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Chapter 4.3

 

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Translator: Einbedo
Editor: Weasalopes

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「Why steel plate?」

「All of the other available sets weren’t stat well for battlemage builds.」

「Makes sense, just one thing though.」

「Go ahead.」

「Doesn’t that set come with a cloak?」

Haruna lets out a strained smile in response. The mirage set was designed specifically with musketeers in mind so it only makes sense that it’d come with a cloak. Thankfully the design team didn’t go too overboard with the set because it didn’t include neither a felt feather hat nor a masquerade mask, but if it did and Haruna’s in game character was to put all three on at the same time, she’d be lucky to get away with a nickname as tame as ‘the enigmatic musketeeres’ at the best of times.

While Haruna’s character did differ from her real life self with the light brown eyes and hair the real kicker was the ironing board like bust. Sadly there wasn’t any deeper reason behind it, no complex of any sorts nor any subconscious desire to avoid being coddled by the more ‘gentlemanly’ side of the male playerbase, it’s just that at the time she had just entered her first year of middle school, so she had no real assets to speak of. Her height was automatically adjusted to reflect reality free of charge but editing the character’s body would require a whole few clicks, so she just left it as is.

Unsurprisingly Haruna wasn’t the type to be hung up over breast size. In her mind either setting had its advantages and its disadvantages, so she simply didn’t bother playing around with the sliders as it would be a waste of time and energy.

「That settles it, let’s get sensei to whip you up a neat cloak.」

「Do I get a say in this?」

「Yeah, no. Imagine all the possibilities, you could bind your opponents weapon or cut them to pieces with its sharpened edges.」

「That’s quite the imagination you got going there, now ain’t it?」

Haruna catches herself playing the straight man to Mio’s antics. This never happened when she interacted with Hiroshi, as she’d just go along with the madness, but for some reason she could never do the same when it came to Mio’s brand of absurdity.

「Have you ever…」

Haruna mutters as she looks over at an orderly line of materials and food items specific to the inner southern forest. It had everything: from downright unusable materials to ones with so many uses it would make one’s head spin, and some vendor junk to top it all off. The sheer volume of all of them was also noteworthy.

「Have I ever, what?」

「Have you ever stopped to think why our first instinct is to either craft or cook all these items instead of just vendoring or trading them?」

「Weren’t we already past that?」

「Well, you’re certainly not wrong there.」

Haruna gets stopped right in her tracks by Mio’s observation. They had already been at a point where, before even diving into any actual combat tactics, they would unconsciously sift through all the possible practical uses for the dropped materials of any given monster they happened to be facing. In other words they were past the point of no return in a way.

「In all seriousness it’s all thanks to our kooky leader over there.」

Mio says as she turns her head towards the neighboring house. Needless to say Hiroshi, being the crafting fetishist to top all fetishists that he is, was completely absorbed with his mad experiments.

「He has a point though, it’s a lot more practical to put all of those materials to good use rather than vendoring them for nominal sums.」

「Sure, but couldn’t we spare at least a tiny portion of it for rank increasing?」

While funneling all the materials for Hiroshi to play around with had some substantial upsides, as a result acquiring proof of subjugation became much more difficult and their adventurer level had begun stagnating. There wasn’t much reason to raise it too high but they’d have to deal with certain complications if it wasn’t at least at six.

In order to level up, however, they’d have to take on more demanding, potentially life-threatening, contracts. Thanks to Hiroshi their expenses were minimal but if they were to carry on with their current safe approach to questing, it would only be a matter of time till their inflow of gold starts decreasing. Granted they had plenty of it to spare but that didn’t mean that their coffers were bottomless and they could dry up rapidly if the party wasn’t paying enough attention.

「I’m back.」

「Artiem’s back.」

「So she is.」

Artiem’s arrival lightens up the mood just as the conversation had started heading in a darker direction. She had been tasked with gathering as many peak season produce from her village as she could get her hands on.

「There wasn’t much to go around, the timing was a bit awkward…」

「No worries, it’s not your fault.」

Haruna calms down Artiem who was being overly apologetic for a factor out of her control. She lets a sigh of relief and begins going through the contents of the basket.

「The only ones particular to this season were the BrutaLotus root and the Spudle-Driver.」

「Those names sound no good, are they monsters by chance?」

「The BrutaLotus is certainly a monster, the Spudle-Driver, on the other hand, is just your regular potato, asides from its rhizomes which are like massive sharpened rocks, that is.」

Spudle-Drivers were capable of planting their roots in even the hardest of bedrock and could grow them out beyond the average human’s height.

「Hold it, where did you get those from?」

「Well they’re potatoes, you just dig them up.」

「One more thing, are they perennial? And do the roots wilt after being dug up?」

「Yes and no.」

「Could it be possible that it’s just another plant that happens to resemble a potato?」

「The spuds grow on the roots, there’s no doubt about it.」

Artiem explains as she shows off what can only be described as a type of potato. It had an uncanny ability to avoid wilting even after having its rhizomes dup up, as one would expect from a bizarre parrarel world. In case anyone was wondering how they were being harvested when their roots were that unforgiving, the answer is simple – some roots ran along the ground, so with just a little digging they could be harvested easily.

「Fair enough. What about the BrutaLotus?」

「It’s a type of lotus root that’ll try to fly away when dug up and if one tries to snatch it mid-flight it’ll turn right back and dive head-first straight into anyone unfortunate enough to earn its wrath.」

「What a way to say hello…」

「You can say that again, it hurts, a lot. Last time when Foeldan tried to stop one from escaping he got knocked right off his feet and flew over fifty meters from a direct hit to the chest.」

「Yikes.」

Haruna and Mio go through some light cognitive dissonance at the disconnect between their understanding of a lotus root and this one they’re hearing of that effortlessly knocked a heavy forest giant over fifty meters back.

「This might sounds rich coming from the one who asked for this but are you sure it’s okay to have this thing around?」

「It’s been neutralized so we should be fine, I think…」

「You think?」

「It’s similar to pomey’s in a way, occasionally the killing blow will be just off the mark and once it senses it’s being cooked it won’t hesitate to retaliate with full force.」

「Double yikes.」

Haruna and Mio would’ve been better off not asking. Pomey’s were a dangerous plant type along the lines of the BrutaLotus but at the very least they wouldn’t pick a fight over something as simple as being cooked, although if they happened to be caught in the crossfire of some explosion they would be just as relentless in their self-defense. The BrutaLotus must take it self very seriously.

「Speaking of Brutalotuses…」

「Hold it!」

「Okay?」

「We can never be too careful, get in battle position!」

「Way ahead of you, Haru.」

Artiem’s alarming exposition sets the two off. They were convinced that the conversation they just had was foreshadowing for what’s about to come and even if it wasn’t, it never hurts to be too careful.

Artiem puzzlingly looks on as the two get into serious battle mode over what’s essentially a vegetable. It would have been understandable if they just pulled out their weapons and remained cautious but Haruna had begun working on her defense buffs as though in preparation for the real deal. They didn’t have any armor on at the time so it was somewhat understandable but they would be facing off against a BrutaLotus – a monster that’s not all that powerful. If it was the villagers wouldn’t be taking the risk of cultivating it.

「Can I, umm, take them out now?」

「Go ahead.」

「Whenever you’re ready.」

Artiem faintly smiles at the absurdity of the situation while taking out four BrutaLotuses out of the basket one by one. Just as she begun to think it was a false alarm after all, she reached out for another one and…

「Ah!?」

「I knew it!」

「Drat!」

The BrutaLotuses initiated a four way attack. Both Haruna and Mio, who were still on their guard even after the first few successive attempts had almost given them a false sense of security, instantly take down two of them. Artiem meanwhile had been caught completely off guard, but luckily she had somehow managed to just barely move out of the way.

「Aaaah!!!」

A single Brutalotus manages to crash its way through Artiem’s skirt due to a miscalculated turn.  Artiem freezes on the spot in complete shock over what had just went down. The impact tore her skirt into pieces, while the BrutaLotus got taken down by Mio’s slashes just as it was about to collide into the ceiling.

「That, however, didn’t mark the end of things to come.」

「Woah!」

The last remaining BrutaLotus delivers a swiftly accurate blow to Artiem’s solar plexus. This sends her flying right through the wall into the neighboring house. The blow was so strong that, were it not for Haruna’s defense buff, Artiem would be in a whole lot of pain right about now.

Also the neighboring house was currently occupied by Hiroshi who was just… minding his own business.

「Haruna… Isn’t sensei in there?」

Haruna and Mio were greeted by a completely bewildered Hiroshi, who didn’t appear to suffer any real damages.

「Hiroshi, are you okay!?」

「Aye, am perfectly fain. It’s just that…」

「It’s just that?」

「Do ye e’er find yerselves questionin’ god’s will?」

Haruna and Mio tilt their heads in confusion to Hiroshi’s cryptic answer. Hiroshi, deciding that it’d be quicker to just show not tell, takes the two over to his workspace.

「Oh dear…」

「Yeesh.」

「Don’t this seem a bit o’erboard?」

「Yes, yes it does…」

Haruna and Mio shake their heads in agreement. One of Hiroshi’s experimental plant types had locked the man eater down in a cobra twist while simultaneously pinning down Artiem in a less than child friendly manner.

「How did it even get to this?」

「At first it merely ‘eld ‘er upside down by the legs, but then…」

「But then?」

「After Devourin’ the lotus root that came flyin’ outta nohwhere it just kinda happened in a moment’s notice.」

「Oh my…」

It seemed as though that particular lotus root was a lecherous one. Upon absorbing its lecherous energy the unknown plant couldn’t help but channel its inner tentacally self and do… that to Artiem.

「Now, how do we go ‘bout solvin’ this dilemma?」

「Don’t look at us, we don’t want to end up like that.」

「Fair ‘nuff.」

「I’m too young to be defiled.」

「Less talking more saving, for the love of god!」

Artiem screams for help as the three nonchalantly discuss the situation at hand while awkwardly looking away from her general direction.  What was clear for now is that this unknown plant would need some serious adjustments before being passed as usable.

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