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Chapter 201 – Part 1

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Translation: Charlotte
Editor: Weasalopes

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I found myself in a terrible situation.

But I gave Nias back her top, and got her to try and re-equip it.

Nope. It didn’t work.

It wasn’t for lack of effort, Nias was trying to re-equip her top under her poncho.

But it looked the size just wouldn’t fit.

No way… Why was that?

Could it be that her bust size had gotten bigger?

 

 

Oh dear…

I ended up imagining it…

If it got any bigger, it would probably explode!

I gave up trying to figure out exactly how much Nias’s appearance changed in her Class Change.

She also had a new skill, 【Magic Melody】.

Well, I could leave that for later.

For the time being, I had to hold back my tears and recall Nias.

Yeah.

I wasn’t on the verge of crying because I couldn’t see underneath her poncho, alright!?

 

I summoned Ninetails.

She could help as a support, and he had the ability to sense danger after all.

Just in case, I decided to have both Volff and Helix in there too.

 

On the snowy plains, I could see the tracks that the Wendigos I called earlier using 【Call Monster】 left.

I was heading towards the centre of the N2W2 map.

But the Wendigo footsteps in the ground made it feel like I was tracking down a wild beast instead.

 

I used a spell on Volff, Ninetails, and myself that I hadn’t used in a long time.

The spell I used was 【Psycho Pod】.

It was a measure against the Silent Ermines.

It probably wouldn’t be necessary for Jericho, Shishiku, or Helix.

Countering the Silent Ermine attacks became quite easy and painless.

While the rate at which they dropped items was low, I managed to get a good number of their item drops eventually.

 

【Material】 Silent Ermine Skin　Raw Material　Grade B　Rarity 3　Weight 1

The skin of a Silent Ermine. The skin is thin and soft, but it is still very good at retaining heat.

Pure white fur coats are very popular for their beautiful appearance.

 

I felt like for every ten of them I fought, I would get three Silent Ermine Skins.

The item drop rate felt a bit low, but it was subtle.

They were all skins with pure white fur, and they were always high-Grade items.

I hadn’t picked up a single one that was Grade C.

So far, they were all Grade B or Grade B-.

Yep, that was nice. A small consolation?

I could probably process them into something even nicer.

 

But Silent Ermines weren’t the only monsters I had to deal with.

Wendigos and Sasquatches were strangely common too.

And on top of that, this guy:

 

Ice Feeder Ptarmigan　Lv3

Monster　Enemy Target　Active

Battle Position: Air　Ice Attribute

 

I was very grateful for Helix.

They were attacking from behind me.

And on top of that, there were more than 10 of them.

I didn’t know Ptarmigans were birds that flock together…

It took a surprisingly long time to wrap my head around that.

 

The wall spell 【WindShield】 was also very effective.

Volff and Shishiku were darting to and fro, taking out any of the Ptarmigans that Helix managed to knock down.

The rest of the Ptarmigans in the sky Helix had to take on by himself.

Ninetails and Jericho could do nothing except watch from below.

But there was no way around that.

You can do your best against Wendigos and silent Ermines!

 

The Ptarmigans dropped items I didn’t expect them to drop.

This is what they dropped:

 

【Material】 Ptarmigan Stone　Raw Material　Grade C+　Rarity 4　Weight 0+

A stone produced in the gizzards of an Ice Feeder Ptarmigan.

It is known to be a stone that harbours 【Ice Magic】 power.

 

I only got one of them for every 10 Ptarmigans I took down.

Accumulating the Ptarmigan Stones was quite tough.

I had 【Call Monster】 to make more Ptarmigans come over.

But flocks of them were quite rare, and I only managed to call one flock of them.

I used wall spells to take them all down.

It is a flock of about 20 Ptarmigans, and from defeating them all, I only got two Ptarmigan Stones.

It was going to be difficult to get a lot of them…

 

《【Appraise】 Level Up! 》

 

Yep, that felt very nice.

I was grateful for the level-up.

The speed at which I marched through the snowy field did not increase.

I had to watch out for ambushes from the Silent Ermines.

Swapping out Jericho was completely out of the question.

The scary part was that the snow was so thick I couldn’t tell what I was stepping on.

But I kept going, with Volff and Ninetails in the front to ensure a safe passage for everyone else.

But their safety checks took a lot of time.

Even Jericho could easily keep up on foot.

Well, while we were slow, we had good fighting power.

My Summon Monsters were also well-matched against Wendigos.

Yep. Progress was going slowly but smoothly.

But suddenly, a pack of four angry-looking Wendigos approached.

 

They were all coming in front of me.

I was half-surrounded.

It looked like they had proper knowledge concerning strategy and formations too.

 

But the moment the Wendigos reached us, Shishiku bathed them all in fire.

That was a bit unexpected…

Yeah.

In any case, it was a very effective attack.

 

「Fire Storm!」

 

I followed up with an area-of-effect 【Fire Magic】 spell.

In no time, the Wendigos’ HP bars were at less than half.

That was the case for all four of them.

It looked like they weren’t expecting to take such a strong attack, so most of them actually fell over backwards.

Only one of the four Wendigos was still standing.

 

But that one Wendigo wasn’t enough to prevent my Summon Monsters and me from charging in to finish them off.

But maybe I was a bit too confident too. I forgot I was dealing with Wendigos.

They weren’t going to go down so easy.

It took contributions from every member of my team to take care of them.

The last Wendigo went down as it was being eaten by Shishiku.

 

《【Space-time Magic】 Level Up!》 》

《【Seal Magic】 Level Up!》  》

《You have acquired the 【Seal Magic】 spell 【Seal Dual Forces】!》 》

《You have acquired the 【Seal Magic】 spell 【Ternary Seal】!》 》

 

Oh!

Well after all that, I suppose a level-up or two would be in order.

Also… 【Seal Dual Forces】?

【Ternary Seal】?

What were those?

 

I pulled up the short explanations for both of the spells.

Apparently, 【Seal Dual Forces】 is used to prevent attacks from causing abnormal status conditions.

It also came with a chance of failure, but I still had a feeling it would be a very useful spell to have.

Maybe I could use it on those Stab Butterflies?

I could combine the spell with 【Psycho Pod】, and then completely forget about abnormal status conditions altogether.

 

【Ternary Seal】 was apparently a spell that worked to cancel the effect of enchant spells on the target.

Wouldn’t the effect of this be subtle at best…?

Well there would probably be an opportunity to use it somewhere.

 

 

I kept taking out more Silent Ermines as I walked along the snowy field.

Over time, I noticed it was getting easier to walk. The amount of snow piling up on the ground was starting to get thinner.

It felt like I was descending some sort of plateau.

Breathing was starting to get easier too.

 

Silent Ermines ambushes also became less frequent.

In the distance, I could see a forest slowly approaching.

The proportion of the ground around me that was not covered in snow was increasing too.

The decrease in monsters wasn’t just my imagination. 【Call Monster】 was actually giving me less results.

 

Or at least that’s what I was hoping for.

There had to be other monsters out there.

They were probably just hiding somewhere…

It might have just been that I couldn’t sense them.

But for the time being, it was probably safe to start focusing on mobility.

 

I recalled Jericho and Shishiku.

I summoned Zangetsu and Obsidian.

I got going.

What was waiting for me in the snowy forest?

 

 

I didn’t know. All I knew was that riding Zangetsu was a very pleasant experience.

Volff was running behind us, trying to keep up with Zangetsu’s pace.

Helix and Obsidian were also in the sky, watching for any monsters below.

Ninetails was comfortably sitting on my lap, but I had a feeling he was on high alert too.

Yeah. Something was definitely waiting for me.

I kept my senses alert, and kept going towards the centre of the N2W2 map.

But the closer I got to the centre, the more a feeling of dread started to well up within me.

 

I spotted some large beasts a distance away.

But they had yellow markers, and it didn’t look like they were too interested in me.

I rode up as close as I needed to be to properly have a look at them.

Up close, I realised what kind of beasts they were.

 

Mammoths.

It was a herd of mammoths.

 

Yeah. They looked like big woolly elephants.

But I didn’t know whether they were peaceful or not, so I kept my distance.

In fact, it reminded me of a few monsters I had encountered before.

Stray Horses, for one.

Fighting Bulls too.

The similarities were slim, but they reminded me of Rampaging Battle Cocks too.

In other words, I had a bad feeling about the mammoths.

 

 

Stray Mammoth Lv2

Monster　Enemy Target　Active

Battle Position: Ground　Ice Attribute

 

Yeah. They weren’t to be messed with.

I’ll pretend I didn’t see them…

 

What was my first impression of the Stray Mammoth?

Just looking at it made me think of running away.

While they were clearly in a herd, they were spread pretty far apart too.

But… Even if it was alone…

I had a feeling that it could easily charge into me and blow me away if I were to anger it!

The mammoth in front of me was massive.

It made Fighting Bulls and Panzer Rhinos look cute by comparison.

 

Having satisfied my curiosity, I spurred Zangetsu onward.

But I looked behind me to find the Stray Mammoth chasing after me.

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