Volume 2 - CH 2

Chapter 2 – Subspace and Wyvern Extermination

The next morning, I was preparing breakfast and Finne woke up, maybe attracted by the smell.

“Morning, Finne. Breakfast is almost ready.”

“Good…moor…ninng…aawn…”

Finne replied while rubbing her drowsy eyelids.

“…maybe go wash your face first.”

“Nnh…yes, I will…”

Finne was still unsteady on her feet, but she nodded to me and headed towards the river.

I looked at her while stirring the soup in the pot.

Today’s breakfast would be bread bought in the capital: it was harder than expected, so I made some soup to soften it.

I checked the soup’s taste, then took out some fruits from my dimensional storage and fed them to Maguro.

“I’m counting on your legs today too, partner.”

“Neeeiiigh!!”

Maguro neighed with fervor, then started chomping down on the fruit.

I turned around and saw Finne coming back.

“I’m sorry for making you wait…oh, what a nice smell.”

Finne’s nostrils flared as she avidly savored the soup’s scent.

“Yeah, I just finished making it. Shall we eat?”

“Yes!”

We sat on a tree trunk, soup bowls in hand, and started enjoying it.

I dipped some bread in the soup and took a bite.

The flavor was a bit too rich maybe, but it was good enough for me.

I peeked at Finne and saw that she also dipped the bread in the soup, a gleeful expression on her face.

“Hmmm!! The bread is even more delicious after absorbing the soup…!!”

….she was so cute I almost froze.

It felt kind of embarrassing, so I focused on wolfing down my soup to shake it off.

~

After breakfast, we resumed our travel towards the mountainous region.

There were more monsters in the area ahead, apparently, so I kept a close watch of our surroundings.

We only encountered one or two monsters at a time, which probably strayed from the pack, so I had Finne take care of them: I just supported her or gave instructions.

We fended off two attacks in the morning and three after lunch; in the late afternoon, we arrived at a forest near the foot of the mountains.

I was noting that we had managed to arrive just as planned, when I noticed another incoming monster attack.

“Finne, I detected monster presences. Five of them. They’re Greywulf.”

“Understood!”

Finne nodded vigorously in my direction.

Five Greywulfs at the same time were too much for Finne to deal with by herself, though: her limit was about two.

We both got off the carriage and prepared for the attack.

As soon as we did, the five Greywulfs jumped out in front of us.

I shot a basic ice elemental spell, Ice Ball, in the center of the group.

Two Greyfuls dodged it, sending them in Finne’s direction, the other three dodged toward me. They split just as I wanted.

I closed in on the Greywulfs and used a 『Quickdraw Arts』 skill to draw my Black Katana and eliminate all three monsters in a single slash.

I put the corpses in my dimensional storage and looked at Finne: she had just defeated the first one with her sword. Probably thanks to the battles she experienced today, her movements were pretty smooth.

The last Greywulf tried pouncing from behind her, but she dealt with it calmly.

Finne turned around and raised a hand, then chanted a spell name.

“Ice Ball!”

A globe of ice a little less than 15 Centimetol wide formed on her palm, then shot towards the Greywulf.

The wolf monster twisted its body out of the way, but Finne followed with her sword and finished the monster.

I watched over the battle until the end and then gave her my praise.

“Amazing, you’re fighting a lot better than before.”

“Thank you very much! I finally became able to fight like this by myself!”

“And you’re going to get even stronger too.”

“Yes!!”

Finne was sincerely happy to see her ability grow.

I was positive that she was going to become stronger very quickly.

~

After the battle, we rode the carriage again, to cross the forest and climb the mountain, but…

“The carriage can’t go any further, huh…”

The path had become too narrow and irregular for a horse-drawn carriage to travel on.

“Mr. Haruto, what should we do with the carriage? Leave it here?”

I went ahead and bought both the carriage and the horse, so if possible I didn’t want to do that.

Finne looked at me with concern as I wracked my brain for a solution.

I could put the carriage in my dimensional storage, but Maguro…I never tried putting living beings inside and didn’t want to use him to test it out.

Could the Time-Space magic that created the dimensional storage be used to make a sort of portal that connected two far away places? I didn’t know of a fitting destination, though.

I might as well create a space, or a world for my personal use…or was that too out there?

…no, wait, it might work.

My All Creation allowed me to make anything I wanted.

If I used it together with Time-Space magic, I should be able to create my own personal world — my 『Subspace』.

After reaching this conclusion, I raised my head and looked at Finne.

“Finne, I think I just had an idea. Can you wait a minute?”

“Y-yes, of course…please go ahead, Mr. Haruto.”

Finne looked flushed for some reason, but I looked away and concentrated on molding my magic power.

First I would use a great quantity of magic power and Time-Space magic to create a subspace. Then, if I made a gate to go inside it…

“M-Mr. Haruto!! What is this black thing!?”

As Finne said, a black mist-like substance, large enough for an adult to fit, had appeared in front of us.

“It’s a gate to my subspace.”

“Subspace…? I never heard that word before…”

“It’s like a different world, separate from this one…I’ll check inside, please wait here.”

“Eh…? Okay…”

I erected a barrier around Finne and the carriage, so they didn’t risk being attacked while I was in the subspace.

I walked closer to the gate, but it was too dark to see anything inside.

I slowly touched it with my hands, but it just felt like empty air.

I gathered up my courage to put my head inside, and…

I found spacious grassy plains.

I walked inside, stepping on the grass with my feet.

That very same moment, a half-transparent menu window appeared before my eyes. It looked just like the status window.

The words “Awaiting command” also floated on it.

When I touched the window, a new string of characters appeared.

.

This subspace can be freely customized by spending magic power. Furthermore, this subspace is a square shape measuring 500 Kilometols on each side. (Size can be adjusted via the menu)

.

“Whoa whoa whoa, too huge!!”

I couldn’t help but shout after reading the words on the menu window.

I didn’t need all that space…

For starters, I reduced it to a 300 Metol square.

I tried adjusting the size, but it didn’t feel like anything changed.

The options didn’t create walls, apparently.

Looking through the menu, I found an option called “Construction”.

I checked it out and found a list of various buildings and relative descriptions.

“This is a castle? But there’s also a modern concrete house…Finne would definitely find it suspicious, though…”

After a quick look at the list, I didn’t find any of the medieval Europe-style buildings that seemed to be the norm in this world.

I had seen lots of wooden buildings, though, so I decided to make a spacious traditional Japanese home.

After I picked the corresponding option, a map of the subspace popped up.

I could choose where to place the house, just like in a video game.

I picked a random place and — after a flash of light — a Japanese-style wooden house was standing before me.

It cost a good deal of magic power, but it was still nothing compared to my reserves.

“Okay then, time to make some furniture.”

I proceeded to furnish the house’s interior environment.

I have to make stables and a garden for Maguro too, now that I think about it.

After completing the basic preparations, I left the subspace to call Finne and Maguro.

Finne ran up to me when she saw me exit through the gate.

“How was it?”

“Looks like a pretty nice place. Finne, Maguro, you guys come in too.”

I returned inside the subspace, with Finne and Maguro in tow.

After moving one step inside, Finne was frozen, wide-eyed, her mouth closely imitating a fish.

I thought it would take some time before she regained her senses, so I led Maguro to the garden first.

He seemed to enjoy it very much, running and prancing around, so I let him have fun and prepared his dinner in the stables.

“Maguro, you’re going to sleep here. Dinner’s ready, so eat it whenever you want.”

“Neeeiiiigh!!”

My words got through to him, apparently.

I went back to the gate and found Finne, back to normal.

“W-what manner of place is this!?”

“I told you, it’s my subspace. It was just empty grassland when I came in, so I made a house with my magic power.”

“A house with magic power…? You…can do that…?”

“Yeah, it seems like I can create anything I want with magic power here.”

Finne looked in the distance, whispering “It can’t be so easy…but maybe for Mr. Haruto it is…” to herself.

As long as she was convinced, anything was fine for me.

“Let’s take a look inside the house, come on.”

I waved at Finne to follow me.

The house was as spacious as its external appearance suggested.

I based it on a Japanese-style house, so there were bizarre rooms with sofas on the tatami floor, but all rooms were pretty large.

The kitchen was already equipped with magic tools functioning as appliances, maybe because I had the Magic Engineering skill.

The bath was wide enough for four people to use at the same time; it was complete with a shower and a large cypress bathtub.

Shampoo, hair rinse, soap, etc. were already available, courtesy of my Molding skill.

When Finne saw the bath, her eyes started sparkling again.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ehm, can we use this today?”

“Of course. You want to take a bath every day, right?”

“Every day…? Baths like these are usually only for nobles, you know? Some inns have public baths, but I’ve never seen a bath in a normal house. People normally just douse themselves with hot water, then wipe their bodies with a towel.”

I see…now that I think about it, I haven’t taken a bath since I was in Vaana.

“Hmm, is that so…well, we can take a bath here, though.”

“Oh, great! I have never taken a bath in a tub before, to be able to do it every day seems like a dream!! I can’t wait!!”

After we finished taking a look at the other rooms, it was time to prepare dinner.

I had a kitchen available now, so I could make a more proper meal than the day before.

Finne helped me this time, so we cooked, ate, and cleaned up in no time at all.

~

After the meal, we went to the bath together.

We were going to take a long, leisurely bath, just the two of us, naturally…not.

It was only to teach Finne how to use it.

First, I twisted the faucet to fill the tub with hot water.

“Wow, look at the steam…isn’t the water too hot?”

“Don’t worry, it’s regulated perfectly.”

I explained how to use the shower, then left.

About one hour later — 

“Thank you for the bath, I’m finished.”

I was taking it easy in the living room when Finne returned from her bath.

She had taken quite a long time, so I turned towards her to ask her how it was, but my words died in my throat.

Wet hair and a faint scent of shampoo and soap.

Way too sexy, damn it…

Finne was puzzled by my reaction or lack thereof, so I had to say something fast.

“How, how, how was it?”

“The hot water took all my fatigue away, it felt really good!!”

“Glad to hear it. You can use the hairdryer too.”

“Hair dryer…? What’s that?”

Hair dryers didn’t exist in this world, after all.

I explained to Finne how to use the dryer too.

We were so close there, that I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest.

Finne was surprised by the existence of such a tool, but I couldn’t stay there anymore: I had to rush to the bath myself before I lost my self-control.

The next morning, Finne and I exited the subspace and started climbing the mountain.

The mutant wyvern apparently dwelled near the top, so we simply climbed in silence for a while.

We were attacked by normal wyverns and other monsters inhabiting the mountain on the way. 

I took them down when they were too numerous, but let Finne fight when she could handle them on her own.

As a result, both of us could accumulate considerable experience.

I had never fought so many monsters before, so my level should be a lot higher now…I thought.

I was lost in such thoughts when we arrived at the peak.

No wyverns to be seen anywhere…didn’t we say that we’d find it here?

I used my Detect Presence skill and, sure enough, picked up something.

I hurriedly checked the map and found a presence circling around us.

I couldn’t see anything left or right, though…so it had to be above us.

I looked up and found the target of our expedition — a mutant wyvern.

It was a very large beast, easily over 10 Metol, covered in red and black scales.

The average Wyvern was only about 5 Metol in size and their scales were all red.

I activated my Appraisal skill.

NAME :

Dragon Wyvern

LEVEL :

124

SKILLS :

Fire Magic LV8

Roar LV6

Intimidation LV6

Magic Resistance

Physical Resistance 

TITLES :

Mutant

The name changed from Wyvern to Dragon Wyvern…so it was probably a different species.

More than its level, I was more interested in how many skills it had.

If my memory served me, it had even more skills than the “harbinger of disasters”, the disaster grade monster I fought.

I shouted a warning to Finne.

“That’s the target! Finne, hide yourself!!”

“O-okay!!”

Finne ran away from me as quickly as she could.

The mutant wyvern, however, did not give up on attacking her.

“Tch.”

I clicked my tongue and used Intimidation on my opponent.

The wyvern recoiled: I used that opening to activate the high-speed movement skill Ground Shrink, approach Finne, take her in my arms, and run away.

“Fwaeh!? M-Mr. Haruto? What are you— ”

Finne was rightfully perplexed to be picked up like that all of a sudden.

“It’s targeting you!!”

“M-me!?”

“Yeah, maybe because you ran away. Anyway…I’ll let you down here and make a barrier, stay put until I defeat the wyvern, okay?”

I put Finne down once we were far enough from the mutant wyvern, then erected a barrier to protect her.

“Understood, please be careful.”

“Of course. I’ll be right back.”

I looked up at the mutant wyvern. It was still in midair, glaring in my direction.

The beast then howled loudly, probably angered because I stopped his offensive with my Intimidation.

“GRRROOOAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

I faced the mutant wyvern’s aura, much more overwhelming than any regular wyvern, and drew my Black Katana.

“You’ll pay for targeting Finne, even for one second.”

So I whispered to myself before using Ground Shrink to close in on the mutant wyvern and lightly swing my katana.

The monster powerfully flapped its wings to move backward. Just when I thought it managed to avoid my slash, it opened its jaws wide.

A fireball formed in the monster’s mouth, growing larger and larger by the second.

When it reached the size of about one metol, the fireball was shot towards me.

I thought of cutting it in half with my Black Katana for a moment, but the massive heat it produced convinced me to create a barrier instead.

A few seconds later, the fireball crashed against the barrier with tremendous impact.

The mutant wyvern continued shooting fireballs at me, one after the other.

My barrier was shaken multiple times and eventually, its surface cracked.

“For real!? I thought I made it pretty sturdy!”

I hurriedly used Earth magic to create a wall between the barrier and me.

Just when the wall was completed, obscuring the mutant wyvern’s sight, the fireballs completely shattered the barrier and struck the wall.

The soil wall was destroyed in an instant: the fireball continued flying, scorching the air and the spot where I was until seconds before, raising a cloud of dust all around.

“GROOOOAAARRR!!!”

The mutant wyvern roared, probably feeling victorious, flapping his wings to disperse the cloud of dust.

I was not in the same spot anymore, though.

Immediately after creating the wall, I used my Stealth and Conceal Presence skills.

I created another barrier in midair to use as a foothold, then used Ground Shrink again to approach my enemy.

“Take this!!”

Since the mutant wyvern had the Physical Resistance skill, I thought that normal sword attacks might not be effective and put my katana back in its sheath.

I then used Quickdraw Arts and the Acceleration skill together to unleash a high-speed slash.

The Conceal Presence skill was deactivated right before the attack, so the mutant wyvern noticed me, but it was too late.

It couldn’t prevent me from cutting off its right wing.

I immediately collected the severed wing and stashed it in my dimensional storage.

“GYAARRRRR!?”

The mutant wyvern lost its balance and dropped while screaming.

The monster stood again immediately after crashing on the ground, but its blood kept spurting out of the gaping wound where its right wing used to be.

It glared at me from the ground and roared.

“GROOOAAAWWRRR!!!”

The next instant, countless fire spears formed around the mutant wyvern, then flew towards me all at the same time.

It was a magic attack definitely more powerful than before, so a normal barrier would be destroyed in a second…

So I thought as I created a new kind of barrier.

“Space Rupture Barrier – Aegis!”

“Aegis” was made by combining Barrier and Time-Space magic.

Thanks to the Time-Space element, the barrier itself had the ability to sever time and space, so it couldn’t be affected by any external factors.

In other words, it was unbreakable.

Aegis didn’t budge an inch even under the barrage of fire spears.

Eventually, the mutant wyvern’s attacks stopped.

“Thanks to you, I could think of a new defensive technique. I’m grateful, really.”

I deactivated “Aegis” and rushed towards the mutant wyvern.

It tried swinging its sharp hooked claws at me, but I leapt out of the way and— 

— and after we crossed each other, I landed and put my katana back in its sheath.

The next moment, behind me the mutant wyvern’s neck slowly slid off its torso and its head fell to the ground with a loud noise.

I sighed, then proceeded to store the monster corpse in my dimensional storage. I saw Finne running towards me: the barrier I had created allowed her to leave it freely, after all.

“Mr. Haruto, are you hurt!?”

Finne touched me all over to make sure.

I reacted subconsciously and pushed her away.

“Don’t worry so much.”

I moved my limbs to show her I was perfectly unscathed.

“I-I’m sorry!!”

Finne probably realized that in the heat of the moment she had touched my body all over and blushed fiercely, hiding her face with her hands.

Just then, I realized that something was glowing in her pouch.

“Finne, there’s something shining there…?”

Finne seemed as surprised as me: she opened her pouch to see what it was all about.

“My adventurer card…? I’ve never seen it glow before.”

The source of the light was indeed Finne’s adventurer card.

Finne kept staring at it, without moving a muscle.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah, yes, I…Mr. Haruto, please look at your card too.”

Wondering what had gotten into her, I took my card from the dimensional storage.

Differently from Finne’s card, mine was glowing gold. The light changed depending on the card’s original color, maybe.

I flipped the card to see the rear, and— 

— found quite the ominous writing: “EMERGENCY REQUEST”.