It had been four days since we started building the new Tanikaze, and only a quarter of the total was complete. It might seem like slow progress, but according to the master, "Considering we're taking proper breaks and forging Mithril using special techniques and methods, this speed is abnormal no matter how you look at it." Apparently, reaching this stage in ten days would normally be considered excellent work.
Well, that made sense. This time around, I'd been particular not only about the materials but also about supporting the production process.
First, food. I'd gathered highly nutritious, easy-to-eat provisions, some of which I'd prepared myself. Among them were dishes made from Baicorn meat and octopus, as well as snacks to eat during breaks or while working. In terms of cost, it would have been quite high-end. However, I'd deliberately avoided providing alcohol so it wouldn't affect the work, which apparently was a point of dissatisfaction for the master.
Next, medicine. I'd assembled a collection centered on homemade nutrition drinks. These were also made from excellent ingredients, so at market price they'd probably cost something only nobles could afford. But since I'd gathered the ingredients myself, the only cost was the labor.
Beyond that, if anyone got injured I'd immediately heal them with magic, and if something was suddenly needed, Branca or Amur would dash all over Seigen, and sometimes Grandpa would fly to another town to buy it.
It was work done with that level of support, which is why even the master was experiencing a pace of progress he'd never encountered before.
As work on the exterior progressed, my share of the tasks gradually increased. Mainly, it involved combining the finished exterior with the skeletal frame to create individual parts, then assembling those parts together while adjusting the balance. It was quite difficult, and I struggled.
First, combining the exterior with the frame — since I'd been doing most of the frame adjustments on my own, this was something I had to do entirely by myself. As for the balance adjustments, I needed to check and correct the visual balance of paired parts like the front and rear legs, and then assemble them. But each part was heavy and large, so I had Branca and Grandpa helping me throughout. Amur, being shorter than me, naturally ended up with fewer opportunities to contribute than the other two.
However, without a doubt, the hardest part of the work I was responsible for was the leg joints. Plastic-model-style joints had limitations in their range of motion, so I'd abandoned that approach during the prototype stage. After exchanging ideas with Grandpa and the master, through trial and error, we settled on using what amounted to two spheres stuck together as the joint. This was inspired by ball-jointed dolls, but since this technique didn't exist in this world, I claimed it as my own original idea. That said, while I drew inspiration from ball-jointed dolls, I barely knew anything about the actual technique — I was just going off a single doll I'd seen once and making it look roughly right.
In real ball-jointed dolls, they apparently use rubber and such, but I couldn't find anything rubber-like with enough strength to support this massive body. So I decided to make the joint out of two spheres, with each one encased by the ends of the parts being connected. The problem was that if I made the joints too tight, the movement was poor, and if they were too loose, there was a risk of them popping out when moved. Getting the tension just right — not too tight, not too loose — was incredibly difficult.
Using the satisfactorily completed joint as a reference, I assembled the remaining legs. Looking at the four half-finished legs, my very first thought was:
"It's going to take some time to get used to these…"
You might think that's only natural since they were built with a new technique, but it went beyond mere tolerance. The type was fundamentally different from before. The old Tanikaze had joints like plastic model kits, resulting in slightly jerky movement, whereas the new Tanikaze had a wide range of motion in its joints and moved smoothly, which gave a somewhat strange feeling. The movement itself was probably closer to that of a real horse now, but when I thought of horses, I thought of the Tanikaze. I wasn't used to real horses, so my old riding style might not work anymore.
"Well, I'll worry about that when it's done."
I decided to put the problem off for later and get back to work. After that, I helped the master with his work, but dinner time came quickly and that was the end of work for the day.
The apprentices were surprised by how casually the master dropped everything, but according to him, the work required more physical and mental energy than usual, so wrapping up early helped replenish his reserves. I'd like to believe it had nothing to do with wanting a drink…
Four more days passed, and all four legs were complete. The master and his apprentices, for their part, had nearly finished the main body. The body section was apparently easier to forge because of its size, and they'd had more leeway than expected, which ignited their craftsman's spirit — according to the master, they'd gotten hung up on fine details, which ate up extra time. For instance, the master had been fussing over decorations on the belly armor — parts that weren't even visible when the thing was standing normally.
The body section should be done in another one or two days, so I decided to use this time to adjust the rough connection points on the legs. When I say "adjust," all I was doing was visually inspecting the connection surface on the body to check for any extreme warping, so it wasn't particularly difficult to begin with. The master had been paying attention to the connection surfaces while building the body, so the possibility of problems had been low from the start.
So why did I bother doing all that when I already knew it? Honestly? Because I'd run out of things to do.
The leg section I'd been working on until recently was about ninety percent done—all that remained was checking it against the body, but the master and his apprentices were handling that part, so there was nothing for me to get involved with. That left the head, neck, reins and saddle, tail, and the internal mechanisms, but the master had claimed creative control over all of those, so there was nothing I could do right now.
"Tenma! If you've got nothing to do, then polish the magic cores we'll be using!"
I'd been wandering around aimlessly, and the master yelled at me for it. Resigned, I staked out a corner of the workshop and started polishing the magic cores to be used, just as he'd told me.
The magic cores lined up for this project included the ones originally used for the Tanikaze, plus new ones from the Bicorn, the octopus, and the Wyvern subspecies. I'd wanted to add the Earth Dragon's magic core to the mix as well, but there was no room left to install any more cores, and besides, I wanted to save the Earth Dragon's core for something else, so I decided to pass on it this time. If we were to put a price on the new Tanikaze, it would be the kind of sum that would make even royalty hesitate to pay. Not that I had any intention of selling it.
I polished cores for three straight hours. The body section had apparently reached a good stopping point too, and that wrapped up the day's work. At this rate, my workload would pick up by tomorrow afternoon. I was looking forward to it… or so I thought…
"Master… you're overdoing it."
Once again the master had gone off on a tangent, insisting the balance of certain fine details wasn't right and refusing to stop adjusting. Thanks to that, I ended up polishing cores for the rest of the day too. I'd polished so much that the cloth was practically wearing through.
The next day, the master finally produced a result he was satisfied with, and I was finally able to rejoin the work—but his adjustments had finished just before the end of the workday, so that day too I'd spent polishing cores. At least the cores we'd be using this time had become so beautiful you'd mistake them for gemstones, so I moved on to polishing a few extras that weren't slated for use.
Alright, this time for real—I'm going to get to work! Filled with determination, I was heading to the master's workshop when—
"There you are! Tenma, help us!"
I was ambushed by Agri and the rest of the Tamer's Guild crew and essentially kidnapped. They dragged me to a corner of the Adventurer's Guild—the usual spot where Agri and the others gathered.
"What's going on? I'm busy, you know."
I grumbled with a growing frown, and Agri, out of breath, said:
"I know this is sudden, but it's an emergency. The Sakarat Brothers have been trapped inside the dungeon!"
When I pressed for details, it turned out the brothers had been exploring a newly discovered section on the twentieth floor when they were attacked by a swarm of Monsters. While fleeing from the horde, they'd been cornered in a dead end.
How we'd gotten this information: only their Familiars, the Flame Tigers, had managed to escape the dungeon, and the cloth one of them had been carrying in its mouth contained a written plea for help along with the location where they'd taken refuge.
"What kind of Monsters are attacking them?"
"Apparently a Goblin horde. A rough count puts them at around thirty, mostly Hobgoblins."
Four or five Hobgoblins wouldn't have been any match for the Sakarat Brothers and their Familiars, but a group of nearly thirty was a different story. On top of that, the new section was essentially a Goblin nest, and if they'd been hit by something close to a surprise attack, even a party of skilled fighters would have a hard time pushing them back.
"Got it. I'll head over right away. I think they'll be fine, but let my grandpa and the others know just in case. And… be prepared for the worst-case scenario. I'm counting on you to handle that."
The worst-case scenario, of course, was the Sakarat Brothers being dead. In that case, since we'd also be considering the possibility of destroying the new section, there was a chance we wouldn't be able to recover their bodies or personal effects. I decided to leave all of that — along with notifying their next of kin and the Guild about their deaths — to Agri and the others, who'd had a long relationship with the two. I'd probably get called in for the detailed briefing too, but I figured the initial report should come from someone they knew.
"Shouldn't we be going with you?"
"Given the possibility of a ambush, fewer people means easier movement."
"Understood."
Just as the discussion wrapped up and I was about to head straight to the dungeon, a red-furred tiger burst out of the bag Agri was carrying. The Sakarat Brothers' Flame Tiger. It looked like Agri had been looking after it.
"You want to come along too?"
"Gafh."
Whether it actually understood my words or not, the Flame Tiger nodded its head up and down, then came over to my side.
"Tenma, take it with you. Its masters must be worried about it. Besides, that Flame Tiger… Frau should know the location where the two of them parted ways, and it's strong enough that it won't slow you down."
Frau was a smaller tiger than Shiromaru by the look of it, but being a tiger, its muscles were tightly toned. It was covered in injuries here and there, but nothing serious. At this level, it certainly wouldn't fall behind much fighting Hobgoblins. The fact that it had escaped a Goblin horde on its own was easy to believe too.
For the time being, I had Frau get into the same bag as Slarin and the others, and we moved to the dungeon entrance. From there, we warped to the nearest zone to the twentieth floor, then summoned Frau again and had it guide us.
The closest warp point was one floor above our destination, but Frau seemed to recognize our current location immediately, heading toward the descending staircase without any hesitation. I deployed Search to try and pinpoint the Sakarat Brothers' position, but the dungeon's complex structure on a different floor meant I couldn't pick up any response.
When we reached the twentieth floor, the air felt heavier, as if weighed down. Apparently, the Monsters on this floor were irritable because of the Goblins. As proof, no sooner had we entered than several bipedal, dog-faced Monsters — commonly known as Kobolds — lunged at us. By the way, as higher-ranked variants of Kobolds, there were Monsters called Werewolves and Warwolves, which were larger and stronger. In terms of rank, Kobolds were D while Werewolves were C. However, both tended to move in packs of several, and since they specialized in coordinated hunting, having four or five of them raised the danger level by one tier per beast.
The Kobolds were carrying rusty knives and battered swords that looked like discarded or dropped adventurer gear, but Frau had already scattered them. It seemed Frau's fighting style prioritized speed and single-blow power. Maybe because it was also a tiger, its attacks reminded me of Branca. However, Frau appeared to be weak on the defensive side, and there were moments against the Kobolds where it let them get behind it, which was risky. The gap in class between Monsters was just too great, so the Kobolds' attacks never landed, but against a Hobgoblin horde, that would be dangerous.
"Gafh!"
After scattering the Kobolds, Frau turned toward me as if to say "hurry up," and started to move ahead, but I called it to a stop and summoned Shiromaru from the bag.
"Shiromaru, you cover Frau's flank. I'll guard the rear."
"Wafh!"
Shiromaru barked once in acknowledgment, then touched noses with Frau in greeting. Frau returned the greeting, and this time it truly took off running as if to say "let's go."
Running ahead of Frau's guidance for several minutes, we arrived at the entrance to the new section the Sakarat Brothers had found. This was a place even I had never been — most likely, the wall had collapsed due to some cause, revealing a new passageway beyond it.
"Frau, wait!"
I stopped Frau as she tried to rush deeper inside and carefully examined the entrance. Frau showed her teeth, apparently displeased at being held back, but I ignored her and continued inspecting the entrance.
"This looks less like a new section and more like a goblin den... Slarin, I'm counting on you to hold this spot."
After a brief investigation, I came to that conclusion and decided to have Slarin guard the entrance. After all, just inside the entrance, a hidden side passage had been concealed. Most likely, the goblins had built it so they could ambush prey that ventured inside. The side passage was cleverly hidden, but faint footprints remained, and my Appraisal detected several goblins nearby. When I expanded the range of my Search, I found a spot where dozens of goblins were gathered. At that moment, Search felt unusually difficult to use — perhaps there was something in this section that interfered with Search.
Something.
...might exist here.
"Over there! Move out!"
"Gah!"
I pointed in the direction of the response, and Frau bolted forward with a burst of speed. Shiromaru followed close behind, not to be outdone. I ran after them, placing Golems near the side passages we passed along the way. There were no goblin reactions for now, but this should dramatically reduce both the chance of being flanked and the chance of goblins escaping. Well, with Slarin stationed at the entrance, none should get away — but lately goblins fetched a good price, so the less effort needed to collect them, the better.
After passing several side passages, we suddenly emerged into a wide open space. About the size of a soccer field, roughly.
"There! We made it!"
Along the far wall of the open area, a cluster of goblins had gathered in one spot. As far as I could see, there were roughly fifty to sixty of them. My Search also detected the Sakarat Brothers and their familiar Mountain Turtle beyond the goblins — it looked like no one had died yet.
"Frau, Shiromaru, go wild. But the biggest one is mine."
The two barked in acknowledgment of my order and charged toward the goblins swarming the Sakarat Brothers. I drew a blade from my Magic Bag and started walking toward the large goblin that had been glaring at me since earlier.
The large goblin I had targeted came back as a Goblin King from my Appraisal — without a doubt, the leader of this group. Goblins are generally considered the epitome of stupidity, but once they evolve into Hobgoblins, their intelligence skyrockets. Well, "skyrockets" is relative — they reach about the level of an elementary schooler. For reference, normal goblins are on par with kindergarteners or below, in my estimation.
But when goblins evolve beyond Hobgoblin, everything changes. Beyond Hob, the evolution paths include Warrior, Mage, Archer, and above those, General, with King (or Queen) at the very top. At the General and King level, they're said to possess intelligence equal to or greater than that of an adult human. The only evolved variants here were a Hob and a King — most likely because they'd formed a tightly bounded group, so the only one to evolve beyond Hob was the single goblin that became King.
The Goblin King ordered the surrounding Hobgoblins to intercept Shiromaru and Frau, then took up his weapon to face me directly. The Hobgoblins around him stood at roughly 160 centimeters, but the Goblin King towered at over two meters tall. His muscular build made facing him head-on quite imposing. As a Monster, his rank fell in the B to B-plus range — roughly equivalent to the Orc King I had defeated long ago. The weapon in his hands was a greatsword that must have once belonged to an adventurer. It was rusted and likely dull, but its sheer weight made it more than adequate as a bludgeon.
Perhaps because of the size difference between our weapons, the Goblin King grinned ugly, convinced of his victory — but that grin turned to shock just a few seconds later. Because his prized weapon was deflected by a single strike from my blade and sent stabbing into the ceiling.
Until now, this Goblin King had probably only ever fought the goblins under his command. I was almost impressed that he'd managed to evolve all the way to King, but it was likely the result of extraordinary luck — and thinking about it served no purpose, so I simply cut off the Goblin King's head with a returning slash.
The lowly goblins had never imagined their absolute leader could fall so easily, and despite Shiromaru and Frau charging right at them, they froze in place. Then, without putting up any real resistance, they were cut down by the two's claws and fangs.
By defeating the King in a swift attack, we managed to wipe out the goblins without a scratch — but the Sakarat Brothers, who had been at the front of the swarm, weren't so lucky. The two had bruises and broken bones, but nothing life-threatening. The worst off of all was their Familiar, the Mountain Turtle.
The Mountain Turtle had numerous cracks running across the large shell on its back, and in the worst spots, pieces of shell had peeled away to expose the flesh beneath.
"Aqua Heal!" "Thank you, Tenma."
First, I cast healing magic on the Sakarat Brothers, who had been about to bow their heads in gratitude. I only applied the magic to the surface of their bodies, so their broken bones weren't healed yet, but everything besides the fractures should have been mostly taken care of. Before checking on their conditions further, I moved on to examine the Mountain Turtle.
The Mountain Turtle had expended a considerable amount of stamina, and the repeated heavy blows to its shell seemed to have damaged its internal organs as well. However, it didn't look like the organ damage was too severe, so with careful application of healing magic, a full recovery should be possible.
First, I removed the broken shell fragments still clinging to the flesh, then cast Aqua Heal several times from those spots toward the internals. Normally, it would have been possible to heal everything in a single cast, but given the delicate situation, I had to proceed while monitoring the Mountain Turtle's condition, which made the process more labor-intensive. However, the extra care paid off — the Mountain Turtle perked up considerably and even tried to start walking before the wounds were fully sealed. I obviously couldn't let it walk yet, so I positioned the Sakarat Brothers and Frau beside the Mountain Turtle and managed to keep it calm.
The final step was repairing the shell, but I had no idea how to go about it. The first method that came to mind was immobilizing the shell with a cast, like you would for a broken bone, but I gave up on that since I didn't know the raw materials for plaster. The next idea was to harden it with fired clay, but I was worried about the strength and, more importantly, terrified of introducing bacteria, so I abandoned that idea almost immediately. In the end, the Sakarat Brothers told me the Mountain Turtle's shell would heal naturally, so I applied oil and stuck cloth treated with a simple waterproof coating onto the shell as an emergency measure.
Right as I finished treating the Mountain Turtle, Slarin arrived with the Golems in tow. Apparently, there had indeed been goblins trying to flank us from behind, just as I'd predicted, but Slarin and the Golems had annihilated them without trouble. They'd brought all the goblin corpses with them, so I transferred them into my Magic Bag. There had been a little over forty goblins attempting to take our rear — and that alone showed that the Goblin King I'd defeated had understood strategy to at least some degree. After Slarin's report, I thoroughly scanned the area with Appraisal, and there didn't seem to be any surviving goblins. In exchange, I discovered what appeared to be a hoard of treasure collected by the goblins deep in the back of this section.
"I'm curious, but treating the Sakarat Brothers comes first... Wait, Slarin, you're going?"
Just as I was about to set the treasure aside and resume treatment, Slarin came riding up on Shiromaru's back. Behind them, Solomon was riding on Frau's back. Frau clearly wasn't accustomed to carrying anything on its back and looked quite miserable, but Solomon paid no attention to Frau's suffering. Frau, for its part, couldn't defy something —
Solomon
— a higher-ranking species — and never tried to force him off.
"Solomon, get off Frau. If you want to ride, get on Shiromaru."
When Shiromaru heard my words, it looked shocked — "What?!" — but once it returned to its normal size, it obediently let Solomon climb onto its back. It seemed that Shiromaru had been forgetting its original size lately. Meanwhile, Frau, now relieved of its unwanted passenger, went back to the Sakarat Brothers' side with a visibly relieved expression.
The only remaining injury on the Sakarat Brothers was the broken bones, so once I realigned the bones and cast Heal, the treatment was done. For good measure, I also applied Cure and Resist to prevent any infections. They'd need to rest for several days, but there shouldn't be any lasting complications.
After finishing their treatment, I asked them why this had happened, and the answer they gave back was exceedingly simple. In short:
""We found a new path that wasn't on the map, went to check it out, and got chased by goblins — that's how it happened.""
Apparently, that was the gist of it. I thought it was rather reckless behavior, but for the two of them — both adventurers and blacksmiths — the idea that a newly discovered section might contain an untapped vein of ore had apparently been too tempting to resist, so there was perhaps some room for sympathy. Well, once we got back to the surface, Agri and the others would squeeze them dry for sure, so I decided not to say anything on top of that. Incidentally, as for their blacksmithing skills, they were apparently just barely at a competent level — still a ways off from mastery — and as adventurers, they were somewhat inferior to the slightly older Ted and Light.
After a while, Slarin and the others returned. The three of them seemed to have made various discoveries and looked somewhat satisfied. However, it wasn't just treasure they'd found — they'd also uncovered a large number of bones that appeared to belong to adventurers, so I decided we'd gather the bones and perform a proper memorial later. However, if an amateur were to carelessly bury remains that had already been consecrated, there was a worst-case possibility that the bones could become Undead Monsters, so we'd need to bring them to the surface and leave them to the church. In that case, I figured the best approach would be to simply report and propose the idea to the Guild and then leave the rest to them. As far as I knew, there wasn't any particular friction with the church, but apparently some of its members held rather unique views. Kukuri Village did have a church of sorts, but in a place where hunters and adventurers held influence like Kukuri Village, native faiths tended to be valued more, and the church's teachings hadn't really taken hold. Then again, the priest who'd been stationed in Kukuri Village had been a rather peculiar character — despite being a priest, he'd shown little interest in spreading the church's teachings. Incidentally, in this world, the church didn't hold much power. The reason was that the real gods — whom I knew all too well — would capriciously grant Blessings or deliver prophecies to people outside the church. In fact, ordinary people might actually receive more Blessings than those affiliated with the church.
Either way, once we recovered the remains, there'd be no reason to stay here. However, this goblin lair seemed to have considerable potential value, and I wanted to secure it somehow. Unfortunately, the lair didn't contain the Warp Zone needed for exclusive access, so some kind of mechanism would need to be set up. Well, for now I had neither the time nor the ideas to rig anything, so I'd just seal the entrance heavily for the time being.
While mulling that over, I headed toward the room where they'd been gathering the remains, guided by Slarin and the others.