Chapter 6: Arrival of spring, arrival of bandits and other troubles

It has been about three months since the start of the winter. The wind blew in the trees without leaves and the sun shined brightly through them. Unlike the other day, today the sun was warm. I was still dressed in my winter wear made from bear fur and wore a hood with scarf over my mouth and nose under it.

The reason for this was simple. As the Spring was about to start, the bandits that made this place their hiding place started returning. In the most recent time, they came more times with slaves in shackles, which lead me to believe that there must've been some kind of battle and the losing side got raided not just by the armies but by the bandits as well.

Right now, I was lurking in the shadow of a giant tree, waiting for my chance to strike bandits. The reason why they didn't see me even though I was standing here was thanks to a skill I most likely unlocked.

I say most likely, because I can't see my own status except for the one I had when I came to this world in the World Introduction Book, and the only one with knowledge of skills among us is Romi, and even she didn’t see all the skills in action. According to her, I learned a skill called Stealth which made me partially invisible and partially blended in with my surroundings.

"Kekeke, can I taste some of the girls, boss?" one particularly ugly bandit asked the leader-like figure with a yellow spear.

"No. You always break them too quickly."

"What about that burly one? She should have enough stamina for me," the ugly man made an even uglier face.

"Fine… But if you make her unusable, then I will punish you."

"Kekeke, you can count on me boss!" the ugly man laughed and went over to the girls in shackles.

"N-Noooo!!! Put your hands off me! You ugly bastard!!"

"Kekekeke, I love when they get noisy, it makes them more delicious…" the man laughed evilly.

As expected of humans to trample on other people's happiness…

As my anger boiled in my heart, I secretly followed the man to the forest where he threw the screaming girl to the roots of a tree. From here he could not be seen by others and most likely not even heard. He had a big grin on his face as his hands reached the girl's knees, raising her skirt up.

The painted face of the girl however changed drastically. That was when I slashed with my dagger into the man's neck, ending his life. However this action canceled the effects of my Stealth skill, making me completely visible. And I appeared towering above the woman as the ugly man's body fell to our side. As her eyes were glued to me, she did not notice the Bloody and Corpse slimes eating the man's body, save for the head which I still had plans for.

"A-and you are?" The girl bravely managed to get some words from her throat, yet her words lacked power as she screamed a lot and her voice got really hoarse from it.

"Just a person living in a forest. Where are you from?"

"I-I'm from Malenta duchy. Our lord rebelled against the kingdom so me and my friends decided to ditch the duchy and leave before a war broke out… but we were captured by those bandits and made into slaves…"

"I understand. Wait here. Me and my companions will take care of everything," I took the rest of the ugly man, his ugly head and while activating my stealth, I returned to the camp. I stood by my previous spot and looked around. I saw Blanche sitting on top of a tree with arrows and bow in her hands. Romi was hiding in the shadow of the same tree with her Vampire servants around her.

"So what will we do now, boss?"

"The underground guild will pay us for the girls. They have quite a lot of brothels that would love to get some fresh meat. But there can be some troubles. Mainly the Nomille family. As you all know, they see us as lesser beings, shitty nobles."

"To hell with them!"

"Ease up, you guys. Don't forget that they have their hands full with the bait group right now."

"The bait group was a really great idea. Plus we get to get rid of those idiots," some other man beside the boss laughed.

At this moment, I threw the head among the bandits, which made them jolt. Only the boss took his spear to his hand and readied himself for combat.

"Who goes there?!" The boss turned to where the head flew from, but I was already standing on the opposite side from him.

"Death," I uttered as I passed by him, while slicing his neck.

The boss fell to the ground, holding his neck to stop bleeding. He held on to his dear life, but given our difference in height, the cut was shallow and couldn’t kill him in one blow. He waved his spear in a half circle motion to sweep me, but I was already at my next target, stabbing scantily dressed woman to her heart. In this moment, arrows and vampire servants attacked too and made a great dent into the bandits.

"We are done here," I looked at the boss from up high and threw a knife that hit his forehead and killed him instantly. The rest of the bandits fell as easily to Romi and Blanche. Once that was done, the Bloody and Corpse slimes started their feast while I went to the frightened girls, holding the yellow spear in one hand. "Once the slimes are done, take the bandits' clothes and weapons for yourself and get lost from my forest, understood?"

The girls wordlessly nodded. At that time, the woman I saved first returned and the girls’ faces brightened.

Damn, I didn't even need to use any magic. These guys were seriously weak. The last guy with Black staff at least tried to fight…

We left the scene and returned back to our cave with the loot we collected.

"Blanche, this was your first time fighting bandits, how are you feeling?"

"I killed… but those girls looked so happy… I guess I'm better than I thought, it's a little scary," She said with an uncertain smile.

Yeah, she isn't fine.

"Well, come here," I spread my arms and we shared a hug. As we did, I started patting her head, "You did great. If we didn't stop them, they might hurt even more people in the future."

"Yeah…" I could feel her fingers grip tighter into my back.

"Let's go hunt some bear meat tomorrow. I saw some footprints down the river in the morning."

"Yeah!" With her smile as beaming as ever, we continued our hug for a little longer before continuing sifting through the loot. Coincidentally, I found some wine which I planned to enjoy later. Apparently, when Blanche's little sister turned ten, her father bought wine and the whole family (except for Blanche of course) enjoyed it. If I remember correctly, there isn't an age restriction on drinking alcohol in the Risha kingdom, but most shops won't sell alcohol to kids under the age of fifteen. Siiiiigh… wonder how long will it take for me to enjoy beer again…

"Boss! Boss!" Suddenly, Chika ran out of the mine. She was covered from head to toe in dust, pickaxe in one hand, reddish brown ball of dirt in the other.

"Chika! How many times do I need to remind you to take a bath when you exit the mines?!" Urza yelled at Chika, still holding a wooden spatula she used in the kitchen.

"Booossss!" Chika run to me presumably to hide, but she just handed me the ball of dirt and run off to the mines again.

"Honestly! That girl will one day be my death!" Urza fumed with crossed hands looking like an angry mother, which strangely suited her.

"Getting angry… won't help…" Shizu said as she arranged some nice looking stones in a pyramid shape on the table. Umm… there are some Stone slimes mixed in Shizu…

I got a little worried, but apparently they did not mind themselves so I left them to their own devices.

"What is this then? A new type of monster?"

"No. It's just a ball of dirt… wait a minute <Appraisal>"

Ball of dirt

Approximately ten centimeters in diameter. Red soil not suited for farming. Have small amounts of metals inside.

Metals? What kind of metals? I guess there will be iron at the very least given the color… Maybe aluminum is in it too? It was quite common on earth after all…

Ball of dirt

Approximately ten centimeters in diameter. Red soil not suited for farming. Have small amounts of metals inside. Metals in question: Iron (2,5%), Copper (1,6%), Titanium (0,7%), Magimetal (0,2%)

"Oh boy…"

"Wh-what is it?"

"There are a bunch of different metals in this dirt."

"Seriously?!" Romi looked surprised.

"Yes. There is Iron, Copper, Titanium and something called Magimetal."

"Did you say Magimetal, master?!"

"Romi?!"

"Ah! Sorry, I forgot myself. Magimetal is a magical metal that is used to make wands and Staves for magicians. Back in my active days, there wasn't much use for those, as the magic power within the world was bountiful. But nowadays it must be highly sought after."

"Did the world's magical power decline so much?"

"I would say it certainly did. Though it's not as bad as it was during the War… that was I believe the worlds minimum I remember," Romi's eyes clouded, so I decided to not to ask about her past.

Titanium can’t be used for blades like Iron, but it is resistant to corrosion. If I remember correctly, on Earth it was used in airplane and car engines, as well as laptops. My friend in the publishing company once told me it could even be used in guns. He was really into firearms and from what I’ve heard he even had a hunting license. I never liked guns though…

Anyway, I went to the mines and because I tamed Chika, I got to find her quickly just by concentrating on our link. She made quite a deep shaft and was using Magic stones engraved with Light runes to light up the dark passages. The walls were enforced with Earth magic she learned from me. She had a knack for it from the get go, using <Rock> on the walls all the time. Explaining <Drill> was an idea quickly abandoned as using <Break Rock> must've been enough to complicate things for her.

"Chika. Could you guide me to the place where you found this dirt?"

"Yea!" Chika saluted and quickly showed me the way. We found a five meters tall wall made completely from the same material so I got to digging, or rather casting, quickly. I used <Block> after <Block> and stored the dirt changed into the shape of bricks with the help of slimes in my <Dimension home>. In the end, I ended up with about a ton of material in my <Dimension home>.

Once I returned back to the surface I was welcomed with a late lunch which I enjoyed together with Blanche. After lunch, I took out the dirt and started separating metals from the dirt. As Iron was oxidized, I needed to remove the Oxygen. For the entire process Blanche was watching me. She recently started to dabble in alchemy too, but I only started explaining Science to her recently so she could not really understand the theory of multiple elements. Did I become a teacher ever since I came to this world too?

By the time it was about to start making dinner, I got through barely a quarter of all the material I had. Dinner was my time to shine, though Romi did try to intervene. I had to remind her that today was mainly for Blanche to ease up. For today's menu, I made a bear's front leg with herbs and mushroom stew. The bear meat tends to be on a tough side so I had to prepare it in advance. Oh, how I miss my pressure cooker… maybe I could make it someday when I'm out of this forest… yeah, right…

The diner was a huge success, especially with Blanche and Shizu who helped me hunt that bear. Even though she is really shy, her wish to eat bear meat (her favorite kind of meat) won her over to join the expedition to hunt one. The bear population dwindled significantly after I tamed the goblin trio too.

Though, as the bears were the strongest beings in this forest, I was testing my strategies on them the most. The ones who gained the most from this however were the slimes. Bloody slimes multiplied and I now had almost fifty of them, and the Grime slimes had a great boom too and now their numbers neared two hundred.

The wolves did what they usually did, fooled around unless we were hunting. I noticed that some of them did not even wanted to go out unless they really had to. Their favorite spot changed from my room to the fireplace during winter, but as the nights started being warmer, they started to return to my and Blanche's bedroom.

Speaking of the bedroom. Romi has not moved from her sarcophagus and I even noticed her using the Golden slime as a cushion sometimes. Not sure that is comfortable, but you do you.

"…And that was my day," Blanche finished her story about her day as we laid after dinner in the bed. Apparently, after we took care of the bandits in the morning, she prepared lunch like always and in the evening she tracked down the girls we saved together with one of the wolves and saw them out of the forest from the shadows.

During her entire story, she was holding my hand. Her head was resting on my shoulder and we were hugging closely. Blanche really hated being separated from me, but I did not mind. I was happy being with her. She was the main reason I made a steady recovery from my hatred for humans… I still don't like them though.

"Say, Arito…" she suddenly started speaking way more softly than before.

"Yes?"

"What if I…" her face was flushed red as she looked up at me.

I shifted my body so we were facing each other. We were so close that our foreheads almost touched.

"What if I… ki-ki-kissed you?!" she stammered out.

I guess she is already at an age she is interested in this thing? No, she kissed me on my cheek before, so I guess that isn't the way she wants to do it…

"You want to kiss me?" I patted her head and my hand slid down to her cheeks as I closed in and kissed her on her lips, "Not if I do it first."

"Uh? Um…" she was confused and a little out of things, but she hold her hand to her lips and a happy smile grew on lips I just touched with mine, "Arito… you can be such a bully," her hands went around my waist and she pulled us so close that we were practically touching with our entire bodies. "But I don't mind. I love you."

"I love you too, Blanche."

The next morning we woke up exactly as we fell asleep. No need to say that our bodies felt so sore that we could barely move. My left hand, on which Blanche rested her head, hung limply by my side until lunch. Even magic of the Healing Slimes was barely effective. I even tried to manipulate my Energy to make it feel better, but no dice. Is this karma?

"If this is price for love, then I certainly don't mind!" Blanche's words were definitely embarrassing to hear, but her determined face was too adorable to not look at, even though my ears were burning.

Romi sensed that something changed between us but did not comment on it and simply prepared food for everyone.

For the next few days I was separating the dirt and metals, after which I went on to separate different types of metal from each other. Coincidentally, this was what appraisal said about the dirt that remained after separating all the metals.

Purified Dirt

Dirt with no metals present. Not suitable for farming as is, but certain crops can grow on it. Approximately 950 Kilograms.

Yep, after all that, I got little less than fifty kilograms of material. Twenty five Kilos of iron is really good. Plus all my metals are 100% pure. If I remember correctly, on earth there were still impurities present even in the modern age. Wonder if I could extract some Carbon and make some steel too…

Anyway, I broke the metals into ingots of 1 Kilo each. This would leave over some Titanium and Copper, but I managed to spread them somewhat evenly. The Magimetal was easiest to split as I just made two ingots with weight of 0,95 kilograms each. The ingots went straight into my Item Box for later use.

"A-Arito!" Blanche ran into my Alchemy room with wide open eyes.

She knows that I’m doing dangerous experiments here, so this must be really important.

"Did something happen?" I instantly left my work and went to her side, checking if she's not hurt.

"In the forest… humans… one of them is hurt…"

"What do they look like? Are they bandits?"

"No… they look like soldiers…" Blanche caught her breath and I went to collect some bottles with medicine I prepared. During winter I perfected separating moisture from plants and even managed to get resin out of a tree… Though that slime drank all of it and evolved into Resin slime… I'm still not sure if it's good or not… Well, at least I have glue now. Wait, I don't have time for this!

"Wolves! Slimes! We are heading out!" I commanded my monsters and confirmed the presence of those who were still outside. Coincidentally, all the wolves accompanying me today were male, as the females were all pregnant and resting deeper in the caves. I could tell that the birth of new ones was around the corner as the Spring was getting in full swing now and summer might start earlier this year.

We moved out as one party. I held my potions in a hard leather bag made from a lizard hide. I wanted to tame that cutie, he looked like that Bearded dragon I was keeping as a kid back on Earth.

We ran through the forest as fast as we could and arrived at the same exact place where we defeated the bandits a few days ago. There were five men, all dressed in the same armor. Two of them were lying on the ground, bleeding. Their companions tried to stop their bleeding with all their might, but sadly, their reliance on magic was their downfall. They did not have enough material for both their companions.

"Umm…"

Wait! Why the heck am I getting nervous right now?! I talk with Romi and Blanche every day!

"Who goes there?!" a man closest to us drew his sword and faced us. The remaining two did the same.

"A kid?" a blonde man with a rather cutesy face got surprised.

"What's a kid doing so deep in this forest?" next to the blond one, a dark blue haired one asked a better question. From what I remember from the World Introduction book, the unnatural hair color indicates great magical aptitude within humans, elves, dwarves, beastmen and other high-intelligent beings, except for Ancients who always have white hairs. Also, hairs of people with Albinism tend to change color slightly when magic is casted by them.

"Um… medicine… hurt men… can use…"

The heck is happening to me?! Why am I talking like Goblins do?!

"Arito…" Blanche touched my hand.

Yeah, nothing to worry about. I can just place it on the ground and leave them be.

The wolves were circulating around the men as we spoke and I noticed Shikuro's magical energy in the shadow of the man with the sword closest to us.

"Do you have medicine?" the man with strikingly blonde hairs asked as he lowered his weapon. The remaining two did the same, but I could tell they were still on edge.

I carefully took out two bottles that could hold about fifty milliliters each and placed them on the ground before backing off a little. The man with a hoarse voice that first came at me picked them up and gave them to the blonde man. That one opened them, sniffed them and taking a few drops on a tiny metal rod he took out of his pocket he tasted the potions I made.

"They are both in luck, these are definitely potions," the blonde man said to a great relief of the remaining two men who faced us once again.

"Thank you for saving my men. It means really a lot to me," the dark blue haired one bowed lightly.

"It's fine… It will stop the bleeding… but they will need a lot of rest…"

"Yes. I would save them with magic no problem, but I ran out of it when I was treating our lord…"

Now that I looked closely, their clothes were all tattered. So that Dark blue haired one is a noble… it's possible that he is even an important one…

*** ※ ??? Side

It is the duty of all nobles to guard their territory. As one of such nobles, I was taught from a young age how to fight, rule, do business and keep appearances. Life of a noble might seem glamorous, but is filled with dark machinations, assassinations and other evil acts. Nevertheless I tried my absolute best to keep my children as far from it as I could, but Henretta fell for one such evil scheme… I need to do a better job at protecting my family.

In order to protect my territory from monsters that were recently on the rise, I headed out with my soldiers into Kassana Forest which we have not investigated for a few years, mainly because no reports about monsters were made. Then, my daughter Henretta was captured by goblins due to the scheme of other nobles, in this forest and was saved from the worst case scenario by an Ancient boy, an albino elf and their slimes.

Now, after the winter, I took my soldiers and came to the forest, just to be met with the worst case scenario ourselves. A Skull Bear, a giant monstrosity. Luckily, the bear lost its interest in us and left, but the damage has already been done. Two of my guards were hurt badly.

We all are former B-rank adventurers so getting hurt like this might've spelled doom for us, if the Skull bear returned. The soldiers we took with us were taking care of monsters in other parts of the woods as they were much weaker than us. I thought that we might have to leave these two behind, but at that moment…

"Umm…"

A child's voice appeared right behind us. Even our scout could not detect him until he was right next to us. All of us went to tip of our toes. He might be a kid, but he was certainly powerful. Because I used to fight powerful monsters even without the help of magic, I would know. The boy had an enormous amount of energy inside his body. It’s like looking at ten of those bears in one body…

"Um… medicine… hurt men… can use…" The boy stammered.

"Arito…"

Huh? Arito? Is he the Ancient I heard from Henretta about? Then that other one must be that Albino Elf girl. Her voice sounded worried about the boy, so they must be quite close.

The boy offered us medicine which turned out to be quite the effective potion. There wasn't much of it in those two vials, but the strength of the liquid was above Medium quality, yet not entirely near the High quality.

"The bleeding stopped and the wounds started to close slowly but surely. They will need a lot of rest, though…" our magician, Raven, who unlike his name would suggest was blonde with light blue eyes, informed me.

"Magic recovery potion… hard to make…" the boy said and the girl whispered something to his ear to which he nodded.

What are they talking about? Did he notice Raven being low on Magic power?

"Our home… safe to rest. …Wanna come?" the boy offered to us.

"If we don't bring any trouble, then we would appreciate it," I bowed to the boy to which he nodded.

"Let's go guys."

First, we thought he was talking to us, but in the next moment, a Shadow wolf jumped out from Alvin's shadow. As we got surprised, more Black Wolves appeared from nearby bushes and swarmed around the boy. Neither of my men could move at the surprising revelation.

"These guys are Arito's pets! They don't attack unless ordered to so don't worry about anything!" the girl smiled under her cape.

Was that a smile or a grin? I could not tell under their face masks.

We picked up our two wounded men and started walking behind the boy, girl and wolves. They were moving as naturally as one would expect from people living in the forest. Suddenly the boy started talking.

"How did it… happen?"

"As a noble I'm supposed to protect my citizens, that means I have to participate in monster and bandit exterminations. We were cleaning the forest from goblins and other monsters for the last two days, but we encountered a Skull bear and you can see the rest."

"Lord of this area… still young though…" the boy sounded indifferent to hear about the bear, one could classify as an A-rank monstrosity.

"So that bear is lord of the forest?"

"No. The Lord is stronger… this cub is only the lord of this area, not the entire forest."

"Did you meet the lord of the forest?"

"Yes… just once."

"And what monster was i—'' Before I could finish my sentence, the sound of breaking branches could be heard from far away to our left side. All of us looked worriedly to the side and saw the Skull bear rushing us.

"Just great… Curse that Luck-cur," Alvin cursed as he got into a defensive position.

"Calm down. I got this," the boy stepped up completely unbothered.

"Hey kid, I think we should run." Raven said, looking at the boy a little worriedly, but the boy ignored him.

"ORAAAAAAAHH!!!!" The Skull bear let out a deafening roar.

What happened next surprised us. The bear jumped up for an overwhelming attack on the boy, but he froze in mid air. No, not froze, he got captured in strings so thin we could not even see them.

"Sticky-steel threads of Cocoon slimes… Quite hard to deal with," the boy said as he casted a spell that raised several slopes of earth and he walked up to the bear that thrashed around and tried to bite him, but was unable to do so due to the restraints. The boy raised his hand with a hunting knife and stabbed the bear's neck.

This is the end huh? It was surprisingly easy for the boy. I thought such a thing, but the boy was not done showing off his abilities.

"Bloody slime." With a single command, a red liquid came out of a flask made from hollowed out wood he had at his waist and flew into the boy's other hand. Next he raised said blood-like liquid to his other hand and spilled it on it. However the liquid defied gravity and stayed on his hand, flowing upwards to the knife and inside the bear's body. At that moment, the boy took out his dagger, but no blood came out from the wound.

The bear screamed in pain, thrashed around until his body stopped moving and hung limply. At that moment the almost invisible threads lowered the body down and five cocoons, or rather, Cocoon slimes, came jumping to the boy. There was also one amber colored slime, but I did not know what its race was exactly. The red liquid came out of the body and returned to the boy. Now I understood that it was a monster too, and given the boy's previous words, it must be a Bloody Slime, though I never saw one, or heard about them before.

"<Dimension Home>" as if to surprise us even more, the boy used higher element magic, and of an intermediate level too.

"My Lord…"

"I know Raven… this kid is talented, that earth magic was excellent too…"

Once that bear's body was sent into the dimension home, the boy continued his walk. The wolves and the girl were most likely completely used to seeing this kind of thing as they were not even batting an eye.

"Pardon me, but what we talked about before… the lord of this forest, do you know what kind of monster it is?"

"It's a Spider Skull bear. It lives by the mountains in the south."

The boy casually brought up the name of an SS-ranked monster without much care.

"Did you fight him?"

"No, that would be a suicide," the boy looked at me quizzically as if wanting to know if I was serious or dumb.

Soon, we came to a pond. According to my information there was supposed to be a cave behind it. I thought the boy lived there, but he walked away from the pond and went along the rock wall until we came to another wall, making an L shape with the first wall.

"Is he lost?" Alvin asked and Kellen on his back growled in pain.

"Just a little longer, thank you," the boy raised his hand and a part of the wall dissipated into thin air as if it never was there.

I know hunters make homes inside monster infested areas, but this was everything but one of those. The walls were tidy and even, same with the floor and ceiling which had magic stones for lighting embedded inside. The magic stones lit up as the boy walked in the room. Those stones are some high leveled ones to light up so quickly… Given Magic stones can only store magic power and not release it, they must be inscribed with a Light magic spell…

"Welcome home master," a human looking girl in maid uniform that could rival even those of a royal palace came from a separate room, "We have visitors?"

"Two of them are hurt, please prepare a bed for them."

"Understood," the girl nodded and gestured to my two guards to come after her. Her mannerisms and professionalism could rival even the palace maids.

"Would you care for some tea?" the girl asked as she took off her hood and face mask, she was definitely an Albino elf, just as Henretta said.

"Don't ask me," the boy said and looked my way before taking off his hood and face mask too. His skin was tanned and had white marks like Father-in-Law and my Wife Laina, but unlike them who had light green eyes, his were blue.

"I'm sorry, would you like some tea? We got some from bandits last month that still haven't expired yet," the girl asked sweetly.

"Yes, if you would be so kind."

"My lord…" Alvin and Raven came back.

"Tell me, what you find out," I whispered to them.

"That maid is a Vampire, though I'm not sure how high her rank is," Raven whispered back to me.

"Then the boy must've tamed her… hard to imagine such a small boy could do that though…"

"Yeah, but have you ever seen such a great number of slimes? I certainly didn't. There must be at least a thousand…"

"One thousand two hundred and ninety one exactly," the boy said as he took seat right in front of me.

"Sorry about that. It's just such a great number that it's hard to believe."

"I understand."

"Plus those wolves, you must be quite a talented tamer."

"I don't know… my first contract was about a year ago with this guy," the boy picked up a grayish red slime and patted him on his lap.

"I don't know that kind of slime, is it perhaps a rare species?"

"Probably, he's called Corpse slime. He eliminates smells and eats rotting meat. He also segregates liquid that wards monsters away from it. Though it smells really bad," the boy started talking more evenly as he talked about the slimes. "Ah! I forgot to introduce myself… I'm Arito Aruze."

"Thank you for telling us your name, Arito. I'm the duke of this region, Henry Nomille."

"You said DUKE?!" The boy froze over and together with the girl took a knee, "Forgive my insolence!"

As I was about to say it was fine, I noticed that both of them were shaking a little. I guess they had a hard time with nobles in the past…

"It's fine, please raise your heads, you two. We should be bowing to you though, you helped us out a lot."

"Yeah! Don't mind it kid, Lord Nomille is quite lax in these things so you can speak freely. Oh, and I'm Alvin, guard of the duke, thanks for help."

"I'm Raven, the magician. Sadly I did not have enough energy to save them both."

"Running out… is always trouble…" the boy nodded while looking up carefully.

"Arito, you look quite skilled. Taming magic, Space magic, Earth magic, even barrier magic and those potions… how did you acquire such a vast knowledge?"

"From my parents…"

"I see… I take it they are out right now?"

Arito however, shook his head slowly, "Two years ago, they both… died. Before… they said… go to another village… …but everywhere… it was the same… humans tried to use me… as long as I was useful… they let me around… were nice to me… but once I was not useful… they came at me with weapons… …I got frustrated… angry… and came here…" Arito's voice trembled quite a lot as he talked, his emotions threatened to overtake him and the girl, Blanche, held his hand tightly.

"I'm sorry I made you talk about it."

"It's fine…"

"So you've lived here ever since?"

"Just me, slimes, wolves and Blanche. Oh, and Romi, the goblin trio, Beetles and Persia with Skopi too."

"Erm, who?" Raven let out a slightly confused question which instantly answered itself. A Phantom owl flew down from its resting place and landed on Arito's arm.

"This is Persia."

"Oh wow! A real Phantom owl, I never saw one before. Owl monsters are rare on their own, but their advanced species are even rarer, especially those that can use magic like this one," Alvin, our monster encyclopedia smiled brightly, which given his muscular body made the owl flinch and hide behind the boy, just as Blanche did.

"Boss!"

Suddenly a small statured person, or rather a goblin, came from deep within the cave with a pickaxe over her shoulder. Is this monster mining here? What could it find?

The goblin ran over to the boy and sat in front of him. The next thing we knew, she was handing him a small stone. Wait, it's no stone, that's a metal.

"A Pink Silver? You found quite a rare thing. Were there any more in the surrounding area?" Arito asked, but the goblin shook her head.

"I see. Thanks anyway, Chika."

"Heheh, happy to help, boss!" The goblin laughed happily and ran off to the cave again.

"Duke… th-that goblin…"

"Yeah, it was talking in the human language… first time I saw that."

"So you two live here, eh? Doesn't that get lonely?" Alvin tried to move the conversation again.

"Not really. Every day has been fun since I met Arito," Blanche said with a happy smile that made the boy in question blush a little. Ah, being young is nice… how old can they be? The girl looks around the age of my Lena, but the boy could be older than me, given he’s Ancient and all… Father-in-law looked like a ten year old until his mid twenties and until he reached eighty years he looked like twenty years old, too…

"When I'm not hunting or training… I study monsters."

"Monster study eh? That's a rare thing to devote to."

"Is it?'' The boy was most likely completely unaware of the trends and common sense, which saw monsters as nothing more than pests to be exterminated or useful tools.

"Yeah. I mean, monsters are attacking humans quite often."

"Maybe it's because they are hungry. We were never attacked by monsters… though I guess Kuro did threaten me when we first met. But he was protecting Nana, so it makes sense…"

Fighting to protect its mate is quite common for monsters. There are tamers like my wife who keep monsters, but there appear many times when monsters attack their owners. Maybe it's thanks to her Ancient blood that she doesn’t get attacked after all…

"What about that bear earlier, then? He was clearly attacking us."

"Bears don't really like me in this forest because I hunt them from time to time. I even used a few to test the strength of my spells."

"Shizu can eat them all day round, though," Blanche smiled a little too.

"And this Shizu is who?" I asked since I was not catching their conversation.

"My Hobgoblin."

"You tamed a Hobgoblin?!"

"Is it weird?"

"Hobgoblins are usually leaders of big groups of goblins so taming one usually means taming the goblins too, and tamers most of the time don't have that amount of magical energy."

"I see… well Shizu is somewhat a special case."

"A special case?"

The boy nodded and continued: "Shizu is extremely shy and a poor fighter. She can't beat even a regular goblin."

"But then…"

"She was seen as unneeded by her village and thrown away with those two Gobinas. Though, I destroyed that village just hours before meeting them, so they were quite lucky. If the leader of the village decided to banish them even a day later, they would all be dead by now," Arito spoke for the first time at length holding his cup of tea in both hands. His eyes were not filled with anger of hunter who missed his prey, but were filled with happiness that it happened as he gained himself loyal followers.

"Well, I also research monster evolution."

"Evolution? Isn't that something only a god can do?"

"I thought the same, but I've seen a pattern in slimes that I tamed right after their birth. That's why I think there is some pattern to the evolution of monsters. A pattern that can be replicated."

For us it was one new discovery after another, but the night loomed closer so we went to sleep in the room Arito prepared for us with many questions still unanswered. If I bring Laina and Lena to him they would be on cloud nine for at least a month… though it would not be such a bad thing I guess.

*** ※ Arito's side

The morning after the duke came, came quickly. Last evening I pulled out the story the gods gave me. It was a pretty basic one but my shaking voice seemed to do the trick. I even fooled Blanche, which I felt a little bad about. Though, that night she hugged me even tighter than ever before. The two hurt people, Agnes and Kellen, who were apparently a married couple, woke up around time for breakfast. They were quite lightheaded, but were out of the worst.

As it turned out yesterday, he was the father of the girl we saved from goblin village. Honestly, I forgot the girl's name until he reminded me of the event.

"Thank you for your hospitality," the duke bowed to me slightly and smiled warmly, "I will make sure we come to pay our respects and thanks together with my daughter."

"Are you sure you want to go already? They should rest a little more."

"Hahah, don't be so worried kid! We can tough it out if it's just a little pain, owww," as she said it, Agnes got lightheaded and would go to the ground if her husband did not catch her, though his arm was originally broken, the Healing slimes were able to heal it in no time. Sadly, some of his muscles got damaged previously and he would need convalescence to regain strength in his grip.

"You should be more careful… would you like some hematopoietics?" I asked.

"No need! I'm completely fine!" Agnes went a little pale.

"Mr. Kellen use this please," I handed him a white powder made from Collagen slime.

"What is this?"

"A food supplement… It's meant to regain strength more quickly. It's safe, I tested it."

"Well, Ain’t ya a good kid! Thanks my boy!" he patted my head with a big grin.

"We will be back, see you around Arito, Blanche," the duke smiled and led the way out of the forest. With that, the group left and our lives returned to its original, normal and peaceful way. Well, kinda. From the day we saved those humans, me and Blanche became much closer. That may be due to the sad story administrators made for me, so once again, I feel a little guilty.

"What are you up to Arito?" Blanche asked me when she returned from checking on traps with the wolves.

"I was thinking about making the bow stronger…"

"With wheels?"

"Yeah. Watch this," I pulled my improved bow that was based on Earth's modern time bows. Once I had it fully pulled I released the arrow. It hit the wall so hard that it made a hole and the shaft shattered.

"Oh wow! That was so strong! And you didn't even enhance it with energy or anything…"

"Yep. It's a strong bow. This could make fighting the Spider skull bear much easier than a regular bow."

"Are you sure you want to fight it though?"

"It would still be a suicide for me right now. But this should make it easier to fight the other bears."

"Hmm… this is weird string it looks like it's made from Cocoon slime steel thread but they never make them this smooth."

"You are right. The bowstring is made from regular silk thread that was coated in Resin slime's fluids."

"But that thing is only good as a glue right?"

"I thought the same, but I experimented a bit… I found out they can make two different types of fluids. Sticky one. Hardening one. I mixed them in 4:6 ratio and then coated them in diluted acid from Acid slime and it became like this."

"That's a lot of steps."

"Yeah, but it was only an accidental discovery, though," I handed her a ball about five centimeters in diameter.

"A ball? It's kinda squishy."

"Yeah. The Resin slime made it. Inside is a small seed that got coated in resin. I thought it would be too sticky to touch so I had an Acid slime coat it in a weak acid to make it easier to pick up. Though, this is the result."

"Wow… do you think that by combining the fluids of slimes we could make new materials?"

"We definitely could, but I would like better materials so I could look at them better. The stone containers are rather unfit for that."

"True… but bandits don't have that kind of equipment on them."

"Yeah… to get something like that, we would need to go to town."

Should I go? I can't really leave the wolves before they give birth so it will have to wait. Plus Persia is still sitting on her eggs in turns with Skopi so we can't move them much.

"Yeah. We don't need to rush," I patted the worried looking Blanche, "Let's go to town when we feel like it. Experiments don't need to be held right after you come up with them."

"Y-yeah… let's take our time…" Blanche hugged me with a faint happy smile.

Yes, I can't make her worry so much. My first priority must always be the happiness we build together.