Alicetia’s Adventure – Day 1.
Morning came, and I headed to the Adventurers' Guild with my fox mask, robe, and a disguised, silenced dragon staff.
Helios, with his immense strength, wore full plate armor. He looked like a knight, but he had no real skill. Honestly, he was just tough, so he carried a large shield. His weapon was a mace. If he used a sword, he had enough power to break it easily, and he didn’t have the dexterity to wield a short spear, so a mace, which he could simply swing with brute force, was the best choice.
Alicia wore a robe and a mask like me. Mr. Coote was disguised as a wolf familiar. Many people use wolves as familiars, especially adventurers who fight monsters. Wolves have excellent noses, after all.
"Welcome... Lord Hollow? Where have you been all this time?"
"I made a fortune from my first request, so I went back to my homeland for research. Now that I’ve run out of money, I’m here to earn more."
It wasn’t an uncommon reason for a magician. Most magicians were financially reckless, unable to manage money properly, so they often sold magic potions or artifacts or directly took on adventuring work. No one would question it. Honestly, I was impressed the receptionist remembered me so well.
"I see. If only you had been in the royal capital back then, we could have used your healing..."
"Sounds like it was rough. I’ve only heard rumors."
All I did was exterminate monsters, so I didn’t know the full details. Everything I knew was hearsay. I left immediately after finishing my task.
"It was difficult, but the princess of the neighboring Kingdom saved us. So, what brings you here today?"
"I'll be taking on some monster extermination around the area."
I handed over a request sheet I had pulled from the bulletin board before coming to the counter. The request was to eliminate monsters that had taken up residence in the forest surrounding the royal capital. It was technically a D-rank request, but there was no specific target monster. The reward depended on what kind of monsters were defeated—overall, a rather vague job.
Normally, such requests focused on goblins or orcs, but this one lacked any specific details. It seemed they just wanted monsters gone, no matter what.
"Lord Hollow, you would earn more at the healing clinic."
"Healing magic is my specialty, but I’m also good at extermination. Besides, nobles might try to interfere over there."
Since the healing clinic was a Kingdom-operated facility, nobles kept an eye on it. I wanted to avoid unnecessary trouble.
"I see. That’s unfortunate, but extermination is urgent as well, so we appreciate your help. You have quite the talent. Most healers aren’t skilled in combat. Are these your party members? If so, I recommend registering them to prevent interference from other parties."
The receptionist glanced at Helios. In this world, registering a party served as a warning to other adventurers: "These people are in my party, so don’t mess with them." Additionally, registration ensured that Guild contribution points were distributed evenly. This was why adventurers usually teamed up with people of similar skill levels.
Also, adventurers were essentially freelancers, and many of them despised arrogant nobles.
"Alright, let’s do that."
After completing the registration, we left the Guild.
"Take care."
Upon exiting the royal capital, we traveled to the nearby forest. I rode on Mr. Coote, while Helios, with his immense stamina, ran, and Alicia also ran. She was incredibly fast—probably as fast as Mr. Coote.
We reached the forest in about 20 minutes, covering a distance that would normally take three hours on foot.
"Alright, Helios, you’ll take the front lines. Alicia, you handle collecting monster corpses."
"Roger that, indeed."
"Got it."
As we advanced through the forest, we spotted two goblins.
Without a word, I drew my revolver and pulled the trigger. Two dry gunshots echoed, and the goblins fell.
Well, for goblins, this was about right.
"Goblins aren’t worth much. Let’s go deeper."
—Alice, that tree is a monster.—
—That other tree is also disguised.—
As we moved forward, the spirits suddenly gave me a warning. Apparently, there were treants camouflaged as ordinary trees. Mr. Coote’s nose had trouble detecting plant-based monsters.
The moment the spirits warned me, the treants began to move. They must have noticed that I had been tipped off.
A branch swung down, but Helios’ massive shield blocked it.
"A mere tree daring to harm my Lord? Quite bold, indeed."
With a loud whoosh, Helios swung his mace sideways and smashed into the treant. The creature, over two meters wide, had its upper half snapped apart and collapsed, no longer moving. I struck the other treant with Gladius, but my lack of sheer strength only allowed me to cut it halfway through. It was purely the blade’s sharpness that did the work.
"Gyaah!"
The treant, seemingly unfazed by pain, swung its branch downward.
"How annoying. Wind Cutter."
Switching from Gladius to my Dragon staff, I launched a blade of wind into the treant’s wound. The creature was instantly sliced in two. The wind blade continued, cutting through several more trees before vanishing somewhere.
"That was excessive power."
"Are they… weaker than I expected?"
I had anticipated more resistance, but they were surprisingly weak. Honestly, goblins in Arland were craftier and more troublesome opponents.
"Monsters in Arland are generally one rank stronger than their counterparts in other nations.
Also, Princess, your magic is overpowered. Even Arland’s orcs wouldn’t withstand it. You’re using too much magic."
I was aware of that, but these treants were even weaker than I had imagined.
Also, it was difficult to control magic on the fly. I stored the bisected treant in my storage bag (capacity: 1000kg). I had brought ten of these bags today.
"More importantly… Lord, my mace has shattered. This is defective, indeed."
Helios brought over his broken mace, its tip completely destroyed. It seemed the weapon couldn’t handle his immense strength. Realistically, a plain iron mace wasn’t suited for taking down treants. Treants were tough monsters. His mace had simply reached the end of its lifespan after delivering that single powerful strike. Such brute strength.
I summoned my treasure vault.
"Did I make any maces?"
I asked one of my clones, who was working near the entrance.
"A lump of metal like that? I can whip one up right away. Iron okay?"
"Helios’ brute strength broke this one, so something tougher than iron."
"Then how about Iris Steel? It’s too heavy for general use, so we have plenty lying around. Give me ten minutes."
After about ten minutes, they brought out a mace made of Iris Steel. It weighed 20kg—essentially a club. Honestly, this wasn’t a weapon meant for humans.
"The strength of Helios requires this size; otherwise, it breaks easily. Later, I'll select materials and create a new alloy."
"Mm, this is easy to swing."
Helios repeatedly swung the mace with one hand, making a *whoosh* sound. He could actually hold it. Well, his power remained the same as in his dragon form. After all, he was essentially a dragon in human form.
His raw defense was also no different from his dragon form, so the full plate armor was just for show. His body was far harder—an extraordinary being beyond common sense.
"Alright, Mr. Coote, find a place where they're gathering."
"As you order."
Mr. Coote sniffed the ground and took the lead. There seemed to be quite a number of treants. We were ambushed five times before reaching their gathering spot, but the spirits warned us of their presence, so it wasn’t a problem.
The real danger of treants lay in their appearance being indistinguishable from regular trees and their hard bodies. Occasionally, there were individuals that could use magic, so we took them down instantly. Goblins could be dealt with using guns alone.
"Buooooh."
"That's a lot of pigs."
We arrived at a group of about thirty orcs. They were just a bunch of regular orcs—no generals or soldier-class among them. In other words, just bipedal pigs.
The best way to deal with orcs was to target their heads rather than their bodies. Their bodies were covered in thick fat and muscle, but their necks were not as well protected. Helios swung sideways, blowing off the heads of three orcs.
"Squeel! Squeeel!"
Sensing danger, about ten orcs charged at Helios, but in an instant, their heads were sent flying. Alicia had cut them off from behind.
"Wind Cutter."
The remaining orcs were also beheaded in the same way. It took no more than ten minutes to defeat them all. Easy win.
"Your Highness, you mustn't let your guard down."
"But they were weak."
After retrieving the orc corpses, a few wolves gathered, attracted by the smell of blood, but since they were slower than bullets, they were swiftly taken down as well.
"Reload."
The cylinder rotated as bullets from my waist pouch were loaded into the gun. After a quick check, I returned the revolver to my holster. It had great power, but shooting too much made my shoulder ache and my hands numb.
"However, there are more monsters than expected."
"Are there?"
I thought we'd be encountering even more.
"Normally, just finding monsters is a struggle... I have a bad feeling about this."
"Well, let's think about it after lunch."
"Here? If we eat here, the smell will attract more monsters!"
"It's fine. Even Helios can't get inside the Treasury. We're camping out in the forest for monster hunting today and tomorrow anyway."
With all our food and medical supplies stored in the Treasury, we could move lightly. I had been riding on Mr. Coote partway through.
Plus, the monsters we hunted were stored in magic bags, so no problem there. Thanks to State Preservation, the contents of the magic bags didn’t deteriorate. Meaning, they wouldn’t rot.
Today's lunch was a meat and egg sandwich, vegetable soup, and apple pie for dessert. It was delicious.
"Adventurers actually live quite well, huh?"
"Normally, because of luggage limitations, all they have is bad-tasting rations and lukewarm water. You can’t even eat safely in the forest."
Alicia seemed to have had her fair share of struggles. The emergency rations my Father used to talk about were apparently not fit for human consumption—hard, dry, and nearly flavorless. Even skilled chefs couldn’t make them taste good. However, they were light, so merchants and adventurers often carried them as emergency food.
Alicia passionately explained that adventurers would bow down to have a mage who could make magic bags as an ally.
Magic bags sure were useful. Though regular ones didn’t prevent deterioration, so water could still turn lukewarm.
Afterward, we continued hunting in the forest. Alicia had knowledge of medicinal herbs and gathered many that could be sold. I knew some as well, but the ones in books often looked slightly different, and sometimes the illustrations were outright wrong, making them hard to identify at first glance.
Along with gathering herbs, we also stripped bark from special trees used to make magic paper, collecting a variety of materials. It seemed that few people ventured deep into the forest—there were no signs of human activity, and even the presence of people that Mr. Coote had sensed earlier had completely disappeared.
"Golem, cut down that tree too."
I created a clay golem and handed it a chainsaw to fell the tree. This was also a valuable material, good for carvings and such.
Once the tree fell, I stored it in a material-specific magic bag. Then, I sent the clay golem to charge at the next monster.
By the time evening arrived, two of our prepared storage bags were full, and one was about half full. The most common monsters were wolves and goblins, followed by material goods and orcs. There seemed to be no high-ranking monsters.
I summoned a gate under the shade of a tree. I also fed the Shadow Wolf before entering the gate and shrinking it down to a size only a tiny person could pass through. The gate wouldn't close if something was inside, but I could still adjust its size.
With the Shadow Wolf pressing against the gate from the outside, no light leaked out.
I asked Alicia to make dinner, then took a bath and decided to sleep. I had been active all day and was exhausted. It was only around 7 PM, but since we'd be waking up early tomorrow, it was time for bed.
What do you think about this chapter?
