Chapter 200: An Unexpected Evolution (2/3)
After that…
“Onii-chan, are you sure that was a good idea?” [Niki]
“What do you mean? The village headsman gave me such a huge net. I couldn’t just take that without showing my gratitude somehow.” [Ryouma]
“Every year there’s a festival that’s held when the fishing period ends. The nets that can’t be repaired are thrown into the fire then. That’s why, Onii-san, that net you got was just garbage. You just got a job pushed onto you for no good reason.” [Niki]
“Ahh, I see. There is that way of thinking too… But to me it’s not just garbage. And besides, if I have to pick up firewood, then that means I’ll have to enter that forest, right?
If so, then I’ll be able to use that as an opportunity to look for the slimes local to this region. Who knows? I might even find the mud slime that’s said to be around here. Either way, I wanted to go through the forest at least once while I’m here, so I might as well take advantage of this.” [Ryouma]
“Onii-chan, if you’re not careful, you’ll end up being used by other people, you know.” [Niki]
Niki-kun was fed up by my behavior, but he promised to help me look for the slime and pick up firewoods. He’s a good kid.
Third day.
There were considerably less people participating in the mud salamander hunt today compared to the last three days of work.
Apparently, the reason is because most of the adventurers staying here left to defend another village yesterday.
Everyone has more work to deal with because of that, but everyone’s already gotten used to how the slimes fight, so it wasn’t really an issue.
Collecting the corpses of the mud salamanders was also good training not just physically but also for my Dimension Magic.
After lunch I waited for Niki-kun to finish his work, and then we went to the forest to look for the slimes and gather firewood.
We had a short meeting about what to do, and in the end, we decided to finish gathering firewood first, so we can focus on looking for the slimes.
But when I carried lumber over my shoulder like it was nothing, Niki-kun looked at me with eyes full of respect.
I’ve been using the slimes to deal with the mud salamanders and I look like an elementary school student, so he didn’t think that I actually had that much strength.
I know it’s not his fault, but I was a little sad to hear that. As such, I worked a little harder when picking up firewood.
Speaking of which, the village headman was really happy with our performance and gave us a bucket full of an organism that looked like a cross between squid and jellyfish. According to Niki-kun, the food the village headman gave us was somewhat special.
Later that evening we had that squid-like thingy for supper. I think it tasted better than the squid rice in my memories.
Fourth day.
I thought up various new spells I could use to help collect the corpses.
I used the spell that the scholar and adventurer Raypin-san used before as a reference – a spell which teleported the target to one’s hand and was known as Pick Up – to create a spell that teleported something in one’s hand to a distant location. I called it ‘Drop Off’.
The second spell I thought up made use of the concepts of Item Box and Dimension Home to create a hole near one’s hand for the entrance and another hole to the target location as the exit. By connecting the two locations, I could quickly send things from my hand to the target location. I call this spell ‘Worm Hole’.
Until now I’ve been teleporting myself with the mud salamander, and then after transporting the mud salamander away, I would have to teleport myself again to go back. By removing the need to consume mana and stamina on the way back, I was able to make my collection of corpses that much more efficient.
Presently, I’m in the middle of researching if it’s possible to set the target location of the ‘Drop Off’ as my ‘Item Box’. That way I’ll be able to directly throw the target straight into my Item Box.
After eating I helped wash dishes at the processing plant with my Cleaner Slime while waiting for Niki-kun to finish.
Today Niki-kun brought his mom and several housewives from the village with him.
Apparently, they wanted me to take their trash too, so I happily accepted their offer.
There were even people who asked to have their toilets dealt with too. They spoke a bit vaguely, saying, ‘Can you take care of the things inside our toilets too?’ They probably heard about my scavenger slime from Niki-kun.
I asked those people their address and dispatched the scavenger slimes. I’ll be picking up the scavenger slimes on the way back, so after collecting the garbage, I went to the forest again to look for slimes.
Today I was able to catch three slimes.
Fifth day
On this day the other wives that heard about yesterday were waiting for me.
We agreed that the payment for the toilet cleaning will be paid in garbage and whatever leftover food they have.
Alright! Now I have plenty of feed for the scavenger slimes!