Chapter 100 - Episode Twenty-One - The Thing Lurking Deep in the Forest (2)

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A quick, warm breeze blows.

The wind passes on the intervals of every tree, brushing the leaves.

In the forest, there was a warm miasma drifting, which stickily clings together.

I have feeling that it unnecessarily wastes stamina every time we walk.

I’m not sure how much time has passed since I started walking through the forest now.

The purpose of coming to the forest this time is to get to the bottom of the strange events that are going on in the forest.

If it’s a magic beast or a demon that has the influence it’s supposed to have, it should be a pretty big one.

An amount of money would come in that could substantially pay back the debt, and it would be enough to satisfy the disgruntled Gaston.

…… However, I’m raising my arm while building up magic power at the end of my wand to detect the dubious magic power, but the arm I’m raising is starting to weak and shaking. I’m nearing my limit.

Somehow, it’s hard to breathe.

I unintentionally let my arms down and stop my feet.

The light from the tip of my wand, which was faintly emitting light, was cut off.

“…… shall we take a break, Abel? It sounds kind of tough, though.”

Mea, who was walking beside me, calls out to me with concern.

“No…… I’m probably fine. Probably.”

“But your face looks kind of pale……”

Honestly, I didn’t expect to walk this far.

The sweat is great.

Sensory perception requires delicate magical control. Long hours in this bad environment.

Physical fatigue, uncomfortable air, and magical power sensing, these three things combined are coming to kill me.

“Somehow, It’s starting to get really hard. Shall we use Ortem for sensing……”

I grab my wand and wave it.

The ground glows and a magic circle appears.

“Carry”

As the chant ended, the World Tree Ortem appeared in the center of the magic circle.

I wave my wand again.

I draw the magic circle so that the Ortem of the World Tree goes to the source of the type of magic power specified by the World Tree.

“Oh doll, lead the way”

A light lights up behind the Ortem’s eyes in the World Tree.

Ortem moves onward, jumping up and down.

I’ve set my speed to be quite slow for a break, so I won’t lose sight of him at first.

Well, even if we lose sight of them, as long as we can transfer them to our hands, that’s all that matters.

“Alright, let’s go after that……”

I wipe the sweat from my forehead and look up.

“That Ortem looks really is useful…”

“Yeah. It might be a little tough to get it to fight hand-to-hand combat because of the lack of weight, but it can do most of it.”

“If it had the weight, you could make it fight in hand-to-hand combat with a magic beast……”

Nothing is impossible for an Ortem.

The branches of the World Tree would have been well worth the amount of money we put out. I believe that.

If I give it the proper function and set up a magic circle, I can even make it carve an Ortem.

If I do even better, it should be possible to make it carve an Ortem out an Ortem, and then have the completed Ortem carve out an Ortem.

As long as we could find a forest with lots of good-looking trees, we’d be able to mass-produce them indefinitely.

Even if it took it thirty minutes to carve the Ortem, after carving the first one, it would take him an hour to carve four of them, which meant sixteen in two hours, and 256 in four hours.

Theoretically, if the carving was left alone for ten hours, the number would jump to about one million, and if it took a whole day, the number would rise to nearly 300 trillion.

As expected, there’s no place where that many trees grow, and I’m sure my magic power isn’t enough either.

I’d like to try it out once, but if I accidentally experiment with it, the world would probably be destroyed as it is.

However, if there’s a place where it doesn’t bother them no matter how many Ortem I carve, I’d like to challenge myself to see how many of them I can carve in a day.

“…… Mea, water please.”

“Wait a minute.”

Mea took my hyottle (a water bottle made from gourd-like fruit) out of my luggage and handed it to me.

I turned my Hyottle upside down and drank the water.

I felt somewhat better.

As I was wiping my mouth with my sleeve, Mea jumped in front of me with her bow at the ready.

“A-Abel!”

I heard Mea’s voice, lowered my hand holding the Hyottle, and looked ahead.

Three goblins, ugly little green-skinned devils, were blocking the way.

Their faces were skinny, eagle-nosed, and slit. Their ears were pointed, almost elf-like.

“Gaffuu! Gaffuu! Gaffuu!”

The goblins smile creepily and brandish their clubs.

At that time, the color of the light in the eyes of the World Tree’s Ortem, who is guiding us on the road ahead of us, changes to red.

He suddenly increases his speed and rushes towards the goblins that are ahead of him.

This is the response action that I had arranged in advance.

When it is about to be attacked with hostile intent during activation, it will automatically counterattack the magic beast with its magic circle.

The World Tree’s Ortem plunges its body into the goblin’s chest.

Crackling, crackling. I heard the sound of the sternum shattering.

“Gapuuu?”

The goblin’s flesh and blood dissipated as it let out a strange, decapitating scream.

It went limp and looked as if it had been folded up and stopped moving.

” “…… Gaffuu?” “

The two goblins in the rear stopped on their feet and dropped their clubs on the spot as they saw the horrific end of the incisive captain.

The World Tree’s Ortem shakes his body with a shudder and blood flies to the area.

Red droplets of blood were splattered on the bodies of the goblins who were standing in a daze.

After flying the blood that can be flown, the World Tree’s Ortem looks at the two goblins.

” “Gafaaaaah!” “

The goblins run deep into the forest and are soon out of sight.

I watched their backs and then called out to Mea, who was frozen in a bowed position.

“You were calling my name earlier, did something happen?”

“N-no…… it’s nothing. No, it’s nothing anymore.”

Mea lowered her bow hurriedly, looking a little embarrassed.

World Tree’s Ortem stares at me, but as I began to walk, it turned forward and began guiding me forward, making another dong-dong sound while jumping up and down.

“However, what a strange air.”

The more I walk, the heavier I feel the air getting.

Maybe there really is something nasty out there.

“Oh, there’s a man down!”

Mea pointed ahead and then started to run, passing the Ortem and moving on.

“Hey, it’s not safe to go on your own!”

As he said it, he looked in the direction Mea had pointed.

Through the trees, I see a familiar blue outfit.

It’s stained with blood and mud, but I’m sure of it. It was the clothes worn by the lord’s survey team.

I catch up with them and look at the other side of the tree.

There were ten familiar men.

They were definitely the faces of the survey team I met at the Zeshum ruins.

I also remember the name of the blond man leaning against the tree. I’m pretty sure it was Allen.

Allen’s shoulder is bandaged, but his injuries seem to be quite deep, and the bandage is already stained by oozing blood.

When I met him at the ruins, his eyes were lively and energetic, but there was no sign of it on him now. It’s like he was frightened by something, cowering.

The others were similar.

They were traumatized in some way, more or less.

“You-, you are…… the sorcerer we met in the ruins……”

Allen turned to me and said weakly.

“H-, hi, it’s been a while. Um, how’s it going?”

“…… Actually an adventurer reported something about a forest that suggested the existence of a monster, and we were about to embark on an expedition to investigate deeper in the forest…… but we got swept up in the ensuing conflicts, and this is the result.”

Geh, so it’s the thing I added to Gaston’s report.

I’m sorry about that.

“I’d like to get out of the forest as soon as possible…… but there are some people, including myself, who are badly injured and can’t walk well. In the meantime, we’ve sent those who were relatively lightly injured to run to town as a message and are waiting here.”

He says in frustration and looks around at the other investigators around me.

Then he turns his attention back to me.

“You guys had better get out of here, too. Looking at the behavior of the monster, it seems that he had an agenda to keep us alive…… but if not, he would have killed us all. It was like playing with a bug and letting it go. That wasn’t something a human could handle.”

He said and his body shuddered.

Is there such a ridiculous monster?

From what I’ve heard, it seems to have some intelligence to it.

“What did it look like?”

“A tree. The tree moving…… and smiling…… y-, yes! He sent me words with his mind! It was spirit language, so I hardly knew what it meant, but……”

Talking in spirit language…… tree-like creature?

Isn’t that, by any chance, the perfect material for Ortem?

I had half given up on this magical tree.

I didn’t expect the opportunity to get it in my hands so easily.

My fingers, which had been itching to carve Ortem, naturally began to move.

My heart began to flutter.

Seeing me, Allen drops his eyes and hugs his shoulder.

“It’s horrible to hear, isn’t it? I too, just remembering it makes me shiver……”

“I, I guess so. Yeah.”

I’m sorry, I’m shaking in my boots.

Stop, I need to calm down.

“Um, well, which way is it? Which way is it that has the resources to do that? Am I right in that direction?”

“What?”

“N-, no, I just want to make sure to avoid it…… and it’s nothing personal.”

“I, I know. I think I heard a little bit wrong. Umm, it’s way back there. I’m not sure how far away it was, as I was running for my life, but……”

Okay, I see.

So there’s my new Ortem over there.

I could make a full-fledged combat-specific Ortem. I’m going with six arms.

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