Chapter 1 – 9
h.e.l.lo everyone, can you hear me? This is Tenma live on location.
Here in Kukuri village, Mount Celia has finally erupted!
These eruptions have been quite large scale ones, and so far 5 or 6 have been confirmed. The two protective walls, Ricardo and Merlin have been prepared. Even with these walls in place, I can"t stop myself from gulping nervously.
From this location it"s beyond… Ah, yet another eruption! I"ll face this way!
If I make it out of this safely, let"s meet again!
“Tenma!! Are you listening?!!!”
“Yes–! I"m listening!”
“Don"t lie! Just now you weren"t even paying attention!”
I"ve been found out, everyone… This is such a dangerous situation, but I"ve stumbled again.
“Tenma, why didn"t you run away!?”
And the loop starts once again.
From just over there, walls… no, not walls, rather father and gramps, both came in to save me.
[TN: gramps = Merlin = jii-chan]
“Celia, dear, you allowed him to be in that area, though. Tenma"s actions may very well have been dangerous, but they weren"t wrong.”
“That"s right, sonny! Even if Tenma had run away, the dragon snakes could have followed him home. Even worse, the snakes could expand their habitat and attack our fellow villagers during their hunting expeditions, or even the village itself. Isn"t it best to prevent that from happening?”
“…I understand.”
She reluctantly let go of her anger and continued,
“But! You"re forbidden from entering the forest until the safety of the lightly infested areas is confirmed! Understood?!”
“Whaaat~”
“Answer me!”
“Yes! Understood, mom! I will not enter the forest until it"s confirmed safe, ma"am!”
“Good!”
Even though I s.p.a.ced out, I made it through.
“Either way, early on it"s best to make sure there are no dangerous monsters around the village or in the lightly infested areas of the forest.”
“Of course, but it would also be good to send word to the Hausto Frontier Earldom.”
Right after Merlin saying so, both him and Ricardo left the house to prepare.
The next day, along with father, gramps and Mark, I Dismantled the two wolves and six dragon snakes in the Dimensional Bag. From the wolves we stripped the magic core, fur, fangs and claws. The rest was cremated, then buried deep underground and marked with a grave. The wolves" furs seemed to s.h.i.+ne with a golden and silver light. Originally, I had thought that s.h.i.+romaru"s fur was white. After was.h.i.+ng him with hot water, it seems like his fur is more of a silvery white color.
There were 6 dragon snakes, each about 4-5 meters long, and they were easier to dismantle than I expected. From them we got magic cores, skins, fangs, skulls, livers and meat. Because we didn"t have to do anything special while dismantling them, it was finished quicker compared to the wolves.
Tenma didn"t sell any of the materials stripped from the wolves, and instead put them into the Magic Bag (High Quality, able to store up to 1000kg). The dragon snakes" magic cores and meat totalled 1200kg (1 snake"s total weight being 400kg, of which the edible portions weigh around 200kg). He stored 400kg of the meat in the magic bag, and 400kg of it was divided up among the villagers. The remaining meat, along with three snakes worth of skins and other materials was sold to the merchants that stopped by. The total value after being sold came to 300,000G (gold). By the way, the meat from the dragon snakes was moderately fatty and had a mild flavor but was still delicious.
In this world, the currency equivalence is about 1G (gold) = 10 j.a.panese yen. There are several types of coins: copper, silver, gold and platinum. Among the first 3 types, there are ordinary and large size coins, and then the special platinum size for a total of 7 different types of coins. Starting from the bottom, (ordinary) copper coins are worth 1G and each step up adds a zero; large copper are 10G, silver are 100G and large silver 1,000 etc. continuing on until platinum coins, each being worth 1,000,000G. An ordinary family of four living in the city should be able to get by on 3-4 gold coins a month (30,000 to 40,000G). If they were living in a rural village, it would be less than 1 gold coin.
In Kukuri village, you can live on 5-6 silver coins a month on average. However, most of the food expenses (and a few others) are almost entirely covered by hunting prey.
Half a year after that incident… The forest had finally been confirmed safe, and Tenma could enter once more.
During the past six months, Tenma had been drilling his alchemy. When he combined alchemy with creation type magic, he gained the ability to 『Create』. As a result of this, he successfully mastered 『Weapon』 and 『Golem』 preparation. Weapon preparation meaning, “Using only the materials around you, producing a weapon from the image in your mind”. You must hold the precise image in your mind accurately, or else it will become a weapon with flaws in its strength or ability. Since it"s meant to be used in emergencies anyways, throwing it away after using it isn"t really a problem.
Golem preparation involves applying concentrated magic power to either metal, magic stones or magic cores, in order to create a core for the golem. By inserting it into a body also made with alchemy, a golem is made, and will obey the orders of its creator. If the core is created out of metal, it can only execute simple orders. However, if the core is either a magic core or magic stone, it"s possible to create an artificial life-form with both improved qualities and affinity. Naturally the difficulty of creation goes up sharply as the quality improves.
I haven"t properly explained it yet but, magic cores are found inside the bodies of monsters. They"re kind of like a lump of magical power. The smaller ones can be only 2 or 3 centimeters big, the large ones far bigger. A 1 meter large magic core is on record, found in the body of an Ancient Dragon. In short, if you want a stronger golem, you should make it with a magic core or magic stone.
A long while has pa.s.sed since I last set foot into the forest. Even still, with Celia"s words still ringing in my ears, I intended to take a walk around the outside of the forest.
“Here, go fetch s.h.i.+romaru!”
"Kyan!"
s.h.i.+romaru ran after the tree branch that Tenma threw.
In this past half year, s.h.i.+romaru, the wolf pup had grown to about 50 cm. His silver white fur gleamed as he chased after the branch. Together, Tenma and Slalin had kept watch over him. Slalin"s face? was peeking out from the basket that Tenma was carrying on his back.
Tenma used Investigation to search an area of about 5km around him. At the edge of the radar"s range, there were dozens of reactions. He quickly called s.h.i.+romaru back.
Author"s note: I"ve divided this chapter up because the next one will be longer.