Hone To Issho No Isekai Seikatsu Chapter 48

– Adventurer Life Day 50 (Mon) – Morning – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields

“Ohh… That's some amazing power…”

“Given that it's empty, it's not that surprising.”

As usual, we head towards the abandoned mine… though, a little different this time.

We finally have a cart to take with us.

I had ‘Polpenius Horse' created and pull along the cart. Despite crossing through the Gravel Fields, it hadn't been caught by the pebbles in the area, and had been progressing smoothly.

I was worried about this before, but at the very least, I at least know this cart could easily pa.s.s through when empty… though, the return would be the real problem here…

The uncle that sold us the second hand cart warned us to keep this moving at walking speed when not using a road. It'll break otherwise…

When having a look at ourselves, we've been constantly moving much faster than walking speed… This thing was quite expensive, so I'm getting pretty worried…

Right now, our party consists of Centurion's team + Phillips' team + an additional 2 skeletons. So long as I have this number, my mana doesn't seem to decrease when having the horse out. Any more though, and I can feel it depleting slightly, so I try to keep the number at 10.

Even with this however, it should still be enough to handle the monsters in the Gravel Fields… most of which was from Phillips' team anyways.

I wouldn't be able to do this before, so I'm quite grateful for this.

By the way, only Phillips consumes twice as much mana compared to the other skeletons, though that's probably because of the ‘Heroic Spirit' trait he holds.

“… Please WAIT for a MOMENT. There's a Suinetsusou THERE.”

We stop for a moment for Centurion to gather some of the mana potion ingredients… Since my mana depletes quite quickly, I wouldn't want to miss a chance in getting more of these…

Once the number of encountered monsters began to dwindle down, we start to arrive close to the Abandoned Mine.

The tall gra.s.s and thickets began to obstruct our view, but the cliff was easy to spot in the distance, though crossing through here with the cart seemed to get a little difficult.

Before entering, I had myself make several mana potions with the ingredients collected along the way… I've been quite cautious with this recently. In case of a life or death situation, we would at least need some sort of lifeline like this.

Next is taking another look of that new ‘Ingot' skill.

“… In any case, it seemed to have at least hardened well enough.”

Benedetta had been swinging the ingot, I had just made, around. Though small pieces seemed to have sc.r.a.ped out, it still managed to keep its shape intact.

It has pretty much the same texture as a sandstone, though much harder to break… not really the sort of condition I expected iron to be as.

Even when smashing it against the ground, it would only end up chipped. Perhaps it's because it is a solid piece, compared to my expectation of it being hollow.

At the very least, I won't have to worry about these breaking inside the cart.

Another thing I confirmed, is how the skill actually works on things I thought had nothing in common with it.

For a piece of cracked timber, the ‘ingot' skill had it returned looking like it's original state, though only the broken portion looked a little thinner compared to the rest… and it still acts like a normal piece of wood as well. No modifications.

… However, if different types of wood were to be put together, the skill won't activate.

If I had different sized rocks gathered up, then it would simply merge into a larger rock… I try hitting it against another rock, but again. No additional modifications. It's just a normal rock.

The soil was the most peculiar however, as it compacted itself into a slightly smaller clump, changing its density… 

What's more, even when striking it against the ground or stone, it didn't break… it feels like it formed into some kind of strange clay.

Different from the iron sand and the rest of the materials I tested, it's like the force binding it together has changed for this one in particular… it's somewhat baffled me.

After calming down a bit and thinking about it more, I thought about the elemental materials back in the game.

For example, the order of creating the golem from wood → ground → rock would be considered grading up from the quality of the material used, and I can recall other skills that had treated this sort of mechanic to it as well… In other words, I can a.s.sume that there are materials that are especially favored more depending on the skill.

To test that out, I tried the skill onto various materials I could get my hands on.

I played around with tree branches, leaves and some random gra.s.s, and applied the skill onto them… they all felt like they've been simply crushed together into a clump.

… And as expected, the skill didn't activate when trying on different types of plants.

I can't really think of a way of being able to use this…

When using it onto the meat of defeated monsters, it reacted the exact same way, though I'm not sure how the taste of the meat changes with this…

Putting all my findings together, I can conclude that it merges things of the same material into a specific shape, while certain materials can be merged more solidly.

… There're also the ‘Bone Manipulation' and ‘Modelling' skills that could act the same way. Though there's a limit in the size I could make it, the speed and efficiency of it is unmatched in comparison. 

I could probably save quite a bit of mana when digging through holes using this.

Lastly, there's the level 9 ‘Necromancer' skill ‘Engulfing Darkness' that I'm going to try out.

… However, I don't even have a clue to what this skill does…

(‘Engulfing Darkness'!)

I try targeting some of the surrounding trees and gra.s.s, but nothing came out of it…

Perhaps it was probably a skill that doesn't activate unless against monsters specifically, but since there aren't any around, I try it out on my skeletons first… I had one of my normal skeletons come over to me, then activated the skill.

(How's that?)

It didn't seem like anything happened… would an actual hugging be required for this then?

With nothing else to think of, I try and hug the skeleton when activating the skill.

This time I feel a black energy pa.s.sing through the points we've been in contact… , but when looking at the skeleton, nothing seemed to have happened… what's with this now?

“How was it Benedetta? Did anything happen?”

“… It looked like something black was coming out of you, and then the skeleton absorbed it, but…”

As expected of the ‘Magic eye of Prudia', so it wasn't just my imagination…

But when looking at the skeleton again, nothing seemed to have changed from it.

“I don't see a difference?”

“No, me neither…”

We try thinking about it.

“HOW about TRYING it on ME?”

Centurion offered himself as a test subject, so I complied and tried the skill out on him.

In the exact same way as before, I felt energy pa.s.sing through from him… 

It doesn't seem like anything's changed again, but it seemed like Centurion understood something.

“Ahh, THIS is SOMETHING not very EFFECTIVE on US. It's a POWER from DARKNESS after all.”

“Power of darkness? You mean one of the elemental attributes?”

“I'm not sure if it's the same as what you said, but as skeletons, we recieve power from darkness. Which is why such an attack is hardly effective against us.”

In the game, there was a mechanic that utilizes the elemental type system. Fire, water, wind etc etc. Most of what we've been dealing with until now had just been normal physical types.

However, there are monsters that are strong and weak against certain types.

I was hoping this may have been a buff skill, but since it's for attacking, it probably won't be that useful for me since I would have to get in direct contact with the enemy…

– Adventurer Life Day 50 (Mon) – Morning – Comnes Town – West – Abandoned Mine

Just so I could see what the effect of the skill is, we head to the abandoned mine to test it out.

As a skeleton warrior was the first enemy to encounter, we had it held down as I come into direct contact with it, and like I thought, nothing happened.

I then did the same with the night lizard, not really expecting much…

When activating the skill, I can sense something flowing into me… It's not mana. Could that perhaps be a life force?

I feel power overflowing from my body, and felt unnaturally tense… this feeling of being on high feels sort of dangerous.

Looking at the lizard, the surface of its body seemed like all the moisture had been taken from it, as it dries up… while it was happening, the lizard tries going on a rampage, but that resistance only lasted for a short while.

No later, once I felt there was nothing much more to take, all that had been left of the lizard was a hollow husk.

“That skill is a little scary…”

“Scary indeed…”

After this, I made a small wound onto my body and tried the skill again. I am able to confirm that it does disappear.

So it's a skill that takes away the life out of enemies huh… if I'm going to be using this, then I'll have to get into super close contact with the enemy… I'm going to have to pa.s.s on that…

Once that was over, we resumed back on our usual hunting.

Benedetta and her group of skeletons will be in charge of collecting ingredients for the mana potion outside, while Phillips' team will be doing things on their own, hunting monsters inside the mine.

A big problem I have for Centurion's team, is that I only have one mattock for them to use… a simple mistake on my part.

For that, we would have the first batch of ready made iron rods shaped with modelling, then strengthened with engraving. With this, it should be good as a makeshift pickaxe.

I try digging with this, but as expected, it's pretty bad… I couldn't make it sharp enough with ‘Modelling'… well, it still dug as much as the mattock did thanks to the ‘Engraving'.

I'm thinking of preparing several more of these… it shouldn't be too bad since we have the cart now…

Despite all the setbacks, loading up the iron ingots to the cart was still convenient, and we were able to make more ingots compared to yesterday… Things are progressing steadily.

– Adventurer Life Day 50 (Mon) – Evening – Comnes Town – Adventurer's Guild

When arriving back to town, we had our ingots dropped off at Adonnis' shop before heading to the guild to exchange our monster parts… from there we heard the result from the ‘Elite' skeleton warrior we left at the auction, will be finalised by wednesday.

As we waited in the lobby for the a.s.sessment to complete, trainer Dorris called out to us… it's about the bounty from that time.

It seemed like there was a bounty for him from another guild… she gave me a form to give to another major guild, and explained some other warnings to me, such as, if I were to take too much time and not complete this within a year, then the contract may be annulled.

The form had the signature of the guild's head as proof of identification.

Even for adventurer guilds, a procedure like this is necessary.

In our case, we had a signature along with a written explanation on it.

– Adventurer Life Day 50 (Mon) – Evening – Comnes Town – Inn – Nessos' Temptation

Returning back to the inn, we both laid onto my bed, continuing on from yesterday…

Watching Benedetta laying on my arms had me a.s.saulted with an unreal feeling.

(… Really now. I didn't want to take too much notice of it before, but this girl really is quite pretty.)

It was awkward if I were to take too much attention to it before… 

Her eyes were sharp, but her pupils are large and her eyelashes are well arranged. I can feel my heartstrings being pulled when she looks up at me.

The skin of hers is also fine and white, I can sort of understand why some of the guys in Comnes would see this as something to fascinate at.

I just realized something… Ever since we first met, she had been hiding her face with her hood the entire time. It wouldn't have mattered if it were a normal looking person, but this person really would have been too conspicuous had she had it off.

Since that was the case, if she were to keep herself acquainted with other adventurers, then there will definitely be a time when her face would be revealed to them… No well, that's probably fine, but even so, that's still too risky… Because of that, there's something I'm going to have to ask her.

“Hey, Benedetta. After all this, what were you planning to do?”

I asked her the question… her training on her ‘Miko' divine protection, sword skills and bow, were something I already knew.

However, simply having those abilities and continuing on as an adventurer in her situation  isn't normal.

Her desire of becoming stronger… is something I've always been wondering.

“… Yes… It was difficult to say this before, but I'll tell you everything now.”

When I first heard of her story regarding her family, I had thought she had aimed at taking revenge or restore her family's household, but it was completely different… Benedetta's wish was only but one thing. To restore her father's honor.

She had a nephew from the main family that cared for her, from what I heard.

However, although her father had not treated her badly, he was indifferent towards her, and the building she resided in was separate from the main house.

Benedetta's family borders from her home country, Rendal, and was originally a tribe of equestrians. Despite the difference of status and inheritance due to her birth, she had been given the same treatment as the rest from her daily life… It seemed like only her father was distinguished compared to the rest of his family.

As such, even though Benedetta had no complaints about her family, she still felt a certain kind of loneliness inside.

However, during the very last moments of her house's collapse, she had touched upon her father's feelings…

—- Summoning Memo —-

Centurion Team:
Members: Centurion, Skeleton 1, 2, 3
Equipment: Hatchet, Shield, Armor and helmet

Phillips Team:
Members: Phillips, Skeletons 4, 5, 6
Equipment: Spear, Shield, Armor and helmet

Other Skeletons:
7 – 37: Club, Round shield, Armor and helmet

Stone Golem: 1
Wooden Horse: 1

#Golems can be divided to a maximum of three bodies.