Hone To Issho No Isekai Seikatsu Chapter 55

TL note: Welp, ever since the last fan art I realised how poor my coloring skills are, so I'm gonna do some coloring from now on ?

Ahh… I forgot the blood >~

– Adventurer Life Day 57 (Mon) – Afternoon – Main Road

What Benedetta found while dismantling the ‘Elite', was a familiar spherical shaped object I remember back when I played this as a game.

“That's, a Ziggurat… ?”
“Jigurat?……. what is that? Ah… Nemo you've stopped walking.”

Ah, shoot. Seems like I s.p.a.ced out a little there.
Without realising, there had already been some distance between me and Benedetta riding on the cart.
I paced myself a little faster and answered her question.

“Yeah. To put it simply, that thing is kind of like a treasure box.”
“A treasure box you say? You mean the same one where adventurers from stories would search for?”
“Mm. Pretty much.”
“… For a size this big… won't it be more of a valuable stone instead?”
“There are some with a gemstone inside of it, but there are also containers much larger than that too. The contents inside tend to be different each time, so I don't know what's inside of this one.”

Strangely enough I haven't heard of anything like a treasure box when hearing stories of adventurers defeating monsters.

Since this particular monster was fairly intelligent, there's also a chance that it stole it from someone, though there's no use in making guesses like this now.

The treasure box she handed to me was indeed spherical, seeming to made from a material that looks like bronze but only 2cm in diameter.
There are some geometrical lines across the surface, probably a way to keep the box sealed tight. With it, it does make it seem like the box itself would be the treasure.

I'm not sure how to explain it, but I can feel some sort of power emanating from it. Something similar to how I felt with Phillips' spear…
It's something more like an intuition of mine.

"As the one who dealt the most contribution and is dismantlement of it, it's your choice Benedetta, but what do you plan to do?"
"… For the time being, should we see if we can get this to open?"

She made a short grumble before saying that. Probably because she's not used to being given the spotlight like this.

Even if something valuable where to come out of it, I get the feeling she would just push it onto me anyways…
Is it really fine for this girl to not have any sense of greed?
Though, she is actually a little older than me, so maybe I can use that as a countermeasure…

But putting that aside for the moment… how do you open it?

In the game, there was a simple indicator that has it opened.
As far as I remember, there weren't any complicated mechanics like open world pvp that would warrant a security system in treasure boxes like this.

Even when tapping around it, there wasn't any reaction, and I have no more ideas myself so I try pa.s.sing it around the party… but,

"I have no clue…"
"It would be best if I don't try to force it open… The box appears to be elegantly designed."
"There are no HINTS from SIR Mario's MEMORIES.

Seems like it's a pa.s.s from everyone.

(I wonder what's different… there wouldn't be any problems in the game, but it's becoming quite a problem here…)

… In the end, I left the Ziggurat for the time being.

– Adventurer Life Day 57 (Mon) – Evening – Main Road

In total, 8 people were killed during the scuffle, this was including the pa.s.sengers so we had their burial done on the side of the road where a number of graves have already been erected from before.

Because there are only a few monsters around here, it became a suitable place to bury the dead.
The number of graves here can easily number over a hundred, but it's difficult to tell since they are usually made from a pile of stones that could easily be toppled over, or wood that had eroded over time.

I wanted to help out using my skeletons, but from what I can see, there seems to already be enough help as it is, so I decided to not partic.i.p.ate.

There were a number around those that seem to be visibly grieved from it… I'm reminded once again just how risky it is to travel from one town to the next.

And now, it's time for camp.
The first day of the escort had ended with staying in a village, so this would make our first camp from this trip. It's a large scale camp as well, so we're not particularly experienced on this.

However, we already had some experiments done with camping.
It was mainly from watching the skeleton activity during sleep and my natural mana recovery.

My mana decreased slightly from using Talos back in that fight, so I had to reduce the number of skeletons to 8 instead. Thanks to that, my mana had now been completely restored.

Me and Benedetta had ourselves ready to sleep as we tucked under the blanket on the same bed.
… And before going to sleep, I gave an order to the two skeletons nearest to us on standby and intercept any monsters from their position.

None of the skeletons or spirits need to sleep, neither do they feel fatigue… they don't even get bored either.
Considering that, this party is pretty hardcore.

"Well then MASTER. SLEEP well."
"I'll be in your care."

(Centurion, Phillips. I'll count on you…)
(You can leave it to me my lord)

"… It's strange to say it again, but that ability of your really is absurd… At this time, we would have to be changing s.h.i.+fts frequently."
"Yeah… I'm quite grateful about this."

Benedetta would know how hard it would be to camp out at night, given how she had to travel from the north to Comnes.

The rule for escorts here is to work as a whole group where each would be keeping a lookout from certain areas during the night. If you try to complain about this, there's no doubt you'll be kicked out given how important the job is.

On the other hand, the skeletons in our party can act independently even while asleep.
We could have everyone in the caravan group to leave it to the skeletons… but that wouldn't be possible. We were allowed to do so only because there's some credibility given that we defeated the 'Elite' harpy.

And so, compared with everyone else, our party is quite relaxed.

Ah, that's right.
There was something I needed to say before going to sleep.

"Thank you for today."
"Eh… What is that? Saying it all of a sudden?"
"It's from earlier."

Benedetta's contribution to that harpy attack was great.
Counting the number of kills, it's easy to say 40% would belong to her.
Alongside with Phillips, she would definitely be the MVP back there.

"We would have been in trouble had you not been there for us."
"… No, I didn't really…"

Though she says that, we really would have trouble catching that 'Elite' from the sky without her.
Two of my skeletons got done in… Had they been human, this would have been tragic.

"I just wanted to say that you were reliable, and wanted to thank you."
"… I'm the one who wanted to thank you…"

She wasn't facing directly at me, but her voice sounded like it was becoming hoa.r.s.e…
Hm, I see.
Seems like she really had been anxious regarding her role in our party…
I thought she was already plenty useful, but in some way, I'm quite glad a situation where I could confidently say this happened…

After a while of waiting, I started to throw out a question to her.
It's almost like the atmosphere from before got completely switched.

"So… do you have anything that you want?"
"Huh?… Why the question all of a sudden?"

I suppose that was a little abrupt, so I explained.

"Recently, you've helped us quite a bit and there's something I want to do for that… but I don't think you'd accept an increase in pay now would you…"
"… That's right. I'm not really in any need for more money right now, and I would prefer if the money was spent on strengthening the party first."

Continuing on from what she said, taking into account the characteristics of my abilities, if the investment goes into me, then wouldn't the entire party benefit from it? That was the line of thought she was going about.
She a.s.sures me that she already has some savings built up in case she were to be tight on money.
Even so, there still needs to be something to give to her.

"Then if it's for strengthening the party, wouldn't there be something you would need?"
"Mm… hm, if that's the case…"

It seemed like she was purposely pausing herself before answering.

"I want a complete set of riding equipment!"
"Eh, equipment?"

Speaking of which, I almost forgot about that…

"You see. Since it was a wooden sculpture that you made, there wasn't any equipment to go with it, which makes riding a little difficult…"
" … "

Hm.

Now that she mentions it, the reins were handmade by Benedetta, while the stirrups remain missing which made the balancing on it more difficult once in battle…

I did think it was somewhat of a problem before… In the next level up, I'll make another horse for her.
Taking into account of the golem from before, the next material to go up from would be ground.

There's a couple of problems with that though, such as turning cold, moist, and the thought of it crumbling off…
It doesn't sound to be something comfortable to ride on.

Even with the added strength from it, would it be able to make up for it's demerits?

There's also the fact we'll need to buy some horses equipment from the next town. Though I don't really know what the price would be considering how expensive horses are already.

"We should have enough for that… I'll go ahead and buy it in Olibia before levelling up."
"… Levelling up? How is that related?"
"Ah… yeah, I never mentioned it. See, there's a good chance when levelling, there would be another horse I would be able to summon, and that one would be for you to take.. But before that happens, we'll need to get the equipment first."
"Is that so! Thank you so much!"

Benedetta in a delightful manner hugs my arm.
She always did have a lively behaviour when riding a horse, so I'm not too surprised by this reaction.

(It's nice to see her happy like this…)

Feeling drowsy after a while, I soon fell asleep despite lying on uncomfortable ground.

– Adventurer Life Day 58 (Tue) – Morning – Main Road

The caravan group starts moving once again, heading further south.

Cesar, who had been sleeping in a different tent, made some stretches as he heads towards our group.

"It SEEMS like we'll be MOVING together as USUAL now."
"That's right. I'll be relying on you if I were to get sleepy again."
"LEAVE it to ME Sir CESAR."

We're still doing this…

By the way, Phillips had moved ahead and walking along the escort carriages…
Supposedly, he wanted to give some rea.s.surance to the ones there.

Certainly, it does feel pretty safe having a large warrior keeping alongside you.
Since that time from yesterday, the people there seemed to have their faces brighten up when seeing him.
It's like there's some confidant aura about Phillips that makes you feel safe… I think.

(That said…)

Although this here should've been the last part of the line, there are adventurers from behind us taking a ride inside the caravans.

Apparently, since yesterday's incident, there's been a number of people saying that this area here is the safest.

(It's somewhat of a bother really…)

Adventurers who had been given the job as an escort wouldn't be obligated to act as a pa.s.senger, but from traumatic incidents like this, it is kind of an exception… Because of that, situations like this couldn't be helped.

Even so, I continue alongside the carriage as we continue on heading south.

—- Summoning Memo —-

Centurion Team:
Members: Centurion, Skeleton 1, 2, 3
Equipment: Hatchet, s.h.i.+eld, Armor and helmet

Phillips Team:
Members: Phillips, Skeletons 4, 5, 6
Equipment: Spear, s.h.i.+eld, Armor and helmet

Other Skeletons:
7 – 37: Club, Round s.h.i.+eld, Armor and helmet

Metal Golem ‘Talos': 1
Wooden Horse: 1

#Golems can be divided to a maximum of three bodies.