Weakest Occupation “Blacksmith” Become The Strongest – Chapter 47

New chapter for today.
Enjoy~

TL: NyX
ED: Onihikage

 

---

---

Chapter 47 – Mouse

 

Back in the city, I wondered if I should go ahead and sell the materials to the guild. I’m not short on money, but recently there’s been a lot of goblin parts left over. There’s not actually a limit to the amount I can keep in storage, but that doesn’t mean I particularly need to keep it around for so long.

After some thought, I decided to leave Val at the inn first and then go to the guild. I went through the inn’s back door and headed to my room.

“Hey, Relius-senpai. Where have you been? …Hmm? Who’s that little cutie?”

Ristina-san’s eyes sparkled when she saw Val, and she stopped cleaning the hallway to come over and have a look at him, still holding her broom. She smiled at Val, and when he let out a happy little squeal, she glanced back at me.

“So cu~te! What kind of animal is it?”

“Uh, it’s a baby dragon.”

“Whoa, really? I’ve heard it’s pretty hard to raise dragons, are you doing alright?”

“Val is docile and smart, so yeah, somehow I’m doing just fine.”

“We~ll, that’s good then. Is it okay if I pat his head?”

“It’s fine.”

I let go of Val and he started to fly in front of us, his wings clapping together. Ristina-san gently patted his head and Val squealed softly. He seems to be a little shy after all.

“So cu~te…”

Ristina-san continued petting him. He warmed up to her pretty quickly, rubbing his cheeks against her hands.

“I’m going to the guild after this. Val, will you go back and stay in my room?”

“Vaal,” he cried, confirming that he would. I don’t need to take Val to the guild; that would be really stressful for him.

“That’s what we’ll be doing, so you need to get back to work, too.”

“I know, senpai. You be careful too, please.”

Did she really understand? She kept patting Val’s head until I left the hallway.

After leaving the inn, I walked around the city. The guild was close to the city’s central district, where most of the city’s main facilities are clustered. As I made my way over there, the sun gave way to the moon. In the distance, I saw the city gates close up. You can’t enter or exit the city at night, so I was sure that right around this time, the people who just barely made it in were bustling around the gate.

The guild soon came into view. Along the way, I walked down the street where several shops aimed at adventurers were lined up. When I reached the guild entrance, things got noisy. Adventurers generally delivered their spoils at the guild during the evening and night, so I hadn’t come at the best time. I thought it would be better to show up on my next day off, but that wouldn’t be for another three days. I just wanted to go ahead and finish all my business at once, so in the end I decided to head on in.

As expected, the interior of the guild was full of people. I went to the bulletin board first, mainly waiting for the number of people to decrease. I wasn’t foolish enough to really be looking to accept a request or something, but the posted requests could be used to get a picture of what was going on in the city.

I could see that the medicinal herb collection, which had been issued as an emergency request, had returned to being a mere permanent request. In addition to the quests being separated by rank, there were also emergency and permanent requests in their own sections of the bulletin board.

Permanent requests involved a list of materials that guilds are always looking for. For example, fabrics for clothing are always in demand, and common fabrics are made from the wool of Silk Sheep, Morning Sheep, and Cotton Sheep, so those materials are installed in a permanent request. [TLN: Sheep names were written in katakana as Kinuship, Asaship, and Wataship.] Garbage collection within the city is handled the same way.

For now, I could tell the issue of medicinal herbs in this city had been solved. I was relieved 一 but in spite of that, there was a new emergency request that had me worried. The objective was to subjugate Blood Mice which were breeding in abnormal numbers in the city waterways. It seems right up my alley, but I looked over the other requests, figuring someone else would accept it.

Subjugation requests in general had increased from the last time, as far as I could tell, but nothing particularly stood out. There’s nothing like a mass recruitment or a high-value collection request or somesuch. Are those mice the only big problem right now?

The reception desk was a good deal less crowded now, so I decided to get in line. As I was waiting, the adventurers who occasionally came down the stairs were noisy, but they were cheerfully joking and laughing.

The second floor was a cafeteria, established by the guild exclusively for adventurers. It stayed open until late at night, and many adventurers clamored to drink and eat there. I’d never been there, so I didn’t know what kind of place it was. Apparently Mear-san hadn’t been there either.

The constant sound of laughter bothered me a little, but Val would be waiting for me when I got home. I wanted to see him soon, so I decided to just sell the materials and go home.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting. What can I help you with today?”

“I’m here to sell materials. Here they are.”

I took out the bags for each part from the big bags. Goblin horns, fangs, claws, and so on.

The horns and claws seem to be somewhat effective when mixed with potions. Supposedly the claws can also become a simple bomb when combined skillfully with a magic stone, but it’s much weaker compared to Weapon Break. At best, it’s only enough to surprise the monsters.

I didn’t bother giving them any of the meat. Goblin meat isn’t particularly good, so the guild would have trouble if I sold it to them. As the workers were counting up the materials, I decided to ask something. “How’s that Blood Mouse emergency request going? Did anyone take it yet?”

“Uh, no. That request is quite… well, it’s a recommended request for beginners.”

“It is?”

“Yes. Blood Mice are actually very easy to hunt.”

“H~uh…”

“Are you interested in accepting it?”

“Well, let me think… If it’s that easy to hunt, isn’t it nothing to worry about?”

“Well, you have a point! So I’ll tell you why it’s an emergency request.”

The staff member was oddly excited to tell me about the emergency request, which had been issued by the church. The church usually has workers use purification magic to sanitize our water supply. It was likely in the course of that duty that they discovered the Blood Mice, and noticed they were amassing in unusual quantities.

A Blood Mouse is by no means strong for a monster. They have a timid nature, and will run away as soon as they see a person. That’s why you have to set up traps and kill them one by one.

Because it’s boring and troublesome work, most adventurers don’t want to bother. They said that the church will prepare and set up the traps and stuff, and the subjugation will begin only once a mouse is trapped. They’ll do this repeatedly, so subjugating all of them will take a while.

“How are they trapping them?”

“They bait them with food that mice and other rodents like to eat.”

“…I see.”

“So what do you think? Why don’t you take it!?”

“Well… I actually have a day job, so when I come back on my next day off, I’ll take it if no one else has.”

“Is that so! I’ll be waiting for you, then, because I’m sure no one else will take it!”

…No, wait, isn’t that bad? Either way, I left the guild with a wry smile.

A while after I left the guild, I noticed a small mouse sneaking into a back alley. It seemed to be looking for food or something. With Visual Enhancement, I followed the mouse’s movements from a bird’s eye view.

Food, huh? There in the back alley was a half-eaten skewer, clearly thrown away by someone. The mouse was sniffing its way over to it. I got an idea when it was about to pick up the skewer: What happens if it eats food that’s been given a poison attack skill?

I gave it a try, granting poison attack to the food, and leaving it alone. I watched patiently with Visual Enhancement, and the mouse eventually found the skewer, keeling over immediately with the skewer still in its mouth.

Oh, so it triggered the poison. With this tactic, it wouldn’t be hard to get rid of all of the mice in one go, would it? I’m not hurting for cash or anything, but I might be able to do that job really easily.

 

 

 

<< Previous  Table of Content  Next >>