Chapter 153: A Terrifying Experience

I appraised the spirits floating before me one by one, searching for those associated with different kinds of magic and skills. For now, I wanted the Appraisal Skill spirit—but it was colorless and transparent, making it difficult to identify.

Even when I asked it to stay beside me and help, countless spirits surrounded me. Since some counterattacked or healed me without being asked, it was difficult to determine which spirit was doing what.

Still, what was I supposed to do with spirits for Sewing, Weaving, Dismantling, and Cleaning? Their fondness for me didn’t automatically make those skills useful. Was I simply serving as a gathering place for them?

The spirits that seemed useful to me and my sister were Appraisal, Cultivation, Cooking, and Potion Compounding—though the Cooking spirit would probably be better suited to Mother.

* * * * * * *

The next morning, I visited my sister while she was preparing to open the shop.

“Sis, come to my room tonight, would you?”

“Hmm? Have you thought of something else?”

“Yes. I appraised the spirits yesterday and found one associated with the Appraisal Skill.”

“You’re going to give me another spirit? Appraisal seems rather useless.”

“Maybe, but it should still help. The Water Magic spirit assisted your practice, right? If you ask this one to help while you train, your Appraisal might improve—or the skill might even manifest.”

“Do you really think it’ll work that well?”

“We’ll find out by practicing. If you ask it for help, it may assist you in appraising medicines… Wait, there was a Potion Compounding spirit too. Anyway, come tonight.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to gather medicinal herbs with help from the Cultivation and Appraisal spirits. If my idea works, finding the herbs you want should become much easier.”

“Is that so? Then hurry up and go check.”

“So practical…”

“And the next time you go to Helnenka, don’t slip away without telling us. We want to thank Grandma and the others.”

Yes, yes. Just because I could fly, everyone treated me like an errand boy.

* * * * * * *

I left through the attic window and flew farther than usual to a distant meadow. After circling widely to make sure no adventurers were nearby, I landed, created a dust-filled [Dome!], and called out the spirits in the dim light.

I selected the Cultivation and Appraisal spirits and asked for their help, but received no response.

Then came the largest obstacle. I asked every spirit except the two I had selected to hide. About half vanished at first; after I asked again, most of the rest disappeared too.

The spirits left behind were pale green or transparent. I appraised each of them and confirmed my suspicion: they were Cultivation and Appraisal spirits. Perhaps they would help me after all.

As a test, I took out a sample of the herb I called “cough suppressant” and asked them to find it. They swarmed around the sample, then their presences moved outside the dome. I immediately released the dome’s mana and searched with Presence Sense. A strong reaction came from nearby.

At the strongest presence, I found exactly what I had expected: several stalks of the cough-suppressant herb. After gathering those and another nearby patch, I thanked the spirits, put the herbs in my Magic Bag, and brought out samples of Carlandas, Makrandis, Luciange, and Enbes—the herbs I had failed to gather in Faranka.

As before, the spirits clustered around the samples to examine them, then scattered. Their presences spread in every direction, gathered in groups of two or three, and separated again, but none traveled very far—perhaps fifteen or twenty meters at most. Eventually they returned, apparently without finding anything.

I moved about fifty meters, and they dispersed again to search the new surroundings.

Now that I knew they could help gather herbs, I thanked the Cultivation spirits and asked them to hide, then requested the Appraisal spirits’ help. I appraised something at random: [Appraisal — Grass].

I immediately tripped, but when I picked up the fang I had stumbled over, the result appeared: [Appraisal — Fang Dog Fang].

Oh! The answer came instantly. On my own, I would have seen only “some kind of fang,” and even Appraisal might not have identified the beast. Encouraged, I tried appraising clusters of edible-looking leaves. Several were described as “delicious,” but herbivores had already nibbled them, so I lost my appetite and left them alone.

* * * * * * *

When I returned home, Ted was waiting. “About that Mariens Trading Company from before—there’s a rumor that its business name has been downgraded from ‘Trading Company’ to ‘Shop.’”

“By ‘before,’ you mean the men we handed over to the guards?”

“It’s only a rumor. I thought it strange that no one had come recently demanding to meet Leon, and apparently that incident had consequences. Maybe Duke Barland intervened.”

“I did report it, and they said they would summon the company head. If it was reduced from a Trading Company to a Shop, I suppose its viscount-equivalent treatment was revoked.”

“I don’t understand noble affairs, but ever since we received Count Arkwright’s crest, the nearby guards have treated us differently.”

“Really?”

“Yes. They had good clothes made for us, and our short spears and swords are magic steel. At least around here, our equipment is better than that of Count Arkwright’s knights.”

“Well, fewer troubles is a good thing.”

“In exchange, Belinda is apparently working Leon to the bone.”

“She keeps saying, ‘Go find medicinal herbs we can’t obtain around here,’ and driving me onward.”

* * * * * * *

I headed toward Faranka to collect the herbs we lacked and obtain the boiled gelatin my sister wanted. This time I didn’t stop in the village, instead camping on a rocky mountain where the villagers wouldn’t come. There I could let the spirits move freely without worrying—though they never truly left my side, so “freely” might have been an exaggeration.

* * * * * * *

At dawn, I flew deep into the valley and began searching with the spirits’ help. When I showed them samples and made my request, they scattered into the surroundings. Because I could clearly track their locations with Presence Sense, I hoped any change in their behavior would stand out—but nothing changed.

Even with their help, finding the desired herbs across such a vast meadow remained difficult, so I advanced little by little.

While the Cultivation spirits searched for herbs, I wandered around appraising potentially tasty leaves with the Appraisal spirits’ help.

[Appraisal — Edible; Extremely Unpleasant]

[Appraisal — Grass]

[Appraisal — Bitter]

[Appraisal — Edible; Tuber]

That didn’t tell me whether it actually tasted good, so I dug it up. The tubers were only the size of my thumb—too small to bother eating regardless of flavor.

After about two hours, I grew bored, created a [Dome!], left the spirits to search as they pleased, and took a nap. I awoke with a chill running through me and cold sweat pouring from my body.

My heart pounded loudly. The terror was so intense that I didn’t need Presence Sense to know something was nearby.

Peering through half-open eyes, I saw a snake beside the dome, its raised head looming over me. The instant I saw its round eyes and long tongue flicking out, I felt my balls shrivel.

Its body was thick enough to fill my arms—probably forty centimeters in diameter—and it was coiling itself around the dome.

I had lowered my guard because I was deep in the valley, somewhere even Faranka’s residents rarely visited.

The dome seemed secure, so I gathered my courage, sat up, and created a second dust-filled [Dome!] inside the first. Only then could I relax.

I could clearly sense the snake’s presence, but not seeing it helped the tension leave my body.

They had warned me about the many wild beasts and how rarely villagers came here, but no one had mentioned giant snakes!

Inside the dim dome, I took a drink of restorative liquor. Only then did I notice the spirits floating lazily around me, flickering as usual.

Right. They could pass through my dome without difficulty, so would they simply fly free even if the snake swallowed me? Then again, perhaps I was too small to whet its appetite.

Whether the liquor had taken effect or my trembling had simply stopped, fear suddenly turned to fury. You frightened me half to death. I would make you pay.

Killing a snake seemed more troublesome than slaying a dragon. A whirlwind probably wouldn’t make it dizzy, and throwing it might do little damage. Reptiles slowed in the cold, but freezing it to death sounded troublesome, so I chose the easier method. With the spirits helping me, though, even freezing it wouldn’t have been especially difficult.

After asking the Water Magic spirits for help, I opened a window in the dust-filled dome and looked outside. The snake’s scales surrounded the transparent outer dome and blocked my view, so I altered its height, climbed on top of the inner dome, and tried to aim at the snake’s head. Then it glared at me, and I instinctively looked away.

“Spirit, I’m counting on you.” I threw a [Water Ball!] into its mouth. The spirits swarmed around the spell and expanded it. Even after the snake’s jaws stretched impossibly wide, the ball continued growing—and the snake swallowed it.

I had forgotten that snakes swallowed their prey whole.

That gave me another idea. I tossed a second [Water Ball!] into its mouth. As the Water Magic spirits expanded it, I asked the Ice Magic spirits to freeze it. Several spirits moved toward the spell, and ice spread through the water.

Realizing something was wrong, the snake thrashed violently, but the ball lodged in its mouth froze solid against its throat.

The [Water Ball!], now an ice sphere, remained visible in its gaping mouth. That frozen lump must have felt worse than the brain freeze from eating shaved ice too quickly. Its desperate thrashing shook the ground and threatened the dome, but eventually it stopped moving and its presence vanished. I waited a while longer before acting.

Once the liquor’s warmth faded, I checked again and released the dome’s mana. The snake lay there with its belly bulging and its mouth hanging open in a foolish expression.

Discarding it seemed wasteful, so I appraised its flavor. The result was “delicious,” and I decided to take it home. I had the Ice Magic dissipated, then released the [Water Ball!] as well, and placed the carcass in my Rank 12–360 Magic Bag. Its thrashing had left it coiled rather than stretched out, which made storing it convenient.