“Make sure you hand off my letter to Pelenia,” Falk said to both Ben and Thera as they prepared to leave.

“And mine as well,” Sonya told Thera as she pulled her into a tight hug. “The town’s going to feel so much emptier with all of you gone at once.”

“It’ll only be for a bit more than a month aunty, we’ll be back soon. I doubt I’ll be able to handle my parents for much longer than that anyway.”

“Mmh, if your mom does anything so rash again let me know. If need be I’ll rush down to straighten her out.”

“I’ll send a letter if she does anything too over the top,” Thera told her aunt, grateful to have her for support.

Sonya gave Ben a hug as well and asked him to look after Thera while Falk gave him a firm pat on the shoulder, and with that the two of them went off, walking in the woods to the left of the road and hoping to find anything they could.

Thera was at the ready, staff in hand and carrying a magic tool that Ben had produced specifically for their long trek. It was a lantern of sorts, the flame within being created through a fire enchantment being mixed with the level six charm that Sonya possessed, to create an alternative to the one that naturally came off of Thera. While less powerful since it didn’t have her overwhelming mana attached to it, the higher level compensated for that fact while the fire at its core served the purpose of getting rid of any bugs that were drawn to it so they wouldn’t be surrounded by a constant swarm. While he’d given it another effect as well, it wouldn’t become relevant until night fell.

As she tried to focus around her, at the ready for anything that might be drawn out to attack, she couldn’t help but be distracted by whatever Ben was doing, seeming to be paying attention to the surroundings but had his hands full with two knives and something else in each as well.

“Okay, I give. What’s going on? Are you just that excited to fight or something?”

“What, this?” He asked, wiggling his very full hands. “It’s part of a little idea I had to make sure this quest isn’t too much of a waste of my time. I’m just working on making some magic weapons since we’re going to be out here for a couple weeks and I didn’t want to miss out on the job experience,” He got the feeling she only had more questions, so he explained in a bit more detail. “Alright, so you know how my current job is magic weapon maker, right?”

“Yeah, I was there when you took it.”

“Cool, so it follows that what gives my job the most experience is creating magic weapons right?”

“That's what I’d guess from the name.”

“Excellent, well if you look to my hands, I’ve got two ordinary sets of both knives and brass knuckles. Well they aren’t actually brass but whatever. I add a little enchantment to each and…” The edges of the knives burst into flame as he poured mana through them and knuckles lit up from the light spell that had been applied to them. “Now they’re magic weapons. Remove the enchantments that are on them and repeat, and I’m spending the next two weeks making magic weapons over and over again.”

“Does that actually work?” She asked curiously. “The job name makes me think you need to actually make the weapon.”

“I don’t doubt that I’m getting less experience this way compared to if I was able to work at the forge, but as long as I keep varying the enchantments as I do and make them as complex as I can I should be able to get a constant stream of experience. After all, I am turning normal weapons into magic weapons. The four at once is just to try and maximize the amount I get, though it’s a bit of a trade-off because they’ll be made slower than if I focused on just one. I only wish I thought of doing this sooner, there’s no reason I couldn’t have squeezed a few days off of my last job if I had.”

She could only shake her head. “Well, do you think you could dedicate just one hand to holding that very fancy knife you made before? I can only imagine you getting attacked with hands full of weapons you can’t do anything with.”

“It’s sheathed in my pocket, worst to worst I’ll just drop these and pull it out. I just need you to keep me safe if anything comes at me.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to just be at the ready?”

“I mean, maybe? It’s not like I’m much of a fighter and doing a quest like this where I can’t just set some traps and wait is kind of a huge weakness for me, right? Since my gun idea was a bit of a bust as far as ease of use goes I should really try and find a different way to keep myself safe. Maybe I could work on something that could attack automatically? But then how would I make it work, or for that matter distinguish between friends and enemies?”

She let out a sigh as he started getting lost in his own world. “Just don’t let yourself get so into it that you’ll be taken by surprise.”

“Don’t worry, I’m pushing my mind skills a bit, but that’s just training too, right?”

“As long as you’re giving the surroundings enough attention then alright, just try not to trip on anything I guess.”

“I’ll be fine. So how long do you think it will be until we run into anything?”

“The woods along the road get cleared regularly so I doubt we’ll encounter anything at all. Even if it’s not as high paying as other rank four quests it has the benefit of being easy and fairly stable pay, plenty of people take it when it’s not being used as a way to stabilize their finances.”

“Well then, here’s hoping for an easy couple weeks.”

The first day of hiking through the woods, trying to draw out anything that might be a danger to them and anyone using the roads had been a bust. While there was a constant stream of smaller monsters that would appear to cause havoc and attempt to attack them after being drawn in, they hadn’t seen a single more serious threat that a carriage or anyone traveling on foot couldn’t simply have escaped from, and with the day almost over they decided to stop for the night to make camp.

The magic lantern wasn’t extinguished, instead he twisted a small nob he had on it, designed to connect to the enchantment and essentially change the setting of it, taking it from being a light that emits charm to one that emits fear instead. While Ben didn’t have it as a specialized skill, using it as a level five dark spell was more than enough to give the effect he wanted, and more importantly, make it so they could both comfortably get a proper night's sleep without needing to worry about alternating a watch thanks to it as well as a few other smaller traps he had set up.

As they sat down after setting up the tent, Ben dug through his bag and handed her some food. “What would you rather? Dried meat or dried meat?”

“Just hand it over,” She told him, depressed at the state their meals would be taking for the next little while. “We’ll have to get something nice while we’re in the city to make up for this.”

“Absolutely. I wouldn’t mind checking out some shops before we go through the gate anyway.”

He hadn’t been overly thrilled with the meals they'd be stuck having either, but he didn’t want to fiddle with the enchantments on the spacial bags since whatever enchanter had made them seemed to have a ridiculously good space affinity. The mana cost was so low on them that the little mythril used to power it couldn’t handle having anything else added to it, and if he tried to remake it to be better for storing food as he currently was he stood the chance of leaving it worse.

Once they completed their lackluster meal they went to go to sleep for the night, splitting the tent since their time in the dryad village had dulled any awkwardness about that sort of thing, when Ben grabbed her arm and pointed, trying to be quiet enough that only Thera would hear.

“I’m not sure what that is, but it doesn’t look good,” He whispered, directing her attention to a glowing, translucent animal that resembled a white wolf at first glance.

Thera for her own part seemed less cautious and more curious, almost excited. “Oh cool, a ghost. I’ve never actually seen one in real life before.”

“Wait, I’m sorry. A ghost?”

“Yeah, from an Amarok from the looks of it. This is so neat, it’s a shame uncle isn’t here.”

“Uh, should we be worried at all?” He asked, more nervous than he expected to be hearing that. He was aware of them on this world at least, but unlike so many other creatures where connections were mostly being made to relevant species that existed in his native language, a ghost was exactly as it sounded like, the remaining soul of a dead creature, continuing to live on and act in the world without the flesh it had previously been bound to.

“Yeah, a single ghost usually can’t do much by itself. If uncle was here he could either control it with his death magic or maybe help it pass on, but if left alone it should do that eventually anyway. It won’t be affected by the lantern but it shouldn’t bother us so you don’t need to worry.”

She could tell something about it made him uncomfortable but she simply didn’t understand why. They were essentially harmless without a death magic user around, either a creature that was stubbornly hanging onto a lost life or so dumb it hadn’t realised it had died. Either way it could be considered unfortunate, but the sheer rarity of spotting a being like that was enough to draw her eye to its ethereal form.

They watched it for a little longer before deciding to turn in for the night, giving Ben plenty of time to ponder the strangeness of the world.