Chapter 3: Magic Pouch
That old guy’s voice is so loud, I’m the center of attention, aren’t I?
〈Hey, I hear he has a divine blessing.〉
〈Idiot, before that, he’s Ability 1.〉
〈A Tamer with Ability 1, how pathetic.〉
〈But, but he has a divine blessing, you know.〉
〈Ability 1 won’t be of any use.〉
〈Thought it was a chance to recruit a newbie, but he’s trash.〉
Damn it, it’s because that old guy said unnecessary things!
“Hey, are you listening? I’m going to teach you the newbie’s guide and regulations, so go up those stairs and head to the room on the right.”
Yeah, yeah, the classic light novel beginner’s lecture, huh.
Since I don’t want to die, I guess I’ll take it seriously.
There was someone already in the room, sitting there looking uneasy, so I sat a little distance away.
After being kept waiting for a long time, around the time my stomach started growling, footsteps could finally be heard.
A burly old man beckoned us over, and we were made to sit side-by-side in front of him and were told about the Adventurer’s code and Guild regulations.
When the lecture was over, he took out two cards from the pouch at his waist, confirmed our names, and handed them to us.
“Drop a single drop of blood on the round mark on the back. If you show that, you can go to any country or town.”
I pricked my finger with the needle I was given and dropped a single drop of blood on the round mark.
On the front, the same pattern as the Adventurers Guild sign appeared faintly, and in the center, a stippled face with my name and the characters “18-G” below it.
So, there are 8 ranks, from S for Special Rank down to the lowest, G, huh.
On the back, “Tamer – Ability 1, Magical Power 10” and my place of origin, “Zandra,” were written.
Once the registration confirmation was done, we were made to stand in front of a long desk. “Since you’re the lowest rank, G, you can basically only accept requests for Town Errands or Medicinal Herb gathering. I’ll show you Herb Samples that can be gathered around town, so memorize them well.”
Saying that, he started taking out various Medicinal Herbs from the pouch he’d taken the cards from earlier and lining them up on the table.
Hey, hey, that’s a Magic Pouch, isn’t it?
My eyes were drawn more to the Magic Pouch than the Medicinal Herbs being laid out, but I pulled myself together and desperately tried to memorize the characteristics of the herbs.
The names don’t matter; I’ll drill their height, leaf characteristics, and necessary parts into my head.
Before I could memorize the characteristics of four types, the old man started putting the Herb Samples back into the Magic Pouch.
“I just showed you the characteristics of fresh ones. There are Herb Samples hanging on the back wall too, so learn from those. Do you have any questions?”
“That pouch…?”
“This? This is a Magic Pouch. This one is called a Rank 2; it has a 2-meter cube capacity and a 10x time dilation effect.”
“The price?”
“This is a Magic Pouch called a ‘2-no-10’ and costs 5 Gold Coins. If you have this, you don’t have to carry luggage, so your earnings will improve. Once you become an Adventurer, first get a ‘1-no-5’. The price is 2 Gold Coins, 200,000 Dala, and it’s sold at the Adventurer-patronized store next to the Guild. You’ll probably be fine with town jobs, but if you go out gathering Medicinal Herbs,
So what if they could tell them apart? They even kindly informed me that a paralysis Potion was 1 silver coin, while an antidote Potion for potent poison was 5 silver coins.
I walked north for about an hour, then stepped into a trampled grassland on my right.
The trampled areas are easy to walk on, but any Medicinal Herbs would have likely been picked clean, so I was briskly making my way forward when—whoa there!—I sensed something, and it turned out to be a pack of filthy creatures.
While I was camping, during my practice with Search and Presence Detection, I’d encountered them once before, but I didn’t think I could beat them.
Turning my back, I sprinted with all my might. In a slightly open area, I took out the Camping Barrier from my Magic Pouch and placed it on the ground, deploying it.
Relieved, I looked in the direction I had fled from, and a pack of seven or eight of them was chasing after me, brandishing sticks.
However, since my crouched form vanished and a rock suddenly appeared in its place, they seemed bewildered.
Without this thing, I could easily die at any moment, but I wonder how long the magic stone will last.
There’s a goblin right in front of me… I remember them saying that this guy’s magic stone would last for three days.
This is a chance to get a spare magic stone, but the problem is how to kill this one.
The goblins that had been making a ruckus in front of the barrier peeked under the “rock” or went around to the back, tilting their heads in confusion, apparently because I wasn’t there.
If I have to do it sometime, then now’s the time!
After repeatedly muttering, “Jump out from the safety of the Camping Barrier, one-hit kill, then immediately retreat!” and doing some mental simulations, I leaped out behind one that had strayed from its pack.
I leaped out, thrust once from behind the one on my right, and immediately fled back into the barrier.
Its companions gathered around the goblin that let out a
I thought, “What horrible creatures,” but from their gestures, I could tell they thought it was just making a big fuss over a minor injury.
Huh… A minor injury? But I’m sure I thrust with all my might.
Looking closer, a bit of the hair on the spot above its waist was gone, and blood was trickling down.