Perhaps that satisfied chortling was a bit overboard for such revelations, but finally being able to make some progress felt quite pleasing. Reality was more like being told what to do for the quest after running around for days though.

Deciding that amount of revelry to be satisfactory, I once more turned my attentions to making progress. Alchemy seemed to be the best way to pursue that end, I could work both to help Ria and the village as a whole. Not only were alchemical products a good way to make money, a great deal of them were domestically oriented. Considering the lack of development in the village, the number that could actually be used were far lower, but the ones that could would definitely be of great help.

The prerequisite to brewing the various goods would be finding ingredients, of course. At this point buying the materials for them was unfeasible. This had been expected and planned for by Theodore and myself, but I still hadn’t familiarized myself greatly with the surroundings. Dying after getting lost in the woods would be far too an abrupt and embarrassing end. Luckily I did happen to know a pair of brothers that were out in the woods quite often.

More or less, that was why I had been burning time with Ria and Tagalong Girl. I just so happened to run into the cure while waiting to see what medicine was available, maybe my luck with Quests in this new world was starting to turn around. For the moment I just sat on a pile of logs near the forest’s edge; the brothers’ resource drop point for when I wasn’t out helping them.

Two burly workaholics covered in sweat eventually appeared in the trees, carrying a trunk under their arms. They looked more exhausted than they usually did, probably because they actually had to transport the trunks through the thicket at the moment.

“Haha, Twig! You’re back!”

“Of course I am you meatheads. I thought you said you wouldn’t be ready to head out again before I got back?”

“I’m fairly sure that we said we’d be ready by the time you got back.”

“Now stand up and toss these into your inventory! It’s such a pain carrying them.”

“Haa~ you’re going to end up with spindly arm like mine if you act like that.” Despite my gentle mocking, I complied and burned through my Stamina to put away the trunks. “So, has anything of note happened while I was away?”

“What could possibly happen in this tiny place worthy of mentioning?” Ross gave me an amused look. “Where you come from, is it normal for strange things to happen regularly? That would be abnormal, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess you’re right. It’s just the trip to Glaucen was filled with a lot of interesting events, so at least one thing should have happened here.”

“Oh?”

Expressing curiosity, I was able to finally return the favor of telling stories. I kept some more confidential information secret, but felt fine telling them how I met with Theodore and Lyssa. They seemed more than just slightly surprised that I ended up interacting with a Disciple to such an extent. Apparently to them, to meet with a member of the church in such a personal manner was no ordinary feat. Considering that the church lived a life separated and above that of peasants, they had no reason to interact with each other.

Personally I felt Lyssa seemed rather down to earth. The impression I got from Door Knob’s attitude made me think it was the result of a low station. Varas didn’t seem particularly high up in the hierarchy, and being towards the bottom was probably what let her empathize better. Even though I mentioned this, they kept acting like I’d met an emissary from heaven.

They were slightly less engrossed by my retelling of learning of the local alchemical reagents; they probably hadn’t had a chance to see the mystical results of such things in their small home. Once I brought up the prospect that they too could have access to the results of my alchemy, they became more interested. In the future, I would go with them on their journeys into the woods to collect some timber, but we would take more circuitous routes to find more of the necessary ingredients.

However they had just returned from a long day of work, and the hour was already growing late. There wasn’t the time for us to make use of our boiling blood and charge out into the forest. The village with so little to do also lacked many ways with which to productively spend time, this wasn’t some world of cultivation where I could just sit down and absorb the qi from heaven and earth.

My own pursuits lacked avenues that I could explore in this village of a single path. Willing to wait for the next day to start pushing forward again, instead of doing something interesting, I strolled around the village helping out. Nothing too big, has a myriad of uses, and was a godsend(Tias-send?) for a village that did a lot of fish preservation. Just routine stuff that would make a low-class settlement a bit more comfortable before going to sleep.

Morning came with a soft and warm rain. Since it wasn’t very heavy, the ground only ended up becoming damp instead of muddy. I wondered if plants here didn’t need as much water; though the climate couldn’t be described as arid, rain seemed infrequent. Letting the rain soak into my robes, I just stared at the dark pre-dawn sky.

Rolling dark gray sheets encompassing the world all the way to the horizon. I wondered how that even worked, the world may exist on a massive scale, but where was all the water vapor coming from? I ignorantly pondered, laying down with my head looking straight up, trying to make sense of it. The amount of time spent thinking about it makes me laugh looking back on it, considering how off the rails all my theories were. I won’t spoil the revelation for you.

Getting bored of that after a while, I stood up to greet the morning. The rain and body heat made my clothes feel like wearing a warm shower, but moving about was intolerable. saves the day again. Unless out in the rain for an hour or so, clothes wouldn’t actually be soaked by that level of drizzle, so I leisurely moved inside. Frustratingly enough, there were still a few leaks, despite my efforts to try and patch them up. Are any of you confident in your thatching abilities? It’s not like it’s something where even perfection always brings satisfactory results.

Due to the clouds, the time remained a bit ethereal, but it was close enough to feed Ria. Trying to wake her up beforehand, I felt my mana drain away. Her eyes remained closed until I shook her a little bit, but by then the effects were wearing off. Even in the strange coma state there were times when she slept, as opposed to being ‘awake’ but unconscious.

So that was a bit of a waste.

At least doing so had woken her up, so she could be fed. Such a lazy girl, all you do is sleep. I used to be like that for a while, but you actually have a bit of an excuse, don’t you?

Finishing caring for my patient, I headed back outside. Though raining and still a bit early(maybe), I saw Pan and some others starting to work in the few acres the village cultivated. It was just some sort of wheat analog that Theodore made no note of in my alchemy lessons. So until Ross and Troy met up, I helped inspect the crop for pests and weeds.

Luckily for you, you just have to sit here as I try to get across the notion of a lack of events, without actually doing these mundane things. Some heroes fight for their life constantly, only wishing for peaceful days; you heroes, I would have definitely traded with you at that time. For me another hour or so passed before the brothers were ready.

More or less, things were the same as usual. We bantered a bit, and moved through the forest. Normally the path would stay rather close to the stream, but this time we arced farther to the left. Occasionally the two would find a good tree for boards or for a frame, and I would set out to scour the area. With the noise of their axes and long visibility in the sparse forest, it would be sad if I still managed to get lost.

Compared to many types of woodlands, the forest was sparse, but that’s not to say it lacked in underbrush. There were plenty of plants to inspect looking for herbs. Naturally the vast majority of them were not actually what I was looking for. From tree to tree the brothers traveled, as I got down on my hands and knees crawling in the dirt, glaring in futility at this flower or that root. Knowing the properties of each ingredient wasn’t the same as being familiar with them, and since one wrong ingredient would ruin a whole mixture, I endlessly toiled looking for that one out of place feature not matter how confident I felt in my original assessment.

If I wasn’t trying to be heroic, and Ross and Troy weren’t only a short distance away, I would have definitely started rolling around in the dirt crying and bemoaning my fate. I cursed those heroes who ‘just happened’ to find the resources they needed, those who wept at their own fate of becoming poor to purchase mountains of resources they needed to train. Please tell me, how many of those characters have to crawl through the hedges as I did? They work until they bleed sure, but every slash of their sword, every ounce of pain they feel adds to their power. Sweat and feel your muscles burning, at least you know at the end of the day you get your coin. This was just menial labor, with easily replaceable results!

Chopping down trees is entertaining, and moving those ceramic jugs was a repayment of my debt. Helping out around the village is an expression of gratitude. Collecting herbs like this? Why can’t it be someone else? It’s not that I ended up losing my cool, or that some lake of anger slowly boiled over within. Collecting herbs just didn’t match up with what I wanted to be doing. Only because I realized that without herbs alchemy couldn’t be practiced did I continue on.

“Hey Alric, I know you’re a wizard, but you’re also a twig. Keep close.” Noon came and went, and Ross warned me when I returned to their side to pick up a long trunk. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re getting deeper into the forest.”

Looking around to evaluate the surroundings, I quickly affirmed the statement. The trees had gotten thicker and taller, the canopy blocking out more and more light. Originally light underbrush became spaced a bit more, but woodier. Though the sun remained rather high in the sky, this place was perpetually shaded.

The twilight zone.

Ross and Troy stood and moved resolutely still, but they lost some measure of their earlier vigor not attributable to mere tiredness. At least one wouldn’t focus quite so much on chopping, trying to take in the surroundings. Troy still acted a bit relaxed, but clearly he and Ross were becoming more wary.

Right, not everyone enjoys crawling through cursed ruins to fight eldritch abominations and demons. For most people shadows are actually disturbing, and not a comfortable middle ground between dark and light. Underworld of Armok slowly pushed its way into becoming at least three quarters of my day; I saw how my non-random sampling of individuals began to surprise me.

“Right, just keep your eyes peeled. Nightfall is hours off yet, we shouldn’t waste time. Unless there are other things I should know about the deeper parts of the forest?”

“Monsters and beasts are more common the deeper you go. We don’t know much about here, since we’d have to travel a long way back with the timber.”

“Mmm. Well the farther in we go the better the herbs. If you think you sense something, don’t worry about it being a false alarm and tell me.” The brothers nodded as we moved further away from the village. As the quality and diversity of herbs rose, so too did the canopy grow thicker, bringing more and more darkness despite the sun not having fallen far. Ross and Troy eventually decided to stop chopping lumber, but instead stayed by my side.

The chatter between them died down, as they spent more and more time staring with ever reduced visibility into the thicket. The only noises were my own soft curses of frustration, though they were slightly mollified by the sense of danger around us.

Holding either a Tiger’s Bloom(tiger analog-I learn about them later, but it’s easier this way), or a ranis, my fingers at the stem, trying to find out how the fibers were structured. In this world, biology stopped following normal conventions. If the fibers were circular and stacked vertically through the plant it would be a ranis, but they were also thinner than a hair and matched the color of the rest of the stem. About to touch the sap to my tongue for a taste test, I stopped.

I felt a disturbance in the forest.

A/N: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I just wrote 6k words today(yesterday?). It is very late and I'm tired but today is tomorrow, so I'll leave you this chapter before I sleepy-bed.

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