Master, we have received another message from Luke the broker. He says that he managed to win a successful bid for a Green Caterpillar Skill Crystal.

When we return home, there was a note stuck to our door, as per the usual custom when one of Lukes men was delivering the messages from him to us.

With Green Caterpillar Skill Crystal, Sherry is finally going to be able to make yet another Sacrificial Misanga for us. I believe that its going to be a third one. And if we count the Ring of Determination along with it, we will have four accessories total, one for each member of my Party.

Well, as good as that sounds, its nothing urgent that would require my immediate attention, so I think its going to be perfectly fine to leave the dealing with that matter until tomorrow, since today I dont feel like going to meet with Luke at all.

Now that the marinated Goat Meat should be all nice and ready, I dredged it in some of the Slime Starch and then proceeded to deep-fry it. What I want to prepare now is a Hokkaido cuisine dish called zangi, otherwise known tatsutaage, but the variant that Im preparing is not as red as the original is supposed to be. Mine is more crimson rather than red, and because of the fish sauce it became a little dark, which made it look not as visually pleasing, but when I actually tried it, it turned out that it tasted pretty well.

Well, not that the result could have been any different here, with the recipe for the entire dish being a rather simple one that does not leave too much space for things to actually go wrong, so I have to say that the end result proved to be maybe not ideal, but definitely satisfactory, even more so since even while still living back in Japan I cannot say that I had all that many opportunities to prepare tatsutaage all that often, and Im sure that even the Gods have not seen such splendid crimson, so this should definitely do for now.

On the morning of the next day, I made my way to the Quratars Merchants Guild to pick up the Green Caterpillar Skill Crystal after having breakfast while asking the girls to handle the dishes and cleaning duties while Im gone. I also told Sherry to hold on with her usual morning smithing session, since after I obtain the Skill crystal she will fuse an item with a Skill in it instead of wasting time on doing just regular items. I could have taken Sherry with me for this, but Im not going to do that because I dont want people at the Merchants Guild to find out that Sherry is a Master Smith and that Im having her fuse me the items with Skills in them with a guaranteed success rate practically free of charge.

Here, a Green Caterpillar Skill Crystal.

Indeed.

Anyway, I grabbed the Green Caterpillar Skill Crystal along with the wanted posters and then swiftly headed home, where

I pass the Misanga and the Skill Crystal to Sherry and tell her to fuse them together for me.

And what is that, master?

From what Luke told me, these are supposed to be the wanted posters for the Bandits that are now holed in the Labyrinths of Hartz Duchy that the members of the Knight Order of Hartz Duchy are distributing to warn people about the danger of going to the Duchys Labyrinths now.

I explain to them as I take out the wanted posters. Sherry glances at the posters from the side and reads their contents.

Oh. It says here that these wanted posters are for Heinz the Bandit and Simon the Mad Dog.

Did you just say Simon the Mad Dog?!

Suddenly, Roxanne cried out in surprise.

Well, yes, that is certainly what is written in here? Why do you ask? Do you know him?

Yes. He is a famous Pirate known widely to all of the members of the Wolfkin tribe. I heard he is supposed to be quite strong and second to none when it comes to the usage of a one-handed sword. However, I also heard that he suffered a defeat at someones hands in the time when I was still a little child, so at the very least hes not someone who could go around bragging how invincible he was. Actually, I would really like to fight against him sometimes if we ever got the chance to do so.