

A white smoke started to spread around us.
I tried not to gag as a vicious smell attacked my nose.
Smelled like the slime had eaten something really nasty recently.

I prepared to cast my next spell.
My MP bar was about to run out, but I had to do something about the smell.
While paying attention to the burning slime, I peeked behind us to look at the goblins.
It didn"t look like they were going to come to attack us. Their faces showed no signs of aggression.

『Don"t bother chasing them down!』

I used the whisper function to talk to Adele and Irina.
I beckoned everyone to come to where I was. When everyone was standing next to Jericho, I released the spell.

「Air Current Control!」

The smoke from the burning slime rushed towards the goblins.
The cloud quickly overtook them.
The goblins quickly started falling down one by one, writhing on the ground.
The ones that didn"t collapse kept running deeper into the cave.

Looked like at least their sense of smell was working alright.
Seeing them writhe on the ground was a nice touch of realism too.
My view of the developers improved a little.

Ah, I almost forgot.
Looked like Adele had leveled up her【Fire Magic】to Lv.3.

「Adele, what was that? A new spell?」

「Yeah! I used an enchant skill earlier and my【Fire Magic】leveled up right after!」

「Hey, nice work. Ah!」

「Irina?」

「My【Earth Magic】leveled up too」

「Nice!」

I smiled, looking at Adele and Irina talk to each other.
The two of them were steadily getting stronger.
My own【Fire Magic】was only at Lv.2.
I knew it was my own fault for taking on so many different elemental magic skills, but I didn"t think the effects would hit so close to home.

The slime was now just a burnt, translucent sphere on the ground.
I felt like I had seen something like it before…
Ah, I remember. It looked like the nucleus of a cell.
It looked just like a nucleus I saw in a microscope long ago.
Do I just stick my knife into this one?

I dug my knife into the slime and got an item.

【Material】Strange Rock Salt (Magic)　Grade C　Rarity 3　Weight 0+
Salt containing magical power. Can be used as normal salt.

Looked pretty rare.
Definitely not something you would use as normal salt.
I decided to let Fiona have a look at it when I got back. It was more production job territory.

Well.
Let"s keep going.
My MP bar was really in a pinch now.
Adele and Irina looked as bright as ever, but their MP bars were at about half.

We really needed to dodge battles whenever we could.
Well, fighting was okay I suppose, but only as long as we knew they wouldn"t take any MP to defeat.
The monsters were a lot weaker here than in the forest maze, but in the forest maze I at least knew exactly what kind of monster would attack me. The fights here were more mentally draining.

「I think I get the gist of this place, and my MP bar isn"t doing so good. You want to go back?」

「To Legias?」

「We"ll be there just in time for dinner too. I bet we"ll even have some time to earn some money hunting mushrooms and Branch Golems before we head back」

「Dinner? Agreed!」

Yeah.
I didn"t like mushrooms and Branch Golems at first, but now they don"t seem so bad.

We returned to the forest maze and went to the very first hall we entered.
We called it, "The blue hall" after the blue spirit floating above the exit.
We took some time hunting mushrooms and Branch Golems near the exit. If anything were to happen we could run back to Legias whenever we wanted.
Adele tried her new fire magic spells on the Branch Golems.

【Fire Shot】won over【Pyrokinesis】in terms of range. With【Pyrokinesis】she had to be pretty much touching whatever she wanted to set aflame.
But the most distinctive feature was its power. 【Fire Shot】was incredibly powerful.
【Pyrokinesis】was nothing compared to it.
Just from looking at it, I had a feeling that it was the strongest out of all the Lv.3 attack spells.
Although I hadn"t tested out the light magic spell【Confuse Blast】yet.

I managed to recover some MP.
But I had to use what little MP I had to secure our vision.
I had to test out【Confuse Blast】another time.

When【Flashlight】was about to run out I decided to switch to【Night Vision】.
My【Dark Magic】skill was still at Lv.1 after all.
I used【Night Vision】on Adele, Irina, myself, and all the Summon Monsters one by one, and like I expected, my【Dark Magic】skill leveled up.

《【Dark Magic】Level Up!》

Sweet.
That felt good.
I knew that encounters became more common whenever I used【Flashlight】, so I tended to use it over【Night Vision】whenever I went out hunting.
At first, I wanted to kill some monsters and earn some money, but with my MP so low, I suppose it was better this way.
I dismissed the notification screen.
We kept going.

I took down any mushrooms I could lay my eyes on with my usual brutal tactics.
I left the Branch Golems to Jericho.
Although I took on some Branch Golems myself just for fun.
I was having a great time.
Although I may have gone too far on some of the mushrooms.

One《Item Box》reached full capacity.

The logs were really piling up.
If I burnt them I could have charcoal, which consumed less storage s.p.a.ce, but that was too much of a ha.s.sle.
I didn"t want to impose on Adele"s MP bar just to burn some wood.
I pondered over it for a while.

We decided to head straight to Legias, dodging all battles on the way.
Hunting was fun, but not getting any item drops from it felt like too much of a waste.

I recalled Jericho right as we left the forest maze so he wouldn"t slow us down.
When we reached Legias, I only had Volff and Jean with me.

Since it was still afternoon in Legias, we didn"t find too many other players.
A lot of NPCs took their place.
All of them were carrying something on their backs.

The situation was similar for the stalls lining the side of the streets.
There weren"t a lot of players. Well, a lot of them would be hunting right now, so that was to be expected.
Again, a lot of NPCs took their place so the stores didn"t look lonely.
The food stalls were pretty deserted though.

No, I bet they were just preparing for the dinner service.
I walked into Mio"s stall. Yuka was in the middle of stocking, but she turned around to greet us.

「Hey! Welcome back, Adele, Irina」

「We"re back!」

「Thank you」

「You too, Keith. Welcome back」

「Thanks」

I gave a nod of greeting to Len-Len and Fudo. They were taking care of NPC customers.
I was told Rick and Shinohara were organising equipment in the back.

「How was the forest?」

「Hmm… Well I think it"s best I just show you what we got」

「Oh, That"d be great」

I took out the contents of my《Item Box》one by one.
A lot of logs.
The Woodworker Shinohara had his eyes glued to them.
And a close second, a lot of charcoal.
The Strange Rock Salt (Magic) caused some commotion, but it was nothing compared to what was coming next.

The Magic Mushrooms.

「What"s this?」

「It looks a little dangerous, doesn"t it?

「I wonder if it"s even within our capabilities to work on that…」

「Farmers generally focus on Remut and the port towns. I don"t think they would be much help here」

「You could ask a Pharmacist or an Alchemist. Although I agree, this would be out of their expertise」

「I"m meeting a lumberjack tomorrow. I"ll ask them about it for you」

「Hey Rick, is Fiona not here?」

「I sent her a message」

The production job guys looked over the items together and came up with a strategy.
I added Rick as a friend, and he sent me the same message he sent Fiona.
Responsible, was the impression I got when I first met Rick. Now I could confirm that that impression was right on the money.

I sold all my items to Rick.
I decided to have dinner while I was at it.
I got a sandwich from Yuka and filled my empty stomach.

「Umm… Keith? What are you going to do until your MP recovers?」

「Hmm? I guess I"ll kill some time here」

「Ah, then Adele and I will be helping out Yuka, alright?」

Ooh.
Now that they mention it, they did have the【Cooking】skill.

「Of course, that"s great」

「Thanks」

I didn"t know why Irina was thanking me, I didn"t have anything to do with it. Save your thanks for someone else.
They were going to be in Yuka"s care after all.

I rubbed Volff"s neck and played with him while I was waiting for Rick to finish calculating prices.
Adele"s and Irina"s Summon Monsters were gathering around us.
With two wolves, a snake, and a bat, the whole place was turning into a petting zoo.
I continued petting Volff.

I saw Adele watching us from the corner of my eye, but I paid her no mind.
Anyone could tell she really liked fluffy things, but my tastes were a little different.
I honestly preferred the feel of Toggle"s skin.
The scales felt nice to the touch, and the coolness was nice too.

I let Toggle wrap itself around my neck, while I enjoyed the feel of all the different Summon Monsters.
They looked like they were enjoying it too.

Protagonist　Keith
Race　Human　Male　Racial Lv6
Job　Summoner Lv5
Bonus Points Remaining: 22

Skill Sets:
Staff Lv4　Punch Lv3　Kick Lv3　Joint Lock Lv3　Throw Lv3　Evade Lv3　Block Lv3　Summon Magic Lv6
Light Magic Lv3　Wind Magic Lv4　Earth Magic Lv3　Water Magic Lv3　Fire Magic Lv2　Dark Magic Lv2（↑1）
Alchemy Lv3　Pharmacy Lv3　Gla.s.smaking Lv3
Cooperation Lv5　Appraise Lv5　Identify Lv5　Cold Resistance Lv2　Grab Lv4　Horsemanship Lv4　Precise Manipulation Lv4　Jump Lv1　Heat Resistance Lv3

Equipment:
Kaya Wood Rod　Wild Rabbit Breastplate+ Series　Snow Ape Armguard　Wild Horse Boots+　Snow Ape Leather Helmet　Rucksack　Item Box x2

Items:
Survival Knife

t.i.tles:
Old Summoner"s Temporary Pupil
Guardian of the Forest
Man of the Middle Path

Monster Summons:
Volff　Wolf Lv5
Zangetsu　Horse Lv3（Asleep）
Helix　Hawk Lv3（Asleep）
Obsidian　Owl Lv3（Asleep）
Jean　Bat Lv3
Jericho　Wood Golem Lv2（Asleep）

Companions:
Adele, Mii-chan and U-chan
Irina, Calico and Toggle

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