Okano The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 13

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-7183-2124-3
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 13, 250 Seiten

Reihe: The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

After accepting a plea for help to save a small village from marauding skeletons, Rentt stumbles into much more than he bargained for while searching for their source. There's almost no time to dig into his new discoveries, however-back in Maalt, the blacksmith Clope has an unexpected request of his own. And to top it all off, Rentt has the Silver-class Ascension Exam to prepare for!

Being an adventurer is busy work. Getting stronger requires constant effort-you can sleep when you're dead, after all! Unfortunately, for our unlucky undead hero, that doesn't apply!

The grind never stops in The Unwanted Undead Adventurer Volume 13!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Okano, Yu

Weitere Mitwirkende

Jaian

Li, Jason

Leseproben

?????

“There won’t be any more skeletons attacking our village now, right?”

Rivul looked a little uneasy. It was no surprise that that was the top priority as far as his village was concerned. His unease likely stemmed from his lack of knowledge about monster ecology and how they spawned—he didn’t know enough to tell if this was going to be the end of the skeletons or not.

There was no helping that; even most adventurers only knew the broad strokes when it came to this stuff. The world still had a great deal to learn about monsters, and what knowledge we did have was less fact and more a web of theories that changed on a regular basis.

Even with geniuses like Lorraine conducting serious research—wait, could I really call it serious when she had snacks and tea to one side and regularly paused for naps? No, yeah, I guess it still counted—our knowledge of monsters was still plagued by mysteries.

Many adventurers scorned any form of learning and would never bother remembering the specifics of all that stuff. The fact that Maalt’s adventurers were relatively well educated was a result of the value Wolf placed on knowledge. Even the younger ones weren’t slacking in that regard, since I’d taught them a lot of things too. Still, when it came to adventurers, they were the exception rather than the rule.

All that aside, I knew enough about this situation that I could explain it to Rivul.

“There’s still malice built up here. It’s not safe yet.”

“Does that mean...?”

“If we leave it alone, more skeletons will form.”

“But that’s...!” The look on Rivul’s face was full of despair.

I had no intention of leaving the situation alone, though. “Don’t panic, Rivul,” I reassured him. “I said ‘yet,’ didn’t I? I’ll take care of it.”

“O-Oh... Right. I’m sorry for panicking. But how are you going to...?”

An ordinary person would have no idea how to disperse malice, but it wasn’t actually a terribly complex procedure. I dug around in my magic bag and pulled out a particular object.

“Is that...a flask? What’s in it?” Rivul studied the finely crafted bottle closely.

“Holy water,” I explained. “The religious organizations in Maalt give it to you in exchange for donations.”

It was honestly more accurate to just say that you purchased it, but leave it up to the churches to call that sort of thing a “donation.” Sure was a crooked racket they were running—not that they’d ever catch me calling it a “racket” out loud.

Still, I supposed the term “donation” wasn’t inaccurate. Certain individuals who’d made enough contributions or done some kind of service for the churches might have their donation amounts lowered, so it wasn’t a set thing. Of course, that also meant the churches could ask for ludicrous sums from the people they like.

In my case, you’d think my status as a monster would bar me from getting any holy water no matter how charitable I was, but I had a pretty influential bit of leverage with the Church of Lobelia in the form of an acquaintance called Nive. Thanks to that connection, I could stock up from them on the cheap.

There wasn’t a single thing I liked about the Church of Lobelia itself, but their holy water was excellent quality, so I often found myself begrudgingly buying it anyway.

Other than that, Lillian of the Church of the Eastern Sky had regained her strength as a saint, so the quality of the holy water from their branch in Maalt would probably improve before long. I’d been purchasing it occasionally for a while, but its efficacy had been on the weaker side, so I was looking forward to the change.

Once their holy water improved, it would be nice if I could get a friend’s discount, but I wasn’t going to force the issue.

Even with the Church of Lobelia, I was only getting a discount because they didn’t want to offend me. I was really curious what kind of dirt Nive had on them, but trying to find out would mean having to see her again, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d be happy staying in the dark for the rest of eternity, honestly.

Rivul easily accepted my explanation about the flask. “Oh, holy water,” he said. “Traveling merchants bring it to town sometimes. We sprinkle it around the village once a year, on the day of the harvest festival.”

“To ward off monsters, right?”

“Yes. Though, it’s my understanding that it’s only a temporary measure...”

“It would be,” I agreed. “It does the job just fine, but it’s going to evaporate eventually. A particularly potent batch might work for a few months, but that’d eat into the budget pretty fast.”

The income of a small village couldn’t support the constant usage of holy water as monster repellent. Their once-a-year thing sounded like it came from some long-standing tradition that they still clung to as part of a ritual at harvest festivals and the like.

These days, there were a number of different things you could use as a monster repellent, but according to Lorraine, in the past, holy water had been the only option. In short, divinity was all the people of the time could rely on to protect them from monsters.

Mana and spirit existed back then too, of course, but it all came down to the inherent nature of divinity. Mana and spirit were latent resources that could be perceived and trained by people who possessed them to improve their ability in combat, but divinity was different. It was bestowed by gods or spirits as a blessing, and you could use it the moment you got it.

You could improve divinity with effort too, of course, but I had no doubt that in the distant past, the sheer ability to fight back against monsters without needing theory, logic, or effort was incomparably more important than it was today.

After all, that was why those who possessed divinity were venerated by religious organizations as saints.

“But, Rentt, how are you actually going to use that holy water?”

“Holy water is highly effective at dispersing malice. It’s true that it won’t last long—keeping the village safe the whole year round is probably too big of an ask—but it’s just the thing to handle a gathering of malice potent enough to spawn skeletons.”

Technically speaking, there was also the option of using my divinity instead of the holy water, but since the former was of more use in a fight, I wanted to save it. If holy water could do the job too, then that was just fine.

There was a hint of doubt in Rivul’s expression, though.

“Just watch,” I said. “Hmm. Where should I sprinkle it...? The skeleton knight spawned around...here, right?”

Rivul nodded. “Yes, it was around there, I think.”

“Then this’ll do.”

I began to scatter the holy water.

?????

Not to spell out the obvious, but I had to be careful with how much holy water I used. It wasn’t cheap, after all—especially when it came from the Church of Lobelia.

That being said, it wasn’t the most expensive thing around either, and the Nive discount meant I got it cheaper than the market price. Still, being reckless with it would blow through the pay for this commission and leave me worse off than I was before I’d accepted it.

On the other hand, being too tightfisted with the holy water wouldn’t have the desired effect on the lingering malice, leading to the possibility of more skeletons spawning eventually. I had to be careful to use just the right amount...

To ensure that, I needed to ascertain where the malice was the thickest. Fortunately—or maybe it was more of a silver lining in something unfortunate?—I had been able to spot it when the skeleton knight had spawned.

That exact area would be where the malice was gathered, so if I focused my purification efforts there, it should have the greatest effect. If I hadn’t seen the skeleton knight spawn, I would’ve had to go through all the investigative work of walking around and carefully examining every part of the cave.

Of course, someone with magical sight like Lorraine would be able to pinpoint the source of the malice immediately. People like that were rare though, and those who could use their magical eyes to their fullest potential were even rarer. That only made Lorraine’s usefulness stand out even more.

Whatever the case, I couldn’t worry about that kind of thing now, I had malice to purify. I uncorked the flask of holy water and began sprinkling it around in small amounts.

The unpleasant sensation I was feeling as a result of the gathered malice slowly began to dissipate. Even Rivul, who hardly had any mana, seemed to notice the change.

“Is it just me, or does the air feel more...cheerful, now?”

“It’s because the malice is dissipating,” I explained. “There, that should do it. Now, if I just do a brief exorcism...”

This time, instead of scattering the holy water in all directions, I drizzled some onto my sword and shook it as I walked around the cave. This would get rid of any lingering malice that might have stuck around. Even if there wasn’t enough to spawn monsters, leaving any malice at all would allow it to build up over time again, so this step was necessary to ensure a clean...