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TL: ALT
Chapter 74 – Day 19 of Exploration
“Crab paste is delicious.”
That was the first word Sylvia could say without stuttering.
“That’s true.”
Chel also roasts the crab instead of baking bread. It’s filling, so she can’t let it go to waste. She immediately tries to see if she can preserve it in various ways, such as smoking or salting.
Jennifer continues to eat in silence. Soon, she’ll probably start speaking crab language.
In the midst of all this, Hel has developed something called a freezing jar. It seems she used ice magic to preserve the crab meat by placing the ice weasel’s magic stone inside the jar.
“I wonder if it can preserve anything?”
“If you’re taking it to the desert, you should draw a freezing magic circle on a wooden board and put it inside the jar. It’s the same as putting it in with the appropriate magic stone.”
I asked Hel to teach me how to draw magic circles, and I immediately started carving them with a knife.
“Oh, Hel, teach me how to draw magic circles on walls, too.”
“You said that yesterday. It seems that the magic walls I’m thinking of are of a different type, so show me your magic walls, Makyo.”
“Let’s go to the swamp because the crabs will get dirty here.”
“Aren’t they magic walls? What do you mean, they’ll get dirty?”
I pulled Hel, who looked at me suspiciously, into the swamp and showed her my own version of a water wall.
Whoosh!
The water shot high into the air, and the flow of water was shallow, so I thought it had gone well.
“Hmm? Is that a wall?”
“Yes. If you do this with sand, you get a sand wall, right?”
“Isn’t that just an attack?”
“No, it’s definitely a wall.”
“But the fish underneath are soaring in the air!”
“That’s just how it is.”
“Wait a minute! How long will this last?”
Hel looked at the spouting water in confusion.
“I’m not really sure. The longer it lasts, the better.”
“I thought I studied all the magic in the elf kingdom. What is this?”
Hel was clearly confused.
“No, it’s just my own version of a wall spell. Huh? What? Is this not good enough?”
“Phew, whew… I guess I’m destined to be cursed by magic…”
Hel muttered to herself and went back into the cave.
“Hey, what about the magic circle?”
“Sorry, but I’m going to talk to Chel so you can take care of the crabs.”
After that, Hel dragged Chel into the cave, and they stayed there.
Jennifer’s mouth and hands were red and swollen from eating too many crabs.
“Makyo-san, it itches.”
“You ate too much. Why don’t you put some healing potion on it?”
“I did, but it’s still itchy.”
Apparently, even the healing potion produced in the demonic land didn’t work as an anti-itching medicine.
“T-t-the crab is fighting back!”
Sylvia, holding a crab shell, looked at Jennifer and walked away.
She said it was so itchy, so I told her to freeze a bottle of water with ice magic and cool it down.
“You know, eating or drinking too much of anything is not good.”
“Yushh.”
Jennifer made the most pathetic voice she could.
I continued to carve the frozen magic circle into the tree. However, carving the magic circle was difficult, and if I made even the slightest mistake, I had to start all over again.
After doing it several times, I realized.
“Maybe I should go hunting for ice weasels. I also need some fur for the night.”
Just then, Sylvia came over to show me the helmet she had made from a crab shell.
“I-I-I made it. W-w-what do you think?”
“As long as it’s sturdy, I think it’s okay.”
I don’t know about the design, but it didn’t even break when I hit it with a hammer.
“I-i-it hurts! D-d-did I make a mistake?”
“Why don’t you put some shock-absorbing material in it? Like fur or something. I was thinking of going hunting for ice weasels, so why don’t you come with me?”
“I-I-I’ll go!”
Sylvia and I immediately set off with a packed lunch and rope.
The ice weasel should be in the northern forest.
We head north, crushing the attacking treants along the way. We ignore the imp yelling, “Gyoeee!”
Conifers have begun to grow, so we must not use fire from now on.
“There was a fire once, and it caused a fire. Even if it’s cold, don’t use fire.”
“R-r-roger that!”
A ridiculously huge moose monster is walking slowly, but I can’t find the ice weasel. In the stream, a red-haired wild bear is having his body washed by a raccoon monster.
“What a strange symbiotic relationship…”
There were also many insect monsters, centipedes that looked like snakes, and caterpillar monsters crawling around on the ground. A chubby squirrel monster rolled down the hill, probably because it was too lazy to use its legs to move.
Guoooo!
I heard a loud scream from the top of the hill.
As I ran up to see what was happening, I saw a wild bear, slightly larger than the one I had seen earlier, fighting with a group of ice weasels.
“Do you have any weapons you want to try out?”
“Y-y-yes, I do!”
Sylvia handed me a hammer made from a combination of crab shells.
“Okay, let’s go!”
I also tried to make a wall of earth from the wild bear’s feet.
Bosh!
With a loud bang, the wild bear went up into the air, and the movement of the surrounding pack of ice weasels stopped. There were many gaps, so I just swung the hammer down at the base of its neck and skull.
Without any ice magic counterattack, the ice weasel’s body rolled away.
It was difficult to hold, so I took out the magic stone and decided to take it home after skinning it.
As I hung it on a tree and prepared to dissect it, the omnivorous raccoon-like monsters began to form a line.
“I’m not a butcher.”
Even as I said that, I cut up the meat and gave it to them, and they happily went to wash it in the river. More and more monsters gathered, and even a big wolf-like monster called the Silver Wolf appeared. They ate all the meat and bones, leaving nothing behind.
A monster butterfly with tattered wings called the Blood-Dripping Butterfly also flew into the pool of blood.
“I’ll have to come and investigate the northern forest sometime.”
After eating a good lunch and taking a break, I tied the magic stone and the fur together with a rope and returned to the cave.
As before, Hel and Chel were holed up in the cave. Jennifer, who had nothing to do, was apparently thinking up a new dish called “pickled crab.”
“I may be a genius at cooking.”
As she bragged, the spicy pickled crab was quite delicious.
Sylvia and I made a freezer jar and preserved the boiled crab meat. It wasn’t a very time-consuming task, but Jennifer took the initiative to help us.
We also tanned the skins of the ice weasels we caught and hung them on a wooden frame to dry.
“Since they’re monsters that use ice magic, they should be very resistant to the cold. Now, we won’t be afraid of the desert nights.”
“What are you saying so casually?”
Chel came out of the cave and looked at me dumbfounded.
“You’ve experienced how cold it is in the desert at night, right?”
“That’s not what Chel means. It seems we have made a historic discovery.”
Hel came out after Chel.
“I see. So you’ve created a magic circle that forms a wall of sand, right?”
“It’s not a matter of whether you can or can’t.”
“It’s no longer a matter of dimensions like a wall of sand.”
It seems like they’re feeling quite triumphant, but all I want is for the sandstorm to stop.
“All right, explain it to me first.”
“Well, you see…”
Hel and Chel say that they realized that the original system of magic, which was divided into categories like fire and water, was wrong. First of all, my magic itself doesn’t fit into that system.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s sand or water, right?”
“Well, I guess not.”
When I said that, Hel and Chel opened their arms and let out a big sigh. I know they’re making fun of me, but I don’t know how to argue back.
“With the traditional magic system, where magic branches out like a tree, Makyo’s magic can’t be understood. And because you don’t even try to shape it, the magic doesn’t fix itself.”
“Normal magic creates things like fire spears, but Makyo just spits out fire. It’s a kind of random magic.”
I guess it doesn’t matter which one you use as long as the effect is the same, but I decided not to get involved in this conversation as it was getting long.
“From Makyo’s words and actions, I discovered the keywords ‘flow’ and ‘power interference.’ Makyo’s magic consists almost entirely of these.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“In other words, to put it in continental terms, Makyo uses magical power, but not magic.”
“What? Is that so?”
“From a demon’s point of view, it’s enough to call you a great magician.”
“Hee, I see. I can’t use magic.”
“That’s a problem! The magic circles I researched are different depending on the system, and they are created within a framework, but you can’t create magic circles without a framework!”
I finally understood why the two of them had been locked away for so long.
“However, we have extracted only the parts related to flow from the magic circles that create tornadoes and the magic circles that create waterfalls. The wisdom of the elves and the ideas of the demons were combined to create this.”
With that, Hel held up a wooden board that looked like a ruler. It was intricately carved and somehow reminded me of the key to the dungeon with the lightning pattern on it.
“Come on, Chel. Show them how it’s done.”
Chel took the ruler from Hel and put her magic into it.
A puff of wind came out of the ruler, but that was all.
“Well, that’s all for now! It’s not ready for practical use yet, but it’s a big step forward!”
It seems that this is as far as the research has gone.
“That was a magic story I didn’t know either.”
I tried it myself, holding the ruler in my hand. The dried ice-weasel skin blew away, and the ruler also deformed under the force.
Hel was breathing heavily, her face flushed. This is not good.
“Please continue your research. I’m going camping in the desert with the fur from tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to come back!”
I was banished from the cave for a while.
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