Translator: Reo

Editor: Xia

Read at Watashi Wa Sugoi Desu!

Chapter 11 – A Date? No, We’re Gathering Materials

[TL WARNING: This chapter is spiders. Just spiders. So, if that’s not your cup of tea it’s best just to skip this one.]

As we hurried down the road to the forest, I described  the situation at Kyle-san’s plantation to Vidello-san, as well as what ingredients I needed to gather, and the monsters I needed to defeat.

As I explained these things, I changed my main job to ‘Alchemist’.

“Mac’s an alchemist…” 

Vidello-san was surprised, which caught me off-guard. I mean, didn’t the NPCs give me alchemy-related quests since they knew I was an alchemist? Or so I thought, but Vidello-san shook his head.

“We have no idea what a foreigner’s occupation is. I don’t really think it’s necessary to know. Since Crash said you were his exclusive pharmacist, though, I just thought you were one.”

Then, was that a mechanic of the game? Even without knowing what your occupation is, those sorts of quests would get automatically assigned, or something like that.

As I walked next to Vidello-san, whose face seemed troubled, my own eyebrows also seemed to droop.

I didn’t want him to ask me any more questions, ‘cause I probably couldn’t answer with – “it’s a game-related specification.”

Vidello-san didn’t ask any more questions about my job, so I figured he got the message. A handsome man who could read the atmosphere was certainly high-spec.

And, with this and that, we welcomed the main event of our quick, forest-exploration date.

Before my eyes crawled a spider that was about twice my size. It was mostly black with a bright, yellow pattern on it’s back. It tried to intimidate me.

Vidello-san carefully raised his sword and looked at the spider. The only reason he didn’t attack was because I signaled for him to stop.

What was this spider? It was a Tsuchiyama Spider – one of the monsters that provided the materials that I needed. I needed to gather materials from another type of spider as well. That spider species was a light brown that blended in with the ground. Contrasting their plain coloring, they had a crackling and shining magic stone on their foreheads. They lived in groups and wove tingling webs between the trees.

As for the Tsuchiyama Spider, despite its weak attack power, it had a special characteristic: its strong thread. The moment you touched that thread, you’d get entangled, and it couldn’t be cut with a sharp weapon no matter how hard you tried. I definitely couldn’t let myself get caught by that thread. By the way, this was knowledge I learned from monster appraisal, even though it was incomplete.

“Mac, shouldn’t we take this thing down? In this forest, it’s a considerably high-ranking spider.”

Vidello-san, who was glaring at the many-eyed spider directly opposite him, didn’t seem satisfied with just keeping an eye on it and not doing anything. 

My goal was the spider’s thread, however, and it was best to take the thread that the spider spun while still alive. If I made a mistake, a number of threads would come flying out. In the worst case, I could just run away the moment those threads entwined around my body.

I took out the Wooden Stick I’d picked up out of my inventory and held it up like a sword.

“Take this! Small Bomb!”

I threw a bottle bomb made with flammable grass, iron sand, adhesive, and a little alchemy at the big spider. Of course, its HP didn’t go down. That was good, though.

When I attacked the short hairs growing on its abdomen, the Tsuchiyama Spider spat out thread in order to capture its bait, and as expected, I managed to catch that thread with the wooden stick! All that was left was to twirl the thread around the stick until it was all out!

With this, I’d gotten one of the materials I needed for the pesticide.

I made sure that the stick in my hand had turned into an item named Tsuchiyama Spider’s Thread, quickly stashed it in my inventory, and took out another wooden stick.

Now then, give me more of that thread!

After repeating the same process several times and realizing I could only gather five pieces of thread from one spider, I finally took out a regular sword and suppressed the spider together with Vidello-san. It would’ve been nice if there were at least two spiders though, since each spider only provided enough ingredients for one batch of pesticide. The quest this time was quite grueling, considering how difficult it was to encounter a Tsuchiyama Spider. I could only bet on Vidello-san’s luck for now, since my own luck wasn’t that good, though I was desperately trying to raise it.

After easily defeating the Tsuchiyama Spider, we continued forward while taking care of any small fries, this time drawing out a herd of Shibire Spiders. Hmm, there’s a whole section of trees over there that’s riddled with the rattling spiders’ webs. We might be able to gather a lot of materials there.

Next to me, Vidello-san was so on guard that his hair was standing on end. 

With this many spiders around, we couldn’t afford to half-ass it.. Something like a swarm of bug-type monsters was truly goosebump inducing. The first time I encountered one of them, I almost fainted from the sight of it. Now that I was used to it, though, it wasn’t such a big deal.

The Shibire Spider was a rather troublesome monster. If you touched its thread or attacked it directly with a sword, it would paralyze you. It was a horrifying spider that was said to eat its prey alive after paralyzing them. Of course, this too was knowledge gained from Appraisal. Vidello-san also knew this, which was probably why he was being cautious to this extent.

The material I needed was the paralysis sac, so in the meantime let’s try defeating four spiders and taking their pouches. There were plenty of spiders after all, more than enough to go around. So, I took a sleep potion out of my inventory, then threw the purple bottle at a Shibire Spider.

Thinking it insignificant, the spider moved to block the attack with its leg. The bottle broke on impact, some of it splashing onto the spider.

The movement of the Shibire Spider, that was threatening me with hisses, gradually slowed and dulled, finally coming to a stop dangling from a branch. Success. Yup, it was asleep. An instantaneous effect.

While holding an anti-paralyser, I crept closer, reaching my hand out toward the Shibire Spider.

The always tingling, jewel-like magic stone on its forehead wasn’t glowing, so it should be okay. With that speculation as my basis, my finger neared the spider.

“Mac! What are you doing!?”

The panicking Vidello-san tried to stop me, but he was too late. I touched the sticky Shibire Spider. Of course, I wasn’t paralyzed. In this situation, if I had used the sword poorly, the spider would wake up. Therefore I decided to use my hands. By the way, I got goosebumps the moment I touched it.

Relieved, I used the sword in my hand to separate the swollen abdomen from the head with one stroke. The spider, which showed no resistance to being cut, glowed and disappeared.

When I checked my inventory, it said Shibire Thread. Eh? Could the paralysis sac be a rare item?

“Vidello-san, don’t worry. When the spider’s asleep, it won’t paralyze you even if you touch it.”

When I said this and showed him a smile, Vidello-san, with a grim expression, opened his mouth, still on guard against the other Shibire Spiders.

“But that doesn’t mean you should touch it! It’s dangerous! Rely on me for this type of stuff!”

I got scolded, but it was more efficient if I handled touching the spiders. Our chances of survival were higher if Vidello-san gave the final blow while I was paralyzed rather than the other way round.

When I explained this, Vidello-san’s shoulders slumped dejectedly muttering “You’re such a…”

Right. Pulling myself together, I lobbed another sleep potion at the nest of the next Shibire Spider over. It was another success with the spider dangling, so I tried to cut off the torso first this time.

The spider glowed and disappeared on the first attempt. When I looked at my inventory this time, the item name was Paralysis Sac. Yosh!

Completely clearing the spiders by myself, I came to understand that the item dropped changed depending on which part of the body you dealt the final blow to. I’d never thought about it that way before. It had been two years since the game’s release, and for the first time, I could clear the mystery behind item drops. I needed to tell Yuuta about this later.

I slashed away at the spiders’ torsos, getting my hands on paralysis sacs and only stopping after I depleted my stock of sleep potions. Vidello-san didn’t get any screen-time in this battle – sorry about that.