Extra 45: Manga SS – the first big step of the great pioneers (1/2)

Extra 45: Manga SS – the first big step of the great pioneers

“Seyaaaa!!”

The big axe cuts open the stomach of the big sized demonic monkey.

The mamono falls along with a showy blood spray.

It must have been the decisive blow, because that figure of the mamono only being able to twitch signaled the end of the battle.

“Fumu, well, that’s about it-jaro. Even if each of you are powerless, you can flexibly divide the roles with those skills and classes of yours. Instead of getting desperate in increasing your ability here, it would be better to concentrate on increasing the total strength of the party. That will serve as a shortcut to getting stronger-jaro na.”

“Meaning, ‘don’t be fixated on your level’?”

“No. But well, it would be stupid to be too fixated and charge into danger because of it-ja. But in the case of you guys, level will follow on its own. Different from me…”

A conspicuous samurai, Tomoe, was watching over the group’s battle without interfering in any way and just speaking. As she said something that sounded as if she were giving them a passing grade, she gave them advice.

This place is the first base in the wasteland ‘Ando’, so it is one of the branching routes.

If one continues forward from there, they would arrive at the fifth base created in the wasteland, ‘Chiana’, but it is at quite the distance.

In terms of the base to base distance in the wasteland, the bigger the distance, the higher the danger level that route has.

And in reality, the adventurers that challenge this land and come to Ando to take a rest, when they have to consider their next route, taking the Chiana route will not even enter in the options.

Only a few would loiter around that place due to circumstances regarding requests.

By the way, the route that is the most chosen is the shortest one, and connects to the second base made, Rinkawa.

Then, why are Toa and her comrades here?

The initial reason is because they are here to do a gather request, and the other, the actual number one reason, to receive battle instructions from Tomoe.

And so, the reason why Tomoe had designated this route, where only regular adventurers who wish for death would come, is because there’s no people around.

This is almost already an open secret, but Toa’s party are currently under the care of the two that are said to be strongest in Tsige, Tomoe and Mio.

If with even that, they were to get trained at the wasteland personally by those two, it could bring a bad stimulus for the other adventurers.

If this were Makoto, he would have just done training wherever, but Tomoe at least took consideration of this.

After Toa’s party finished the necessary gathering for the request, Tomoe invited them deeper into the wasteland with a smile, and the party felt as if their legs would give out, but ‘if you don’t take this offer, we won’t be interacting with your party as much in the future’, is the underlying meaning they felt from the words of Tomoe, so they steeled themselves and proceeded further in.

True to its name as a suicidal path, Toa’s party was attacked viciously, but with the advice of Tomoe, and her occasional assistance, they somehow have managed to fight it through.

A nest of Demonic Monkeys; a situation that could only be described as an adventurer killer hell, they managed to splendidly come back alive from it.

“Different from Tomoe-sama…? Ouch ouch.”

“Even if I were to fight a hell lot while concentrated on leveling, it only increases by a little bit after all. In the first place, the role of you adventurers should be to explore the unknown, right? Then, isn’t it a matter of fact that you would get fixated to your level that is basically the representation of how much you have killed? Levels are simply byproducts of your results in your path to getting the necessary strength. That what it means-ja. Don’t stop thinking, do your best; it is as simple as that-ja yo.” (Tomoe)

Tomoe speaks of levels in a derogatory manner; the levels that adventurers see as the representation of their status.

Most of the reason behind it must be because her previous training journey didn’t bring pleasing results.

“Increasing several tens of levels with a single expedition when your level already surpassed the thousands isn’t just ‘a little bit’ though.” (Toa)

Toa laughs bitterly.

Tomoe sweeps her gaze once on Toa and her comrades, and then, narrows her eyes.

(That just now was a battle that was quite close to their limits, and yet… they really got some spirit there. If I don’t shape them up in the time I can take care of them, they will become baggage that will unnecessarily worry the heart of Waka. I will be wringing you guys out in a short period, so prepare yourselves.) (Tomoe)

“But to think we would be able to defeat this many shadow tails on our own…” (Luisa)

The elf archer, Luisa, mutters this as she seriously stares at their own fruits of battle, at the heaps of corpses after the battle.

This demonic monkeys, Shadow Tails, are dangerous existences for wasteland adventurers even when fighting only one of them.

They have high intelligence that allows them to use several kinds of magic, dexterous movements, claws coated in poison, sharp fangs; on top of that, they call for the reinforcements, and set up ambushes, making even a lot of seasoned wasteland adventurers hate these guys.

To put it in perspective, before they met with Makoto and moved together, that kind of opponent would have taken them their all to defeat one of them by ganging up on it.

But today, the party managed to defeat more than 40 Shadow Tails.

In a dangerous area that had basically turned into a monster room, with the guidance of Tomoe, they set up a surprise attack, and, even if they did get help from Tomoe in the preparations, the battle itself was done only by Toa’s party.

This will turn into confidence.

Toa and her comrades were all tasting deep emotions as they confirmed their own fruits of battle.

Specially the shadow tail boss that the dwarf, Ranina, finished off just a few moments ago, a special individual that enters the category of Lords.

Its looks and battle ability are on a whole different level from the regular Shadow Tail.

It was a deadly struggle.

But what was obtained from this was big.

…Even in the materialistic kind of sense.

“You see, Shadow Tails…! Their tails are nice! They can be sold at a high price! Also, the claws that have changed in color due to being coated in poison!! You can also sell those at a high price!!” (Hazal)

The alchemist, Hazal, immediately began collecting the materials.

As the name Shadow Tail states, their characteristic tail is the most popular material of them.

When they are alive, their tails are covered in some sort of black haze that feels as if it were hovering between having and not having substance, but when they die, they settle into a state where they are like tubes with tar stuffed in.

They serve as ingredients for powerful talismans, or for special armours.

The two tails that the Lord has will probably be the thing that will fetch the highest price this time around.

And then, the claws would follow immediately after.

The poison that the Shadow Tails use to kill their prey including hyumans has seeped into their claws after a long time, and there are rare cases when the color of the claws themselves change.

This is an important material for alchemists to use in medicine.

Moreover, if it is the claws of an individual that has lived for long, its hardness increases, and it can also serve as a material for weapons.

Within this party, if they were to make arrows for Luisa or a dagger for Toa from those claws, they would definitely become reliable weapons.

“Get all the claws from the Lord, even the ones that are not colored, okay? They can serve plenty well even as simple weapons after all.” (Toa)

Toa speaks to Hazal, who happily went to dismantle the Lord, as she herself began to dismantle the other ones.

There’s quite the number of corpses after all.

Luckily, it is not amount that they can’t bring all back, but there’s no doubt that it will be a tough job.

When the sun goes down, the danger level of the wasteland increases all around.

This time around, Toa’s party doesn’t have any business that requires them to defeat a special mamono that only appears at night. In that case, they should begin their job as soon as possible, and leave as soon as they finish.

“Umu, hurry. After this, I will have you guys pass the night at a place that is slightly more troublesome.” (Tomoe)

“…Wa?” (Ranina)

Ranina unconsciously stopped dismantling and looked at Tomoe.

She was showing the same wide smile that she showed when she told them that they would be raiding the nest of the monkeys.

In other words, she wasn’t joking.

“Uhm, Tomoe-sama? Wasn’t this battle this time’s lesson?” (Ranina)

“This was a preliminary battle-ja.” (Tomoe)

“““““EEEEHHH?!””””

The shouts of the party overlapped perfectly.

Splendid teamwork.

“I wanted to know if you guys had the ability to destroy a nest properly. It was a test, a test-ja yo.” (Tomoe)

“…Uhm, where are we supposed to camp at?” (Hazal)

The face of Hazal as he asked this was twitching.

“A camp close to a water source would be the perfect place-ja yo. From here, it would be…around three hours, maybe.” (Tomoe)

“…Could it be…” (Luisa)

The blood drains from Luisa’s face.