Half-Dragon Slave Life Chapter 29

I'm back, with a double release! I managed to get half of the next chapter done too! I wanted to get a little more done, but that didn't happen! Moving is stressful! I don't need any more whippings! No, not the hot iron either! SOMEONE PLEASE OPEN THIS CAGE!

…

Ahem, what I meant to say is, I am pleased to present what I have completed in my weeks without internet.

And, as a side note, volume 4 of Kaburagi Haruka's Eiyuu No Musume Tos.h.i.+te Umarekawatta Eiyuu wa Futatabi Eiyuu wo Mezasu (Reincarnated as the Hero's Daughter) is now on sale! If you're willing to work your way through a j.a.panese website, then I encourage you to show your support by picking up a (j.a.panese) digital copy on or anywhere else it happens to be sold.

A half-dragon awaits below!

Author: Kaburagi Haruka

Translator: s.h.i.+roiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

Chapter 29: Preparation

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

The cla.s.s meeting ends, Master and I convene, and upon looking out the window we can see n.o.ble carriages heading home in small groups.

There are also ordinary students walking in the direction of the dorms.

"Some of the students in our cla.s.s are mixed in there too. In spite of all that Mister Wallack said."

"Mm."

He said preparing beforehand is very important, and yet they're immediately heading home.

"Well, I'll at least do what I can. Any idea where the library is, Eir?"

"I've heard about it at least."

"When did you…"

"Come with me."

I heard about where the library is during the exams, when I was having tea with Elly.

I pull Master by the hand and lead him to the library. In a section of the first floor, we found the library's label plate in front of a gigantic room.

"It's so… big…"

"Mm, I heard about it, but I didn't think it would be this huge."

I say "a section," but practically the whole floor is the library.

And I heard there's more in a bas.e.m.e.nt archive or something.

"Guess they boast the largest book collection for a reason."

"Elly said she's managing the place."

"Being a library committee member here must be a lot of work."

"Mm, she said it's rough."

Upon opening the door and going inside, we were met with a large counter near the entrance.

Just as I imagined, behind the counter was Elly.

"Ah, it's Eir! If you're here, that must mean your master pa.s.sed his exam."

"Yup, this is my master."

"A pleasure, I'm Rimuru Blanche. But actually Eir is free now, so I'm not her master or anything like that."

"Oh, really? That's great!"

"Mm, first goal achieved."

She rushed out from behind the counter, her slippers beating loudly against the floor.

I noticed the supervisor in the back staring, seemingly having something to say about her behavior.

"Elly, aren't you supposed to be a little quieter?"

"Oh, shoot… I get excited so easily."

"Though I think that friendliness will make you easy to consult with. Well, I guess there's not much you can do about where it happens."

"Glad you feel that way. Sorry for the late introduction. I'm Elly Lime, a second year here, and library committee member. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Yes, much obliged. So anyway, today we came to look up information on the orientation two weeks from now."

"Ooh, that. We do have some records of previous years results on the shelves over here…"

At Elly's prompting we're brought to a somewhat secluded bookshelf.

There sat three books called "New Student Outdoor Practical Exam Records" placed on the shelves.

"The previous orientation records and results are very general, but they're all written there."

"That's a big help. Do you also have a map of the venue's area?"

"Hmm, they don't always hold it in the same place, so I can't really say exactly what to look at for that."

"Then a map of the north forest, where the elves have jurisdiction. That's all we've been told so far."

"Pretty wide rough area. I guess you could check out these maps?"

She pointed out a book t.i.tled "Maps of the Surrounding Woodlands, Northern Area".

While Master was accepting that—

"Can I borrow this?"

"Unfortunately that's in-library use only. But you can reproduce it if you like; you can use the desks over there for that."

"Oh, and do you have any doc.u.ments on high level healing spells? I use healing magic, so I'm interested."

"Hmm, pretty sure there are some in the bas.e.m.e.nt storage, but the books down there can only be looked through by students with high grades or uppercla.s.smen."

"I see… thank you for all of this."

Master gives his thanks and heads for the desks. I followed after him and began investigating the contents of the books.

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

In past orientations, each cla.s.s was given a mission to gather something in the forest, and the exam was a compet.i.tion, with the results based on how quick each cla.s.s completed it.

The target items were things like mushrooms, fruits, and herbs mostly. Doesn't seem very high in difficulty.

"But considering that, there are a lot of cla.s.ses who didn't finish."

As Master pointed out, there's at least one cla.s.s every year that resigns without completing the mission.

It doesn't mention what kind of mission the cla.s.ses that resigned had.

"Plus, it looks like each cla.s.s needs to gather different materials?"

"Oh, you're right. Like in this year here, fever medicine, and high grade mushrooms were a.s.signed to different cla.s.ses. Which I guess means we should look up the local vegetation and stuff."

"Master Rimuru, here… animal materials were specified."

"Whoa, there's hunting missions too? Isn't this a little rough for new students?"

So it seems the target material given is different for each cla.s.s.

And with the wide variety from gathering to hunting, I'm not sure why it's not required unconditionally that we be told to investigate this.

"If we don't know the inhabited regions of local wildlife, where and what vegetation grows, plus the general lay of the land, then this could be difficult."

"You could just resign. No need to force yourself to remember all this, is there?"

"But if I'm gonna be doing research in this town from now on, then knowing the land, materials, and wildlife might be good anyway."

Saying that, Master painstakingly copies information into his notebook. Honestly it's tiresome.

"Couldn't I just stow it in "Dimensional Storage" and secretly take it out?"

"Don't. I don't want to monopolize the information, and besides, they probably have anti-theft measures in place. Signals didn't stop inside "Dimensional Storage" after all, so the risk of being found out is pretty high."

"Hrm…"

Now that he mentions it, the [Transmitter] Yig had on something inside "Dimensional Storage" is what gave off a signal and lead her to a.s.sault us, wasn't it?

"Isn't there some spell that can more easily copy this for us?"

"Never heard of that kind of spell. Yig might know something like that though."

"She's the king of remembering everything in general terms; I don't think she'd be able to manage pinpointing a specific spell."

"That's harsh, she is kinda our teacher you know…"

Yig fully remembers all sorts of sword techniques and spells, but that's only because she knew the masters of those techniques.

Normally dragons, and magic beasts in general, perhaps already feeling complete as living creatures, mostly seem apathetic to the rise of techniques and technologies.

Yig is no exception. She saw and knew all those techniques, but she has practically no interest in improving or developing them herself.

For a while after that, the doc.u.ments were copied, but I can't say the results were great.

It's not like there's nothing we'd want to look up here. Quite the opposite; if you search for it, then the exact materials you're looking for will appear. It was enough to make me admire the academy known as the "melting pot of knowledge".

The problem is the data is far too vast, and our investigation got sidetracked way too often.

"Oh, filo trees are native to this area… so this, if you take an infusion of it, works really well on the flu."

"Master Rimuru, you're getting off track."

"Ah, sorry… oh wow, curare grow here?"

"Master Rimuru…"

And, well, that's how it went, so we ended up hanging around the library the next day too.

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

That said, we can't be pa.s.sing through the library every day.

We are technically adventurers, and ones with rising expectations at that. Between investigating, we of course take on requests.

"And so I want you to take requests that center around the north forest."

That night we met with Kevin and Amy at dinner time, and talked about the direction of future requests.

I haven't seen Yig outside of morning training time lately. She found a hot spring on a mountain a ways away or something, so I guess she's hanging around there.

For dragons who breathe fire, the cold in this season and region is probably rough.

"An outdoor practical, huh. Hardly think you guys need it at this point though."

"Right? Heck, Eir's already a skilled adventurer, y'know?"

"Not quite. In comparison to her abilities, Eir's got a lot of blanks in her knowledge. Besides, I just want to do a little prep work, so I won't be asking for much."

"Just can't get fired up for some silly orientation stuff though."

Kevin seems to think this is just a pain in the b.u.t.t.

When you think about it, he's got absolutely no connection to this request, so I guess that reaction should be expected.

"Well, not like I can do any work without you guys around, so I'm fine with it o' course."

"I wouldn't say that. You've gotten a lot stronger, Kevin."

"Still not enough to beat you though…"

If Master uses [Magic Power Bestowal], it brings him to the level of still managing to defeat Kevin. If he doesn't use it though, then he would fall behind Amy in power.

"That's because I'm cheating. If I fight normally, then I'm no match for you."

"Yeah, [Magic Power Bestowal]… I'd love to learn that."

"Ooh, finally found a love for learning? Then I shall teach you."

"You seem like you'd be obnoxiously spartan about it, so I'll pa.s.s."

Since Master's gotten almost as good with a sword as Kevin lately, they've been getting more friendly. Maybe it's the familiarity of rivals?

They'll forget about me and start joking with each other quite frequently, which… to be honest, kinda annoys me.

Feeling annoyed now, I stomp on Kevin's feet under the table. Carefully of course.

"Ow! Friggin' ouch?! Ya have power to spare, so cut back a little!"

"Eir, attacking your allies for no reason isn't good you know?"

"Hrggrrr… sorry."

"But the north forest is managed by the elves, right? There aren't many requests there, are there?"

"That's a good point… maybe we could have Haumea be a go-between for us?"

"Seriously, why the h.e.l.l are you pullin' out all the stops here…?"

"Master Rimuru simply doesn't like losing."

That's exactly why he could manage to reach the extremes of healing magic at the young age of twelve.

Plus he needs to show good results to get access to the library's bas.e.m.e.nt storage. The next test is four months away; the fourth month's standard examination.

That's probably why Master is so fired up. Which means, as his attendant, I need to be just as enthusiastic.

For the next two weeks, Master and I borrowed Haumea's strength to search around the north forest.

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

Two weeks pa.s.sed, and it's the day of the orientation.

"This was… outside my expectations."

Master stands open-mouthed at the sight before his eyes.

Honestly I'm feeling the same.

In front of us is a flock of adventurers hired by the upper rank cla.s.ses. In comparison to the one hundred-fifty new students, there are nearly two hundred adventurers.

"Hey, ain't this… cheating?"

The delinquent-ish cla.s.smate's grumbling makes sense.

For a gathering test, more hands would certainly be good, and adventurers, who are used to the outdoors, would be appreciated support. But this is going way too far.

Similarly in our cla.s.s, the seemingly n.o.ble girl hired a party of newbie adventurers, but the other cla.s.ses are in a different league altogether.

The highest rank, cla.s.s one, hired around sixty adventurers, twice as many as there are students. Cla.s.s two has forty, and cla.s.ses three and four each hired four or five parties for more than twenty adventurers each.

"Master Rimuru, I took rich peoples adventures lightly."

"Yeah, I didn't think they'd go this far either."

The teachers seemed used to it, so it's probably always like this.

Are they really making this much of a ruckus every year?

"So then, we will now begin the orientation. First we will head to the camp north of here. Then we will spend a night there, and begin the test tomorrow. There seem to be many hired escorts here; we ask that you each be careful not to lose focus."

The teacher used [Amplification] magic to communicate important points, and then our orientation began.

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com