CH.181 Road Safety Check

CH.181 Road Safety Check

Like yesterday, I woke up to the sounds of Ria changing clothes, but this time, I stayed still, trying to not show that I had woken up. I don’t want her to think that she is too loud or something.

After she left the room, I went into the factory, as is basically the morning tradition by now.

As I realized in the factory, I noticed that the control platform that I realized was empty. But at the bottom of the chairs leading up to it, or down from it from my point of view, was a table and two people sat at the table. Laura and Mia.

I looked over the rest of the hall. A few monsters were walking from one room to another, but I didn’t spot either Fantasia nor Tahlia. Moving over a bit, I took a look on the security monitors and found Tahlia first. She was in the deepest part of the Different Dimension Treasury room reading a book, just like she was yesterday morning.

Finding Fantasia on the cameras took a bit longer, but I managed to spot her in a forest area. She was riding a white tiger, The All-Seeing White Tiger to be exact.

As for the reason I managed to spot her, well she was wearing a red ninja outfit, possibly a copy of Nin-Ken Dog’s outfit. She seems to be having fun, so I see no reason to interrupt her.

Spoiler[collapse]

I walked down the steps and joined the duo at the table. It was a small circular wooden table that could seat five or six people.

“Good morning.” I said to the two system supports sitting at the table.

“Good morning, dear.”

“Good morning, Mr. Brian.”

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“No, we are done for tonight. We were just waiting for you and Mistress to wake up.”

“I’m telling Lua next time I see her.”

“I don’t mind. You have no proof.”

“We have cameras. Laura, they do record, right?”

“No, not at the moment. We have no place to store all that data.”

“Couldn’t it be stored inside Different Dimension Treasury?”

“Inventory is not designed to hold data like that.”

“But I’m not talking of just my inventory, but Tahlia herself. She is somewhat different from a normal inventory, right? Or can every inventory just casually realize an avatar?”

“A beyond system function, huh. I suppose that might be possible, as she does originate from a different source and is only recognized as an inventory by the system.”

“If you have the time, look into that. But prioritize getting the dungeon security footage recorded, instead of the factory footage. The stuff happening in the dungeon is more important in the end.”

“Sure. I’ll see if that is possible.”

For the other stuff that happened during the night, Laura fully completed for me.

I already had Jinzo and Imperial Order, but some nice stuff still became available. Gearfried the Iron Knight is just a decent monster all around. Fairy Meteor Crush should result in some sort of penetration skill if installed and even just activating it is good. Premature Burial and Call of the Haunted might sound good on paper, but as they would resurrect the target as a zombie or some other kind of undead, it is a no go. But at least they don’t have a time limit like Monster Reborn does.

Goblin Attack Force is also something. With just one card, I can get a total of ten armed hobgoblins. So if I fill up my entire duel disk and hold one in each hand, I can have a total of 90 hobgoblins summoned at the same time. That’s basically a small army.

Skull Mariner is just a straight up pirate ship, in case I find a sea I want to sail. Of course I can just fly, but sometimes sailing might be more fun. And I would get to be a pirate captain.

And finally, having many many copies of Rain of Mercy is always good. Just AoE healing for everyone. Great if something bad happens.

“So, anything else I should know?” I asked.

“... we probably could...” I agreed. But this seems ... convenient. I already felt that way about the missions that Alice had done previously, as two of them were also from Earl Sawyer, but this seems to confirm my suspicions. I don’t know where this falls in the shady category, but I do feel like this is somewhat shady. Having a noble put in a quest only for their children or grandchildren to take it as soon as it is placed on the board. Especially as I think Paulina just delivered the quest from the Earl.

Well, it isn’t my place to complain about things being easy, so we shall take these. I did have an idea for where we might find a C-rank bison monster that Laura marked when we were doing the scouting flight for the orc village, but there is a chance that someone has already hunted that one, as it was not too far from the city.

“Let’s just take them both.” Alice said as she peeled the two C-rank quests from the board.

“Hey. Alice, wait for me. You aren’t even C-rank, so you can’t accept them alone.” I called after her.

“... No. This thing can’t be real ...” We had accepted the two quests and were now flying in the sky inside B.E.S. Big Core. And apparently Paulina didn’t really want to believe her eyes.

In terms of seating arrangement, Paulina had taken the lead navigator's seat and Ria moved to one of the seats for the communicators.

“Why not? You are sitting inside of it, so it has to be real.” I told her.

“No, no, no. I refuse. This is a dream. I'm definitely dreaming.” Paulina tried to go against my assessment.

“Don’t dream too much. I need you to show what road we are supposed to check for threats.”

Our plan, if you can call it that, was to first fly up and down the road, well more like south and then back north. The road went on the east side of the wyvern mountains and would eventually lead to a dukedom and the dukedom capital. But we didn’t have to go that far. We would only have to go as far as the first large town on the road. The Hill town of Yuva, ruled by Viscount Yuvaan Hill. He would be attending, so the road to there had to be checked.

On the way, Laura was making a map from everything we could see and was marking all monsters on it. On the way back, we would then hunt the most dangerous ones and leave a report about the rest of them to the guild so they and Earl Sawyer can decide if they want those hunted as well.

“We have to get at least this horde of forest deer. And this cockatrice.” Paulina was pointing out targets that we had to hunt.

We had flown all the way to The Hill town of Yuva and were ready to head back and hunt the few must solve problems. The deer were a problem because they would be ideal prey for stronger monsters and the cockatrice is a problem because it is a cockatrice. It can turn stuff into stone by looking at them.

“We should also get these bisons for the other quest.” I added.

I was displaying the map data on the monitors so we could speak about it easier.

“Yes. Too bad they are only D-rank forest bisons and not C-rank horned bisons.”

“I do have info on one C-rank horned bison, so we can go check it out. I noticed it when we were searching for that orc settlement a few days ago. But it was within a walking distance of Sawyer city, so there is a chance that someone else hunted it.”

“Could be, but I would appreciate it if we checked it out.” Paulina said. “But let’s get to work. The deer first. We can’t have them attracting more dangerous monsters.”

I have to say, having the quest giver with us does feel a bit like cheating. And this isn’t even an escort quest.

“I banish Trial of Nightmare and Petit Angel to summon Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning.” I needed a monster to kill the deer quickly and I was already meaning to summon BLS envoy yesterday in the dungeon, until Laura and everyone else spoke me into summoning Sorcerer of Dark Magic instead.

Spoiler[collapse]

For a vampire, I summoned Vampire Sorcerer. Ria could use blood magic, but she wasn’t as good at it as Lua, so she said there is no way she would keep up with our hunting speed.

I also summoned The Bistro Butcher and Kitchen Dragonmaid. Their job would be taking the deer apart into easily sellable pieces of meat. The blood filled three of the four barrels. We could have filled up all four, but I decided to leave the fourth one for the bison blood. And Ria needed some blood as well, so she took the rest into her new magic flask.

Spoiler[collapse]

Summoning Kitchen Dragonmaid also led me to realize her power. She could get me other Dragonmaid cards with her effect. I asked her about it, and after a bit of time, she came back with one card and an apology.

“I’m sorry Master, but something is preventing me from getting the others. I can only manage this.” She said as she handed me the card Dragonmaid Tinkhec, her dragon form.

Spoiler

[collapse]

“Don’t worry. I understand. Honestly, even this is good.”

I did expect some level of prerequisite for the search effect, like Senju and Manju have. For now, I’ll assume that Kitchen Dragonmaid can only get me the dragon form for the maids I already have, or vice versa.

After we finished the deer, I put the blood barrels and all of the meat, hide and other parts into my inventory. Paulina ended up questioning me about the inventory, but I just said it happened when I hit level 50. Not entirely true, but close enough. I also swapped out our B.E.S. Big Core for a fresh one, so the summoning time wouldn’t get in the way. We, all my monsters included, got into Big Core and were off to hunt down the bisons and the cockatrice.