Okano The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 14

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-7183-2126-7
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 14, 250 Seiten

Reihe: The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

With the Silver-class Ascension Exam on the horizon, Rentt has arrived in the port city of Lucaris to request some training from his mentor. But first, they must scour the local dungeon for sea spirit herbs-a more dangerous task than it seems, since rumor has it that a demon lord's agents are causing trouble nearby. A chance encounter has also led to Rentt becoming a mentor in his own right, but only time will tell if his students will prove receptive to his teachings.
Ferocious monsters, answers to long-held questions, and an unexpected reunion... In the depth of the underwater Dungeon of the Sea God's Daughters, Rentt will find much more than he bargained for.
Dive into The Unwanted Undead Adventurer Volume 14!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Okano, Yu

Weitere Mitwirkende

Jaian

Li, Jason

Leseproben

Chapter 1: Student and Teacher

“How is it?” I asked.

The man, who had a layer of stubble on his chin, gave himself a careful once-over. “I feel better,” he said eventually. “Dunno why, though. Still...thanks.”

Now was a relief. The herbal infusion I’d fed him had been experimental, so I’d been worried something would go wrong. The recipe, which I’d learned from my herbalism mentor, Gharb, was a tried-and-true Hathara staple—or, well, almost. I’d made a few adjustments of my own.

See, while Gharb had taught me plenty about herbalism and creating natural infusions, her classes had never covered potioncraft. Partially because I just hadn’t been aware she was capable of it, but mainly it was because I’d had very little in the way of mana at the time.

It hadn’t been a cold calculation on Gharb’s part—far from it. It was just, why teach someone a craft they weren’t capable of practicing, right? And when it came to herbalism, she’d been as diligent a teacher as anyone could ask for, drilling into me the minutest of details.

Looking back, it just wasn’t possible to overstate how important that had been for me and my growth. My mana and spirit reserves had been truly minuscule back then, and I’d only managed to scrape by in my early adventuring career thanks to my skills as an herbalist.

Returning to the topic of what changes I’d made to the infusion, though, the short version was that I’d made it more powerful. Generally speaking, this fell under the purview of alchemy rather than herbalism, as it involved infusing the mixture with mana. That meant the end result was a true magic potion.

Lorraine was an expert in this field, and I was pretty sure Gharb was too. I, on the other hand, had never learned the principles of potioncraft, nor any of its recipes. Still, I hadn’t spent the last decade watching Lorraine work for nothing—I at least had a general understanding of the processes involved.

Basically, by infusing mana into a mixture, one could increase its efficacy. Of course, that was easier said than done. The process was fraught with difficulty—one example being that it was common for side effects to become more severe—so I had planned on taking the slow and steady route, learning from Gharb before dabbling in any potioncraft of my own.

Well, that had been my plan I’d realized that mana wasn’t my only available resource. I had divinity now too. And that had made me ask myself: If I could create potions by infusing mana into my herbal mixtures, didn’t that mean I could create holy elixirs by infusing them with divinity?

Uh, the term for that type of potion was just something I’d come up on the spot, by the way. Divinity-infused potions didn’t really exist on the market, so there was no official name for them. Having said that, I doubted they didn’t exist at —someone had to have come up with the idea before this, so they were probably out there somewhere.

Case in point, holy water. I couldn’t say for sure, but I suspected it was created using the same method as magic potions.

At any rate, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence that if I used divinity like mana, I could create more effective potions. And given the properties of divinity, I figured the chance of them having any harmful side effects was pretty low. There was only one catch: I needed a test subject. I couldn’t exactly ask an ordinary person off the street, after all.

I’d achieved proof of concept, having brewed several mixtures and infused them with divinity already, so it definitely be done. I’d even tested them on injured animals and monsters with promising results. But I still didn’t know how they’d work on a human.

Well, until now, that is. In a highly convenient coincidence, this guy and his friends had tried to jump me for my valuables. I figured that, since he’d made an attempt on my life, he’d forfeited the right to complain about whatever I did to him next.

Did that make me sound too villainous?

In my defense, I’d already confirmed the recipe’s safety...to a reasonable extent. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t die, at least. Anyway, that was why I had decided I could go ahead with my experiment—and looking at the results, it seemed to have been a great success.

By my reckoning, the blow I’d landed on my test subject should’ve caused some internal damage, but he was looking hale and hearty after drinking my infusion. I could’ve patched him up with just divinity instead, but trying to heal damage that deep would’ve left me pretty exhausted. Good thing I’d had an alternative handy.

I would’ve still used my divinity if the infusion hadn’t worked, though. I swear.

“Bit too nice for your own good, aren’t you?” the man said, oblivious to my thoughts. “I attacked you. No getting around that. So...why heal me?”

I wasn’t exactly sure I qualified as “nice,” given I’d just used him as an unsuspecting test subject, but if he hadn’t realized he’d served as my guinea pig, I saw no point in enlightening him. “If I’d thought you were really rotten to the core, I would’ve handed you over to the authorities,” I explained. “But I didn’t get that impression. Your friends who woke up earlier—they didn’t seem all bad either. So what’s healing a few injuries here and there, right?”

Technically, I wasn’t lying. . The man’s two henchmen—or whatever they were—had indeed woken up earlier. They’d explained that they’d only followed their friend because they’d been trying to stop him, and it had seemed like they were telling the truth.

Given how things had played out, I could understand why they’d felt like they couldn’t back out, even if they’d wanted to. They’d even claimed that they would’ve stopped their friend from dealing me a fatal blow if it had gotten to that point.

That didn’t excuse what they’d done, of course, but since I’d come out unharmed and planned to put them—and their friend—to work for me, I’d decided to let them off the hook.

The man scoffed. “Not rotten to the core? I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I tried to rob you for your coin, remember?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s fine.”

“What?”

“Just saying that any situation can be useful under the right conditions.”

He gave me a skeptical look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think is going to happen to you?” I asked.

The man pondered this for a while. “You’re gonna make me your slave, or sell me off to somebody else who will,” he said eventually, wringing the words out as if he were unwilling to say them. “That’s why you healed me, right? So that I’d fetch a higher price?”

“Wow, that’s pessimistic,” I remarked. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. “Does that mean slavery is legal here in Ariana?”

“It is,” Diego confirmed. “There are a number of rules and regulations pertaining to the categories and uses of slaves, but fundamentally, it’s legal.”

“I see. I guess that opens it up as an eventual option, but no. What I have planned is different.”

The man who’d served as my test subject cocked his head. “And that is?”

“Simple. You—well, you and your friends—are going to come dungeon delving with me.”

His eyes flew open wide.

?????

The man’s initial surprise gradually morphed into an expression of self-derision. “Dungeon, huh?” he muttered.

I immediately understood how he must’ve been feeling. After all, I’d lived a very similar life to his until relatively recently. Right now, he was thinking that he wouldn’t be of any use anyway.

Not in the literal sense, of course. He was still an adventurer, so he’d get by just fine in the shallow levels of most dungeons out there—but that wasn’t what he’d meant.

“Well, my life belongs to you now, anyway,” he continued. “Guess I’d better give up and take my licks. Being a meat shield shouldn’t be too much for me to handle. Are you sure, though? At the levels you probably work in, guys like us won’t be good for much more than decoys that’ll buy a handful of seconds.”

It seemed my assumption had been right; he thought I’d be using them as fodder to save my own hide. “Again with the pessimism,” I said, shaking my head. “I can see how you’d get that impression, though.”

“You don’t understand anything.”

“Until recently, I was just like... Ah, never mind.”

I stopped myself. I could’ve told him that I’d been just like him not so very long ago, but I knew that would only fall on deaf ears. I remembered hearing all kinds of encouragement and advice from those around me back then, but I’d taken none of it to heart.

No, rather than words of sympathy, I needed to offer him something more practical—like explaining exactly what I’d be having him do.

“I won’t be using you as a meat shield,” I said. “That’d be pointless anyway, like you said.”

“Ouch. I know I was the one who said it first, but it’s not fun hearing that from someone else.”

Yeah, it definitely sucked to be told your efforts were pointless. It was almost like being...