Chapter 44: LearningDay 43

  “Good morning, everybody. Today, we’ll start with Nordselm. Sherry, do you know the order of the monsters in that byrinth?”

  “No, David, I couldn’t find that. Maybe a guild in the Elven Territories would have it, if they’d tell us.”

  After breakfast, we go to the 12th floor or Nordselm’s Labyrinth. The first monster we encounter is a Low Troll, which we’ve seen in Curatar.

  Alina quips, “Just bigger Jakobs.”

  “Remember, everybody, that trolls can stun and there should still be some venomous ants and cows too. Alina, your armor has resistance, but it might not be perfect.”

  Sherry’s new shield protected her against the poison spikes and Alina enjoyed her enhanced speed when slicing through the giant Jakobs. My spells were notably more powerful, presumably due to my new Sacred Robe. This was obvious even in the tougher Nordselm. Marcus’ swordsmanship seemed to improve with the count’s old sword. As big as Marcus is, maybe his old longsword had been a bit too heavy to use with a shield.

  The frequent stuns were actually the most noticeable improvement in our new equipment. It’s just temporary paralysis of course, but it’s generally long enough to reduce out the number of monsters ready to attack. We absolutely need more weapons like this.

  At lunch time, I took us to our usual spot outside Nordselm Vilge. No outsiders visible, besides us, so we went in.

  “Sherry, would it be possible to add the vilge chief, Bernhard, to the Brahim lessons?”

  “Unusual but possible with Alina’s help.”

  Alina nodded and we went to find Bernhard. I suggested that we invite him to dinner so we can discuss it there. He readily agreed and we went back to work on the 12th floor. After a while, Theo called out that there’s some strange lump ahead.

  “Oh, that might be a treasure chest — I’ve read about these.”

  Marcus kept watch as Theo cut open the ‘cyst’ growing out of the byrinth ground. Theo bent down and pulled out a short sword, which I identified as a pin copper sword with no open slots. We decided to leave it.

  Late in the afternoon, we found the empty waiting area and proceeded to the boss room. Here, we fought a Roll Troll along with a Low Troll. We got an ingot of iron for our troubles.

  We looked at enough of the next floor to see that the next monster is a heart-shaped shrub called a Love Shrub.[1] I remember the names for this and the previous floor’s monster being a bit different in the manga.

  Bernhard was waiting so we brought him back with us. While Theo and Marcus prepared dinner, I had Alina expin our offer. Bernhard’s reaction was immediate and enthusiastic. I didn’t quite catch the details but it seems that Vilge Chiefs actually record children’s names into the cards so some of the kids are officially nameless. That spell, like all others, depends on Brahim. Even if he can sort of imagine the chant, it’s too hard to figure out the details without knowing the nguage or at least hear someone else recite it.

  We spent the time before and after dinner working on Brahim with me and Sherry learning a bit of Elvish on the side. Many words were familiar but the grammar seemed even more complicated than French. My first impression of Germanic still holds though it also sounds like an English speaker just guessing how to read German. With these distractions, we ended up working more on Bernhard than me, which is fine since my nguage training can be done anytime. A few more evening sessions like this might get Bernhard to a reasonable level of proficiency.

  Taking him home that night, Bernhard says, “Good friend, Dawit.”

  “Yes, good friend, Bernhard.”

  Late that night, Sherry enchanted my weapon with Goat and Kobold crystals to turn it into a Sacred Rod. [2]

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  Day 44

  Down at breakfast. “We’ll continue with nguage lessons in the evening so may as well continue in Nordselm. We saw that the next monster is a Love Shrub. Sherry, what can you tell us about it?”

  “Simir to Low Trolls, they are sensitive to fire and can stun though they aren’t resistant to water, as far as I’ve read. One nice thing about them is that they drop wooden pnks that can be used in crafting when I reach that point in my practice.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. Good thing we have so much space in this house for storage.”

  We went directly to Nordselm’s Labyrinth and worked on the 13th floor all morning. Happily, the bonuses from my Sacred Robe and Sacred Rod stacked, probably because they were different types of bonuses (garment vs crystal). Regardless of the logic, my spells became much more effective. This combined with my high MP recovery helped me do an incredible amount of damage. If I can increase my MP recovery by another step, I might not need to use Durandal at all.

  Alina spotted a Shrub crystal before we popped out for a break. There was a light rain so we went to Bernhard’s unoccupied shack for our light lunch of bread rolls.

  “This is the third crystal we’ve found here. This feels more than just lucky, considering that we haven’t found any elsewhere. So, is it because the byrinth is unstable or just because no one else is here to find them?”

  Sherry responds, “I haven’t heard anything though anyone who has seen this might keep quiet about it.”

  “Good point and we should too. Regardless of the cause, even if they could be separated, it’s an extra benefit to working here.”

  By te afternoon, Alina had found a power crystal, the ones that collect monster energy, and we found the boss room. The boss was a Rough Shrub, vaguely familiar name, which dropped wood shavings. I made anti-stunning pills from this.

  We fetched Bernhard and went through the same evening routine of lessons, dinner and more lessons. I tried to ignore Elvish and just concentrate on Brahim. The further I got, the more help I was getting from French and even English, at least in vocabury.

  I also began to appreciate the terrible abbreviations since they effectively hid some of the complicated grammar by using generic endings in standard writing. Sherry told me that schors would still use the full forms but merchants tend to drop them. Official notices posted at the guilds would be further simplified.

  Sherry was a bit surprised when I knew the names for the grammatical forms since even she didn’t know many of them. Of course, my knowledge came from years of formal education, even without specializing in linguistics. I also started thinking about pce names. Curatar might mean something like ‘heart of the stone’ or maybe something less literal like ‘center of the earth’. Our vilge, Callum, might be reted to ‘calm’ though that might just be from English.

  After returning Bernhard, I asked Sherry to add Chant Interruption to Theo’s Damascus-steel short sword. It’ll be nice to not have to run up and switch to Durandal every time a monster starts a spell. I might want the same skill on my rod as well.

  Looks like Sherry has started making leather goods, specifically mittens. Now that she’d accepted that the traditional schedule doesn’t apply, I’ll leave her progression schedule up to her. Of course, that doesn’t mean that her accomplishments should be ignored.

  “Thanks for making such good progress with your crafting. I appreciate that you trusted my advice when it must have sounded so strange.”

  “It’s only because of you that I could become a Runesmith. At this point, it feels a bit silly that I had any doubts.”

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  Day 45

  Today was very simir to yesterday all the way down to finding a skill crystal. The new monster was a Kettle Mermaid, which has a fish’s upper body in pce of the beautiful woman’s. These monstrosities were sensitive to earth magic so I alternated between earth and fire. We occasionally got hit by water but no one got poisoned. The crystal in question, Mermaid, was found near the boss room. We defeated the boss, as always, and went to the vilge to fetch Bernhard.

  We had Brahim lessons with a break for dinner. By evening, we agreed that Bernhard already had an adequate foundation so this would be the st night for him. My Brahim was pretty good, though I’d need to work harder if I wanted to read schorly works.

  “Sherry, should we add the Stun skill to your steel spear? Of course, that’s only if you like that weapon.”

  “Yes, that would be nice.”

  I handed over the Shrub and Kobold crystals and she happily fused them to her spear. I’ve been asking her to do an awful lot of smithing on a daily basis.

  “Am I asking you to do too much? Would less frequent fusing be more comfortable.”

  “No, I’m fine. It’s good to do this at night though. Thank you for asking.”

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  Day 46

  “As a change of pace, let’s go to Curatar’s Labyrinth. I guess the next floor will be the 20th. Sherry, what will we face?”

  “Love Shrub again.”

  “That’s good. I should still use fire and our weapons have improved.”

  Even up on the 20th floor, we weren’t completely alone like we are in Nordselm. Still, it’s much better than being on the lower floors, especially during the day. Having two stunning weapons and chant breaker really helps. I might wait for the Sheep crystal so I can add sleep to my weapon, just to get some variation. I really don’t know if monsters will have different resistances. Anyway, the sleep skill would be good for me so I can give non-lethal taps when needed.

  It sure is nice with a map though I wonder if we should deliberately search other areas to look for treasure chests, etc. Well, it seems better to keep making progress while we can. We can always come back for a more thorough exploration if we hit a spot that’s too dangerous.

  We popped out for a lunch break and had meat-skewers — seems like it’s been awhile. While the others rested, I went to Luke’s. Sherry offered to come along but I don’t really want Luke to see her, though I’m not completely certain why. Also, I stowed my robe before entering the building — too many greedy eyes.

  “Hello Luke, have your bids been successful?”

  “Yes, Mr. Moreau, nearly all, in fact. The market continues to be very active. Three Kobold at 5450, two Ant at 4200, two Sheep at 4100, a Rabbit at 4000, a Bat crystal at 3400, and even the rare Carnivine crystal at 6200 Nars. I’m still looking for the Slime crystal since they don’t come on the market very often.”

  “Yes, that’s very good. Since they’re so rare, I’ll order another Slime. Besides that, I want three more Kobold, two Caterpilr, one Goat, one Coral, and, of course, deposits for these. Take your time on Kobold crystals.”

  “Certainly, Sir. Also, I recently obtained a pair of dragon-leather boots, which I can sell for 6000 Nars. I saved them in case you would like to match them with the armor.”

  With an empty skill slot, these might be good for Theo or maybe me. Well, I vote ‘me’.

  “Yes, Luke, I’ll take everything.”

  I paid and rejoined the party to continue working in the byrinth. We finished the floor with time to spare and I even got wood shavings from the boss so I could make more free-action pills.

  Back home, while the others were busy with chores, I spoke to Sherry about geography.

  “David, I didn’t find anything comprehensive. It was mainly just fragmented reports and local stories. In particur, nguages other than Brahim are rarely mentioned except in passing. There may still be more to find since I didn’t have time to check every angle.”

  What Sherry could tell me is that humans are quite well spread out into many different settlements and there seem to be many different nguages, though some might just be different names for the same nguage. Dwarves have few known regions and nearly all elves in the empire are near Harz Duchy, though it seems that the empire had other elven areas in the past. Cat-kin typically mix in with the elves or the wolf-kin and don’t seem to have exclusive areas or maybe they are simply well hidden. Wolf-kin tend to live near humans though they do have some areas further away.

  After dinner, we had a short session on Vale’s 7th against goats and friends. Since it was such an easy floor, the guys stayed back again and I practiced firing breeze balls right at rod impact. The gals sshed or stabbed the rest. We had a good time and didn’t even bother to look for the boss room.

  That night, I asked Sherry to fuse a Sheep and Kobold crystal to my weapon. The result was a Sacred Rod of Hypnosis. I guess hypnosis comes after the basic sleep skill. [3] Looking at the proud Sherry, I realized that I had some linguistic sources right next to me.

  “Sherry, would you mind speaking to me in your native nguage? I’d like to hear it in your voice.”

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  [1] The WN clearly says “love” and the manga shows a heart shape so I’ll use that instead of the LN’s “rub”.[2] The WN calls this a “Himorogi”, which is too specific. The LN transtes this to “Rod of Offerings”, which is too closely connected to “Himorogi”.[3] This isn’t in the LN, but it is clear in the WN (it’s a chapter title).