The three of us followed along with Aetra’s group after the chosen warriors returned with their axes. I was confident that the fires from the Forgewood trees wouldn’t be able to do any immediate harm to the chimerae, given how much damage I had taken.
My personal estimation was that the firepower of the trees was just a little shy of level two hundred, if they were given a strong blow. The little damage that I did to trigger the blast earlier was significantly weaker still.
Regardless, I watched together with Bella and Diane as the group explored the burning forest. Aetra stood nearby, her arms crossed behind her back as she scanned the area with her gaze. “Just how large is this place?” She asked, and I glanced over to her.
“According to what my friend said, resource dungeons can stretch on for as long as you are willing to travel. There might be some limits, but we don’t really know.” When I said this, Aetra nodded her head, turning her gaze to one of the warriors, who now stood next to an Ironwood tree with his axe in hand.
He took a practiced stance, swinging the axe down and cutting deep into the tree. Moreover, he didn’t seem to suffer from the same level of recoil that I had to deal with previously. Seeing how deep the axe penetrated, Aetra gave a satisfied nod. “It seems that these ‘Ironwood’ trees are more durable than the ones outside. Namu can usually cleave a tree in ten swings.”
Though she said that, the warrior was making far faster progress than I had, even when I switched to the saw. In just a few minutes, the first tree had been felled, landing with a crash. At the same time, the other warrior was approaching a Forgewood tree, his eyes firm.
I was about to call out to stop him, warning him that that was one of the dangerous trees. However, Aetra lifted a hand to silence me, seeming to predict my concern.
Under our watchful gaze, the man braced himself, delivering a small, testing strike to the tree. When it erupted in flames, he measured it and nodded to himself. With a deep breath, he delivered a heavy swing, closing his eyes just before the axe struck. A moment later, the area around the tree was engulfed in roaring flames.
A figure walked out of the flames, holding his axe and patting down his clothes to smother the fires that had latched onto them. “How is it?” Aetra asked the man, who grunted softly and shook his head without a word. “I see…”
I arched a brow, about to speak when Aetra turned to me. “This is Namu’s older brother, Manu, the strongest man in our village. Because of an incident when he was a child, he can’t speak. However, it’s easy to understand him with a bit of practice. Regardless, it looks like we won’t be able to cut down these Forgewood trees without some form of protection from flames. I can perform a ritual to protect an individual, but that magic does not last very long, so it isn’t convenient to use here.”
“That’s fine.” I said with a shake of my head. “I wasn’t expecting the Forgewood to be harvested normally yet. Once your skills evolve, or we are able to get you proper equipment or skills to resist the flames, we can consider going after those trees. For now, you should prioritize the safety of your people first.”
Aetra nodded her head, seeming to appreciate that comment. “In that case, I’ll speak with your Chancellor about this deal.” She said, turning to leave the dungeon together with the rest of us, signalling for her men to follow.
“I’m sure that you have more pressing matters to attend to, so I shall take my leave.” She dismissed herself with a nod, leading her group back towards the village. Some of them sent glances towards the dungeon portal warily, but chose to follow along with her.
“So, what now?” Bella asked curiously. “Are we going to do one last raid of the Shrine of Greed before we go?”
Diane thought about it for a moment, before shaking her head. “I’ll run it solo this time. There are a few things that I want to test. First, I want to visit the boss room, and see if the statues all react to my presence alone. Secondly, I want to see if being alone or in a group affects the spawn rates of mimics.”
Bella blinked, but nodded her head. “What should we do, then?” She asked, turning to look at me with questioning eyes.
“I think that it would probably be a good idea to figure out how we’re going to be doing the enchantment for Create Feast-X.” I told her, and her eyes widened with recognition. “I could just create another random assortment of meals, but this upgraded skill has more options, so I’d like to explore them a little bit. Also, this will be my first time enchanting a master-level magic skill, so I need to brace for the blowback.”
Of course, even as a master-level skill, Create Feast was only rated at six stars, whereas some intermediate combat skills could get as high as ten stars at later levels. Probably because, even with its insane cost, the skill had zero combat utility.
Bella gave another nod, and I took the three of us back to the city, where Diane split off to head for the Shrine of Greed. Meanwhile, Bella and I approached Ennolf’s restaurant. Since I had already handed out meals less than two hours ago, there was not yet a large group looking for food.
As soon as we stepped inside, Ennolf’s voice called out from the back of the restaurant. “Is that you, Drake?!” He shouted in excitement, soon emerging from the back with Nuoda. He held a folded menu in his hands, running towards us. “I think I’ve figured it out!”
“Figured… what out?” I asked, taking a step back as the foxfolk man stood mere inches from my face, flushed with excitement.
“Your skill! I know what to do now!” He spoke in a crazed tone, causing Nuoda to let out a sigh of annoyance.
“He means that he came up with a plan for the enchantment. We just got done making the first batch of prototypes before you got here, so he wants to show it off.” She explained, and Ennolf held the menu out for me to take.
I hesitated for a moment, but ultimately chose to accept the menu and open it up. “Uh… Ennolf? This menu’s blank.” I said as I looked down at the white parchment of the menu.
“Exactly! It’s blank! It was so simple!” He laughed happily, and I looked at Nuoda in concern.
“He’s been getting enough sleep… right?” I asked as gently as I could, and she returned the gesture with a wry smile.
“He’s fine, just excited. Anyways, I’ll explain. The menu is meant to represent a blank check. The idea we had is that you set your enchantment up so that when you activate it, it will conjure the meal written on the menu, with the serving sizes specified. Then, as part of the same enchantment, it cleans itself to remove the text and prepare for its next use. You know a cleaning skill, right? If not, I’ve got a spare skill book.”
Listening to this, my eyes widened in surprise. I had been wanting to explore the possibilities with this skill, but I hadn’t expected something like this. However, combining two magic skills for this enchantment was… risky. “I can give it a try, but there’s no guarantee that it will succeed. And I’ll need potions or something on standby in case my arms decide to explode.”
Nuoda hesitated briefly. “Is… that a real possibility? I know you have your backlashes, but actual exploding limbs?”
I shook my head, unsure. “This is the first time I’m trying an enchantment with such a high level magic skill. I’d just rather be safe than screaming on the floor and writhing in agony.”
Nuoda gulped at that, nodding her head. “Got it. I’ll set up a healing circle for you to make your enchantment in. Once I’m done, you can do what you need to do, and I’ll be standing ready to heal you.”
Oh, I had almost forgotten that Nuoda was a healer. I still had the healing scroll that she gave me back in Athua, having never had a reason to use it. “If possible, make your circle outside, on natural terrain. Then, I can use one of my own skills to fortify myself as well. Also… how many of those menus have you prepared?”
“Five, but we can make more as needed.” Nuoda answered as she retrieved her staff, walking out of the restaurant. Ennolf, his face having turned more serious at our conversation, moved to follow her.
“Are you going to be okay?” Bella asked, placing a hand on my arm and looking at me in concern. She had seen me enchant countless wands with Create Meal while I was training it, so she knew fully well how excruciating such enchantments were for me. “I know you’re doing this for us, but if you’d rather…”
I smiled, shaking my head and patting her shoulder. “It’s fine. This won’t be the first time I’ve messed up my arms for an enchantment. And one moment of pain is worth it if we can all eat whatever we want together from now on.”
Bella gulped, but nodded her head. “You’re not going to have to keep redoing the enchantment as your skill levels up this time, are you?”
“…I seriously hope you girls don’t ask me to do that.” I said with a bitter smile. “Maybe once when my skill hits level ten or twenty, but other than that, I don’t really plan to farm this skill like I did the other. After all, the ‘taste’ aspect should have carried over with the skill’s evolution.”
Bella gave another nod, and the two of us walked out behind the restaurant, where Nuoda was drawing some form of magic circle on the ground with her staff to serve as a focus for her healing skill. Once she was done, she looked at Ennolf, who happily began to pull items out of his inventory, setting them in a perimeter around her magic circle.
When I saw the items he retrieved, I was… briefly concerned. They were food dishes, ranging from spaghetti to soup or nachos. “We thought that it would be better for a food-based skill enchantment if there was a variety of food to use as a focus when enchanting.” Ennolf explained when he saw my confusion. “And what better focus than enchanted food prepared by a master-level chef?”
As he spoke, he laid out the silverware for each dish, and then gestured for me to enter the center of the circle. With a sigh, I activated Vitality of the Forest-X, but contained its aura of greenery to not overrun the magic circle. Then, I knelt down, placing the blank menu on the ground in front of me, my hands going to either side of it.
Since this was a magic enchantment, an incantation would naturally help ensure the process went more smoothly. I braced myself, beginning to channel both Reject Impurities and Create Feast-X as I spoke. “Bountiful harvest, mistress of hearth and home. We seek shelter and comfort, and warmth that fills the body–” I bit my lip as the backlash started, my right forearm erupting as the skin and muscles tore open, visible veins spewing blood.
Immediately, Nuoda activated her magic circle, making it glow with a white light the flooded into me. As I felt the healing warmth, as well as my own enhanced recovery, I continued with gritted teeth. “We seek that which all require… We seek–we seek to welcome the evening with the joy of a full meal.” At this point, my lip was bleeding from how hard I had to bite down on it, eyes watering as my left arm similarly erupted. The grass around me was stained with blood, and I felt my head growing foggy. “Bestow… your blessing…”
After saying that, my eyes closed, and I fell to the ground beside the menu. In the back of my mind, I could faintly hear Bella, Nuoda, and Ennolf shouting in alarm, and someone grabbing me before everything went dark.
When I awoke, I found myself lying on a bed, Bella sitting next to me. She had a tired expression on her face, and a folded menu in her lap, with a few drops of blood staining its cover. “How long was I out?” I asked, but she shook her head.
“Just about an hour or so. Nuoda had me carry you here so you could rest as you recovered from the blood loss and the shock. She also asked me to apologize on her behalf when you woke up. None of us knew that the enchantment was going to be that bad. If not for your natural recovery skill and her healing, that enchantment would have sent you straight to the respawn point.”
I blinked when I heard that, slowly nodding. “If that’s the case, wouldn’t it have been faster to simply kill me and let me respawn?” I asked, but she pouted at that. “I mean, just purely from a practical standpoint.”
Bella let out a long sigh. “Nuoda said not to do that. Since one of the major problems at the time was a mental shock from pain overload, she was worried that you would pass out again immediately as you respawned. While you’d be physically fine, we didn’t want to scare everyone in the city with you respawning and immediately falling to the ground.”
“Right…” I responded with a nod of understanding, my eyes going to the menu. “Did it at least work? I really don’t want to go through that again if I can help it.”
Bella gave a small chuckle, holding the bloodied menu out to me. “We already had it appraised, so take a look.”
With that assurance, I cast Observe on the menu, relieved to see that the enchantment had properly taken root. Moreover, perhaps Ennolf had been right about the master-level food being a good focus. The name of the enchantment registered was Blessed Banquet-EX, signifying that it had scored a ‘critical’ enchantment. “Have you tried it out yet, to experiment?”
“We were leaving that for you.” She answered. “Partly for sentimental reasons, but also partly because if I activated that enchantment, it would burn more than double my total mana…”
I gave a small chuckle at that, assuming that was why there was still blood on the menu. Part of me had been worried that the blood had become a permanent decoration for the item, and had simply not cleaned itself off when the enchantment was tested. Since I knew that wasn’t the case, I pulled one of my wands out of my inventory, and cast Clean on the menu, returning it to its pristine condition. “Let’s… not tell Diane that I almost died enchanting this, alright?”
Bella glanced off to the side, almost guiltily, and I heard someone clear their throat from the doorway. “Let’s not tell me about what now?” Diane asked, her eyes narrowed as she approached.
“I… might have called her as soon as you passed out.” Bella confessed, and Diane came to the side of the bed, her expression softening when she saw that I was better now.
“Until you can deal with the backlash safely, no more master-level magic enchantments. Agreed?” She asked, though I knew better than to think that this was up for debate. More importantly, I had absolutely no desire to argue with her on this.
“Agreed. Definitely agreed.” I said, rubbing my arm as I remembered the pain, having seen my bones visible beneath the eruption of gore. After that experience, I wouldn’t enchant another menu like that even if I somehow got my food summoning skill to the grandmaster tier. What we had now was more than enough for what we would ever need.
Even though there were still no stat benefits from the food, I was perfectly fine with that. You could not make me enchant another menu like this…
