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I asked the inn to sell me some bread and something to take with me for lunch the next day, and they sold me a set of provisions for adventurers.
It was a set of hardtack bread and dried meat.
I was told that adventurers buy this set because the bread is tougher than they normally eat and the meat is salty and dried, not very tasty but it lasts a long time.
I woke up at the sound of the morning bell and got ready.
All the food and spare gloves are in a drawstring bag, so all I have to do is get ready and go to Pete’s workshop.
I arrived at Pete’s workshop early, probably because I was looking forward to it.
“Pete. Good morning, Pete, I’m looking forward to working with you today!” (Louis)
“Louis, good morning.” (Pete)
I was told to check my luggage first and then go.
Pete has two pickaxes, two shovels, a backpack, a spear, and a dagger.
He looked dissatisfied since I have the same gear as yesterday. Then, when I told him what was going on, he changed his mind.
He called my “pouch” a “magic bag” and he said the price depended on the capacity.
As far as I understood, five cubic-meter was the largest available, and if you were to buy one, it would cost enough to buy a whole house, and there were also ten and twenty cubic meter ones, but they were national treasures.
I told Pete that I thought it was probably two cubic meters.
“Is Louis from a wealthy family?” Pete asked, but when I told him that he had left home with this magic bag and some money, he looked at me with envy.
When I think about my magic bag alone, I wonder if it’s possible for me to do something like a personal courier service.
We agreed that I would take care of all the luggage and return it to him when he comes back, as the priority, for now, is to go digging for materials.
The only thing we’ll both be carrying is our weapons.
I was a little happy when Pete told me that it would be easier to move around now that the pack was lighter.
Is this what he was talking about yesterday when he said he would take care of carrying the materials?
He answered yes, but I didn’t tell Pete about the actual capacity.
Actually, I’m thinking of pretending to put it in my Magic Bag but instead, put it in my [Infinite Storage] and carry it that way.
The danger was low, but since we were away from the village, I had to use [Exploration] every few minutes.
After about an hour of walking, a red dot on the map was getting closer and closer, so I told Pete about the situation and told him to be on the lookout.
Pete told me that there were probably slimes or goblins in this area, and so I told him that there were six in total.
As we proceeded with caution, we saw a green child? No, a starving demon? Hmmm? A demon that looked like an Oni jumped out from the side.
It didn’t have horns, but its eyes had small pupils, and it didn’t have much flesh on them, and we could see that it was hostile.
It was a goblin.
Without hesitation, Pete used his spear to strike the goblin in the chest.
The goblin screamed and collapsed.
He didn’t feel any disgust or guilt because he knew it was a monster.
“There are five of them left, so stay alert!” Pete shouted.
It seems that three of them have already escaped when confirmed by exploration magic, but two of them appear in the path at the same time.
I pulled out my knife and readied myself.
Basically, Pete attacks, and I defend myself.
Pete dashed and gave one of them a thrust to the chest just like before, causing it to scream in agony.
The other one took advantage of the opportunity and came at me.
“Louis!” Pete shouts.
The goblin that attacked me didn’t have any weapons.
I instantly judged that its claws and fangs were probably its weapons.
In contrast, I have been a student of Aikido since I was a child, so I calmly performed a throw.
It was thrown, spun around, and before landing flat, so I thrust the knife into its neck.
The blood spurted out, but I continued to stab it with the knife to the side.
Luckily, I was able to finish the battle with only a little blood on my hands.
Pete looked at me with a startled expression.
I told him that the rest had fled and were no longer in range.
He praised me for handling the goblin attack, and I was pleased.
As we walked along, talking about the goblin battle, we arrived at the dig site.
As I had heard, it was a pit.
Unlike digging tunnels in the mountains like in a coal mine, we would be digging for ore from the ground under the blue sky.
We took a pickaxe and shovel out of our drawstring bags and Pete gave me a lecture on how to dig.
Pete told me that the only way to find materials is by sight. It doesn’t sound very efficient.
I thought back to my previous life’s knowledge.
What about dowsing? Is it not used to look for water veins?
I can’t remember, and I chuckle.
Pete tells me, “If you dig in these reddish-black areas of the ground…”
Oh, the iron ore came out without any problems.
Pete says with a smug look on his face, “huh?” I said.
I said I understood and moved away from Pete.
It’s clear that I can’t dig much for the first time, so I try my own method.
First, I decided to appraise the ground.
I pointed both hands at the reddish-black ground and said, “[Appraisal]”
The appraisal result showed that the rock contained iron ore.
I dug with my pickaxe and found some, but still not much.
Next, I’ll use [Exploration].
[Exploration] is only for searching enemies, so in words, what about material exploration?
So, I decided to try it more specifically for the iron ore search.
I thought of iron ores in my head and activated [Iron Ore Search].
Many light spots appeared on the map!
I dug the spots with my pickaxe and was able to mine a much larger stone than the iron ore mixed with stone that I had dug out at first.
I told Pete that I had found a more efficient way to do it, so I made him try it.
He was a little surprised, but we found it to be a good method, and after digging until noon, we had a little around a cubic meter of ore, and we had lunch.
We were able to collect more iron ore than ever before, which made Pete very happy.
After lunch, I told Pete to take out a block of stone mixed with iron ore and try alchemy.
The magic I learned when I made the potion was 1. [Grind], 2. [Extraction], 3. [Permeation] (magic), and 4. [Medicine Fix], but if my understanding is right, I think I can get the iron out of it with [Extraction] alone.
I aimed both hands at the lump and activated [Extraction], but… nothing happened.
Huh? Is there something wrong?
I think about it for a while.
What’s the difference between this and a potion? Is it because one is solid and the other is a liquid? I thought maybe “extraction” meant pulling something out?
Ah! I see… In that case, the image may be partly influenced by the word.
I put my hands on the lump again and thought.
[Separation]
I did it!
It separated into a lump of iron and pieces of stone.
The amount was about half of the original stone, which means it contained about 50% iron.
I appraised the lump of iron and found that it was high-purity iron.
I used [Fusion] on the rock I had dug up in the morning, thinking I could do the opposite of [Separation].
I also used [Forming] to mass-produce ingots.
Pete told me that this was the first time he had ever collected such a large amount.
As we had discussed at the beginning, we threw the ingots into the magic bag and stored them
Since we had extra time for mining, we decided to go to the forest to collect some Hirupo grass on the way back.
Now that I know that enemies aren’t the only things I can search for with my [Exploration] ability, I’d like to try out some different things.
On the way back, we entered the forest from the path and we searched for Hirupo grass using [Exploration].
It was easy to find, but it wasn’t growing in clusters, just in patches.
Pete taught me how to harvest it.
The trick, he said, was to pick it carefully and leave the roots intact, because if you pluck it roughly, it won’t grow back.
We went deep into the forest, but with [Exploration] and the map, we didn’t get lost.
Once we had gathered enough Hirupo grass we decided to head back to the road, but I caught a glimpse of a spot of light in my [Exploration].
From its position, it seemed to be a goblin or a slime… A light blue creature appeared about 10 meters in front of us.
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