Weekly chapters (2/2)
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Translator: Raizu
Editor: Shirayuki
Chapter 3 – Certificate of Settlement
[Hi, Fuu, Mii… Yes, I will keep 15 green caterpillar magic stones. This will be one silver coin and thirty copper coins.]
[I have confirmed it.]
After selling off the Green Caterpillar’s magic stones, I currently possess around 2 silver coins and 50 copper coins.
Huh? Based on the amount of Green Caterpillar that I killed, shouldn’t I get more money? But it can’t be helped.
It’s painful that the market price of the Green Caterpillar’s magic stone was slightly lowered at an inopportune time.
It seems that the next weakest monsters after Green Caterpillars are Goblins. However, Goblins use tools and are good at group battles.
In that sense, the Blood Slime is easier to hunt than the green caterpillar.
[Until the Green Caterpillar market recovers, should I go for the blood slime?]
With that in mind, I went upstairs to the reference room to find out more about Blood Slime. The reference room is said to be free and open to the public.
If it’s too crowded, you have to pay for it, and sometimes you need a numbered ticket to enter.
Now, let’s see. The blood slime is a subspecies of the standard “slime”.
First of all, a common trait of all slime monsters is that they stop their activities when their magic stones are broken or they lose a lot of health.
Blood slime fills its body with a red liquid, and this is what makes most of its body blood red in color. This is different from the usual slime species, which are made up of a viscous substance. Wounding its body will cause it to spill liquid, so it is easy to make it lose health and become inactive.
However, what makes blood slime so scary is the fact that its body parts can be sharpened and treated like a weapon and sometimes, it attacks using magic depending on the situation. Normal slimes mainly use pitiful attacks such as wrapping the enemy in its body and suffocating it to death or sending the fluid part of its body flying towards its enemy. I’m not sure how to describe it with perfection, but it’s a bit like a whip attack.
However, the Blood Slime hits you with a pointed attack.
The Blood Slime has a high direct attack power. The magic is usually fire magic, often a flying ball of fire. I’ve heard that there are some Blood Slimes who use earth magic, so one must be careful not to be caught off guard.
This is a much more monster-like monster than the Green Caterpillar, which has little offensive power. This is something you should fight with a lot of vigor.
Unfortunately, since it’s an indeterminate monster, there are no materials that can be collected.
No, it seems that ordinary slime can be attacked to collect materials, but the red liquid that makes up most of the Blood Slime is not known to have any particular use.
So the only thing that can be used for money is a magic stone. There are magic stones present in Blood Slimes too, but it takes a lot of work to defeat them without destroying them. Like the Green Caterpillar, this is also a “no profit for the effort” type monster. Well, it can’t be helped, though.
You can get 11-12 copper coins per magic stone, and depending on the size of the magic stone, it can jump up to 15 or so. Apparently, Slimes are said to have quite different sizes of magic stones, so it’s a gamble.
Well, since the Blood Slime attacks with its pointed body, I bought a used metal shield.
It cost me 50 copper coins. I think I was lucky that I was able to get the shield without spending silver coins.
It’s a cheap one, though.
I stayed in a private room in the inn because it was hard to stay in the field continuously, and I recovered well. I had 50 copper coins.
I only have a silver and a little over 50 coppers left to spend. I’ve decided to spend them with utmost care.
Our departure was just after noon, and I ate as cheap a meal as possible at a street stall in the city, and dabbled in some dried meat as portable food.
Since the Blood Slime’s habitat is the wilderness, I want to fill my water bottle with water this time, and I also want a large backpack that I can carry on my back.
I also want some clothes, and I need a sleeping bag and blankets to sleep in at night….
And as I consumed them, my copper coins were almost gone.
I’d like to have some armor if I can afford it, but when will I be able to have all of my armor?
This time we leave the south gate and head out into the wilderness to the southwest. Just in the opposite direction from Green Caterpillar’s hotspot.
Now, let’s look at our current status:
=====
Yohei Konno (Human race)
Job:
Interferer☆ (3)
Dagger User (2)
MP 12/12
Parameters:
Attack: G
Defense: G+
Agility: G
Endurance: G+
Magic: G
Magic Resistance: G
Skills:
View Status II
Manipulate Status
Add Job I
Display Status
Strong Stomach
Supplementary information:
None
=====
It didn’t change much.
The “Interferer” level has gone up by 1.
However, the timing of when it went up was a bit worrisome because it went up when I woke up after falling asleep at the inn, so it wasn’t raised by defeating the Green Caterpillar.
By the way, when I went to the library to check that out as well, I was told that the entrance fee was one silver coin or something like that. I got away from there. If they’re willing to take pity on me and tell me that they are compassionate people, perhaps they can loan me…no. Nope.
I should postponed until I get richer.
There’s no road to the southwest. I made my way up and down through the rocky wilderness.
Soon, I found a red creature that was wiggling around. Is it the blood slime? It was creepy to see it move.
I gave it a quick thrust with a large knife and jumped back, and it was buzzing around, spewing red liquid.
As soon as it noticed me it came flying towards my sword and stretched out its sharp tentacles!
I protected myself well with a shield and hit it with another stab of the knife. Then, I kept my distance.
After a few repetitions, its movements slowed down and I stabbed him with a powerful stab at once to stop him.
[I’m afraid of its attacking power, but it’s less defensive than the Green Caterpillar.]
It’s easy to collect the magic stones, as blood slimes go limp when you defeat them, and its only solid magic stones that emerge out of their body. Yeah, maybe blood slime hunting not so bad.
Blood Slimes seem to be slow-footed, and it’s good that there’s no risk of being taken by surprise. As I continued my search, I encountered nearly 10 Blood Slimes on the first day!
There were some troubles, such as falling down in a hurry when a part of their body flew at you like a needle from a distance, or when I got used to it and was careless, a fireball flew at me and caught my leg on fire, but for the most part, I was collecting the magic stones smoothly.
Still, there were a lot of them. Finding Green Caterpillars was much more harder.
However, there are some painful aspects of blood slime hunting as well.
First of all, since it was a wilderness, there were few places to hide, unlike the northwest where there was a forest. Water could not be replenished locally either. There were some puddles, but the water was too muddy to drink.
Well, it might have been worse to have replenished the water in the spring of the forest until now because it is said that you should not drink fresh water.
Because there was a water stall in front of the south gate, we can only use it and save water anyway . I couldn’t even wipe myself with water, let alone bathe.
I had no choice but to return near the south gate, sticky with sweat, and sleep under a blanket in the shade of a tree that grew beside the road to the southeast.
(Our expedition to this site can’t go on for long…)
I’ll check the status before I lose consciousness.
==========
Yohei Konno (Human race)
Jobs:
Interferer☆ (3)
Survivalist (3↑)
MP 12/12
Parameters:
Attack: G
Defense: G+
Agility: G
Endurance: G+
Magic: G
Magic Resistance: G
Skills:
View Status II
Manipulate Status
Add Job I
Display Status
Strong Stomach
Supplementary information:
None
==========
The job has been changed from ‘Dagger User’ to ‘Survivalist’. I thought that as you move up in level, you might have skills that would be useful in this survival life. .
Once I had the money, I would graduate from the dagger.
Then, my level would go up by 2 in one day.
(Is there an ease of going up depending on the job or does it include experience outside of combat? Or both?)
I pondered as I fumbled for a position to settle down in the blanket.
Since I have the “Survivalist” job now, this kind of outdoor life may be a self-inflicted experience for me.
If so, it would be fine to stay in “Survivalist” job for a while.
The “Survivalist” doesn’t seem to have any “attack” value, but it seems that blood slime hunting doesn’t require that much attack power.
(Even so, sleeping outside the walls is still scary… I can’t wait to be able to live in the inn again. I’ve never slept in the wilderness before.)
What I didn’t know at that time was the fact that few people who don’t have much money live outside the walls in the wilderness hunting for monsters like I do.
It’s exactly as I had foreseen. The combination of the entry fee with the city inn’s price makes it very expensive for beginner level adventurers to live in the city.
Rather than that, it is much safer and more reliable to stop at a slum and sleep for the day.
Perhaps it was because this is a world like a game, but I was somehow obsessed with making a living by hunting demons, and my lack of common sense in this world led me to live like this.
(Well, at this rate, if I hunt Blood Slime tomorrow and the day after, I’ll have a little more time to spare.)
And so my body, tired from moving around so much, lured my consciousness to sleep, even in this poor environment.
The next day, I tried to proceed southwards from the gate.
It’s close to the city road that stretches to the southeast, but I have encountered as many Blood Slimes as I did yesterday.
(Isn’t it a problem that there are so many demons within a day’s travel distance of the city?)
Well, no matter how many Blood Slime or something like that broke into the city, a decent knight would be able to deal with it, but if it appeared on the street, for example, and approached unnoticed then it could cause a serious accident.
(Maybe I should report it to the center… no, talk to the gatekeeper. But should I?)
After discovering that Blood Slimes go tame after giggling and shrinking their body when they spit out a ball of fire I was dealing with the slime attack even more smoothly than yesterday.
I turned back to the gate by the time the sun had set, and the harvest for the day was eight Blood Slime magic stones.
As I approached the gate, I felt the gatekeeper, who had been looking bored, gazing at me. This south gate has less traffic than the east gate and the gatekeepers aren’t always busy.
[What’s the matter? You need some advice?]
[No, I just thought I’d give you a report on the amount of Blood Slime.]
[I see. How many?]
[I ran into about ten of them yesterday. That means it’s a half-day’s drive to get there and back, which is a bit much, isn’t it? Sorry if I’m mistaken.]
[No, that’s definitely a bit suspicious but…in which direction?]
[Yesterday I headed west from here and today I headed south, and both were about the same.]
[Well it could be a sign of a mass outbreak. Thanks for the info.]
I was sitting on the edge of my seat, wondering what to do if I was being nosy, but I was relieved when he thanked me affectionately.
I guess there’s such a thing as a mass outbreak. If I had been out there at that time of year, it could have been dangerous.
Feeling a chill, I bought some water from a stall and nibbled on some dried meat.
Unfortunately, there are no stalls selling ready-made food like the ones at the East Gate. There aren’t as many stalls, but even if there are, they are all about home-made vegetables before they are cooked, or something like that. I guess they don’t make a lot of money because of the low traffic.
According to the owner of the stall who was selling water, it seems that those who sell things in front of the gate are usually selling here because they can’t afford to pay for a place in the city, or they would lose money if they did.
I see that the city takes taxes as well.
The next day, while I was engrossed in hunting Blood Slime from the morning, I came across a pair of bulky-looking guys in metal armor surrounding the Blood Slime around the afternoon period.
Could they be some kind of bandits? I was wary of this, but when they noticed me and our eyes met, one of them spoke to me in a friendly manner.
[Yo.]
[Ah, yes, what’s up.]
[Solo Blood Slime hunting, eh? That’s unusual.]
[Yeah, well. What about you guys?]
[We’re on regular patrol. We had a tip yesterday about a possible outbreak so, you know…]
[A tip…]
[Oh, you’re the one who sent us the information?]
[I think so.]
[Well, thanks for that. Apparently, there’s been a sudden increase in the last few days. Even though we’ve been doing regular patrols, it’s the day’s delay in information that’s causing the problem.]
[Are you…are you the city guard?]
[Hmm? No, the Warriors. The Slugger Warriors. We’re thinning out the demons around the streets of this area, and not surprisingly, we’re not known for it. We—]
[Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not really aware of it.]
[Haha, well, don’t worry about it. If this is a sign of a massive outbreak, there will be more of us around today and tomorrow, and the top of the blood slime is the target. There’s no danger of monsters drifting in and out of the area, or even big slime. Be careful.]
[Yes.]
Big Slime… Do Blood Slimes combine with each other?
I’m not sure I’d be able to win even if I had improved my magic abilities or something. Let’s retreat early today.
After that, I hunted for a bit before returning to the city.
=============
＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊Personal Data＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊
Yohei Konno (Human)
Job:
Interferer☆ (4↑)
Survivalist (4↑)
MP: 13/13
Parameters:
Attack: G
Defense: G+
Agility: G
Endurance: F-
Magic: G
Magic Resistance: G
Skills:
View Status II
Manipulate Status
Add Job II
Display Status
Strong Stomach
Additional Information:
None
==========
***
(Whoa, my endurance value went up.)
Apparently, as the level of the job increases, the stats are enhanced.
(I’m not sure if there’s a stat for the [Interferer] job or not so I’m not sure if the stats get affected by multiple jobs. It’s also a mystery to me how it affects me.)
While I was thinking about it, the kind-looking lady at the counter who treated me well on the first day was looking at the magic stones.
[Yes, it’s fine. The purchase price will be two silver coins and eight small silver coins, including fees.]
A small silver coin is equivalent to 10 copper coins. I thought the copper coins were too small to lose, but maybe that’s why they’re not used so much. This time there were 80 coppers, which was a lot, so I decided to use small silver coins.
[Could you turn half the small silver coins into copper?]
[Very well. I’ll leave it at three small silver pieces and fifty coppers.]
She smiled at me. If it wasn’t for the embarrassment I felt for my odd line of questioning, I might have lost my heart on the first day. She is a wonderful person.
[Does this center have a system of tipping…?]
[Yes?]
[You have always been a great help to me so I’ll give you a copper…]
[Oh. Some people give it to me, but I refuse to take it. I’m just doing my job, you know.]
She smiled again. A nice smile. I think if I stayed here any longer, I’d fall in love with her.
[Sorry, for saying unnecessary things…]
[No, I really appreciate the sentiment.]
I left the Monster Hunting Center comfortably and ate richly in the food and drink district. It’s expensive and I’m not very interested in drinking alcohol but the drink they gave to me had a blissful taste.
If they got a chance to do business in my world, they might get paid a lot of money for their goods.
What was brought to me was some kind of ginger-grilled meat mixed with crushed ginger. A set meal. It comes with a generous bowl of mushroom soup and a large bowl of rice.
In the stories I’ve read on Earth where people have been transferred or reincarnated to other worlds, they often get hungry for Japanese food. Although I had to head over and find it, in this city of Slage, rice is usually available.
Or rather, rice is more common than wheat.
There is something like bread, but when you go into a food shop, it’s about 2:1 rice and bread.
The more I hunt outside, the more I gobble up, the more I book a series of nights at a suitable cheap inn. I’ve been struggling to find a place to stay in the open, but I have a few ideas.
It’s somewhat cheaper for me to just book for consecutive nights at 43 coppers per night. Well, it’s cheap price.
The next day, I went to the city’s government office sub-branch in the downtown area. As a matter of fact, when I entered the city yesterday, the guard who reported the matter of the Blood Slime was in charge, so complained to him, [It’s too hard to pay a silver coin every time].
Then he said, [In that case, why don’t you get a permanent residence certificate?].
They say that if you have a permanent residency certificate, you can go in and out of the country on a day trip without paying taxes.
However, you have to pay a silver coin as a registration fee and a large sum of money, 20 silver coins, at the end of every year.
Now it’s about March of the twelve months, which means there’s still quite a bit in taxes. More than anything else, I felt that I was limited to camping outside, so I decided to follow it here with an open mind.
By the way, I’ll live here for a long time, to the extent that I’ll be able to prove that I’m a permanent resident, and I’m a citizen who has lived in the city for generations. I’m treated a level lower than the citizens of this city.
And if guards harass a nobleman, they may be fired at once.
It means that as an ID card, permanent residency certificate is not that effective. Well, it’s probably a lot better than the current situation where you don’t have an ID card.
It’s just a tax-saving measure.
[Would you please put your hand over here?]
When you place your hand on a crystal-like magic tool, your name, age, and criminal history get engraved on a hard plastic-like paper. How does it work?
[Yes, fine. Yes, this will do. This will be your proof. We’ll take one silver coin as a commission.]
I handed him a single silver coin and he handed me what looked like a small silver card.
It’s simple in construction with just a brief statement: [Yohei Konno, human.]
[Please apply for a release before you leave town. Otherwise, it may be a crime as tax evasion.]
[Yes. What if I want to use this to get in and out on a day trip?]
[In that case, please give your certificate to the gatekeeper or official when you leave or enter the building. I will take care of it.]
[Alright.]
Thus, I got a free day trip pass from the city.
(How much could I have saved if I’d gotten it from the start… well, okay, I’m looking at a better future.)
From now on, if I hunt green caterpillars and blood slime on a daily basis while gathering information, I’ll have a cheap place to stay. Life seems to be sustainable.
Now that I have a clear idea of what to do, what I’m worried about is the equipment problem.
I went to the weapon shop in town immediately.
[Wow, that’s expensive… too expensive.]
I looked around at the standard weapons, swords, spears and bows, but they are basically not something you can buy with a copper coin. Even the cheapest ones cost a few silver coins.
For once I gave up on decent weapons, and went to the general store named “tool shop of the town”. To plan the necessary path for the future life of me living comfortably in the inn, I must get things in order.
Then, I found something unexpected. It’s a wooden spear.
(It’s a “weapon” rack…a wooden spear.)
It was a bit confusing, but the price of 30 copper coins is an unbeatable price for a weapon.
Anyway, I bought two of them, including a spare.
I’m sure it’s like a farmer’s bamboo spear in the Warring States period.
It may be a killing tool, but not a proper weapon.
[It’s pretty well made…enough to poke at Blood Slime.]
I was in a good mood and bought some rice balls for dinner, and since I had a little time to spare, I went through the slave market.
[I’m a hard working powerhouse! Two gold coins is a deal-breaker!]
[She’s still young, but she can put the work in! She can even read!]
It wasn’t so hectic last time, but today it’s like there’s a grocery store caller here and there. I can hear them screaming from all directions.
Depending on the time, this might be when they’re doing great business.
Especially when the price of a featureless male slave, who doesn’t look like he has any muscle, is two gold coins, or two hundred silver coins.
As I looked around, thinking that it was as expensive as ever, I saw a shop full of oddly aged women.
Some customers were staring at them. It seems that slaves for such purposes aren’t very popular after all.
The women in the cages sat down and did not look very healthy. Is that why they seem so pale?
I stare around the perimeter, but there’s no price tag.
[Sir, what kind of girl are you looking for?]
Before I knew it, I was being circled by an elderly man.
[Yeah, um, I was just watching. Sorry.]
[Is that so?]
[Can I ask a question?]
[Ask away.]
[How is the price of these girls determined?]
[Yes. If you let us know your budget, we’ll introduce you to someone who is suitable for your budget. Of course, if you find a girl you like, we’ll negotiate on the spot.]
[You don’t have a specific price in mind?]
[No, there is a market price. We just like to consult with the customer.”
I wonder if it’s something they do to weed out those kinds of uninformed customers, or the opening of a store in this market is just an advertising.
[Please leave it to us because we have such beautiful girls. Let’s talk about the specifics at the store.]
[I see. Thanks for the answer.]
The first man lowered his head and went back to hunting for his next target.
(It’s a bit scary not knowing the price… for now, let’s figure it out when we can get the gold out.)
I returned to the inn, a little dispirited by the current situation.
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