Chapter 54: Preparations

TL Note: From now on, I’ll translate all weapon skills as [Weapon + Art] so no one gets confused with them. This way, they’ll be in a more similar format to the raws. It would also prevent any awkward skill names that would arise from following what you’re probably used to reading (e.g. swordsmanship works for the sword, but the format just doesn’t work for shields or whips).

Pushing the table to a corner, the smith prepared a wooden target dummy. While he did so, Ai went somewhere a bit more spacious and swung the whip around, taking care not to hit anything around her. As such, she was able to achieve [Whip Art] Lvl 3.

When the blacksmith was done, he took a step back, standing right beside Tatsurou.

Less than five meters.

That was the distance between Ai and her ‘opponent.’

It was a distance that could not be covered by the whip as it was.

Hence, Ai focused on accumulating her Ki.

Circling it through her body, she flowed Ki through the whip and coated it from the base to the tip.

Holding it in her right hand, she raised the whip as high as her left shoulder and swung it down parallel to the ground.

Following her action, the whip flew out.

Due to Ai’s Ki, the width of the whip thinned out while its length significantly increased in exchange.

The weapon reached its mark, boring a hole through the dummy.

[Skill [Throwing] has levelled up to Lv .8]

[Skill [Whip Art] has levelled up to Lv. 4]

“Great job!” Tatsurou cheered.

At the same time, the blacksmith muttered to himself, “You sure you’re a swordster?”

Seeing Ai, who he thought was a swordster, use the whip proficiently put the blacksmith at a loss.

“There’s more where that came from!”

Seizing the moment, Ai threw a second attack in.

It wasn’t one single motion. As the whip cut through the air, Ai pulled her hand downwards, making it land right on top of the dummy’s head.

And after a loud cracking sound, the wooden training dummy was cleanly cut into half.

[Skill [Whip Art] has levelled up to Lv. 5]

“Hey, this thing’s kinda convenient!”

“Yeah, somehow…”

Seeing Ai flail the whip around, chopping the dummy into finer and finer pieces, Tatsurou thought that she might awaken to a weird fetish, sending chills up his spine.

Shortly after, her [Whip Art] turned Lv 7.

Finally done with her masterpiece, Ai returned to Tatsurou’s side while looking proud of her work.

You’re okay, right? Tatsurou asked anxiously when she decided to buy the whip herself.

Going through the rest of the weapons, their final shopping cost came to a total of 133 million Sys.

When the conversation switched towards money, the blacksmith surfaced a crude smile on his face.

“Alright, we’ll take these guys tomorrow when we get the money okay!”

“So don’t sell them to others while we’re at it old man!”

With those final words, the two started to trudge home, leaving the old man behind with his nasty smile.

However, the old man caught Tatsurou’s shoulder.

“Wait! Take them now! You can just pay tomorrow!”

““HA?””

Surprised as to why the blacksmith didn’t want to wait till tomorrow when they had the money, the pair tilted their heads in confusion.

“Don’t give me that look! We’re friends, aren’t we?” he continued. “I trust that you two will pay so I’m giving them to you now! Great, right?”

“And why would you do that?”

“Come on! It’ll be bad if you suddenly change your mind tomorrow! I already have my retirement plans you know!”

“And what if we just take it and run?”

“You do that and I’ll just sell the fur you gave me to the commerce guilds for a high price! Did you know? It’s not that easy to get your hands on a gold-shelled defrustal’s fur,” the smith explained. “So, even if you skimp out, I can get most of the money from that!” he laughed eerily.

And here, though it was quite old, one can see a member of the cash devil species.

“We won’t do that so you don’t need to worry,” Tatsurou said.

“This old man… Really, what’s with that creepy laugh!” Ai butted in.

“Say what you want, it doesn’t matter!” he replied. “Now, take them with you! Tomorrow, ye shalt pay!!”

That’s some ominous words, they thought. If they accept the equipment now, they’ll temporarily be indebted to the old man albeit just for a day.

And being in debt was always a bad place to be.

With just a second of eye contact, the two came to a mutual understanding that they would rather not do so.

“No, let’s just go home.”

“WHY?! SO YOU REALLY DID—”

“WE DID NOT! We’ll take them tomorrow so just wait for us!”

“Really? You’re not lying right? If you are, then… That! I’ll do that thing! I’ll really do it!”

““Who’s the kid here?””

A man, in the latter half of his thirties, was acting like a child.

While they wanted to hit him to revert him back to his previous demeanour, they eventually gave up. As such, the two chose to ignore him for now and left the smithy.

“It’s over for people like that isn’t it? May his soul find salvation,” muttered Ai.[1]

“The first thing that comes to mind when I saw him was someone who won the lottery and then spends it without thinking until they’re back to zero again.”

“Yeah, looks like it…”

The pair sighed at the same time, thinking that maybe they shouldn’t have gone there after all.

Chasing the old man out of their minds, the two then thought on how to spend the night to make some pleasant memories.

A pleasant memory would, at the very least, be one where you have no need to worry about food, clothing and shelter wouldn’t it? And so, the two decided to get the only one they have not gotten yet– a meal.

Choosing to get some food nearby, they decided to go to the ‘department store’ they visited before.

Once there, the two wasted no time. Entering the building’s first floor, where all the foodstuff are located, they began to search for the greatest ally of all those who cannot not cook—the food cart.[2]

“Wow… I didn’t expect them to have this much variety.”

“Yeah, I got deceived by the middle age-esque appearance as well.”

Putting their impressions into words, the two could not decide on what to eat. Hence, they ended up purchasing a lot of different food instead.

Finishing their shopping spree, they went to the plaza and ate their lunch there before heading towards the guild. There, they took a similar commission as the one yesterday and made haste to the outside world.

“O-kay, first, we got monster extermination,” said Ai.

“Yep. We can take it easy if it’s the caterpies but, if we take into account what we heard…”

Walking not even hundred meters away from the town’s walls, they had already encountered a caterpy which, to their disappointment, only gave Tatsurou three SP.

Though it was a hit to their morale, the two continued to walk around until Tatsurou managed to gain 14 SP.

“We can easily gain SP from caterpies but they don’t give a lot, do they?” Tatsurou muttered.

“Right? But there’s plenty of them around so you can get as much as you need to.”

While they were in the middle of a conversation about the caterpies, another one approached them from within the bushes.

As Tatsurou prepared to activate Level Eater again, a huge yet long and slender hand stretched out from behind it and dragged the insect monster back into the bushes.

“Cardina, <Use search magic in that direction>.”

Feeling an imminent danger from the scene, Tatsurou called Cardina out and had it do its work.

Using Information Magic similar to his, Cardina gathered information on their surroundings and through him, Tatsurou now knew about whatever that was there.

“So?” asked Ai.

“It’s still hiding in there.”

“Is it waiting for us?”

“Probably.”

As if it was fully intent on not letting them pass through this place, the monster did not move even an inch from its ‘stealth’ after five minutes.

“Haah… wanna try baiting it out?” said Tatsurou.

“Bait it out?”

“Yeah. Get your throwing knives ready and throw it the moment it comes out,” he drew up a quick plan. “As for Cardina, <Let us know if that thing makes any strange movements>.”

The bird shrieked.

Seeing it ready, Tatsurou gathered his mana and created a sphere of light.

He then shaped it into a caterpy, placed it on the ground, and had it ‘crawl’ to the top of a stone.

Finally understanding what he meant, Ai took a knife out and prepared to throw it.

Once the ‘caterpy’ reached the mark, the hand once again flew out from the shrubs and tried to catch it. However, as the caterpy was made of light, the hand harmlessly passed through it.

To pull it further out of its hideout, Tatsurou made the bait move in a direction opposite from where the hand retreated to.

Not intending to let its prey go, ‘it’ jumped out of the bushes and landed on top of the stone earlier.

“HUT!” Ai grunted.

“GHRAAA?”

As it was fully focused on catching its prey, the monster failed to notice Ai’s attack and was pierced by two knives, one on its left arm and the other on its flank.

Now alerted by their presence, it turned their gaze towards the team.

“Did it not feel a thing?”

Right in front of their eyes was a humanoid creature that was at most two meters tall with a frame so thin that it looked like a skeleton. It had a long blue nose, akin to that of a stereotypical witches’, and huge ears.

Although it had two knives sticking out of its body, it did not show any particular reaction except staring at them in a temporary trance.

“I have a bad feeling about this…” Ai muttered.

“Me too. Let’s just kill it as soon as we can,” Tatsurou replied. He activated Level Eater instantly and blew the black sphere from his mouth.

Moving the fake caterpy towards the sphere’s trajectory, the monster chased after it and voluntarily absorbed the black sphere into its body.

ーーーーー

Level:  17

Skill(s): [Scratch Lv 5], [Bite Lv 4], [Unarmed Combat Lv 2]

[Pain Tolerance Lv 3]

ーーーーー

(Unarmed Combat? It can learn the skills of humans even though it’s a monster?

And Pain tolerance… Sounds a bit eerie.)

ーーーーー

Level:  17

Skill(s): [Scratch Lv 0], [Bite Lv 0], [Unarmed Combat Lv 0]

[Pain Tolerance Lv 0]

ーーーーー

“GHRAAAAAAA!!”

With its [Pain Tolerance] skill dropping to zero, the monster now felt the pain of having two knives pierce its body.

After confirming the level of its skill once again, Tatsurou spoke in a cold voice, ”Ai, it doesn’t have any skills left. Time to turn it into EXP. <Keep an eye out for any monsters that come too close>.”

“On it!”

To make it easier for her, Tatsurou also assaulted it with his red laser beams.

And when it was on its death throes, Ai lifted her spear and swiftly thrust it towards the unmoving monster’s head.

TL Notes:

[1] Raw had a phrase people say so that the ‘misfortune’ wouldn’t hit them. This is the best I can do for now.

[2] Raw translates to a side dish corner.