CH 231

Episode 231 – Item Creation

For the first time in a while, I opened my eyes the next morning after the sun had already completely risen in the sky, feeling quite refreshed.

Opening the window, I sucked in the fresh air and stretched while bathing in the warm, comfortable sunlight. Then, I tossed a piece of blue candy, which I had gotten from Ruth, into my mouth. This candy had been handmade by Ruth’s mother, and it was a refreshing, nice mint-flavored candy that was effective in treating fatigue and fighting off drowsiness.

The recent days of Dungeon-clearing had been exhausting, and there were dark circles visible under my eyes. Ruth had taken notice of this and was thoughtful enough to have given me the candy as a present. While thanking Ruth in my mind, I continued to stretch fully until the candy in my mouth melted and disappeared. As I was about to leave my room, the basket hanging on the doorknob shook.

This was a special meal that they had recently started to prepare exclusively for me. I felt bad since they had always been giving me such special treatment, but Ruth and Ruth’s mother both insisted on writing it off as being included in the “two included meals each day”. No matter how much I insisted on compensating them, they prepared it for me nonetheless.

I put both my hands together in gratitude, feeling slightly apologetic… but even more than that, I felt glad. I took the basket and left Ponpokotei.

On my way to the Laudungeon Company, I checked the contents of the basket. Inside was a sandwich with Dumbbell Weed curry, arranged and garnished in an appealing manner. It was a dish that could be eaten anywhere and was delicious even at room temperature. And these sorts of small, considerate details were something that I really appreciated from the bottom of my heart.

I continued walking as I took a bite of the delicious sandwich, and soon I had arrived at the Laudungeon Company. I entered the building in a familiar manner, stood in front of the old-style brewing stand and spread out the tools. Alright.

I immediately got into work mode and started to think deeply about creating potions and items.

As for what I want to create, let’s first roughly narrow down the options.

If I were asked what we needed most in the battles in the canyon area, it would be an item that could provide high firepower over a wide area. Technically speaking, the powder explosion that used two ingredients fulfilled those requirements. However, the explosion varied depending on the situation and the environment, and I was afraid to use it in situations where it might cause friendly fire.

That was why I wanted an item that could produce instantaneous, explosive firepower over a wide area. As for the scope of such a project, it sounded so unrealistic that my shoulders couldn’t help but droop at the thought of mentioning the idea out loud. I knew that it was reckless to try and create such a thing. Even supposing I could make something like that, it definitely wasn’t something I could complete in a day or two.

In that case… probably an item that could restrict movement, I guess. If it was possible to hinder the monsters’ movements even a little bit, it would be possible to regain one’s footing or even one-sidedly defeat several of the monsters.

More than anything, being able to create a moment of calm in the middle of a battle was huge. As I knew from being in battle myself, even if you didn’t do anything in the time during which the monsters’ movements were halted, just being able to secure a moment to regain your composure was a tremendous benefit.

Binding methods could be effective in a wide variety of situations, but the difficulty of creating such a thing could potentially vary a lot. Either way, it shouldn’t be that hard.

Recalling the painfully difficult fights in the canyon area, I made up my mind and immediately set out on creating it. The first thing to consider would be the kind of monster I wanted to bind and the method of doing so. What first came to my mind were the Curare Leaves, which were an ingredient in the Poison Potion that I used against the Venom Troll in the city of Seykoll.

It was effective even on that Venom Troll, and it was also something that I was pretty familiar with handling. But the biggest problem with it was that it required a lot of magic power to synthesize it due to its strong effects.

Considering that my goal was to produce a wide-range binding effect, it had to be something that could be created in one day and still be usable as a trump card. Also, since I had to use magic power on the days that I went Dungeon-clearing, it wouldn’t be possible to create it the day of, which was a big drawback in terms of the cost-effectiveness.

…In which case, using the Adhesive Herb in the bind might be the best choice in the end. Tying up their feet with Adhesive Herb had proven to be quite useful in the fight against the Thrust Buffalo, and its cost performance was excellent in terms of magic power usage.

Its strength was a little inferior to the Curare Leaves, but I felt that it provided more than enough binding power. All that was left was to work out a way to create the item. Perhaps it would work to take the Balloon Flower and add in Adhesive Herb with its viscosity cranked up to the maximum? But then it would be tough for it to cover a wide range… Hmm…

I’ll have to test it step by step and progress by trial and error.

“Oooh! It’s Lewin! What’re you doing not using your brewing stand?”

About half a day had passed since I started working with the item based on Adhesive Herb. Tobias, who had probably been out doing interviews in the morning, had come into the office in the afternoon and had called out to me.

“Good afternoon, Tobias-san. Actually, I was making an item to use in the Dungeon.” (Lewin)

“Ooh, an item for the Dungeon, huh? Can I take a quick look?” (Tobias)

“Yeah, of course.” (Lewin)

After receiving my permission, Tobias picked up the Sticky Bomb that I had been making this morning and began to examine it with keen interest.

“……Is this the same thing as that ball stuffed with bread flour?” (Tobias)

“The structure is similar, but this one is packed densely with Adhesive Herb, which is a highly sticky substance.” (Lewin)

“That’s true. I wouldn’t be here developing items on my day off if Magic Item Shops actually sold useful items at low prices.” (Lewin)

“Hahaha! If you ever retire from being an adventurer, you could totally open up a shop for combat specialty items! I’m sure you’d make a huge profit!” (Tobias)

“That does sound kind of interesting.” (Lewin)

After that, I took a break for a while to chat with Tobias. And in doing so, he mentioned the interview he had done this morning, but the content was both extremely interesting… and somehow familiar to me.