I hurriedly did the preparations for helping Marcho.
Meeting with [Time] and [Dragon would mean I was going to be absent from Avalon so I also needed to prepare for that. The most important thing for that was the instructions I was going to give to my monsters. We only had a few days to prepare so it was necessary that our preparations still progressed while I was away.
In relation to that, I came to the design room within Rorono"s workshop. I had something I wanted Rorono to make.
"Rorono, there"s another task I want you to do alongside maintaining that. I want you to follow my instructions here. The time limit will be three days from now which is the day of our departure. Prioritize these two tasks over everything else."
The battlefield this time would be within Marcho"s dungeon.
It would be different from the combat we had somewhat grown accustomed to so far and so, we must prepare as much as we could.
One such preparation included the improvement of the Avalon-Ritters. For this upcoming battle, I intended to make use of the special Avalon-Ritters we had managed to reserve before.
Rorono looked at the pages of instruction I had made and given to her. As she read it, her facial expression became stiff. I understood how she felt. The workload needed to pull it off was absurd. I understood that even with her knowledge and ability, it was a difficult task. Even so, I asked her to do it.
"This is in three days?"
"Yes, somehow."
"…Understood. I"ll try to do it in time. No, I promise it"ll be done in time. As long as it"s for master, I"ll accomplish whichever impossible task."
"Sorry for making you do the impossible, Rorono."
I said so and then hugged Rorono. I had always burdened this child with the impossible and I feared I might be relying on her too much. However, I had no other choice; it was truly necessary.
"Master, I will do my best. My absolute best. So, after all of this is finished, praise me a lot, okay?"
As she leaned her body on me, she spoke to me in a very pampered way.
"Of course. I"ll spoil you as much as you want."
When I patted her on the head, she smiled from ear to ear.
If she wanted to be praised, I"ll praise her, I thought, how can I be so cold-hearted to Rorono who has served me so well.
"Also, don"t forget to give me a reward. These are extraordinary requests, after all."
"Yeah, don"t hold back and ask me for anything."
Her embrace grew tighter as she buried her face more into my chest.
If it was for her, I believed I was willing to do anything.
"Mhm. Then, I"ll begin working on it immediately. It"ll be beyond expectations! I swear it on my pride as an Elder Dwarf, the world"s best blacksmiths… No, I swear it on my pride as Father"s daughter!"
Rorono said so, reluctantly parted from our embrace, and then vanished into her work area.
In her hands were a basketful of golden apples from the [First Tree].
Aside from being able to heal one"s wounds and restore one"s magic power, the golden apples were also able to relieve one of their fatigue. So with that many golden apples, she would be able to work without any need for rest for several days.
She"s so dedicated that she"s prepared to give up sleep for several days.
"I"m counting on you, Rorono."
By common standards, the task I had given to her would have been considered impossible.
However, I believed that so long as it was Rorono, the impossible could be made possible.
Having accomplished my goal, I left her workshop.
Aside from her, there were other monsters I had tasks for which needed to be done as soon as possible.
For this campaign, my own forces wouldn"t be enough so I knew I must seek for easy and reliable ways to double the friendly forces.
◇
After I had left Rorono"s workshop, I headed to Aura"s orchard. As soon as I was in the orchard, I caught sight of Aura and called out to her.
In response, she rushed to my side, her golden hair swinging in the air and her jade green eyes shining brighter than usual.
"Welcome, master"
"Aura, there"s something I want you to do right away. It"s about the Potions you have made before. I would like them to be used in the upcoming war. Can you do it?"
"Yes, leave it to me. I have succeeded in cultivating the necessary materials. In fact, I have completed trials just this morning. All that"s left is the ma.s.s production."
Recently, various medicinal plants were also grown in her orchard. These weren"t just for her enjoyment; these were grown as part of my order for her to make Potions.
"This campaign will be a drawn-out one. Many will be severely wounded, gravely tired, or out of magic power. Maybe even all at once. We have to deal with those kinds of exhaustion. Hence, the need for a great amount of curative items. The quality is important but for this war, quant.i.ty is even more so."
"I concur. I will prepare as much Potions as can be with the time left to us."
So far, Avalon"s means of healing relied heavily on the golden apples from the [First Tree]. The effects of eating the apples as the fruits that they were—without them undergoing any process whatsoever—were greater than an average potion"s healing effects. To add to that, the golden apples also had other effects other than healing one"s wounds.
Given all that, I was convinced that if the golden apples were used in combination with other medicinal plants to make a potion, the effects would be even greater.
"Whether we can count on Marcho"s exhausted and wounded monsters will depend on those potions and on you, Aura."
"Leave it to me! With the potions made out of the apples I raised, we can resurrect even the dead!"
The potions were of course going to be vital to my monsters but they had another purpose: to bring Marcho"s monsters back to the frontlines.
I predicted that by the time we reach Marcho and her monsters, her monsters would have already been exposed to a prolonged war and thus have sustained injuries, ran out of magic power, and were nearing their physical limits. In other words, they wouldn"t have been able to fight anymore by the time we got there.
If that was so, the very first thing I must do was to heal her monsters so that they could be fit for battle as soon as possible. For that purpose, we needed to have a large amount of high-quality potions.
Just by being able to do that, the situation would all at once improve. After all, we could once again count the wounded monsters—monsters who were supposedly out of the fight already—as part of the fighting force.
That was indeed huge. So much so that it might even have more effect on the war than my reinforcement troops.
"But we have grown the medicinal plants just barely in time, haven"t we?"
Aura had already researched which medicinal plants worked well with the golden apples. Finding and procuring the seeds for them so that she could grow them herself proved troublesome however. It was only recently that we cooperated with the merchants and even with that, we only found those that were barely of the right quality.
Had the attack on Marcho happened a little bit sooner, this whole plan wouldn"t even be an option for there wouldn"t be any potions to begin with.
"Surely, this isn"t just good luck but the inevitable caused by you, master."
"What makes you say that? Is that some kind of intuition of yours?"
"No, not just intuition. I know these kinds of things. After all, I am a personification of the planet and as such, have received G.o.d"s divine blessing."
Aura stated so and then smiled.
She was an adult, in more ways than one, or so I felt.
"Alright I"ll believe what the personification of the planet says. I"ll leave the rest to you. Make as much as possible in three days."
"Yes, I"ll do all I can together with the High Elves! …Ah, wait a moment, I forgot something. I still havent shown you the trial products, have I?"
"Oh yeah, I know about them only from the reports of your research."
"Then, take these."
Aura took out three small bottles from the pocket near her chest.
I was surprised to see three. I guessed the first one was the one specialized in healing wounds while the second one was specialized in restoring magic power. As for the third one, I was drawing blanks. While thinking of such, Aura began to explain.
"The first is a potion for healing wounds and restoring physical strength. Upon consuming this, one"s fatigue will all at once disappear. Afterwards, it will also make it harder for one to feel tired. As for injuries, this potion will heal most except the gravely serious injuries in a matter of a few minutes. However, note that how this works is that it strengthens one"s own immunities and self-healing. What that means is that this potion can only heal what will naturally heal. Injuries like complicated fractures or the loss of a body part will not be healed by this."
"Hmm. Okay. The second?"
"The second one is a potion for recovering one"s magic power. This increases the amount of magic power recovered up to four times than what is naturally recovered. But since it only increases the amount of magic power recovered by the body, don"t expect it to recover a lot of magic power the moment it is drank."
I nodded to her words.
The potions were truly like medicines in the sense that they helped humans and monsters to recover. They weren"t some miracle mixture that could instantly heal all wounds or recover all of one"s magic power. Drinking more than necessary wouldn"t increase its effects either. That said, it couldn"t be denied that they were very useful.
"How about the last one?"
"Rather than calling this a potion, it"s more suitable to call it a drug for forcing someone into battle. This will remove the limits imposed by the brain to the body, giving the one who used it strength and magic power beyond those limits."
I gasped at the realization that it was an extremely dangerous thing. Seeing me like that, Aura smiled while she continued speaking.
"The user will no longer feel fatigue and pain. Instead, they"ll feel an extreme sense of exaltation for the duration of the potion"s effects. Even monsters on the brink of death will become able to display power greater than when they"re in perfect condition. That being said, the user must also be prepared to suffer the potion"s after-effects. Using it in such a dire state may put the user"s life at risk. ……this should be used as one"s final last-ditch effort. At least, that"s how I"ll use it; if I"m gonna die anyway, rather than doing so without being able to accomplish anything, I"d prefer to give it my all in one last all-out attack for the benefit of the companions I have left."
In my mind, I dubbed the last potion the Berserk Potion. It was dangerous but equally necessary.
In the upcoming war, there most likely would be monsters who thought like Aura.
I received the three potions from her and put it in my breast pocket.
There might come a time that I"ll have a need for these.
"These are great medicines. Make as much of the first and second potions as you could within 3 days. For the third potion, twenty of them will do."
"Certainly. Then, I together with the High Elves will be ma.s.s-producing the potions right away. We"re gonna use up all our stocks of golden apples!"
With this, Rorono and Aura could advance their preparations for the upcoming battle even at the time of my absence. I expect a lot from you all.
"Aura, I"m saying this just in case but absolutely don"t let the potions that used the apples from the First Tree circulate to the public, ok?"
"Yeah, I know. There"s no telling what the humans will do once they know of these, after all."
After she agreed with me, she carried out a container from the storehouse. This container contained some golden apples that were submerged and preserved in the Water of Life she had made.
Shortly afterwards, she commanded the High Elves to harvest various kinds of medicinal plants.
And thus began the compounding of the plants.
I guess I can leave it to Aura now.
To summarize:
Rorono was in charge of preparing our military force while Aura was in charge of our logistics.
R"lyeh Diva meanwhile was in charge of collecting information.
Kuina and Wight were then to escort me with my meeting with [Dragon] and [Time].
This was Avalon"s all-out war. Unless we gave it our absolute all, we didn"t stand a chance of winning.
"Now then, I guess I should head back home."
On my way back, the blue bird I sent out to deliver a letter had returned and perched itself on my shoulder.
"That was surprisingly quick."
Unlike with [Time] whom I was able to send a direct message to using the crow monster I got from him, I had no way to directly deliver a letter to [Dragon]. Because of that, I had used the blue bird to deliver a letter to his daughter, [Wind] Demon Lord Stolas, instead.
What surprised me was that it was only a few hours after I had sent the letter and already a reply from her had come back.
I immediately read the reply and it stated that the [Dragon] Demon Lord would receive me at any time.
"Then, I must go right now."
There wasn"t any time; we had to do everything we could as soon as possible. If the [Dragon] Demon Lord said any time was fine, I figured going right away wouldn"t be an issue.
It also meant that the meeting with [Time] will have to be scheduled after this.
Truth be told, I still had no idea on how to persuade the [Dragon] Demon Lord. But then, I knew I must not dilly-dally.
I should just think on it as we fly in the sky. Maybe the change of pace can bring about the answer.
As I thought such, I had hurriedly summoned Kuina and Wight. And so, together with the two, I rode a Darkness Dragon and flew toward Stolas"s dungeon.