Chapter 29 -
For the whole morning, Teto and I strolled around visiting the morning market and the other stalls. In the end, we arrived at a restaurant in a district mostly surrounded by houses of wealthy inland people slightly farther inside after the trade harbor.
This district also doubled as a resort with it apparently having a private swimming beach for nobles and wealthy people to enjoy a leisure vacation away from the royal capital.
"Chewing sound... Majou-sama, this pasta is yummy!"
"Yeah, now you have another place to eat in."
I chuckled at the sight of Teto stuffing her cheeks with pasta made with manilla clam called Vongole Bianco (white clam sauce pasta) with gusto and turned to my food, breaking the baked crab gratin with grill marks with my fork and eating it.
"Oh, this is also delicious."
"Majou-sama's gratin looks yummy."
"Fufu, here, have some of it."
I am a light eater so I shared some of the gratin with Teto as it felt like it may be too much for me and we enjoyed our lunch.
Apparently, the resort facing the rich housing district was also used by the general populace during yearly festivals so we weren't mistreated in the store.
It was the opposite in fact, the waiters and the chef in the back were equally delighted while looking at Teto who was eating the food as if they were the world's most delicious dishes.
"Thank you for the food. It was delicious."
"We'll come again to try out other dishes!"
We left the store after settling the bill and we once again resumed our leisurely, aimless strolling.
"Where are we going this time, Majou-sama?"
"Hmm, let's go to the beach."
At the northern side of the fishing harbor town were the tidelands, the fishing harbor, and the trade harbor. Then there was also a swimming beach a bit away from that place on the southern side.
"Sea, are we going to swim?"
"No, we're just going to gaze at the sea."
Besides, the flow of people here was thin since it was off-season.
Teto and I scaled the sandy beach while listening to the sound of the waves and picking up the seashells sticking out of the beach's sand.
"So beautiful. They'll be nice souvenirs for Beretta and the others."
"Yeah-nanodesu!"
We continued to leisurely pass our time doing nothing but trifling things, then we returned to the «Empty Wilderness» using the «Transfer Gate» installed in the rental house in the evening and had a lip-smacking meal with Baretta and other service dolls cooked with the ingredients we bought in the morning market.
We continued to lazily pass our days in town for a while after that day while going through menial requests in the guild. I also created potions with the mana grass raised in the «Empty Wilderness» as per demand and sold them there.
On one occasion, Teto and I went for a deep dive into the sea area a slight distance away from the town after putting up a barrier and spotted pearls from an untouched pearl oyster. It felt like we found a tiny treasure chest.
Teto was once again back to one of her old hobbies, doing mock battles with the adventurers in the guild training ground. Even the Guild master and Dragonewt Doulgu stepped in to spar with her and it was a fierce battle indeed.
He may be a Dragonewt but he wasn't that different from humans appearance-wise. The only parts that made him stand out were his nearly 2-meter height, the scales on his hands, his scaly tail, and the horns on his head.
It may have been Teto's first time fighting a Dragonewt however she didn't lose in strength as she was able to easily exchange blows with her magic sword against the magic sword of the Dragonewt Guild Master.
The result was 一一
"Ack! No way, I lost. My strength can easily contend for first or at least second position in this Kingdom, you know?"
He didn't have any visible injury or external wound even after taking a blow from Teto with that sturdy scales of his, but he accepted his loss in the mock battle and lowered his weapon.
"Thank you-nanodesu! It was fun!"
"I haven't given up yet, let's duel another time! Oh, and you too, A-rank Adventurer Chise..."
"I am not going to do a duel. It'll just exhaust me needlessly, that's all."
Doulgu, a former A-rank Adventurer, turned his expectant gaze towards me. No way, I could easily imagine how much the duel with a long lifespan person like him will tire me out.
He seemed to be somewhat battle-crazed but he eventually cooled down, I guess the passing years had curbed his personality.
Aside from them, we also occasionally accepted field requests handed to the guild.
Early extermination of the monsters that were categorized as harmful beasts that threatened the life of the people.
Capturing some other insects and animals to increase the diversification of the ecosystem of the «Empty Wilderness».
Collecting the materials that are used as medicine in this region and then using the remaining amount to try growing them back in the wilderness.
Although rare, there were also some high-difficulty requests.
"Sigh As one would expect from a harbor town, the request to subjugate monsters in the seashore is high."
"Teto can't participate in the battle either. Sigh!"
"Hey, what are you saying, aren't you already doing your best!?"
This time the request was to subjugate a B-rank monster, a sea serpent.
It was a request from the town's feudal lord. Teto and I rode the warship managed by the feudal lord and came out to the sea to fight the sea serpent along with the Guild Master Doulgu.
"I will target the sea serpent directly. 一«Fly»!"
I tossed the unprocessed monster meat into the sea as bait and soon the sea serpent showed itself, lured by the smell of blood and the mana from the mana stone left in that corpse. There were also other C-rank or lower aquatic monsters lured by the bait.
I flew to the sky using flight magic and attacked the sea serpent from there. Teto and Guild Master Doulgu protected the ship alongside the other soldiers of the feudal lord.
"Shouldn't we help out? I don't think it's a good idea to leave it all to a young girl."
The soldiers aboard the ship directed their worried gazes at me who flew alone in the sky and arrived just above the sea serpent.
"No worry-nanodesu! Majou-sama is strong!"
"She's not a mere paper tiger A-rank Adventurer, you know? And calling her a young girl is even more hilarious since, despite her looks, she's apparently older than any of you!"
Even Teto's words didn't ease the soldiers' worries completely but our strength, past achievement, and the words from Doulgu, who not only has the title of guild master but also has their trust, caused them to be surprised.
"I guess I gotta be more active to erase the worries of the soldiers. Go down. 一一«Sound Bomb» «Thunderbolt»!"
I turned to the sea and fired two spells.
The first one was the sound bomb I created by pouring the compressed wind magic that amplified sound in a barrier. Second was my favorite lightning bolt spell.
My first spell shocked the monsters including the sea serpent that was lurking in the sea, causing them to faint and rupturing their ears. Then any monsters that were still conscious were annihilated by the high-voltage electricity that spread through the water due to the lightning bolt.
"A, amazing...... So this is the power of the magician from the «Flying Carpet»"
I brushed off the rising steam from the boiling sea surface due to the lightning bolt with wind magic and looked at the floating bodies of the monsters.
"It seems to be a good catch. This shouldn't have damaged their materials either."
The difficulty level to subjugate the sea monsters is higher with their advantage of being able to swim underwater but on the downside, the specific underwater environment has weakened their resistance to other factors.
I just targeted that specific weak point of theirs and selected the spells that would do the least harm to their materials.
"That was a neat way to take them down if I do say so myself. 一一«Psychokinesis»"
I pulled out the bodies of all the monsters including the sea serpent using psychokinesis from dark magic.
Small size monsters were put in the bag, monsters with decent size were loaded into the warship while the biggest of all, the sea serpent, was decorated on the haul of the boat to display its triumphant return.
一一"Hey look, isn't that our lord's ship?"
一一"Kyaaa! What's that!? A monster is hanging on it!"
一一"It's the sea serpent that appeared in the sea! No way, they took it down!?"
一一"Look Doulgu-san is aboard the deck!"
一一"Did he take it down!?"
The excited voices of the harbor town's populace echoed even 'til the deck of the ship while I was contemplating which part of the sea serpent to sell.
"I bet Teto would want the magic stone, eyeballs can be used as catalysts for magic or in magic tools. Fangs, skin, and bones were good materials to be used for weapons or armor and the heart and liver are magic potion materials. Its flesh was light colored just like chicken but it should be tasty."
Almost every part of the sea serpent was valuable when I checked it, though a problem eventually occurred since I can't sell all the materials at once with so many monster materials on hand.
"Well, leaving aside its mana stone and eyeballs which are my first choices, I would like to keep the heart and liver to be used in medicine, and around one-third of its flesh."
"Majou-sama already has many weapons and armor in her collection so materials aren't needed!"
After saying that, Teto jotted down the sea serpent's materials to be sold on paper. She also checked on the rest of the other monsters' corpses and quoted their value.
Then she began to look at the information about the monsters in the monster encyclopedia since there were many aquatic monsters of various sizes aside from the sea serpent.
It may have been my magic that took them down but there was also a need to distribute the profits to Guild Master Doulgu who accompanied us, the feudal lord who provided the ship, and also the soldiers.
"Well, slightly cut down on our parts, and assigned it to Guild Master Doulgu and the feudal lord."
Especially to the feudal lord, it was he who had hired the two A-rank Adventurers, Teto and me, and Dogula for the subjugation of the sea serpent.
The feudal lord's expense wasn't something trifling in this so it wouldn't sit well with me if I kept the majority of the profits to myself.
"There are really so many things an adventurer must focus on."
If anything happened, it was better to proceed with good feelings than let your conscience hurt.
In normal cases, I could easily prepare consumable goods like potions or weapons that cost high amounts of mana with my «Creation Magic» or items prepared beforehand.
Well, one more reason why I already had a lot of money saved up even after the shopping spree on our holidays.
I passed the note which had the estimated price of the monsters written on it when the ship docked at the harbor while I was thinking about such things.
"I feel a bit tired so we're going to take a break for 2 or 3 days. We'll come back to receive our payment for the request or the materials after that."
"I'm looking forward to trying out the sea serpent's meat!"
I left how to deal with the materials to Guild Master Doulgu and returned to the «Empty Wilderness» where we lazily spent our days.
