Volume 6 - CH 2.15

「The twelve and thirteenth floors of Quratar are the ones that are considered to be financially advantageous for the people venturing into them due to the drops from the monsters, so if at all possible, we should make those floors our main hunting ground for the time being whenever we are not going to be delving into the Labyrinth’s of Hartz Duchy.」

「Is that so?」

「Yes, because the Drop Item that Sarracenia leaves behind when it dies is a Sumac Gallnut. It is a type of herb that can be used as raw material for all kinds of medicine, so it could definitely come in handy for us in medicine creation, or we can simply sell it at the guild for a good amount of money.」

When I was confused about it, Sherry offered me an explanation. So we can use its material to make medicine, huh? Maybe I could do something with it 「Herbal Medicine Creation」, one of the Skills possessed by the Herbalist Job?

And while we are at it, maybe it would actually be more profitable to sell the medicine made from the raw ingredients than the raw ingredients themselves? In the same way, it might be better to sell the medicine made with the usage of the Sumac Gallnut than to go and sell the obtained Sumac Gallnut by itself. Well, that is not surprising. After all, with the medicine that utilizes it, the price can always be set to be a little higher than usual in order to cover the costs of the labor that needs to be done by the Herbalist in order to create such medicine.

「I see. Can you guide us to the nearest Saracenia then, Roxanne??」

Roxanne nodded affirmatively, and so we followed her lead.And what appeared when we got to the location designated by Roxanne was a monster made out of grass that looked like it had two giant leaves folded on top of one another like a water-filled balloon. The leaves on its body were also extending to its left and right sides, making them look almost like a pair of arms.Is it as tall as Sherry is? It was not all that huge, but when it comes to its size, it reminded me of a few types of tall grass like Susuki or Canada Goldenrod.

The brown roots wriggled eerily and moved like tentacles, so I shot it with 「Fireball」as an opening act. The flames licked the surface of the grass for a moment, and the disappeared, so I fired a second shot at it. After that, I saw that an orange magic circle emerges at the base of Saracenia’s body.

「Here it comes!」

Even if Roxanne did not tell me that, I could see it because I went out to the side to shot magic at it, so I stopped to immediately hide behind Roxanne’s back like a pathetic coward.

Sarasenia bowed her head, which is like a tulip flower now, with the bottom slightly dented. Overall, it looked like it was in the shape of a bag. Is it actually a carnivorous plant? Yup, that definitely looks like a carnivorous plant. Is that how it is going to shoot the digestive juices at us…. Yes, that is exactly what it is going to do! Digestive juice popped out of Saracenia’s head in the very next moment, so I gave it a 「Fireball」in return.

Roxanne received the demon’s digestive juices with her shield, and then she and Sherry slashed and poked at the approaching Saracenia. It shakes her leaves at them, but Roxanne simply avoids them, only to watch the monster collapse after the third shot of my magic hit it.

「Are you okay, Roxanne?」

「Yes, the juices dried pretty fast.」

「Is that so?」

I confirm with Roxanne, but it seems that it is not powerful enough to melt the shield.It feels like Saracenia is not much different from a Grass Bee in terms of difficulty. We can definitely fight it.

「Its normal attacks are more dangerous than the digestive juices.The swings are big and telegraphed, but their trajectory is unstable because the grass limbs are so soft, and because of that, it is especially hard to attack this enemy with a sword.」

Could this be the first enemy that genuinely bothers Roxanne? Well, since it is made of grass and leaves, then of course hitting it would be difficult.

「It looks like it is going to be  a tough enemy to tackle  physically.」

「Well, if you look closely at the movements of the monsters and match them exactly, there should be no problem.」

As expected of Roxanne, so upbeat in the face of difficulty.

I turned to Sherry, but she just shrugged it off and handed me the drop Item, so I removed my Monk Job and switched wit with Herbalist. I closed the hand in which I was holding the items and thought of the appropriate Skill, and in the next moment, three pills materialized in it. They are apparently called Nutrient Medicine. So unlike with the Anti Poison Medicine, I can actually make three at once.

「All right. This confirms that I can successfully create Nutrient Medicine.」

That, and fighting against Saracenia proved to be no problem at all. Even Sherry could hold her own against it without needing my protection all the time, and even when I switched from magic to Durandal, we still managed to achieve an easy victory. Well, I mean what did you expect? Since Saracenia is a monster made of grass, then of course its physically attacks are not going to be strong at all.

「Uooh!  That was a close one!」

As I was thinking about it, another Saracenia that we fought against next  tried to shoot its digestive juices at us. It slightly tilted its head in an attempt to sprinkle us with them from above. They were not flying particularly fast, but they has a pretty large spread, which made it quite difficult to avoid them

「So it also had such an attack pattern, huh?」

Roxanne was pretty laid back about it, but I was desperate to slash the Saracenia with Durandal in order to bring her down before they could harm me or Sherry. Well, I guess this is the Labyrinth for you, always finding new and creative ways to screw you over. At least now we know that we can fight with the monsters not only in Haruba Labyrinth’s eleventh and twelfth floors, but also in Quratar’s as well, so we carefully continue our exploration after that, and in the afternoon after we finished exploring for the day, we went to visit the amber merchant in Bode.

The purchase and procurement of the fourteen mirrors so that we could sell them to Gozer is going to be done during the next trip, which is going to be the last one of its kind. But before we go to Palmasque, we have to make yet another stop, because I need to buy another Amber Necklace so that we could then sell it to the wife of the craftsmen merchant who owns the workshop from which Roxanne and Sherry were buying the mirrors, so we went to Bode through Haruba’s Labyrinth. And once we got there…..

「I am afraid that at the current moment there is only one rough amber gemstone that we can offer you for purchase, but if you do decide that you want to buy it, then its price is going to be exactly the same as last time, which is to say, eight hundred Nars. So, what do you say? Shall I bring it to you, or perhaps you would like to wait for a little while longer until there will be more of them available for purchase?」

「I am fine with that, so you can go ahead and bring it here. Also, I want to buy a necklace as well, so do you think it would be possible for me to buy these two things in bulk as well?」

It would seem that there is only one rough amber gemstone available for purchase this time, which is admittedly a little bit of a letdown, but considering that it has not been all that long since my last visit to this shop and the shopkeeper did told me that getting his hands on more rough amber gemstones might take a while due to how long you would have to wait first for a storm to occur out on the sea and then for amber to be actually washed ashore, I should be happy that there was even this one stone available, otherwise my visit here would have been pretty much in vain.

Well, it is not like I can do anything about this now, since I do not have any abilities that are able to manipulate the weather.