182 Chapter 12-1 Lord of the Muddy

"Hey, Lion. How long till Kukri Village?

"Yeah... if you're coming as mapped, maybe two to three days? Tell the boulders it's our territory, but they don't know exactly where it is. Besides, I've never been to Kukri Village."

Lyon says it's about half way from Sherheid to Kukri Village where there are no cities or villages around.

"Still, nobody's as far as I can see."

I am currently in the process of passing through the meadow, so I can see the carriage up to a few km radius away, but I saw no shadows or shapes of people.

"Well, there's no big deal around here. If it was about spring and summer, there would be enough people coming to mow the stretched grass."

That mowed grass seems to feed livestock such as horses and cattle, making it a valuable source of income for newbie adventurers who are inexperienced and make less money? Most of all, they say it's a little over 100G for 10kg, and even if they collect or sell 100kg, they almost disappear at the inn and meal bill that day?

"Still, if you use Affordable Lodging and do it efficiently, it looks like you'll be safe and make money there. Buying weapons and protective equipment of a slightly higher rank with the money saved with it, and then gaining experience at the request of the crusading system... is the basics for newbie adventurers working around here. And in the middle of mowing the grass, once in a while, some monsters appear as weak as horned rabbits to earn money there. And adventurers who have been asked to mow their lawns a certain number of times are being treated quite favourably in Borderline Bo territory."

They say that making money is at least a request to earn extraordinary income and experience, a request that needs to be made, both for Shellhide, whose horses are a specialty, and for adventurers. Incidentally, the privileges you will receive are a slight increase in the rewards you will receive on your next request for mowing the grass, or a slightly cheaper rate for the accommodation and dining room run by the Alliance and Borderline House.

"For newcomers with low incomes, that's a pretty thankful story"

That's how much you owe me, so I guess this request is the basis for a new adventurer. Otherwise, they would base their activities on places overflowing with work, like the Wang capital and dungeon cities.

"Most importantly, discounts on lodging and dining rooms were added after the incident in Kukri Village."

They also had the purpose of preventing the outflow of adventurers at all and calling back the adventurers who had left, but they still didn't come back with the kind of adventurers that would be instant. Well, an adventurer who becomes instant warrior won't get a request like mowing grass, because it would be more profitable to work at the moment without moving to Borderline Uncle Territorial with so much preference.

"Well, I think it's a meaningful policy in the sense of securing the force ahead."

"Oh, we have to let the fighting force we grew up with get away with it."

That's a problem I have in every realm, so I wonder how attached you will be by the time you grow up. Or I think we have to make it as attractive as it gets to come back even when we leave.

"That's where the future frontier uncle will be."

"Oh, good luck with that!

"Tenma, it's time to take your place."

When I was talking to Lion, Cain offered me a replacement and I decided to accept it.

"Bye, Albert. Take turns for me, too."

Lion also spoke to Albert to try to change to suit me,

"You can't have Lion. If the directions are gone, you'll be lost!

It was inhibited by caine. Then he said, "Do you have any directions, even though we're just going straight through it!" I heard Lion's voice, but I didn't hear him calling Albert again, so I think Cain included me.

"Hey, Tenma, Master Merlin."

I had been going without anything for a while, but suddenly Cain opened the window and called out.

"Ahead, there's something like a swamp that Lion's never heard of."

Cain said that muddy, marshy water was accumulating on the land about fifty meters from where he was now.

When I got off the carriage with my grandfather and checked, I could certainly confirm something like a swamp with muddy water buildup, but it was obviously suspicious.

"Grandpa, I don't care what you think. That swamp, it's made, right?

"Bye. Perhaps there's a frog lurking."

Grandpa seems to have an idea of the Lord who made the swamp. For once, I looked at the swamp in "Appraisal," but there were a few demons lurking in the swamp called "Mad Poison Frog". I don't know if the number is unclear because of a little distance or because the frog has a 'cover-up', but either way, it doesn't seem that much.

Everyone in the carriage came out intrigued when they heard there was a frog demon.

"You're almost certainly in the swamp saying 'Mad Poison Frog', and when winter approaches, multiple individuals lean in to create hibernation beds. It's usually made in woods and woods, but occasionally in open places like meadows. Well, making a bed in the meadows will freeze you to death most of the time because of nothing blocking the wind."

Do adventurers who hear frogs and insult them often get paid back and nourished for hibernation?

"Even if I say frogs, they are a few meters in size. The guy I used to see was close to five meters. Besides, I tend to be distant from the name poison toad, but the meat is pretty good. Besides, it's also user-friendly as a material."

They say the meat tastes close to the bird meat, the skin is elastic, and the muscles are used for bowing, etc. However, it is a delicious prey, both as an ingredient and as food, but there are also troublesome things about it.

"First of all, the blow is hard to work with. Striking weapons like hammers are ineffective because frog skins and meat absorb shock. The blade usually passes, but because it is poisonous on the surface of the frog skin... if you want to throw away the meat, you can use it as a weapon. I just don't really recommend melee fights."

Speaking of frog traits, they also apply to Mad Poison Frog, although it comes to mind such things as' changing your color to suit your surroundings', 'stretching your tongue to capture prey' and 'high leap power'.

"In other words, a frog's tongue hits him before he approaches him, and even as he approaches him, he moves away with his proud bouncing power. Strikes are hard to do and slashing destroys the material. I mean, magic if you defeat it efficiently. Besides, it's not best to freeze or paralyze them. Because of this, the demon itself is not as strong as C-B, but if you're looking for materials, it's not A-rank difficulty."

By the way, when Grandpa knocked him down, he dropped his neck with wind magic because he wasn't looking for material, peeled his skin off before the poison turned to meat, and ate only the back leg part. Because of this, a lot of the meat was disposed of, but the skin was in beautiful condition, so you were pleased with the guild at the wholesale destination?

"Then should I go alone?

"It is. I'd rather be prepared if I escaped the magic of Tenma and headed for the carriage than go with you."

Lyon and Amur's avant-garde group looked a little disappointed because of the difficulty of striking and slashing, but they looked at me with the kind of eyes they expected when they said they could get more delicious meat than that. Behind it, Shiloumal and Solomon's eaters looked at it with the same eyes, so when I was stared at with four pairs of eyes in total, I was tempted that I could never fail.

"Let the golem out first...... all the way forward!

Before approaching the swamp, my grandfather advised me to bring out frogs in the golem, and I gave out about five golems the size of people. The material is soil at your feet, so it would easily be destroyed by a frog blow, but I hope they don't destroy the nucleus of the golem, and most importantly, it's not a problem to destroy it.

The ordered golems approached the swamp side by side. And

"It took!... Dangerous!

Four of the golems approaching the swamp were attacked by frogs, but the frogs attacked more than I could imagine. More than you can imagine is the attack speed and power of a frog.

When the golem approached the marsh to ten meters, a frog noticed the approaching appeared from the marsh, so I was walking to hide behind the golem, trying to devour the thunder magic against the frog attack, but the golem blew up before I could unleash the magic. That too, four bodies at the same time. The pieces of the golem flew so fast that I jumped back.

"Even though the body moves slowly, the speed of the tongue is bullet tight. Well, it looks like this place is out of range... come on!

The position I jumped out of seems to be unreachable to the frog's tongue, and he was slowly trying to get closer to me. However, if I was alarmed, I might jump in, so I terminated it with a thunder magic 'stan' before that.

Having a tongue that emitted a bullet's velocity on the boulder seemed unable to do anything outside the range, "Mad Poison Frog" was all set and flipped to the spot.

"In the swamp, you don't seem to be around anymore. Don't you dare, bury it."

Ordered the only surviving Golem to recover the destroyed Golem's nucleus and bury the marsh, and I decided to wash the surface of the defeated frog with water magic.

"I was in a hurry when the golem was destroyed, but it seemed to be over."

The grandfathers, who confirmed the frog's crusade was over, came all the way to me.

"Wow... the little guy is adorable, but it's disgusting when he's so big"

"I guess I feel more scared than disgusted"

"Either way, you don't really want to deal with a frog that's more than double mine. Especially after seeing how that golem got hit."

In the words of Lion, we all saw the Golem who was hit in unison. Destroyed and splashed, Golem's body was thrown into the swamp one after another after it had been recovered by the surviving Golem, where it had become part of the material of the landfill.

"If a lady was dealing with a frog, she might have."

"Not only Amur, but Lion too."

Amur blued his face to Mr. Leni's words, and Lion had his face drawn to Cain's words. Well, these two would have gone first if it hadn't been for Grandpa's explanation, so that would have been more likely. Incidentally, Albert, who would have gone for that support if Lion had gone towards it, and Chris, who might have approached the swamp to stop Lion, were also slightly blue-faced.

"Jeanne. Be careful when you go outside from now on, you can always serve the golem that Tenma gave you..."

"Right..."

The two people caught in the past and in crisis were still confirming the golem.

"It's not the best harvest we've all had yet again that we've all felt at risk. That's right, Tenma. You know how to judge a frog?

When he answered his grandfather's question, "If you're a normal size frog, you've been judged, but this size is not in boulders." He told me at the break.

"Lion. Is there a water field near here?

"The closest we can get from here, the river should have flowed about 10 km away. Not that big of a river, but I think it would be nice there if we were to take a break around here. And there's a small village going back down the river, but it's two to thirty kilometers from the destination."

If it's about ten kilometers, it's half an hour in Ryden, and you can get there at your leisure. Even further afield in the village, we are likely to arrive in two hours.

"Then let's take a break by the river. And should I rent a village or nearby place to stay today?"

As it is, there will be no problem going directly to the village that lies ahead of the river, but if you think about frogging, it may be annoying by the village.

That's why Lion decided to go for the first river he said. Just by the time I decided where to go, the golem had almost finished the marsh landfill, so I also recovered the nucleus of that golem and boarded the carriage.

"We're here!

We got to the river a little earlier than planned, and we split up to get ready for a break. Well, it didn't take a lot of time to get chairs and stuff out near the carriage as usual or just look around lightly. And the most important meal I can say about the break is the preparation, but this time Mr. Leni will be in charge. Usually around me, it feels like Jeanne and Aura are helping, so my time is a little free shape.

"Grandpa. While you wait, can you tell me how to judge a frog?

"That's good. Well, Tenma will soon remember. And those interested in keeping their hands free should follow. It would be a good experience if we did something a little different."

Grandpa told me that Chris was going to have Albert and the three of them. Amur also tried to participate, but Mr. Leni caught him and took him to the cook, so the students were five, including me.

"Well, I'm gonna go for a second, so don't ask the slurrins to be on guard around you"

Looks like there's no creature around that could be a threat, but we asked the slurrins to be on guard and we headed to the river just in case.

"First of all, the way frogs are judged, but in three main ways. The first is how to cut the skin apart normally. The second is how to hang a frog in a tree or something and judge it. The third way is to freeze it a little and then judge it. The first method is not to dismantle a frog's skin neatly without someone to suppress it, but it's not the most basic way to judge it. The second way is if you don't have something big enough to hang a frog, and you don't have enough power to hang it, but if you get used to it, you'll be able to divide yourself nicely than sleep on the ground. And last but not least, it has to be completely frozen, so it only takes magical skill and magic for that matter, but it can be easily peeled off while maintaining flesh and other freshness."

So Chris and the others used the first and second methods, and I used the third method to judge frogs. Well, I'm personally interested in the second method being like 'hanging off the ancho', but only after I've successfully tried the third method first.

"And when you judge a frog, wash the surface with care before you judge. Because frog surfaces are often poisonous and, above all, dirty. And this time, the frog has a poison bag near his shoulder blade, so we're gonna have to get rid of it first."

Even when it comes to poison, they basically aren't strong enough to kill people, and in most cases, they're paralyzed enough to slow down their movements. Still, it's dangerous for children, old people, people with weak immunity, etc., and even adults need to be careful because accidentally consuming large amounts can shock them to death or blind them if they put it in their eyes.

"Some used to use these poisons to fish, but now there's a lot of forbidden places because they can't get the poison out of the fish that they caught, or they can run out of roots and wipe it out in a narrow range like a small river."

So without washing away the frog poison in the river, I was careful to water it with a bucket or something and then clean it a little away from the river.

"We're going all at once! Blame it!"

"We tied this one! How's Cain?

"It's okay over here!

The three struggle to hang frogs somehow on the two dirt walls that Grandpa magically built. Maybe, after I hang him, I'll wash the frog.

"Ugh... Numme, I'm buño buño"

Mr. Chris was washing the smallest frog (even though he said it was small, it was over an meter and a half to spare) by himself using deflection.

"Everyone seems to be in trouble."

I had two golems holding a frog and using water magic like a high-pressure washer to take dirt and slips.

During the wash, I felt my gaze from behind, so I looked back and Mr. Chris was staring at me. And a hand offered silently.

"Is that your hand? No, it's a joke."

I tried to bog lightly, but I hurried to give him two nuclei of a medium-sized golem, as Mr. Chris began to slip silently accumulating at his feet with both hands.

Chris, who started using the golem, went up extraordinarily fast and quickly trailed me and Albert and the others. Well, the smallest frog was in the first place, while the workforce increased to three (and the workforce for two without complaining about unpleasant work), so naturally.

Albert and the others, who watched Mr. Chris like that, naturally wanted to use the golem, but they didn't have to use it because the golem, on the contrary, would get in the way for the alberts, who were in full numbers, than the golem had already finished the task of hanging the frog they needed most.

"Looks like they've each been cleaned up. After that, just take out the built-in, peel it, and dismantle it to an affordable size, just like you would any other animal."

After taking the slip and dirt, it was a normal procedure, so there was nothing particularly difficult. Strongly, I'm just saying that the Alberts who were hanging and dismantling seemed the easiest to do.

"You have a beautiful color. It looks and feels like it's close to bird meat, so it could be used for similar dishes."

I cut myself up just a little, baked lightly, then tried it, but it tasted as close to chicken as I thought.

"Although it's delicious... eating with frogs in mind is kind of complicated. Just thinking about it makes me feel like the deliciousness has dropped a little."

"Is that right? I don't care."

"I know how Senior Chris feels. This frog is definitely losing money on appearance"

"Well, I don't care if you eat without knowing, so if it's cut meat, there's nothing wrong with it."

And, all in all, I admired only the flavor. After all, food is important in appearance.

"As meat is to be used as food during this journey, the ingredients should be taken from me, right?

"You don't have a problem. Tenma, if you hadn't done it, I'm pretty sure Lion would have been in a lot of trouble, and all the other faces could have been seriously injured, except for Master Merlin."

In a way, that frog may have been the first demon of a killer nature. If you approach to defeat a frog, your tongue will attack you, and that power is too dangerous to defend.

"You should spread the word about this frog even when you stop by the village. If this neighborhood is a basic place for newcomers, this frog is too dangerous. I don't know where these guys came from, but I can't tell you they're not coming again than they were actually lurking in this place."

To Grandpa's advice, Lion was nodding with a serious look. Well, if there were such a dangerous demon lurking in a place that would give rookies experience, there could be no more adventurers to use this place as a base of activity. In order not to do so, it may be advisable to issue an investigation to veteran adventurers in the form of a request from the Borderline House.

"Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, I've got some interesting material. The meat seems delicious, and I'd like to make some tools with this ingredient."

So far the only thing I could not use with frog material was my gut. It is said that in these creatures lurking in mud, the guts can smell or be full of germs. It doesn't seem to be a medicine, but it is difficult to handle for this, and it is not very expensive, so I dug the hole and incinerated it.

The other material that I thought seemed the most interesting was the tongue muscles. As far as light research goes, it seems to have properties close to rubber, and if this were to be a substitute for rubber, it could be used for a variety of things. However, the muscles of the tongue could not be taken enough to be used for experimentation, so as a substitute for substitutes, they will be tried with frog skin and muscle.

With some blueprints in mind, we headed back to the carriage where we would have finished preparing our meals.