—–
After I covered my mother in blankets and left a Fenrir watching over the front of the door and an Usagi below her bed, I moved downstairs and quickly asked Eleanora to help me at putting the clothes outside so they could dry out. As Winter came closer, sunny days such as these were becoming a rarity, so we had to use this opportunity to dry our clothes quickly. Of course, I can also use magic, which I’ve planned to use in winter when it was too cold outside for us to put clothes to dry. In such case, I would be spending a few hundred MP, which are precious for the training of my Skills, so I only wanted to do this when it was completely necessary.
“This is an incredibly mundane work, I would had complained long time ago, but now I am just used to this.” Eleanora sighed, looking at the other side of our backyard as my father was in the fields with my grandmother.
The three spirits my family had were helping as well. At this point my grandmother had taught her goat how to move the dirt below and harvest potatoes in batches easily, she simply sat down over her spirit and let the creature do the rest. The Sheep was also learning with the goat, with that and father and his spirit, the Earth Mouse, they were making it a quick work.
“This is the last harvest before winter, isn’t it?” Wondered Eleanora.
“Yes, these must be the last batch of potatoes, carrots, and onions we can get before Winter hits. We’ll leave them in the storage, I’ll use some magic to preserve them afterwards. I remember the first five years when I couldn’t help at all with magic, in such times the potatoes and other tubers we saved for winter would often go bad or get covered in moo…” I sighed.
“And even then, your family still ate them, right?” Eleanora asked.
“Well yes, and we got stomachaches… But it seems this world’s people is very resistant to stomach infections than the feeble humans I’ve met in my previous life.” I pointed out.
“Quality of life improves little by little as I used magic to make things slightly easy for us. Of course, back then I barely had MP, but now I have a lot, enough to do many things.” I nodded.
“Hm, have you changed the Cards you’ve got?” Wondered Eleanora.
“Yes, I’ve gotten more MP as I had planned… But even then, I can’t completely replace the others which are useful, although I’ve considered making less Fenrir and Orcus, ten and ten seem okay for now.” I said.
My current Card Order and Bonus Stats were as follows:
—–
[Fenrir (Beast) (G Rank)] x10
[Orcus (Beast) (G Rank)] x15
[Usagi (Beast) (G Rank)] x2
[Spore (Plant) (G Rank)] x3
[Huginn (Bird) (G Rank)] x4
[Flare (Lizard) (G Rank)] x15
[Moby (Fish) (G Rank)] x1
Current Storage: 50/50
—–
<BONUS STATS FROM SUMMONS>
—–
Health Points: +4
Mana Points: +60
Strength: +30
Agility: +66
Vitality: +34
Intelligence: +88
Dexterity: +36
—–
I’ve sacrificed strength and vitality in exchange for more MP and Intelligence, something I wanted to do for a while and which I’ve finally managed to do so. With this, I can deal more damage with magic and activate my Skills more than usual. Although I had considered making all my 50 card slots into Lizards which would give me +200 MP and +200 Intelligence, I had decided to leave things as they were for now. If I ever know I won’t be doing any hunts at all, I might change into this “full grinding mode” in the near future.
After we were done with the clothes, we decided to quickly go off with Eleanora towards the forest, telling my parents we were going to try to hunt some horned rabbits for today’s dinner. Of course, that was a lie, as we quickly moved towards our real destination, a small area known as “Abandoned Canyon” which took us around an hour and a half to get there even while running, it was very far away from the village.
This small canyon was said to have been formed long ago by a fight between dragons. And it was deep and dangerous. It is said that monsters are not so common in these areas, which their various caves are used instead for bandit’s hideouts. It was already reported to the guild by a party of adventurers and then several merchants that there was a big settlement of bandits in this dangerous place, but because the areas are so stretchy, not many had dared to come here.
Especially because normally, it would take roughly four hours to get here by walking, which is the normal for people that cannot run over trees like we do thanks to the enhancement of Ki and my Physique. The day was still bright and the sun was shining over the canyon’s depths, there was a small, stretchy road leading hundreds of meters down. There was no life in here aside from very resilient weed growing in the cliffs. This area was right at the left side of the road that led to the fiefdom’s capital, but not that close to the “Lowlands” which is a mid to high level hunting ground for monsters.
“Huginn, go look for any life down there.”
I quickly summoned all three Huginn I brought with me, while I had left another one in my house. The three crows cried loudly, quickly flying down through the canyon. We decided to prepare for battle while being in here, as I took out my Spear and enhanced it with Ki.
“Shall I go down as well? I can turn into a bat.” Said Eleanora. One of her abilities allowed her to turn into a Blood Bat.
“No, it is fine, let’s leave this to the- Oh, it seems they already found something.”
I quickly received some mental image from one of the Huginn I sent down, it was flying right in front of a large cave which was being guarded by a group of three men wearing ragged clothes and holding rusty spears.
“Huh? A crow?”
“Go away! Crows give bad luck!”
The guards began throwing rocks at Huginn, who quickly flew upwards back to me.
“I already found the route, let’s go.” I told Eleanora, as we quickly ran downwards.
—–