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Chapter 222 Part 2

Translation: Charlotte
Editor: Weasalopes

As I walked through the forest and thought about it some more, I realised that it was just the terrain that made the monsters more difficult than they had to be. They would be a lot easier out in the plains.
But just thinking about it wasn’t going to do me any good.
As I kept going, I ran into another party as they were fighting some monsters.
They were fighting a group of Killer Apes.
I couldn’t see clearly, but I felt like there were four of them.
All of their levels were quite low, ranging between Level 1 to Level 3.

But I realised that the Killer Apes had different movement and attack patterns when in groups.
The Killer Apes actually separated themselves into front-line fighters and support.
The Killer Apes in the rear attacked by throwing stones.
When they ran out of stones to throw, they turned to snapping and throwing tree branches, or even throwing small fallen trees.
They were quite a dynamic bunch.
Just like the Fighting Bulls, I had a feeling they were quite easy to deal with on their own, but would make for an annoying group of enemies in groups.

Just to be safe, I used Call Monster to check for any groups of Killer Apes around me.
Yep, there were a lot of them around me.
It was not in the direction I was travelling in, but I sensed a group of five close by.
Counting the total number of Killer Apes, there had to be at least 50 of them.
It didn’t look like any of them were moving in a particularly strange manner.
Among the Killer Apes, there were a few at relatively high levels too.
They actually looked quite scary, just from looking at the Call Monster result…

How strong were the Killer Apes?
Well, they were probably weaker than the Five-eyed Apes…
But still, the fact that they were in hordes made them very threatening.
Of course, the terrain was heavily in their favour too.
I would have to be careful.

Oh yeah, what happened to the party fighting those Killer Apes?
The front-line fighters in the party took a lot of damage, but it looked like they managed to secure a win.
I felt like as long as the group of Killer Apes was a small one, I would probably be able to take them down head on.
But I still wanted to come up with some sort of strategy to use on the bigger hordes of Killer Apes.
Even a simple ambush would help a lot in taking them down.
But for the time being, I had to give it my all in heading to the Area Portal.
I could fight hordes of Killer Apes after getting a better idea of the map as a whole.

The time was 11:30 am.
I gave up on my goal of reaching the Area Portal before noon.
I really had to thank Zangetsu for everything.
It was because of Zangetsu’s high speed in the plains that I could even get close to making such a lofty goal.

I set up an Instant Portal and sat down to have lunch.
I recalled Tigris and summoned Bunraku.
I just got myself a lot of new cooking utensils.
I was looking forward to seeing what kind of food Bunraku could come up with.

While waiting for the dish to be prepared and served, I continued working on digging out whatever was inside the Ancient Stone Pillar.
What was even inside to begin with?
It took many hours of work, but I was finally starting to see what was inside.
The shape was cylindrical, almost like some kind of wood log.
No doubt about it.
But it was a lot heavier than I would assume any type of wood to be, so it was still very puzzling.
I wasn’t able to use【Appraise】on it just yet.
But really… What was it?

Bunraku finished cooking in an unexpectedly short time.
It was just a bowl simple boiled pasta. Bunraku set it on the desk.
Afterwards, Bunraku started working on making the sauce out of the leftover shrimps of all kinds.
Once Bunraku was done, he stepped back, leaving the used food mill to make the sauce on the desk.
I see… He boiled the shrimps and then crushed them using the food mill…
It was quite a nice idea.
The condensed flavour of the shrimp mixed very well with the pasta!
I had a feeling the dish would go very well with the sweetness from some vegetables, but it was still so delicious I wanted seconds.
But unfortunately, there weren’t any seconds.

With all the new cooking utensils, I could expect a lot more delicious cuisine from Bunraku.
Well, no matter how fond I was of Bunraku, the forest wasn’t a good place for him.
I recalled Bunraku and summoned Tigris.

I had to keep moving further south.
I had a feeling I was getting close to the Area Portal.

The time was 1:40 pm.
The forest was starting to take on a strange appearance as I kept walking.
There were burn marks on the trees.
Whole parts of the forest were completely grey, like the trees were burnt and turned to charcoal as they stood.
Looked like I was finally at the Grey Forest.
The name made for a very accurate description of the S3 Area Portal.

But really…
There were a lot of monsters in the S3 map!
Well, there were also many players, but the number of monsters seemed to be considerably higher than the number of players.
I ran into a lot of monsters on the way to the Grey Forest too.
More than half of those cases were me running into another party fighting monsters, though.

But looking at the number of players compared to the number of monsters, it really wasn’t a surprise that they were having trouble taking care of the Magi problem.
It was a really scary situation…

Speaking of the Grey Forest…
When I arrived, I realised that the Area Portal stretched over quite a wide area.
And it was easy to tell where the Area Portal began and ended, because all the trees in the Area Portal were charred grey.
Of course, the trees had no leaves, and the ground had no shrubbery.
Nevertheless, it didn’t look like anything was on fire. Not even the air smelled of it.

What about the players inside the Area Portals.
There were quite a lot of players walking around.
There were also a lot of tents here and there, probably belonging to players who were logging out.
What was interesting was that there were actually a good number of stalls run by Production Job players.
Although, the number of stalls was still nothing compared to what the fishing village of Neeme or the Wind Spirit Village looked like.
But it still looked like the place was developing nicely. They had about as many stalls as there were in the Lava Fort.
Small houses made of stone were also being set up here and there.
There was a proper workshop, and smoke was rising out of the chimneys of the houses.

I spent some time walking around the Grey Forest, looking at what the stalls had to offer.
I noticed that a lot of them were selling leather armour… No, just defensive equipment in general.

But I also found something quite unusual.
It was a shield.
When I first looked at it, it didn’t seem like anything strange.
It was just a shield, but there was something quite interesting about it.

【Armour: Shield】Rubber Plate Shield+　Grade E　Rarity 3
Def+10　Weight 3+　Durability 110　Power Reduction -2
A shield reinforced with a rubber plate obtained by the vulcanisation of natural rubber.
The shield is very effective at reducing the Power of enemy attacks.

I did notice the Grade E in the corner of my eye, but I was more interested in something else…
I was interested in that one phrase: “By the vulcanisation natural rubber”.
Huh.
I didn’t think making something like that was even possible!

Thinking about it some more, as long as I could get natural rubber somewhere, getting the rest of the materials required to vulcanise it would be relatively easy.
Getting sulfur would be possible.
Getting solid carbon would be even easier, I could probably do it by just collecting soot.
But maybe the difficult part would be in the actual vulcanising process, where the sulfur and carbon would have to be grinded down to small particles.
Wait, no…
I could just use my Alchemy skills in that case, right?
But I had a feeling there would still be a number of hurdles in my way.

I would still need other things besides the raw materials in order to make myself some rubber.
In terms of equipment, I would need a mixer as strong as a Banbury mixer, a vulcanising press, and of course, a mould to shape the rubber…
In terms of additional materials, I would need a plasticiser, oil, anti-aging agents, and vulcanisation accelerators too.
I wouldn’t even need that much carbon. The rubber end product would need a lot of filler material, so it would be nice to maybe get some silica or calcium carbonate…

And if I wanted to stick the final product to a shield or armour, I would need some rubber glue too.
And in that case, I would also need a solvent to activate a glue strong enough to bond the rubber.
Wait, wouldn’t the armour have to have a special reinforcement for the rubber to properly make use of it? It wasn’t like I could just stick the rubber wherever I wanted.

Oops. Almost forgot.
All my thoughts were assuming that I even had the skill to carry out the vulcanisation process.

For the time being, I guess I could start by getting myself some information on the matter?