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TL: ALT
Chapter 208 – Day 39 of Management Life
At dawn, I woke up to find something in my coat. A cat-like creature was sleeping at my feet.
I wondered if someone had paid a midnight visit, but no one in this demonic land was small like a cat.
“Ah, the dungeon.”
The dungeon, which had been about the size of an egg, must have grown rapidly overnight after shedding its skin. A transparent, curled-up shell lay discarded in the corner of the room.
The dungeon was still there, but now it looked like a transparent baby snake. The cam fruit it had stolen was visible through its belly. Even if this slime-basilisk hybrid moved around in the dark, no one would notice.
“I can’t keep it in the leather pouch anymore.”
When I stroked it with my magic-infused hand, it opened its mouth wide in delight. Its gentle nibbles were still bearable.
Today, the other dungeon is the problem.
When I went outside to wash my face, the dungeon climbed onto my shoulder.
“Good morning.”
“Morning… Makyo, what’s that?”
Hel squinted, staring at the dungeon on my shoulder.
“The dungeon shed its skin. It’s hard to tell without some color, right?”
“Should we try feeding it some soup?”
Chel was feeding it a soup made from bright green wild herbs.
It looked awful but tasted good. The dungeon deformed its body like normal slime, gulping down the entire bowl. Then, it spat out just the bowl with a puff. Does it actually taste things?
The slime by the stream at the entrance to the demonic land supposedly ate a hoe handle at first.
“Th-this too…”
Sylvia also fed the dungeon the bones she had left uneaten.
The dungeon crunched and chewed the bones, taking on the shape of a small, green, rock-like crocodile.
“Whoa! Did it decipher the genetic information!?”
The bones seemed to belong to a rock crocodile, leaving Sylvia and Hel wide-eyed with surprise.
While the women played with the dungeon, I headed to the swamp to wash my face.
As usual, the haze turtle was sunbathing, drying its shell. There was still no sign of the collapsed fields recovering. The sleeping bird that landed in the swamp was instantly devoured by a large fish.
A typical scene in this demonic land.
As I washed my face and stretched to wake up, Jennifer, Kahiman, and Katan burst out of the forest.
Instead of returning to the military base after transporting the dragon from the desert, they had gone out gathering berries.
“It’s harvest season, you see. Look!”
Katan showed me a chestnut the size of a child’s head. Her bag was full of them.
“If you don’t gather them early in the morning, before the plants wake up, you’ll get covered in scratches from the thorns,” she said.
Jennifer said this as she showed me a new kind of cam berry in her basket. They had bright red, hard-looking skins, yet they gave off an incredibly sweet scent.
Kahiman carried something heavy and green, like a pumpkin, strapped tightly to his back with Arachne thread.
“What is this?”
“No idea, but it was a pain to catch.”
He said that if you tried to pluck it, the vine would swing the fruit wildly.
“Maybe it’s an Escape Melon.”
The four of us climbed the slope and had breakfast.
The dungeon had been thoroughly explored by the women and was now bloated like a barrel. Even so, when I approached it, it clung tightly to me. In fact, it changed shape to wrap itself around me.
“So, what are our plans for today?”
Lipa asked. She had gone to check on the dragon at the Midgard ruins.
“I’m heading north to check the earth veins. Sylvia and the others should prepare the dragon’s new home. We brought the supplies yesterday, so tomorrow should be fine. Is there anything else?”
“It’s fine to use dragons to carry magic stones from the mine, but what about the digging?”
Chel asked the fundamental question.
“If we do it, won’t we be affected by the magic too much? Chel might turn into a devil again.”
“Should we ask the dungeon dwellers for help? They managed the sleeping dragons originally, so I think they could handle the magic influence.”
“Now that we’ve finally gained enough freedom to move around the eastern part of the demonic land, maybe we could practice going through the central area too.”
“All right, I guess that’s how it’ll be.”
“Ah.”
Unusually, Kahiman spoke up during the discussion.
“What is it?”
“Did the harpies of Cliff Garuda move too?”
“Oh, they moved as well. But they should still be helping with the reconstruction. They were working with the sorcerers to locate earth veins, too. Though I don’t recall them mentioning when they’d come to the demonic land…”
What to do. Going back to Cliff Garuda would take a whole day. The round trip would take two days. We can’t have the harpies die immediately after arriving in the demonic land.
“We’re short on manpower.
Short enough to wish we could borrow hands from the dead?”
It was rare for Hel to joke.
“Hmph, yeah.”
“Then let’s borrow them.”
“Huh?”
“Send animal spirits to the town of the dead in the southeast. There should be some without physical form that are suited for travel. Have them head straight south through the mountain range to meet the harpies coming from Cliff Garuda. It might take them longer, but it’s better than no one going.”
Come to think of it, the women seemed to have communicated remotely during Chel’s devil transformation.
“Is that even possible?”
“If Makyo doesn’t object.”
My aversion to ghosts is finally getting in the way of running the demonic land.
“All right, I’ll leave it to you. I’m heading north early.”
I stood up and stuffed the inflated dungeon into a bag. Since I had to carry it anyway, I wanted it to be easier to transport.
“Wait, wait. Makyo shouldn’t go alone.”
Sylvia started assigning tasks on her own.
She tasked Jennifer and Lipa with teaching the dungeon dwellers the route from the northwest to the east coast. Chel, Hel, and Sylvia were assigned to secure the dragon pasture.
The remaining Kahiman and Katan naturally became my attendants.
“Huh!? But I have to prep the chestnuts…”
Katan stayed home to restock supplies and keep watch. Kahiman and I headed north to check the earth veins.
“Is that okay? I’m making you indulge my whims.”
“You can’t focus on work if you’re worrying about something behind you, right?”
“I guess so…”
“Then will you make me a sweet that’s only found in the demonic land instead? I want to make it a specialty of the trading village.”
“Got it!”
Katan replied and immediately got to work.
Before I knew it, Hel had started preparing for the ritual.
“All right, let’s go!”
“Yeah.”
I grabbed water skins, dried meat, and flatbread. I slung the bag filled with dungeons over my shoulder and set off promptly.
We passed through the nearby forest, crossed the river, and entered the coniferous forest.
Chestnuts flew at us relentlessly, but I deflected them with magic. Kahiman handled them normally while wearing gloves.
“Did Sylvia make those gloves for you?”
“Yeah, if I infuse them with magic, even knives can’t pierce them.”
Come to think of it, I had her make gauntlets for me, too, but I haven’t used them lately.
“You really should use the tools that someone went to the trouble of making for you. I feel bad about it toward Sylvia, but the more I can do with magic, the less I use the tools.”
“Hmm… Sylvia-san doesn’t mind.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah. Remember when Makyo-san went to buy underwear?”
“I remember. Ours were all falling apart back then.”
“Sylvia-san said, ‘Makyo needed essentials too. I should make those.’”
“Huh. I thought she only made weapons and armor. Sylvia doing something like that…”
It seems Sylvia pays more attention to others than I thought.
Clang, clang!
As we listened to the sound of goats wrestling, we pressed further north. After passing the Magic Stone Mine, the earth’s veins curved eastward along the mountain range.
Even in this rocky terrain, autumn had properly arrived.
The succulent plants, camouflaged among the rocks, had grown bright red thorns and wafted a fermented stench. Any insects lured by the scent might get tangled in the spines and become fertilizer.
“Is there no place in the demonic land that changes with the seasons?”
“How do we get through?”
“Let’s detour around the mountain range.”
We headed toward the side of the mountain range where the succulents were relatively sparse and turned east.
The cliffs became steeper, revealing wyvern and death condor nests.
A death condor fired magic at us, but we easily dodged it and cut off its head with magic.
The timing was perfect. For lunch, we plucked the condor’s feathers and roasted it whole. There were many branches used for nests scattered near the cliff, so firewood wasn’t a problem.
“Getting meat locally is best.”
“Since coming to the demonic land, I’ve never gone without meat. In the Elven Kingdom, I’d be lucky to eat it once a year…”
Kahiman sank his teeth into a thoroughly roasted death condor thigh. The dungeon had devoured the entrails and severed head.
“The demonic land has no fields, yet we never go hungry.”
“Perhaps it’s the blessing of the Goddess of Abundance.”
“Could be.”
After lunch, we started running east again.
Withered grass appeared in the rocky terrain, and low bushes with yellow, thornlike leaves spread to the horizon.
A large, spiny lizard walked among them. There were also hedgehogs the size of cows that were not quite hidden by the bushes.
We followed the altered earth veins, but since it was an unfamiliar place, we couldn’t tell if they had truly changed. We only knew that strange, spiny monsters lived here.
Since we were already there, we kept running to see the sea. Then, a giant, bowl-shaped hole appeared. It was about the same size as the swamp near our home.
The red soil was clearly rich in iron.
“This must have been an iron mine.”
“Like the one we saw in the Magic Sealing Clan’s dungeon?”
“Definitely.”
Though the mine was overgrown with shrubs and grass, I could make out what looked like the remains of dwellings carved into the cliff face. I peered inside, but nothing remained.
As dusk began to fall, I decided to camp there for the night.
“How do you think ancient people mined iron?”
“Magic, maybe?”
“They might have used monsters.”
“What about those floating plants on the southwest island?”
“That’s possible, too. With digging this much, transport would’ve been crucial.”
“Is there a path?”
“Probably.”
Kahiman and I gazed at the twinkling stars, our thoughts drifting to the ancient mine.
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