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Chapter 2 – 8 (part 2)

The Magic of Sweets

Now that I knew which day the negotiator would come, I decided to take on a quest.

『B Rank Crocodile Shark』 … There have been multiple sightings of Crocodile Sharks, on the banks of a river 20 km away from Gunjo City. They are highly likely to attack people, so the city is requesting they be eliminated. 30,000G reward per shark.

Crocodile Sharks, as their name suggests, are shark monsters that resemble alligators. Their bodies are 5~6m long and similar to a shark, but they have crocodile scales and limbs. Despite being sharks, they can survive on land for a short period of time. Their limbs are not very developed however, especially their back legs which are quite small. They are extremely slow on land because of them. While they are on land, their rank drops down to C.

When I showed the guild receptionist my card, she said that she couldn't approve the quest for me as I was only C rank, and by myself. So I secretly slipped her 5 wrapped donuts, and she quickly accepted the quest after that.

I suddenly felt someone's gaze on me and looked around, and Flute caught my eye. Flute was all smiles, and called the receptionist over.

She reluctantly went towards Flute, where a fist bop to the head awaited her. On top of that, Flute took 3 of her donuts. The receptionist was crying at that point, but Flute seemed to be in high spirits. I met Flute's gaze, and she covered her mouth as she laughed, “Hohohoho…”

The receptionist lady seemed so down that I decided to give her 1 extra donut.

Ever since then, the number of female staff members trying to help me out has increased, to the point where it's become a bit of a fuss. Flute used her power more and more often to b.u.t.t her way into helping me, or so I heard afterwards from the male staff members.

In the end, I guess it's not really a problem?

I was able to accept the quest, so I quickly got ready and then headed out toward the river where the sharks had been spotted.

Riding Tanikaze, it took about an hour before I arrived at my destination. The river was around 300m wide, and 30m deep. When I used Investigation, hundreds of reactions lit up at once. I narrowed the search down to only the ones 4 meters or larger, and this time the number of reactions dropped to only 5. These were probably reactions from the Crocodile Sharks. I hadn't caught any yet though, so I couldn't say for sure.

Either way, I started getting everything ready to take one down. Most people caught them by using a net, but my plan was to “fish them up with a rod”!

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The way I set it up was, using alchemy I created a chain that stretched 100m long, with a hook on one end close to 30cm big, and 2cm wide.

The chain was made of oval links each about 5cm big, joined together without any seams, making them quite strong. I had made them beforehand, figuring they'd probably be useful someday.

For now, I'd use some boar meat as bait. To increase my chances of landing a bite, I chopped up some of the boar liver and put it on the hook too.

“Everything's ready to go!”

I drove a post into the ground and wrapped the chain around it.

I took out a little more bait, flew about 30m out, close to where a reaction had been, then threw the bait down into the water. While floating in the air, I moved the chain with the bait attached up and down a bit to try and lure in a bite.

About 10 minutes later, I sensed another reaction. I waited for the right moment, and then pulled on the chain. It felt like it was being pulled strongly backward.

Without panicking, I sent some magic power through the chain. The magic traveled until it reached the Crocodile Shark, causing the magic's stun effect to become stronger. Since I had used enough force as I thought it would take to stun a Crocodile Shark, I didn't think any other creature would be able to escape. Just to be sure, I tried Investigation again, and the others moved as if they were a bit startled, but then became calm.

The very next moment, a 5~6m long green colored shark rose up from the water. While not letting go of the chain I flew to the sh.o.r.e, and pulled the shark up, together with s.h.i.+romaru and Tanikaze's help.

The huge shark, covered with rugged scales, twitched as he pulled back. I estimated him to weigh probably 300kg. I used an original technique, a type of non-elemental magic, 『Cross Shock』directly on his brain, destroying it and finis.h.i.+ng him off.

Cross Shock was a non-elemental magic “shockwave” that would damage only the area you targeted. It was a technique that hit with numerous shockwaves from various angles, all with the same strength, and generally caused significant damage.

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This would let me finish him off with the least amount of physical trauma. I thought I would try to stuff and then mount this shark.

After I used Appraisal on him, I again used Investigation and it turned out all of the reactions from before were Crocodile Sharks too.

After the second one, I had more or less gotten the hang of it. My method hadn't changed from the first shark, but I managed to fish them up a little faster. I decided to kill the later ones by bleeding them out, too.

Things were going well up until the fourth one, when something happened after I caught him. While the fourth shark was still bleeding out, s.h.i.+romaru had been drinking from the river, when I suddenly sensed a thirst for blood, seemingly coming from within the river only 10 meters away.

“s.h.i.+romaru, look out!”

Fl.u.s.tered, I tried to direct him but s.h.i.+romaru was slow to react. The Crocodile Shark burst out of the river with tremendous force, and tried to snap at s.h.i.+romaru.

There's no time! That was all that raced through my mind as I tried to fire off some Air Bullets. In that split second, s.h.i.+romaru raised his right front paw overhead and attacked the Crocodile Shark with what I thought was a large, very sharp blade, splitting the shark's body down the back.

s.h.i.+romaru looked as if he was smirking… a second later, the two halves of the split Crocodile Shark came cras.h.i.+ng into him.

“Kyaiiin”

s.h.i.+romaru cried out, as if he was a performer in a play, and rolled backwards along with the shark.

So much happened all at once in just a split second that for a few seconds afterward I was frozen myself, like I was the one hit by the stun magic.

When I returned to my senses, I rushed over to s.h.i.+romaru, who was covered in blood, but didn't seem to be hurt and even stood up energetically.

“You seem fine. I was worried for a second there, s.h.i.+romaru!”

s.h.i.+romaru responded by lowering his head and tail. I patted his head while I tried using Investigation again, and couldn't find any more reactions from Crocodile Sharks in the area. To be on the safe side, I tried again after changing the search parameters but still there were no more reactions.

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With the hunt now finished, s.h.i.+romaru decided to show me the technique he had used earlier. He could focus magic power into either his front or back paws, and after swiping with them, a blade would shoot out just the same as before. That wasn't all though, he could also fire as many as four at a time. Looking closely at his front paw, it seemed he had two ways of activating it.

The first way was to send magic power through his toes (claws).

The second was to spread his paw open, and fire magic from the s.p.a.ces in between his toes.

It seemed easier to create a sharp blade by using the claws, rather than the s.p.a.ces in between.

On the other hand, it seemed easier to create a larger blade from firing it from the s.p.a.ces in between, compared to the directly from the claws. The s.p.a.ce in between method felt closer to hacking with a blade rather than making a clean cut, though.

s.h.i.+romaru had a proud expression on his face, but when I tried it out a couple times myself successfully, he looked shocked and started to sulk.

To put him back in a better mood, I petted him and repeatedly praised him. Then I cooked the Crocodile Shark that he had taken down, and before long I had succeed in cheering him up.

By the way, the part that served as proof of killing the Crocodile Sharks was their tail fins.

As the sun had started to set, I rode Tanikaze back to the city. Less than 30 minutes later, we arrived and I headed straight to the Guild. I spotted Flute right after I entered.

“My, that was fast. What happened?”

I handed her the 4 tail fins as my answer, and she looked at me with wide eyes.

“You took down this many!? In not even half a day!?”

she said with a raised voice. She followed me over to the Dismantling Area, where upon seeing the practically unharmed looking Crocodile Shark from earlier,

“KYAAAAAAaaaaaa~!”

she screamed quite loudly. Hearing her scream, other adventurers rushed over and having not seen a Crocodile Shark up close and personal before, they reflexively drew their weapons.

I explained to the group ready to slice into the shark that it was already dead, and pressured them to go away. A couple of adventurers thought it was a good chance to get a closer look and study it, however.

“Tenmsan! Please, don't scare me like that!”yelled Flute, angry and half in tears.

‘Sorry about that' I apologized, and handed over some donuts. ‘Well, I'll forgive you but…' she mumbled as she accepted the donuts……. That was way, way too easy.

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I put the shark away and returned to the counter, where the four tail fins were branded.

The brand, stamped onto the parts that served as proof of a kill, had the monster's value and other things like that included in it. Things were done this way to avoid duplicate submissions. There was also a brand out in the Dismantling Area.

“Okay. The total this time for taking down 5 of them is 150,000G.”

she said as she handed over a bag containing the money. I transferred the money to my Magic Bag, then gave their bag back. People in the distance watched with envious eyes, yet n.o.body would invite me to a party.

There were people who knew that I earned a lot because I took on quests by myself. There were some who thought, I would hate relying on a child younger than me, and then others that knew I rarely joined up with others.

At the start, there were some people who tried to force me into a party, but the ones that were overly persistent eventually got tired of being turned down, and now there's pretty much n.o.body left.

“Even though Tenma's only C rank, he's the guild's top earner.”

Flute said with a chuckle. I could feel the death glares full of jealousy piercing through my back. When I turned around, I saw multiple people who had clearly just averted their eyes.

I wondered if a better arrangement would show up soon, and thoughts of it swam through my head.

[Author's Note]

Somehow, Flute has become a cute character.

If the recipes for the sweets seemed ridiculous, I just want you to keep in mind that this is a fantasy world.

Hi, Refulgent, your translator here, if you like my translations, you can show your support by leaving a comment or constructive feedback at Four slimes . com I'd love to hear from you directly~

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