Chapter 81

"Shield of the Flying Dragon?"

Kurando thought it sounded like something from a game, but of course, he didn’t say that out loud.

"It’s a combination of materials from the beast we talked about before. It’s a famous shield among craftsmen, passed down from long before the era when hunters were called adventurers.

However, it only has a minor effect like reducing perceived weight, and with the spread of spirit magic, cheaper and better metal shields made by dwarves have flooded the market, causing the already labor-intensive Flying Dragon Shield to fall even further out of favor.

But it’s not comparable to the shields you can buy around here. Its physical strength surpasses even custom-made shields by skilled dwarves using common metals, and its magical strength is naturally even higher... or so it should be."

Common metal shields, excluding special metals, excel against physical attacks, while beast materials are said to excel against magical attacks.

"...Should be?"

"If it were just a regular Flying Dragon Shield, it would be a step, or even a step and a half, behind a monster shield. But this time, since we might be able to incorporate a broken monster shield, I can’t say for sure what will happen. I can guarantee at least the basic functions of a Flying Dragon Shield.

So, it might be better to sell the Flying Dragon materials and have a dwarf in some place make a shield for you, but what do you think?"

"No, that’s fine. Anyway, I don’t get along well with the dwarves in Maranova."

"Huh? ...Oh, you mean that stubborn dwarf? He only makes things for people he likes. But there should be other dwarves in Maranova, right?"

"I was turned down without even a proper conversation. I don’t feel like looking around that city anymore. Make me that Flying Dragon Shield."

Ekaitsu looked pleased.

"Well, well, from the Misty Black Horse to the Coiled Horned Lizard, and now a Flying Dragon Shield. It’s ironic that I have more to do after retiring.

There’s one thing I need you to procure. For the Flying Dragon Shield, we’ll use materials from the Green Mane Flying Dragon and the Misty Black Horse, but we also need Creeping Wood. They’re called Trolls in Albaum."

"Are they around here? I came from Rattana to the north, but I don’t remember seeing any."

"Creeping Wood isn’t in Baruk. To the north of Maranova, in Yurifranz, which is northwest of Maranova, or in the deep forest between the Northern Forest and Dragon Mountain, there’s a minority group called the Mist People. It would be best to ask them to appraise the Creeping Wood."

"...Best?"

"No, I’ve never met them myself. My late master, who used to use Creeping Wood, said to ask the Mist People if you were going to use it.

Anyway, I’ve handled Creeping Wood a few times, but no two pieces were the same. Even a skilled woodworker can’t distinguish a living Creeping Wood, and you decide what to make after seeing the wood’s quality. When I handled Creeping Wood, I sourced wood suitable for a shield, but it took quite a while."

"Would an unknown race just exchange it with a stranger?"

"No, they’re not even known to exist these days. There are conditions."

Kurando looked at Ekaitsu suspiciously.

With all the "should be" and "apparently" and the fact that their existence was questionable, it was hard not to be skeptical.

"Don’t look at me like that. If you grill some Flying Dragon meat in the forest where Creeping Wood lives, they’ll appear and exchange it for the meat.

Got it? Don’t tell anyone. My master said it was a secret."

Kurando looked at Ekaitsu even more suspiciously.

If you grilled meat in the forest, only wild beasts would come. Where would people appear?

"Damn, you’re mocking me. My master actually brought back the Creeping Wood he wanted."

Kurando thought for a while and decided to believe him.

He had nothing better to do anyway.

"Alright. But is it okay to tell me such a secret? I might spread it around."

"Are you that social?

...You left a million Lutz after avenging a mere prostitute. You’re not the type to spread secrets. Stop talking nonsense and bring out the Flying Dragon."

Ekaitsu shouted, perhaps to hide his embarrassment.

"Alright, I’ll keep the secret. Where should I put it? Even though it’s cut, there’s a lot of it."

"Follow me," Ekaitsu said and went to the back of the workshop.

Under Ekaitsu’s skeptical gaze, Kurando took out the cut Flying Dragon and the Misty Black Horse from the disassembly area in the back of the workshop.

"Convenient magic item, huh? I’ve never seen or heard of it."

"It only holds food. Don’t tell anyone."

"I won’t tell anyone about the Mist People either."

"You’re honest. ...So, how much for the processing?"

"---I don’t need it. Just wait, I’ll start disassembling it."

Kurando, who had taken out all the Flying Dragon meat from the food backpack, watched as Ekaitsu started peeling the skin and bones.

But before Kurando could say anything, Ekaitsu beat him to it.

"---I’ve already received a million Lutz. So I don’t need it."

"That was---"

"---Regardless of the circumstances, you avenged Estia. I don’t know what Estia would think, but I’m satisfied with that. Reyle and Solion feel the same. ...So, let me thank you."

Ekaitsu said no more and silently continued disassembling the Flying Dragon and the Misty Black Horse.

Kurando, having nothing to say, bowed his head.

Ekaitsu skillfully divided the Flying Dragon into scales, wing membranes, wing claws, leg claws, ribs, fangs, jawbones, and meat, and the Misty Black Horse into ribs with the spine, leg bones, hooves, teeth, and meat, returning only the meat to Kurando.

"Disassembling the Flying Dragon and the Misty Black Horse alone will take some time. Bring the Creeping Wood and the monster shield when you come next. It shouldn’t take more than ten days to complete."

"Fast."

"I’m retired, so I don’t have much else to do. Well, if the guild were here, I couldn’t say that, but hunters don’t come around often.

If I can spend ten days on a shield, it’s more than enough time."

"Alright. If the Mist People really exist, it shouldn’t take more than five days."

Leaving the workshop with Ekaitsu’s angry shout of "I told you they exist!" echoing behind him, Kurando set off.

Kurando retrieved Shiroshiro and Azurona from the beast stable and headed straight for Maranova.

He was still half-skeptical about the existence of the Mist People, but thought it would be a good way to pass the time.

When he asked Shiroshiro if it was okay to use the Flying Dragon meat for the exchange, she agreed without hesitation.

Whether it was to increase Kurando’s safety or because the Flying Dragon meat was so terrible that she didn’t care, it was unclear, but it wasn’t a problem.

Recalling the barter with the mountain people he encountered while traveling north from the Kingdom of Rattana, Kurando decided to buy additional food in Maranova, just in case.

In Maranova, Kurando repeatedly bought food from shops and put it in his food backpack in secluded places, and once he had enough, he left Maranova immediately.

Ekaitsu had said that there was a small village called Chitta to the northwest of Maranova, and the forest beyond it was where the Mist People appeared.

Kurando and the others were heading for that village of Chitta as he had said.

Kurando and Shiroshiro were racing through the coniferous forest, exhaling white breath.

The northern forest was turning yellow, and the leaves were already falling, but as they went deeper, the conifers increased, and the world became darker and greener.

The slope in the forest was steep, and it made sense that the beast car had to make a large detour through the forest.

Even in such a forest, Shiroshiro was fast.

It was natural, as it wasn’t as rugged as her homeland, the Alerdoria Mountains.

Kurando’s movements, which seemed slow in comparison to Shiroshiro, would have been sufficiently beast-like to any ordinary hunter, who occasionally moved on all fours.

Shiroshiro was holding back quite a bit. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a race for Kurando, who wasn’t particularly fast.

But Shiroshiro seemed to be having fun, teasing Kurando, who was chasing her, with Azurona’s tail.

Kurando, who was always being tripped, waist-grabbed, and neck-grabbed by Shiroshiro’s long tail, seethed with a futile grudge, vowing to tie the tail in a bow someday.

Azurona, not afraid of Shiroshiro’s high-speed movement, seemed to be enjoying it, making happy squeaking sounds with the tip of her tail every time it teased Kurando.

As long as Shiroshiro was around, it was rare for Flying Dragons or other beasts to attack.

Kurando and the others ran through the forest as if they were playing in an amusement park.

After a day of running with breaks and camping, a thin mist began to drift.

Kurando, feeling the cold of the mist and the original chill, tightly closed his robe.

The mist seemed to get thicker the further they went, but it was also a sign that they were getting closer to the village of Chitta and the Mist People.

---

Shiroshiro’s small ears twitched, and she stopped running.

Kurando, who was panting heavily behind her, tried to speak.

"Wha---Buh!"

But Shiroshiro silenced him by covering his mouth with her tail.

---Ple...ase, ...help me...

Shiroshiro’s ears twitched again.

She looked up at Kurando with her eyes alone, and Kurando, not knowing what was happening, nodded.

Shiroshiro veered off the path.

There was no path to begin with. They were following a rough map of the area given by Ekaitsu, Shiroshiro’s sense of smell, and occasionally Shiroshiro would jump up to check the direction of Chitta from the air, advancing through the forest without a path.

---Please, help me...

Kurando, following Shiroshiro, finally understood what she had noticed.

A pitiful, whining voice that was clearly audible to Kurando.

Shiroshiro’s figure disappeared.

No, she had jumped down from a small cliff made of stacked rocks.

Kurando, not as confident as Shiroshiro, found a foothold and climbed down.

A man was in a hole.

Worse, a Creeping Wood-like magic tree was covering half of the hole.

Kurando and the others had not yet encountered Creeping Wood.

Whether it was because they were afraid of Shiroshiro and didn’t reveal themselves, or because there was less Creeping Wood in the area, they were observing the first Creeping Wood they found with interest.

"Is...anyone there? Please, help meee~"

The voice suggested that the man in the hole was desperate.

However, from the outside, it didn’t seem immediately dangerous.

Creeping Wood moved slowly.

It would take about ten more minutes to cover the hole.

Even if it did, it could only entangle and capture its prey, holding it until it died.

It was a long and tedious process, but since it could also absorb nutrients from the ground, it might not need much external nutrition.

It looked like a coniferous tree about a foot thick, with no eyes or ears.

It was just a tree moving slowly.

When Kurando poked it, a branch swayed a beat later.

But it was still slow.

Faster than the roots, but still slow enough to avoid with the naked eye.

According to the guild’s difficulty rating, it would be nine to eight stars individually, and the difficulty would increase with more, but it was rare for it to appear alone.

Kurando pulled out a large-clawed hammer from his back, infused it with magic to open the claws, and turned it into an axe.

He glanced at Shiroshiro, but she seemed uninterested in the Creeping Wood, which was neither delicious nor strong, and yawned.

Kurando shouldered the large-clawed axe and swung it with all his might.

---Crack

It was hard.

Even with a reinforced strike, it only cut a third of the way through.

Creeping Wood had high physical defense and was resistant to spirit magic except for fire and lightning.

It would have been a formidable enemy in the pre-spirit magic era, but it could be easily defeated with fire and oil, so when beasts went on a rampage, it didn’t cause significant damage. However, in that case, the materials couldn’t be used.

If not properly defeated, it couldn’t be used as wood, and since its quality varied widely and couldn’t be determined while it was alive, Creeping Wood never became widely used. It was mostly made to order, and in famous cases, large ships were built with it at great expense.

Kurando swung the axe at the Creeping Wood, which slowly but powerfully swung a branch at him.

Kurando easily dodged it and swung the axe again.

After repeating this several times, the Creeping Wood fell with a thud. Cutting the roots from the trunk made the trunk usable as material.

Kurando then swung the large-clawed axe at the still-moving stump, cutting it in half and severing some roots, killing the Creeping Wood.

---

"Thank you, thank you~"

It was a young, slender man of the white race with round glasses.

Shiroshiro didn’t rescue him with her tail, but Kurando used earth spirit magic to raise the bottom of the hole and saved him.

"My name is Milco Grotta from the National Boruz Academy. Thank you for saving me."

Milco, who introduced himself, politely thanked Kurando. His manners revealed his good upbringing.

"I’m an eight-star hunter named Kurando."

Milco, muttering "eight-star," glanced nervously at Shiroshiro, who was sharpening her claws on the fallen Creeping Wood.

"Like a beast. I’m heading to Chitta village. What about you?"

"Ah, sorry, can I go with you to Chitta village? I got separated from my guard hunter."

"I won’t abandon you, but I can’t take care of you. If that’s okay, you can follow me."

"That’s fine."

Kurando started to walk, but Milco looked longingly at the Creeping Wood Shiroshiro was sharpening her claws on.

"Is it necessary?"

"Ah, no, ...yes. Actually, I specialize in magic plants, specifically Creeping Wood. I don’t need much, but the more samples, the better..."

"Can you at least reinforce it?"

"Ahaha, as you can see, I’m not physically strong, and I’m terrible at reinforcement and spirit magic. I might have become Creeping Wood’s nutrients if you hadn’t saved me."

Kurando sighed and pulled out his large-clawed axe.

Behind Kurando, Milco, who had cut the Creeping Wood into a size he could carry, was looking at it happily, as if he wanted to rub his cheek against it.

"Mutter, hmm, this is surprisingly light. The material is hard... mutter"

He seemed to be completely focused on the Creeping Wood.

"The mist is getting thicker. You might get lost... Well, if you want to get lost, go ahead."

"Ah, wait, wait for me~"

Milco desperately chased after Kurando and the others, who were walking steadily.

After about two hours, they arrived at a village that seemed to be Chitta.

If Kurando hadn’t helped Milco, they would have arrived a bit earlier, but it took about a day from Maranova.

It would take about three days to reach Chitta by beast car, detouring around the forest, and even if a hunter of a common race tried to reach Chitta