Kujonin Chapter 38

Kujonin
Author: Hanabokuro
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Returning to the workshop, Velsa seems to have frozen into the position she had been in when we left, reading a book.
She couldn't have stopped breathing, could she? Thinking like so, when I went over to see, her the sound of inhalation and exhalation are coming from her nose, so looks like she's alive.

When I went to pick Ayl up, she's all beat up, collapsed in the desert.
"My coverall!"
My coverall was torn in various places, completely covered with blood and sand.
"My bad. I'm… done … for…"
Ayl's consciousness, seemingly accompanied with a snapping sound effect, cut off.
She remained asleep even while I smeared wound medicine on her, so she must have been completely exhausted.

When I returned to the workshop, hefting Ayl on my shoulder, Velsa and Marcus-san were discussing monsters together.
"Then it's true that dungeon-born monsters have no substance?"
"Un, none, I'd say. As for us, we have the forest and the giant monsters' meat has been diffused throughout, so pretty much all of them have substance. They're also breeding by themselves so there are a lot troublesome things. A, welcome back."
Marcus-san looked over and called out to us.
"I'm back. Um, Marcus-san, can we stay a night?"
"Aa, I don't mind. You can stay as long as you need. I'd like to talk to Velschan more."
Marcus-san cheerfully agreed to it.
"A, that's right. Naoki-kun, can I ask you to exterminate some pests?"
"Yah, that's fine."

I regretted agreeing to it so easily the moment I was brought to the place I was to do the extermination.

Severe cold.
A complete snowscape.
The wind whipped up the swirling snow on the ground and flew continuously into my face.
At first Marcus was trying to make a food storage but it got too big, he said.
"Yeah, I can't really go in shorts and a t-shirt," I said and tried to wear wild bear furs, but there a lot of gaps where the cold air came in.
I'll die like this.
For now I returned to the workshop, took the coverall off the sleeping Ayl and, after using Cleanup, sewed the ripped parts together and applied a cold-resistance magic circle.
Thanks to Ayl habitually using the good-smelling soap Teyl had made, the coverall smells strangely nice so I got kind of angry. Even though it's just Ayl!
It took me a long time since I didn't have the Sewing Skill, so Marcus-san waited for me while drinking tea and talking to Velsa.

"Sorry, I made you wait. My preparations are finally done."
"Oh no, my request was sudden, ne. And so, what I want you to exterminate is a monster called a snow fox. They've multiplied a bit too much. I've left them free since their droppings are good fertilizer, but it seems they've been digging up the hibernating white grezzlies and attacking them. Originally they're supposed to be preying on things like snow rabbits, but the snow rabbit number has been falling, ne."
"Got it. I'll see what I can do."
"Then I'll be waiting in the workshop, making dinner, so don't push yourself too hard and catch a cold. Catching a cold in a dungeon is seriously bad."
"Roger!"

Seeing off Marcus-san as he took his leave, for now I'll make an igloo for my base.
Making a mound of snow, I stomped on it to compress it, then dug out a hole.
Drawing the inductive-heating magic circle within, I made a warm spot.
Since this level was apparently made with the image of the polar regions, it seems that blizzards frequently occur.
"Seems I froze it a little too much,"
Marcus-san had said.
Once every 3 months, an air duct is opened to the lava zone on the level above to make something like a summer.
At that time, small white flowers bloom all at once and it's very pretty.
It's just that those white flowers are flowers that can be used to make sleeping medicine; he discovered that later, and "I nearly froze to death like that," he said.1

"Now then…"
Due to everything being snow, I can't imagine there are monsters here at all, but with Search Skill I can tell there are a lot of monsters hiding within the snow.
The bodies of monsters here would naturally be white, so finding them is exceedingly difficult.
I don't know what they eat, but for now I take wild bear meat and field boar meat out from the item bag and soak them in paralysis medicine and poison.
Although I try to soak them, they immediately froze.
Outside of the igloo I spread out a wood board and draw an inductive-heating magic circle on top; while it's warm I can soak the meat, but did the medicinal efficacy disappear? I can't smell it much.
I tried scattering the meat in the surroundings, but it froze immediately, so I don't know if the snow foxes will eat it.

Next I try to dig out a pitfall.
But the snow immediately covered it, so on top of not know where it is, the snow also caved it in, so I'm aware that this will be ineffective.

I thought about making something like a bear trap, but the probability of catching a different monster is high so I stopped.

"So I'll have to thoroughly search, huh?"
It looks like I have no choice but to find them and then draw a magic circle to kill them.
Just when I had thought that, I saw a white wave washing over everything from the direction of the field of snow.
"A blizzard?!"
When I hurried back to the igloo, there were two snow foxes holed up within.
I killed them with a knife and waited for the blizzard to leave.
The snow foxes resisted and bit me, but because I was wearing the coverall it didn't really hurt or anything, so I used brute force to push them down, then stabbed at their throats.
When I determined they were dead, I put them in the item bag.
I'll have Ayl dismantle them later.
"I guess I'll go with this for the trap."

Mou. Why didn't anyone tell me I had the mis-reading for the author's name still in the header this entire time?
Even though I made the mistake right at the beginning and had already fixed it, it seems like cut-and-pasting the header has failed me.
orz
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