Chapter 148- Afternoon Hunt

“Don’t scurry around too much.”

“Oh, sorry.”

It was afternoon, so after eating lunch, we headed out of the castle to hunt for monsters. I thought they’d be vegetarians because they are elves, but the food usually came with a form of meat. And the houses in the village were not built with wood alone, but with some kind of concrete-like material. By the way, the houses around me were not the only reason why I scurried around the moment I stepped outside.

“There are so many spirits…”

Generally speaking, every elf has a spirit. The only difference is that these spirits are either glowing balls or small creatures, such as bird-like spirits and lizard-like spirits. And sometimes there are humanoid spirits as small as five centimeters. According to Emily, the glowing balls are the lower level spirits and the small creatures are the middle level spirits. And the humanoid-like spirits are the higher spirits.

“Hello, my queen.”

“Hello.”

And sometimes, Emily, the queen of the elves, is greeted by the elves. Incidentally, it’s the elves with the higher spirits who are greeting her. Normally, only elves who have signed a contract with a high level spirit are allowed to greet the queen. By the way, I’m having Judy use the same skill she uses to hide her skin color on me. That’s why I look like a normal elf. But what will a guy walking with Emily, Tiya and Judy look like?

“Be careful because monsters will come out from here.”

“Yes.”

Judy told me this when we had been walking for about three hours after leaving the castle. Today we walked to learn the way, but tomorrow we’ll start running.

“At the very least, it’s a D-rank monster, so be careful.”

“Yes.”

We walked until the monster appeared. However, she was able to find the monster immediately. No, I should say I found it.

“So this is the first one, huh?”

“…Disgusting.”

It was a 2 meter caterpillar-like monster that came out. It’s a D-rank monster, but it seems even a child will be able to defeat it if they pay attention to the thread being spat out from the front mouth. But there’s a good reason why it’s a D-ranked monster.

“This monster becomes very troublesome when it evolves, so when we find it, we are obligated to kill it if not it becomes an emergency.”

“Troublesome?”

“Yeah. In the end, it becomes a moth about ten meters long. When it does, it spreads its poison while flying. Above all, it sucks the sap from the spirit tree.”

“Spirit tree?”

In the village of the Elves, there’s apparently a giant tree over 100 meters tall. I couldn’t see such a tree anywhere, but it seems to be invisible to all but the elves. This is because the leaves and branches of the tree can be used as various materials and there have been people who have tried to destroy it since ancient times.

Incidentally, the elixir is made from the leaves that fall from the tree. That’s why they’ve put up barriers since ancient times so that no one but elves can see it. They’re trying to see if they can modify the barriers so that I can see the spirit tree, but it seems to be difficult. They were seriously thinking about breaking the barriers, so I stopped them.

I also heard that in order for an elf to make a contract with a spirit, they need to pray in front of the spirit tree. I told them that I did it with some kind of magic circle and it was some kind of backdoor trick that could only be done once.

Of course, more often than not, elves don’t see spirits after just one prayer. The elf will pray to the tree again next year. And they will pray again and again until they can make a contract. Therefore, if the tree disappears, most of the elves might not be able to make a contract with a spirit. That’s why they make sure to kill the caterpillars before they become moths, which suck up a lot of sap and risk killing the spirit tree. By the way, the moths seem to be S-rank monsters

“Huh…”

While we were talking about this, the caterpillar was getting closer and closer. It’s disgusting, so let’s kill it.

“Shrink.”

I used my shrink skill, which I haven’t had much use for lately, to instantly move to the side of the caterpillar and cut it in half. It’s useful, but I don’t have time to use it when I’m fighting strong enemies. I can only move in a straight line, so I can’t dodge if they read me and do something right where I use it. It doesn’t go well with my best weapon, fast reflexes.

By the way, there was a spare sword in the magic ring to replace the broken one, but the magic ring was attached to my bitten off right hand. Emily heard about it when I woke up and rushed to get it before I had time to stop her. But apparently my magic ring was not there, nor was my hand. She apologized profusely, but it didn’t matter because the only thing I valued was my money and there was nothing I couldn’t replace.

She lent me two swords as replacements. She claims she’s going to give them to me, but they are dozens of times more expensive than the swords I was originally using, so I’m planning to return them when I leave the elf village. But it’s insanely sharp. I’ve never had such a comfortable feeling as when I sliced the caterpillar.

“Now let’s move on.”

“Yes.”

The thread from the caterpillar can be used to make clothes, so Judy put it in her magic ring. She said she would have someone dismantle it later. Then I continued to hunt monsters until dark.

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