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Chapter 28 [By the way, what should I do about the object I created to kill the hydra?]
The smell of the hydra’s blood and yesterday’s rampage seemed to have caused the monsters nearby to flee, leaving the surroundings in silence.
As expected, even though I was tired, it was hard to sleep in a place reeking of blood, and so, I recovered my mana through meditation after raising a barrier.
“I’ve recovered around 70 percent of my mana. Even so… I went too far.”
I created a hydra-use guillotine without thinking much about it, and I wondered what I should have done there.
The hydra’s body is about 20 meters wide and the width of the guillotine easily surpassed 30 meters.
Also, I can’t tell how high from the ground to pierce the hydra, but as far as I can see, it’s probably 15 meters high.
“I wonder if they would believe me if I told them a 100-meter giant appeared and defeated the hydra? Nah, that’s impossible…”
‘Haa,’ I sighed, then confirmed the guillotine covered in the hydra’s blood.
“Well, what I created was just ordinary iron, so maybe I can hide it if I break it into pieces?”
I used it as a powerful weapon by dropping it from a high altitude, but in reality, it’s just a mass of metal with no mana imbued in it.
“—<<Wind Cutter>>!”
For the time being, it would be more believable for me to have defeated the hydra by having dropped a lump of metal too heavy for a warrior to handle, rather than a super-sized guillotine.
Using a Wind Cutter the size of a Greatsword, I cut the guillotines into pieces, then I corroded those pieces and the part left underground using a mix of earth and darkness magic so that it all seemed natural.
The smell of rust mixes with the hydra blood’s stench and becomes unrecognizable.
“Well then, I can disguise how it was defeated, but as expected, I can’t hide the existence of the hydra…”
Even if I get rid of the corpse, I’ll be suspected if there are large amounts of blood traces.
“It can’t be helped. I can slightly mess around with the corpse so that they won’t find out that I defeated it by dropping a guillotine.”
Manipulating the split-up guillotine iron pieces with my darkness magic <<Psychokinesis>>, I slashed the flesh leading to the base of the hydra’s neck, splitting it one by one.
Then, I burned the sides of the body with fire magic so that the way I attacked it won’t be revealed.
In addition, if the hydra has five heads, it would cause a commotion, so if I store the small, fifth head in my magic bag and say it was a four-headed hydra, they would recognize it as a B-rank monster… probably.
“Phew, I’m tired of disposing of corpses, and I’m bothered by the smell. …… I want to take a bath.”
As I muttered this, my hearing ability, enhanced by my mana, noticed the sounds of people’s footsteps.
“I wonder if guys at the village are done?”
“Majo-sama~, Majo-sama~!”
“Uwah, Tet!”
“Majo-sama, you weren’t comingggg backkkk!”
“Hold up, Tet, don’t hug me looking like that. Get off me!”
The blood has completely hardened and turned reddish-black, and in some places, she was even covered by the monster’s internal organs.
‘As one would expect, I don’t want to be hugged by Tet when she’s like that,’ I thought. The reclamation party’s adventurers came from behind Tet, and when they saw the corpse of the hydra that was defeated, they readied their swords.
“Everything’s fine. I killed it.”
While explaining that everything was fine, I used the <<Clean>> magic on Tet.
However, the filth was too heavy to be removed in one go, so I was thinking about using the magic a few times to remove the dirt, then cleaning it in the village bath before using Clean once again later.
“What!? Really? Even so, how did you kill such a big hydra?”
I knew I was going to be asked, so I gave the explanation that I prepared in advance.
“It had just woken up and wasn’t paying attention to me, so I took a blunt long sword that was lying there, stuck it in its neck, and sewed it to the ground. From thereon, I spent the night slowly burning the area between its neck and torso. As one would expect, I was tired from its regeneration ability.”
“Er, Chise-Jouchan’s body shouldn’t be able to hold such a heavy-looking sword… Woah!”
One adventurer actually tried to hold the iron bust sword, but as he staggered, the weight of the sword lightened and the sword floated in midair.
“It’s <<Psychokinesis>>, darkness magic. I brought the sword over my head and accelerated it to cut the hydra’s neck, you see.”
After that, I explained that the hydra, which regenerated even after losing its head, had been carefully burned with flames until it stopped regenerating.
The adventurers looked like they wanted to ask a lot of questions, but for the time being, I plan on keeping up my current story for now.
“I know there’s a lot you want to ask. But, asking too much is a taboo.”
“Well, yeah. You probably used a different method to defeat it. Adventurers have their way of hiding their secrets. I’m also grateful to you for protecting the village we built. However, I do have to admit, I’m a little scared that you defeated a hydra solo.”
I agree that’s a normal reaction, but at the same time, I’m a bit sad that he thought I was scary.
“Yeah. I’m glad that you didn’t use that strength you used against Hydra against us instead!”
“Preach. Chise-Jouchan physically beat up the hydra, right? Wait, if she used magic to punish us, that’d be scary for sure!”
“You’re not wrong. We’ve been spared since she only gives us verbal instructions.”
The reclamation party’s adventurers laughed, and I was caught up in the laughter.
Only Tet remained in a daze, silently clinging to my body.
“Well then, as the witch who saved the village, I should receive some thanks from the adventurers of the reclaimed village for saving your lives.”
The adventurers freaked out when I deliberately grinned and made an evil smile.
“O-Ohh… now that you mention it, if Chise-Jouchan and Tet-Jouchan hadn’t tried so hard, we might have been in trouble. Like the walls around the village for example…”
I demanded from the adventurer leader who was avoiding my gaze.
“I have no way to bring back such a large hydra nor do I have the tools to dismantle it, so I’ll give it all to you guys. I’ll just take the hydra’s magic stone instead and the village can do whatever you want with the rest.”
“Are you sure? Can’t you carry the hydra’s head in a magic bag?”
“What if I bring it to the guild and say, ‘I carried and killed it.’ What do you think will happen?”
After saying that, the adventurers looked at me from top to bottom and nodded.
“That’s right, even if Chise-Jouchan tells them that you’re a D-rank adventurer, there’s no way they’ll think a little girl could defeat it.”
“Right? So I’ll just take the most valuable magic gem and leave the rest. I’ll sell them off at a random place and make some money. You can also sell them off by saying that they were killed by a wandering adventurer or it died of natural causes and you guys just disassembled it.”
“But, even I don’t feel like snatching someone else’s accomplishments.”
‘Sigh, they’re so stubborn,’ I thought.
However, that stubbornness of theirs’ and watching them seriously participate in the reclamation project is why I would propose this.
“I’m going to be traveling for a long time after this anyway. Along the way, I’ll still have many opportunities to earn achievements and move up in rank, so I don’t mind it.”
“That’s like saying you’re going to randomly get into trouble. Even so…”
“Just take it! You’re going to get married and have a family! You need to have some money or else your wife is going to stop being courteous to you.”
““”Yes, understood!”””
I used my remaining mana to intimidate the stubborn adventurers.
In my time at the reclamation project, I trained… er, educated them well I believe.
“Got it. We’ll be responsible for disassembling it. It’d be a pain if we just left it to rot and it became an undead after all. Then, we’ll let the village chief, Gash-san, decide how to use the materials.”
Did you realize that no matter how hard you try with your own willpower and pride, you won’t be able to beat me?
Even so, he didn’t accept it honestly, leaving the decision to Gash-san as he smiled and nodded.
“That’s fine. Well then, I’ll leave the rest to you guys. Tet and I will be heading back to the village first and take a bath. As one would expect, I’m bothered by the filth.”
Especially when Tet clung to me, the black-hardened blood and the burnt hydra stank.
“Okay, leave it to us.”
We were sent off by the adventurers and headed down the mountain from where the hydra’s corpse was located and to the village.