Act 2: Troublesome Things

Act 2:
Troublesome Things

 

WE PROCEEDED AT A GOOD PACE until we settled in a clearing where we took our lunch break. We ran into a few more monsters before we got there, but Leo and Albert took care of them in the blink of an eye. All I had to do after a fight was cast a quick Heal on them, so we continued at a leisurely pace.

Just like the expedition into Saul Forest, the other squads ran into more monsters than we had. For the record, the knights did feel that the local monsters were a bit tougher than the ones in Ghoshe Forest had been.

The glade where we stopped was the same place the mercenaries used when they took a break on their regular outings. As planned before we departed, all the squads had taken different paths through the forest and met up with us here around noon.

Johan banned me from cooking in public, but the majority of the people here are the knights of the Third Order. It’s okay if I help them out, right? I’m here to support them with magic, after all. Yeah, I’ll just blame it on magic if anyone says anything. Right. That’s what I’ll do. With that excuse in mind, I decided to help out by making lunch.

Leo came over while I was putting together a soup for everyone. “Whatcha doing?”

“Um, cooking.” For some reason I got a sense of déjà vu.

“Cooking? But you’re the Saint, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” I said. So I’m the Saint, so what?

He watched me for a while, a strange expression on his face, before he gently said, “I thought the Saint was supposed to be held in much higher regard. Shouldn’t someone be waiting on you right now?”

“You think so? This is how things have always been for me.”

“That’s weird, though.”

“Is it?”

Honestly, Leo was right—when you considered the status of the Saint in Salutania, she really was supposed to be revered and waited upon. I knew this, yet I steadfastly pretended not to. It was much more comfortable for me to be treated like the person I was. I was sure Leo had guessed this.

Plus, getting to cook was a nice change of pace. I’d had to restrain myself from doing so since I came to Klausner’s Domain as the Saint—outside of that one time. Not to mention, it would have been weird for an outsider like me to keep barging into the castle kitchens. But I didn’t have to worry about troubling others when preparing food during an expedition. Also, the only people around already knew what was up with me. No way could I let this chance pass me by.

“That smells amazing,” said Albert as he came over, no doubt drawn by the aroma.

“Oh, Lord Hawke.”

I smiled a bit as I stirred. The feeling of déjà vu was getting even stronger.

Albert took up the position opposite Leo and peered into the pot. “Is this the same soup you made for us before?”

“Yes. I asked the knights if they had any requests and a number of them asked for it.”

Albert placed a hand to his forehead and hung his head as if he had a headache. “Did they now?”

Although it was the knights’ request, this sort of dried meat and vegetable soup was a staple on expeditions, according to one of the retainers.

“Wait, wait, you’re putting herbs in there, too?” Leo asked when I started adding herbs such as oregano and thyme.

“Yup. They’ll make the soup taste better,” I explained.

“Indeed. Her cooking is exquisite,” Albert added.

This soup would also have the effect of increasing the natural recovery rate of one’s HP, but I didn’t say that. Albert also kept it mum, only mentioning the taste. However, calling my cooking exquisite was a bit of an over-exaggeration, if you asked me.

I finished making the soup, so next was the main dish. I turned to find the people in charge of cooking for the Third Order preparing some kind of meat. They looked to be salting it and then grilling it with an herb butter that had been prepared in advance.

What kind of meat was it though?

Wait, what? I blinked in surprise. It seemed the mercenaries had killed a boar they ran into along the way. How often did this happen? Often, it turned out. The mercenaries really were as crazy as I thought they might be.

The rest of food prep went off without a hitch, and the retainers distributed soup and meat to the knights. I couldn’t really relax until I heard the chorus of delight at the taste—only then did I sigh with relief.

Even Leo raved about how delicious it all was while shoveling it into his mouth. Albert showered me with praise, a sparkling smile on his face. I was just glad they liked it.

Once we were done with lunch, we continued the expedition. But first, I cast a support spell on the knights before the squads split off again.

“Area Protection.” A magic circle spread around me on the ground, and a white mist with dancing golden particles rose up from it.

That spell raised an individual’s defense against both physical and magical attacks. The knights were used to it by now, but the mercenaries, who had never seen such magic before, made a big fuss. Leo was among them.

“Oh, incredible!” he exclaimed. “I definitely feel that.”

“Is this the first time you’ve had a spell cast on you?” I asked.

“Yeah. There’re hardly any mages around here, y’know, let alone any that can cast area-of-effect spells.”

“Ah, that’s true.” It made sense when he put it that way. I had read that area-of-effect spells were more difficult for the average mage versus single-target spells.

“Not to mention, no other mage can cast a spell on this many people at once,” added Albert, who was standing next to me. His tone was rather admiring.

“What? Really?”

“Indeed,” he said. “By leveling up our Magic skills, we can increase the range and duration of our spells, but no one alive could match your ability.”

I had a feeling Grand Magus Yuri Drewes had said as much to me before, but I had, er, completely forgotten.

If he were here right now, I bet he’d have a huge grin on his face—but he’d be feeling something else underneath. I’m scared just thinking of what would happen next. I got chills down my spine. That was a close one. I better be more careful.

Once I was done casting, we split up and recommenced our walk through the forest. The farther we got, the more monsters we ran into. Although they were more powerful than the ones in Ghoshe Forest, the knights dispatched them easily enough. They routed them one after another with superb tactical coordination.

Meanwhile, I was on healing duty—although I just stuck to the normal kind. But listen, the reason I didn’t use my Saint’s magic had nothing to do with who I had to think about in order to use it. Really! Albert and I had discussed whether I should use it, and we had decided I would hold the power in reserve. It had nothing to do with me feeling self-conscious, I swear!

At one point, the mercenaries at the vanguard gave the order to stop. I peeked ahead between the knights to see what the problem was and spotted an unfamiliar entity.

“Huh?”

“What is it?” Albert asked me.

“Oh, it’s just that I’ve never seen that kind of…thing before.”

“That type of monster doesn’t appear near the capital. Careful—it’s venomous.”

Considering Klausner’s Domain was known for its herbs, I supposed it wasn’t that surprising to run into a monster that looked a lot like a carnivorous plant. Frankly, the way the giant sundew’s spines waggled around kinda skeeved me out. Luckily, unlike all the other monsters we’d seen, this variety was rooted to the spot and couldn’t move. Which was a good thing, because it probably would’ve grossed me out even more if it could.

Venomous, huh? Does that mean it could give someone one of those harmful status effects?

Just as I thought that, the battle began. I watched from the back line as the sundew bent its stalk back and flung itself forward. At the same time, round droplets from the tips of its spines flew at the knights. Most of them dodged, but wherever a droplet landed, I heard the sizzling sound of meat cooking—venom, then.

I was the only one surprised by the sound; everyone else kept fighting like normal.

Whenever someone got hit, they’d shout out, “I’ve been poisoned!” But they kept pretty calm about it. A mage would then cast a spell to heal the harmful effect. Magic sure was incredible. The effects were gone in the blink of an eye.

The battle itself was over quickly. I cast Heal on everyone who’d been hurt, and we were once more on our way.

After that, we started running into a certain sort of monster more often—i.e., we kept running into sundews. They didn’t spray their venom every time, though. I stood at the ready just in case at each battle, but my magic wasn’t required again. However, I knew it could turn dangerous if I lost focus.

Soon, when I had lost count of how many sundew monsters we had fought, we ran into yet another one. It swung wide. As it did, I unleashed the magic within my body, readying the spell to cure status abnormalities. I didn’t know how many people had been hit—and it would have been a pain to heal them all individually—so I went for another area-of-effect spell.

“Area Purification!”

I timed it just right. A brief jolt of surprise ran through everyone. The status effect healed the squad a split second after the venom hit them.

You guessed it, I was putting my gaming experience to good use.

Before I joined the company I had been working at, I had played a lot of multiplayer online games. In those games, we’d make parties to kill tough monsters, kind of like we were doing now. It was in those games that I had learned to study a monster’s movements and to prepare time-consuming spells in advance.

As such, every time a monster used a skill that caused a status effect, I was ready to counter it. If I watched the monster’s movements, I could even tell what kind of status abnormality it would cause. However, it took time for status-curing spells to go off. Therefore, to properly time my heals for right after the attack hit, I had to start matching the timing of my casts with the monster’s.

Part of it was because the people I had played with had wanted their negative effects removed right away, so at some point, it had just become second nature to time my spells that way. Admittedly, if I was too slow, people would complain, so I also got good at it because the party I played with had some strict expectations.

Consequently, I started casting Area Purification whenever I saw a sundew making its move.

“Whoa! That was amazing!” Leo exclaimed in admiration.

“Brilliant as always. Is this the fruits of your training with Lord Drewes?” Albert asked.

Well, no. This wasn’t something Grand Magus Yuri Drewes had taught me. But I doubted Albert would understand what I meant if I said I learned it from a game, so I just smiled a bit. “I guess you could say that. Thank you.”

I had a feeling Yuri might teach me something similar someday anyway. He did seem the type to prize efficiency.

After that, we continued as planned, and my first expedition in Klausner’s Domain came to an end without anything too unfortunate occurring.

 

***

 

My leisurely life turned pretty busy with the addition of the daily expeditions. There was a lot to be done in what little time I had. Although, I probably only thought it wasn’t so bad because I’d worked at a black company before.

I definitely didn’t want to think I was okay with it because I was actually a workaholic.

We set out on our expeditions in the morning, so I got potions ready for the Order to use once we returned to the castle after dinner. Stirring a pot in a dark room by candlelight made me really feel like a witch.

Once, Corinna caught me in the brewery and sounded really exasperated as she scolded me for working so late into the night.

After I finished my potions, I bathed and went to sleep. Then I’d get up early in the morning, ready myself for the expedition, and head to the herb fields to check on the pots for my blessing experiment before I had to go.

“Oh!” One day, I noticed a change in one of the pots. The flat soil had bulged a bit.

“How are they doing?” Corinna asked, coming up behind me. She also made it a daily habit to check on the experiment.

“Look! It’s sprouting!”

“What?!” Corinna excitedly peered into the pot. “It really is.”

“Yeah!”

We looked at each other and smiled at the same time. Unable to contain our emotion, we both let out a cheer.

I wanted to stay to examine my herbs more thoroughly. Although one had sprouted, we still didn’t know whether it would grow well. Unfortunately, it was time for me to go. Corinna promised she would keep checking on it through the day. We would discuss what came next after I got back. With that, we went our separate ways. I swear I saw a skip in Corinna’s step as she headed back to the brewery.

“You seem to be in a good mood today. Did something happen?” Albert asked during our lunch break.

It turned out that I was in such a good mood that I had been humming. I supposed I couldn’t really comment on Corinna’s excitement. I grinned. “The herbs we planted are starting to sprout.”

“Are they special?”

“Yes! We didn’t know if they’d take, so it’s wonderful that we got them to sprout.”

“I see.” Albert smiled.

I probably should have given him more details, but that would have included information only Lord Klausner and Corinna knew, so I kept it to the basics.

“Did you grow these herbs back at the institute, too?” he asked.

“Uh, I don’t think we have them in the capital.” We grew a number of varieties at the institute, but not these. In fact, we wouldn’t have been able to at all, as their cultivation required blessings. However, I couldn’t tell Albert this, so I again kept it vague.

The next thing he said took me by surprise, though. “Does that mean you’ll be growing new herbs when you get back then?”

Grow them at the institute? Now that he mentions it, if I blessed our fields, we might be able to cultivate these rare seeds as well. I’m still only experimenting though. But if I’m successful, I guess I’ll ask Corinna what she thinks.

“Good question. I’m not sure, since we don’t know if they’ll thrive yet.”

“You should ask Johan for help.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s good at nurturing plants.”

“Oh, you’re right.”

I had forgotten that Johan could use Earth Magic. Earth Magic included spells that were useful for growing herbs, and Johan made full use of them to cultivate the institute’s gardens, especially the plants said to be hard to grow. Even if the herbs that had sprouted were unable to continue growing, we might be able to manage it with Johan’s help.

Whether this worked or not, I was going to make sure to ask Corinna if I could continue these experiments at the institute. As I made future plans, lunchtime came to an end.

Huh? Already? But there was no helping it.

We had decided to start our expedition close to the capital and gradually range farther away. The farther away we got, the stronger the monsters grew and the harder it became to take breaks. As a result, we started taking frequent short breaks instead of the one long one.

I’ve been preparing lunch in the field, but that might become difficult before long. Maybe we’ll have to start bringing lunchboxes instead? I wondered absentmindedly while I finished cleaning up after myself, and then we headed off for our afternoon rounds.

“There’s another one,” Albert said quietly next to me when one of the knights walking in the front gave the signal.

The knights kept on high alert while we walked, but the moment we encountered a monster, the tension in the air always sharpened. I fixed my attention on the monster so I could provide support.

This plant monster looked like a tropical pitcher plant. It had tentacles, which real pitcher plants lacked, and it waggled them back and forth. It probably would have been bad if someone got caught by those tentacles, but the knights smoothly dodged them as they made their own attacks.

They soon dispatched the monster thanks to their skillful teamwork. I was relieved that no one got hurt. Their daily training really spoke for itself.

“Good job. You guys made that look easy,” I said.

“Not easy enough. The monsters are only getting tougher as we go. We must remain vigilant,” Albert said with a serious look. I nodded.

The knights had the advantage at present, but we had no idea when the scales might tip in the monsters’ favor. As they say, carelessness is the greatest enemy. We couldn’t let our guards down. The fights started to get longer, too.

“I feel like the monsters are more frequent now,” I said.

“Yes. It could be that our quarry’s in this direction.” Albert squinted as he looked ahead.

I nodded again. He didn’t say it outright, but I could guess well enough. We had experienced this same phenomenon back in Ghoshe Forest—monsters growing in strength and frequency.

The black swamp had to be close.

I didn’t feel as nervous as I had back in Ghoshe, though. Perhaps it was because we knew what we expected to find, or perhaps it was because I knew how to take care of it if we did.

Those around me seemed to feel the same. Since the monsters were appearing more frequently, the knights had to be more careful than ever, but I didn’t sense any especial unease from them.

Besides, if there was a swamp, all I had to do was use my Saint’s magic. Thoughts about what would happen if it didn’t work still flitted through my head, but I locked them away.

If I had anything to worry about it, it was the monsters we’d inevitably find around the swamp. Due to the fact that monsters spawned from its murky depths, we anticipated there would be a great number of them in its vicinity.

The high density of monsters in one space almost felt like one of those rooms in a game dungeon—the kind that are filled to the brim with enemies. At least since we were in the middle of a forest, we weren’t in an enclosed space, but it would still be terribly dangerous to face a swarm like that.

Even battle-loving Grand Magus Yuri Drewes would have trouble taking on so many monsters all at once. Although, one of the reasons he would have trouble was because in a forest, he couldn’t use his big, wide-ranging spells without friendly fire. I was pretty sure I had once heard him grumbling about how he just wanted to burn everything to the ground.

It wasn’t until just after this that we realized the situation was far worse than we had anticipated.

 

***

 

As we pressed deeper into the forest, the type of monsters changed again. We saw fewer monsters that looked like carnivorous plants and more that looked like mushrooms. I say mushrooms, but most of them had those bright, poisonous colors, so it didn’t once occur to me to try eating one of them.

Just as you would expect from that appearance, the mushroom monsters’ attacks caused status effects. The spores they spit out poisoned and paralyzed the knights. Apparently, they could also emit spores that burned skin.

I cured the status effects each time they occurred, but we grew increasingly cautious.

How far have we gone now?

The knight at the front of the squad called for Albert’s attention. Albert glanced my way, and I nodded to assure him I’d be all right. At that, he swiftly made his way up the line.

“I wonder what’s wrong,” I said to the mage next to me.

“It’s hard to tell from here, but it doesn’t seem like an emergency.”

I could just hang back, but I’m curious. Maybe I’ll go ask.

I peered ahead at Albert. He and a few knights at the front were deep in conversation, frowning. They didn’t seem to be panicked or anything, so I figured it would be okay if I joined in.

“Has something happened?” I asked when I did.

Albert looked at me with a frown still on his face. The other knights looked similarly concerned. We definitely had some sort of problem.

“We found traces of a troublesome monster.”

“Troublesome?”

“Quite.”

A knight directed my attention to a fallen tree on the ground. People came into the forest to gather resources all the time, and a fallen tree wasn’t that unusual. I tilted my head with a puzzled look, and the knight pointed at the spot where the tree had fallen.

Hmm? I squinted and noticed something that looked a bit shiny at the split base of the trunk. What’s that? Some kind of slug tracks?

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s traces of a slime having a snack—they probably ate through the tree.”

“A slime?!” The image of a blue, droplet-shaped monster from that famous role-playing game popped into my mind.

Since we had encountered a variety of monsters, ranging from animals to carnivorous plants and mushrooms, I might have expected a slime mold to come next but not an actual slime.

Slime mold and slimes are similar, I suppose. So maybe my guess wasn’t all that off, I thought. But as I listened to Albert and the knights discuss the situation, I realized that the slimes of this world weren’t anything like the adorable low-leveled monsters found in that one game series.

According to them, slimes were terribly difficult to defeat, and if at all possible, they wanted to avoid encountering any. I realized I had read something about this—physical attacks weren’t very effective for dealing with this particular kind of fiend.

“Would magic work?” I asked.

“It would. Most slimes can’t defend against it.”

That was reminiscent of something an old gamer friend of mine had once said: “If physical attacks won’t cut it, then just nuke it with magic.”

I tried to hold myself back from laughing out loud at the memory.

Our squad was mostly comprised of knights. Since Albert and I could both use magic, we only had one other mage. We didn’t have that many mages with us to begin with, so each squad only had one to three mages with them. Some of the knights could use magic, too, but only a handful of them. Plus—and maybe this went without saying—the knights’ Magic skills weren’t much compared to an actual mage’s.

As such, if a squad met just one or two slimes, they could probably take them out without much trouble. However, if the slimes came one after another like the monsters had back in Ghoshe? It would get dicey, to say the least.

Although, it occurred to me that I might be able to wipe them out all at once with my Saint’s magic. I still felt a tinge of apprehension. I wasn’t accustomed to actually wielding the Saint’s power yet, so I didn’t know if I could effectively summon it up in an emergency. It was at least reckless to think I could defeat them single-handedly in my current amateurish state.

“If only magic can defeat them, then our squad formation might not be best,” I said.

“Agreed. We’d probably manage a few, but if they came out in droves, we’d be in trouble.”

“So should we stop here for today and head back?”

“No, let’s go a bit farther in. I want to see the situation in the forest depths.”

Albert seemed to share my concerns. However, after weighing the risks, he decided to prioritize surveying—under the assumption that we would withdraw the moment there were too many slimes to deal with, of course.

Indeed, as we proceeded into the forest, we ran into slimes several times. I had heard them described beforehand, and they definitely weren’t as cute as the ones found in that game series. They weren’t droplet-shaped either but softer—more like a puddle of gel spread across the ground. Also, they had no eyes or mouths.

We were lucky that we didn’t run into too many at once and that Albert and our squad mage were able to defeat them. I didn’t participate offensively, but I did help out. The slimes also used attacks that caused status effects, just like the mushrooms did, so I diligently healed everyone who was affected.

After we defeated yet another slime, I took in our surroundings and discovered that the scenery of the forest had changed. There wasn’t much grass growing beneath our feet, and I could see patches of bare earth here and there.

Was there always such little undergrowth? Is it just my imagination? I wondered.

But it wasn’t just my imagination. Now that I had noticed it, it made me uneasy, and I cautiously started examining the state of the forest.

There were more withered trees in the depths. I didn’t see any obvious external causes, and it seemed like there were a whole lot more dying trees than there should have been in a healthy wood.

Back in the world I came from, forests were vulnerable to acid rain. Is that what caused this, too? Nah, couldn’t be…

Furthermore, the dead trees were oddly interspersed.

“Is something the matter?” Albert asked me.

“I was just thinking that something seems off about the forest here.”

“You, too? I noticed the atmosphere was different.”

“There isn’t much undergrowth—and there are all those dead trees.”

Albert thought this over for a moment before ordering the knights to investigate a nearby afflicted tree. The knights who went over soon shouted in surprise.

“What is it?” Albert called.

“Take a look at this. These trees were probably killed by slimes.”

Albert and I looked where the knight pointed. An unnatural hole in the trunk began at the ground near the tree’s base. It didn’t break through to the other side, and it went quite deep. On top of that, the hole seemed to angle beneath the trunk. While the outside of the tree remained, the inside of it might well have been almost hollow.

Around the entrance to the hole were the same shiny marks we had seen at the base of that fallen tree a little earlier. Did that mean a slime had eaten this tree? Had the other dead trees been similarly devoured?

“There’s leftover residue here, too.”

“And here.”

Knights piped up with similar observations about other nearby trees. All the other dead trees we had seen had probably died due to the same reason. We had only just noticed.

“What should we do, Knight Commander? Keep going?”

Albert touched his chin and sank into thought at the knight’s question.

I was getting a really bad feeling from the increasing number of slimes and dead trees, but a part of me also wanted to keep going—to find out for sure just how bad the situation was.

I didn’t know if Albert sensed my thoughts, but he glanced my way. I didn’t know the meaning behind that look, but I nodded. I wanted to keep going. He seemed to catch my drift. He informed the knights that we would continue, and off we went.

Just as expected, the farther we walked, the more dead trees we found, and the scenery grew barren. Along the way, a slime dropped down from a tree that still had leaves, frightening me half to death. On top of that, it fell right next to me. Although I didn’t shriek, I felt an indescribable revulsion and reflexively stamped my feet while rubbing my arms.

I decided to pretend I didn’t see Albert giving me an odd look while I acted like a weirdo. Come on, dropping down from above like that is a mighty attack!

“Maybe we should head back soon,” Albert said as I got my shuddering under control.

It seemed he was using my reaction as a kind of barometer.

We had planned to stay overnight at a nearby village so we could range into the forest farther than we had before. However, if we didn’t turn back soon, we’d be stuck spending the night in a forest full of slimes. Although the knights could stand guard in shifts, it would definitely be more dangerous.

The knights nodded to Albert, having thought the same thing. As we were all in agreement, we headed back in the direction from which we had come.

Not long after, Albert’s expression suddenly turned dark.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Quiet.”

The knights around us stopped as well, and tension hung thick in the air. Was it a monster? I held my breath and listened carefully. Sometimes, I heard the shaking of tree leaves.

“Here they come!” a knight shouted.

“What the?!”

Numerous slimes oozed out of the hollow of a dead tree, making the knights cry out in surprise. The slimes seeped out like tree sap, and they were several times larger than the ones we had seen up until then.

At first everyone zeroed in on the slimes. Then I heard a knight gasp as he surveyed the area. I followed his gaze to find more slimes oozing out of the other dead trees as well. On top of being the biggest slimes we had yet seen, we’d never faced such a great number of them at once. I looked to the mage standing next to me. Her face was pale. Oh, boy. We were in big trouble, then.

“Ice Wall,” Albert chanted, and a barrier of ice surged up at his command. He cast the spell over and over until we were surrounded by ice shields in every direction but forward.

“I’m sure they’ll devour it before long, but it’s better than nothing,” Albert said.

“And at least this way we won’t have to worry about the rear,” another knight added.

In other words, we were still surrounded, but at least we had a bit of protection—for now. Just as Albert finished, the battle began.

Albert and the mage were the only ones attacking the slimes. The knights knocked the oncoming slimes back, making sure they came no closer than we could afford. I focused on healing and removing status effects.

This battle went on for much longer than the others had. The ice barrier was slowly eroded, and soon it looked like holes might open in it. Albert noticed these and cast Ice Wall again between salvos.

He was soon low on MP and had to take an MP potion out of the pouch at his belt. He had to down these much more frequently than the mage did, presumably on account of having less total MP. Even if he was likely at least ten levels higher than her at base level, the maximum magical power of a knight and mage no doubt differed a great deal.

I had prepared potions to accommodate for this, but we would run out of those eventually. Yet, no matter how many slimes they killed, the monsters’ ranks showed no sign of thinning. Were more coming from the heart of the forest? I feared the situation was getting worse, and I looked up at the sky.

Huh?

It looked like the branches above were reflecting the sunlight. I strained my eyes to see them better. I thought at first that I imagined it, but I wasn’t. Slimes clung to the branches of the trees directly overhead. I could guess what would happen next. My blood ran cold.

“They’re coming from above, too!” I cried.

Albert stared up and his eyes went wide.

It was as if my voice had been the signal. The slimes dropped one after another onto Albert.

He was in deadly danger—and the moment I saw that, the magic surged up within me. I threw out a wave of the Saint’s golden magic to purge the slimes around us. Because I was in a fearful rush, the area of the spell was comparatively small, but it took out all the slimes overhead and within a fifteen-foot radius.

“Can you do that again, Sei?” Albert called.

“Yes!”

“Think you can pave a way for us to get out of here? In that direction!”

“Yes!”

“All right, we’re retreating!”

I was pretty sure I had it in me to cast the spell again. I had to.

At Albert’s command, the knights who had gone ahead returned to the rear.

Meanwhile, the slimes massed again, and I cast the spell in a line in the direction Albert was pointing. All the slimes caught within the spell line vanished, and the way cleared.

We ran as fast as we could before the slimes could fill the gap, and somehow, we managed to escape the danger.

 

***

 

A week had passed since our return from that frantic expedition.

We were all exhausted after and decided to return to Lord Klausner’s castle ahead of schedule. Exhaustion wasn’t the only reason why. The slimes were a real problem. Our current team was ineffective against monsters that resisted physical attacks. We needed to request more mages from the palace if we were to move forward into the heart of the forest.

Of course, we also needed to inform Lord Klausner of the slimes. We headed straight to him as soon as we arrived at the castle.

Lord Klausner’s expression grew quite grim as he listened to the details of our story. While tricky monsters that required magic to fight concerned him, the destruction of the forest was the bigger issue. Corinna, also present, wore the same expression as Lord Klausner. These slimes that could wreak havoc on plant life posed a serious problem for Klausner’s Domain, which thrived on exporting herbs.

Corinna’s brows knit, forming a deep wrinkle, especially when I told her I hadn’t seen a number of the herbs she had told me would be in the forest.

After we finished our report, Albert set about writing a letter requesting reinforcements that was sent to the capital. According to him, the request would likely be accepted, and he believed more mages would arrive soon enough.

While we waited, we didn’t sit around twiddling our thumbs. Instead, we continued slaying monsters everywhere not already overrun by slimes. They weren’t the only monsters in the forest, after all.

That was how we spent our days. All too soon, it felt like we had eliminated monsters in every stretch of the forest but for the slime wood, and things started to come to a bit of a lull.

As a result—and perhaps it was because we had been so focused on slaying monsters—Albert ordered me to take some time off. He was serious, too. He even forbade me from setting foot inside the brewery. He was so dead set about this that he told Corinna beforehand, so I had to give up on making potions and monitoring my herbs.

Thus, I had a free day. No monster slaying, no brewery, no fields, no nothing. I was bored out of my mind.

That meant I had only one other place I could possibly go. I felt bad for imposing on the castle chefs, but I borrowed a corner of the kitchens to bake cookies.

Wasn’t cooking considered working? Nah. It made for a good break for me!

First, I measured the ingredients. As I did, the chefs cooking nearby noticed the rosemary on my counter. They grew curious and peered at my work with keen interest.

The people in Salutania weren’t familiar with the practice, but herbs could be used in cookies, too. Not to mention, adding herbs meant I could harness the buffing effects brought on by my Cooking skill.

Why was I thinking about that? Well, I was considering bringing these cookies along on our next expedition. You heard me. I was baking cookies not to make snacks for myself but to have something that would be easy to eat on the field, especially since we couldn’t always sit down and eat a big meal in the middle of a particularly fraught expedition. So, I wanted to try making something we could snack on instead.

Then I remembered nutrition bars. I had downed those all the time back in Japan. The ones I had in mind were made out of a cookie base similar to shortbread. That thought led to me coming up with something that would be easy to bring along—hence, walnut and rosemary cookies.

“Are you making confections today?” the head chef asked as I sifted flour. She seemed especially interested in my project.

“Yes, but not exactly—something that will make you feel full.”

“Is that so? Is that why you aren’t using much sugar?”

“I do want them to be only a little sweet, but mostly it’s because sugar is so expensive.”

“Ah, that makes sense.” She smiled with understanding.

In this world, sweet foods were terribly pricey. Honestly, I wished I could use sugar without so much reserve.

As I chatted with the head chef, I kneaded the dough, shaped the cookies, and baked them in the oven. Finally, they were done. They had a nice golden-brown color to them. I waited for them to cool a bit before picking one up.

All right, these seem pretty good. The slight hint of rosemary gave them a tempting aroma, and the walnuts had a pleasing texture. I wished they were a bit sweeter, but since we would be eating them during an expedition, they were probably best as they were. But if I did want them sweeter, maybe I could try adding dried fruit? Although that would cost extra, too… I mulled all this over while I chewed on one.

Then I felt a gaze on my back. I turned to find not only the head chef but all the other chefs looking at me.

“Do you want to try them, too?” I asked tentatively.

They all nodded vigorously. I couldn’t help but smile bashfully. The chefs were as enthusiastic as the members of the brewery when it came to learning something new.

Since this was just a test batch, I hadn’t made that many cookies, so I apologized for only having enough for one cookie per person. But when I told them that I wanted to make the cookies slighter sweeter, they all gave me lots of different ideas, so it definitely worked out in the end.

Later, I brought some of the cookies to Albert’s office, as I thought it would be a good idea to let him try them as well, given that he was in charge of our expeditions.

When I entered and said I had brought him refreshments, he gave me the most dazzling smile. For some reason, I felt like he had increased his attack power since the palace, but maybe it was just my imagination.

He was just about to take a break, so he invited me for tea, just like he had done before. I happily accepted, since I wanted to hear his opinion.

“How are they?” I asked.

“They’re wonderful. We could easily bring these along as rations, no question.”

“Excellent.”

I was glad that he liked them so much. The flavor was rather mild, but they seemed to be just the right level of sweetness for someone like Albert, who wasn’t a fan of sweets to begin with. Additionally, he gave me his seal of approval for my expedition supplement plan—perfect.

“I thought I told you to take today off,” Albert said as he held up his second cookie.

“I know. That’s why I baked these—for stress relief.”

He smiled humorlessly. “I see.”

And here I’d thought that would be a good answer! But as I had made these as a test batch for the expeditions, from Albert’s point of view, it probably did look like I had been working.

Johan often told me that days off were for relaxing, but I was relaxing plenty if you asked me. I hadn’t done any real work. My jobs were researching herbs and giving support during expeditions. But maybe this did count? …Did it?

As Albert and I sipped our tea, rushed footsteps pounded down the hallway. Albert and I exchanged inquisitive looks just as someone knocked frantically at the door. Albert invited them in; it was his retainer, surprisingly out of breath.

“What is it?” Albert asked.

“A messenger from Lord Klausner, sir. The reinforcement mages have arrived from the palace.”

“Really?” Albert said dubiously. He had good reason to be surprised. We had sent a request, yes, but it was far too soon for the reinforcements to have actually reached us. We had expected they wouldn’t be here for at least another week.

What was going on?

The retainer agreed. Lord Klausner had apparently felt the same and had sent for Albert to help handle this situation. Nothing was going to be solved over teatime, so we decided to go see what exactly these “mages” were up to.

One of the castle servants led us to the square that had become our rendezvous point for expeditions. There, we found a crowd of both knights and palace mages—all freshly arrived from the palace.

I spotted a familiar face among the sea of unfamiliar people and couldn’t help but cry out. “Aira?!”

“Sei!”

I couldn’t believe it. In front of me stood Aira, clad in the cloak of the Royal Magi Assembly.

“Huh? What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Uh, well, stuff happened, and, ah…” Aira wore an anxious expression that looked almost like a half-smile.

I had known Aira was planning to join the Royal Magi Assembly after she graduated from the Royal Academy, so it wasn’t that strange to see her as a member of the reinforcements. However, it was still way too soon for the reinforcements to be here. Also, the ratio of knights-to-mages was the strangest thing of all.

The letter to the palace had explicitly requested they dispatch every mage they could to deal with the slimes. Yet this new group had only brought as many mages as our original party had brought when we set out.

Okay, Aira, exactly what kind of “stuff” happened, hm?

Just as I was about to ask, I noticed someone approaching me at a fast pace. They were cloaked in the Royal Magi Assembly robes and had their hood up, covering their face. Aira’s smile grew even stiffer.

Albert stepped between the person and me. However, this mage walked up to us with complete disregard for our wariness and threw bzack his hood. Albert and I cried out in surprise.

“It’s so nice to see you again!”

There before us was the beautiful smile of Grand Magus Yuri Drewes on his incomparably lovely face—a face we had both assumed would still be at the palace. The way he smiled with his head tilted to the side made me feel like he was actually saying “What do you know, here I am!”