LET’S GO TO THE DEPTHS OF THE FOREST! ①

“Did the trader leave?”
“Yes, and thanks to her, we were able to buy all this stuff.”

Aria lined up the things she bought from the trader with a puffed face.
Not only Kili and Milia, but Reno and Sui were also looking at the products with curiosity.

I guess girls liked shopping products regardless of which world it was.

“That reminds me, did they have an alchemy pot?”
“Yep, no problem.
They seemed quite confident, and perhaps we would see them by spring at the earliest? Until then, we need to keep making more of that “Earth Extract”? Or whatever its name is.”
“That’s perfect.”
“It is?”
“Yeah.
I mean, Kili will be busy making farm tools till spring right? So it’s better to use the same pot if we’re continously making the same product.”
“Hee-, so that’s how it was.”

Hearing our conversation, Kili was making an obviously unpleasant face, but I’ll have her carry on making farm tools.
It would be nice to have 100 hoes including spares by the time spring arrives, but even if it goes well her max capacity is 2 hoes per day.

It takes time to smelt objects in an alchemy pot.
Mainly because you had to process the appropriate materials for that.

Truthfully, even I didn’t know why it was necessary to cut wood into 10 centimetre squares, in order to make wooden hoes.

“We ordered a lot of things from Sieg-san, but was it fine for Lain to not do so as well?”
“Yeah.
I did want another book from the ancient magician civilization, but to ask that from an unknown trader is…”

Ancient magician books lay on both ends of the extremes.
There may be books which were completely unrelated to magic, and there could also be gossip magazines.
Such books were also traded at the price of a few gold coins.

I guess, that’s just one kind of interior.
If you can’t read it, then all the books are the same.

“I’ll go to the royal capital and look for them once things are more favorable.
that’ll be easy enough once it’s summer.”
“…I see.
If Lain is okay with that.”

The royal capital of the Holy Euphoresilorium People’s Holy Kingdom had some interesting looking shops, but I didn’t have the opportunity to check any of them out.
There must be shops as good as those in this country’s royal capital too.

“Then let’s give up on a third outing to the forest.
We collected enough trees earlier anyways and besides, you guys want to check out the recently bought stuff, right?”
“No, We’ll go.
I finally feel confident in my skills, so there’s no way I won’t! Right everyone?”
“”””Yeah!””””

Everyone else nodded at Aria’s line.
Seemingly, their feelings remained unchanged.

“Fine.
Then let’s go deeper into the forest than we’ve ever gone before.
I was thinking it’s high time we went to an area with large numbers of greywolves.”
“Eh?”

To my proposal, everyone freezes in place.
Once the number of greywolves went up, the danger level multiplied.
To begin with, wolves were beasts that hunted in packs.

They could easily take down lone greywolves now, but they still seemed anxious about taking on more than one.

This sense of danger was good.
They say it’s the most dangerous when you get used to something.
If they remain this cautious now, they won’t get hurt out of carelessness unless something abnormal occurs.

“Well, if it seems like someone’s about to get hurt, I’ll step in.
I feel confident that you five will at least be able to outrun a pack of greywolves.”
“…That may be so.”
“Besides, I’m not asking you to fight.
We’re only going for a walk today.”
“…Fine.”

Aria nodded reluctantly.
She showed a clearly relieved expression as soon as I said there won’t be any fighting.

“Alright.
With that decided, let’s head out.
It’s later than usual today so if we don’t leave early, we won’t make it in time for dinner.”
“What! That’s unacceptable! Aria! Come on let’s go!”
“Yes yes.”

At the mention of dinner, Reno started panicking.

That’s because she’s a glutton.

Aria leaves the house while being pulled by Reno.

The atmosphere had calmed down somewhat, so I followed them relaxedly.

***

“From this point on, the concentration of magic will get thicker.
Is everyone ready?”
“I am!” “Yeah.” *Nod* “Yes.” “All good.”

I gathered everyone at the boundary of the unexplored area.
Even at this point, I was willing to give up if anyone was feeling reluctant.
It’s not like we were in a rush to delve deeper or anything.

However, everyone seemed to have steeled their resolves on the way here.

“Then let’s go.”

Seeing everyone nod, I took the first step.