3C57 (1/2)

This extra chapter is thanks to the support of Cody and Arash! Thank you and enjoy the slightly longer chapter!

(057) Night in Gomaki Village

Translator: Tseirp

For me who do not get carsick since young, the side job(alchemy) I had inside the horse carriage was just nice to kill time.

The iron ores turned into iron balls one after the other accompanied by the rise of my Apprentice Alchemist level.

Now I was level 14.

When Apprentice Alchemist reached level 10, I learnt the 「Metal Appraisal」 skill.

The 「Metal Appraisal」 skill also seemed to apply to weapons and armours as well as manufactured equipment so,

【Steel: Alloy of iron and carbon. Produced by an intermediate level alchemist.]

was displayed when I looked at my steel sword. Also, my recipes increased by 5.

I asked to look at the Fire Dragon Fang sword but it could not be appraised due to it not being made of metal and looking at the short sword told me that it was made with iron.

Incidentally, the goblin sword seems to be made of a special metal called goblin iron.

“It’s a magic metal. It seems that metals that continued to bathe in the blood of numerous monsters will mutate. But, those metals rarely appear and the majority of the magic metal in circulation in the world are dropped by monsters within labyrinths. Apparently, if one raises their Alchemist level, they would be able to combine magic metals to create new magic metals. It’s called magic alloy.”

“Oh, Carol sure is knowledgeable … then, is goblin iron a valuable iron?”

“No, the goblin iron rod dropped by hobgoblins is completely made of goblin iron so it is not valuable. It’s said that it is slightly weaker compared to regular iron so pure iron has more value.”

” … Ah, I see.”

That’s a shame.

My MP has dropped below half so I’ll take a rest for now.

I can’t do practice swings in the horse carriage and MP is required to increase my magic proficiency.

“It’ll be great if there are medicine that can easily recover MP.”

“Mana potions are completely bought out so they are extremely valuable.”

Nobles and rich people buy up mana potions.

Since by using mana potions, they would be able to use magic and raise their levels.

Therefore apparently, many first rate Magicians, Practitioners, and Alchemists are sons of rich people.

“Bought out huh … it’s not good to buy out everything.”

I muttered and Haru, while seated at the coachman seat, joined the conversation.

“That’s right. The Adventurer Guild do not purchase materials from people other than adventurers because Merchants bought them all up previously.”

In the past, when the Adventurers Guild wasn’t around, Merchants would individually hire adventurers and harvesters to collect herbs and monster materials.

However, the adventurers, being unaware of the market price, were taken advantage of and they sold quite cheaply.

The Adventurers Guild was established to try to protect such adventurers.

Upon doing so, the Merchants didn’t think so well of that and bought up all the items like potions required by adventurers.

The Merchants sold the items for several times the usual price but none of the adventurers bought the potions, a boycott happened.

At that time, a large outbreak of monsters happened and many adventurers died fighting those monsters.

It was said that there were many that could have been saved if there were potions.

Since then, the Adventurers Guild excluded Merchants and Herbalist that produced potions before eventually, it became such that materials were not purchased from those other than adventurers.

“Though, that was more than 300 years in the past and now, the Adventurers Guild and Herbalist Guild have a friendly relationship so it has been considerably eased. The Adventurers Guild has acquiesced to the loophole of master appointing me as a proxy to sell materials.”

Until now, I’ve only been raising the levels of my combat-based jobs but, if I’m thinking about spending my life without battles, it would be more convenient to raise my production-based jobs instead.

At the very least, danger towards my life doesn’t seem to be likely.

Ah, but Haru seems to prefer a life of combat though.

The carriage continued down the path but the gradient became slightly steeper.

Looks like we entered the mountainous path.

When living in Japan, the mountains gave the feeling of being overgrown by trees but the rocky mountain here only had grass, flowers and short trees growing with no tall trees at all.

I guess Mount Fuji would be like this too.

I recalled that once, my family had a discussion if we should go climb Mount Fuji until the 5th station but Miri was adamant about her hatred towards climbing Mount Fuji so in the end, the Mount Fuji trip was cancelled and it changed to a trip to eat eel at Hamamatsu.

Well, thinking back now, I do agree with Miri’s opinion that Mount Fuji is for viewing and not for climbing but that was the first and last time I saw such a stubborn Miri.

“There is a post village ahead so let’s stay over today and head for the labyrinth tomorrow.”

“Ah, this is Mount Gomaki? Haru, can you see the village?”

“No, I can’t see the village yet. But, we’re approaching the smell of life so we should be able to see it soon.”

“Smell of life?”

Is it different from the smell of humans?

“The smell of burning firewood, the smell of toasting bread, the scent of people living their lives.”

So it is something like that.

Haru’s nose is truly great.

Just as she described, we were able to see the village before long.

Unlike Florence or Belasra, it was a really small village apparently called the Gomaki Village with about 20 residents.

Looks like they used the name of the mountain as it is.

The national boundary of Dakyat was to the southeast, the national boundary of Korat was to the southwest, since it seems like it would take around 2 days to travel to either country, travellers and Peddlers who are aiming for either country would stay over here.

Which means, tomorrow we will be heading towards the labyrinth and returning to stay and the day after tomorrow we would likely be camping out.

At the village entrance, horse carriages were lined up in columns. Looks like it is a caravan aiming for Florence.

Since the goods were loaded on the carriages, they most likely stopped there without stopping at the stables.

There was a stable so we entrusted the horse to them.

I’ve still not thought of a name for the horse.

For the time being, Haru reminded the horse to not go wild and the 3 of us alighted from the horse carriage.

Incidentally, the lodging fee for horse carriage until the morning of the day after tomorrow was 10 sense and the lodging fee for horses is determined by the race of the horse, the fee for white horse … we found out that they are called arc horse after all this time … is 50 sense (including feed).

It was 60 sense in total, I handed over 6 bundles of 10 copper coins and received the deposit receipt.

“Nevertheless, it sure is a splendid horse. It’s a huge difference from the gluttonous slow donkey this morning.”

The brown-haired uncle who was looking at our white horse divulged his thoughts.

“Slow donkey?”

“Yeah, this morning an odd pair of man and woman visited and entrusted it here. Even though it was small, it was a slow donkey that really could eat well. They left the village in the afternoon but half of the straws in my stable was already eaten up. That put me at a great deficit.”

It’s Jofre and Elise without a doubt.

They continued their journey yesterday without staying over at the inn huh?

They sure are indescribably tough.

But, even during such a bitter journey, they would definitely still be smiling.

“By the way, did they say where they were headed to?”

“No idea, they did say that they were heading south.”

“I see.”

I had a hunch that we would meet again but looks like we would really meet them soon.

Well, we’ll be spending a day here so I don’t think that we would catch up to them immediately.

“By the way, are there any specialties here?”

“Yeah, the stew made of goat milk and wheat flour is exquisite. If you go to the inn, they would make you eat it even if you hate it.”

“I see, thank you very much.”

Goat milk stew.

Yup, what comes to mind during a journey would be to properly taste specialties.

Even though it’s called a post village, it sure is a small village.

There was only 1 inn.

There were horses that looked like they were entrusted by others as well in the stable so there most likely would be other customers as well.

“Welcome, for 3? We can also prepare the barn for slaves, what would you like?”