Translation: Charlotte
Editor: Weasalopes
At first, I thought the party I ran into in the forest around Master’s house was a normal party, going out to do some night hunting.
They were all on top of trees, after all.
That may have seemed suspicious, but I was used to doing the very thing they were doing when I was still hunting around Master’s house.
There were a lot of Wild Pheasant eggs to collect on the trees in the forest around Master’s house, after all.
Ah, sorry, I made a mistake. It was a robbery.
Just being on the trees in itself wasn’t a very suspicious sight.
But…
When I looked at them, I realised that sometimes the colour of the green markers above their heads changed.
Even “sometimes” doesn’t seem right… It was just changing for less than a second every 10 seconds.
Their markers turned grey.
I focused my gaze on them, watching for the moment when that grey marker would appear again.
The grey marker appeared for all six of them. They were all PK players.
I immediately stopped. They hadn’t noticed me yet.
But as I stopped, I realised Telomere and Volff weren’t looking at the PK players above me. They were looking somewhere else.
Focusing my eyes at where they were looking, I could see that there were a few players hiding in the bush.
It looked like they were looking at the PK party too, monitoring the PK party’s actions.
It was a bit tougher to use 【Identify】 on them, but they were PKK players.
Oh no…
Sorry to interrupt, guys…
《【Discern】 Level Up! 》
Well, that was fine too. I could take that as my consolation prize of sorts.
It would probably be best if I took a detour to Master’s house.
To avoid ruining the tense atmosphere, I quickly retreated and took a large detour around that part of the forest.
Please, do fight to your heart’s content.
If I had a little more time, I wouldn’t mind sitting down to watch them go at it.
~o~O~o~
Master’s house looked as solid as always.
Magi Owl flew over my shoulder as if to remind me of his presence.
As soon as Obsidian spotted Magi Owl, they started jumping around playing a strange game of tag.
Telomere jumped on top of the gate to Master’s house, and followed them with her eyes.
As expected from my night-time Summon Monsters. I could leave them to it.
When I entered the house and went down to the underground workshop, there was only Metalskin there.
Master seemed to be absent.
But that couldn’t be helped. I wasn’t expecting him to be there.
The magic tools used in alchemy were all still there on standby.
I went to the nearby storeroom to borrow herbs, along with material to make potion bottles, just in case.
Borrowing?
No, I didn’t have any intention of ever returning those materials.
Thank you very much, Master.
I know Master will forgive me for stealing his ingredients!
I returned to my 2nd floor room and recalled all my Summon Monsters.
Next to the bed was an Evil Ant Shell.
It was the old Grade X Evil Ant Shell.
It was still an unsolved mystery.
Well, whatever.
I could sleep in my own room for once.
~o~O~o~
Now then.
I logged in at 4:20 AM.
I wanted to get back to the village of Legias as soon as possible.
When I got down to the 1st floor fully equipped with all my equipment, I left the house with Metalskin seeing me off.
Well then.
I summoned Volff, Obsidian, Gengetsu, Florin, and Telomere.
I wanted to get to Legias early.
~o~O~o~
I used 【Forest Walk】 on myself as I headed towards Legias.
But even with 【Forest Walk】, I still couldn’t catch up with my Summon Monster when they were running.
I tried to ignore the Evil Ants as much as I could.
There were a lot of other players in the forest too, so they were definitely a big help to that.
Yep, the number of players was definitely increasing.
I had a strong hunch the monster populations were actually on the decline.
「Good morning.」
「Good Morning, Keith!」
「We have breakfast ready for you.」
Yeah. That would be very nice.
It was a bit early for breakfast, but I gladly accepted the bowl they handed me.
But really… It’s been a long time since I last visited Legias.
The Summoners were all gathering in groups of three to five.
I also had a feeling that there were more of them…
I asked Konohana and Haruna, and there certainly were more Summoners in our company.
Our numbers went up by three players. They all happened to be in Legias.
It was just three players, but with the Summon Monsters they could summon, it definitely seemed like there were a lot more new players in our company than there actually were.
What is the plan for the day?
After 6 AM we will move to the S1 map after another roll call.
There was a road stretching along the middle of the map, and movement seemed to be going smoothly.
Where were we heading?
We were heading to the camp that Shinonome opened up in S1.
There would be a stone quarry nearby, but I was told to ignore it and kept going.
I was also told to look for a cave of limestone, with stalactites visible from the entrance…
「Can I take over the job of guiding everyone?」
Haruna came to me with a nice idea.
It looked like there were a few Summoners who had already gone and cleared the Stalactite Cave to the south beforehand.
She was one of them.
「Are there particularly tough enemies in there?」
「I guess the biggest problem is going to be getting past the slimes? We’ll have to watch out for ambushes from the Water Worms too.」
「The Bats and Buer Slaves should be quite easy to deal with, though.」
「Yeah, I suppose with this many people in our company, they won’t be an issue.」
「What else should we watch out for?」
「There’s a trap leading to a hidden dungeon in there, with a lot of undead monsters waiting for you. I fell into the trap once. Had to pay for the mistake with my life.」
「Huh…」
After all the information, the Stalactite Cave seemed even more fascinating.
No no no no!
We couldn’t go for any detours or distractions.
「There’s a boss fight we might have to deal with too. The boss monster is called the Buer Guard. It’s a kind of devil-ish monster, and a pretty strong opponent too.
「Oh, it’s a strong enemy?」
「I have a feeling you’ll find it unsatisfactory though, Keith…」
What?
Well, that doesn’t matter.
「Well, there’s only one way to find out.」
「Yeah, that’s true.」
That’s right.
I had run into cases before where monsters were stronger depending on my own level.
I would love for that to be the case in the Stalactite Cave too.
The time is 6 AM.
It was time for another roll call.
While we were busy taking care of the roll call, I decided to change my Summon Monster team to one more suited to movement.
I summoned Volff, Zangetsu, Helix, Rig, and Nias.
The Summoner Corps were now up to 35 members.
Counting the total number of Summon Monsters was a bit too much of a hassle.
The number would really put some scary thoughts into our minds, after all.
We really were like a small army.
~o~O~o~
After passing the watchtower which served as the boundary between the forest and the plains beyond, we started heading southeast.
It was a route that didn’t lead into Remut Town.
The road wasn’t paved like the road to Remut was, so our movement speed did decrease a bit, but we still kept going with all our strength.
Our route would be shorter by going off the main road, allowing us to still arrive earlier anyway.
Getting to move freely across the plains was a nice feeling too.
We took care of all the monsters who would bother us with just our Summon Monsters.
The other players on the hunt were also careful to choose a route so as not to provoke monsters to get in the way.
I wonder what we looked like to the monsters, or other players…
Well, there were important things to focus on.
Thanks.
Thank you!