Chapter 41: Setting up a Base

「Woah! There really are frozen goblin statues…」 「Even though it’s been more than ten days since then, it really hasn’t been dispelled…」 「It’s understandable, why the investigators, only confirmed, the statues.」

Though we have been doing coordination training ever since we left Motsi town, our travel itself went smoothly, so without experiencing any particular trouble, we arrived at the place where “Grim” and I first met.

The eighteen goblins still stood where I froze them ten days prior.

This time, other than the investigation, we also accepted another request. Yep, it’s the removal of these goblin ice sculptures. This place is a bit distant from the highway so it’s not like it stands out a lot; but still, it’s one of the campsites used by the adventurers or merchants coming from the Empire, so it may be a problem to just leave them be.

「Hmm~ So? Removing them is fine and all, but how do we go about it?」 「Well, since goblins don’t really have any useful parts, won’t it be just fine to just burn the corpses after collecting the Magic Cores?」 「Okay. Well then, let me thaw them for now.」

Saying so, I release the Magic Power that froze the goblins in place. Ten days have passed, but it seems like it still hasn’t been released from my control, so the ice melted easily.

Since they were more or less just cold corpses, it wasn’t particularly complicated after that. Working together, everybody retrieved the Magic Cores and Arisa’s sloppy burned the corpses to ash with her sloppy magecraft.

「It’s yellow, huh. It looks a bit darker than the one from the Abyssal Forest’s goblins, maybe?」 「It’s proof that the goblins here are stronger than the ones on the Dungeon’s outer layer. When it becomes a higher class, it’ll look more gold than yellow.」 「I see. So that means these ones would earn a higher price when sold off, right?」 「Obviously. Maybe since they’re under the influence of the dense Mana of the sacred mountain, the Magic Cores of the monsters in this vicinity have considerably more Magic Power dwelling inside them. There’s a wide difference in its utility value.」

Listening to Grimhart, it seems that this sacred mountain is referring to that mountain where I was first caught by the bandits. Though the big mountain south of the kingdom and the empire, seemingly dividing the east and the west, hasn’t turned into a dungeon yet, it has a large amount of mana. It’s unknown wherever this Mana comes from, but there are various speculations about it. Like maybe it was originally a huge monster’s corpse or maybe there’s an unexplored Dungeon inside the mountain or so.

By the way, it looks like that place where the bandits that caught me stayed in wasn’t even halfway up the mountain. Nevertheless, it’s a place that decent and upright adventurers rarely approach so it’s probably a perfect place for a hideout.

「Hm? Wait, if the sacred mountain’s dense in Mana, then isn’t normal for a lot of strong monsters to roam around here?」 「It’s the opposite. Since the mountain is filled with dense Mana, why would they especially descend to the foot of the mountain thin in Mana?」

Now that you mention it, monsters do generally eat Mana, huh. In that case, there definitely isn’t any monster that would especially come down to the highway at the foot of the mountain, huh.

「However, it looks like the report about the Mana around here getting denser is true.」 「Did you find something out?」 「Yeah, I only checked a bit so I can’t be sure about it, but at the very least the Mana level around here is about the same as the Dungeon’s outer layer.」

Using some kind of Spell, Bia said so. It seems to be a type of Magecraft that isn’t included in the Magic that I can use.

The Magic I can use ranges from ones that can be used in daily life to wide rage explosion attacks, but there’s a considerable amount that I can’t use. One of those is Search-type Magic.

I myself can sense Life Essence to some extent, so when it comes to humans, I can know their position to a certain degree. However, if I’m against things that are hard to sense Life Essence from, like Monsters or Magic Beasts, I basically can’t see anything. For that reason, I was really lucky to have teamed up with Urania, since she can detect things by smell.

Other Magic I can’t use are Teleportation Magic, Communication Magic, Resurrection Magic and more. Not that I really cared about Resurrection magic, but I really wanted to use “Teleport”, you know?

「Okay. In the meantime, we’ll be building a temporary base here. After all, we’re going to investigate here for five days. And so, rather than our usual camp, let’s to make a somewhat secure one!」 「Okay~」 「Yeah!」 「Understoo~d」 「Yep!」

To Grimhart’s command, we reply in different ways. As usual, we’re really disorganized, making Grimhart’s smile twitch, but this is better than being too tense, right? Later, I heard from Arisa that when “Girm” and “Fyne” team up, it seems that they’re basically always like this.

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「Mh… ahmnh…… mhmn…… phwah!」 「Haa…… Thanks for the meal.」 「… Nn…… You’re welcome.」

That night, since Urania and I, who were in charge of the combat earlier today, were exempted from night watch, we decided to have a rest in our tent.

In the place where we’re based, we set up five tents all in all. The tents were divided roughly into mine and Urania; Grimhart, Jarvis and Gray’s; Audrey and Jessica’s; Kety, Emily, and Bia’s or so.

Right now, it was supposed to be Audrey, Jesicca, and also Gray’s turn to be on lookout. It’s quite admirable, but it’s decided that the three men will be alternating turns every night for the lookout.

That’s because the tent that “Grim” brought with them is too narrow for three grown men to sleep in, but having said that, their reasoning is that, assuming if one of them sleeps outside, it’s pretty awkward for them to sleep while the ladies are nearby staying watch for the night.

I was a former guy, current girl, so I decided not to think about it too much. And since we were also exempted from tonight’s lookout, I ended up feasting on Urania’s Life Essence.

Honestly speaking, every time I take in Life essence, I’m still assaulted by an unbelievable feeling of pleasure, but I somehow control myself and pay attention so that I don’t take any more than necessary.

Each time our lips separate, Urania looks at me with her eyes filled with ecstasy, so I’m really just barely able to control myself. Yep, I’m really doing my best.

「Tomorrow, we’ll be searching, huh.」 「Nn, if there’s something, I’ll find it for sure.」 「I’m counting on you.」 「Lily, because you’re here, I can do my best.」 「Me too, Urania. As long as you’re with me, I can do anything.」

Inside the tent, while lying on the bed I took out from the 【Dream Storage】, we smile at each other and close our eyes.

「Goodnight, Urania.」 「Goodnight, Lily.」

The hand I held underneath our blanket never left my hand until the next day.